Shane Richmond

This blog’s first birthday escaped my notice but I marked the occasion with a post that is, in retrospect, quite entertaining. But then, I’m always partial to reading a slagging-off of Bono even if the author is me.
This year I have remembered the birthday but I don’t have anything terribly interesting to say about it. [...]

I haven’t read Dan Brown’s potboiler – my wife’s reaction was so vituperative that it put me off. Life’s too short, surely?
I am intrigued, however, after seeing Tim Footman’s new blog which sets out to analyse The Da Vinci code chapter by chapter and determine “why a book that … is so egregiously badly written, [...]

I spent this morning and part of yesterday ploughing through the hundreds of unread blog posts that accumulated in my RSS reader over Christmas. Google Reader’s new trends page informs me that I’ve read more than 1,700 posts this weekend.
I’ve also been unsubscribing to a few feeds. I had 127 on my list and I’m [...]

Posting has been slow here so far this year because I’ve been setting up another blog. I’ve invited five other people to join my 26 books project this year and I’ve set up a blog – 26books.com – for us all to chronicle our reading.
It’s another WordPress blog and it uses the Freshy theme. I [...]

More than three years after I first started developing the site, I’ve decided to close The Music Radar. I just don’t have time to do it justice. I doubt the news will come as a surprise to anyone who reads the site because it hasn’t been updated since the middle of June.
It’s a shame that [...]

It’s taken me two weeks to notice but Paul Daniels has retired his blog. Oh sure, he’s posting on his official page now – and podcasting! – but it just isn’t the same.
The new site is all slick and commercial where the old one was rough and personal. It offered a bizarre insight into the [...]

I’m pleased to see that my 26books project has inspired somebody else to start blogging about the books they’ve read.
James Higgs, who I’ve mentioned before, has started a personal Bookblog to review what he’s been reading. No reviews so far but I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s up to.
When James told me about the [...]

A follow-up to yesterday’s post about Superman comics. I Am Curious (Black), the Superman comic which deals with Lois’s experiences as a black woman is available in a zip file from Accordian Guy. The title of the comic, which was published in 1970, is a reference to an erotic Swedish film – hardly likely to [...]

I recommend Patently Silly, a blog by comedian Daniel Wright which collates ridiculous patent applications. The solo-operable see-saw is a typical example:
“a seesaw plank can be a dangerous object in the hands of a mischievous child who may abruptly pull down on one end when another child is passing by the opposite end, causing the [...]

PostSecret is undoubtedly the big winner in this year’s Bloggies. It picked up five awards, including Blog of the Year. No big surprise really. It’s been gathering momentum for a while now and has even reached the pages of the Guardian’s Weekend magazine where, to be honest, I always felt like it belonged. I don’t [...]