Our perceptions of the first world war are greatly shaped by RC Sherriff. His 1928 trench tragedy Journey’s End, a drama for doomed youth, became a school play staple and has been filmed or televised, with degrees of looseness, six times, as well as explicitly being a model for Blackadder Goes Forth. As can happen to authors of a classic, Sherriff suffered from his other output being overlooked,…

I’m not saying I was an anxious kid but for two full years, all through junior high, I couldn’t sleep unless I had a fan blowing on me and I was listening to KOST. KOST served the Los Angeles area and was a station that playing love songs, specifically. I was starting to get hip to edgier music, further afield I still remember hearing “Girlfriend in a Coma” by The Smiths for the first time when…