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The Slow Newscast: Die Die DEI (Tortoise Media)Drama on 4: The Film (Radio 4) | BBC SoundsGood Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan (Lemonada)Working Hard, Hardly Working (Grace Beverley) | Apple podcasts The Slow Newscast is usually worth a listen. Take Die Die DEI, from the week before last. … Read more
The Piano 9pm, Channel 4 Musician Jon Batiste is a sparkling new addition to the competition, telling co-judge Mika that he doesn’t even need to hear a single note to detect a star: “That’s how I picked a lot of my band members: I saw my drummer Joe Saylor on the street and said: ‘Man, … Read more
Max Romeo, the influential Jamaican reggae artist best known for tracks such as Chase the Devil and War Ina Babylon, has died at the age of 80. The singer, known to his family and friends as Maxie Smith, died after heart complications in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica, on Friday. Romeo rose to fame in the … Read more
Born in Birmingham in 1960, Mandy Theresa O’Loughlin is better known as author Kit de Waal. After a career as a magistrate specialising in adoption and foster care, she studied creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. Her debut novel, My Name Is Leon, was published in 2016, winning the Kerry Group Irish novel of the … Read more
Madonna and Elton John have kissed and made up. After decades of high-octane feuding (more of which anon), Madonna recently turned up impromptu backstage when John was appearing on late-night television sketch show, Saturday Night Live in New York to “confront” him. Her ensuing Instagram post, liked 420,605 times and counting, said: “Over the decades … Read more
Ted Kotcheff, the prolific Canadian director of films including First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s, Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, has died aged 94. His daughter Kate Kotcheff told the Canadian Press that he had died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived. His son Thomas said: … Read more
It’s just the usual teenage girl japes: smoking, drinking, teaming up with your best friend to steal a chicken from an irate local farmer. But the motive behind 17-year-old Tiana’s decision to pinch some poultry is about as far from ordinary as you can possibly get. I’m not sure what a normal reason for stealing … Read more
Not in living memory has a generation received more abuse than millennials. First the older generation told them their economic woes were due to a weak handshake in job interviews and a crippling addiction to brunch. Now, an even more malignant torrent of abuse is coming from below. Gen Z, in an attempt to distance themselves … Read more
We live in an Odyssey time. The Greek epic about Odysseus’s tortuous, adventure-filled journey home after the end of the Trojan war, composed probably between the late eighth and late seventh century BC, is surfacing in our culture right now. Great artworks from the past, ones that are read and reread across centuries, have a … Read more
Born in Essex, Pauline Black, 71, worked as a radiographer before becoming lead singer of the Selecter in 1979. The band’s hit singles include On My Radio, Three Minute Hero and Missing Words. Black was made an OBE in 2022 for services to entertainment. A documentary about her life, Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story is … Read more