Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, was once an inland port, its flat otherworldliness reminiscent of Holland, its endless nineteenth century terraced streets totally British. The X-Church is a Victorian deconsecrated former centre for worship, now a place for heavy metal bands to practice, for boxers to train, and for experimental arts events like this, the first version of Liturgy 1.

For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by a radio documentary, made in Manchester, nearly 60 years ago. It was called The Night People.

One theme running through much of what I’ve written for the art press over the last decade or more concerns culture’s response to the rise of the populist right in politics worldwide. Right now, a rather more pressing issue is the way the populist right is stamping on culture.

“It’s a nightmare,” Alicia said, as she walked into the room. She had just heard the news that the government had conceded the election.

Argentina is going through a big financial crisis with inflation at 130-plus% and has just voted in a general election which many expected to be won by ultra-right-wing outsider, Javier Milei.

I recently paid a visit to Trent University Nottingham to check through some of the contents of the Ray Gosling Archive. I wanted to find more details for what is shaping up to be the first biography of Ray. There is certainly no shortage of material, that much is obvious.

On May 18th I was very happy to attend the launch of the British Pop Archive at John Rylands Research Institute and Library. The archive’s opening exhibition, entitled Collection, rightly focuses on Manchester.

Many roads in Argentina are unpaved, or as we say in the UK, unmetalled. In the summer, great dust clouds rise up above the busiest routes near to where I’m living at the moment, in Patagonia.

I grew up with parents who became adults during the Second World War. They never glorified anything about the conflict they were caught up in. But British popular culture viewed things differently.

I’ve mentioned BECA in my latest article for Art Monthly – a group of artists, from Wales, about which, in the interview, I tell a story that I couldn’t fit into the article. I want to reveal a bit more detail here.

On Monday November 8th my boxes of archive – 25 of them, plus some framed posters - finally went to John Rylands Library to join the new British Pop collection.

Back in the 1990s, I did postgraduate research at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Department of Law and Popular Culture. My aim was to trace the history of Manchester’s alternative press. Eventually, my thesis was published as a book, called Imprinting the Sticks.

Good to go wandering round Manchester yesterday with Steve Hanson, and to meet for the first time Brian Baker from Lancaster University.