can't comment, as i've not seen it but do need to ask...

They've started showing Series One on RTE this very week and episode one is sky plussed and ready to roll this pm. Its completely passed me by previously as we don't get BBC4 over 'ere, but can i take it from The Massive that i should be setting the series link on this?

I've grown to love it.

You beat me to it, yet again. Not being familiar with their work I hadn't identified The Decemberists and that was going to be my point. The fact that the track wasn't Sinatra, Bennett, Cole etc. and clearly anachronistic was initially startling but then led me to wondering "when" rather than "who". I find that music from prior to 1990's is usually identifiable by decade but since then less easy to pin-point. Obviously I'm not claiming that all music from the last 18 years sounds the same, rather that we've now moved into an era where music of all genres now references that of previous eras and is less obviously of it's time. This could be due to my advancing years or do others of the Massive think that in times to come people when hearing something like The Infanta will say "Ah yes - mid to late Noughties - those were the days" or as I suspect "Ah yes - late 20th/early 21st Century - great period for TV as well, I recall".

Anyroad, Mad Men is very good. I much prefer the Sterling Cooper scenes to the background stuff but I guess you can't have one without the other. Having "talent-spotted" Christina Hendricks in her Firefly episodes I adore her as Joan "Well Marilyn's really a Joan".

I've yet to see any of series 2, but I've heard it's suffering possibly from difficult second series syndrome.

Tell me it's not true.

Love Mad Men. Hate Decemberists. Listen to the Decemberists and those festival-favourites the Levellers side-by-side and tell me they're not the same band.

Want a Shark Moment. wait until the opening episode of the new season. More like jumping a blue whale