Assistant Blog

This Blog Has Moved

2010-03-08T11:00:00.002Z

As of right now, Assistant Blog has moved.

Please update your links, feeds, bookmarks.

This blog is now based at www.assistantblog.co.uk

Hope to see you all there!

notice of future changes

2010-02-26T23:01:00.003Z

Right, so I have started, very tentatively, exploring the possibility of - and preparing for - the big shift from Blogger to Wordpress. That means a change of URL, a change of look, and the mothballing of this side of the site. Terrible idea? Possibly. I've not decided definitely, but think I'm going to do it.

Any endorsements, objections, suggestions, encouragment much appreciated. Am I doing the right thing?

priorities

2010-02-23T08:58:00.000Z

nick winterton

2010-02-22T19:06:00.000Z

Over at Skuds' blog, he's made a couple of very good points about Nick Winterton MP, the Tory who blundered into a political crisis this week when he revealed that he objects to being made to travel in standard class, because they're occupied by "a totally different type of people".

Your constituents, perhaps? Anyway, this was all predictable stuff, and my immediate reaction was that it's ironic that these crass, condescending comments attracted so much ire, rather than the blunt fact that Winterton (and his awful wife, who is also a Tory MP) has been spouting objectionable, backward, bigoted crap for years. As Marina Hyde commented:

"I think quite seriously that the couple should be scientifically preserved in some way to remind people what it was like until, well, about eight months ago. A husband and wife team of such luminous repugnance, the most reasonable assumption is that the Wintertons were hatched in an al-Qaida-underwritten research facility, created with the sole aim of destroying all British trust in authority from within".

People, however, are preoccupied with a personal - rather than a political - vendetta against politicians. In the eyes of the Daily Mail reading public, for example, a fine public servant is considered a corrupt charlatan if he or she has an inaccurate expenses claim. A self-serving, arrogant and morally bankrupt MP like George Galloway, meanwhile, can boast of moral superiority by virtue of his having not submitted any expenses at all - regardless of his other (more important) transgressions.

Anyway. Winterton is clearly a vile throwback; he's voted against equalising the age of consent, in favour of Section 28 (which prohibited teachers from discussing homosexuality in their classrooms), for the reintroduction of capital punishment. All this I noted, but Skuds noticed something else, which I think is extremely insightful when considering how the average Conservative thinks.

Winterton complains:

"The people who increasingly dominate this House are people who are intelligent, but they go from school to university, university to researcher, researcher to adviser, then to candidate. They have no experience of life outside. Have they ever paid wages at the end of the week? Have they ever been through negotiations over a business deal? Have they been in the law? No."

Skuds notes:

"Very telling. Note that real-life experience is not being paid wages at the end of the week but paying somebody else. How many people do actually pay somebody else and negotiate business deals? A very small proportion I am guessing. It is another way of saying that you need to be from management to be in parliament – forget about being an ex-teacher or something like that."

A very very good point - this kind of patrician thinking has less and less to do with how modern Britain works. If you've even the slightest interest in a meritocratic society, a Tory government would be a disaster.

friends in other places

2010-02-22T13:16:00.007Z

Laura, over on her lovely Make Do And Mend blog (which always makes me feel bad for never sending her any post) has some good news; after what seemed like the end of the road for the traditional polaroid camera, the re-invigorated company are now preparing to launch a new range of cameras and a return of the classic Colour 600 film. As Laura says, here's hoping that the film is less expensive than it was last time round.

In the meantime, here's a glimpse at one of the new models. More here.

Meanwhile, I was pleased to see that I'm not the only one who looks forward to seeing Siobhan's lovely drawings - here she is being written about on a German website, in some incomprehensible foreign language. Yay. And here's one of her drawings, which I like.

Lastly, I'm really starting to miss Anne-Sophie and Rich now that they've moved out of the country. Although I like the fact that my friends are a pretty egalitarian, European lot, it's sad that this sometimes means they move away. London, Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris and Alsace have all robbed me of loved friends and drinking buddies, for which I am most resentful.

However. I am delighted that AS and Rich are blogging regularly from their new home, and recommend you bookmark their blog - I envy them having a whole new life to write about. Mine trundles on, punctuated with occasional flurries of sneezing.

Later on, as we had stopped to enjoy the quietness and the sun glaring on the snow, we heard noises coming from the bushes. A deer emerged from nowhere, only about 5 meters from us, quickly to disappear into the forest. A few seconds later, its foal passed even closer, looking absolutely terrorised: we could not believe our eyes! Suddenly a dog that had been chasing them through the trees appeared, stopped, stared at us (I got really scared it might attack us for a moment!) and finally, luckily, realised that it had lost the track of the deers and went away in the opposite direction. What a magical moment!

field music at resident records

2010-02-22T11:27:00.003Z

For my money, Sunderland's amazing Field Music remain the best band in Britain at the moment. I can't think of a better LP released in the 2000s than their 'Tones of Town' (closest competitors; PJ Harvey's 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea', Gorillaz' 'Demon Days') and their new record, 'Measure', is terrific too. The other day I wrote a preview for a local show over at the Bored of Brighton blog, where I described them thus:

Their sound is intensely musical; gorgeous North Eastern harmonies, abrupt tempo-changes and unusual time signatures, with orchestration which varies from lush and pastoral to aggressive and loose.

Not at all surprisingly, their set - they played an instore at Brighton's Resident Records - was every bit as brilliant as I thought it would be. I didn't exactly have the best position in the world, for the shop was crowded, but the following video does I hope do justice to their wonderful sound, if not their stage presence.

Here's the entire set in mp3 form. Hope no-one minds me posting these.

Field Music
live at Resident Records, Brighton
Friday 19th February, 2010
(right click and 'save target as' to download)

1. Measure
2. Them That Do Nothing
3. Pieces
4. Rockist
5. Clear Water
6. Tones of Town
7. If Only The Moon Were Up
8. Effortlessly
9. Tell Me Keep Me

If anyone from Resident, or anyone associated with Field Music, minds me sharing this, let me know.

[edited for geographical accuracy; see comments]

precious, a film by lee daniels

2010-02-21T19:36:00.003Z

I watched Precious, today, the second feature by Lee Daniels, and was very impressed, if upset, by its grim, unflinching portrayal of domestic abuse in 1980s Harlem. It’s only Daniels second film, although he is an established name in Hollywood, having produced both the excellent ‘The Woodsman’ – a hard, affecting film about a convicted paedophile – and the execrable ‘Monster’s Ball’, a condescending, unpleasant film about ‘black America’. Here, aided by some excellent casting and several terrific performances, he has crafted a film which is alternately painful to watch, surprisingly heart-warming, and very funny.

It’s the severity of the circumstances his young lead must face that resonate most strongly. Precious, an impassive, obese 16 year old who is pregnant for the second time by her own father, is played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe with real depth and significant restraint, and entirely fulfils her role in a film where appalling events are threaded routinely into the plot. The comedian Mo’Nique, who plays her mother, is even more impressive, bringing a nightmarish intensity to her portrayal of one of the most unsympathetic characters I’ve ever seen in celluloid. In addition, there is good work by a (slightly too-good-to-be-true) Paula Patten and Mariah Carey, whose hard, ambiguous social worker is central to the film’s (ultimately hopeful, despite everything) climax.

At times, particularly when Mo’Nique is inflicting shocking abuse on her screen daughter, it’s terribly hard to watch. To leaven the horror, Daniels provides a hopeful subplot which lauds the role of the state in protecting its most put-upon citizens, and it’s for the best that he does, else the film might be unwatchable. At times the contrast between these two strands seems a little unbelievable, but it is a necessary plot device. As in both Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman, however, there are some ambiguous moral lessons. In The Woodsman, vigilantism is presented in a strangely uncritical light, and in Precious it’s hard not to notice that every character who lines up to help Precious (and thankfully there are several) seem to have progressively lighter skin.

Her relationship with Patten – who plays her teacher and mentor – is touching and convincing; but at times it feels that Patten is a little too good to be true; an impeccably groomed, comfortable liberal – she seems remarkably unfrazzled for an inner city teacher. Indeed, her class – supposedly made up of Harlem’s most troubled teenagers – seems at times to resemble the kids from Fame.

This is nitpicking – there are great performances here, and it’s very difficult not to be upset, moved, and exhausted by the film. It’s a great success and Mo’Nique, for one, might feel unfairly cast aside if she doesn’t pick up an Oscar for her role. I hope that the intolerable life young Precious is handed in 80s Harlem is a historical observation, and that things are better for America’s poor today.

spoon plaudits

2010-02-19T10:47:00.002Z

According to the Guardian, today, Metacritic have trawled through all of their data (they collate reviews of music, films, games etc) and have identified Spoon as the most critically acclaimed band of the 2000s. I'm not really surprised by that - it was always going to be them, Wilco or Radiohead; consistent, worthy bands who are all loved by critics, who take adventurous steps without alienating their fanbase. And, y'know, you can't argue they're a good band. There must be songwriters, though - like Lambchop's Kurt Wagner, or Mark Everett of Eels - who look on at Britt Daniel and think, um, yeah, but I'm better. Still.

What this does mean, of course, is we have an opportunity to appreciate once again the brilliance that is Adam Buxton's video to Spoon's 'Don't Make Me a Target'. Wonderful.

encouraging for obama

2010-02-16T19:42:00.002Z

Early days, but...

the tragedy of unpreparedness

2010-02-16T10:47:00.004Z

"Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere", EM Forster wrote in Howard's End, warning against "the tragedy of preparedness". But some things must be prepared for, and it is a tragedy if they are not – they become Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns. Here's a bitter example.

From Armando Iannucci, a sorry anecdote heard in Whitehall about post-war planning.

"Donald Rumsfeld weeded out from those going to help the reconstruction of Iraq anyone who could speak Arabic, on the grounds they would be pro-Arab. As a result, it took the Americans 18 months to realise that when marines held up the flat of their hand to oncoming cars to signal them to stop, they were actually using the Iraqi hand-signal for "come forward". That's why so many families in cars were shot".

Almost too appalling to contemplate - perhaps not a war crime, but a crime of negligence.

(via Chicken Yoghurt)

cromer road school, 1984

2010-02-15T15:52:00.001Z

this cruelty called sport

2010-02-13T18:51:00.000Z

finally

2010-02-13T11:16:00.005Z

I'm back at my parents' house in Cambridgeshire this weekend, where I am normally made to feel unwelcome by their distant, rather jumpy cat, Millie. This time round, however - perhaps spurred by the poor weather, which is keeping her indoors - she seems to be have adopted a tolerant attitude to me; not scampering angrily from the room when I enter, nor leaping a foot into the air when I extend a hand towards her.

And then, finally, a sign that, ten years in, I am finally beginning to win her over.

A gift!

authorship and design

2010-02-08T17:58:00.004Z

From my experience of working in the publishing industry, it can be a mixed blessing when an author offers to lend a hand in the design of a book cover. Often, the author's ideas can act as a springboard which helps bring about a really unique, or apt, design. Equally, an author's dogmatic or unrealistic expectations can lead to many a fraught conversation. Either way, I enjoyed reading this account of Orhan Panuk's input in the design process, from the Guardian.

"Like his earlier melancholic memoirs of his Turkish childhood and youth, the front of Orhan Pamuk's latest novel, The Museum of Innocence, draws the eye with a sepia-tinted image evoking the romance of bygone Istanbul. But at the Southbank's Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Nobel-prizewinning author raised smiles with the tale of his use of technology to enhance the appeal of the cover photograph of the new book. The picture, featuring an open-top car containing three smiling women and two men, the latter with hair gelled back in 1950s fashion, was originally bought by the writer from a website he called "the Turkish eBay". There was just one problem: its backdrop was that of woodland somewhere in Turkey's interior. Pamuk explained how he had used Photoshop to resolve the issue. With a few mouse clicks, the car and its occupants were transported to the Bosphorus, the busy shipping lane running through Istanbul, complete with familiar minarets on a facing shore. Graphics wizards at Faber later introduced burn marks to the top half of the image. Pamuk also revealed that there had been worries about what the car's unknown occupants would make of their unwitting cover stardom. There was relief, however, when one of the women, pictured in a headscarf, was traced. A photo was sent to him showing her, now aged 88, happily holding the novel. Whether other authors take such a hands-on approach to the design of their book covers is unclear. However, for Pamuk, a self-described "repressed artist" who once harboured ambitions to forge a career with a brush, doing so must be particularly satisfying".

top ten films of 2009

2010-02-07T20:54:00.003Z

Observant readers will notice that I never got round to posting my 2009 lists - records of the year etc. Not quite sure why - I spent ages working out my top tens and exhausted my interest, I think. I'll dig the music list out and post it this week. In the meantime, a bit late, here are my top ten films of 2009. Thoughts in the comments box, please.

Best Films of 2009, in order.
1. An Education (UK)
Utterly charmed by this - everything from the sensitive adaptation to the casting to the period detail was exquisitely done - Carey Mulligan in the lead role acted with incredible subtlety and charm. A beautiful, fascinating film.
2. Fish Tank (UK)
Very unfortunate not to be first in the list, I thought this was terrific, too - another beautifully realised film with a captivating central performance. Here's a link to my more detailed review.
3. Let The Right One In (Sweden)
The thought of the US remake of this perfect film fills me with, well, horror - I just can't understand the decision to remake a film which is so beautiful, accessible and chilling. An unexpected, complex reworking of the Vampire myth. One of only two films in the list I've seen twice, and it impressed even further on the second view. I'd happily watch it a third time.
4. Moon (UK)
A film that really stayed with me - Sam Rockwell is perfect in the central role(s) and this is a brilliantly realised bit of unsettling science fiction. And yet another promising new director in Duncan Jones. Upsetting and brilliant. Here's my review - I got told off for including spoilers, so read with caution.
5. A Prophet (France)
Pretty much as good as everyone says it is - where this film really impressed me was in its dual portrayal of toughness and sensitivity. It has the weight of the great gangster films, with a thoughtful metaphysical component.
6. Thirst (S. Korea)
What with True Blood, Let the Right One in and the wonderful Being Human on the BBC, as well as the many other vampire franchises in operation, one would be forgiven for taking a pass on yet another film about people who bite people. But Thirst was brilliant. Totally repositioning the Priest's role in the Vampire story, this was great stuff.
7. In The Loop (UK)
Do you know, I was a touch underwhelmed by this the first time I saw it, finding it a bit less funny than I was expecting and mostly concentrating on the furious final third. But I've seen it since and thought it much better on a second viewing. A case of it's funny 'cos it's true, perhaps.
8. Star Trek (US)
So much better than it had any right to be. Mystifying middle section apart, this was awesome fun.
9. Down Terrace (UK)
Not sure if this has had a general release yet, but this very dark, low-key comedy is a gangster flick set in Brighton. Somewhere between Mike Leigh and The Sopranos, it was quite brilliant, and genuinely shocking in places.
10. Helen (UK)
Not sure if I actually enjoyed this, but I admired it for its simplicity and purity - a strange, unsatisfying meditation on identity - it's well worth a look.

