Heard

Lots of Blood & Fire - summertime sounds. Work has been rather high-pressure of late, so I don't need music to angry up my blood. The main albums I've been listening to are Ja-Man All Stars "In The Dub Zone", Cornell Cambell "I Shall Not Remove", Inner Circle & The Fatman Riddim Section "Heavyweight Killer Dub" and King Tubby & Friends "Dub Like Dirt". I've really enjoyed Allen Toussaint's recent "The Bright Mississippi", including delightful guitar from Marc Ribot

Read

"I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch" by Simon Napier-Bell is a funny, insightful, bitchy insider's view of taking Wham! to China.

I also really enjoyed "Bringing It All Back Home", by Ian Clayton, which is about following trails through music.

I read 1974, the first in David Peace's Red Riding quartet. I usually enjoy hard-boiled detective fiction but I struggled with this. I don't know exactly why - it is well-written, moves along at a fair old pace - maybe I've just got squeamish.

Seen

The I.T. Crowd had passed me by entirely - but I think it's hilarious and I've watched the lot now. I've also been catching up with 30 Rock- Alec Baldwin is hilarious, and Tina Fey is fantastic.

AOB

I've only been back from holiday 3 weeks but it feels a lot longer than that.

HEARD
It's been a quiet-ish month for new stuff (alleviated by the fact that I bought eight new albums today), so my only recommendation from the previous few weeks come courtesy of Blonde Redhead and their new one, Penny Sparkle. It's got quite a hypnotic feel too it, and is an all-too-rare example of a record that holds together as a coherent albums much better than a collection of individual tracks.

What I have been doing, though, is listening to a lot more radio, particularly 6Music in the evening. Marc Riley's and Tom Ravenscroft's shows are a delight and they often play a song that just stops me in my tracks. Highlights have been tracks by Lonnie Donegan, The Popticians, and this, which is possibly my new favourite song ever

READ
I've just started

Revolution in the Head: not much to add on this but I'm desperately hoping it doesn't have too much of an academic flavour.

SEEN
Thanks to the review in the latest Word and hearty recommendations from Steven C, Pencilsqueezer and Gauntlet of this parish, I've just finished the first season of Spiral. Very French, very stylish and I have a new celebrity crush: Chief Inspector Laure Berthaud.

AOB
I'm seeing Janelle Monáe next week; I'm uncommonly excited

Heard: The Divine Comedy, Bang Goes The Knighthood. Just utterly brilliant. Up there with John Grant as one of my albums of the year.
Read: The Word. Twitter. Facebook. Short attention span, you see.
Seen: Dive, a BBC play, off the + box, which I had taped from July. Very good, young actors, story of a teenage pregnancy, really well done.

HEARD

Discovery of the month for me has to be Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro. Their self-titled album is fantastic. Basically, if you ever wished the James Taylor Quartet came from Japan, this is for you. I sort of discovered them by accident (was looking at the Jazzman Records website and there they were). This is the best YouTube clip I can find, but sadly this track isn't on the CD that's available in the UK.

Also listened to a lot of choral music by the ensemble Stile Antico (went to the Prom they did at Cadogan Hall - brilliant).

READ

The Joe Boyd memoir 'White Bicycles', bought for me by a work colleague - she clearly has the measure of me completely. Loved it.

Also working my way through the Wallander books.

SEEN

No cinema or theatre this month...so I've been digging out DVDs and watching those. Seem to be going through a Clint Eastwood phase ... Dammit.

...David Lodge's Deaf Sentence.
Blew any dramatic tension as dull ex-academic wittered on about hearing aids and Christmas. Unconvincing happy ending too.

But racing through...
Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked. The middle-aged music-lover who loves an obscure artiste and tries to out-fact fellow devotees on an internet site. Of course I'm nothing like him...

Listened to:
I am Kloot's newie. The arranagements suit John Bramwell's soulful voice. Not quite their greatest, but not too far away.

Watched:
Shooting Stars - Vic and Bob back to their best, although Angelos isn't as funny as he thinks he is. Descriptions of Jack Dee's face are a highlight.

Listened to:

Slacker - Start A New Life. Very good too. Cherry Ghost - Beneath This Burning Shoreline. A grower like Elbow's Seldom Seen Kid. Various Phoenix remixes - I want a new album from them now.

Read:

Very poor paperback on holiday called Rhinoceros. Can't remember who wrote it. Attention span and reading time severely limited by twin 2 year olds. Word magazine but have started buying Mac Format to get some tips on the new Mac. I've probably reached the end of that one. And the Guardian via the app on my iPod touch.

