Inside this week | Crony context

Would it detract from the appealing nature of his art if I pointed out something underneath your nose? That’s right. Daniel Van der Noon is the same DVDN who has been writing our music listings for the last four years. It kind of explains the cheeky photo caption, although that’s never stopped me in the past. 

“Cronyism,” you cry. “What do I need to do to get preferential treatment?” Well, very little. Write to us and we’ll do our best to fit you in somewhere if the event fulfils our very loose criteria. But Daniel, I think, is very worthy of the attention – it would appear that people very much enjoy looking at his art.

Of course, he isn’t the first InOuter to leave for better pastures – we tend to attract his type: talented people we can exploit for as long as we can get away with it.

The founder, Thomas Fleurquin, is of course Mr Distortion. Ben Clement, an assistant editor between 2007 and 2008, is an award-winning architecture artist. Gabriel Birnbaum, who filled that position for most of 2009, is a relatively acclaimed songwriter called Boy Without God. Even Jeffrey Hunter, another music listings writer, had his moment in the media when he offered to pay 10,000 kroner to anyone who could get him a job … okay, I’ll stop there – you won’t get my point as there wasn’t really one. 

But for some reason, I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of Eric B Duckert, who has decided to call it a day as the writer of Going Underground. In many ways, the column is a thankless task, and what I’ve discovered since launching it in 2011 is that the underground folk don’t like giving too much notice on their events. Still, it will return with a new writer in five weeks’ time – this supplement was founded as a gateway to the underground scene, and that won’t change on my watch. It’s just a shame the events are so hard to find out about. 

We on the other hand are giving you plenty of time to plan a trip to the reopening of the Red Lion on February 1; and look out for our extensive coverage of the month-long Wondercool festival in next week’s issue.

Yeah, we think ahead – that’s so uncool.