​Since the turn of the year I’ve noticed the increasing presence of a company called Grammarly in my social media feeds, from friends thumbs-upping the service on FB to retweets of its stock language memes on Twitter. 

For anyone unaware of it, Grammarly’s basically a grammar-checking app which, while appearing to be just a fancier version of Microsoft Word’s built-in document reviewer, actually bills itself “the world’s most accurate grammar checker”, helping “more than 3 million writers...perfect their written English” (monthly fee $29.95).

That’s an impressive claim. It may well be the world's best grammar checker, but that's not necessarily saying much because it turns out the platform isn't that accurate – reviews have shown that Grammarly regularly misses clear mistakes in checked documents, while flagging errors that don't exist.
​
That was never going to bother me as I'd never use it anyway, and wasn't going to pay to give it a go out of curiosity, so I was happy to see it recently publicise an infographic of its application of grammatical rules, entitled ‘Fifty Shades of Grammar’ to tie in with the release of the eponymous movie. 

I recently interviewed Premier League pundit and retired striker Jason Roberts at his Foundation headquarters in hometown Stonebridge, for an article in The Independent on the fall and rise of the west London high school we both attended. With the initial education-related questions answered we were free to discuss all things football for the remainder of our one-hour meet, during which he opened up about his career highs and lows encompassing his eventful tenures at Wigan and Reading, scoring a winner at Highbury and almost signing for QPR. Faithfully transcribed below:


What would you say was the best goal you ever scored, or that you’re most proud of?

(Pause) A header for Reading against Southampton. (Clocks quizzical reaction) Exactly - a header, you think ‘really?’. If I scored more than five headers in my career that was a lot – it wasn’t the kind of goal I scored traditionally, and this one was purely on instinct. There was just something about the ball hitting you in the head or face that I never felt comfortable with.

There’s not that many of your goals on YouTube that aren’t jerky footage from the stands. Have you never thought of uploading some yourself or getting someone to?

I never have but now that you mention it! There are a couple on my official website. But I’m proud of my goalscoring record, to have scored at every level. And when you’re the lone striker in a 4-5-1 for a Premier League side who’s relatively, you know - survival is the priority? If you score double figures you’ve done incredibly well. Many times I sacrificed my goalscoring record for the team.

​I remember once at a Metallica gig at O2 Arena in 2008: frontman James Hetfield pausing to tell everyone in the immediate crowd to “put your fuckin’ cameras and phones away, and just enjoy the show ok?”. (Kate Bush was yesterday the latest artist to make the same request, in much politer words).

James was of course addressing the usuals focused on the tiny screens of their devices, impeding the live experience for the sake of some jerky low-res footage. (To be fair, I’ve done the same but years ago and only a couple of times, for never-played-before tracks).

If I were a member of the Google Glass advertising team I might suggest something like this live bollocking as a decent ad opener, then while the offenders sheepishly lower their phones (as they did in real life) we pan sideways to a smiling metalhead casually recording it all unnoticed through the small prism fixed over his eyeball, his hands free to throw a devil’s horn or lift aloft his plastic beer receptacle as the next number roars into life.


So there I was on the 12.35am train home, fairly sozzled after a few large reds with my mate Chris at a restaurant in London following pre-beers at a theatre preview, and I'd royally fucked up by forgetting I had to change at Stevenage to catch the last train onwards two stops to my current hometown.

The penny clanged when the scenery changed dramatically from what I'm used to on my usual train straight home, and it grimly dawned that I was on the final Peterborough service with no more going back the other way. 

I get off at the next stop, Arlesey, a Bedfordshire village in the middle of nowhere, no nearby high street nor taxi rank, just fields and a few houses. Next train anywhere is 4.30am, nearest cab office miles away in wrong direction says Google - rang em anyway and was quoted £60 "at least" - and mrs funnily enough not answering at 1.30am, not that she'd've come to get me at that time anyway.

Close to contemplating hanging out til 4.30 I spot a man outside the station entrance, swaying on his feet, head bowed, pained expression - I knew instantly that he'd made the same fuck-up. As I switch off my phone to conserve the remaining battery he spots a public phonebox, staggers up to it, sticks in some coins then starts swearing loudly when it inevitably cuts him off and eats the last of his money. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!".

