A healthy crop of ukulele acts, as always, at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Here’s a quick rundown of the acts I’d be going to see if I was there. Helen Arney – Festival of the Spoken Nerd and Alchemy Comedy ukulele nerd and star of Uke Hunt podcast #8, Helen Arney will doing a whole […]

I’m taking a couple of weeks off the blog. I’ll be back on 5th August with plenty of new stuff.

It’s been an age since I last updated my About page – I even have hair in that photo. Step 1 in the process: updating the FAQs. If you’ve got any other questions (or questions about my answers) leave them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer those too. General Uke […]

Time for a little blogcation. I’ll be back on Friday 20th May. Expect some posts dedicated to music from Manchester (put your requests in the comments), game music from Portal 2 and Angry Birds, and some shameless whoring of my upcoming actual-paper book.

Yesterday – it being International Women’s Day – I was musing on how gender balanced the ukulele world is (compare the average ukulele festival to scenes from NAMM). I like to have a healthy mix on the site and writing about the ukulele makes it very easy. But it goes beyond gender. The ukulele scene […]

I’m sure 2010 will got down in ukulele history as the year of Hey, Soul Sister (don’t even think about it: released November 2009). But I’ll be remembering the year for the diversity, skill and invention on display from the ukers. And it’s heartening to see that, despite all the mainstreamification and talk of the […]

I’ve made this quiz much easier than last year’s (and number 16 is there to ensure no one gets 0) but there are some very tricky ones in there. If you’re reading by email or feed you might want to head over to the site so you get everything. If you’re looking to waste a […]

Time for a bit of a blog break. I need a couple of weeks to focus on the book I’m writing that I’m still not allowed to talk about. I’ll be back in time for some Christmas goodies. Before I go, check out this hilarious history of the ukulele.

I’m taking a blog break for the next 3 weeks. Including an actual holiday (in Slovenia) and two weeks working on the top secret Operation Exploding Carrats. See you on the 24th.

I’m sure you’ll have read a few of those Tourist Board type potted histories of the ukulele. But they’ve always left me with tons of questions. So I decided to put those questions to someone who has looked into it properly. Jim Tranquada has just completed a book on ukulele history that he and John […]