Seen:

Toy Stories 1 and 2 with the kids. Quite a lot of Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly as well. Thought Sherlock was very good on the Beeb. State Of Play - the film. Good but not a patch on the TV series. Gadget Show and Dragons Den are the only other things I have coincided with.

Heard: I have, for reasons I cannot entirely explain, become utterly obsessed with the CSNY version of Only Love Can Break Your Heart. (On Spotify here)

Read: House of God by Samuel Shem. Hilariously funny, horribly cynical and completely sex-crazed. (No, no, not me - the book!) The tagline on the front cover, from that august literary institution Cosmopolitan, describes it as "Catch-22 with stethoscopes". I can't better that.

Seen: Started watching The Deep because some of the first episode was filmed in my hometown, stuck with it in the hopes it would be so bad it was good, ended wishing I could somehow get those 5 hours of my life back.

Heard:
Tom Jones 'Praise & Blame' - it is absolutely captivating. The famous voice is in very fine fettle and the songs are a joy but the thing I love the most is the band. Perfectly subtle on the quiet songs and down and dirty on the louder stuff, the whole album is wonderful. Perfect for a pot of coffee and the Sunday papers.

Read:
The Oldest Rookie by Jim Morris. A true story of a teacher struggling through life having given up his dream of being a baseball player. Then, in his late 30's, he discovers he can throw a baseball at 100 mph, gets a trial, and gets a Major League contract. The film stars Dennis Quaid and is very good but the audiobook is read by a Texan actor with a wonderful voice that just made you smell the early mornings, the disappointments and the sacrifices. Captivating.

Seen:
The West Wing boxed set for the 5 the time. It is simply the best thing that has ever been on the telly. It makes me laugh and cry and has taught me more about politics than my 'A'level ever did.

Heard:
Rediscovering Talk Talk. Spirit of Eden confirmed as one of the greatest albums ever made. Laughing Stock making more sense than ever before. Colour of Spring a superb pop album. Mark Hollis’ solo album still too minimal. Rereading Head On/Repossessed sent me back to the Teardrop Explodes and 80s Cope which I often overlook for his 90s output. Great.
At the end of the month, inspired by Electric Eden and Wilko Johnson podcasts, started investigating the unknown (to me), and rather dissimilar, worlds of Folk Rock and Pub Rock. I like what I hear. More next month I expect.

Read:
I’ve been on holiday, so:
Electric Eden the big one. A brilliant book.
Julian Cope: Head On/Repossessed reread. As good as I remember.
David Peace: 1974. A major disappointment. Lots of style but little of anything else. Don’t think I’ll be going any further with him.
Robert McCrum: PG Wodehouse. I love PG, he’s my desert island author. But, whisper it, he wasn’t particularly interesting human being and this is not an interesting book. I gave up when McCrum started going into detail about his tax problems. Yay.
PG Wodehouse: Quick Service & Heart of a Goof. This is the way to experience Wodehouse.
Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame. I love Bernie Gunther: one of the best of the series.

Seen
There Will Be Blood: Almost great. Fine acting, looks wonderful. But lacking a certain something. Needs to be more extreme – somehow Day-Lewis’ character is neither mad nor bad enough.
Control: Very affecting. The focus on the domestic side meens its very low-key and detached and keeps it away from rock cliché. But the Belgian mistress is so vacant and drippy, that side didn’t work so well.
Public Enemies: Pretty to look at but flat, flat, flat.
Toy Story 3. A flipping masterpiece.

Heard

Liege and Lief and Unhalfbricking by Fairport Convention

My usual reaction to finger-in-the-ear folk yodelling is a finger-in-both-ears dash for the door, so I had put off investigating these two until Word's excellent Richard Thompson piece convinced me to try them. They are, of course, brilliant and these songs should have been in my life 20 years ago. Except they sort of were: several times, on first listen, I realised I knew the song without ever putting a name or an artist to it. Hearing Percy's Song, for example, was like realising that the person you sit next to on the bus every day is actually a long-lost cousin.

Seen

I never go to the cinema (fuckwits, fuckwits) but I made an exception for Inception. The 'folding Paris' CGI I can take or leave, but the screenplay, the way it lays out the complicated premise and convoluted plot, is masterful.
For my 46th birthday my wife took me to see Jeff Goldblum in The Prisoner of 2nd Avenue, Neil Simon's play about a 46-year-old media-type who loses his job and his marbles. Cheers Love! Waiting outside the theatre, I saw a familiar face emerging for a taxi. I took a step forward and half-waved as my brain did a 'Ooh there's someone I know no wait it's a Hollywood legend' flip. I veered away at the last minute, as if I'd suddenly remembered I had something more important to do than meeting Jeff Goldblum. Famous faces must get that all the time.

