Grace Petrie’s music arrived in my life around 2023, somewhere between Dead Man Singing being accepted for publication and its actual release into the world in September of that year. Petrie has since become one of my favourite songwriters, equally capable of turning her astute wordplay to the...

As someone who has written many times about musicians, I have often reflected on the difference between the life of a novelist and that of a musician. Musicians are, first and foremost, performers. When they are creating their art, the final expression of it comes in performance, in getting in front...

The FIFA world cup begins today. The first World Cup that I remember was 1978. England hadn’t qualified, but Scotland had. I can remember hearing on telly for weeks that ‘Scotland had qualified for the World Cup finals’, not registering that vital ‘s’ on the end and thi...

It was a new experience for me after 58 years on the planet, most of which have been spent as an avid music fan. This month I went into a recording studio to, ahem, lay down the tracks for my first single.

As anyone who regularly visits this site, or who has spoken to me at all in the last few month...