Obviously there’s a bunch I didn’t see (Avatar, The White Ribbon, The Antichrist, 35 Shots of Rum) that might have made the list, but as I didn’t see ‘em...

drink and the light

2010-02-05T21:57:00.000Z

at least one thoughtful letter

2010-02-02T14:34:00.003Z

Over on the Faber & Faber blog, The Thought Fox, Faber's Editorial Director, Lee Blackstone, has penned a rather curious, slightly sweet and more than a little embarrasing open letter to Morrissey, in which he asks Moz to consider f&f as the publisher for his much-rumoured memoirs. Its high-level of obsequious fawning demands attention.

Dear Morrissey,

In the hope that you might consider bringing your much-rumoured memoir to The House of Eliot, I am posting this letter on the Faber website. Forlorn as this hope may be, I can only fantasise that at least you might read my letter through and consider the pleasures and prestige of being an author at Faber, the last great family-owned independent publishing house in the western hemisphere.

I have been trying to persuade you of the virtues and wisdom of this for some years now. You probably won’t remember. We even corresponded at one point via a friend of yours, an author of mine, most famous for his biography of Roxy Music which ends just as the band are getting together. You see, we love the perverse and the contrary at Faber. And we also like to think we are the custodians of twentieth-century Modernist poetry. In fact we are. Our shelves groan and bulge and spill over under the weight of Ezra, Larkin, Hughes and Heaney. And that’s just the surface; deep as it may seem. We feel very strongly that you belong in this company. To me (and to many of my colleagues) you are already in this company. It would be the fulfilment of my most pressing and persistent publishing dream to see that ‘ff’ sewn into the spine of your Life. Just any other publisher won’t do. You deserve Faber and the love we can give you. History demands it; destiny commands it.

Etc.

I don't really get it. Morrissey has already created his great work - the lyrics he wrote in the 1980s. If Faber really feel that his work belongs in the company of Ezra Pound and Philip Larkin, they should just ask him if they can publish his best lyrics in their poetry imprint.

adam buxton reads his press

2010-02-02T11:49:00.002Z

Well, I'd like to say that the relentless kicking which The Persuasionists has attracted from the media over recent weeks wasn't deserved, but sadly I think it probably was. Nevertheless, I still love Adam Buxton unreservedly. Here he is reading through the reviews.

janet waking

2010-02-01T15:55:00.001Z

Yikes, I've been really terrible at blogging this last week, and after such a productive first few weeks of January, too. Here's a poem to tide you over - I'll be back shortly.

Janet Waking
by John Crowe Ransom

Beautifully Janet slept
Till it was deeply morning. She woke then
And thought about her dainty-feathered hen,
To see how it had kept.

One kiss she gave her mother,
Only a small one gave she to her daddy
Who would have kissed each curl of his shining baby;
No kiss at all for her brother.

“Old Chucky, Old Chucky!” she cried,
Running on little pink feet upon the grass
To Chucky’s house, and listening. But alas,
Her Chucky had died.

It was a transmogrifying bee
Came droning down on Chucky’s old bald head
And sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled,
But how exceedingly

And purply did the knot
Swell with the venom and communicate
Its rigour! Now the poor comb stood up straight
But Chucky did not.

So there was Janet
Kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen
(Translated far beyond the daughters of men)
To rise and walk upon it.

And weeping fast as she had breath
Janet implored us, “Wake her from her sleep!”
And would not be instructed in how deep
Was the forgetful kingdom of death.

glee

2010-01-23T09:48:00.002Z

I took this photo a couple of months back in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, and didn't do anything with it. In truth it was a bit washed out and I immediately filed it as one to forget. But flicking through my photos earlier I wondered if a bit of digital manipulation might improve it - and sure enough I think it's quite a nice shot, now. It's all about the glee on the face of the little girl, I think. Feeding the ducks, of course, never becomes boring, as far as I'm concerned.

uncontrolled aggression

2010-01-22T11:05:00.000Z

Last night I was sat reading my book on my journey home, the train idling at a quiet platform - when I saw out of the corner of my eye someone running alongside the train. I heard his feet land heavily on in the carriage as he leapt through the closing doors, and then his bag land heavily on the seat opposite mine. He slumped after it, not red-faced but out of breath. He was young, handsome, in his mid-twenties, with long hair and a close-cropped, fashionable beard. The train pulled away and he began a familiar mime; patting his pockets, shifting in his seat, flipping open the lid of his canvas bag. It’s a spectacle I put on myself near enough every morning when I see the ticket-inspector approaching, wondering where I’ve put my railcard.

His movements shifted up a gear. I recognise that, too. It’s not just in a different pocket. It’s not here. I left my wallet on the bedside table, my telephone at work, my book on the bathroom floor. He began to search frantically, repeatedly, replaying the sequence as if he were a caged animal obsessively retracing a route. I fought to restrain my mouth from twitching into a smile, not because I took pleasure in his discomfort, but because I know the feeling all too well, and sympathised. Then he brought his fist down hard upon the plastic table, and swore. His bag, now thoroughly searched, turned inside-out, he flung hard into the adjacent seat. He swore again. And again. That flicker of a smile had long since disappeared and I tried to immerse myself in my book, shrinking backwards in my seat. Great.

His temper did nothing to abate. He thumped the table again, and punched his bag. He tilted his head back and let out a volley of curses. I began to wonder what he had lost. He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and held it to his ear. So, not that. A moment later, he was talking, hissing, words tumbling out. His opening conversational gambit was “I’m really fucking angry”. His wallet, I suppose, or an iPod. House keys? He kept swearing.

As he muttered on, still occasionally slamming his head back into his head-rest in frustration, I fluctuated between interest and revulsion. It was a remarkable display of petulance from a grown man. It made me think how controlled I am. Over the years I have lost a quite absurd number of vital or expensive things, from spectacles to mobile phones to expensive gadgets. I don’t recall ever doing more than closing my eyes in frustration and musing over how careless I am. I honestly don’t think this guy was far from punching a wall. Or someone else. His girlfriend, if that’s who he was talking to on the phone, must have moments when she really wonders at his capacity for aggression. I’m not saying I don’t understand temper, and possibly he’d just had the worst day of his life, but it was incredibly unappealing.

In the end I learned from his call that he was upset because, running for his train, he had pulled his ticket from his jacket pocket and unknowingly dropped a £20 note on the station platform. I got off the train ten minutes later, glad of my even temperament.

obama in trouble

2010-01-21T13:30:00.001Z

Massachusetts! Of all the states to go Republican, I would never have guessed it would be that bluest of East Coast states. Extraordinary, extraordinary and terrible. Obama has to face up to the first, catastrophic, humiliating defeat of his political life. And there goes his senate super-majority, and any hope of the Healthcare bill passing in its current form. Christ.

What does all this mean for Obama?

Firstly, it’s pretty much what I’d be calling a disaster, if the horrific events of Haiti over the last week hadn’t reminded us all exactly what a disaster looks like. Ordinarily, a defeat at this stage of the cycle (a year in to a new Presidency which has been mired, through no fault of the incumbent, in economic collapse) would not signify so very much: governments often lose by-elections, especially during recessions, and the loss of one seat may negate Obama’s super-majority (he needs 60 out of 100, rather than 51, to pass significant legislation) but the Senate still has a healthy majority of Democrats.

But the unusual, feverish world of US Politics is stranger and sadder than that. Obama may only have lost one seat, but the current Republican party is more partisan than any in recent history, and is completely, unambiguously opposed to co-operation or compromise. Once upon a time, the GOP was a broad party representing many hues of the right – but now it is a cantankerous, disciplined beast which is entirely resistant to every law, no matter how good, or how moderate, the Democrats propose. For as long as students of contemporary politics can remember, the Democrats had, in Ted Kennedy, the best deal broker in global politics. Even if he was still there, though, he’d be hard pressed to come to an agreement with a solitary Republican. They intend to bring Obama down by obstructing absolutely everything he does. Now that Scott Brown has Kennedy’s seat, they can do that. It’s a real mess.

And if the Republicans can win in Massachusetts, they can win anywhere – all of a sudden, there’s no such thing as a safe seat in US politics.

Now, clearly this is awful news for Obama. He’s going to have a real job on in confronting and turning around this deeply discouraging turn of events. But he has to do more than just negotiate his way around this vast obstacle – he has to confront his own failings and the fact that his own mistakes helped make this happen. A year in to his presidency, it’s clear that he’s tried hard, and any liberal would take his policies over those of his predecessor in a heartbeat, but errors have been made.

Firstly, I don’t think that anyone, anywhere, had any premonition of how incredibly hard the healthcare battle would prove. In retrospect, with the economy in the state it is in, it’s probably the case that he should have left it alone until the economy picked up again. That’s a bitter admission for anyone who believes that the provision of universal healthcare is a fundamental duty of government, but the last year has proved that it is so. The opposition (for this goes beyond the Republicans) has been ruthlessly efficient in attacking the plan, organising and protesting, taking in many ways their cue from the ceaseless, senseless hounding of Clinton which they perfected in the 1990s. Obama, in contrast, has been passive, slow to make his case, and too detached from the process. He has caved in too often, and not taken charge of the situation.

The real problem has not been the bill, but the process. On the one hand, the bill has been repeatedly, robustly attacked by the American right and the conservative media, to the point where fallacious speculation about its’ contents have been repeated as fact. On the other, Obama has entrusted Congress to draft a bill in precisely the same long, slow, argumentative, concession-heavy method that it always has. A year later, the bill is almost broken – universally misunderstood but no longer universal; the public option is gone and what is left, though a dramatic improvement on what has gone before, falls way short of expectation. This is not the ‘new politics’ that Obama promised. It is the old politics, done badly. Obama’s inability to influence and drive Copenhagen was cut from the same cloth. America’s new President promised change. The change from Republican policy is to be warmly welcomed, but the greater drive to change the political process, and to change American society, has stalled.

So, what he does do? Try to push the healthcare bill through in some further weakened form? Scrap it and start from scratch? Scrap it and forget it?

Well – America isn’t Haiti and this isn’t, yet, a disaster. Worse politicians than Obama have survived blows more damaging than this, and he has plenty of time to prove that his prescription for America is worth taking. But he has to respond to this quickly – prove that he can keep going when a blow is landed and swiftly adapt his game. If the healthcare bill is dead, it may even be a good thing – the bill as it was was looking cancerous, something that might infect everything he did from this point on, and to have lanced it now may ultimately work in his favour. What he needs to do is affirm his priorities (it’s the economy, stupid), get on track, then come back and find a way to fix healthcare afresh. That means bringing to the table a bill which the American people understand – healthcare reform is an argument he can yet win. But right now he needs to be quicker, clearer and more direct on the issues that the electorate care about.

He’s down but a long way from being out. The next few months might define this Presidency.

working from home

2010-01-21T10:20:00.003Z

Read more of Siobhán's ace comics here.

introducing the sarcmark

2010-01-21T10:08:00.001Z

Brilliant. Read on.

gorillaz, stylo review

2010-01-20T22:37:00.003Z

If you've not heard it yet, 'Stylo', the new single by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's subversive, always-interesting pop project, Gorillaz, is all over the internet today, and you owe it to yourself to track it down forthwith. Whisperings about the forthcoming LP, 'Plastic Beach', imply it will be a typically dynamic, eclectic affair, boasting guest spots from Snoop Dogg, Mark E Smith, Lou Reed and many many more.

Albarn has dropped some interesting clues about where Gorillaz is headed over recent months, hinting that his new songs have roots in his abandoned stage project 'Carousel', and that the Blur gigs in the summer persuaded him to revisit his vocals for the LP and abandon his recent usage of guide vocals, preferring instead to sing more directly. The title of the LP suggests that, lyrically, a recurring theme will be the environment, one of Albarn's current passions (he recently told Paul Morley that the two things he is most passionate about are "the effects of our waste and the healing properties of Africa").

But for all that this is interesting, the most intriguing thing about the band - apart from Hewlett's wonderful drawings and Albarn's staggering musicality - remains the dichotomy between Damon's critique of manufactured chart music and his self-evident, not at all contradictory, love of pop.

'Stylo' expresses this perfectly - built on a platform of thudding beats and a persistent, electro bass line, it may feature a stunning, deeply pretty melodic line from Damon, but it also completely lacks a conventional chorus, providing instead a terrific, unhinged hook vocal from Bobby Womack. It sounds stranger, more challenging than previous Gorillaz records.

But it is also easily the most catchy thing Damon has done in years. The bass line alone is stunningly memorable, and the jewel may be Mos Def's short, rhythmically perfect verse in the closing stages. The whole thing swaggers and shines.

It's too early, of course, to say whether it'll engage daytime radio and the general populace in the same way as previous Gorillaz singles, but for me it's superior to every single from the last two LPs with the exception of 'Dare'. And if it IS successful, Damon's genius will have been to have crafted a perfect, vibrant pop single which harks back to the bassy, vibrant electro of early Compass Point (think Grace Jones or Tom Tom Club) and the euphoria of late 80s house music, but which is in no way nostalgic, formulaic or predictable.

In short, I think it's one of the best things he's ever done. And elsewhere? There's really no one, creatively, anywhere near him.

darren hayman on spanish tv

2010-01-20T11:38:00.002Z

This is charming, although at times really hard to watch - Darren Hayman is asked a set of challenging questions live on Spanish television. It's funny to watch how a Spanish critic struggles with Darren's very English self-deprecation. There's clearly an expectation that music should be a flamboyant, romantic art, and an supposition that Darren will be able to talk fluently about it in that light. He does his best, but his face is a treat when he is asked "would you say that you had been unfaithful to music, or has music made a cuckold of you?".

Great stuff.

tory education proposals

2010-01-19T12:57:00.009Z

David Cameron's comments on education, made yesterday, offer refreshing hope that there remains a slim chance that the slick, electable Tory party he manages will still slip up ahead of the next general election. It's a cliche to say it, but they remains absolutely hopeless at policy, even if they have done a creditable job in opposition (hardly difficult, given Labour's ongoing implosion). Cameron's absolutely ludicrous comments, which argued for what he himself called "brazenly elitist" changes to the education system, were perhaps the least thought-out or helpful ideas he's yet floated. That hope is, however, counterbalanced by a heavy sense of dread. This is what the Tories will be like if they win the next election.

The plan, in case you missed it, is to make teaching "the noble profession" (I thought it already was) by restricting government funding to graduates with a 2:2 or higher, and only paying off the debts of graduates from a narrow pool of "good universities". We can expect this pool to exclude all the perfectly good ex-Polytechnics in this country, many of which are - incidentally - at the forefront of scientific and technical education; a completely unnecessary measure.

There are so many things wrong with this.

Firstly, and most obviously, we have a teacher shortage in this country - it has been so for many years and to miss this point is crazy. I'm fully behind any politician, even a Tory, who places education at the centre of policy-making, but to ignore the realities of the market when launching new initiatives smacks of ignorance, high-handedness or laziness. We need more, not less, teachers - and which University they studied at is almost entirely irrelevant.

