Heard
The Ike Turner 3 CD set - That Kat Sure Could Play which is crammed with the records that helped found rock & roll. Great dark guitars, pianos, saxophones, and hard scrabble entertainers. Some spooky, some uplifting. Here's The Dream - and I'm Tore Up

That's been the staple of my listening, along with some great Eric Dolphy - Iron Man

Read

I've been hooting with laughter at P J O'Rourke's Driving Like Crazy - 30 Years of Vehicular Hell and I've got several good books tucked away for when I get
more time to read.

Seen
My very thoughtful daughters gave me the 4 volume Whistle Test DVD - I enjoyed skimming through it and seeing Nils Lofgren again, I'm sure that there are many more gems on it.

We all watched Dr Who at Christmas (a few days late because the house was packed on the day) and thoroughly enjoyed it.

AOB
We had a great Christmas - 14 people for dinner, which was exactly what we wanted - by the time I sat down for a drink when the first wave of clearing up was done, nobody else wanted on

I had another fun day out with the Glasgow Massive - we'll get a date set for March soon, and encourage anyone in the area to come along.

Heard
I've listened to this a lot.

Seen
I watched the BBC Imagine programme about Ray Davies, directed by Julian Temple. I found it totally captivating, if slightly disturbing, viewing.
And I can't stop watching the last series of Miranda that I "what I call" recorded.

Read
Logicomix - An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H Papadimitriou.
It's a graphic novel based on the life of Bertrand Russell. I've never read a graphic novel before (I don't suppose the collected Moomin comic strips by Tove Jansson count do they?), and I knew very little about Bertrand Russell. But I've loved it. I'm still a bit hazy on mathematical philosophy, but maybe some of it has seeped in. If anyone coming to the London meet tonight would like me to pass it on, shout!

AOB
I had a meeting yesterday to discuss a guitar project for kids at a local comprehensive school who could benefit from extra support. I'm going to work on the project each week. It'll be my first regular work since stopping to have children. I'm really excited about it! Starts Monday.

Read: TURBULENCE by Gilles Foden,a rather unengaging story of meteorologists struggling to get the weather predictions right for the D-Day landings.
STALINGRAD by Anthony Beevor, currently on a WWII reading frenzy , sparked by the same author´s D-DAY

Been watching: the excellent LUTHER with Idris Elba on Tv and BOARDWALK EMPIRE , which does not disappoint.
Caught up with some old movie favourites recently, John Huston´s WISE BLOOD and RUNAWAY TRAIN with a fantastic John Voigt performance and Gregory Peck in TO KILL A MOCKING-BIRD
Also watched Elvis Costello´s show SPECTACLE, which is a treat.

Listening: AT MY AGE by Nick Lowe, lovely album
ASLEEP AT THE BACK by Elbow and ASTRAKHAN CAFE by Anouar Brahem Trio have been keeping me company on my train commutes.
Recently discovered the joys of INSECT TRUST and their eponymous album, why hadn´t I heard of these guys before ?

AOB:Fighting the flab

...so bear with me, here goes:

Heard
Feels like I've spent most of this week listening to the Incredible String Band - the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter - took a bit of persevering but it has paid off, in the gaps... well last night I played Liege & Lief - never heard any Fairport Convention before so I think I am going to enjoy the next few months as it seems there is plenty around for me to explore.
Around Christmas I was playing Owl Service - The Burn Comes Down a lot - bought it back in the summer (from the label Rif Mountain, who kindly sent me a thankyou note and a tiny drawing along with the CD) but its a wintery, spectral folk album and came into its own this December.