After I tentatively approach to offer some help, he turns out to be a softly-spoken Scot once the bellowing subsides, dressed in a dapper summer suit and boater hat like he's just stepped out of the Henley Regatta. Turns out he's just returned from the Henley Regatta. And after the long rail mission back from Oxon to - then through - London, he passed out just before his Stevenage stop on the same last train from Kings Cross. His mobile dead, phonebox ate his last two quid, wife gonna kill him, has to be back at work in 6 hours - if only he could remember the number of his local cab firm he has a business account with.

This is the original version of a gig review written for Record Collector in March, which was as usual chopped down to fit into its live reviews section so I thought I’d post it here unedited with a final curtain pic taken from the balcony.

I covered this show primarily because Albert is a true guitar legend who I saw live for the first time with Jools Holland at Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College in 2010 (above); and secondly because the special guest lineup was accordingly pretty impressive, with rock 'n' roll gentry including The Shadows and Shaky airing some long-overdue new material. 

As I tweeted after, it’s actually quite poignant that this lot are pretty much the last of their kind, of a scene that'll soon
be consigned to history unless contemporary acts beyond the likes of Jake Bugg try to keep that 50s flame flickerin’...

The third entry in my Britpop triptych is a few indie music/movie mashups I recently put together in commemoration of the equally maligned and celebrated mid-90s scene whose 20th anniversary arrived last month. (For other reasons I’ve been making videos see my previous Ronnie O’Sullivan video entry posted on snooker final day).

This first one marries one of the genre's best singles and bands, both saluted in my Britpop doff piece, with one of my favourite Ian McKellen flicks – the 1995 totalitarian adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, which was partly filmed at my uni and at Battersea Power Station near where I later lived. Its scenes of Ian as Richard in proper villain mode were more suitable a video for the punky tune than the standard studio promo I thought.

To mark Ronnie’s latest Crucible final appearance, this is a short video I knocked up of his record fastest-ever maximum break at the 1997 World Championship pared down to only the shots without thinking time so it seamlessly unspools at half the time of its original 5:20. 

It’s one of a few remix/mashups I’ve made during downtime over the past couple of months, primarily because more of the positions I’ve been applying for require basic video editing and creativity in that area, but also, as in any branch of art, because it’s quite fun bringing conceived ideas into being and ready for broadcast within a matter of hours. And ever rising YouTube view counts are always good for the former. (Some of my Britpop-movie mashups here).

I met Ronnie exactly 10 years ago, while covering the 'Pot Whack' snooker boxing match between Mark King & Quinten Hann in East London. For all his faults his heart's in the right place I've always said, even though his head's often all over the shop. 

He's threatened to quit so many times over the years but never does, and now looks like the only player who'll ever beat Stephen Hendry's 7 world titles record. Will be a disappointment for the sport and its fans if he retires before doing so.

(postscript: after losing the final to Mark Selby he's gonna have to wait another year for #6...)


links: my biggest break + snooker moth incident

After my last blog post on Britpop fizzy drink wars, I thought I'd pen a more considered reflection on the mid-90s guitar band phenomenon whose 20th anniversary the music media have pinpointed as around about now.

I was 16-18 in the years 1994-96, and was before then a staunch metaller listening solely to thrash metal and Nirvana after renouncing chart music at the turn of the decade.

That all changed when I heard the first 30 seconds of Oasis' Definitely Maybe in '94 - Rock & Roll Star's guitar squall crashing in through the speakers of my brother's bedroom stereo. It was the moment I first saw the bridge between metal and 'indie', which until then had just sounded lightweight and twee in comparison.

I just read with interest that Blur bassist turned farmer/cheesemaker Alex James is to launch a new fizzy drink called 'Britpop' after applying to trademark the name. 

With Oasis juice already a big player in that market, the stage could be set for a repeat of the 1995 pop battle when Blur famously pipped Oasis in the race for #1, in the days when the UK Top 40 still held some significance.

If the other indie bands of that era also get involved we could have a proper Britpop V2 (also a drink) 20 years on, with the action switching to the groceries sales chart.

