Why filling up the car is like using teletext

I have problems with my nozzle. When I am filling up the car, I can never get it quite right. When visiting the petrol station in the past, I usually just filled the tank right up. But in the light of fuel price-geddon that has gripped the nation this year, I have switched to aiming […]

How to dance to intelligent dance music

Intelligent dance music — IDM. It’s a great genre with a naff name. Aside from the snootiness of ‘intelligent’, it has always raised the question: how on earth do you dance to this? Well we now have the answer, thanks to this video I found the other day. It demonstrates how you should dance to […]

Pulp reforming

I was pretty excited when it was announced a few weeks ago that Pulp are getting back together to play some concerts next year. Pulp have been one of my favourite bands since I was nine years old. Yet I have never seen them live. Many times my friends and I have discussed going to […]

The grim realities of early motor racing

I saw this extraordinary video of accidents from the early days of motor racing over at Axis of Oversteer. Note: This video is probably not for you if you are squeamish about seeing people being flung out of cars at high speed. It is a shocking but fascinating video from a truly different era of […]

Squarepusher’s Shobaleader One — d’Demonstator

I have been really enjoying the new album by Squarepusher. I had feared the worst about the Shobaleader One project since I first read the Q&A. It sounded suspiciously like Gorillaz on the cheap, complete with odd psuedo-humorous band member names. A low-budget Gorillaz would necessarily be a bad thing. But it seemed like an […]

Don’t forget the racing

Last week FOM’s race edit of the Singapore Grand Prix was published. It was interesting to see what FOM’s priorities were, following my post a couple of weeks ago criticising the media’s coverage of the Singapore Grand Prix. The focus was on the periphery of the event rather than the racing. It was all about […]

Is the Korean circuit still “quite dangerous”?

The Formula 1 world is bracing itself in anticipation of the unexpected when the travelling circus makes its next stop at Yeongam in Korea. The saga of the troubled construction of this new venue has been well documented. The latest setback came last week when newly published images appeared to show that a construction crane […]

Are weather forecasters the most entertaining people on the news?

For some reason, I always find myself paying attention to weather presenters. Perhaps it is the fact that I have had an interest in meteorology since I was a small child. Or maybe it’s the break in style compared with the rest of the news bulletin. Weather forecasters have much more freedom to express their […]

Frank Sidebottom should be at number 1

I was sad to read that Frank Sidebottom — or Chris Sievey, his real name — died today. I have vague memories of him being on television when I was very young, and it was a joy to rediscover him when he made his comeback four or five years ago. He never returned to the […]

As if the real Kate Nash wasn’t bad enough

I do enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest. I can’t stand other Saturday night television extravaganzas, but there is something different about Eurovision. Probably the fact that it’s actually a contest. I like trying to work out what the countries are trying to achieve by entering the songs they enter — the strategic element is a […]