IF YOU MISSED ...

any of the columns I've been writing - and indeed reading - on the BBC's Front Row programme (Weekdays 7.15pm just after The Archers, right kids?) you've come to the right place.

No idea what I'm talking about? OK, here's a brief explanation. Roughly every month to six weeks for the last year and a bit I've been writing and broadcasting ideas about pop music. I have an idea, or perhaps three, then I send them to a producer at the BBC. He (it is a He) usually gets back quite quickly and tells me there's no space, time or need for these terrible ideas and I go back to the drawing board or, more specifically, preparing lectures or podcasts.

Then once in a while he'll say yes so I'll get on a train to London or go to BBC Gloucester and record the piece using my best BBC voice. You have to speak in an excited way so I can't channel Jack Dee or be downbeat much as though I'd like to.

The studio in BH where the 'magic' happens. 

If you scroll through the pieces you'll see the general idea. They're supposed to be lighthearted and funny but hopefully there's a germ of an idea in each of them that will get you thinking about pop music and its business in a different way.

The reasons I decided to archive them all here are various. Firstly, with radio there's a momentary unbiquity -  then nothing. It's over. You don't end up being passed around or forwarded as you would be if you were a newspaper article. So if you didn't hear the columns when they went live the chances are you would never think to look at the iPlayer links where they get archived on the BBC website.  Secondly, I wrote the pieces for radio but I think they work on the page too. You may disagree and in some cases you will have a point but on the whole (with a few tweaks) I think they're OK. And thirdly... is there a thirdly? Yes! Aside from it being an act of ego, it is, for me, a simple mnemonic. These pieces are finally all living together under one roof and will remind me in years to come what the heck I've been doing.

Hope you like them. Oh yes, I am assured by the folks at the BBC that I'm allowed to publish them here.