There’s a moment in Taylor Swift’s music video for “Look What You Made Me Do” in which all the ghosts of her past stand in a line as though they’re about to be executed by firing squad — only instead, …
How Thatcherism outgrew its mistress
An American news network rang, on 8 April 2013, to tell me that Margaret Thatcher was dead. Yes, I was happy to be interviewed. There was the usual awkward silence, long enough that I wondered whether they had forgotten me, …
American Gigolo is no longer sexy
Julian Kay is a thrillingly charming escort, as comfortable at international art auctions as he is on the pull-up bar. His speciality is older women, and when one asks him, in one of those old hotel restaurant booths so cushioned …
Interrailing wasn’t all sex and sunshine
My school days were plagued by the annual July ritual of the French mistress asking each girl in turn, “Comment vas-tu passer tes vacances?” I grew up in Kent’s gin-and-Jag commuter belt, so Italy, Spain and France were favoured destinations. …
The Haçienda saved Manchester
The artist Jeremy Deller once gifted me a brick wrapped in newspaper. It was from a demolished factory building in Salford that had been co-founded in 1837 by the father of Friedrich Engels. Concerned that his son was mixing with …
Morrissey will never be cancelled
You, me, everyone loved The Smiths. Yet love them as much as we did, The Smiths were still one of those bands where you know that after rehearsals or shows, none of its members ever went out for beers. They …
Why pop can’t escape the Eighties
Last year, the Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman, who performs as the Weather Station, explained to Uncut that her new album Ignorance was influenced by pop, but not just any old pop: “Eighties pop music, which was, I think, the best …