Read
Started Rob Young's Electric Eden - was planning to get it from Amazon but stopped into Fopp on Beezer's advice to pick it up there. Slotted this in afront of Seasons They Change which I was finding a bit hard to stick with, but I'll return to it at a later date.
Over the Christmas holidays I read:
Dark Matter (Michelle Paver): a ghost story set just before the outbreak of WW2 following an expedition overwintering in the Arctic.
GB84 (David Peace) - not tried one of his before but picked it up as have been interested for a while to find out more about the miners strike - best gleaned from the first person narratives from two strikers that appear every few pages. Don't think I could have got through it without total immersion - I did and thought about little else whilst I was ploughing through it.
I had then to switch to Carter Beats the Devil (Glenn David Gold) for something a bit more cheerful.

Seen
Catching up on some TV that has been stacking up (I'm lost now without ipdl which has sadly been hobbled) - so saw Mark Gatiss' three part History of Horror a couple of months after everybody else. I have a list of films to see again now, and for me the folk horror part was far and away the strangest and best part of the series.
Watched the BBC adaptation of Whistle and I'll Come To You, although as adaptations goes it was pretty loose to the source. I thought it was very obviously influenced by some of the Japanese chiller films that have come out in the past few years - in particular the fact that the dialogue sounded very distant. I probably could do with watching it again but spent Christmas and New Year offline (ie no iplayer) so will wait for a repeat in the old fashioned way.

Other
I spent the first part of December working in New Zealand and had a bit of leave after, which means I added a whole host of birds and plants to my natural history "seen" list, despite the number of European bird introductions. Here's a Kea (Mountain Parrot):

Whilst in Christchurch I also visited the excellent Heart of the Great Alone exhibition - the photographs from the Scott and Shackleton expeditions to the Antarctic

... and I'll finish by saying thanks for the recommendations that I've picked up from here and Happy New Year to all.

It's January, I'm depressed with the weather so...

Heard
Big Easy Hits
A collection of New Orleans stuff I found in the Library. Meters, Dixie Cups, Lee Dorsey, Eric K Doe etc. Dispels winter misery swiftly and effectively.

Seen
The Box Of Delights
We watch this every year in the run up to Christmas. I missed everything on telly (even Dr Who) as Christmas was a fraught and busy time so this genuinely was all that I saw.

Read
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
My attempt at a new years resolution is "don't buy books, read what's on the shelf." This has been on there for two and half years. It's tremendous fun! Inpector Cuff "is" Columbo, unnamed sinister foreigners, missing diamonds, crazed opium fiends, it has it all!

Heard
Not a tremendous amount, though the most recent James Blake single and Jamie Woon EP have been on heavy rotation. They're both hotly tipped but, I think, highly deserving of the praise on this evidence. Blake isn't too dissimilar to The XX, leaving lots of space in his music and evoking the night perfectly. It's incredibly bassy too. Woon is a bit more obviously pop, though there's shades of R&B and dubstep in there too. I can't wait for both their albums.

Other than that, latest albums from The Bees, Robyn and British Sea Power. Robyn and The Bees - very good. BSP - the jury's out.

Read
Stuart Murdoch's The Celestial Café. Being the Belle and Sebastian obsessive I am, this is right up my street. It's basically a collection of diary entries from 2003 onwards. It's probably a fans only one though, it's incredibly self-involved and not as prosaic as it thinks it is.

Seen
I watched Paris, Je T'Aime the other night, which I thought was a bit of a let down. Really though, nothing compares to the return of Take Me Out on ITV1. When Glee reappears on our screens on Monday, my life will once again be complete.

AOB
Looking forward to seeing faces old and new at the Massive drinks tonight :)

stuff to get though but the highlights are:

Heard, Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, 6 CD set £4.50 to download. Extraordinary collection of songs & styles.
Darrell Scott, A Crooked Road. If you liked the Robert Plant record you will love this.
Hans Chew, Tennessee & Other Stories. Fascinating mix of bluegrass & madness.

Read; Phil Jupitus, Good Morning Nantwhich. A bit plodding in style but worth it to remember those GLR & 6music days. We Shan't see it's like again.

Saw; Just finished all of Homicide Life On The Street. Fills a huge post Wire gap & overall I preferred it.
Watched The Godfather Trilogy over Christmas. Only ever seen bits of it on the telly so a real treat.

