Author: Leigh Banks

Christmas albums, huh? Who’d have ’em? But this one is Bing on a bong, a white Christmas not to be sniffed at, a skinned-up toke of smoke and mirrors turning the festive playlist into a surreal, sublime set of croaks and howls that get to the heart of what it’s really all about! Yes, Bob’s… Continue reading Wig wam – what a man! Bob lets his hairpiece slip to become Bing on a bong for the best Christmas bash ever!

People on social media have been ‘asking’ what song would you ask Bob Dylan to play for Donald Trump as he spreads his mixed up confusion across America and the rest of the world! Some have suggested It’s All Over Now Baby Blue – others the obvious Times They Are -A-Changin’ … In fact Jimmy… Continue reading Which song would you want Dylan to sing for Trump?

When Bob Dylan’s second album hit the shops in 1963 there was a howl of protest from the Secret Police in Czechoslovakia. Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album was seen as a call for freedom across the world and became one of the anthems adopted by Hippies who were bringing revolution to the streets and music to cafes… Continue reading A hard reign was a-gonna fall after Dylan cost music bosses their jobs

We publish this video looking at Bob Dylan’s strangely enigmatic and poetic history of America, basically because the vid is quite brilliant, a perfect companion to a brilliant song! It was edited and directed by Bob Mori, award-winning film creator. Both Dylan’s song and Mori’s film have been attacked – the film for featuring former… Continue reading Seventeen minutes to kill … an amazing visual telling of Bob’s Murder Most Foul

Five years and five Christmas Days … I am always campaigning to raise awareness on contact denial and the secrecy of family courts. And over the years I have trudged city to city on Christmas Days delivering reports and DVDs…I have walked and climbed mountains and i have stood defiantly outside the family courts. This… Continue reading Join Andrew and court the real family truth on Christmas Day…

What a load of rubbish! Inexorably bad, contrived, cynical, amateurish – apart from some of the riffs, but there’s nothing new there either. A shamefully conspiracy theory blues bash at a time most of the world is going into a Yuletide lock-down. Just old, cold and useless. And is that what two of our greatest… Continue reading Stand and chuck it out the window! Eric has become Slow Gland and Van should be delivering for Morrison’s!

This piece was originally commissioned by the European Journalism Centre almost a decade ago and was resting listlessly in our archives. But with all the threats of anarchy in the US and new violence breaking out in the streets of Washington DC, we thought it was time to re-run it. Far-right groups have clashed with… Continue reading GUNFIGHT AT THE UK CORRAL

For more than half a century now I have listened to Jingle Bells, Away in a Manger and Slade doing 1973’s Merry Christmas. Sadly though, old Noddy screaming like a Brummy rat up a drain pipe “Merreeeeeee Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” has totally lost its charm for me. I just don’t like it… But by God am I… Continue reading Is divorce preferable to listening for the millionth time to ‘I saw mummy kissing Santa Clause’? Oh no it isn’t! Oh Yes it is!

An international businessman is making sure that part of a European mountain city will be forever England. The Central European entrepreneur is  transforming part of the tiny city he rescued from poverty into a monument to English-ness. Poprad, at the foot of Central Europe’s High Tatras mountains, had been devastated by decades of communism. Slovaks… Continue reading There will always be a bit of England forever in the secret mountains of Europe

Wait! Do you hear what I hear? Coming from over there – way way over the manger. Yes, look! You can just pick them out in the starlight now, under those boughs of holly … a motley crew, fat men dressed in red, little elves hi on their own ho, white angels and the wise,… Continue reading Why the BBC is making your ears bleed egg-nog and squirty cream