Read

I'm ploughing through The Beatles after the Breakup 1970-2000 in five-minute chunks. It's a massive volume - you could put your back out reaching round to grab it off the cistern - and quite the most pointless piece of research ever conducted. I've learned that George and Olivia's flight back from Monaco, where they'd watched the Grand Prix with Ringo on 24 June 1979, landed at Heathrow Terminal 2 at 7.25pm. And yes, there was a vegetarian option.
There's some good anecdotes, though. In '78, a Japanese couple wandered into Lennon's vast suite in a Tokyo hotel thinking it was the bar, and sat down waiting for service. They thought the guitarist in the corner was the entertainment. It was his last public performance.

but as I spent it cycling in the Alps I was too tired to read the pile of books I took but got through Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner. A fascinating & well written book telling the technical & social history of recorded music. The thing I took away from it is that your ears are not reliable.
Listening to new albums by Richard Thompson, a great fiery guitar based album ( but what did Sting do to upset him?), Los Lobos 'Tin Can'- again a very electric guitar based wig out of a record. Loudon Wainwright's 'Songs For The New Depression', not his best but I enjoy his wry look at he world & The Eels new one where E finally cheers up.
Watching; Getting through Homicide Life On The Street boxset which proves that The Wire didn't materialize from thin air. Much slower than The Wire but captivating none the less.

Heard:

As will be obvious from my other thread, I've heard The Beatles. Lots of The Beatles. Every single Beatles record plus Past Masters, actually. And I'm in love. I think the stereo boxset might be the best musical purchase I've ever made. Nuff said.

Read:
'Tis the season for political autobigraphies, so I've read Mandelson's and just finished Blair's. Both good reads, but Mandy's is the better written. Blair loves his exclamation marks, and in fact his style is hilariously similar to the old "Parish Newsletters" from the Rev. Blair that Private Eye used to do. It is interesting stuff though, from both, and makes you realise how fragmented and awful Labour has become, and how much danger of long-term unelectability they're in if they kneejerk back to Footy/Benny ways. It also reminded me why I voted for them three times: because when they were good, they were very very good.

Also read Bill Bryson's breezy little history of domesticity, "At Home". It's very Bryson, very interesting, very funny. Probably not that deep, but a highly enjoyable read. One day I might read some fiction again.

Seen:

Finally got round to seeing "Shutter Island". Pretty enjoyable, but I still don't really believe DiCaprio in these gritty, tortured roles. It's not his fault, but he's too damn pretty. The "twist", if you can call it that, was visible to passing fog-bound shipping.

Read: I eventually got round to finishing One Day, but have enjoyed the latest from Louise Welsh much more.

Seen: having missed it first time round have been trying to catch up on Mad Men, and thinking why did I not get this when I watch the first few episodes when they were on at the time. I

Heard: new albums from Max Richter (nice piece of minimalism for when that mood takes; Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan (fine, but same as before); the Burns Unit (much better than I expected given its folky influences); and Eels (who might turn in to Prince – one good album would beat three okay ones that get rushed out).

Read - Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Spoilt Rotten and Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple.

Heard - Been listening to Mystery Jets and The Cribs. Heard my first ever Fairport Convention records. Now feel like a fully paid up member of the massive.

See - Still working through series three of Mad Men.

AOB - I've only just discovered Karl Pilkington, who is brilliant.

Heard:

I discovered that Live Rust by Neil Young and Crazy Horse is a great record to paint shelves to. And that Zombie by Fela Kuti makes ironing a pleasure. I've recently acquired the Honest Jon's Candi Staton compilation and the latest release from the excellent Analog Africa label, Afro-Beat Airways: West African Shock Waves Ghana & Togo 1972-1978. I'm enjoying them both but as yet can't say if they'll suit dusting or cleaning the oven.

Read:

I'm ploughing on with my attempts to improve my Italian. I loved Io Non Ho Paura by Niccolò Ammaniti. It's the story of Michele, a young boy growing up in a poor rural community who comes across a deserted house in which he finds a child chained up in a hole in the ground. It turns out that his father and the other adults in his village have kidnapped the son of a rich notable and are threatening to cut off his ears if ransom money isn't paid. Michele sets out to save him even though he's going against the wishes of his own family. So now my 'boy in a hole in the ground' vocabulary is excellent.

Seen:

More retro TV for me as usual. I finished watching the first series of the original Star Trek and was pleased that the legendary The City on the Edge of Forever episode is just as good as I'd remembered it from when I saw it as a kid.

