Heard - Deutsche Electonische Musick (Soul Jazz Krautrock compilation ) - dreamier and more varied than I expected. It sounds cooly futuristic. Still. Exile on Main Street on vinyl - sounds swampy but fresh. I've also really enjoyed some of Jeff Beck's Emotion & Commotion - the instrumentals, not the singing ones. Great playing. And thanks to duc001 of this parish for hipping me to the magnificence of Eric Dolphy Live at the Five Spot, a bargain via emusic.

Read - Michael Gray's book about Blind Willie McTell - Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes - more about the lives of his ancestors and the complexities of life in the South than I expected. But very good, nonetheless. Two nuggets from the book : the incredible scale of the loss of life in the Civil War : the loss of life in that exceeded the loss of life in all other wars combined, from the Revolution through to Vietnam. And I also learned that Ralph McTell changed his name in honour of Blind Willie.

D-day : Stephen E Ambrose - a fascinating book, many great anecdotes and insights including : on D-Day itself Hitler made 2 interventions both of which disadvantaged the Germans. In contrast, Eisenhower made none. The scale of sacrifice makes humbling reading.

Seen - more tv for me than usual. Dr Who - great family viewing. Quite a bit of the World Cup, which
I don't think has been as dull as some say. I quite like the vuvuzelas. And Glastonbury with the Massive, chatting away, sharing opinions and politely disagreeing with each other.

And through the offices of Steve Turner of this parish, I saw Elvis Costello play in Birmingham - 2 hours of a master craftsman with a splendid catalogue of songs.

AOB
Too darn hot for me. It was 31 degrees in the office today. The places I go on holiday aren't as hot as that. The temperature may have contributed to one over-heated colleague stabbing the air with his finger as he detailed a problem and telling me "I'll tell you what that is, it's lunacy gone mad, that's what that is"

Heard

I've been enjoying the following:

Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn
Neil Young - On the Beach
Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick - Both Ears and the Tail
Booker T and the MG's - The Best of

Read

More and more tales of Diabolik, my favourite Italian comic book antihero.

Seen

The Story of Anvil - touching and heartwarming.

A bunch of useless f**kers masquerading as a football team charging around the pitch in search of their missing passion.

An Argentinian football genius turned manager who has been the best thing about the World Cup by far.

Heard: Some early Billy Joel, not half bad. Lot mellower and Newmanesque than Id expected. Which led me back to some early Randy Newman. Also Im trying to educate myself in Opera but am finding it hard going.

Read: Some James Lee Burke and enjoying it immensely. Just read Jolie Blon`s Bounce and getting ready to start Dixie City Jam.Have 7 or eight more at home waiting for me.

Watched: Very little, as Ive been working my little socks off but I did manage to catch the last few episodes of the new Dr Who and was blown away. Sheer genius and have been babbling on about to my rather bemused mates

Heard: Deutsche Electonische Musik - very nice (and very long) Krautrock compilation;

Reading: Blood's A Rover by James Ellroy - have been waiting for the paperback and what with the good weather and the footie have only read 8 pages - but I've enjoyed every one of them;

Watched: Sherlock Holmes - enjoyed it and thought RDJ was great.

heard: nothing. for the first time this year I have gone a month without purchasing or downloading any music at all. I couldn't find anything to hold my attention in the Glastonbury coverage either. Much more entertaining - the As It Occurs To Me podcast goes from strength to strength.
read: despite never being a fan of Japan and disliking the sickly slide of the fretless bass I ordered Mick Karn's autobiography after reading about his current health and finance issues. It's ok, I thought I was enjoying it, but seem to have put it down about half way through. Two sides to every story, but Sylvian comes across as a total twunt.
Enjoying Das Shaw's Bodyworld - if David Lynch, Chris Ware, and David Mazzuchelli float your boat, give it a shot. Set in near future USA it's a high school tale in which a new drug is discovered. Smoking this in someone elses presence means you trade consciousness with them. Beautiful colours throughout.
Seen: Too much football. About half of the Anvil movie.

Heard

Not an original month sadly. Many years ago I had Big Star's albums on cassette. Finally I downloaded the first two from emusic. They remain wonderful. I also spend a whole £3 buying Real Raw Rockabilly from Fopp. Oh It's awfully good!

Read

One Day. Same as the rest of you. Wolf Hall. Also the same as the rest of you. Both excellent.

Watched

Dr Who. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Do I even need to describe these programmes?

AOB

Went on a lovely camping trip in the lake district. Goodness me it's lovely up there!

Heard:

Wovenhand's 'The Threshingfloor' - another masterpiece in an ongoing series. Their recent gig at the Bush Hall led me to investigate their support band, Crippled Black Phoenix, who have a double album out which sounds thrillingly like prog, metal and folk dropped in a blender.

