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A Smashed Hits about (the) Eagles’ Hotel California:

“Vaguery is the primary tool of songwriters,” Frey told a journalist during a 2003 pro-am golf tournament in California’s Pebbel Beach, where he was partnered with Huey Lewis. “It works, it means whatever the listener wants it to mean.”

Sources: History of the Eagles; Hit Story: It All Started Because Of Rattlesnakes; Rockin’ ‘Round The Round, SF Gate; Jennifer Parker’s McBusted: The Story of the World’s Biggest Super Band and this lovely data collection from Southern California Public Radio.

• More Smashed Hits
• The Magus
• Image: San Francisco, 2006

A quick piece for the BBC about double negatives:

It’s hard to understate how often we find ourselves using two negatives when we don’t mean to – in fact, this sentence begins with a common example

See also:

• Election Lexicon | BBC
• Guardian crossword blog

I’m part of the panel for a Bafta event:

A panel of comedy entertainment producers and writers discuss the recent renaissance in entertainment television, covering programme development, writing, casting, and the role of satire.

• 6:45pm, Tuesday, 17 October 2017
• Princess Anne Theatre, Bafta, 195 Piccadilly, St. James’s, London W1J 9EU
• Tickets
• Updated with image by @widowedanthem

I have been enjoying working on Channel 4’s Alternative Election Night:

Jeremy Paxman, David Mitchell and Richard Osman present an all-night feast of comedy and comment in Channel 4’s very different take on election night

• 9pm, 8 June 2017, Channel 4

By me for BBC News: Election Lexicon, the words which “caught the ear” in a week of campaigning.

12 May: Battle bus, hovercraft, draft manifesto, shambles, blame
game, Monsieur Zen, airbrushing, photoshopping and The Big Six

20 May: Heineken politician, cockroach, cyber, Mayllenials, Robin
Hood tax, last-chance saloon, unique selling point, rent-to-buy,
insourcing and period poverty

27 May: [campaigning suspended]

3 Jun: Naked in the chamber, glumbucket, Brexit, Frexit, Nexit,
Brixit, hung parliament, negotiating parliament and Kobayashi
Maru

I am a proud member of Team 2016 Wipe, which is broadcast after Christmas.

Update 14 May 2017: Bafta winner, Comedy & Comedy Entertainment Programme

• 9pm, 29 December 2016, BBC Two
• More Wipes

I am a proud member of Team 2015 Wipe, which is broadcast tomorrow.

• 9pm, 30 December 2015, BBC Two