Plenty of Minder too. I particularly enjoyed the episode with Micky the Fish. George Cole is a fabulous actor, he really is. Few thesps have created a character as memorable and loved as Arthur Daley.

Extra thingy:

My trip to France for a wedding was made more bearable by a visit to Chartres Cathedral. I went on a Sunday whilst Mass was taking place. Choral music of exquisite beauty, plumes of incense smoke rising up to the vaulted roof and the indescribable ambience left me with an experience I will savour for a long time. I was equally impressed with the exterior, particularly the statues over the entrances. I'd long known that they were some of the first to be created with a sense of psychological realism, but seeing them close at hand really brought it home to me how they broke new aesthetic ground. They are so beautiful and we are so lucky to still have them to look at, considering that the town suffered heavy damage during World War II.

Read: Ozzys autobiography - OK but easily forgotten.
The last installment of Johan Theorin's trilogy; Blodläge. Well written, but the plot not as good as the other two.
Sara Stridsberg - Darling River. Swedish author, celebrated novel telling fragmented stories inspired by Nabokov's Lolita. It's OK, I don't really like that style of writing though. Short fragments, jumping back and forth in time, jumping from story to story, and no sense of actually getting anywhere as you read it. But I haven't finished it yet, maybe the pieces of the puzzle forms a bigger picture at the end.
Some poetry by Wislawa Szymborska. I like her a lot, but this last collection was a bit of a let down.
And I have just started reading Nam Le's The Boat. Good so far. But I have to admit to enjoying writing short stories more than reading them... Don't know why.

Seen: Well, lots of live music of course, at Popaganda music festival last weekend.
The TV schedule is just starting to pick up steam after the summer stroll through endless repeats, until now I've lived on an unhealthy diet of Masterchef Australia and The Amazing Race...
Oh, apart from Dexter of course!

Heard: This is where I've been busy. Bought a bunch of albums that I have spent these summer months studying more carefully than I ever did for a test at school.
A 10 CD box of blues and a 5 CD box of funk took up some time...
Scissor Sisters Night Work and Robyn's Body Talk pt 1 has seen me dance around - in between those fantastic funk tracks.
Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown mixes the sublime with a couple of clumsier tracks reminiscent of a school musical written by one of the teachers. But when it's good, it's very good.
The Black Keys - Brothers; some great tracks, but listening to the entire album in one go sort of gives me a headache.
Teenage Fanclub - Shadows. I had actually never heard them before I bought this. Now all the reviews said it was their best so far, so I thought it was the right time to start! And I was disappointed, mostly. But the track Dark Clouds has to be one of this years best songs yet, so it was worth buying for that and a couple of other songs. But even that track could have been so much better, those drums spoil it for me. Very clumsy.
Ed Harcourt - Lustre. Good, but he's done better in the past.
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today. Hm. "Much screaming, but very little wool, said the farmer when he sheared the pig" is what we say in Sweden.
Micah P Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs. Odd, noisy alt country...
You have to be in the mood for this, then it's rather good, in a disturbed kind of way.
Marc Almond - Varieté. Well, for a fan like me this is of course lovely - especially because he's finally written the songs himself again ( well, cowritten, but still ). To non fans this is probably hell on earth. At least that is the reaction I've gotten every time I've tried to convert a non believer... I of course bought the bonus disc version, and that was a good decision.
Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners. Got this in a double CD package also containing the album Thelonious Himself, but though I have listened to Brilliant Corners again and again since I got it home, I've only listened once to the other. The piano on its own is a bit sharp to my ears, as I've only just started being able to listen to piano music at all. My blessed brother tormented the piano and me every day of my childhood, practising the same pieces of music over and over, and that ruined the piano for me. So I'm still, thirtyfive to forty years later, not quite ready for Thelonious Himself...

Other than these distractions August saw me taking two more weeks of vacation when I had the best of times, spending them with family mostly.
I'm still waiting for a new washing machine to be delivered after ordering it three weeks ago...now I had to change my order to another machine to get this mess sorted out. With my luck they'll send another e-mail next week saying `sorry, but this machine has also been delayed from the factory´. For the men out there who thinks that women buy too many clothes; in times like these it really comes in handy!

Heard: Three stars of recent Word CDs: current I Am Kloot is wonderful, in my opinion. Current Eels is more of the same - that is to say, not his best but still better than most. The Mynabirds are new to me, I like it a lot, it reminds me of that one good Cat Power album. Also enjoying the excellent Madness reissues, Keep Moving being the unheralded gem.

