GeT RICH QUICK

You hear Mexico before you see it. It is the merry melodies of mariachis in unfeasibly wide silver-studded hats, twanging on trumpets and violins, that wafts across the arrivals hall at Cancun International Airport. The second passengers disembark, the musicians eagerly burst into song and refuse to pause for breath until the final bag is collected and the… Continue reading

It’s a mild Mediterranean night on hopelessly hip Shenkin Street. A young couple sip cappuccinos and chomp croissants outside the Angel café, engrossed in the antics of a teenage girl throwing a temper tantrum into her mobile phone. Her colourful Hebrew echoes down the road, to the obvious annoyance of nearby dog walkers, pram pushers and pensioners playing… Continue reading

Most visitors arrive in Las Vegas by plane, but a spaceship would be more appropriate transport to a destination that is so out-of-this-world. There are, of course, luxurious resorts, amazing restaurants and spectacular shows all over the world – but as soon as you touch down on Planet Vegas, you are forced to redefine your terms. Everything is bigger… Continue reading

As a nation of proud and patient queuers, we Brits really shouldn’t approve of Miami’s elitist nightclub door policy at all. After all, waiting our turn appeals to our innate sense of fair play. But there is no such thing outside the glitzy haunts of oh-so-trendy South Beach. Catwalk models with clipboards sort the in-crowd wheat from of… Continue reading

While the British media was getting its backside publicly slapped by Lord Leveson, came news that Ofcom has finally pulled the plug on the poster girl of media impropriety – Press TV. Iran’s state-funded 24-hour news channel has been barred from dispensing its loose approximation of current affairs on Sky channel 515 due to its… Continue reading

Slouched in tatty and torn T-shirts and jeans in their downtown Manhattan recording studio, the Beastie Boys looked more like lazy students dragged from their beds than politicised hip hop icons when I interviewed them back in 2004. The trio’s sixth album, To The 5 Boroughs, was about to be released. Part bittersweet ode to… Continue reading

Album review: Invaders Must Die, by The Prodigy 4/5 In light of the media’s renewed commitment to transparency, I feel compelled to declare a vested interest in awarding the Prodigy’s new album full marks from the outset. With whistle and glowstick in hand, I welcomed in the new year at Brixton Academy in 1992 to the… Continue reading

The pride that swept the nation after the England cricket team’s famous 1968 Test series win in the West Indies masked the rising racial tension blighting a country absorbing its first wave of Caribbean immigrants. Back then, in the swinging (and seaming) Sixties,  the ‘Y’ and ‘N’ word were common pub parlance and modern British values of tolerance and integration… Continue reading