5 Album Set (EMI), Plastic Box (Virgin), Metal Box Super Deluxe Edition & Album Super Deluxe Edition (Virgin/ UMC) - Public Image Limited

Written by The Barman on 12 June 2017.

In one way, every box here rates five bottles. They’re essential; if not for the music, then the history and their place in it. In another … every box rates between four and five bottles.  Why?

Well, all but two of the PiL albums represented here were patchy. One of those unpleasant truths we must all know (another is the knowledge that some our (many) rock ’n’ roll heroes have been anything but loveable rascals, but thugs of considerable degree who richly deserve four walls and a small barred door with the occasional beating…)

Chow down! "Pistol" is no shit sandwich

Written by The Barman on 02 June 2022.

Pistol 
Directed by Danny Boyle (DisneyPlus)

Okay, I’ll be first to admit that the trailer looked like a cold turd in a lunch box.  I did, however, persevere and found that I enjoyed this six-episode series enormously. 

Not that everyone will.  Fans of a perfectly delivered chronology are going to be nit picking every scene and episode like bickering zealots at a secular conflict.  Anyone who watched the CBGB movie and complained about how such and such wasn’t in the audience the night so and so did this or that is going to be in for a particularly unpleasant viewing experience.  You know who you are.