Seen: Inception... unlike Captain Underpants, I loved the folding cities stuff. Judging by the highest standards, which is how Nolan should be judged, I thought the last half hour was a bit generic (our heroes manage to take out the bad guys despite being outnumbered ten to one). I am being picky there, I know. Toy Story 3 is nearly is good as Toy Story 2, and that is good enough for me.

Read:
Inverting The Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics. A dry subject brought to life with a staggering amount of research and enthusiasm.

AOB: My eldest started school this week. My youngest was three weeks old yesterday.

Books: Have just finished a quite fabulous book called The Tiger by John Vaillant, ostensibly about the hunt for a man-eating tiger in the Russian steppes but it's also about tiger lore, community and history of the taiga. The book is full of the most remarkable characters which kind of makes me glad that I only have to face the underground in the morning. It is very well written, almost thoughtful thriller style. Promised Land (The reinvention of Leeds United) by Anthony Clavane is an equally fine book, not just for embittered Leeds United fans. It is naturally mainly about the club but also about the city and the author's Jewish heritage. It does all fit in very nicely and is loving and critical as only a fan can be and quite moving. Patrick's visit to Chartres Catherdral reminds me that I must get around to a book called Universe of Stone by Philip Ball, about the building of the catherdal. I recall from my visit a few years back that the stained glass was truly awe inspiring.

Listened to the Propaganda reisuue; listened to it more or less non-stop in '85 and have more or less done the same the past week.

Seen: Been catching up on Curb Your Enthusiasm; prefictable but very funny regardless.

Heard
Like daddieorchips I have been inspired by my holidays listening. In particular a song like Need you now by Lady Antebellum would never usually darken my itunes playlists. But driving along a sun kissed Atlantic coastline with the sun-roof down this sounded great at loud volumes:

Also being playing a lot of old-school funky house like Show Me Love (Stonebridge Club Mix) by Robin S. What a brilliant bass synth line.

Read
Picked up Red Mars for cheap in a charity shop; dull dull dull. Then went on to read Frankenstein. Interestingly, like Dracula it's structured around letters, which lends it an immediacy and drive that Red Mars desperately lacked. Now picked up Special Topics in Calamity Physics which, due to Marisha Pessl's irritatingly ornate style, I had previously abandoned about 100 pages in. Glad I took it up again as it is now going somewhere interesting and is slightly reminiscent of The Secret History

Seen

The documentary on containers as recommended in the Word email. Very interesting, informative, and entertaining. Due to the younger members of my family, Saturday nights are already dominated by The X Factor/Xtra Factor behemoth. This program has two phases. The second is the New Faces phase; currently we are in the panning-through-the-Nutter-on-the-Bus-looking-for-gold phase. Gold being people with (i) Talent OR (ii) A backstory - preferably both. Where DO these people come from? Surely, the streets have been trawled by now?

Will have a look at that - had passed me by so thanks.

You lot can hoover up product at a rate that makes my head spin. What am I doing with my life ? (Working, but hey….not for long…)

CDs and that:

Actually, I know what has been taking up valuable arty time : I have been attempting to have a purge of CDs, as it is now getting absurd. Mostly classical at first (how many copies of Beethoven’s Late Piano Sonatas does a boy need ?) but of course this means I need to listen to them first.

Courtesy of Cheshire Libraries I have been catching up some recently CDs: The Courage Of Others by Midlake , I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling, Swim by Caribou, I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron, Queen Of Denmark by John Grant. None have grabbed me by the throat at first few hearings: perhaps I am like some decadent Roman emperor demanding more and more perverse thrills, but Midlake, Grant and maybe Caribou are having at go at my psyche. I would add the Broken Bells album to that lot, but I’ve lost it, unheard. Fines beckon.
Have been discovering Neu!, and rediscovering The Beatles : as per blog tips, a HJH Mono box sits on my mantelpiece, too big for my shelves. I had not remembered how much lame stuff is on Please Please Me, but after that it picks up speed. Am attempting not to wolf it down like a Christmas selection box.

On the back of July’s Sondheim Prom was given A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum as a birthday present. Away from the camp jollity of the Albert Hall, “Everyone Ought To Have A Maid” comes across as an ode to sex-trafficking.

Books and such:
Finished off Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. Within days I was encountering corporate charlatans and mountebanks reciting MG’s thesis about connectors, mavens and customers and passing it off as their own. Great fun to read though, and was sorry I missed his recent lecture tour.
This week I started The Haunting At Hill House by Shirley Jackson, having picked it up following a stray comment by Mark Kermode. Classic, if actually quite modern closed-off haunted house story. The house itself is the baddie, if this version can be relied on, or can it (etc) ? Should finish it tonight, rather than watch any inevitably dreary football internationals, and if I see it off quick enough, I have the 1963 (?) film version still in cellophane for afters.

