The Guardian letters page. Dispiriting. Smug puns, one salient point, and at least one who has massively missed it. Plus this frumping arsery:

Setting: Pumpkin Cafe, Bristol Temple Meads station, 27 January, 4.15pm ( Read more... )

Unlikely Guardian suppositions of Monday: John Gordillo always looks eggy, and Book Club is poncy. Smugness here, inspired by this more interesting but less soundbitey piece from Chortle*.

“Robin Ince's Book Club is pitched perfectly to many a middle-classer's twin loves: being seen to be well-read, and in on the joke.”Because of Robin Ince's Book ( Read more... )

Excellent story today on the Guardian, on their switching to be a Twitter only service. A tiptop way of beating back rising print costs and falling revenue, I reckon. Nice to see them embracing the new technology so wholeheartedly. (Even if the article itself features the cardinal sin of finishing a sentence with an emoticon AND a full-stop. ( Read more... )

Cor, Brian Logan, what an extraordinarily well-written article on musical comedy you have penned for The Guardian.

The stick with which musical comedy is often whacked is that it's neither one thing nor the other - that pairing jokes with tunes is a smokescreen for weak material. That's often true. A rhyme and a melody alone can't turn base comedy ( Read more... )