Only gig in December was the irreplaceable Albert Lee who is worth catching when you can. He has had 50 years of gigging to get it right!

Listened to;

Own Side Now - Caitlin Rose - maybe the voice is a bit twee but the feel is lovely.
Harlem River Blues - Justin Townes Earle
National Ransom & National Ransack - By my beloved entertainer
Luxury Liner - Emmylou Harris - especially the great heartbreak song 'San Antone Rose'

Read
Raymond Carver - A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka - an interesting portrait of one of my favourite authors. How Carver managed to produce anything through the fug of alcohol is remarkable, we can't doubt the story of his dissolution as it's been verified by many sources and yet still he worked describing lives of not so quiet desperation and finding beauty in mundanity.

Watched- hardly been out but thoroughly enjoyed the Eric & Ernie drama on TV. Also seeing Chris O'Grady's 2 goals at Boundary Park to give the Dale a 2-1 victory over local rivals was splendid in every way.

Heard: have to second the Darrell Scott recommendation but I've fallen in love with the album Real Time. In short it sounds like you're sitting on the porch listening to two great singers and guitarists. Nothing flash, 100% real. There is a great NPR podcast about him too: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130652010

Read: as a new father, and having hated pretty much every other book or article on pregnancy and parenthood, I've actually positively enjoyed Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. Probably not interesting however if your idea of manhood is 10 pints and a punch-up at closing time.

Saw: don't watch TV (it destroys your soul), however I found the previously recommended youTube link about "the homeless guy with radio voice" to be quite soul-uplifting despite the danger of it being a cheesy American rags-to-riches tale.

AOB: would also second the flab-fighting necessity. Currently finding a protein rich diet (lots of nuts, salad, fruit, fish and low fat meats) to be tasty and healthy. Think I'm on track to be down a pound in the first week. Stopping drinking like a fish has probably helped too :-)

I've never done this before either but here goes....

Heard - Having been on my Amazon wishlist for some time I finally got given Elbow's "Asleep In The Back" for Christmas so it has been on loop during the drive to work this week. I only started listening to them when the Mercury winning "Seldom Seen Kid" was released. It is good to see the quality of "Seldom..." is not a one off and that Elbow's gimmickless style is a long standing quality.

After catching up on a stack of PVR'ed editions of "Later..." Spotify has been used to mine the small yet perfectly formed back catalogue of Janelle Monáe whose album "The Archandroid" is like being dropped into the soundtrack of another world; which, I think, is its intention. Well worth a listen.

Read The post-Christmas stack of books is piled by the bed for me to plough through but magazines have taken focus over the New Year break. I had saved the latest word to enjoy over the Christmas break and this quarter's Intelligent Life is, as usual, a thoroughly enjoyable feast.

Back to the books though I’ve just this week started tucking into David Mitchel’s latest offering and, based on past experience, there’s really no telling just where this story will go. Needless to say it is engaging from the outset.

Seen – This year’s resolution is to watch less and read more so having gorged on the last of West Wing, for the fourth time, in the run up to Christmas, TV and film viewing is much reduced. That said I have been enjoying some of the more sensible sides to YouTube via the Apple TV by exploring the RSA channel. In particular this week talks by Sir Ken Robinson one of which has been turned into part of the RSA Animate series which is by far the best use of a whiteboard I’ve ever seen.

AOB – Having decided that whilst I like the idea of being able to play music I have neither the aptitude nor the passion to learn so am selling off a keyboard I’ve had for a few years and a guitar I’ve had for well over a decade. The guitar appears to be so rare I can find no reference to it online so have no idea what price to set. I guess I’ll aim high and then drop the price every time I repost it on Gumtree until I start to get some nibbles.

Heard I have been mostly listening to two Lauras. Laura Marling's Goodbye England was appropriate for the time of the year and got me teary while I was stuck in the US, waiting for Heathrow to open again. Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry regularly has the same effect on me. Like Astral Weeks, another timeless album that defies genres, it repays any initial efforts in listening.

