David Hepworth's blog

 .....they didn’t tell the management.
I don’t mean Klopp or Guardiola.
I mean the people who manage the business of these clubs day to day, the people who are closely involved in how many shirts they sell in Taiwan, the people whose annual bonus is based on the commercial deals they pull in, the people who are kept awake...

There's a good new edition of Matthew Bannister's podcast "Folk On Foot" in which he accompanies Richard Thompson as he revisits places in London that played a part in shaping him and his music: William Ellis School in Highgate, where he formed his first...

I haven't learnt a foreign language during the pandemic but I have finally read  "A Dance To The Music Of Time" by Anthony Powell. As Tony Hancock said, there ought to be a badge.
I started the first volume, "A Question Of Upbringing" back in March. Last night I finally laid down the 12th, "Hearing Secret Harmonies"....

I just heard that Mike Appleton has died.
Mike's the guy second from the right in the back row, alongside Robyn Hitchcock, Trevor Dann, Andy Kershaw and Rick Wright of Pink Floyd. The front row is Mark Ellen, Bob Harris, Billy Bragg and me.
Mike was the BBC man behind "The Old Grey Whistle Test". He was the one who launched it as  producer and for years as Editor managed to keep it on the air until it was eventually booted out in the course of one of BBC's numberless quests for a younger...