Dispatches from the Pavement Podcast

I was thinking back to my criminal days at school – if you could even call them that. My whole operation was pathetic, really. I’d sneak out at lunchtime with a few mates, my pockets lined with pennies I’d scraped off the pavement all week. That was my funding: loose change for scraps and curry sauce from the chip shop, or my real addiction – Citrus Polos from the off-licence. I got brave once. St...

I tried watching Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing a handful of times. I have thoroughly enjoyed their various projects over the years. Bob Mortimer’s autobiography is outstanding, and I binge-watched The Fast Show last summer. They remain genius creators. But fishing…? “Fishing is awful,” I thought. I experienced it once when a German exchange student wanted to practice his hobby at a local Dyk...

When the best part of a new blockbuster movie is the comic relief provided by a dog that appears for only 5 minutes in 2 hours, you know things aren’t looking good for DC. I went to see the new Superman film at a cinema in California during a work trip one evening. This isn’t meant to sound like a humble brag. When I’m on a work trip, I’m working. But when I’m stuck in a hotel room staring blankly...

Before my parents retired to a slightly less remote rural home, the living room of their five-bedroomed house had a whole wall lined with board games. They have since downsized, and the diaspora of family “fun” is now scattered across Yorkshire and the South East of England. Monopoly was played less and less, but was brought out again this year. As the sun went down on Boxing Day, and my older bro...