Tried starting Post War by Tony Judt : maybe I was tired but it does have very small print. It could be time to look at a Kindle.

Going out:
Unlike the previous month, a quiet one. No festivals for me, so not much doing. Did see the absurdly entertaining CW Stoneking and his Primitive Horn Orchestra at the Liverpool O2/2. Only as authentic as , say, Tom Waits, but recommended unreservedly for a funky night out.

Finally saw Inception, which did have the whiff of Doctor Who about it. All the running, but none of the laughs, and it seems to inspire widespread reactions of “meh”. Maybe I would take it more readily but I cannot see what directors see in di Caprio, who, for me, underwhelms in everything he does.

Otherwise had to see The Girl Who Played With Fire. While the book is hardly high art it does play with you, in that characters disappear for long periods and you do wonder where they are: the film flattens such tantalising pleasures, but is still a better class of thriller. I await the third film, in November I am told.

Staying in:
More retro TV for me, as usual, mostly to see me through the screaming abdabs following a wisdom tooth extraction. Both Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People are imperishable, and I had forgotten that Sauchiehall Street doubled all too convincingly for 1970s Brno in some early scenes.
Similarly I had saved up the boxed set of Tutti Frutti for such a medical emergency. I did swing between thinking it wildly over-rated arch nonsense or one of the best comedy-dramas the Beeb ever did, but while Robbie and Emma do lead from the front, old hand Maurice Roeves nicks from under them.

What with family birthdays and a real doozie of a painting jag which I am still in thrall to,I'll keep it short.

Heard - Anais Mitchell/Hadestown.Bloody marvellous.
A lot of Mary Gauthier.
A lot of King Tubby & Prince Jammy.
A shed load of Eels.
and Arcade Fire/The Suburbs + lots of other stuff!

Read - Mr Toppit by Charles Elton.An O.K.first novel.With everything else that's been going on It's the reading that's had to give.

Seen - Dexter 3rd series,Sons of Anarchy 2nd series,Breaking Bad 2nd series,Wallander on B.B.C.4 and a slew of favourite films.

A.O.B. Serious drinking & frivolous cavorting.

August was part work and two weeks on hols, so lots heard and read, not so much watched. Here are the highlights.

Heard

Given that we were in the car a lot of the time, it was important to find something to satisfy as many of the six of us as possible. That turned out to be David Ford (Songs for the Road and Let the Hard Times Roll).

Read

Of the holiday reading, I was most impressed (like the rest of the world, it would seem) by Alone in Berlin, by Hans Fallada. However, I think I got more (surprisingly) from The Strangest Man, a biography of Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo. Dirac was the most significant British physicist of the 20th century, responsible for many developments in quantum mechanics, and especially the discovery of antimatter, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1933 (at the age of 31).

Watched

Apart from a stock of iPlayer stuff, little of which was particularly inspiring, I have been illicitly keeping up with series four of Mad Men (it's still good) and working steadily through the box set of World at War, which is just incredible (even without allowing for it being nearly 40 years old).

Other stuff

The Welsh castles of Wales (not Edward I's, but the native versions, which are much better). A bit ruined, but try beating Castell y Bere, Dolforwyn, Montgomery or Dolwyddelan for atmosphere.

Seen:

Brilliant gigs by Eels and Beirut. A handful of comedy shows in Edinburgh, highlights being Daniel Kitson and Edward Aczel. And lots of Breaking Bad. I love Breaking Bad.

Read:

Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut - good, hilarious in parts, but not quite sure what to make of it. Just started The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - there's nothing I like more than a bit of sci-fi dystopia.

Heard:

Not much new, although as someone who's never really been into Dylan, Blonde On Blonde has been played and enjoyed a lot. And Clearlake, who I'd completely forgotten about but found on spotify.

I 'ave been mostly listening to Eno.
Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, Another Green World & Before and After Science have been on near constant play throughout this month.