Barb Jungr's 'The Men I Love' - minimalist jazz versions of songs written by men, that you might not expect an elegant chanteuse to tackle (eg Talking Heads classic 'Once in a Lifetime'). She also manages two rare feats: covering a Cohen song that isn't 'Hallelujah' ('Night Comes On' - brilliant) and making 'Red Red Wine' utterly serious and alluring.

I continue to hoover up 'world' compilations, like the 'Next Stop Soweto' series on Strut Records.

Read:

Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant collection of pieces from the New Yorker, 'What the Dog Saw'. He combines a left-field, unusual way of thinking with an absolutely classic, plain and easy style of writing.

Seen:

'Rashomon' in a new print at the National Film Theatre. Kurosawa made so many masterpieces but this is one of my favourites. (For those unfamiliar - it's a samurai tale where a crime is told from four different viewpoints - which is true?)

Heard
A very cool cover of Ride On Time by Stornoway. This led me to their debut album on emusic, which is highly enjoyable.

I've also been dipping into the Flight of The Conchords two albums - their naive-kiwi schtick and the 'comedyness' of their songs do a good job of hiding what bloody good songwriters they are.

Read
I don't have much chance to read at the moment with a 12-week-old in the house, but I made the effort with One Day - mostly one-handed whilst feeding! Have just started The Book Thief on a recommendation from a friend whose taste I nearly always entirely agree with.

Seen
More football than I expected - the FPO has been very obliging!

Also been enjoying Cougar Town, which has just made it to NZ. Just another slick, wisecracking US sitcom, but it's been brightening up my mid-week viewing.

HEARD: Bang Goes The Knighthood by The Divine Comedy. Haven't been playing anything else in my car for the last three weeks. Love it.

READ: ISIS the 150th edition. The bi-monthly Dylan fanzine celebrates 25 years in print. Still a treat for all things Dylan. (and the only magazine I subscribe to apart from The WORD, of course).

SEEN: Apart from gorging on The World Cup I got to see Lennon Naked on BBC4. What a nasty, troubled man he became. Was pretty much what I had expected from reading various stuff about this period over the years. A well made tv drama, I thought.

Books

Currently every second book is one of the Sjowal/Wahloo Martin Beck detective novels, in order. They are very good indeed. Finished number 3, The Man on the Balcony, the best yet.

Camilla Lackberg – The Preacher. Proof that not all Scandinavian crime is good, even though she apparently outsells Mankell in Sweden. The grumpy detective with issues is a cliché but I’ll have that any day over the whiter than white issue-free touchy-feely goody-goody Lackberg has come up with. Tedious.

Haines: Bad Vibes/Niven: Kill Your Friends. Much lauded round these parts a couple of years ago. Niven is nasty but unputdownable, Haines is nasty, unputdownable and quite brilliant. They, slightly worryingly for Haines given his isn’t fiction, go very well together.

Music

Teenage Fanclub: Shadows. Still on heavy rotation a month down the line. Wonderful, best since Northern Britain.

Tracey Thorn – half an absolutely brilliant middle-aged classic, half slightly tedious.

Luke Haines: Absolutely loved New Wave and Now I’m a Cowboy back in the day – both of which I recently rediscovered. Both have aged superbly. But took After Murder Park back to the shop originally, feeling betrayed. Rebought it recently and I was wrong – it’s great, nasty but great. Have also immersed myself in his fascinating solo career and am coming to the same conclusion as him – he genuinely may be one of the lost (minor) geniuses of British music. Always brilliant lyrically - more often than not attached to something of quality musically.

Film
Whatever Works – bye bye Woody Allen. That is the last film of yours I watch. Pitiful and pathetic.

Where the Wild Things Are. Awful. Saw it with the children and they were even more bored than I was.

Shutter Island. Not a classic and a silly twist ending but what a huge amount of fun getting there. Massively entertaining for at least ¾ of its bloated running time.

Music: Another nod for The Divine Comedy - I've joyfully flogged the hell out of Bang Goes The Knighthood. Got the re-issue of Welcome To The Pleasuredome - the bonus CD is pretty much what you'd expect (one listen was enough), but the combination of well crafted musical excitement and a Proustian rush is fairly unbeatable. And listened to the Guardian's World Cup Daily and HG and Roy's Route One for vital World Cup updates.

Viewing: Many examples of twenty-two blokes running around a green pitch after a blow-up plastic thing with a few loudly-dressed guys trying to draw attention to themselves by blowing a whistle.
Also: Got through the full Twin Peaks collection. If there's a weirder, better looking and sounding, and flat out wonderful piece of television, please direct me to it. The quality dropped away at the end, but still terrific.