Even if you buy the premise that having attended Brighton University, or possessing a third class degree, is an impediment to becoming a decent teacher, Cameron's comments are profoundly misleading. Only a tiny proportion of graduates entering the teacher training system have a third class degree in any case; only 3.7% in 2007-8. But Cameron's comments imply otherwise, and the effect will surely have a demoralising effect on existing teachers, who must suffer yet another politician implying they are no good at their jobs. From the way Cameron launched this pathetic scheme, one might conclude that there are rafts of poor teachers with bad degrees out there. But it's rubbish - this scheme aims to redress an imbalance which doesn't exist.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the Nasuwt teaching union, has commented:

"Teaching will never generally be recognised as the high-status profession it is while politicians keep making announcements which implicitly or explicitly denigrate and cast doubt on the quality of teachers currently in service.
"Nothing is more demoralising and demotivating than constant announcements of strategies to attract the 'best' teachers. They imply that those in post are somehow sub-standard, and the bar for entry has been set too low."

As the above implies, Cameron's comments are not supported by evidence. We already have a vigorous evaluation system within both Secondary and Tertiary Education (indeed, the Labour government deserve very little credit for their relentless promotion of QAAs and the ubiquitous Offsted), but the Tories have not made use of the statistics these bodies collect. Where is the data that supports their argument? Instead, they make misleading references to other, very different, education systems which we should want to emulate. Cameron said:

"Finland, Singapore and South Korea have the most highly qualified teachers, and also some of the best education systems in the world, because they have deliberately made teaching a high prestige profession.

They are brazenly elitist – making sure only the top graduates can apply. They have turned it into the career path if you’ve got a good degree"

These comments mean nothing at all. Finland is an exceptionally strange, and self-serving, comparison to make, for Cameron is using an example of an education system which thrives for a completely different set of reasons, and reasons that Cameron's party would never endorse. He's being very selective indeed. I'll quote Unity, from the Liberal Conspiracy blog, verbatim here, if I may.

1. Finland has a wholly comprehensive education system. There are no grammar schools or other selective institutions, to speak of. Finland’s comprehensive schools are expected to take in pupils, irrespective of their personal background and the skills, abilities and aptitudes they possess on entry, and adapt to each individual pupils’ needs.

2. Teacher training courses are massively oversubscribed and, typically, accept only 10% of applicants. Studies looking at the positive outcomes generated by of the Finnish system invariably pay little or no attention to the quality of applicants for teacher training courses. What they focus on is the quality of Finnish teachers on leaving university to enter the education system.

3. All Finnish teachers are required to complete a Master’s degree in either education or a teaching-related subject and all are treated as pedagogical experts.

4. On taking up a teaching post, Finnish teachers are afforded a significantly greater degree of latitude and pedagogical autonomy than their counterparts in the UK.

5. Finnish teachers are expected to teach and, for the most part, are left alone to get on with the job of teaching with little or no outside interference from the state, politicians or even parents.

6. Finland does have a national curriculum, but unlike the UK, their curriculum covers only the general subject matter to be taught, not how it should be taught or how long should be spent on each topic, and teachers have a considerable say over the content of the curriculum.

7. The Finnish system does not make use of national tests or examinations – teachers are trusted to assess pupils’ performance throughout the system based on the individual student’s classwork, projects, portfolios and teacher-generated examinations.

8. Finland does not make use of school league tables, nor could it given the lack of national tests and examinations. School outcomes are measured, but only using data drawn from sample-based surveys and this is only published at system level

9. School exclusions are also unheard of in Finland because they’re not permitted by law – once a pupil enters a school, it’s the school’s responsibility to educate that child whether they (the school) likes it or not.

10. As you might imagine, in a system of that kind, non-teachers (i.e. school governors and local education authorities) have far less authority over schools than is the case in any other OECD country.

I don't mean in highlighting all this to imply that the Finnish system is perfect, but the above self-evidently is illustrative of an education system which resembles ours in name only. For Cameron to suggest that the high standards of Finnish education could be replicated in the UK purely by virtue of restricting the pool from which we draw teachers is downright ludicrous.

If we're agreed that right now, less than 5% of new teachers have third class degrees, are we prepared to conclude that this sub-5%-category are the worst teachers? Only Offsted - or the teachers' own pupils and colleagues - can tell us that, but I'd be surprised if anyone was happy with that assumption. The Guardian, here, gives one example of a highly-rated teacher who would be excluded under the Tory proposals - I'm sure there are plenty more.

Academic rigour is plainly not the key characteristic required of an educator. Perhaps it is at Eton, where class sizes are small and disruptive elements long since factored out of the equation, but at a normal secondary school, with a wide range of students, enthusiasm, patience, clarity and empathy are the most important things. I couldn't tell you, in retrospect, whether the teachers at my school were intellectual powerhouses, but I can tell you this: the majority of them were good, motivated, lively educators who understood children.

Francis Gilbert is excellent on this in today's Guardian:

"If you don't have the right personality, you'll suffer in the bearpit of today's classrooms. In my experience, there are four types of teacher who are effective: the despot, the carer, the charmer, and the rebel. And none of them, in my experience, requires an upper-class degree.

[...] But the crucial point here is that none of these teachers learned their skills by getting a good degree: they learned them on the job. All could improve by watching other good teachers in the classroom and learning from their techniques."

Do we only want educators who breezed through the academic system, often propped up in some respect by pro-active parents, financial security and/or private education? Or do we want teachers who understand the difficulties that many children face, from struggling with complicated concepts to lacking motivation.

A teacher who has, in his or her life, sometimes struggled with academic success is someone that can be a considerable asset - a role model and a friend to students who need guidance. Indeed, we must also consider that the academic heights reached by a 21 year old are of comparatively little significance when the average age of students training as teachers "is mid twenties to early thirties", and so much life experience can be brought to bear in such a role.

There are, in fact, already two people who are excellently equipped to decide whether people will be suitable teachers - the PGCE course supervisor who recruits would-be teachers, and the headmaster who ultimately (if they qualify) will employ them. Let's leave these experts to make their informed decisions, and concentrate on more pressing issues, such as funding, class-sizes and (loosening the Government's stranglehold on) curriculum.

The idea that Cameron's comments - and education strategy - will encourage the growth of teaching as a 'noble profession' is plainly absurd. But it's more disturbing than that, because it suggests that the Conservative Party has not learned any of the lessons one might hope they had from watching Labour's management of education over the last 13 years. There are a great many things that might be improved upon by a new government, but the evidence suggests that the same old prejudices preoccupy the Tories. How long before the conversation moves away from "elite teachers" to "elite pupils", and we see the return of grammar schools?

At the end of Gilbert's excellent article - which is worth reading in its entirety - he concludes thus:

"Instead of demoralising teachers with his ill-informed comments about what makes a good teacher, Cameron should commit himself to putting proper money and time into training the existing teachers in the system. Instead of paying for the training of a "brazen elite" of graduates, he should improve the wages of all teachers so that we are all treated like an "elite". His current policy, if implemented, won't improve the standards of teaching, and will instead further dishearten an already deflated profession".

I can't improve on that.

simon armitage

2010-01-18T21:40:00.003Z

When I was a teenager I used to listen religiously to Mark Radcliffe's Radio 1 show, and I remember being staggered and delighted that he regularly found time to include poetry in his format, and wish I still had all the tapes I used to make of Simon Armitage reading his own, and others' poetry. I vividly remember an occasion where he read the poems of Charles Simic, and think it was a real turning point in my developing love of literature.

Here's Simon Armitage reading 'Snow Joke' back in 1991. If anyone knows of an audio archive of his poetry, please do let me know.

december

2010-01-18T16:53:00.005Z

Loping carefully down snow-covered pavements; watching My Sad Captains play a set of melodic, fine tuned indie rock; playing with my friend Claire's cat; watching the trains negotiate through the bad weather; Curly Hair live at the Freebutt, everything perfumed with Xmas; constructing stop animations from the window at work; watching adults and children throw snowballs; gasping at the lovely, sonorous sound of Foxes! live; admiring cat-leaps on Boxing Day; talking shit at parties; lunch with my friends; housebound in Brighton; surrounded by my favourite people; watching the new year land.

This was my December.

Thanks to Claire for the idea!

cats (and their dykes)

2010-01-18T10:00:00.002Z

Spotted while out shopping in Kemp Town this weekend; marvellous.

the consolation of town planning

2010-01-17T11:28:00.002Z

Sometimes a whimsical observation you read stays with you for days; this was the case with one of Wendy's recent posts over at her Wendy House blog. It was only a light-hearted quip on her part, but it struck me as the kind of playful, sudden thought that shouldn't be mistaken for a hackneyed one. I've heard the phrase 'relief road' a million times, but somehow never quite noticed it's charming quality. Wendy writes:

Here in the UK we have roads who’s whole purpose is to provide relief, relief Roads.

The pleasingly named Rose Kiln Lane is a Berkshire relief road. Roads that provide relief. A very pleasing idea.

Having a stressful day at work? Then visit Rose Kiln Lane to find relief.

Nothing more to it than that. But the phrase has stayed with me. If only the government really did build infrastructure designed solely to console.

Incidentally, I just bought Anna Minton's 'Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty First Century City', which I think will be an interesting read, and I hope to blog about it in the future. The Guardian review of the book, which alerted me to its existence, begins:

The important thing about a castle is not that it is comfortable, but that it is secure, which makes the Englishman's proverbial urge to live in one rather bleak. Against whom are we fortifying our homes, if not one another? We pretend that our property obsession is a lifestyle choice, but it could just be misanthropy: worshipping the private retreat out of distaste for being in public. If so, the problem stems from bad policy as much as national character. The British approach to managing urban space is utterly wrong, according to Anna Minton in Ground Control. Successive governments have conspired, Minton argues, to create environments that make people suspicious of one another. That makes them miserable. We are one of the saddest, loneliest peoples of Europe.

Sounds like it might be fascinating.

running from camera

2010-01-17T10:47:00.000Z

A nice little link from the ever reliable GromBlog; this is the Running From Camera blog.

"The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can."

(via)

currently listening

2010-01-15T07:01:00.001Z

My listening habits for the first couple of weeks of this new decade are, frankly, more 1975 than 2010, but never mind. Here's what I've been listening to recently.

1. Townes Van Zandt, Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas LP. Van Zandt may have been, in his doctor's words, "an acute manic-depressive who has made minimal adjustments to life", but it's the conventionality of his music that I love rather than its idiosyncrasy. On the face of it, he's an orthodox singer-songwriter in the country-folk mould. But his records have a wonderful mixture of gravity and humour. Wildly unappreciated, but I think this recording of a live set from 1977 is his very best record, and worth treasuring.
2. Big Star, 'The India Song'. As an Andy Hummel contribution, this is probably one of the least lauded Big Star numbers, but I think it's beautiful - Big Star were ace.
2. Gillian Welch, 'Elvis Presley Blues' (from her Time (The Revelator) LP). This is the song that launched me on this week's retro direction - a lovely, idiosyncratic bit of Americana I first heard on Jarvis Cocker's new 6 Music show.
4. Bobbie Gentry, Touch 'Em With Love LP. I was inspired to dig back to this late 70s country/soul hybrid courtesy of the lovely Beth Jeans Houghton, whose inspired folk reminds me much more of this than anything made in the 2000s.
5. Mary Hampton, 'Honey' (from her My Mother's Children LP). Creepy, quiet, Brighton folk. I saw Mary live a couple of months ago and she played a song to the percussive sound of the audience rattling their housekeys. Awesome.
6. The Dream Syndicate, The Days of Wine and Roses LP . Apparently this lot were part of LA's 'Paisley Underground' in the early 80s. That sounds awful, but the song is lovely, prefiguring the notion that one day Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck would hitch up and work together.
7. The Mantles, The Mantles LP - this is great stuff, just really simple, reverb-drenched indie, garage-formed psych. Good stuff.
8. Pérotin, Beata Viscera - caught a snippet of this amazing Gregorian choral music in Terence Davies' marvellous 'Of Time and The City' and had to seek it out. Beguiling stuff.
9. Lucinda Williams, 'Maria' (from the Happy Woman Blues LP). I know, more country-rock. But listen to it; it's gorgeous - "damn the pain and damn those restless days".
10. Younghusband, 'Younghusband Says Relax'. Still can't stop listening to this wonderful, post Lemonheads/Teenage Fanclub indie. My favourite single from 2009, by miles. A real slacker anthem, too - "Don't feel sad / I do / and I'm guilty of an anxiety relax".

OK, and I'm going to try to do Spotify playlists when I do this in future. Here we go then. Click to open:
Spotify playlist for my current listening, Jan 15th 2010.

I promise next week I'll listen to some hip hop or something.

money makes the world go round

2010-01-14T16:01:00.000Z

Strange going ons in the world of football. For those of you who have no interest; you're missing out - this is a peculiar and interesting season for a number of reasons - the big clubs are struggling, the smaller clubs are contracting and expanding, playing rich, rewarding football on the one hand and spitting out managers on the other. Adapting to face new commercial realities, and creaking under the weight of the grim hold that capitalism exerts on the game.

And old certainties are no longer quite so certain - I can no longer find it in myself to hate Sol Campbell for leaving Spurs all those years ago, for example, and I find myself inwardly applauding the dreadful Joey Barton for claiming that footballers 'are knobs' on Radio 4, of all places. Grand old clubs like Man City, Portsmouth and Notts County, meanwhile, have futures which are suddenly, truly, completely unknowable. Glory or bankruptcy.

This isn't the prelude to a review of the year in football or anything; just a few notes before I sling off a couple of interesting links I've encountered in the last few weeks. The first concerns the afore-mentioned Portsmouth, for whom every moment seems a drawn-out agony, for all that (actually) they have an OK team, who play nice football. Their problem is not that they look dead-certs for relegation (actually, that's the least of their problems) but rather that they tried to compete with the big teams financially and messed it up, before taking the hand of the first person who promised to clear up the mess without checking him out properly first.

If anyone wants to formulate an argument about capitalism ruining football, they should board the train to Fratton. Jamie Jackson, writing for the Guardian, delivers a damning indictment of Portsmouth's profligacy.

John Utaka was Portsmouth's record signing when he joined from Rennes in July 2007 for £7m. In two and a half years, he has become their record waste of money.
Utaka has started 31 Premier League games and scored seven times in all competitions. Since claiming five of those goals in his opening season the Nigerian's form has declined disappointingly. This season his highlight was scoring against Hereford United in the Carling Cup five months ago. Despite Portsmouth's well-documented problems – Avram Grant has only 17 outfield players, and is operating under a transfer embargo – Utaka has started only twice in the league, back in August. Not only was Utaka rejected by Nigeria for the Africa Cup of Nations that starts tonight, he did not even get into the 32-man preliminary squad.
Portsmouth are debt-ridden and threatened with administration. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs served a winding-up petition on the club just before Christmas, and Portsmouth cannot find the £10m required to lift the transfer embargo. Utaka, meanwhile, continues to enjoy the rewards of his four-year contract on a barely credible £80,000 a week. If he stays to the end of his term, the total cost to Portsmouth will be about £23m. That would be enough to secure their immediate future.

If that tale of excess isn't enough to momentarily divert you from the small pyre of wicker bankers which you are absent mindedly building at your desk, a slightly more jolly tale from Manchester, where at Man City, meanwhile, things could not be more rosy since they shacked up with their own - somewhat more credible - Saudi sugar-daddy, and made the decision to sack Mark Hughes.

