A Short Story About John Blenkinsop’s Locomotives

According to my source, exactly 210 years ago, on 12 August 1812, John Blenkinsop's locomotives began running on the railway between Middleton and Leeds. The engine was probably Salamanca, at least I would like to think that way. This is a short story about her and her sister engines. Samuel Smiles writes in The Life...

Cyclopaedia à la TMTWNBBFN, Part XII: Supply & Demand

Cyclopaedia à la The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing is a series about songs by a London based band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. Or to be precise, this series is not about their songs as such, but short stories about people or things that they have written...

The Lords of the New Church at Lepakko, Helsinki in the Summer 1983

The debut album of The Lords of the New Church was released 40 years ago, in July 1982. I saw them twice in a venue called Lepakko in Helsinki. The year was 1983. I have some very bad photos from the first gig. Even though the quality is terrible, I decided to show them here...

Music Archive, Part XXII ~ hide: SINGLES ~ Junk Story (Universal J, 2002)

Music Archive is a series, where I write about albums or singles that have been released years ago, too long time ago to be enclosed in the “Reviews” category. Music Archive is thus forming its own subcategory under “Reviews”, even though these write-ups are not reviews, maybe not always even presentations.  They are just stories...

Andy Guttercat: U-Turn

A video for Andy Guttercat's third solo song called 'U-Turn' was premiered on Saturday evening, 23 July 2022. The song itself will be released later on different platforms. I have falling out of the orbit of British rock scene, but every now and again somebody reminds me of its existence, like Andy, who contacted me...

Tapio Katko, Petri Juuti & Riikka Juuti: Vesihuollon myytit (Vastapaino 2022)

𝑴𝒚 𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉-𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔: 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌. 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒖𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒔. 𝑺𝒐 𝑰 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈,...

Music Archive, Part XXI ~ hide: In Motion (Universal J, 2002)

Music Archive is a series, where I write about albums or singles that have been released years ago, too long time ago to be enclosed in the “Reviews” category. Music Archive is thus forming its own subcategory under “Reviews”, even though these write-ups are not reviews, maybe not always even presentations.  They are just stories...

Durham Miners’ Gala in 2003 and 2004 in Photos

The Durham Miners' Gala, The Big Meeting, is taking place after two COVID years in 2022, on the second Saturday of July as always. I attended the gala twice, in 2003 and 2004. I was planning to publish the photos last year if the gala was held, but because of the pandemic, the 150th anniversary...

Joanna Ebenstein: The Anatomical Venus (Thames & Hudson, 2016)

Joanna Ebenstein's book The Anatomical Venus was published in 2016 and I bought my copy several years ago from London and I started working on the presentation several months ago, but finally I am ready to publish my story about this fascinating book. Even though my road with the book was a long one, I...