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How I accidentally turned my wife’s granddad’s trouser fly buttons into an internet sensation.

READER, I’ve gone viral. Big deal, you might think – who hasn’t these days? But I’m not talking about that virus. I’m talking about the other sort. I’m talking about the day I BROKE THE INTERNET. Or dented it, at least. Actually, it was more of a surface scratch, really. But you get the idea.Continue reading “How I accidentally turned my wife’s granddad’s trouser fly buttons into an internet sensation.”

Johnny Marr: “I’m from a generation of musicians who don’t all want to be Gary Barlow…”

When Johnny Marr decided to call his next album Fever Dreams, he had no idea how prophetic it would prove to be. “I had the title before lockdown, before Covid,” he tells Weekend. “Then, as I was writing it during the pandemic, it all just made total sense. It’s not just that my sleep patterns became erratic,Continue reading “Johnny Marr: “I’m from a generation of musicians who don’t all want to be Gary Barlow…””

Steven Knight: ‘With Peaky Blinders, I wanted to do to my own history what the Americans did to theirs.’

Bogotá is an awfully long way from Birmingham, so it spoke volumes about Peaky Blinders’ extraordinary cultural reach when Cillian Murphy’s Midlands mobster, Tommy Shelby, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone’s Colombian edition recently (knocking Billie Eilish down to second billing). “It’s been astonishing,” says showrunner Steven Knight of watching his creation become a global TVContinue reading “Steven Knight: ‘With Peaky Blinders, I wanted to do to my own history what the Americans did to theirs.’”

Help – I think I’m suffering from smugpression

So, in the least surprising plot twist since Sleeping Beauty said “I’m just going for a lie down”, it turns out that Boris Johnson is a liar. (And before anyone writes in, I don’t think we need to wait for a report by Sue Gray, Sue Ellen, Sue Barker, Runaround Sue, A Boy Named SueContinue reading “Help – I think I’m suffering from smugpression”

Kenneth Branagh: “In 20 seconds, my life was turned upside down.”

Kenneth Branagh can pinpoint the end of his childhood innocence to a single moment in time. “I was heading back in for my tea, having been called by the bush telegraph of my mum yelling on the front step, and that cry being carried, relay-style, by half a dozen other mums until I got theContinue reading “Kenneth Branagh: “In 20 seconds, my life was turned upside down.””

Elvis Costello: “My dad went into Buckingham Palace through the tradesmen’s entrance. Well you know what? I went in the front.”

In February 2020, Elvis Costello kicked off his latest UK tour at the Liverpool Olympia in front of a sold-out crowd that included his 93-year-old mother, Lillian. “It was in the same dance hall she used to go to as a young woman, when it was known as the Locarno Ballroom,” the singer, songwriter andContinue reading “Elvis Costello: “My dad went into Buckingham Palace through the tradesmen’s entrance. Well you know what? I went in the front.””

Brian Cox: “Succession feels like a reward for the years of hard work.”

For a man who’s played monsters as memorable as Hannibal Lecter and Hermann Göring – to say nothing, of course, of Succession’s tyrannical media tycoon Logan Roy – Brian Cox is a reassuringly genial presence in the flesh. (Yes, I know he’s an actor, and it’s all pretend. But a part of me was still slightly worriedContinue reading “Brian Cox: “Succession feels like a reward for the years of hard work.””

Dave Grohl: “I know I’ll always be ‘that guy from Nirvana’ – and proudly so”

In the late summer of 1994, Dave Grohl was driving down a country road in a remote corner of southwest Ireland, when he spotted a young hitchhiker. Slowing down, he was about to offer the kid a lift – until he noticed what he was wearing. It was a Kurt Cobain t-shirt. The same KurtContinue reading “Dave Grohl: “I know I’ll always be ‘that guy from Nirvana’ – and proudly so””

Barbra Streisand: “I believe in the power of the self to transcend matter.”

Barbra Streisand has been writing her autobiography for eight years now – a bit of a chore, it turns out, when the last thing you want to think about is your own past. “I bore myself,” says the 79-year-old, cheerfully, those trademark Brooklyn vowels as reassuringly strong as ever. “That’s why I have a researcher,Continue reading “Barbra Streisand: “I believe in the power of the self to transcend matter.””

In defence of, God help me, James Corden

This is an extract from a column originally published in the Cambridge Independent on April 10, 2019 How rude do you think it’s acceptable to be about the rich and famous? Do you think they deserve the same courtesy we’d expect ourselves? Or, because they live a fabulous, wealthy existence, and have basically chosen toContinue reading “In defence of, God help me, James Corden”