January 2012
Why I’d rip off my left arm to be a newspaper...
If Mephistopheles turned up clutching a contract and wearing Paul Dacre’s face like a cheap halloween mask, would I kick him out as unceremoniously as the salesman selling brushes who snuck through the security gate last week? No, I probably wouldn’t.
In my luxuriously salaried days (the dizzying heights of £28k a year), I would do my party piece rant about never writing for The Daily Mail...
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An essay on that Chuck Klosterman essay about...
Chuck Klosterman has written a column about the album w ho k i l l by tUnE-yArDs being named record of the year by voters in the 2011 Pazz & Jop poll.
I’m guessing this doesn’t mean much to more than (maybe) 10,000 people on the entire internet. In fact, if you effortlessly understood 100 percent of this article’s opening sentence, you probably tittered a little at that book Chuck wrote about...
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The future: no jetpacks but George Osborne’s head...
My childhood visions of the future were elaborate and optimistic. The scenes were a cut and paste job of robots and megacities, space colonies and jet packs. I gobbled up comics, books and films to feed my future dreaming. Grown up (of sorts), the future feels as if it will be like today but worse somehow.
In the Alka Seltzer fizz of the nineties, when the long hangover of nuclear confrontation...
Cushioned
An afternoon in a sofa warehouse. There is a sale on. There is always a sale on. In the event of humanity’s destruction, a single sofa salesman would remain at his post here, hoping for civilisation’s return, desperate to shift that cream three-piece. I can purchase a leather sofa on interest free credit. An echo of a cow remade as a fetching banquette.
A man with squeaky, rubber soled shoes...
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My exclusive interview with Johann Hari (in the...
Johann Hari and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, so I was surprised when he called and asked me to meet him at his bijou New York apartment. I was particularly surprised as he blocked me on Twitter and I live in Dublin which made the travel quite inconvenient. Eighteen hours later, I was in New York, clutching a bouquet of carnations and a small picture of Elton John as Johann had requested.
As...
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A whore in a burka: the moment Skins lost me for...
“I’m stoned like a whore in a burka.”
- SKINS, SERIES 6, EPISODE 1
You can’t review a TV show on the strength of a single line can you? That would be dreadfully unreasonable. The game of stripping comments of their context to stoke outrage is pretty popular now. It’s the fuel for many a Facebook feud and Twitter spat. On any given day approximately 65% of Daily Mail editorial is predicated on...
POPFESSIONS: Mic Wright →
popfessions:
At the age of 11, I was already certain of one thing: ‘The Safety Dance’ by Men Without Hats is one of the finest songs ever laid down on tape. While I publicly threw myself into the Blur/Oasis grudge match – it was wise to plump for Oasis in our form as the bigger lads liked them despite the…
That’s actual me there confessing actual love for Men Without Hats. As it...
The unpublished original draft of that Alex James...
Recovered from a bin in Wapping, the original draft of Alex James’ fast food article…
GREGGS
Boss man Ken McMeikan has invited me to see Gregg’s brand new £16.4million super-bakery in Gosforth. Well, I say Ken, I mean the nice PR girl that The Sun emailed. She suggested it’d be a jolly jape for me to come and have a butchers (see, a pun!). She assured me that I’d definitely wouldn’t...
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The #WikipediaBlackout: why the silent protest is...
The next time I see Jimmy Wales’s curious egg head staring down at me from a Wikipedia page, pleading me to donate to the cause with the doleful eyes of a basset hound eyeing a passing pork chop, I’ll think of the day he argued for the encyclopaedia to go dark.
Wikipedia is a glorious and gloriously flawed global endeavour. The seed began with Wales and friends but it exists as it does now...
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Arguing With People On The Internet: the Emma...
If arguing with people on the internet was an Olympic sport, I might make the b-team of a regional side made of slightly aggrieved John Lewis customers complaining on Facebook and a man who once got upset about a misplaced apostrophe (long before the whole Waterstones/Waterstone’s thing made it fashionable).
I’m pretty terrible at arguing with people on the internet because my feelings get hurt...
A story about my mum with special guest stars: my...