Read Penguin Stops Play by Harry Thompson is basically a shaggy dog tale based around the escapades of a raggle-taggle group of amateur cricketers on a world tour. Really, it is just a compilation of after game pub tales, but has a poignant coda.
My second book couldn't be more of a contrast. I am still reading The Kindly Ones by Jonathon Littell, a fictitious first person account of an former SS officer's participation in various events of The Holocaust. I have finished the Russian section which includes some blood-curdling descriptions of the Baba Yar massacre in the Ukraine and the battle for Stalingrad. Now into the central section where the protagonist is helping characters like Eichmann to run the Death Camps. Actually, it strikes me that the novel is just a framework onto which Littell can hang his obviously extensive historical research. Although the characters are not really fully rounded, I carry on reading due to the horrifying mixture of brutality and pettifogging administrative detail.
Oh also read Voodoo History by David Aaronovitch; a clear-eyed overview of popular conspiracy theories much in the style of Francis Wheen's recent books. A great antidote to some of the nonsense found all over the Web.

Seen Due to my kids' age, I only seem to see grown up films on planes at the moment. Probably not the best place to assess Inception fairly, but it seemed like a fine piece of high hokum and not much else really. By the way, did anyone else think that the film's central conceits and themes were quite similar to Christopher Priest's novel A Dream of Wessx? Christopher Nolan did bring another Priest novel, The Prestige, to the screen. I wonder if further reading of Priest's oeuvre inspired him.
Of course, as always, I forced my family to watch A Wonderful Life. The final scene gets me everytime.

Read: The Middle Class Handbook. That's you and me right there, that is.

Heard: Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn by Mike Oldfield on a loop, with some Traffic, Andy Gibb and Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band thrown in for good measure.

Seen: Sapphire & Steel box set, Not quite as good as I remembered, obviously, but creepy nonetheless. Next: Rock Follies.

I went to France to ignore Christmas which means I went to the cinema and read a lot but it was mostly French stuff so apologies in advance for an increased ponciness quotient.

Saw

Another year - a curious Mike Leigh effort which I couldn't really fathom. The only message I could take from it was that unhappy people have only themselves to blame and are a complete pain to be around, therefore should be avoided like the plague. Beautiful performances from the whole cast in spite of this.

Los ojos de Julia - a laughably awful Spanish pyschological thriller about a woman going blind.

Les émotifs anonymes - a predictable yet utterly charming comedy romance about two nervous wreck chocolate makers. I normally hate that kind of thing). There's not much point posting a trailer in French but it's on You Tube if anyone speaks French and is interested; it was very sweet.

Un balcon sur la mer - A somewhat tiresome 'thriller' about an estate agent having an affair with his childhood best friend, or is she really who he thinks she is? Wouldn't recommend it.

Le Président - A fascinating look at the French regional elections in 2010 focussing on Georges Frêche's controversial campaign in Languedoc-Roussillon. In other words a real life The Thick of It. Made poignant by Frêche's recent sudden death.

Four Lions - You've probbaly all seen Chris Morris's latest about a group of inept would-be jihadists. I enjoyed it, thought he did a great job at humanising all his cast and left you feeling pretty sad and hollow at the wasteful loss of life. Some excellent perfomances too.

Le nom des gens - A young left-wing woman sleeps with her political opponents to convert them featuring a cameo from no other than Lionel Jospin. The premise seemed utterly ridiculous but this was actually a funny, warm film - worth looking out for if it gets shown over here.

Read

Sarah Waters - The Night Watch. An interesting writer I think. I'm discovering her late and have only read her two most recent books but she writes well and has a good way with a story.

Emma Donoghue - Room. Well hyped over the last few months but an interesting novel written from the perspective of a 5 year old boy which intially grated on me, but as the story took shape (he's enclosed in a single room with his mum and we only slowly start to understand why/how), it turned out to be exactly the right approach.

