mostly david ephgrave

The other day, I was watching TV on mute - I find all noises distracting - when an advert for My Little Pony came on-screen. “Does that even still exist?” I asked my wife (a pointless question, as it clearly did). “Yes,” she replied. “For some reason, they're very popular with teenage boys.” This blew my mind. Why would they be interested in it? Surely they’re the completely wrong catchment. Not because they’re boys - I don’t hold with toys being gender specific - but because they’re entirely the wrong age group to appreciate it. For one, My Little Pony was designed for pre-and-infant-school kids; the gumpf-selling bastion Argos lists them as suitable for kids of 3+. But what confuses me the most is the current teen generation isn’t even the right age to enjoy them for nostalgic reasons, as they’d be too young to remember them first time around. I can’t fathom it out. Am I missing something massive? Why would they be into a toy with no purpose, least of all to peop...

Ladies and gentlemen, pray silence – and listen to the worst version of ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love?’ of all time. What can I say? I’m so sorry for putting you through this. I was blissfully ignorant of Diana Ross’ cover of this old doo-wop classic until just after 11 o’clock this morning, when Sir Terry included it as part of his Weekend Wogan playlist – and now I can never unlearn it. Barely thirteen seconds into the record you already know you’re in for a bad thing: the high-tuned tom-fill that kicks things off; the backing vocalists that sound like they’ve started in a different key from the rest of the band, but would sooner persist than admit their mistake; the jaunty bassist who plays as if the chord chart fell off their music stand a few bars in, but isn’t going to let this hold them back for a second. Even the piano part is awful; if it was any more devoid of soul you’d be asking a paramedic to check the pianist for signs of life. It’s like everyone wh...