Read: Den Of Thieves by James B Stewart - a history of the insider dealing scandals on Wall Street in the eighties. Great book, but depressingly current.
Collected re-prints of Modesty Blaise. Fantastic.

Heard.
The Foundling by Mary Gauthier which of course meant having to listen to all earlier Mary Gauthier albums.Excellent if not exactly cheerful,so as an antidote played a lot of reggae,mostly King Tubby.

Read.
Lost Girls by Alan Moore,One Day and I've Just finished Wolf Hall.

Seen.
A lot Of Football.Dr Who.Not a great deal of Glastonbury and have been re-watching Tutti Frutti.

Also.
I've been going through a painting spree,when the bloody paint isn't melting,so mostly at night and I'm fu*king knackered.

HEARD

Bedtime Stories by Johnny Morris is an artefact from my childhood, recently given a new lease of life on BBC CD. I greeted its unexpected reissue with the kind of jubilant celebration that one ordinarily holds in reserve for the return of loved ones previously thought to have been lost at sea.

Morris, for those unaware, was the host of the children’s BBC’s wildlife programme - Animal Magic. He took a subjective, anthropomorphic approach towards the natural world. Bedtime Stories finds him in pretend zoo keeper mode, making small talk with the animals in his care. There’s something charmingly inept about the voices that he puts on for Snapper the Crocodile and Mark and Cark, the Jackdaws.

The stories themselves are non events: Charley and Gladys, the warthogs, disappear from their enclosure but it turns out that they’ve just gone for a walk and eventually come home of their own accord. If you were to rewrite this story for a modern audience someone would have to get eaten or tasered. The best story is still Bubbles the Hippopotamus in which Morris pretends to be a postman delivering letters from distant relatives (slices of bread), while Bubbles takes on the demanding role of post box. It’s interesting to note that the intervening decades have done nothing to lesson my contempt for Lulu, the emo sea lion.

It probably won’t come as a great surprise to anyone that the Scissor Sisters have made a disco concept album about shagging. Night Work, for all the unfettered sexually of its lyrics, is oddly restrained at the core, as if it’s missing some crucial ingredient; the music lacking the raw thrust and abandon necessary to live up to the intentions of its creators. Passing nods to Frankie Goes to Hollywood on some of the tracks made me wish that Trevor Horn had been around to beef up the mix and give it the necessary oomph. Even the majestically decadent final track - Invisible Light ends the album (literally) with a whimper. A good record but there was a better one to be made with the same material.

SEEN

The Burmese Python has evolved a few tricks that would probably come in rather handy at one of the Scissor Sisters disco orgies. To wit, the ability to walk its jaw over its prey, and a windpipe that can detach from the roof of the mouth and protrude out between the lips like a fleshy snorkel, enabling the snake to breath while it gets on with the business of swallowing large objects.

I watched one being dissected in an episode of Inside Nature’s Giants, learning in the process that, in this kind of snake, one lung is significantly bigger than the other. I was also disturbed to find out that my proposed tactic for dealing with large constrictors (stabbing them repeatedly with a giant knife until they let go) is unlikely to work on a fully grown Reticulated Burmese Python. What you actually need is the kind of external defibrillator that EMT crews use on heart attack victims. After the snake has been shocked into releasing you, the same equipment can be used to save your life.

READ

George Mackay Brown’s novels and short stories have found their way back into print. I picked Hawkfall out of a line-up of spines in Foyles and have been reading it during my lunch hour, on a bench next to the A127. Brown seldom left his native Orkney Islands. His tales are similarly geographically rooted on the spot, but travel effortlessly back and forth through time.

In The Fires of Christmas the fate of two men, one hundred years apart, seems to hang on a few misspoken words. There is something elemental about Brown’s prose - the way that the mortally wounded Sweyn Breastrope shakes off blood “like a shower of heavy red coins.”

In Thithonus the laird of Torsay ekes out a threadbare existence in the dying light of the feudal system, dependent on a stipend that barely covers his living expenses. At one point he is reduced to wandering the corridors of his dilapidated mansion searching for an antique that might make a suitable wedding present.

There’s a sad resignation as he watches the settlement die around him; as the young leave for the mainland and the old faces pass on into the kirkyard. By the end of the story even the town gossip is “a silence about the doors of the village” that will “be lost in the greater silence of Torsay.”

FOLDED

What contemporary animal origami gained in authenticity it has lost in poetry. Many recent designs require hours of laborious pre-creasing before a single permanent fold is made. Hideo Komatsu’s giraffe bucks this trend with a flowing sequence of steps that makes the paper come alive in your hands. I folded this model last year. It’s been sitting on my desk ever since waiting for me to summon the motivation to individually glue the brown patches onto the body.

