• guest post: blue peter is who i am;

    Massively thrilled that my friend Penny has allowed me to rerun this fantastic post on Blue Peter’s move from BBC1 to CBBC. This originally appeared on Penny’s blog, Bronchia, on 20th May 2012. Blue Peter is moving to the CBBC channel. It will no longer be on BBC1. Adults secretly still watching will have to [...]

  • all this and an equality cookie too: what we talk about when we talk about the bechdel test;

    Being ever so slightly of the geeky persuasion the other week I, and an anticipated $1 billion worth of cinemagoers globally, went to see Joss Whedon’s big screen outing for The Avengers (NB: if even the BBC is giving it that title, it’s good enough for me). As I’m sure you’ve read, if not already [...]

  • last year’s giveaway: sweets for my sweet, lalala;

    The bad news: it’s Monday Tuesday, and I am grumpy with the sort of cold that doesn’t want to break into full-blown misery (a day in bed watching sitcoms!) and instead promises a long week of work with a runny nose and painful cough. The good news: there’s a Starbucks Card in my purse with [...]

  • 29 was the end of the line: 30 before 30 month 11 update;

    Quite recently a list of “30 things every woman should have and should know by the time she’s 30″, that was apparently published a few years ago by Glamour magazine, did a bit of a rerun on various blogs and Facebook feeds. I was torn between whether this was a good thing (a blog prompt! [...]

  • in pictures: the pixlet who went up a hill and came down a volcano;

    One of these pictures was not taken on or around Mount Teide National Park, Tenerife.

cakes on tour: the little cupcake cafe, belfast;

cakes on tour: the little cupcake cafe, belfast;

In which your blogger attempts, at great inconvenience, to sample every commercially-available dessert in the Greater Glasgow area – and sometimes elsewhere – so you don’t have to. As I look through my ever-increasing collection of draft posts, it strikes me that either it has been far too long since I last reviewed a cake [...]

in the middle of her maelstrom;

in the middle of her maelstrom;

It’s a ‘twin hats’ kinda afternoon in which the better angels of my nature are struggling to drown out the demons who’d rather dream up potential lineups than concentrate on the difference between liquidity and leverage ratios. We have a date, and a familiar headliner, for Last Year’s Gig the Fourth (one which won’t be [...]

all this and an equality cookie too: what we talk about when we talk about the bechdel test;

all this and an equality cookie too: what we talk about when we talk about the bechdel test;

Being ever so slightly of the geeky persuasion the other week I, and an anticipated $1 billion worth of cinemagoers globally, went to see Joss Whedon’s big screen outing for The Avengers (NB: if even the BBC is giving it that title, it’s good enough for me). As I’m sure you’ve read, if not already [...]

taking the music to heart: the tom williams and the boat interview;

taking the music to heart: the tom williams and the boat interview;

Crowd funding is very much the in thing for cash-strapped bands low on label backing and rich in fans and artistic independence at the moment, and it’s a great way to get the people who care most about your music excited and involved with every aspect of the process. While sometime Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer [...]

“i want an audience in my hands like freddie mercury”: the scott mcwatt interview;

“i want an audience in my hands like freddie mercury”: the scott mcwatt interview;

If you really want to get on my nerves on this particular day of the year, just make a hackneyed joke regarding a 35-year-old film franchise. Go on. It seems as though people have only been doing so over the past couple of years, or maybe it’s just that I got to avoid it when [...]

the same chords i stole from a song i once heard;

the same chords i stole from a song i once heard;

Really upset to hear the news via Twitter this morning that Philadelphia punks The Menzingers, currently touring Europe with Bouncing Souls, were robbed of over $10,000 worth of their belongings in Manchester last night. The Menzingers are particular favourites of my wee pal/gig buddy Rachel. Regular readers and those who know us elsewhere might be [...]

about as helpful as you can be without being any help at all: the dan mangan interview;

about as helpful as you can be without being any help at all: the dan mangan interview;

In The Car With: Dan Mangan, through the British Columbia countryside. Dan Mangan is younger than me. I don’t know why this bothers me so much, and there are only a few months in it (he’ll catch up with me on Saturday, according to Wikipedia, for the six weeks before I spin off into that [...]