Val McDermid - Trick of the Light. An enjoyably gripping thriller but why are lesbians in fiction always such unsympathetic psychos? Possibly a first literary mention for Isabel Campbell and Mark Lanegan too.

Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took My Dog. A genuinely gripping, masterfully written exploration of life in 1970s Leeds where one brief impulsive action leads to consequences that spiral ever more intensely. Highy recommended.

Grace Maxwell - Falling and Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins. A gripping and insightful story of Edwyn's recovery from stroke. I work in the field and this gave me some real eye opening insights into what goes on in hospitals, and made last year's splendid 'Losing Sleep' an all the more remarkable achievement.

Heard

Nothing specific, I had the iPod on shuffle for two weeks solid, which was actually a lot of fun.

Read -

David Sedaris - When You Are Engulfed In Flames

I read(listened to)his earlier work "Me Talk Pretty One Day" on audiobook and found it very funny. Actually reading this one, I didn't find it nearly as funny. Maybe I need to hear his voice for it to work. It's 15 or so anecdotes from his daily life. He does have a witty way of telling about everyday happenings and he's met some fascinating characters. There are some laugh out loud moments but a lot of the time I kept thinking that he is just weird.

Sebastian Faulks - A Week In December

As the title suggests, this novel is set during a week in December, around the time of the banking crisis, in London. The story is set around the lives of half a dozen charcters...a hedge fund manager, a would be terrorist, a lawyer, a schoolboy, a literary critic and a tube driver. Mostly, the characters don't know each other but their paths cross now and again during their daily routine. It's great modern fiction and the author has obviously done his research but I felt the depth he goes to explaining what the hedge fund manager is up to was too much. The ending fades rather than just stopping and I wonder if some of these characters will return in a sequel?

Rick Wakeman - Grumpy Old Rock Star and other wondrous stories

christmas stocking filler. About 20 rock star anecdotes from the former Yes keyboard player. Mostly they're of travel and excess. Getting behind the Iron Curtain and trying to get into Cuba and South America in the '70's must have been a nightmare...especially when the band and crew were off their face. I've no interest in Rick Wakeman(and never have had)but there are some genuinely funny tales in here. Fairly short and easy to read.

Seen -

Mad Men Series 1&2

I've seen both these series before but it's great to watch the DVDs with subtitles as I'm a bit hard of hearing. I don't suppose there's any need to tell anyone here what it's about but just in case....drama set in the '60's about the world of advertising in New York's Madison Ave. Fantastic characters...every one a bigger bastard than the last but you can't help loving them. I'm looking forward to series 3 now.

Heard -

Warren Zevon - The Wind

Magic!! See My Night In With.

Also, Mary Coughlan, The Cars, Los Lobos, Band Of Joy and The Duke And The King arrived thanks to Santa. I've heard them all a couple of times so far but I need to listen to them more before I judge them.

AOB

I had to work all the way through the festive period(such is shiftwork)but now have a week off. I'm hoping to be £50 man in Fopp(Edinburgh) tomorrow.

Heard - 'Led Zep I'. Knew most of this already but never owned a copy before. Mostly superb - dynamics controlled perfectly. Think I like first two albums best for the drama of structure of the music, holding back, building to crescendo etc.

Seen - 'Triangle' DVD rental. As recommended in year's best in Word. Rightly so. Quite a head f**k of a movie. 'Tales Of The Unexpected' meets modern thriller gore standards. Really rather troubling and also ingenious.

'Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'roll'. Great performance by Andy Serkis. Convinces you that while being a bit of a selfish, mean bastard at times he can also charm and be loveable with it, as appears to have been the case for Dury. Gimmicky bits with link via imaginary live show to his childhood past was a bit irritating. Well worth watching though.

Read - 'This Side of Paradise' F Scott Fitzgerald. Tale of world weary ennui of artistic privately educated college student who loves the ladies but struggles to find a worthwhile existence. Inventive style of novel - some sections are written as plays.