Football being football, they elected to do so in an entirely dishonourable fashion, and earned the condemnation of many in the game for their methods, but, football being football, they've won every game since (under the stewardship of the handsome Roberto Mancini), so everyone has forgiven them. Except for Mark Hughes, presumably.

Even I've fallen under the spell of Mancini. He's just so sophisticated. Look, here he is bemoaning the food culture at his new club. He wants the players to eat better before they run out onto the pitch.

"I will calmly make corrections to what they eat before matches," City's manager told the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport. "You need more chicken, pizza, carbohydrates. As well as a glass of wine, which isn't being served."

Brilliant! He wants his players to eat pizza and drink alcohol before they play!!! I love this man. When his time comes, I hope his petty, fickle, nouveau-riche employers treat him better than he did his predecessor.

And, more importantly, last night's game between Liverpool and Reading was just fantastic, fantastic stuff - a genuinely deserving smaller team, a huge team in a state of crisis, and a great finale. Here's Dan, rather pleased with Reading's performance.

obsessive

2010-01-14T14:26:00.002Z

I've lost my copy of 'Money' - how did that happen? Looked everywhere for it. Bah.

Now that I am proper adult, and only occasionally a sulky teen, I can say it. Some of the above books are not very good. Ten years ago, I'd have sooner shaved my head than admit it.

and still the snow

2010-01-13T12:21:00.000Z

hobbited

2010-01-12T11:05:00.004Z

I don't really get the whole Lord of The Rings thing, personally - what little affection I have it for it springs from childhood memories of listening to The Hobbit on cassette (although I never got through it), and the animated film from 1978, which scared me senseless when I was young. The Peter Jackson remakes were OK; involving and exciting in parts but desperately over-long and ever so reverential.

But! I am enjoying Natalie Podrazik's Hobbited Blog more than I can say. Natalie is, unbelievably, just about the last person on Earth who knows nothing about Lord of The Rings, and is thus blogging her first encounter with Bilbo Baggins et al from a position of complete innocence. Her bewilderment and good humour make this an essential winter read. I hope she sticks with it longer than I did those blasted audiotapes.

Here she is getting frustrated with Gandalf.

First of all, Gandalf leads his trusted peers to the woods and proclaims that he's not going in there with "you people". He YP'd them! His own crew!

"It is no use arguing. I have, as I told you, some pressing business away south; and I am already late through bothering with you people. We may meet again before all is over, and then again of course we may not."
Who called this mission to order? Gandalf. And he's ditching the crew. Sup with that? What about wolves? What about trolls or goblins? He took the wicked swords AND the horse from bear-man and made everyone else return their ponies, and now he wants them all to march into a deep dark forest and maybe he'll see them on the other side. Can they walk around? Yeah, but its hundreds of miles, Gandalf says. Hmmm, how does that phrase go, again? "F*** you. No smiley." I think that's it.

By the way, just remembered that I had two goldfish called Bilbo and Baggins when I was a kid. Over the years, however, their names evolved into, er, Fish 1 and Fish 2. There's another example of me not giving Tolkein due reverence. Fish 1 lived longest but then developed some kind of weird growth and got all listless. Those were dark days.

jonathan ross and mark kermode

2010-01-08T11:49:00.003Z

Do I care that Jonathan Ross is leaving the BBC? Well, of course not, given that I hardly ever watched or listened to his programmes, but I mind a little in the sense that the baying, myopic tabloids which made such a prolonged and nauseous protest against him have been handed their victory.

I actually think that Ross is a very talented and likable presenter - although by no means flawless - and he has been treated very shabbily by the BBC over the last couple of years. He should have walked when they made him pre-record his radio show.

Either way, his parting does create one point of interest - and that is whether the BBC will appoint the one obvious, deeply intelligent, stand-out candidate to replace him on Film 2010 or, well, or someone that isn't Mark Kermode. He would be a fabulous appointment - he's already responsible for one of the best podcasts, if not the the best, that the BBC make, and would, I suspect, immediately transform BBC1's flagship film programme from something I never watch, to one of the best programmes on TV. I hope they do it.

snow day redux

2010-01-06T11:19:00.002Z

Still more snow in the UK and, after a quiet day yesterday, Brighton is finally getting its share; we had a dusting last night which was swiftly diluted by the rain, but this morning the snow is falling thick and fast and settling sloppily on the roads. I find watching the snowdrops from my high window utterly transfixing.

Went out for a quick trot around the park earlier, glad that I chose to invest in a pair of proper waterproof boots, and took a couple of photos. Now I'm back at my desk sorting through work chores and waiting anxiously for the moment when I feel I've done enough to allow myself the reward of dashing out to build a snowman.

sunset over my office

2010-01-04T16:49:00.000Z

the architecture of dreams

2010-01-04T16:16:00.002Z

I've never been inclined to analyse dreams, or read too much into them. There are people, I know, who think they have great significance, that they are the key to unlocking great mysteries of the mind, or that they have a strange, totemic significance for the future. I don't think any of those things, nor do I spend much energy thinking of them. Most of my dreams are vivid, realistic, meandering, and easily forgotten; often within moments of waking.

A dream, for me, has no significance but as an insight into the odd physicality of the mind - I like to think of dreams as surges of leftover creativity and power. A light-bulb doesn't go cold the moment one turns it off, and nor does the mind. Once we drift into sleep I like to think of our brains throbbing on, unharnessed, no longer dictated by logic, until the detritus of the day is worked through.

What I do find amazingly interesting about dreams, above all else, is the incredibly lucid architecture they summon up. Take the dream I remember from last night:

It was set on the grounds of a University campus. It started in the canteen, where I was eating. From there, I moved through to a foyer and entered a newsagent, where I flicked through magazines and through a box of second-hand books which were on sale. I picked up a bundle of four books, which were banded together, because they were all academic studies of the band Bloc Party (of whom, incidentally, I'm not a fan, so I don't know where I dredged that up from). I then walked out to the open air and boarded a bus, heading off campus. I sat upstairs. A girl noticed my books and asked what they were.

Nothing there is interesting or insightful, but when I awoke, I awoke with an incredibly keen memory of the landscape I created. As an editor of academic books, I spend a lot of time on university campuses, so their layouts are familiar to me. I could have picked any one of thirty or forty campuses I know well in which to set my scenario. But all day I've been remembering, visualising the architecture of my dream-memory and I am sure of two things. Firstly, it was incredibly real (although it is a memory shot from a single angle, as if cinema), and secondly, it was a landscape of my own design. Bits of pieces of it no doubt constructed from real memories, but the overall picture was original. A place I've never been to, and to which I can never return.

I'm just flabbergasted, when I think of it, at the fact that when we dream we are able to imagine with such incredible, complex detail. I could draw a map of the dream and it would - and this is the depressing bit - probably represent the most concerted bit of creative imagining I've performed, awake or asleep, in 2010 so far.

How weird, and how exciting,

last.fm yearly roundup

2010-01-02T15:54:00.003Z

Last.fm monitors most of my listening habits, being plugged in as it is to my ipod, my iphone, to iTunes and to Spotify, so it only falls down when it has a hissy fit or else I'm listening to the radio or to vinyl. Like a lot of these services which track your habits, it's faintly dispiriting when you use it to look back at your tastes. The following list is my most listened to artists of 2009 - some are surprising, some are blindingly obvious. Can't help wishing the list was a bit more esoteric or interesting, but there you are.

1. Blur, 307 plays
2. Emmy the Great, 195 plays
3. The Wave Pictures, 153 plays
4. Field Music, 127 plays
5. Noah and the Whale, 126 plays
6. Bat for Lashes, 114 plays
7. Blue Roses, 112 plays
8. Edward Williams, 103 plays
9. Simone White, 84 plays
10. Graham Coxon, 81 plays
11. Pavement, 79 plays
12. Peggy Sue, 75 plays
13. The Zombies, 74 plays
14. Julie Doiron, 72 plays
15. Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, 68 plays.

once in a blue moon

2010-01-01T22:00:00.001Z

Last night was notable not just for being the start of a new decade, but also because it offered a rare opportunity to see a blue moon; the rare sighting of a 13th full moon in a calender year. Doesn't happen often, and, while it's no different to any other full moon, it somehow felt like a priviliged, mystical moment to be eyeing it as I walked home from Dan's party at four in the morning.

To all reading who I've not spoken to in person over the last 24 hours - Happy New Year.

dogs in snow

2010-01-01T07:38:00.000Z

I often link to The Grey Area, but usually neglect to mention that one of the main reasons I read it is because it features, alongside lots of interesting links and hugely acerbic commentary, some extremely beautiful photographs, as often as not focused on the author's two dogs, Little Mouse and Alfie. They're normally wonderfully sharp and focused; but I like this less clear shot just as much.

Click here to see the original post.

fun with string

2009-12-31T07:14:00.000Z

(via)

my nineties

2009-12-30T20:20:00.003Z

Was I alive in the early 1990s? I'm sure I was, but I'm watching one of those TV shows about the decade, and a bit mystified at how out of step I apparently was. The show is 'Electric Dreams', where a family are stripped of their modern technology and then given the appropriate tools for each decade, getting the technology of a new year for each new day.

So far, we're up to something like 1994, and my record so far is pretty poor. We've been introudced to:

Sonic The Hedgehog (I've never played Sonic The Hedgehog)
Super Mario (I've never played Super Mario)
Nintendo Gameboys (I never had a Nintendo Gameboy)
Satellite TV (I never had satellite TV)
Pagers (I never had a pager)
Mortal Combat (I've never played Mortal Combat)

My nineties were very different indeed - can't see this program getting much more accurate for my experience. I didn't use the internet until 1996, or have a mobile until 1999. Oh dear.

changing opinions

2009-12-30T09:44:00.009Z

Julie Bindel is easy to admire - a courageous, dogged fighter for women's rights and relentless campaigner against men who abuse women - but rather hard to like. The Guardian has been running a series of columns recently which describe the things its respective authors have changed their mind over during the 2000s. Bindel's contribution reveals that she, over the last decade, has learned that it's possible to be friends with men. It's really rather shocking that this realisation has come so late, and while I'm glad for her, it's hard not to wonder if the problem is not that, as she suggests, men are intimidated by her sexual politics, but rather that she's not a very friendly person. Towards the end of the article she reveals that she's even had a male friend over for dinner, as if this represents incredible progress. It's a world-view I don't recognise.

As often happens, she gets a bit of a kicking in the comments, which probably just confirms her distrustful attitude towards men. Nevertheless, the following comment made me laugh out loud.

strange curations

2009-12-30T08:02:00.000Z

This blog - Stevie's Curiosity Cabinet - is the kind of thing that I love about blogging - the way that 'content' is democratized to the extent that esoteric interests can be published freely and accessed with as much ease as mainstream ones. If I'd never have stumbled onto Stevie's blog, I would never have needed to know about ANYTHING he writes about. But as it is, his posts regularly have me sitting up, interested, alert. Here he is on Dolly Parton.

Possibly the best known of all Dolly's compositions, Jolene is the lead track on a seven-inch maxi-single (RCA Victor RCA 2675) which was her breakthrough hit in the British market in 1976, reaching number seven in June of that year. Whilst there's nothing remotely unusual about this disc in itself, either musically or as an object (unless one views the value-for-money three-track maxi as a curious product of the 'seventies, like Dynaflex, say), it merits inclusion in this journal because of how Dolly was manipulated by John Oswald (link : http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/oswald_john/mystery_tapes/x1_version/ - it's number 13).

"Dolly Parton gets a sex change by slowing down the speed of one of her singles...", wrote Andrew Jones in his book Plunderphonics, 'Pataphysics + Pop Mechanics, which includes this quote from Oswald : "Although the idea of slowing down Dolly Parton was my idea, two separate Dolly Parton fans told me on two separate occasions that I should listen to Dolly Parton 45s at 33 RPM, because she sounded really great at that speed. And it's true."

From http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xnotes.html: "Pretender (based on 'The Great Pretender' written by Buck Ram) features the opportunity for a dramatic gender change, suggesting a hypothesis concerning the singer, Ms.Parton, perhaps worthy of headlines in the National Enquirer. The first inklings of this story came from fans of Ms.Parton's earlier hit single 'Jolene'. As many consumers have inadvertently discovered, especially since the reemergence of 12' 45rpm records of which this present disc is a peculiar subset, it is not uncommon to find oneself playing 45rpm sides at the LP standard speed of 331/3. In this transposed tempo 'Jolene' reveals the singer to be a handsome tenor. Additional layers of homosexual longing, convoluted ménages à trois and double identities are revealed in a vortex of androgyny as one switches, verse to verse, between the two standard playback speeds."

Whilst to my ears the backing music does work extremely well, the reduced pace darkening the mood of the track wonderfully, I'm not sure I'm totally convinced that Dolly's voice resembles that of a male when heard at twelve revs fewer per minute - but if disbelief can be suspended briefly, one gets a whole new intriguing perspective on her lyric : a man worrying about losing his man to the song's female subject; the vulnerability of a male capable of being moved to tears by the potential situation.

Fantastic, odd, stuff.

craigie aitchison

2009-12-29T22:30:00.004Z

Oh, I always miss news at Christmas - too focused on all the adornments of the festive season to trawl through the paper, and days behind as a consequence. Just flicked through the papers and seen that Craigie Aitchison has died. Now, when I was first beginning to express an interest in art, but struggling to really work out what I liked (as opposed to what I thought I should like), some of Aitchison's paintings were amongst the first to really get through to me. So I'm sad about this. Here's some examples of his work - and here's the Guardian obituary.

dealing with camera loss

2009-12-29T12:34:00.005Z

This is quite sweet - a pictorial guide to avoiding camera loss. Really not a bad idea at all. Thinking back, given the many things I've mislaid over the years, I don't think I've lost a camera yet. Give it time.

eccentricity and spotify

2009-12-29T11:18:00.000Z

I've been playing with Spotify a lot more recently, and naturally it's a dazzling tool - it's clearly going to revolutionise how we listen to music. As I get to grips with it, I've started playing with playlists - so here is one of my first attempts - a big, messy, odds and sods concoction.

It's drawn largely from releases on Trunk, Finders Keepers and Honest Jons, so what we have is (deep breath): Kids TV music (Clangers, Ivor The Engine), weird library music, found sounds, Sci-Fi soundtracks, eccentric funk interpretations of Christian hymns, unsettling Satanic folk music, Free Jazz & 1920s Afro 78s. The goal is basically ti cover all bases from 'The Wicker Man' to 'Bagpuss' through to Hammer Horror.

Odd things, basically. Here you go:
http://open.spotify.com/user/jonathas/playlist/4I4Ff3Uc0tHEonSENRhNTY

meat after moral certainty

2009-12-28T20:59:00.003Z

Sitting having breakfast in Billie's Cafe in Brighton this morning, Alba, Lyndsey, Dan, and I discussed foods that we can't - or rather, won't, eat. I was a horribly fussy eater as a child, forcing my poor mother to serve me up all sorts of deeply indulgent dinners as a way of encouraging me to eat. Like a lot of kids, the number of foodstuffs I rolled my eyes at was embarrassingly great - eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes etc. The one constant component of my diet was always meat, although I'm proud to say that I have eliminated practically all of my food-phobias in adulthood. There's pretty much nothing I won't eat now, with the exception of grapefruit (I know, weird). I like just about everything, including things I would have had a cheerful tantrum over when I was a kid - brussel sprouts, frog's legs, olives, avocados. I still eat an awful lot of meat though - too much to make ever becoming a vegetarian absolutely unthinkable.