So, if Brett Anderson, Jarvis Cocker or Rick Witter is following the developments, how about trademarking these names and joining the fray:
> Suede-ade
> Shed 7 Up
> (insert fruit) -Pulp
> Bluetonic
> Mansun-ny Delight

Think of the promotional opportunities at your own gigs – you could put a fizz back into your merchandise sales and may even become the new Coke?

Say what you like about Alex James, he seems to be the only Britpop vet with true entrepreneurial spirit...

​This unattributed Nuremberg Trials quote was one of many dark lines from the Manics’ bleakest album ‘The Holy Bible’,
in a song inspired by the band’s visits to former WWII concentration camps.

As a teenager I listened to the album a lot though never quite related to this track and its message of the ‘sounds’ of evil, from industrial clanging to “screaming souls” – all seemed a bit heavy-handed even by the Manics’ then standards.

It was only when I went to Poland for the first time last month that I finally, unwittingly, visited the ‘Oswięcim’ mentioned in that quote – the Polish town the Nazis renamed Auschwitz and where they built their biggest death camp complex, Auschwitz-Birkenau, responsible for the murder of at least one million people, 90% of them Jews.

After reading and watching so much about it over the years it doesn’t feel real until you’re physically there, amid the grim smokestacks and barbed-wire fences sprawled over hundreds of acres of barren land. Despite summer being a popular time to visit, when the surrounding fields might approach picturesqueness, it felt more fitting to visit when winter was closing in.

This is the original gig review submission for the December issue of Record Collector, in which it was pared down
to squeeze into its live reviews section so I thought I’d post it here unedited.

L42 are one of my favourite bands from the golden 80s era when singles success actually meant something, and as mentioned in the review they still play their funkpop classics with the same enthusiasm and technical flair as when
they started out.

Last saw them at Royal Albert Hall in 08 but Indigo2 a great little venue too so full justice given and no negatives to report.

For my first blog post I thought I’d recount the bizarre turnaround I experienced a few weeks ago after losing my wallet, with 
a good moral to the story.

I’d met two mates at a busy Shepherds Bush pub for a rushed pint before the QPR-Barnsley game, and basically left my wallet on my chair, realising only when approaching the stadium almost a mile away. 

With only minutes til kickoff, rather than leg it all the way back I quickly googled and rang the pub to ask with clenched hope if a kind soul had handed it in. The bar manager I spoke to went to check and returned a minute later with the inevitable shitty news: no, and it was nowhere to be seen at the pinpointed table and chairs. 

As ever with a lost wallet it’s not so much the cash loss that grates most but the bank cards, driving licence and in my case a recently topped-up Oystercard and return rail ticket. So I wasn’t a happy chappy as I took my seat at kickoff, the usual matchday atmosphere lost on me. As I didn't want to wait til HT to cancel my card in case someone went to town on it I had a surreal mid-match conversation with a call-centre clerk from my seat as thousands chanted and swore around me.

QPR tried their best to worsen the afternoon, not the team but the usual supporters’ bar shambles which makes you queue from almost 10mins before HT until the 2nd half whistle for just a beer (why not pour them en masse before HT like at music festivals instead of individually per order when hundreds arrive at once?)

Thankfully the team won 2-0 – a defeat would’ve been the last straw. But the walletless cloud lingered and I was no longer up for the planned post-match session. On a whim I swung by the earlier pub before hitting the underground to ask if anyone had handed it in since – nope, sorry – so as a last throw I returned to our previous table for a final scan.

Unbelievably the wallet was there, exactly where I’d left it, camouflaged against the chair leather. The table occupants who’d been unwittingly sitting beside it for the previous two hours couldn’t believe it when I picked it up with incredulous laughter then summarised the story for them. The relief rush was tempered by slight anger though as I returned to the bar and waved it pointedly at the manager who’d supposedly had a search – it had been camouflaged to the incognisant drinker’s eye but would’ve revealed itself to anyone looking with purpose.

Anyway, with it retrieved and spirits instantly lifted I reinstated the evening's drinking plans with renewed gusto and was duly a mess by 10pm when I called it a night. The hangover though wasn’t half as painful as it could’ve been. 
Moral: if you leave something in a pub, go back and look for it with your own eyes. Some people are fuckin blind.