The Tepid Take

Hey there,      If you're the sort of folk to still buy a newspaper, you've likely got the big quiz of the year in the back pages right now. Or, you're ready to watch Jimmy Carr and some celebs slamming directly into something approaching "comedy" between Christmas and the New Year. Or you read quizzes online. Or you attend them, physically! Wow. GOSH .      In any case, allow me to add to your pile: a quiz, here on my blog. You can do what you like with it. Play it with friends, play it on your own, play it with your dog (do not expect the dog to answer questions). BEGIN . ROUND 1: MUSIC The creators of Fortnite purchased which music streaming service this year? Which artist was streamed the most on Spotify by Mexicans  this year? Which artist took home the BRIT Award for Best New Artist this year, even though they've been active in the hip hop scene for nearly ten years? Kanye West is insane and 2022 was the year when everyone actually noticed. West's h

Another year, another list. Chuck the Spotify Wrapped paper in the bin; make your own present instead! I've selected the seven albums that meant the most to me this year - whether they're ones that were objectively sound, emotionally resonant, or both. This year more of these albums are actually coming in on time, seeing as they were released in 2022. They mostly sit astride the indie / post-punk dictum that has characterised my musical taste for the past ten years (Christ!) But they remain, nonetheless, the best encapsulation of the year I had.  So read along if you like that genre too - else, I'm sure Fantano has you covered. Shuffle along then! 1. Small World by Metronomy     This number came out early on in the year and made me decide, actually, yes, I do like Metronomy a lot thank you. I later saw them at Glastonbury and had a full rock roll of a time. Including (but not opening on) a track like It's good to be back  very much carries the fact that this band had be

Neither new nor a river, they say of the New River. They say it’s a 400-year-old culvert, but it’s also a dividing line, an incredibly long and incredibly shallow reservoir, aquatically neurotic and geographically unreliable. It fragments neighbourhoods on the one hand – its embankments steep and impassable – and links them on the other – its vertical path an alignment from Canonbury to Ware. But it does so only every so often. Sometimes it is behind a steep fence. Sometimes it is underground. So while it’s true that the New River is neither new nor a river, it’s also not really a geographical feature of any kind, and its age is indeterminate, being as it is so varied and manipulated by the needs of the suburbs it surrounds.      Things start in Zone 3, Old Middlesex, Hornsey and Wood Green. The New River ran entirely above ground until urban development brought its tunnelling under. There’s one such tunnel in Wood Green; the land is for the most part landscaped gardens. When the rive