Still - this article, by Neel Mukherjee, is pretty much beyond reproach. He's absolutely right to say that the intellectual and moral argument over the eating of meat is settled, and that vegetarians are on the right side of the debate. That I can admit this and at the same time admit that I'm still not tempted to abandon meat is evidence, I guess, of a certain moral cowardice. But it's tempered by the suspicion that attempting to live one's life by virtue of rational, intellectual moral arguments alone is ultimately fruitless; a never-ending quest. There will be many painful decisions still to be made once animal welfare issues are resolved.

And anyway, I'm much too thin as it is, so I need the sustenance. So there.

Back to the article - it's hardly an in-depth study of the subject, but I like Neel's candour, and his own admission of inadequacy at the end. Worth reading.

"To understand intellectually is one thing, to put it into practice quite another, a whole untraversable territory away. I still haven't been able to stop eating meat. In any restaurant, my eyes alight first, as if by an atavistic pull, on the meat dishes on the menu. In any dinner party I throw, I think of the non-vegetarian dish as central. I view this as a combination of weakness, greed and moral failure. Someone please help."

No need to help me - but I'm roasting a chicken tomorrow, so let me know if you fancy lunch.

tory

2009-12-27T17:44:00.001Z

xmas high-jinks

2009-12-26T16:58:00.001Z

Had a totally brilliant Xmas in Brighton so far; it's been great. Some random highlights:

- Managing to actually cook my contribution to the Christmas lunch well; somewhat of a surprise. Almost messed up the chicken by accidentally putting it at too high a heat, which meant it was browning with alarming speed after just twenty five minutes. Some frenzied adjustments ensured it was a success. Yay!
- Watching Lyndsey getting really angry as it became apparent that she wasn't going to win the first party game of Christmas. She settled down once it became apparent that I'd come last.
- A glorious wine and spirits contribution from Sam and Laura, which ensured that the food was never for a moment unaccompanied by fortifying alcohol.
- Singing and dancing in the small hours; sorry, Brighton, if we made an unforgivable amount of noise.
- Just being able to spend the day with my lovely friends is a real treat. Had a brill time.

Our soundtrack for the day was a Xmas CD courtesy of local label One Inch Badge - fittingly, then, the video below, which shows us tucking into Christmas lunch, comes courtesy of one of its contributors; 'Christmas Song' by The Hornblower Brothers.

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-25T10:58:00.000Z

taking heart

2009-12-16T15:15:00.005Z

This week lots of the bloggers I read regularly seem to be preoccupied with relationships, ineractions; how we get on, and why. It would be nice to report that everyone is filing success stories - but original thoughts, confidential whisperings and admissions of failure are just as welcome. Wendy is dredging up the past over at her Wendy House; I don't think she's the only person with a story like this in her past:

We laughed together at his assertion. It was one of the most honest expressions of closeness I’d heard then or since.

After two weeks of dating that involved lots of

laughter,

sleeplessness,

loud singing after dark,

passionate debating of the relative efficacies of pychological theories,

burning of incence, nicotene and canabis

He dumped me.

Easing the suprise with the phrase ‘you’re the only girl for me’ and explaining that he preferred boys. With hindsight, this explained the dearth in exchanges of bodily fluids.

20 years later. He’s still passionate, humourful, debating, smoking, prefering boys and I’m still the only girl for him. Only now there is even less excahniging of bodily fluids because the boy’s grown into a christian priest.

Over at his Potentially Eventually Funny blog, our eponymous author has been told he is a good listener. Instead of taking heart, he is coming to terms with some home truths. Honesty compels me to admit that I know exactly the instinct that he describes in this passage, and the truthfulness of it makes me feel ashamed. Still, it's good to know that I'm not the only one (and - disclaimer - it isn't all the time).

Anyway, my point is that I'm not a good listener - whether to females or males - I am simply quite good at finding something with which to agree on about their position and focusing on it. Or, alternatively, I am good at finding a positive in a situation and exploiting it to make it seem that the overall impression that the person I'm speaking to has is that 'everything is, or will be, alright'. I caught myself doing it automatically the other day. A friend (not you) started to tell me about an issue that he/she had in a work relationship the other day. Immediately I discovered that I was scouring his/her testimony for anything to alight upon as a positive or as a signal misinterpreted. I was simply looking for the most simple way of getting from A to B; from concerned / depressed / upset, to at ease / positive / happy. That is not being a good listening: at best it's prostituting my ability to rationalise interpersonal dilemmas in return for friendship, and at worst it's a technique to change the topic of conversation from something boring - other people's problems - to something interesting - my problems.

Perhaps because I've just been reading about the slow train crash which is the Copenhagen summit - a meeting beset by the failure of disperate communities to find a compromise for the greater good, Matt's observation over at his Zen Bullets Blog rings true today. Why Can't We Just Get Along, he asks?

Atoms work together to make cells. Cells work together to form organisms. Organisms work together to form societies, and societies work together to make cultures.

Getting cultures to work together seems to be the tricky one.

Agh. Yep.

mystical animals

2009-12-15T13:49:00.000Z

For reasons I don't understand, I just seem to be getting an enormous amount of spam comments at the moment - it's really annoying. If I snap and turn on the comment verification thing soon you'll have to forgive me. In the meantime, some - some - of the spam is charming enough to let slip through the net.

to be or not to be

2009-12-14T17:05:00.004Z

Perhaps I'm softening in my old age - not sure I'd have spent much time watching youtube videos of cute kids a few years ago - but this is just lovely. The actor Brian Cox coaches a 30 month year old toddler to recite Shakespeare. Extremely sweet.

the lyrical genius of luke haines

2009-12-09T23:48:00.005Z

I'm getting in a right muddle listening back to this year's records and trying to pick my favourites - increasingly I find that when I can't decide between a few LPs I end up plumping for the one with the best lyrics. Not really clear on what my top ten will be. Might have to be a top 15.

Anyway, talking of lyrics - there are some moments on Luke Haines' intermittently terrific 21st Century Man which are just sublime. I'm in raptures over 'Love Letter To London' at the moment:

"I'm not frightened, I'm no longer tired of life,
but the grass is greener in the English countryside.
A voice in the wilderness cries out from time to time,
and says "I'm off the dial, in my country pile".

Young couples with children leave the big city,
we'll not see them again.
It's just like the blitz. The countryside groans
with the stress and the strain.

So don't send us a postcard.
We like it here now that you're gone
They said that they loved you, but they used you as a playground,
when they were young".

early blur footage

2009-12-08T16:58:00.005Z

Some early footage of Blur has turned up out of nowhere - brilliant. Unfortunately the embedding is turned off for this video, but it's essential viewing anyway, so you'll just have to follow the link below. Not quite sure where it came from all of a sudden - perhaps it was uncovered during the research for the new Blur documentary - but it's amazing - this is Seymour (the band that would become Blur) playing 'Superman' in Harlow, Essex in December 1989. Twenty years ago. God.

Wish the first Blur album had sounded all fuzzy and frenetic like this - we'd have realised how wonderful they were that bit earlier...

Seymour - Superman

UPDATE: Ah, Scimmy has obliged by sticking the mp3 version on divshare - great; still - you'll probably want to watch the vid, too.

the lists descend

2009-12-08T12:12:00.005Z

What with it being both the end of the year and the end of decade, it's LISTMANIA on the internet, obviously. I've been reading lots of lists and, so far, disagreeing with lots of them. It seems to me that lots of very good albums are being overlooked in favour of a lot of pretty average ones (I'm looking at you, The Low Anthem, you, The Big Pink, and you, The Mountain Goats). But until I unveil my own list, I shan't moan too much - and I readily admit I look forward to the gnashing of teeth.

The Music Fix list isn't one I was looking out for, and sure enough it mixes the sublime (Darren Hayman's Pram Town) with a bunch of records I'd cross the road to avoid (The Airborne Toxic Event, Biffy Clyro, that surprisingly bad Florence & The Machine LP).

Anyway - one happy consequence of their list is that they've scrambled a set of mini-interviews with some of the winners, which provokes some interesting thoughts from the couple of artists on the list I'm interested in...

Luke Haines

Dear Music Fix, My heart brims with joy and seasonal good will on my inclusion in your list thingy. My heart brims with joy and seasonal good will anyway. You lot deserve my salutations because frankly I don't know how you found 40 albums of the year. Man, I can just about think of 40 albums from the last 40 years that get the old five star treatment. By the way is my 'record' in the Sounds best of the year list? Melody Maker? Who cares, I'm more of a Zig Zag man. BTW, what number am I? Actually it doesn't matter because I operate under a different numerical system to you lot. Anyway; to lists and my inclusion in them. Thank you.

For Xmas I would like a chisel.

Next year I intend to commence work on my replica scale model of the world.

Darren Hayman

Lists are infuriating, especially when you're not in them. But that's what they are there for, to encourage debate, to make people disagree. I'm not used to flattery. People say very nice things about my records and I know some people like them a lot but I don't usually find myself in end of year lists.

But I'll take a compliment! It's been a strange couple of years, the Hefner re-issues and related shows have made me aware how much my old band means to people but the honest truth is that I think I'm currently writing the best songs of my life. I tried hard to make Pram Town unusual, beautiful and intelligent. I hope I half succeeded.

I have no idea of how good I am compared to my contemporaries. I guess if you had to push me on it I would say I'm better then the guy out of Snow Patrol but not as good as Emmy the Great. If you say I wrote one of the 40 best albums of the year I'll think you're taking the piss.

But it does make me very happy.

I'm hoping for the Big Star box set in my Xmas stocking. I think I have dropped enough hints to my wife. I think I have a reasonable chance.

It looks like Pram Town may be part of a loose trilogy of albums about Essex. The second Essex Arms is another folk opera about love in the lawless countryside. We hope to have it out by the summer. There is talk of a Hefner Peel Sessions album.

Both Luke and Darren will be pleased to hear, I'm sure, that both are in the running for my top ten.

joy diversion

2009-12-08T11:17:00.011Z

(via)

the london perambulator

2009-12-06T20:19:00.005Z

A couple of weeks ago myself, Vic, Dan, Ant and Alec went down to the Sallis Benney Theatre to see the screening, as part of the Cinecity Brighton Film Festival, of John Rogers’ new film, London Perambulator, a wonderfully affectionate portrait of Nick Papadimitriou, a writer who lives in North London – in my old haunting ground of Barnet, no less - who dedicates his life to the pursuit of what he calls ‘deep topography’; what you and I might have heard described as ‘pyscho-geography’ – urban exploration through the medium of walking, enacted not through pre-researched routes but by chance and happenstance, working on the assumption that the mysteries of the landscape will be revealed through being ‘found’.

As that muddled definition implies, the practice of deep topography is an inexact thing, occupying a vague, semi-mystical space between geography, anthropology, philosophy, art and science. What Nick Papadimitriou does, essentially, is walk through the overlooked corners of cities, and writes about his experience. His preoccupation is not with finding conventional beauty, whether ancient or modern, but rather in examining the functional areas where mankind, nature, and necessity overlap. In the process of this obsession, which sees him undertaking long ruminative walks, creating a kind of philosophical mind-map of the city, he has carried out research – and acted as somewhat of a poetic muse – for the likes of Will Self and Iain Sinclair (whose own book, ‘London Orbital’, sparked my interest in this area).

Papadimitriou is self-evidently an idiosyncratic individual, pursuing with admirable single-mindedness a line of enquiry which many would dismiss as eccentric. Rogers’ film cannot help but play on this, observing its protagonist in reveries of post-industrial romanticism, waxing lyrical over water treatment plants and manhole covers, standing rapt on brownfield sites transfixed by concrete posts. As one might expect of a close confidante of Will Self, Papadimitriou is not only incredibly literate but also extremely funny. So it’s easy for the film to poke affectionate fun at him, not least because a contributor like Russell Brand – who is insightful throughout – can’t resist sending him up.

Speaking after the film – which is only 45 minutes long – Papadimitriou expressed a little wry frustration at the fact. And that is understandable; there is something innately comic about the intensity of his passion for, say, Mogdon Water Treatment Plant – but the film plays up his eccentricity without sacrificing the opportunity to include many thought provoking and poetic displays of language and thought. And the more involved with his subject matter he gets the more profoundly interesting he becomes. It’s in Middlesex, that absent county at the top of London that was folded into Hertfordshire, Surrey and Greater London but which retains a geographical presence of its own, that his most fervent interest resides, and for a period in the film I found myself transported back to the vocabulary of my youth – Barnet, Southgate, Potters Bar, Finchley, Hendon. Papadimitriou is not myopic in his interests – he has a long term plan to walk across the Ukraine – but it’s obvious where his heart resides. He tells us:

“My ambition is to hold my region in my mind… so that I am the region. So that when I die I literally do become Middlesex in some way. For me that is my highest spiritual aspiration, I will be the tarmac that you race along on the A41-T, I’ll be absorbed into the mildewed lintels hidden in overgrown knotweed by the side of the Hendon way…”

My own youth was spent mapping out this part of the world; rambling through Hadley Wood, waiting for tubes into the city at Oakwood station, tracing cycle paths through Totteridge, scrabbling over high fences to let off firecrackers behind the Sainsbury’s car-park in New Barnet. I’m not especially nostalgic for those years, but Papadimitriou’s enthusiasm is infectious. I understood him best, I think, when he stopped suddenly between two semi-detached houses in a glum suburb, and pointed out the contour of the ageless landscape through the gap; where a river once flowed. These buildings, he pointed out, could be destroyed in moments, but it would take something immense to change the shape of land which has held its form for thousands of years.

I’m not sure I fully understand to what end his infectious, limitless enthusiasm can be taken, but in his current role, mid way between philosopher and naturalist, urban historian and dreamer, it strikes me that Nick Papadimitriou is doing something terribly important – chronicling parts of the city which are all around but rarely seen; liminal, overgrown, ambiguous places where mankind has made marks on nature which we would do well not to forget. Their unsystematic, unresolved, chaotic distribution seems to have some significance when counterbalanced against our own unsystematic, unresolved, chaotic lives.