My mum was 23 when I was born, 5 years younger than I am now. On January 28 1984, my dad was thousands of miles away on a second visit to the Falklands, thanks to some inconveniently inconsiderate Argentinians. The winter of 83/84 was, well, an actual proper winter and when my granddad came to collect my mum and gran from the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital they had to trudge through snow.
I...
“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” and other...
JANUARY 2002
I had been driving for just over a month and the joy was palpable. I loved my little grey Peugeot 205 more than is strictly healthy. It was physical full stop to the period of my life that required me to spend hours in a cramped car with a chain smoking driving instructor who made me pull over to ogle passing girls and make pitstops at off-licences.
On the day I passed my test, on...
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Paul McCartney takes the Tube: picking through...
I’ve always been interested in the way some famous people must have to deal with their past incarnations. A certain kind of artist slakes off versions of themselves as they move through their career, leaving empty skins behind them to be cannibalised by other less original performers. The desiccated bits of Madonna’s leftover looks are being gobbled up by Lady Gaga as I write.
Madonna, in her...
Michael Heseltine and macaroons: cakes as a career...
I had exactly one conversation with my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s when I worked at Stuff magazine. Lord Michael Heseltine, former Deputy Prime Minister and owner of the most impressive eyebrows and flowing locks combo in politics, also founded Haymarket. He swung in my direction during the company’s lavish summer party and began to grill me on the internet and publishing.
Here was an opportunity...
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Portrait of the artist as a nervy drunk: Ali...
My friend Abby is the nicest person in the history of human existence. I have not conducted a proper study to come to that conclusion but my survey sample is confined to me and everyone who has ever met her. I feel that is quite sufficient. In our first year at university, Ab and I would stay up until the early hours talking incessantly. I bear serious responsibility for her getting virtually no...
December 2011
2011: the year of journalism scandals and my own...
It was 4.45pm on a Monday afternoon in June and I was desperately ringing up ATM engineers trying to get them to verify something it was becoming obvious was totally untrue. My palms were sweaty and hold music was making me more panicky than usual.
2011 was the year of journalism scandals and June 20th was the day I found myself in the middle of my own minor controversy. It wasn’t going to land...
David Bowie, a drunken Scotsman and New Year’s...
NEW YEAR’S EVE (1998/1999)
I’m staring at the old Nokia I inherited from my mum, the kind that was so strong it could survive being thrown at a wall and, possibly, the onset of all-out nuclear war. It has no signal and barely any battery. The rest of our group have sensibly disappeared home. Me and John, my best friend, are stood in Norwich city centre in the middle of a storm like the...
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Die Hard 101: life lessons I have learned from...
While I attempt to formulate my New Year’s resolutions, here are the five life lessons I divined by carefully studying the Die Hard franchise…
1. RELATIONSHIPS ARE HARD
”Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…”
What did John McClane get for his wife in 1988? He saved her from a gang of heavily armed international terrorists. Being asked to attend your spouse’s...
In despair at…The Guardian’s Jedward editorial
We’re in that trough between Christmas and New Year when newspaper editorial teams wish desperately for the traditional celebrity death to fill pages. With Prince Philip stubbornly holding on and not much more to be made of his non-death in Norfolk, editors are resorting to desperate measures.
The Telegraph’s tale of a lady finding Jesus in a sock is an impressive piece of fluff and one of the...
Presenting David Cameron in Goodnight Sweetheart
It was an unpleasant coincidence that on the day Christopher Hitchens died, David Cameron gave a speech heralding Britain as Christian nation, placing religion at the heart of nation life. Like so many Conservative politicians before him, the Prime Minister makes speeches about a nation he wishes existed and not the one he governs. For all the affectations of modernity – his purported love of pop...
A brief history of not being Irish
I remember when all I knew about Ireland was that leprechauns and a shadow called Gerry Adams that could throw its voice came from there. In fairness I was 6 at the time. Years later, I met the guy who did your man Gerry’s voice on British TV during the late-80s and early-90s. He claimed his income dropped by 60% when the ban was lifted. He later went on to star in Emmerdale, so it’s fair to say...
Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me (Smiths...