Read:
Adrian Mole - The Prostate Years. Enjoyable, humorous read.
Read the first book when I was 13 and three quarters, and have read each subsequent book with the same 'thats a bit like my life'. Example of how unfortunate Mole is: "At least my investment is safe in the Icelandic Banks". New instalment due in 2011/2012 (apparently)

Seen: Births, Deaths & Marriages (Ray Winstone, Phil Davis & Mark Strong)

Watched - I've actually watched some grown up telly - albeit on the iphone - I am investing in Damages and Lie to Me. I prefer Lie.. at the moment as I like Time Roth and the eps so far are done in one. Damages - not sure I care enough about the characters or the story to invest the time and money... we'll see.
Heard - haven't finished the Arcade Fire album - felt very disappointed with it even though I loved Funeral and Neon Bible - just don't think I'm getting anything new from it. Bought three cds by Anais Morrison following a tip from the esteemed Pencilsqueezer - I like her voice a lot, haven't delved that deeply yet - but like what I have heard.
Read - all comics - hey Summer is for Super-heroes, surely. I subscribe to Marvel digital but hadn't used it much until recently when I've devoured Avengers(New, Mighty, Dark, Initiative, Young, House of M, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Seige) and thoroughly enjoyed them. Most are written by Brian Michael Bendis with great at from Frank Cho, Oliver Coipel, Lionel Yu among others. Amazing Spiderman has been consistently good over the last few years. Fantastic Four - I read a story where they go to heaven and meet God - and the identity of God is so wonderfully perfect it brought a tear to the eye, as did the gob-smacking birth scene in Peter David's X Factor - an excellent series, grim, gritty and darkly comic despite being set in 'Mutant Town', Manhattan.
I've read lots on the iPhone too - the iPad is probably beter suited, but I don't have one. The iPhone serves to illuminate each panel rather than page layout so some titles work better than others. I have enjoyed Jeff Smith's Bone, Mark Waid's Irredeemable, Hack Slash and Justice League International, as well as Criminal (Lawless) and Incognito by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (of this parish, no less). Anyone wanting to take a look at a graphic novel, but not into capes and cowls etc could do much worse than take a look at any volume of Criminal. Jim Thompson-esque noir stories superbly illustrated.

Have literally just got back from a 2 week holiday in Florida so am a little jet lagged so excuse any tired error:-

Heard: Los Lobos Tin Can Trust - wonderful guitar from David Hidalgo - one of their better albums in recent years.
Also from the wonderful Waterloo Records in Austin I bought a Felice Brothers release for Record store day called Mix Tape and staying on the Los Lobos tack another exclusive a Louis Perez and David Hidalgo solo album.
As many of you may know American radio is mostly complete shite with exception of NPR and some college radio stations. When the signal failed i put on 2 cd's bought whilst in Florida - the new Shelby Lynne one and the Mary Chjapoin Carpenter release Age of Miracles.I agree with Carl Parker that the Shelby Lynne is first class and will be up there in my best ofs for the year.

Seen: Shutter Island - enjoyed it but am still not sure of the meaning of the ending which is very much ambiguous.
Amelia - very disappointed with this. Amelia Earhardt is a historical figure of great interest to me and I thought the film didnt accurately portray the intrigue surrounding her disappearance.Richard Gere definitely not at his best in this film.
The Waiting room - very enjoyable British film about human frailties and the choices we make both right and wrong.

Read: Captured by the excellent Neil Cross - very good bbut not as spellbinding as his last one Burial. He does make good storylines though.
Reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - about one third of the way through. It appears well crafted and the storyline definitely reels you in.

Experience: Jet skiing off Marco Island had an encounter with a pod of around 8 Dolphins who spent a long time playing in our wake as swe cut the engine. Truly incredible sight.

** PS The RT and Eels albums are amongst my mountain of post so havent had chance to check them out just yet.

Read - World Without End by Ken Follet. Yes I was on holiday. Pretty good, not as good as The Pillars Of The Earth though.

Heard - Larsen B's Musketeer. Not heard it enough to have a proper valid opinion. Seems good on the first couple of listens.

Seen - BBC 4 In Their Own Words: British Novelists. Programme of the year. Definately.

READ

T.H. White begins his book The Age of Scandal positively aghast that, following a dinner with two Masters of Cambridge College, both men were required to do their own washing up. He goes on to lament the poor fortune of the “generations of statesmen and proconsuls who gave their sons in war more lavishly than any other class,” and pours scorn on the Victorian notion that all men are created equal. It’s enough to make you want to invent a time machine for the express purpose of returning to the 1950s when the book was written, and whacking its author around the back of the head with the spine of the penguin edition that represents its current incarnation.

