Midnite Vultures by Beck

A party album perfect for the man who hates parties.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

Hello. My weirdo YA masterpiece GLOWGLASS is currently £2.99 for anyone with a Kindle. Lucky sods! Think of it as a fucked-up evil version of Sweet Valley High with lesbian drama, murder, videotape, and porridge. Basically, this is the book the teen version of me would go nuts for, because it has everything I ever…

Adventures At The Edinburgh International Book Festival

On occasion, I'm called upon by forces high above to appear at festivals. I make money from live events (though you'll never see me because I tour schools) and have done ever since Conjuring The Infinite was released. One of my favourite festivals is The Edinburgh International Book Festival. God, it makes me feel important.…

Hall Of Fame: Totally Crushed Out by That Dog

I hate concept albums, but not this one.

Looking Back At Batman #1

Batman and Robin swung into action (literally) in Detective Comics. Soon enough, they were starring in their own comic. It was 1940. A different, distant time. Yet the basics of The Bat were already firmly fixed in the canon. Batman #1 didn’t disappoint. Not only did it mark the return of the nefarious Dr. Hugo…

Songs To Lose Your Wig Over #2: Overload by Sugababes

Pop music after the Spice Girls was definitely not for me. I was well into Juliana Hatfield, Beck, Juliana Hatfield, Lolita Storm, The Pumpkins and - yes - Juliana Hatfield by that point. I hated S Club 7. The ‘S’ clearly stood for ‘shite’ and I resented how happy they seemed. In hindsight, the smiles…

The Ryu Murakami Fan Club

Ryu Murakami is not Haruki Murakami. Not even close. Their books are filed together in bookshops, but that’s about as close as they’ll ever be in any way whatsoever. Ryu Murakami’s bleak tales of destructive youth in dystopian Japan are unlike any other books I’ve ever read. I’ve read a lot of books. His writing…