A new post on my blog in the music section about Nick Grimshaw, Radio 1 and how I learned to start listening to new music again.

Link HERE.

I have a new post up on the Music page of this blog, about music written and released during lockdown/quarantine.

If you fancy giving it a read, the link is here: Soundtrack For A Quarantine.

This June I was struck by the abundance of rainbows all over my social media accounts and their prevalence in advertising campaigns encouraging me to invest my cash in all things rainbow branded. Big businesses and brands are seemingly full of Pride these days. Going to my local supermarket I am informed they are a proud supporter of diversity by the rainbow-hued sign in the car park. I can buy my own LGBT sandwich at Marks & Spencer’s. I can use rainbow branded Listerine to take care of my teeth and gums. Last month the endless stream of rainbow packaged merchandise provided colourful assurance that LGBT+ people have an abundance of corporate support as everyone from booze brands to shoe brands enthusiastically seized on the opportunity to hoist their rainbow flags. We are now, as many brands sought to remind us as they touted their wares, fifty years on from Stonewall (1969) and more than fifty years have passed since riots that preceded it (e.g. Cooper Do-Nuts (1959); Compton's Cafeteria (1966)). In the UK we are fifty-two years on from the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality (1967) and there is certainly much to celebrate both here and in the U.S. when it comes to progress made in the fight for LGBT+ equality. 

I've laughed and cried through four seasons of The CW's American musical comedy-drama television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, created by Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna which aired its final episode on 5 April 2019.

You can read my thoughts on the series and its finale in my post 'Singing 'So Long, Farewell' to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' and please proceed with caution, there are multiple spoilers ahead.

It seems apt, after a long absence from this blog and months spent wrangling with a thesis chapter focused on time, that my returning post should focus on age. This morning I revisited drafts of old blog posts to see whether I had material I could still use to get back to a more regular blogging schedule.

​I decided to resurrect a draft post which explores my experiences as a mature student, and enhance it to bring it up to date. 

Over the course of the last few months I have been thinking about the notion of fanfiction as a 'free' enterprise and the impact of capitalist structures on fanfic trends in fandom communities. This isn't particularly groundbreaking new research, but I wanted to set out some thoughts on the hierarchies within these virtual worlds and the feedback structures which are inherently part of those spaces.

You can find thoughts on 'Kudos, Capitalism and Commodotised Fanfic' on the fandom page of this blog HERE.

Following the news that there's going to be a reboot of The L Word I have some thoughts, which I have outlined in this piece 'Revisiting The L Word.'

Having finally started watching Twin Peaks again in anticipation of the upcoming Season 3, I put together some thoughts on the pilot episode in the television section of this blog. 

My thoughts can be found HERE

I've been eagerly awaiting new music from Harry Styles of former One Direction fame, curious to hear his solo offerings. However, reading a vast swathe of reviews of his terrific new single Sign of the Times left me a little weary with the patronising hot takes on the One Direction fanbase. In writing for The Mary Sue I asked why do conversations about pop music still have to bash the fangirl? 

You can find the article HERE.