'Orrible
To understand the existence of 'Orrible, we need to recall the weird early 2000's national obsession with gangland criminals. This was the era of Lock, Stock and Snatch; ...
2019-09-14 07:19:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Stuart Millard posts
Coming Next to the $5 Tier
Wakehaven - a mystery in eight parts.
2019-09-12 08:12:56 +0000 UTC View PostI Was the Stan Lee of Sussex – Reappraising Fred Ace #1
Seeing as I spend my time on here tearing apart other people's bad old content, I figured before karma comes for my head, I'd better tip out the bones from my own closet.
This mag...
2019-09-03 23:07:21 +0000 UTC View PostThe One Show
The opening titles to The One Show make way more sense with subtitles on.
2019-08-25 11:47:06 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Noel Tried to Crack America
Over the past year, Noel Edmonds has become the suspiciously-dark-bearded ghoul that hangs over my work. Though I worry my compulsive references to the man will eventually drive every Patron ...
2019-08-25 08:24:35 +0000 UTC View PostCartoon Spinoffs - The Karate Kid
I cannot stress strongly enough how much I love The Karate Kid. Along with Ghostbusters, it's my all-time favourite film, and I was flooded with excitement and terror when Youtube...
2019-08-15 08:10:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Accursed 90s: Don't Forget Your Toothbrush
When last we saw Chris Evans, he'd been wahey-ing all over the Big ...
2019-08-05 08:38:17 +0000 UTC View PostSaturday Night Beadle
In his heyday, the name Jeremy Beadle was national shorthand – settle down – for exasperating situations; synonymous with life throwing you a random, terrible curveball that must be a ...
2019-07-26 08:51:15 +0000 UTC View PostTagteam
To save the suspense on whether Tagteam – self-styled as a single word – is any good, it's with a heavy heart I must report the biggest missed opportunity since every participant in Ja...
2019-07-16 08:00:37 +0000 UTC View PostCartoon Spinoffs - Mister T
It's hard to convey just how ridiculously famous Mr. T was in the eighties, and how fast it all happened. His breakout role of Clubber Lang in Rocky II hit theatres in May of 1982, with
Coming Next to the $5 Tier
Down in the trenches of a British comprehensive school in the mid-80s, it's every boy for himself. But it helps to have a friend.
Scramblehead – a story in four parts, coming soon.
2019-06-30 23:01:41 +0000 UTC View PostThe Big Breakfast - First and Last
Having previously covered Noel's House Party, it was inevitable that I'd eventually tackle The Big Breakfast, which puts us at the dawn of that baffling period when the nation was...
2019-06-25 23:01:19 +0000 UTC View PostColonel Spokes
This is the only known footage of Colonel Spokes, also known as the Rumble Tumble Man, or Ernie Tattles. A familiar sight to motorists of West Sussex throughout the 1970s and '80s, local legend puts him as the only survivor of a terrible car accident which took his entire family. As a resul...
2019-06-23 15:09:03 +0000 UTC View PostBonus Post: 2019 Beach Diaries #3
A group of giggling kids loudly ask Siri if Yoda's circumcised.
I'm out w...
2019-06-22 18:38:47 +0000 UTC View PostGreat Moments in Pop Culture – Byker Grove Nukes the Fourth Wall
Long-running shows often get defined by their endings, good or bad, which retroactively colour the perception of a series as a whole, like The Sopranos' cut to black, or the denouement of ...
2019-06-15 23:01:50 +0000 UTC View PostCome Back Mrs. Noah
Another of those series perennially sat on the worst-of lists, Come Back Mrs. Noah was a Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft joint; the pairing that brought us Are You Being Served? and ...
2019-06-05 23:11:06 +0000 UTC View PostCharlie and Me trailer
If you've been following my work for a while, you'll know that my Charles Manson novel, Charlie and Me, was *the* big project for me, which took up years of my life, so I was pretty bummed when it virtually died on release at the end of 2017. At the time, even the idea of a story based on an infa...
2019-05-28 20:41:09 +0000 UTC View PostThat Time Heartbeat Did An Alien Abduction
Even today, ITV's Heartbeat is so bonded to its placement dead-centre of Sunday Night Dread, that on hearing its theme tune, I instinctively started getting a tummy ache in creeping fear o...
2019-05-26 23:08:16 +0000 UTC View PostCartoon Spinoffs - Rambo
Writing this latest piece about terrible cartoon spin-offs unwittingly dredged up a litany of embarrassing memories. Around the age of seven, I became fixated on Rambo; the lead character in a seri...
2019-05-16 23:02:56 +0000 UTC View PostIndex of Content
To save everyone scrolling back through dozens
2019-05-11 18:52:51 +0000 UTC View PostBonus Post: 2019 Beach Diaries #2
There's a man swimming in the sea. The sun's quite warm when it breaks the clouds, but the water looks cold. When he wades back onto shore, he pulls open the front of his trunks and peers dow...
2019-05-09 13:23:55 +0000 UTC View PostGreat Moments in Pop Culture – Ricky Gervais Has a Fight
One day, I turned on the telly, and watched Bob Mortimer beat Les Dennis in a boxing match. No, that's not a dream you've gotten stuck listening to me drearily describe right into your ear on the b...
2019-05-06 23:07:19 +0000 UTC View PostBonus Post: Occasional Beach Diaries 2019
I've been rooting around in a few old notebooks, looking for Beach Diaries scraps I never got around to posting. Here's a selection, and hopefully I'll be able to get out more this summer and gathe...
2019-04-30 12:51:38 +0000 UTC View PostBeing Judas
On Good Friday of this year, the area's local churches got together to perform a public Walk of Witness through the high street, recreating the capture, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. In what wou...
2019-04-26 23:04:12 +0000 UTC View PostBig Game
Contains spoilers for last night's Game of Thrones (Season 8, Episode 2)
2019-04-22 20:28:18 +0000 UTC View PostSlinger's Day
Since starting the Shitcoms series, I occasionally get suggestions tweeted at me, and Slinger's Day has come up more than once. I'd never seen it, and at first glance, it didn't seem like ...
2019-04-17 07:47:20 +0000 UTC View PostChuck Norris Giving His All
I knocked up this quick highlight reel, because it's impossible to convey in print Chuck's sheer level of boredom and terrible diction.
2019-04-07 09:12:42 +0000 UTC View PostCartoon Spinoffs - Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos
For me, Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos is the perfect Venn diagram intersection of dual fascinations, sitting in that sweet spot of 'cartoons featuring real people as themselves' and 'weir...
2019-04-07 09:00:37 +0000 UTC View PostGreat Moments in Pop Culture – Mr. T Thanks His Mother
The WWE Hall of Fame sits at the start of Wrestlemania weekend, as the one evening a year when the carny-ass business that proudly rolls around in shit for the other 364 mops up the sweat and gets ...
2019-03-28 00:01:23 +0000 UTC View Post