You can watch a short clip of John Rogers’ incredibly enjoyable film below, visit his website here, or download the regular podcasts (“Ventures and Adventures in Topography”) which he and Nick make for Resonance FM here. Nick’s own website, misleadingly named Middlesex County Council, and as chaotic a site as you might expect, is essential reading. Here’s the link.

http://www.middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk/

ellie goulding, roscoe (midlake cover)

2009-12-03T14:01:00.002Z

With the best will in the world, regardless of the fact that her stuff is pretty good, I'd kind of written Ellie Goulding off as superfluous; the kind of pop star we'd need if we didn't already have Bat For Lashes, and who is targeting a position in an intolerably crowded market. Well - that might well still be what I think. But I got a real surprise when I heard this, on Siobhan's recommendation - here's Ellie tackling, with very fine voice indeed, Midlake's wonderful 'Roscoe'. Vid courtesy of Dan.

nice ola podrida video

2009-11-27T17:10:00.003Z

The Texan musician David Wingo is better known as a soundtrack composer than he is a conventional songwriter - his score for the magnificent David Gordon Green film 'All The Real Girls' is worth checking out - but it's telling to see that his work under the name Ola Podrida is increasingly gathering deserved plaudits. His new record, Belly Of The Lion, is out now. Dan has braved the wintery winds of the edge of England and made the following video to accompany one of Wingo's new tunes. Aside from its matching up nicely with the music, it makes me all sentimental for Brighton. Here it is.

barnet

2009-11-27T15:49:00.000Z

filesharing misfire

2009-11-26T11:54:00.003Z

This article, published on the Guardian site today and written by Anne Wollenberg, is one of the worst discussions of filesharing I've ever come accross. That said, it's worth a read simply to discover the the extent to which it is unutterable, unreadable, gibberish. Hopefully when the day comes when publishers are forced to defend their copyright in the face of mass downloading, we’ll be more eloquent – and less fatheaded – than this.

Sample:

"Hey, how about I help myself to your car while you're on holiday. It's OK, I'm not going to deprive you of it – I'll leave it where I found it, with the same amount of petrol and everything, so that's fine, right?"

Christ. That analogy doesn't even work. Someone offers a swift correction in the comments section, thankfully, replying:

"No, but if you want to buy the raw equipment and materials to make an exact copy of my car, knock yourself out".

dark star brewery

2009-11-25T19:58:00.003Z

Good to see Brighton's own Dark Star Brewery listed in the Guardian's list of the top ten UK microbreweries. Ace. Here's what the Grauniad says:

Dark Star Brewery – Evening Star Brighton

When the Evening Star became a freehouse in 1992 the owner converted half the cellar into a microbrewery. When demand grew the brewery moved to nearby Ansty but still supplies the pub with it's golden Hophead bitter (3.8%) as well as rotating Dark Star beers. You'll also find a choice of real ciders and international bottled beers. A short hop away from Brighton Station, it's often missed by the visiting crowds heading down to the seafront. Also handy for catching the last train back to London if you're on a day trip to the coast. Look out for its one-batch-a-year Critical Mass (7.2%) Christmas ale - sure to get you singing Fairytale Of New York in the manner of Shane MacGowan himself.

• eveningstarbrighton.co.uk, 55/56 Surrey Street, Brighton, BN1 3PB, +44 (0)1273 328931.

Thirsty now.

stormy coast

2009-11-25T10:29:00.000Z

Nice little video of Brighton seafront courtesy of Dan; the South Coast is absolutely nuts, weather-wise, at the moment - sun, rain, hail, rainbows. Don't understand.

messing about

2009-11-24T23:50:00.001Z

Right, I want this on the record that the following took me exactly twenty two minutes to make - including taking the photos, putting them on my computer, animating them and processing. I say this not because I am proud of it and showing off, but because I am a bit ashamed of its simplicity. Anyway - the goal was to see if I can remember how to produce simple animations, and it's official, I can. Will have a go at doing a proper one later this week.

In the meantime... miniature drum roll...

small seagulls

2009-11-24T22:44:00.002Z

The seagulls in Brighton are so enormous - it's always funny when you see them inland and note how small they are in comparison. These were snapped in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, this weekend. Nice chaps.

someone told me a poem

2009-11-23T14:27:00.003Z

At the risk of talking about Tristram too much, Anika - whose blog, Anika in London, is well worth a read - has made this sweet video for Tristram's forthcoming single, 'Someone Told Me a Poem' - which is out on Oh Inverted World records on February 15th. A tantalising snippet from what is likely to be an awesome EP.

The video makes me want to do some animation - here, for the sake of completeness, is the one attempt at it I've ever made. Yes, very amateurish, I know. Might have another go at this sometime.

not tempted by avatar

2009-11-22T12:46:00.000Z

Over on Gawker.com, they're compiling evidence which points to the distinct possibility that James Cameron's 'Avatar' - which promises to be a revolution in film-making technology - will turn out to be a a big, queasy, sugary, 3D nightmare. Along with a few damning facts about the film, they provide a very early review from an industry insider, whose comments are wonderfully frank, culimating in the quite magnificent line, "Of course there are very beautiful moments, with great editing/sound/art direction, but overall it's a horrible piece of shit."

I had a ticket to see a preview taster of this film a couple of months back but something seemed wrong about it even then. Would be nice to be proved wrong, but I think this film is going to be really really bad.

Here's the Gawker case for the prosecution.

charlotte vere

2009-11-19T10:15:00.002Z

I'm interested - and cautiously pleased - to hear that Charlotte Vere has been chosen as Brighton Pavilion's Conservative Party candidate to fight the general election. I'm pleased not because I intend to vote for her (I'm not a Tory voter, as regular readers will know), but because she seems, on first impressions, to be a pretty decent candidate with concerns that I think will resonate with people - she's worked alongside Zac Goldsmith or environmental issues and dedicated much of her working life to dealing with mental health issues (other people's, not her own).

She helped create Big White Wall, which is an online 'suppport network for those in emotional distress', and seems in that respect to the personification of the new, cuddly Tory which we are encouraged to believe exists. On the down side, she's a Londoner rather than a local candidate - but then aren't most of us in Brighton Londoners in the first instance? It often feels that way. And perhaps she just can't take any more of Boris as mayor? We could hardly condemn her for that...

I didn't, however, attend the (not so) Open Primary, last night, where she was nominated - and so beyond a quick scan of her biography, it's hard to know where she stands on key issues. Very peculiarly, she doesn't seem to have either a blog or a website (which makes you wonder how participants in the Open Primary were supposed to have found out what she believed in), although she is on Twitter, where she seems relatively normal. If I find out what she does believe in (which probably isn't as fanciful a notion as finding out what, say, David Cameron believes in), I shall surely keep you informed via this blog.

Most interestingly, we are now in a position where we have a geniunely open election in Brighton Pavilion, between three strong female candidates. At present, I - like a lot of people I know - haven't quite figured out who I'll vote for in the Spring - so I'm hopeful there'll be an intelligent, thoughtful debate fought locally - and that the best candidate wins.

tristram; complete live set in mp3, brighton

2009-11-18T13:53:00.013Z

Although I'd never heard of him before, Tristram Bawtree, who plays his beautiful, tender folk songs as Tristram, has a Brighton connection; he studied Painting here a few years back (and his paintings, which you can find if you google him, are rather nice - abstract but detailed, mural-like), so it's appropriate that I should discover him by chance here, rather than in his native London. His songs - although the videos below are in black and white - are similarly colourful - tender, imaginative meditations fleshed out with sumptuous orchestration. The six songs he played in support of Peggy Sue at the Freebutt last month were uniformly fantastic.

On the night, he arrives on stage looking thoughtful, slightly nervous. From the first note, though, I am hooked - both by his beautiful voice and wonderful way with words. His songs are funny, critical and very intelligent. He is sardonic for someone so young (“When I hear the word culture I pull out my wallet / and peel off a banknote or two”), playful (in Zombie Holocaust he muses that "I'd only waste my life, so better I use it well / to stop the monsters, from taking my loved one”) and he is ambitious, too – Isolde, the closing track, is inspired by a Wagner opera that he has not yet seen.

Musically, there is incredible richness in his soft, delicate folk. And where he seemed a touch uncertain arriving on stage, a natural ease and confidence is quickly evident. He's able to demonstrate nimble touches that endear him to the audience (such as the arch Abba reference in Place In The Sea), and writes intelligently - only occasionally slipping up (the same song's "well, we're all going to die someday" reveals him to be a man with too many Jeff Lewis records in his collection). I'm pretty sure, however, by the end of the first song, that I'm watching the best live performance from a new band or songwriter I've encountered in 2009 - or longer.

It's clearly early days for Tristram - his debut single isn't out 'til February - but on the evidence of this short, artful set, he is absolutely brimming with promise. I await that single with baited breath.

In the meantime, here is a complete recording of the set - good enough, I think, to demonstrate just how brilliant he is - and a couple of videos made by Dan (who came away just as convinced as me that we'll be hearing lots more from him soon).

Tristram
live at The Freebutt, Brighton
Weds 4th November, 2009

(right click and 'save target as' to download)
1. Someone Told Me A Poem
2. Ballad Of A Stolen Bicycle
3. Zombie Holocaust
4. Rhyme or Reason
5. Place In The Sea
6. Isolde

Here's where you go to track down Tristram on Facebook and myspace. He's also playing a bunch of gigs over the next month or so. Not to go to at least one of them (assuming you live in, or can get to London) would be to really miss out.

Dates
17 Nov 2009 Love & Milk @ Jamboree w/Jack Cheshire, London
26 Nov 2009 @ Soapbox with Derek Meins, London
1 Dec 2009 The Allotment @ Betsy Trotwood w/Caitlin Rose, London
6 Dec 2009 Moonshine Jamboree Xmas Party @ The Slaughtered Lamb w/ Left With Pictures, Jake Bellows and more, London
15 Dec 2009 The Tamesis Dock w/Peggy Sue & Curly Hair, London

The single is out on February 15th on Oh! Inverted World records, and will feature Someone Told me a Poem, Ballad of a Stolen Bicycle, Me and James Dean and Zombie Holocaust. As soon as a link to pre-order it is available, I'll be posting it here.

Lastly, many thanks to Tristram and his lovely manager Anthony for giving me permission to post these tracks. Much appreciated. Thanks also to Brad over at Bradley's Almanac, who's been posting this sort of stuff for years and inspired me to start chronicling and posting live recordings of shows I go to. Following his lead, I recorded these songs with a (borrowed) MD player (thanks Dan) and a Sony ECM-719 mic. Hope you like them - any comments much appreciated.

darren hayman

2009-11-17T13:54:00.004Z

Just heard some awful news about Darren Hayman, who has been in a pretty serious altercation in Nottingham after he played there at the weekend. Sounds like he's just about OK, but it's an awful ordeal. Here's the full message up on the Hefner website:

Hello all,

Darren is still not allowed near his computer but I've read him all of your messages and he is completely overwhelmed and grateful for all ofyour love and best wishes. He is feeling very loved and supported.

The full story is, that he and David Shepherd were attacked and mugged whilst parking the car after Nottingham's show. Nothing to do with the gig, just wrong place at the wrong time. He was discharged from hospital last night and is now safely back in London. There should be no long
lasting damage, but he does have a linear fracture in his skull (this is the best kind apparently!) which will keep him fairly quiet for six weeks or so. He also has a head wound, a bit of bruising, and a very nasty headache. However they have prescribed a terrifying amount of pain killers to deal with this.

He has made huge improvements since the incident and I'm sure that it is only a matter of time before he wrestles this computer from me and lets you know how he's doing and what he's up to.

All we seem to have done for days is to say thank you to people for their kindness, sorry for the lack of eloquence but thank you again.

Love, Helen & Darren

Get well soon, Darren.

predictable nme

2009-11-17T10:16:00.004Z

The NME has published its 50 Greatest Albums of the 2000s. It's such a boring, predictable list. Would any of my readers care to better it? I might give this some thought over the next few days. To make things easier, shall we say Top Ten, rather than 50, in the comments box below? Alright then.

Here's the NME list
1. The Strokes - Is This It
2. The Libertines - Up The Bracket
3. Primal Scream - xtrmntr
4. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
6. PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
7. Arcade Fire - Funeral
8. Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
9. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
10. Radiohead - In Rainbows
11. At The Drive In - Relationship Of Command
12. LCD Soundsystem - The Sound Of Silver
13. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
14. Radiohead - Kid A
15. Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
16. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
17. Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
18. The White Stripes - Elephant
19. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
20. Blur - Think Tank
21. The Coral - The Coral
22. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
23. Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
24. The Libertines - The Libertines
25. Rapture - Echoes
26. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
27. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
28. Johnny Cash - Man Comes Around
29. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World
30. Elbow - Asleep In The Back
31. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
32. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
33. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
34. Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
35. Babyshambles - Down In Albion
36. Spirtualized - Let it Come Down
37. The Knife - Silent Shout
38. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
39. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
40. Ryan Adams - Gold
41. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
42. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
43. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
44. Outkast - Loveboxxx/The Love Below
45. Avalanches - Since I Left You
46. Delgados - The Great Eastern
47. Brendan Benson - Lapalco
48. Walkmen - Bows and Arrows
49. Muse - Absolution
50. MIA - Arular

obama and the wisdom, or otherwise, of crowds

2009-11-16T20:30:00.002Z

I'm interested in this piece by Michael Tomasky in today's Guardian, which looks into the incredible amount of opposition which Barack Obama faces in the US, and examines whether - or more accurately to what extent - the hostility he faces is rooted in racial prejudice.

It's a good article not only because Tomasky is even-handed and cautious about making accusations of racism (unlike, say, Glenn Beck and Rupert Murdoch) but also, mainly, because he is perceptive about the nature of crowds. He acknowledges that, person to person, many of Obama's most steadfast critics may not be racist. But having described the opposition he faces, Tomasky notes:

"This is the Obama-hating crowd. It's deeply conservative, and it's about 98% white. And the thing about crowds is that they develop a personality of their own that is not merely the sum of individual parts. A crowd is an organism that grows in its own way and tends to be led and excited by its extremes. It can mutate into being racist without many or even most of the individuals in it being so."

Good article - you can read the rest here.

leading up to tristram / folk music

2009-11-16T20:24:00.004Z

Let me preface the next music post, which will concentrate on the best young musician I’ve encountered so far this year – Tristram - with the kind of weary complaint you’ll often hear from people who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they’re old enough to know better. The complaint is this: over my years of gig going (which, actually, I’ve been chronicling over here) I’ve seen enough scenes begin and end to have got pretty good at recognising the tipping point – where the joyful originality of the first wave of performers (who might decide to take as their starting ground the work of, say, The Kinks or the Pretty Things, Black Sabbath or Talking Heads) gives way to the clumsy, plodding fare of less talented followers; the second and third wave of artists who pick up a fashionable sound but wield it clumsily, missing the dynamic that made their immediate forebears effective.

The sound which has dominated indie rock in the UK and the US for the last few years is drawn – however unlikely this might have seemed five years ago - from folk (and, to a lesser extent, country) music; from Karen Dalton and Nick Drake through to The Band and John Fahey. And we’re now at a point where it is positively de rigour for every young band to have a xylophone and a ukulele, and to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Noah and the Whale, Jeffrey Lewis and Bon Iver by creating delicate, mournful and precise folk music.

There are literally dozens of musicians who do this terribly well. Too many. Take William Fitzsimmons, a hugely talented but underappreciated American songwriter whose new album contains a set of deeply personal, overwrought marvels, run through with a sorrowful beauty every bit as rich as Bon Iver’s. Or the likes of Fanfarlo or The Leisure Society, both of whom make lovely, homespun indie-folk which, for all their skill, may not be original enough to set them apart.

Others, meanwhile, do it really badly. There are a number of Brighton-based singer-songwriters, often to be found on ostensibly decent bills, whose crass, myopic takes on Dylan’s troubadour shtick are faintly agonising to listen to – the folk music equivalent of those awful, unimaginative bands – rhyming ‘treason’ with ‘reason’ - that briefly dominated the tail end of Britpop.

