It's been a while since we had an off-topic post, so we welcome this guest missive from Serge Fabergé This very photo appeared in the social media of Terry Farley, top Acid House spinner and apparently all-round good bloke, and the fact that it was the first female DJ at the Whiskey A-Go-Go warranted a bit of investigation. The superbly cool young lady is one Joanie Labine and it seems she basically invented go-go dancing and style. She was the DJ at the Hollywood club, start

Guest blog from Norm at Motorcycho magazine. In simpler days, it wasn't easy to access your favourite motorsport. If you weren't able to actually attend an event your only other option might be to read about it in a newspaper or find out months later in some magazine. One option that was sometimes available was to listen on a long play vinyl recording. For many years the Isle of Man TT races were available on record. Called Sound Stories, each year’s race was captured in soun

Off-topic Sunday with US correspondent, Serge Fabergé. One has found much spare time now that cafe society has been restricted - even with the yoga, the sales of the special sourdough, binge-watching and building a motorcycle in the salle (Guided by this excellent 'How To Build A Motorcycle' book available on this very site no less) there has been time for cultural pursuits. Binge-watching Midsomer Murders has been pushed aside for revisiting and re-evaluating Bo Diddley, and

I struggle to work in my office without music in the background, but I can't have the radio, the DJ chatter is too distracting, and I'm still a CD or vinyl person, not jumped on the Spotify revolution yet. Being a dimwit I can't speak any other languages except English, so if I'm concentrating on writing, I like to have foreign voices singing, so I'm not distracted by lyrics. I have a few favourites from 1960s France, especially from the Yeh-Yeh category of French female pop