Reduced To Clear 5: Kicking The Bucket List
My late night to-do lists are always grandiose: “Tomorrow, I will get a new job, create some form of renewable energy source and change the life of a sweet Victorian orphan during a time travelling adventure.” Inevitably they’re scaled back by the morning: “I’ll drink that can of Diet Coke, tweet some vaguely humorous remark about a news story and apply for jobs with occasional breaks to stare out...
Hitchens unpicking maxims about death is arresting
I am attracted to the German etymology of the word “stark,” and its relative used by Nietzsche,stärker, which means “stronger.” In Yiddish, to call someone a shtarker is to credit him with being a militant, a tough guy, a hard worker. So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this...
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Reduced To Clear 4: I’m Dreaming Of A White...
There are many things it is inadvisable to confess on Twitter – murders, an admiration for Nick Clegg, that time you picked a carton of takeaway rice out of the bin while hungover – but today I discovered another. Do not, under any circumstances, confess to even vaguely liking Love Actually. Bad things will happen.
I was spurred to mention the most saccharine of Richard Curtis confections by a...
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Reduced To Clear 3: Putting The Ire Into Ireland
Ireland has just had a two day budget. It was an inevitably dispiriting experience like watching the X Factor final but with the added horror of knowing that everybody loses. There wasn’t even an appearance by Louis Walsh comparing Enda Kenny to a young Rick Astley to lighten the mood. No one gets to enjoy the hail of sparks and cloud of dry ice that greets the crowning of an X Factor winner...
Reduced To Clear 2: Exposing Myself For Money
I don’t know much about economics but I may have a solution to the euro crisis. Ditch the ailing currency and replace it with one that’s already heavily in use wherever desperate writers congregate – exposure. I get so many offers of exposure in return for writing that I am already a paper exposure millionaire.
Please advise how much exposure I need to rack up before I can exchange it for a loaf...
Reduced To Clear part 1: best laid plans
Alright, here’s the deal: I need to make some money. I cannot sell a kidney as the universe decrees that should I find a backstreet kidney dealer* willing to take one, the second would probably pack up through loneliness and solidarity.
I can’t sell my body as a) few people would find it an appealing product b) the market for the memoirs by anxious, pale male prostitutes is not nearly as buoyant...
November 2011
Mark Wright, I'm A Celebrity and my existential...
I realised that I truly watch too much reality TV at the point last night where the portrayal of perma-tanned, perma-gormless The Only Way Is Essex beefcake Mark Wright on I’m A Celebrity prompted a bout of philosophical reflection.
At the risk of sparking an intervention where the television plug is wrenched from the wall and the cable box is smashed with a lump hammer by concerned relatives, I’m...
I live in Ireland…technically
I technically live in Ireland. According to HMRC and a smattering of other inconvenient government agencies, I am a resident of Dublin. But my brain doesn’t spend as much time in Dublin as it should and my body, which can usually be found rattling around the apartment, could be anywhere.
Out of the window, there are telltale signs that I’m not in Kansas anymore – the sign that says “Rampai” as...
Note to self: do not become a gun runner
The cat is asleep. My girlfriend is asleep. I am sat sunk in the beanbag at 2.29am comparing myself to celebrities. What had George Harrison achieved by 27? Well, he’d been in The Beatles and released a classic triple album solo.
Comparing your achievements to famous people is never a wise move, particularly if your career is currently in a kind of fretful hibernation. That Rimbaud changed the...
My grand plans: a view from the night shift
The trouble with my grand plans is that they’re usually cooked up by the numbskulls on the night shift in my brain. At 11pm, the idea that I will dedicate the next day to pitching the most amazing article ideas ever conceived seems reasonable.
The morning crew is a lot laxer. It activates my eyes with reluctance and sets the brain on a hazy tour of my anxieties, stopping off along the way for a...
The Letter
The woman from The Student Loans Company put me on hold. They don’t even have gratingly bad pop hits to pass the time, just some instrumental interrupted periodically by a recording of a listless sounding Scottish man. The Student Loans Company is based in Glasgow in what I imagine is a vast concrete bunker, reinforced to allow it to pursue survivors for their debts even in the case of a nuclear...
September 2011
May 2011
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