Heard
Well, I'm afraid that the record still in near-constant rotation chez Bear is "High Violet" by The National. I can't stop listening to it. I've also been listening to "The Hazards Of Love" by The Decemberists again. I usually get spurred into record-buying action by the Word CD, but I was underwhelmed this month, and stuck with these two because they seem almost endlessly listenable, giving up new riches with every outing. In any case, music has taken a bit of a back seat to books this month. I've...

Read
The "Millenium" Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. These books - "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" are good old-fashioned crime potboilers, and well worth a read. Surprisingly nasty, tightly plotted, poorly characterised and unconvincingly translated from the Swedish. I enjoyed every minute of them.

"Solar" by Ian McEwan. I'm just not sure what I think of this one. McEwan seems to have a habit of producing one novel I'm indifferent to for every two I think is great, and I think I'm indifferent to this one. My main problem is that we're supposed, fundamentally, to dislike the central character - Nobel prize-winning physicist Michael Beard. But he's SO dislikeable - solipsistic, unloving, unloveable, manipulative and unpleasant - that it's hard to give too much of a fuck what happens to him. Also, McEwan's love of having events spiral out of control, almost to absurd conclusions, doesn't work quite as well here as it does in - say - "Enduring Love" or "Saturday". From the author of such an utterly human and wonderful novel as "Atonement", this seems a trifle phoned in.

"The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ" by Philip Pullman. Noted atheist takes the New Testament - the Gospel of Matthew seems to be his main source - and messes about with it. In this novella, Jesus and Christ are actually twins born to Mary after a very ambiguously immaculate conception. Jesus is the independent, bolshy, strong one and Christ is the clever, manipulative one and the apple of his mother's eye. The central point here - that politicians (with a small P) have controlled and twisted the message of Christianity since the year dot - is well taken, but at this point surely we're aware of Pullman's views on organised religion? I'm with him one hundred percent, but I'd like him to get off his bloody hobby horse and finish "The Book Of Dust" now, please. He told us all we needed to know about this topic in "His Dark Materials", and by now he's one of the vocal atheists who just needs to stop hectoring us. I don't think the likes of him or Dawkins really do us many favours when they lecture us. It just antagonises people and makes them dig in even further. Stick to what you're best at, Phil. Take a leaf out of Douglas Adams's book and write some great stories which make us think, rather than allegories which make us yawn a bit. Nicely written, though.

"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis. By some miracle I hadn't read this before. It's absolutely hilarious, and justifies Amis's entire career. If his son had half his writing chops, maybe he wouldn't be such a tool and might stop showing off. And that's all I've got to say about that. ;-)

Seen
Not a lot of note, actually. The best thing I've watched this month - other than Doctor Who, which is the best thing made by the BBC in many years - was actually on YouTube: the episode of Monitor from the sixties in which John Betjeman interviews Philip Larkin. It's fascinating. Crusty, misanthropic, porn-loving and reactionary Larkin may have been, but he was also the best English poet since Wordsworth, IMO. Betjeman shows us just how good he was, and also what a shy, diffident and often loveable man he was too, character flaws notwithstanding. I think you can tell a lot about a person by what kind of a boss they are, and seeing Larkin in the University Library at Hull demonstrates that he was deeply admired by his staff, and often loved, too. This is essential viewing for anyone who's interested in him.

I spent most of this month adding new albums to my wish list, waiting for the big bucks to gather in my bank account...
They finally arrived and I spent a happy hour last night ordering sixteen albums ( well, a few CD-boxes among them, so actual number of CD's is 38, if I counted correctly ) and two books.
So next months report should be more interesting, for now this is it:

Heard: same old bunch of records that I listened to last month. But since I buy in bulk ( see above ) I've only recently had time to concentrate on the Teardrop Explodes reissues and after conquering the first two discs of Joanna Newsoms album, I'm now sinking my teeth into disc three.
Went to see John Grant live - amazing ( see My Night Out... )!

Read: The latest novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist ( of "Let the right one in" fame ); "Lilla Stjärna" ( "Little Star" ). His books are always pageturners, well written and exciting, but this one was a bit bizarre in parts and left you with a couple of questions unanswered, so it left me feeling disappointed.
Some more Hertha Müller - again; fantastic! Highly recommended ( Don't know any of the titles in english though )!
Tried reading a novel by a swedish author, about her grandmother and mother, but I found it to be incredibly dull so I stopped. Will give it away to my mother; she'll read anything.