And then there are charming bands consisting of mere kids, who play far better than their tender years imply, and so unselfconsciously in the style of, say, Noah and the Whale, because folk music has been de rigour for most of their teenage lives.

Had I been 16 in 2009, I would doubtless be doing the same. But I was 16 in 1993, so I played in a grunge rock band. Three years later and it would have been different.

Scenes offer tremendous appeal to young musicians and music fans; they offer a warm, welcoming safety blanket and a spirit of mutual exchange and discovery. I’ve watched scenes from a distance (shoegaze, grunge), participated half-heartedly or over-enthusiastically in others (riot grrrl, britpop), and found something to love in nearly all of them. But every single one, in the end, turns to shit. The joy of discovering new music consists largely of finding beauty in unexpected places; the moment beauty – even genuine beauty – becomes predictable, it loses some of its shine. That day always comes.

In the meantime, however, the fact that it is possible to walk from one’s flat down to a local venue and discover, completely unexpectedly, someone as warm, wonderful and winning as Tristram, is a very lovely fact indeed. So, next music post: a complete recording of his live set – worth treasuring.

jenga dog

2009-11-14T14:55:00.000Z

Possibly I have too much time on my hands.

crowns on the rats orchestra

2009-11-10T19:02:00.004Z

For those who don't yet know them, Crowns On The Rats Orchestra - an odd, enormous, complex and tuneful many-headed beast from Brighton - are one of the most interesting bands I've seen for ages. Their songs are restless, imaginative and very beautiful; kind of fidgety, eloquent and celebratory. Their live shows are crowded and chaotic - but their musicianly instincts mean that everything stays magically focused. I like them a lot - and not just because my friend Eleanor is in the band. This is one of those situations where you think you'll have to lie and say how good a show was, and then discover THAT IT REALLY WAS. Ace.

Here's a video of the band that me and Dan made. I've got some mp3s which should, I hope, follow shortly, as might another video or two. Stay tuned.

exlovers, complete live set in mp3, brighton

2009-11-04T12:02:00.015Z

I first saw Exlovers in the spring of this year, playing with Younghusband and Emmy The Great, and noted then that they were a band worth keeping an eye on. In many ways their influences evident that night - ranging from Postcard pop to shoegaze - suit my tastes exactly, but my conclusion then was ultimately cautious - they looked and sounded, I thought, a touch under-nourished, lacking authority and only sporadically hitting full throttle. I know now that I caught them early in their career, so with that in mind I went to see them at The Hope, in Brighton, a couple of weeks ago, wondering if they'd improved.

My god, they absolutely have. From the first note their sound was more forceful, evocative and compelling. The influence of My Bloody Valentine is increasingly evident, rushing through the tender, melodic pop and creating a kind of coursing, joyful reverberation, a clashing of air. I always felt that this heavily emotional, yearning sound was very physical. Displacement music. They don't (that often) create a racket, and in fact much of the set is delicate, recalling Elliot Smith (although I later find out the band are Lemonheads fans - no wonder I love them), but the way they move up the registers, gliding through different volumes, hints at an instinctiveness which masks expertise.

Pete, their singer, is charismatic, gangly and ever-so-slightly detached, simultaneously towering and effeminate - and as such inevitably draws comparisons with that other famous Peter - Doherty. Laurel, who played glockenspiel last time I saw the band, has shorn her hair and stands instrumentless for the duration, acting as a second vocalist. Men seem to find it hard to drag their gaze away from her and back to her bandmates. All of whom, meanwhile, give a whole-hearted, animated showing - their lead guitarist taking every opportunity to hook his guitar sideways and reach down for a mouthful of beer. It's a well-judged, noisy, beautiful set - and I'm very glad to say that I took the opportunity to record it.

What follows, then, is a complete live recording of the band's performance. Right click and 'save target as' to save each song individually, or click here to download a zipped up folder of all eight tracks (which saves me bandwidth, so it's the preferred option - but it's up to you).

Eagle-eyed readers will spot there's a songs I don't know the name of. If you can help me fill in the blank it'd be much appreciated.

Exlovers
live at the Hope, Brighton
24th October 2009

1. A Moment That Keeps Repeating
2. Photobooth
3. You Forget So Easily
4. In The Woods With The Werewolf
5. Just A Silhouette
6. Unknown Title #2
7. You're So Quiet
8. Weightless

Here's a clip of the band playing 'You're So Quiet' on the same night - video by Dan (whose Youtube channel is here) and audio by me.

Some links:
- Exlovers on Myspace, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
- Read the lovely Emmy The Great interviewing the band, for Drowned in Sound.
- An Exlovers interview at Music Mule
- Another recent interview, courtesy of Comfort Comes.
- Exlovers interviewed for Female First
- And Thom Morgan interviews the band for There Goes The Fear.

And a bunch of reviews of 'You Forget So Easily':
(Sounds XP) (AtSounds) (Sound Junkie) (Noize) (Call Upon The Author) (TGTF) (Idiomag) (Glasswerk) (Breaking More Waves)

Forthcoming gigs
4th Nov 2009 Bodega, Nottingham
5th Nov 2009 Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
6th Nov 2009 Portland Arms, Cambridge
14th Nov 2009 Luminaire, London
29th Nov 2009 Lock Tavern, Camden, London

Discography
You Forget So Easily, 14 September 2009
Photobooth / Weightless 7", 06 April 2009
Just a Silhouette 7", 08 December 2008

Buy Exlovers records here, at Rough Trade.

Lastly - many thanks to the band and their manager Simon for giving me permission to post these tracks. Much appreciated. Thanks also to Brad over at Bradley's Almanac, who's been posting this sort of stuff for years and inspired me to start chronicling and posting live recordings of shows I go to. Following his lead, I recorded these songs with a (borrowed) MD player (thanks Dan) and a Sony ECM-719 mic. Hope you like them - any comments much appreciated.

trains and tolerance

2009-11-04T08:35:00.000Z

I've had bad luck with train companions lately. It's usually the case that, when someone sits in the carriage and cranks their headphones up to brain-damage levels, their thoughtlessness about the noise pollution is matched by a corresponding surliness, bordering on the suggestion of violence. Having suffered just such a companion last night - I boiled in silence - this morning I sat myself down and hoped for a peaceful commute.

At Hove, the noise pollutant boarded. I'd placed my bag, optimistically, on the empty seat beside me but readied myself to move it once I saw how many people were boarding the train. When someone arrived beside me I glanced up to spot a teenager on the verge of tipping over; hurrying to grab my seat and overloaded with a bag, a paper, a mirror, a drink, and several tubes containing glosses, creams and ointments. They tipped onto me as she sat down.

I retrieved them and held them out as the girl flopped into the seat, grinning apologetically. She leant forward, loosed her hair out of her pony tail and shook it, whipping my face as she did with a clutch of curls. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Seated at last, she poured her various belongings onto the fold down table, and began going through her bag, emptying further clutter - crisp wrappers, a mobile telephone - onto her lap. She turned and grinned again, conscious how disorganised she looked. From the bag she retrieved an iPod nano. I felt a familiar sense of dread.

The music, when it came, was, I think, Leona Lewis. It was cripplingly loud. Worthing, I thought. She'll get off at Worthing. She didn't.

What was odd, however, was that haphazard, clumsy, friendly way she carried herself. The big, apologetic smile, her inability to impose order over her spilling belongings, I found strangely endearing. In the end, having been gifted a noise-polluter to whom I wouldn't have felt self-conscious about asking to turn down the volume - I felt too fond of her to do so. Which is not to say that her music didn't annoy the hell out of me. It only goes to show I'm too tolerant.

wave pictures at the garage, islington

2009-11-01T14:27:00.003Z

Although my birthday was a month ago, I had a lovely second pass at being spoiled this weekend, when Anne-So and Rich took me not only for a delicious curry in London but also to see the final date on the Wave Pictures current Uk tour, at the Garage in Islington.

Of course, it's as ridiculous to talk of touring schedules with the Wave Pics as it is to talk of album release cycles. Since I first stumbled, delighted, upon them at the End Of The Road three years ago, it's been apparent that - seemingly contrary to the instincts of many of their contemporaries - they do most what they love most; writing and playing. So there have been two conventional albums in quick session plus a bunch of singles and EPs and then a slew of hastily recorded 'unofficial' LPs, often recorded with a cast of like-minded accomplices which includes the Berlin-based Andre Hermann Dune (now known as Stanley Brinks) and Clemence Freschard, both of whom appear with the band tonight in what seems to be a genuine and touching display of open collaboration.

In case you're not quite up to speed, here's a quick précis. The Wave Pictures are like no other band on earth - drawing on a set of influences which includes Sam Cooke, Jonathan Richman and early Dire Straits (and frequently sounding like a neat combination of all three) the band simultaneously straddle a relaxed, unfussy approach which yields thin, scruffy takes, shorn of overdubs, and a quite spectacular level of musicianship - David Tattersall's guitar playing is instinctive, spare and quite dazzling when he lets loose. Aesthetically, they couldn't be more comfortable in their own skin, transparently loving every minute of what they do. Just as notes come easy, Tattersall's yearning, kitchen-sink lyrics sound wonderfully unforced - and are similarly wonderful.

London clearly has a loyal Wave Pics fanbase, and whereas the last time I saw the band - in a sweaty basement in Brighton - they played a short, fast, exposive set, this weekend they played a longer and more varied, more celebratory collection of songs. The results were spellbinding.

The problem with amassing such a comprehensive and assured back catalogue in a very short period of time is that it's impossible to play everything, meaning that once again there is no room for classics like 'Long Island' or the beautiful 'If You Leave It Alone'; but we're amply rewarded with some absolute treats - a star turn on lead vocals (and a drum solo) from Jonny, some wonderful, mellow saxophone playing by Stanley Brinks, and a smattering of new songs, including a gorgeous one from Tattersall's new CD, sung sweetly by the exceedingly European Freschard:

"I saw your hair between the trees, I saw your hair
In the sunlight on the leaves, I saw you there
I saw the curve of your lips, I saw blue skies
I saw chipped toenails in the twigs, and your blue eyes".

Best of all was the song, presented above, which they played the one time I turned my camera on and trained it on the stage - a delicious, communal acapella take on 'Strawberry Cables', which saw Tattersall eke out exquisite melodies from the call and response harmonies of the original version. The crowd clapped and swooned at every turn - a crowd reacting joyfully to a band immersed in love for their craft, and preocuppied, as Tattersall's charming, reflective lyrics attest, with love itself.

Thanks thanks thanks to AS and Rich for a wonderful night. Hope the rest of you enjoy the video.

kurrana & the wolfnotes

2009-10-31T15:30:00.001Z

It's always nice to be taken by surprise with a band, as I was with Kurran & The Wolfnotes, who I'd never heard of before I saw them co-headling The Hope in Brighton with Exlovers in October 2009. Theirs is an enthusiastic, high-octane blend of UK indie and folky Americana, and their songs are extremely memorable. Debut single 'Whatabitch' is available to pre-order now, and the following clip - which shows them playing 'Thanks A Lot Noah' does a lot to demonstrate their promise.

Click here for another video.

joe columbo's smoke glass

2009-10-27T12:09:00.004Z

The following is one of many interesting design projects I looked at while at an Engineering conference in Budapest recently. The design, by Joe Columbo, makes use of negative space to design the 'Smoke glass'.

joe colombo - ‘smoke glass’, 1964
the sculptural shape of this unusual glass speaks for itself. its unique stem invites you to grasp the form. the name of the design was born from its function: with the balance between the forefinger and the thumb it is possible to hold both the glass and a cigarette with the same hand.

the cylindrical form is in perfect harmony with the foot.

the ‘double’, which are two glasses in one make it possible to turn the glass over for a sip of water or aperitif.

More pictures and info here.

noah's misery

2009-10-27T09:05:00.004Z

My impression – I may be wrong - is that the new Noah and The Whale record has underwhelmed quite a few people. It feels like the fans who liked the upbeat arrangements of their debut album are bewildered by the introverted, melancholic seam running through The First Days Of Spring. Equally, the people who understandably took against the contrived, Wes Anderson-influenced trappings of the band’s image and first record have not been convinced by the earnest, mature stylings they’ve followed it up with. Accompanying the new album with a full-length DVD film may be their biggest mistake; a brave, admirable artistic endeavour which nevertheless feels desperately pretentious.

Anyway – as you’ll know if you’ve spent some serious time with The First Days of Spring, it’s an excellent record; a big improvement on Peaceful The World Lays Me Down and a really rewarding, emotional account of what sounds like a pretty fucking awful year in the life of the band’s songwriter, Charlie Fink – whose break-up with Laura Marling doesn’t just dominate this set of songs, it positively defines them. On ‘Stranger’, my favourite song, he sounds positively wretched, musing on the sense of shame he feels after a night of casual sex with a new acquaintance. It’s a peculiar topic (for a man, particularly) to write about, but it’s oddly moving – once one has reconciled Charlie’s lyrical approach with a natural aversion to cliché.

My first reaction to the set of songs on The First Days of Spring was that Fink had written an extraordinary, brooding, lilting set of instrumentals but been unable to find words to express his heartache without resorting to a set of anodyne, stock-phrases to voice his anguish. That may well be the case – there’s an interminable amount of cliché here. But there’s something more complex going on here too.

A year or so ago I was confronted by a very strange, emotional experience. In a venue in Hove, surrounded by my friends, I watched a couple of musicians perform a song for a shared friend which was informed by a sense of loss and regret and love. It was a completely beautiful, spine-tingling moment. Yet I mused afterwards that if I had heard the same song on the radio, unaware of the context, I would probably have written it off as mush; as mawkish, middle-of-the-road stuff. All of a sudden, an alarm went off in my head. All my life I have written off songs with unimaginative or sentimental lyrics as ‘meaningless’, without really given much thought to the fact that they might, despite their failings, be essentially truthful, heartfelt and honest.

Listening to The First Days of Spring now, it’s impossible to argue that Charlie’s lyrics are not predictable and clichéd – and yet something about the completeness of the narrative, the tone of his voice, and the sheer brilliance of his arrangements, persuades me that they’re entirely real, entirely true. When Charlie sings about "songs for the broken hearted", or needing "your light in my life", I think, why adorn these despairing sentiments with beautiful embellishments if the plain sentiments get to the heart of the matter? In as much as I believe that anyone's heart can be broken, I don’t doubt that Charlie’s truly was.

And of course, 'Stranger' is just particularly pretty – built, like, most of the record, around simple, ringing, circular guitar lines played on a clean-toned electric guitar, and rich with Charlie’s heavy, regretful vocal. “Last night I slept with a stranger for the first time since you’ve gone / Regretfully lying naked, I reflect on what I’ve done”. It even contains what I hope is a gag; the line where, having described his lover’s naked body entwined with his, he croons, “I’m a fox” – before completing the line “...trapped in the headlights”. If it isn’t a gag, it’s still funny.

And then, just past the half way mark, the song changes emphasis and a still, clear, piano line emerges, accompanied by muted acoustic strumming and some gentle vocal harmonies. “You know in a year”, Charlie starts to sing, “it’s gonna be better”. The riff starts to circle. “You know in a year, I’m gonna be happy”. As it shifts pace, it slides magically from tortured to reflective to uplifting; it’s Charlie reassuring himself, calming himself down, the sound of the early signs of healing. As the next song reflects, “blue skies are coming / but I know that it’s hard”.

