‘I will be known’: A treasured conversation

Our last coffee was had beneath the gaze of Mary, mother of Jesus, on December 17, 2018, some months before she left. I didn’t know it would be our last one-on-one conversation. Neither did she. That’s the point—we rarely know. It’s only afterwards, in retrospect, that these final conversations find their light. Fortuitously, the conversation …

Accidental presence

It’s been months since Darlene died, and yet when I come across her words, such as those lingering on old Facebook posts, I’m surprised every time by how palpable the love is in them — more potent now by far than when they first appeared. I’ve never experienced this before. I’ve heard others talk excitedly about …

I Am Easy To Find: A soundtrack to my latest long night

It's been difficult to know all week whether I've been depressed or just perpetually hungover. Which seems like the perfect emotional backdrop for a new album release from The National. The National are my ultimate "do I accidentally take too many pills/just listen to some music" kind of band. My darkest times of the past …

A Queen story: You buggers can sing harder than I can

Bohemian Rhapsody was the first song I remember being aware of as a kid. I have a clear memory of us kids singing it in the schoolyard and making up lyrics because, clearly, no one knew what the actual words were. Those memories are filed alongside other powerful ones from the time: the smell of …

Tortured innocence: The year was 1984

We emigrated to Perth, Western Australia, in July, 1983. We left the UK, four of us (mum, dad, brother and me), plus my uncle, who was tagging along for an extended holiday, on Bastille Day, July 14, and flew over Paris as the city exploded in colour and smoke, like a pyrotechnic hydrangea bush. It …

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: A Bullitt train to the 90s

On the evening of March 4, 1996, I picked up my old mate Al and we drove through Hungry Jack's for dinner before the Smashing Pumpkins concert in Perth, Western Australia, and I say to him, 'What did you do today?' You know, as you do. He says, 'I went and bought the Steve McQueen …

The crooked man

I'd rather be playing an invisible fiddle in the dark and hope that someone could hear it than give in to a life of rationality and logic — Tommy Tiernan

Back to black: Amour and Amy

One movie ... every night ... for the next year ... Two pretty confronting movies the past two nights: Amour and Amy. Both of them devastating, and both very similar in their depiction of the slow degradation of health and life and love. The first is a French movie, superbly written, acted and directed, that …

Reissue: Achtung Baby is a double beef whopper

In the early 80s, the best live band on the planet was Queen. It was an undisputed truth, the sort of truth I liked, as a conservative fundamentalist who liked his truth to come in distinctly marked boxes. The liner notes of the double live album Queen Live Killers said that Queen were the best …