Seen: Apart from too much football, just a bunch of interesting documentaries on TV.
Someone gave me a movie on DVD for free, so I watched it. Highly annoying film with Helena Bonham Carter and a bloke I can't remember the name of; as ex-spouses meeting again years later at a wedding and having a very chatty one night stand together. In split screen, for no apparent reason. Warning; do not watch this movie! The only good thing aboout it was the soundtrack of charming songs in french, so I checked the end credits and was chocked to find out they were by Carla Bruni ( actress, presidents wife )! So I'm contemplating buying an album of hers, does anybody know where to start ? If so, feel free to give advice...

I start working again on monday, after three fantastic weeks of vacation. Not looking forward to it at all.
I've had mostly great weather, especially this week has been sunny and hot, so a few picnics at Djurgården has been arranged. Stockholm in the summer is so amazing, the best city on earth!

Seen -

Treme - That's series one finished now. Wonderful!! I'm a bit hard of hearing, so as soon as the DVD is in the shops I'll buy it simply for the subtitles.

The two Bridget Jones films - Am I the last person on the planet to see them? A load of rubbish but I laughed out loud often.

World Cup - Schadenfreude is a German word isn't it? I imagine DH sensed this whilst watching the Germany game in the pub.

Read -

Peter James - Dead Man's Footsteps. Fourth in the Inspector Roy Grace series. A decent cop thriller set in Brighton.

Chuch Palahnuik - Choke. I struggled with this novel till half way through. I then dumped it.

Heard -

Jackie Leven - The Haunted Year (Summer). Jings, he's hard work...though I will persevere.

Chris Difford - The Last Temptation Of Chris. I've only played this once so I haven't got into it yet.

Louis Armstrong - The Complete Collection. It's hardly complete as it's only 2 CDs but for £3.99 it's a great compilation.

Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed. Replacing vinyl again. I haven't heard this for about 25 years. Very disappointed but again, I've only spun it once.

Rebirth Brass Band - The Main Event : Live At The Maple Leaf. One of the bands featured once or twice in the TV series Treme. Great, live New Orleans Jazz.

HEARD
Napster on the Squeezebox Radio has given my music-listening a new lease of life, far more so than Spotify on a computer ever could. I can now listen to new releases over and over well before I buy them. Straight to the top of the 'to buy' list are:
- Stornoway's Beachcomber's Windowsill which is fittingly pastoral for such a heat wave
- and, surprisingly, Plan B's The Defamation of Strickland Banks which manages to combine Smokey Robinson-esque vocals and grimy, foul-mouthed rap into something completely new and gripping
I've also given the Avett Brothers' latest a cursory listen, which also sounds excellent.

READ
The Prestige by Christopher Priest. It's the tale of two feuding illusionists at the turn of the nineteenth century, the great secrets that fuelled their careers and the torment such secrecy engendered.
Christopher Nolan turned this into a film starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman a few years' back and I suspect the revelations in its final moments will have split audiences. I'd avoided the book as I assumed it would be spoilt by the film, but it turns out the two are quite different beasts - sure, I know some of the twists, but not what they mean for these characters. A great read indeed, especially if you don't mind the odd dash of sci-fi in an otherwise murkily Victorian mystery.

SEEN
Very little, though I have to confess to gorging on The Good Wife, which is a far cry from other long-running series faves like The Wire or Battlestar Galactica, in that it's ostensibly a classic episodic legal drama. The difference is it has an over-arching plot in the background which is genuinely novel, and some great performances from Julianna Marguiles and, more recently, Alan Cumming. Great stuff, and really looking forward to the final episode.

AOB
Very little proper B: the con-dem government cuts have slashed available work. Here's hoping I'm still gainfully employed by next months WOM.

This has been bugging me for a while...

Heard: 'Mojo' by Tom Petty. It's alright. It's not bad. It's not A classic. Also 'Bingo' by the Steve Miller Band. It's alright. It's not bad. It's not a classic.

Read: 'Ordinary Thunderstorms' by William Boyd. If you can write off the howling certainty that anyone else would have GONE STRAIGHT TO THE POLICE AND EXPLAINED EVERYTHING by page 10 then this is a very servicable thriller. Yes it does rely on at least 2 more amazing coincedences to allow the plot to proceed to it's final uncertain end but it doesn't pretend to be anything other than an entertainment. Don't expect Any Human Heart.

Also 'The Riddle of the Sands' by Erskine Childers. In my vast ignorance I had always assumed this was some Edwardian pot boiler nonsense set in the Arabian deserts with plucky Brits thwarting Johnny Foreigner. It isn't. It is very much of it's time (pre WW1) and it's narrator is called Carruthers, but it's a dark warning about European colonialism. Never judge a book by it's title.