If The First Days of Spring is written off as self-indulgent and pretentious – or just plain depressing – it’ll be a real shame. There’s a hugely satisfying single-mindedness of purpose about it; a clear-headed, direct portrayal of misery (and the emergence from misery into a more hopeful state of mind) that, yes, employs a host of well-worn, too-familiar phrases. But I think they are true.

out of proportion

2009-10-26T21:40:00.002Z

Wonderful first episode of the new series of The Thick Of It this weekend; just watched it on iPlayer - super stuff. Still not sure what the best line was, though. Omnishambles, perhaps. Actually no, I think it's the following exchange:

Nicola Murray: "You set this up didn't you?"
Malcolm Tucker: "What?"
Nicola Murray: "To put me in my place, or get back at me for ignoring your advice, or some other weird perceived slight that doesn't in any way merit this massive fucking out of proportion Israeli-style response?"

i am no navigator

2009-10-15T12:58:00.002+01:00

Totally lost in Budapest; or Buda to be more precise. Went for a stormy, windswept walk there the other day and totally lost my way - ended up scrambling down from Várhegy into Víziváros and, despite thinking I knew at all times where the Danube was flowing (to my right, to my right) I ended up losing my bearings completely - creating along the way a far longer, more tiring walk than I had intended. But a pleasant one regardless. Here's a photo taken somewhere along the way.

fish tank, by andrea arnold; review

2009-10-14T17:25:00.005+01:00

It's a trite but accurate observation that good art is not just about how it makes you feel while you're experiencing it, but also about how it stays with you. In the spirit of that, I keep returning to Fish Tank, the second film by Andrea Arnold, which I saw a month or so ago, and admiring the depth of its feeling, the power of the central characters' performances, and the striking visuals of the cinematography. This makes me think I should have written about it here earlier – as much as anything so I could compare my thoughts then with my thoughts now, which feel like they have blossomed and deepened, but may merely be overpowering my memory as the details of the film recede. This is definitely a film I'll return to when it comes out on DVD.

I remember the visuals more than anything; the way that Arnold has captured a landscape which, although it's familiar to me from encountering it myself, feels alien and extraordinary in a cinematic context, consisting as it does of a sequence of extraordinary, vivid sunsets over the Essex countryside, intercut with scenes of industrial blight – pylons towering overhead and motorways ploughing through the fields. The film is set on the edge of London and at the start of the Essex countryside, so a strange urban/rural duality is presented. Mia, the central character, a bolshy and bright 15 year old, lives a bleak life in a tower block (although this itself in Arnold's film is refreshingly free of cliché – there are no guns in this movie), and understandably dreams of escape. She is a dancer, although perhaps not one, like Billy Elliot, with a life-changing talent. As the title indicates, Mia is caged, looking for an escape. The fact that she can walk out of the city into the green fields, however, offers no respite until Michael Fassbender arrives in her life. He is Connor, her mother's new boyfriend, and a surrogate father figure.

Mia – played with extraordinary believability by the newcomer Katie Jarvis – is in every frame, prowling through the landscape, her movements repetitive, purposeless and frustrated. Each day she sneaks out, argues with peers, circles the estate, and passes a patch of wasteland where travellers keep a horse tied up. Her movements echo that of a caged animal, listlessly circling, sniffing at the possibility of escape. Her outrage at the horse's imprisonment is palpable – her own yearning for freedom just as obvious.

Her home life is thankless; her young mother is largely unconcerned with the duty of raising her two daughters, and Connor – who displays a sudden, unexpected interest in her life – offers something to which Mia is quite unused; encouragement, positive reinforcement, love. Mia has been excluded from school, and her mother echoes their analysis of her, that she is a nuisance, trouble, out of control. And there is another problem brewing; for all that Connor tries to nurture the girls, it is quickly apparent that Mia's role as troubled daughter is complicated by her emergence as a sexual rival for a mother who, apart from when Fassbander is around, is stuck in the memory of her own teenage years.

Connor is as complex and fascinating a character as the young lead. Notably a bit better educated, a bit more gainfully employed, a bit more comfortable in his own skin than the men Mia's mother normally sees, he nevertheless has his own troubles, and his complex relationship with Mia is just one of them. Their connection is apparent very early on. In one scene, Mia pretends to be asleep so that she can enjoy the feeling of his carrying her back to her room, and in another extraordinary set-piece, Connor takes the family out to the country, where he leads Mia into a fast flowing stream, leans over, and simply lifts a fish smoothly out of the water with his bare hands. It is an incredibly sensual scene, where electricity fizzes silently between the two characters, while Mia's mother and sister look on, oblivious.

Mia can hardly be blamed for her feelings for Connor; living a life so shorn of encouragement and love, she is completely unprepared for her reaction when such things are offered. Connor represents freedom, adulthood, and escape. Her already profound spirit of rebellion is spurred, as is a heart-warming, uncynical appreciation of the more poetic side of life. There are some absolutely thrilling scenes when she dances.

For all that Mia blossoms with Connor's encouragement, he is not the strong, centred man that he appears, and things swiftly get out of hand. Yet Arnold handles the development of the story beautifully, drawing wonderful things out of her young lead, and keeping such a tight hold of the reins that the final third of the film, again shot beautifully on the shores of the Thames Estuary, is completely surprising.

Fish Tank has been the best film I've seen this year, even better than Moon, which I praised very highly on this blog just a month or two ago. It's a magnificent study of youthful disaffection, love and anger, beautifully controlled, shot in bewitching colours. And as I indicated, I've thought about it almost every day since I saw it –so I don't think I could possibly recommend another film so heartily.

amazing parliament buildings

2009-10-14T08:36:00.003+01:00

If the grandeur and status of the Houses of Parliament has anything at all to do with encouraging our elected politicians in the UK to feel it was legitimate to fiddle their expenses, surely the problem is, if anything, worse in Hungary?

currently listening

2009-10-13T20:22:00.006+01:00

Not sure what has prompted it, but been listening to lots of lush 60s garage and psychedelia since I've been in Budapest. Here's a Budapest playlist, via Youtube.

1. The Apple - Bufallo Billycan

2. The Zombies - Care of Cell 44

3. The Idle Race - The Imposters of Life's Magazine

4. The Kinks - Some Mother's Son

szimpka kert, budapest

2009-10-13T17:22:00.002+01:00

Rather than soak an experience in and then think about it, analyse it, write about it later, I'm going to have a go at transcribing my thoughts about the latest chapter in my Budapest adventure as I experience it, so consequently I'm crouched over my iPhone while I should be drinking in my surroundings. On the other hand, I am sitting in the pitch black.

A couple of people have mentioned Budapest's ruin pubs to me since I arrived, but it took my friend Laura recommending Szimpla Kert to me to get me in the door of one of them. The ruin pubs are essentially ad-hoc bars created in the space of one of the city's many ruined buildings. In Szimpla's case, it is housed inside a crumbling mansion, a haphazard sequence of rooms, some without proper ceilings, and a huge courtyard in the centre of District VII, the pock-marked, culturally rich part of the city that proved to be first a haven and then a prison for the Jews of Hungary during the thirties and forties.

Everything inside the pub is delapidated and decaying, but the extent to which the space, and the objects within it, have been repurposed is absolutely staggering. Each room has it's own character and is as cosy as the last, even if some are filled with broken chairs, upturned bathtubs and old televisions. The space I'm sat in the at the moment contains 13 of the latter, suspended from the ceiling, each showing a gradually evolving psychedelic image. Apart from the TV's, there is no lighting. So until one's eyes adjust, one is basically sitting in the dark. The room opposite, by way of contrast, is just a few seats and a wall, upon which films are projected. To my left, dimly visible through the archway, a room with ivy snaking across the mesh roof.I've really never been anywhere quite like this before - it is the comfiest, richest, most dramatic and at the same time most basic pub I've ever frequented.

It's absolutely wonderful, in short.

all men are liars

2009-10-12T21:03:00.004+01:00

Thanks so much to Simon from Sweeping The Nation for reminding me how good 'All Men Are Liars' by Nick Lowe is; I just love that wonderful, Andy Partridge-esque descending line in the chorus.

And the lyrics elsewhere, of course:

"Well do you remember Rick Astley?
He had a big fat hit, it was ghastly.
He said i'm never gonna give-a you up or let you down.
Well, i'm here to tell you that dick's a clown."

much in demand, apparently

2009-10-12T20:20:00.005+01:00

After lunch, yesterday - which included a couple of pints of Dreher (not just the best Hungarian lager, but the lager which invented lager) - I returned to my hotel room, and, suddenly heavy, conked out on the bed.

Actually, I'll start this story 18 hours earlier. On Saturday night, just minutes after I had checked into my hotel, I decided to go and do a bit of exploring - deciding that since it was Saturday night, I'd head down to the bustling tourist district of Budapest. I made the mistake, in doing so, of carrying my Rough Guide to Budapest in my hand, marking me out immediately as a tourist.

I got about three streets down into town, when I was interuppted by a voice. I stopped.

"Excuse me, do you speak English?".

I looked up, and found two, youngish, and quite pretty blonde girls confidently approaching.

"Um, yes", I said.

"Do you know where ____ is?", one asked, saying a name which I couldn't recognise.

"No", I admitted, "I've no idea, sorry".

"But it's an Irish pub!", the other exclaimed, "and you're English, right?".

I agreed that I was, but explained that I'd just arrived and would find it hard enough to navigate my way back to my hotel unguided, let alone dispense directions to others. While one girl studied my streetmap, the other chatted amiably with me, asking what I did for a living, what I was doing in Budapest, and for how long I'd be staying. The girls, apparently, were from a rural part of Hungary and were in the capital for the first time.

I'm pleased to say that, by the time the first girl was finished with the map, I'd concluded that I was witnessing - and taking part in - a carefully scripted scam. When the second girl asked me if I'd take the two of them for a drink, I was able to smile warmly and assure them that, sorry, I didn't have the least intention of doing so. The girls nodded, not bothered, and moved on.

It doesn't take much creative googling to confirm that, however great my charms, I wasn't the first nor the last guy that would be approached by those girls this week.

Walking on into town I allowed myself to smile, first at the fact that, being in a position of strength, I had actually enjoyed talking to the girls (it can be lonely arriving in a new city) and second in the knowledge that, had I been my friend Dan, I'd probably be held hostage in a Budapest basement by now.

So, yesterday, a couple of hours into my nap, I was woken by a knock at the door. Room service? Half asleep, I sat up. The knock came again, insistent, even though I'd left the 'don't disturb' sign on the handle. I got up and shuffled over to the doorway. Outside was a woman, perhaps in her late thirties, who greeted me as if she knew me, but spoke impenetrable Hungarian.

"I'm sorry", I stammered, confused. "Can I help".

She managed to find enough English to insist "I come in", and begin to push on the door.

I held firm, still half asleep, unsure what she wanted.

"I'm sorry", I repeated. "Which room do you want".

"This one", she replied, and again pushed as if to come in.

I was still thinking she was hotel staff, and was on the point of giving in, when I decided to ask one more time.

"What exactly do you want", I demanded.

She leant closer and, pouting, made a loud, passionless, kissing noise. Twice.

Mwaa-mwaa.

I figured it out. Surprised at my reaction, I reached out - she was by now half way into the room - and gave her shoulder a firm, steady, gentle shove.

"Problem?", she said, surprised.

I guided her backwards, nodded my head definitively - at last in possession of the facts - and concluded what I think was my first ever encounter with a prostitute by closing the door firmly in her face.

shapes in budapest

2009-10-12T19:39:00.004+01:00

early signs

2009-10-10T21:43:00.002+01:00

Just arrived in Budapest and, so far, I'm not sure what to think of it. My plane landed this evening, meaning I've had that strange, slightly disorientating feeling of arriving in the city at night, where everything is obscured from view, or else at best lit artificially. The early signs were almost completely useless; watching the lights of the city from the window as the plane swooped down towards the airport - my first reference point, the first thing I could see clearly in the black was a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city. I strained my eyesight and caught sight of a logo - it read 'TESCO'. I long to visit somewhere where the imprint of British and American commerce is not so all-pervading.

In the taxi from the airport, unable to read the road signs or adverts, and listening to the cabbie's radio, I mused that in many ways Budapest is as far out of my comfort zone as I've been. I'm well travelled through the well-signposted cities of Western Europe. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon. I've extended my reach to a smattering of coastal cities in North America. But this is my first city with a history of Soviet occupation, my first city with a dialect that completely baffles me. It is also, I realise, the first time in my life I have ever been in a landlocked country. Culturally, linguistically, gastronomically, architecturally; my frame of reference is distant and uncertain.

Then, checked in to my hotel, I tried to get my bearings - walking down to Belváros, the city's downtown, its hub. I know it's the tourist district, so I don't expect too much. And so I enjoy my stroll and work up an appetite. But I feel like I'm in any European city, and the expected wave of strangeness never arrives. Instead, I muse, I'm experiencing a city typical - rather than atypical - of Western Europe: Benetton, Burger King, Subway and Tesco. So I decide that I'm probably just in the wrong frame of mind and return to my hotel. Tomorrow morning I will locate the heart of Budapest - and I'm still optimistic I'll be blown away.

awesome invention

2009-10-05T10:41:00.004+01:00

Thanks to Sam, who flagged this up on Facebook; what a brilliant idea - this wheel for a child's bicycle eliminates the need for stabilisers and encourages good cycling habits. Press play and see for yourself. Great example of technology being used in a thoughtful way.

terracotta

2009-10-02T16:13:00.001+01:00

Assistant Blog

This Blog Has Moved

notice of future changes

priorities

nick winterton

friends in other places

field music at resident records

precious, a film by lee daniels

spoon plaudits

encouraging for obama

the tragedy of unpreparedness

cromer road school, 1984

this cruelty called sport

finally

authorship and design

top ten films of 2009

drink and the light

at least one thoughtful letter

adam buxton reads his press

janet waking

glee

uncontrolled aggression

obama in trouble

working from home

introducing the sarcmark

gorillaz, stylo review

darren hayman on spanish tv

tory education proposals

simon armitage

december

cats (and their dykes)

the consolation of town planning

running from camera

currently listening

money makes the world go round

obsessive

and still the snow

hobbited

jonathan ross and mark kermode

snow day redux

sunset over my office

the architecture of dreams

last.fm yearly roundup

once in a blue moon

dogs in snow

fun with string

my nineties

changing opinions

strange curations

craigie aitchison

dealing with camera loss

eccentricity and spotify

meat after moral certainty

tory

xmas high-jinks

Happy Christmas!

taking heart

mystical animals

to be or not to be

the lyrical genius of luke haines

early blur footage

the lists descend

joy diversion

more video experiments

the london perambulator

ellie goulding, roscoe (midlake cover)

nice ola podrida video

barnet

filesharing misfire

dark star brewery

stormy coast

messing about

small seagulls

someone told me a poem

not tempted by avatar

charlotte vere

tristram; complete live set in mp3, brighton

darren hayman

predictable nme

obama and the wisdom, or otherwise, of crowds