A regular reader, one Dave Gillespie, presented me with a common complaint. He said that much as he enjoyed listening to jazz, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trying to crack a code, that there was a language being spoken in some of the music to which he was not privy. And let’s … Continue reading
“The Bollocks” To Be Minded At All Costs
How daft do we think people are..? There’s been much discussion lately about “de-mystifying” wine: does the traditional wine vocabulary still have any great relevance, or does it merely obfuscate; does it deter people from the specialist shops; did it ever make a ha’porth of sense, anyway? You know the sort of thing. But has … Continue reading
Post Punk Liverpool: Ten Tales of Tea Shop Delirium.
1976. An eccentrically creative theatre director, Ken Campbell, has chanced upon Robert Anton Wilson’s “Illuminatus!,” a brain-tangling trilogy of novels examining colossal conspiracy theory in minute detail. It strikes Campbell as ideal for theatrical adaptation, and it becomes the source text for an imminent production. He puts the idea to a local set designer, Bill … Continue reading
Ten Ineffable New Orleans Delights
A friend once confided in me that she led a jazzless life, and that she was beginning to wonder if she simply had no soul. Or maybe I was the one who told her that she led a jazzless life, it’s been known. Either way, the remedial compilation CDs I tried to put together presented … Continue reading
Child Friendly Vegetable Soup
“You can make a meal out of nothing, if you’ve got the stuff.” An ideal way to use up some bits of veg that might not otherwise constitute a full meal, and a quick, vegetable-rich dinner that can be prepared ahead of time and frozen into meal-sized microwaveable portions. The day after your kids have … Continue reading
Winery of the Month – Agricola I Fabbri, Chianti Classico
Where time permits, we all like to find out a little more: about the farm which produced our reassuringly smelly cheese, the microbrewery responsible for that third pint of delicious murk, the saxophonist undaunted by the odd reed squeak or horn honk in the urgent unfolding of his solo. With this in mind, every month, … Continue reading