Seen: Not much that I can recall of any great note. For a non-Doctor Who fan I have become an admirer of his current incarnation. A fine effort from the young lad. A little irritated by his pouting sidekick though

The US version of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' chugs along intermittently and virtually invisibly on a lunchtime slot on Five USA. It's absolutely hilarious. Wayne Brady and Ryan Stiles are the standouts. I've taken to taping it to watch in the evenings with Mrs Beezer. It knocks spots off any of the terrestrial prime-time cobblers.

AOB: My little four year old girl has finally decided she doesn't like 'In The Night Garden' anymore. I almost wept with relief. No more Tombleeboo Trousers for me. Thank f*ck.

HEARD -

Band of Horses new cd Infinite Arms is on heavy rotation, but they are a band for me whose very essence is captured live. Look up their Grand Central Station show for evidence of this on http://www.spinner.com/interface/band-of-horses-new-york-2010/infinite-a... . Very good album, great live band.

Bought Boo Hewerdine's deleted album Baptist Hospital from ebay on a recommendation off the blog and following his wonderful podcast visit, and am enchanted. Once again Word opens my mind to new things.

Danny Baker's world cup pirate ship podcasts are a constant companion on my travels around the building sites of the North West. The man is a genius and should be made DG of the BBC with immediate effect for Deco and the Bunnymen and Emerton, Lake and Palmer alone.

SEEN -

A smidgen of World Cup, really enjoying the reborn but still edgily dangerous Diego Maradona. His players play for him. A lesson for the English, French, Italians etc etc? The last time we had that was in Italy in 1990, focus of the documentary One Night In Turin. It was ok, but didn't quite capture the essence of the game or that era.

I must be the only person in the UK that thinks Saturday Kitchen makes for essential viewing, but the mix of the old and the new, the comforting and the strange, and the remarkable talent of some of the chefs makes for unmissable viewing. James Martin is a great presenter also.

Watched Knowing, the Nick Cage film. Wished I never.

READ

Finished One Day in two nights. Like a baby. Great read. I am sick of people saying it is no great work of fiction. The finest pop songs are often not great works of musical art. They dont need to be.

Am I allowed to say that I really enjoyed the piece by Jude Rogers in Word (I know, I know, "great show, Steve" self regarding nonsense, but...). Really brought that time alive again to me, living in a small town, and finding something you love to replace a missing part of you. Got the tee shirt, but never seen it so well expressed before.

Morrissey and Marr, the severed alliance is currently kicking about my bog, but it is stodgy in parts, and I just cant be arsed with it.

AOB

Plenty of hard work as a board member at newly reformed, supporter owned Chester FC. First game is a friendly away at Colwyn Bay on the North Wales coast next Saturday, and we are like kids at Christmas. Our club went bust and got kicked out of the League last March, and it has been 4 months of total torture, but the light is at the end of the tunnel...

HEARD:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Mojo - it chugs along nicely and puts me in mind of the more recent offerings from Bobble Dylan. Having a bit of a west coast nostalgia fest going on at mo' so it's pretty much wall to wall, CSN, Joni, James Taylor, Jackson Browne etc. Glastonbury reminded me that I can still sing all the words to 'Your Bright Baby Blues' and many others. How's that possible?

SEEN:

The World Cup - really not impressed by it frankly. I think the Farce of the French Team's antics spoiled it for me totally. Looking forward to the Tour De France starting this weekend

READ:

Still struggling through the final volume of the Larsson trilogy and wishing I could get on to One Day and Wolf Hall which are waiting their turn. Does anyone else think this last installment is really turgid?

Listening to all I am Kloot's LPs again in preparation for release of new LP next week (I think it's next week). John Bramwell is Manchester's greatest singer-songwriter.

Inishowen - Joseph O'Connor
Never read anything by him before but will be stocking up after whizzing through this fabulous book. Memorable characters, intriguing plot and cracking dialogue.

Up
Feared it would be slathered by Disney schmaltz - but this is one of the best things I've seen in ages. Old fella loses wife (sniff), little boy with no dad (blub), Doug the dog being bullied (sob).

Watching old Frank Sidebottom videos - Mull of Timperley etc

Seen - Elvis Costello twice, once with Sugarcanes and once solo. Both excellent although he has God like status in my house so any chance of an objective review is pretty remote. Also saw the Killer inside me and I doubt there will be a better acting performance this year than the one by Casey Affleck. Ignore the hype - the violent scenes are an intrinsic part of the plot and there is much more insulting fare in more mainstream films.Telstar - I thought it was hilarious - If Joe Meek was really as mad as portrayed here he was indeed a fruit loop.

Read - Falling and Laughing, the restoration of Edwyn Collins. Humour, warmth, sadness and sheer horror at some of the shortcomings of the NHS. Only just finished but will be giving my old Edwyn Collins discs a spin over the weekend. He was very luck to have his partner Grace Maxwell fighting his corner. Sounds like she doesnt take too much shit.