White, who describes himself as a “nostalgic Tory,” gives the impression of a man who would have thought £1645, pilfered from the public purse on rather strained pretences, an eminently reasonable sum for an MP to pay for a duck house - A modern day scandal with genuine bite, unlike much of the content of his book: The Age of Scandal is a somewhat misleading title as it implies titillation and lost knowledge, possibly regarding the dimensions of Lord Byron’s penis. In fact the focus of the book is the Georgian period of English history where a class of wealthy and eccentric individuals gaiety cavorted and frolicked, and occasionally injured the odd servant during a bout of indoor target practice. Unfortunately White adopts a tone of dewy-eyed romanticism, where an interminable and pointless anecdote concerning one of the King Georges rambles on for pages, while a man who set fire to the shirt on his back to cure his hiccups, or Dr Johnson’s enigmatic habit of collecting discarded orange peels for a purpose that he refused to reveal even to his confidant, Boswell, are dismissed within a few sentences.

I’m persevering with this book despite finding it heavy on the eyelids. Buried in amongst the laborious prose are some interesting characters. Among them the 18th century physician (who were he alive now would probably have to sign some kind of register) taking-up lodgings in a girls boarding school in the belief that the breath of young women was essential for prolonging life and vitality.

SEEN

Napoleon Dynamite strongly divided cinema going audiences. There were those recoiled in horror at the sight of genuine misfits, far removed from the sanitised geeks and nerds that populate glossy American high school dramas. Others, like myself, saw Napoleon and Pedro as kindred spirits who mirrored our own awkwardness.

Jared Hess’s latest film - Gentlemen Broncos pitches itself midway between Napoleon Dynamite and the gross out comedies of the Farrelly brothers, with a couple of very unpleasant scenes, one involving a defecating python.

Homeschooled, amateur sci-fi writer, Benjamin Purvis - finds his novel ‘Yeast Lords’ plagiarised by pretentious author, Dr Ronald Chevalier (brilliantly portrayed by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) who is first seen lecturing on the concept artwork for a series of books that he wrote aged 15, about a race of interstellar harpies who can fire lasers from their mammaries.

Broncos is a disjointed film but the individual performances carry it. Dusty’s inept rockstar posturing is hamstrung by his gormless, dropped-on-the-head-at-birth expression and trailing ginger perm. Mousey Tabatha Jenkins continually abuses her role as the only woman in the company of geeks; In an early encounter with Purvis, she asks to borrow money allegedly to buy tampons before disingenuously attempting to seal the deal by casually glancing down towards her non-existent cleavage.

HEARD

Several years ago on near empty night flight from Jeddah to Asmara, my interest in Iron Maiden was rekindled by the song Rainmaker which I heard on the plane’s rock radio station. It seemed an appropriate soundtrack as we hurtled through the darkness across the Red Sea towards the parched east African coast.

Lead singer Bruce Dickinson has a commercial pilots licence and has on occasion flown the band to their gigs. Coming Home (off the new album The Final Frontier) is an epic, heartfelt ballad that celebrates both the majesty of transporting “a hundred winged souls” miles above the surface of the earth, and man’s smallness in the face of the universe (Encompassed in the line: “Stretched the fingers of my hand, covered countries with my span, just a lonely satellite, speck of dust and cosmic sand.”)

I spent last week intermittently trawling through my Alice In Chains albums, searching in vain for a song I had attributed to the band, with a chorus about learning to crawl across broken glass. A couple of days later the elusive track surfaced on my iPod’s shuffle function It was Leopard and Lamb by John Grant.

...so only 3 books read.

Peter James - Dead Tomorrow.

UK police thriller. 5th in the series of books starring Detective Roy Grace. I've read all of these because the 1st one was fantastic and I hoped for more of the same. 2, 3 and 4 were OK but this one has him back in finest form. As usual, it's set in the Brighton and Hove area and dead bodies turn up. The main theme is human trafficking for the sex trade and organs for sale market. Often moving, more often terrifying.

Roddy Doyle - The Dead Republic

The final part in the Henry Smart trilogy. I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as the first two. Maybe I'm tiring of Doyle's writing style or maybe I don't like the protagonist any more.

The first half of the book has Smart as an Irish specialist helping John Ford make the film "The Quiet Man". I found this part tedious. Later in the book, Smart joins the IRA again as a figurehead and finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

For anyone interested, this trilogy is Irish historical fiction from the point of Henry Smart from 1901 to around 1990.

Stuart Macbride - Dark Blood

Number 6 in the Logan McRae series and the last one for me I think. Is it crime fiction or is it horror?

The usual murder mayhem in Aberdeen with the police seemingly acting like the Keystone Cops untill the last 50 pages or so. I know it's fiction but I found quite a few of the characters unbelievable. For me, the plot was muddled and disjointed. Now that I've read it I'd probably enjoy it more if I read it again but life's too short...eh?