Words Dept.: archive

There’s an interview with Morrissey in this week’s NME that’s credited in a way I’ve never ever seen before. It says: Interview: Tim Jonze Words: NME How? What? HUH?!!! It turns out that Jonze, the writer of the piece, conducted two interviews with Moz but the NME decided to rewrite his copy. Jonze says “virtually [...]

I observed the other day that Sony Magazine has little to justify its seemingly imaginary cover price of £4.50. However, as Charlie Brooker points out (today, spookily), there are much worse examples of this “hilariously desperate” genre of magazine. Specifically, something called Nespresso magazine. This is the magazine for people who own Nespresso coffee machines. [...]

I was fortunate enough to be sent the first issue of Sony Magazine in the post today. This 100-page Haymarket publication, edited by Loaded co-founder Tim Southwell, is, for definite, an actual proper magazine and in no way a Curry’s Digital newspaper insert printed on slightly thicker paper. Oh no. Apparently, Sony Magazine is all [...]

I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! was beaten for the first time in the ratings on Friday… by Children in Need. It’s baffling that up to 8.7m people are tuning in to watch what must be the least inspiring selection of jungle D-listers yet. But the fact that, at its peak, 10.9m were [...]

Today’s Guardian blog piece called “Israel and Russia: the best of football friends” is a neat lesson in how to avoid legal action, while at the same time suggesting a “conspiracy theory” about how some of Roman Abramovich’s money, through the (Russian) Football Academy Foundation, is tied up in Israeli football. It hints at something [...]

As a panelist on Have I Got News For You, Peter Serafinowicz once asked: “What is a bank?” I’m having a similar problem with the credit crunch. Namely: What is it? “Credit crunch” is a pleasing, alliterative phrase, which probably explains why it has been used more than 1,600 times in UK publications in the [...]

I stumbled across this press release from Edinburgh council today. It made me snigger like a child: Fish merchants have recently been making unsolicited calls on residents in the Inverleith area. Two men who have been calling on homes in the area are described as having North East English accents and were wearing jumpers with [...]

It’s touching the way the Times doesn’t allow swearing within its pages. It harks back to a safer time, before the Lady Chatterley trial and the subsequent decline in moral standards that ruined society. In a way, I can understand why they might balk at the “f-word”, the “c-word” or the “x-word”. But there’s no [...]