Heard. Nice surprise this month with Villagers - Becoming a Jackal, really nice disc and some cracking tunes on it.Also new Dr John - Tribal. His band the lower 911 are really tight and this stuff takes me back to the Night Tripper/ Gilded splinters time. Finally Ray Charles Genius = Jazz expanded edition comes with a live 70's cd that has a stupendous version of Misty. First time heard it I played 3 times consecutively as it blew me away.Great stuff.

Postscript: It took a Glaswegian to show me exquisite Indian food in the centre of Birmingham. My home town and I didnt know Ashas!! Will be back there. Thanks El Hombre.

listened - Clogs , Band of Horses , UB40 (present Arms) amonst others .

Watched - Sherlock holmes ( first film i have seen in ages , very enjoyable family film).

Thank for the heads up re PHILIP LARKIN - my favourite writer . i shall watch over the weekend.

Mr. Maccony's Adventures on the High Teas, marvelous but of course, nearly finished it and I have quite a line up to choose from"
Who Killed Martin Hannet? ~ Colin Sharp
Made in America ~ Bill Bryson
The Road to McCarthy ~ Pete McCarthy
and that Dragon Tattoo thingey

seen and heard - some of Gorillaz set at Glastonbury blew me away, I especially loved Mick n' Paul sharing a stage again, Lou Reed's mental guitaring on his bit was another high, the SDD rap on the screen with the brass band is probably the most uplifting piece of musical theatre I've seen in an age.

movies - don't hate me, but I thought Hot Tub Time Machine was a blast! I was in the mood for total reality suspension and foul mouthed buddiness - it did the job. Grumpier Old Men rekindled my love of Lemon but mainly Mathau, so much so I'm off to watch The Bad News Bears in a min.

other - was at a very nice party at my cousin's out in the country last Saturday, it meant I had to miss Nurse With Wound at the Tamway, sorry Douglas.

I'm in a rush, toodle pip Walter's calling

edit/update:
Well The Bad News Bears was good, not great but very enjoyable.
In the heard stakes I really meant to mention The Orb's Baghdad Batteries, boy it's guid!
In the seen category, Stardust (not the excellent follow up to That'll be the Day) which I found stodgey and actually so boring I switched off halfway through.

AOB was unloading all my old Qs and Mojos to a forum reader - woulda bin nice if he'd said thanks :(

Heard: Qua by Cluster – strongly recommended to all those who like the kraut-rock complication. I also bought at long last Marquee Moon by Television, spurred by the Massive’s top 100 as the final push to buy something I had thought about on and off for many years; and it is well worth the wait. Beach House – well reviewed by others in months gone past. And lots of old Van Morrison because…

Reading: Greil Marcus book on Van. As always with his writing I have really enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the music, but when he goes on to other subjects this book doesn’t work very well. Norwegian Wood by Murakami, not nearly as good as Wind Up Bird. Also, spent a lot of time reading zonalmarking.net which adds a lot to watching the football.

Seen: the world cup – almost a sense of duty despite not being that impressed by most game. Have kept up with the Good Wife and Lie to Me. Watched Ponyo on DVD – charming and challenging all in one.

Is this out on dvd? Have had them both on order with LoveFilm for last year and they say they are not available. Both great movies and how stunning is Sophia Loren?

HEARD: Even after a year, Carried to Dust by Calexico is the album I keep going back to. I think they've always made great music, but this album has more than it's fair share of great SONGS. The Hazards of Love is a close second, followed by new ones by the National, Band of Horses and the Hold Steady.

READ: always a couple of months behind the features in The Word, just finished Lucky Jim, now in my top 5. Just found an old Jim Thompson Omnibus, so seeing what the fuss is about The Killer Inside Me. Pretty nasty so far...

SEEN: an unwittingly similar double bill: Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 is not perfect, but it turns out there's nothing I like more than an outdated vision of the future. The Book Of Eli, despite dealing with similar themes, was mince. Also lots of old Seinfeld.

HEARD: New Chemical Brothers is a return to form, if you want to dip in Dissolve is worth a go.

READ: Sorry, just the Word and the Word blog for me (how do you get time for anything else).

SEEN: Southland last night on More4. From the makers of ER and a bit Wire lite but first episode was lively and enjoyable enough and is now on Series link.

Heard:
Missed most of Glastonbury, but I did see Broken Bells' splendid Glasto BBC acoustic fairy grotto performance of The High Road, so have been Spotifying the heck out of the eponymous album while waiting for Mr Postman to deliver the hard copy. I'm also streaming Two Door Cinema Club's Tourist History (which someone on this very blog may have recommended, only I can't remember who...)

