News

Mes Vieux Chinas! How are you diddling? I hope you, like me are in the perpetual state of Christmas induced panic. Where icy fear grabs you by the testes (other genitalia is available) at random moments, when you remember someone you may or may not have forgotten to get a Christmas present for... I am convinced that it's a form of mild capitalism induced PTSD. So let me ease your panic with my DM recommendations for December.Better ThingsI am not usually a fan of the 'Vignettes loosely based on my...

Mes Amis!It's been a tough old week in the Double Merrick household.... Framboise 2009 - 2019 After a mercifully short decline, our dog Framboise has died. As Alice put it  "I don’t think I’ve ever known a dog with such presence! She will be remembered by everyone who met her". In her former life she was a concierge at a local restaurant, and the outpouring of tributes for this little dog has been amazing. 

Mes Amis!We are now knee deep in what my most Yorkshire-est, youngest brother, Jack likes to call ’the most northern time of the year’. For international readers, The folk from the north of England like to pride themselves on being tougher and more resilient than their southern counterparts. This manifests itself in Jack’s internal battle with the central heating - ‘When is it acceptable to turn on the heating?’ he asks himself. Every time he is about to break, he has to imagine Sean Bean (the ultimate Northern male), and...

Welcome back.   This is the newsletter where I recommend things. Be it music, film, TV, whatever really. The only criteria is that it sticks in the mind and is worth recommending to you discerning people. Patricia Lockwood - ‘Malfunctioning Sex Robot’ in The London Review of Books. A bit of an Alice recommendation. John Updike epitomises everything I dislike about a type of male, highbrow writer. “I was hired as an assassin. You don’t bring in a 37-year-old woman to review John Updike in the year of our Lord 2019...