Read:
Started nosing into my dad's library book The Yes Man, by Danny Wallace, while on a family holiday to Cornwall. You know the one: Danny decides to break free from his hermit-like existence, by saying yes to everything, and ends up going out a lot, travelling half way round the world, meeting lots of lunatics, and having a Hollywood movie made of his life. Perfect light and frothy beach fun - and do you know what, it does contain quite an appealing little dictum (and I love appealing little dictums): Say yes more, and your life will improve. So, I'm trying it. So far it just means eating too much cake and readily accepting the invitation to 'have another drink'. So, not discernibly different from life before. But it's early days...

Seen:
I've Loved You So Long, a French film starring the icily beautiful Kristin Scott-Thomas (who's lived in France since she was 19). Kristin plays Juliette, a woman who is released from prison after serving 15 years for a horrible crime. Disowned by her parents, who airbrushed her out of the family's history, her sister offers her a place to stay. Gradually tiny cracks in her stony facade begin to appear, and the story behind what she did and why is revealed. It is a seriously good performance by Scott-Thomas, and a perfectly engrossing film.

AOB:
Spent a short while in The Ship Inn, in St Austell, on our holiday, as Nanna & Grandad had kindly agreed to babysit the Drakelets for the evening. We were treated to the delights of John Green's Dynamic Disco. The 'dynamic' element turned out to be 'karaoke'. A tiny woman did a rather passable version of Proud Mary, but we left as the Bad Moon (was) Rising.

Went to see my nephew's band, who I shall not name because they weren't very good on this occasion, at a local-ish pub early in June. Guitarist's amp blew up on the first number and this completely rattled them. They never really got it back together.
Further compounded by messing up the intro to one song and stopping/starting again. Very few can get away with this sort of thing.

Got a Spotify account today and started compiling a playlist. Caravan, Nick Cave, Nick Lowe, Boo Hewerdine, Motorhead, Julian Cope, the Lovin' Spoonful, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, Fela Kuti, Daevid Allen, Goldfrapp, Traffic, Penguin Cafe Orchestra etc.

Recently acquired music by Carla Bley, Tubby Hayes, Jaga Jazzist, Horace Silver, Milt Jackson, Joe Harriott, Esbjorn Svensson, Anouar Brahem, Chet Atkins, Chris McGregor and Dhafer Youssef.

Struggling to read "The Death of Bunny Munro" by Nick Cave, "You Shall Know Our Velocity" by Dave Eggers, "Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne and Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree", . Recently re-read and enjoyed Terry Pratchett's "Guards Trilogy" and Christopher Brookmyre's "A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away". I have now read all of Word 89 and eagerly await the next issue.

Doctor Who has been mostly great. The World Cup and Wimbledon have been a bore.

Saw a late-middle-aged posh lady refused sale of some wine in Sainsbury's the other night, because she was very very drunk.

I'm (temporarily, I'm sure) unemployed at present. Could do with the rest, to be honest.

Heard: Have fallen absolutely in love with Oompa! by Sabrina Chap, and have adopted this song as my own personal anthem.

Also enjoying Galore by Dragonette, though as this came out 3 years ago I'm a little late to the party. Have been trying to get into Avi Buffalo because it comes recommended by several people whose opinions I trust and whose musical taste I generally share. Unfortunately I can't get past the similarities to The Shins and/or The Spinto Band, which share the dubious honour of reminding me of someone I'd rather forget.

Read: The book that should have won the Orange Prize - A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore. Funny, clever, moving, and with music at the heart of the bass-playing main characters life.

Seen: The Grace Kelly exhibit at the V+A. Such pretty dresses... Not to mention the handbags and shoes. Oh, and the hats!

Other: Attended a couple of bellydancing workshops with the delectable Anne White

Heard I've mentioned elsewhere on this site how wonderful I think the new Howe Gelb record is. Desert sounds with flamendo guitars. Arizona meets Andalusia = Arilusia or Andazona? I don't know, but it is very good.
Have also been listening to the Elizabeth Cook record lots. It's produced by Don Was and is very straightforward no-frills country, but beautifully done. The kind of record Andrew Harrison would hate but fans of Tift Merritt would love.

Read Have read loads recently. Read and enjoyed the Larsson trilogy and One Day. Ploughed my way through Lehane's The Given Day after reading the recommendations here. It was OK but admirable if not loveable. Have just finished Kent Haruf's beautifully written Plainsong and Eventide. Simple tales of rural Americana. Superb.

Seen Not much other than football and The Good Wife. Saw the start of Southland which looked promising even if it did seem like it was trying a bit too hard to be cool with its fancy camera angles.