'Dance Dance Dance' by Haruki Marukani whose novels are always different, always the same, to coin a phrase. Has the usual formula of a male central character falling for a woman who is a stranger and gets caught up in their life which involves some mystery and compels us to read on to discover what is behind it with odd, unsettling, supernatural moments occurring regularly. Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as Marukani generally is.

and Ive been working like a dog, to mix a Beatles led metaphor.

I was and then I had some time off and got away to a far away and beautiful place - and caught up on sleep and

Read:
A Simple Act of Violence RJ Ellory. Quite brilliant. Tense and moving.
Blood's A Rover James Ellroy. Hmmm, not sure about Ellroy.Overrated perhaps.
A Week in December Sebastian Faulks. Recognisable but thinly drawn characters. Weakest of his work I've read.

Heard:
Laura Marling. Very good.
Tame Impala: Ditto
And lots of old soul an reggae as uusal

Seen:
a couple of episodes of Boardwalk Empire when in States. I need to see more to make a judgement but definitley appointment viewing.

Heard
Absolutely loving the new Kanye West album. This time I think it is actually as good as he thinks it is. Though I still preferred the slightly less loved "808s and Heartbreak". Ed Harcourt's soundtrack to the film "s.Darko" is simply spellbinding. Really getting to grip with the newest UNKLE album as well. "Where Did The Night Fall" is possibly the most cohesive album by James Lavelle, though I think "Psyence Fiction" still has the best tunes. And also been listening to "TSOL" by Shad which was criminally ignored as one of THE hip hop albums of last year.

Seen
Protege is a film that needs to be seen by more people. Its a film set in Hong Kong, with subtitles, about an undercover policeman who becomes protege to a drug lord, becoming obsessed by a drug addict at the same time. Fascinating and subtle. Essential. Also been viewing series 2 of Angel. Why did I miss it the first time round? And watching Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, remembering why I loved it when I was younger. Dirty Deeds is also good. I got it from Poundland, and its a heavily cliched American teen film. But as the main character is played by Milo Ventimiglia who's in Heroes, its played with a bit more world weariness which creates a more rounded character. And wasn't a waste of my time.

Read
Jeff Noon's "Falling Out Of Cars" - wondering where he's gone. Noon was a writer at the top of his creative game who has seemingly disappeared. Its a road novel, based on living dreams and Lewis Carroll's sense of finding the profound in the absurd. Great stuff. Also read Terry Pratchett's "Unseen Academicals" which is just as good as everything else he's ever written. Now currently reading Martin Amis' "London Fields" which is really good too.

Read...Dominic Sandbrook's States of Emergency, my Christmas present and raced through it the other week. Although there have been a lot of why oh why books on the 70's, this one is a good read, very thoughtful and avoids a lot of cliches. I also like it because he is fairer than most on the great Don Revie, and surprsingly so on Edward Heath. Well worth reading, especially if you were there doing your homework by candlelight. Have started on a tome called simply The Gun by CJ Chivers, about the history of machine guns and specifically the AK 47. It's a chilling thought that Mr Gatling invented the Gatling gun because he thought it would be more humanitarian to do so rather than have us all charging about with swords on horseback. New Years resolution....buy no more books, read ones on shelf and re-read old ones. It won't last.
Listened....For some odd reason, Tubular Bells because I found it amongst the mess I have accumulated over the years and probably filed down the back of the cupboard. Otherwise the new Silver Seas album has been on regular play...damn good.
Watched.....Finally got a new telly before Christmas and quite shocked at the rubbish on - Come Fly Me (have the BBC totally lost their marbles ?) - though Toast was very good, the Zen series on Sunday nights also look good (though my picture of Zen from the Michael Dibdin books is not the same as the producers)if you can get past Sardinian gangsters with Yorkshire accents and blubbed my way through Casablanca and the Railway Children over Christmas.

Other points of note...found that I had collected £29 in assorted coinage, brought to bank to pay in thinking assistant would curse me but he was pretty good about it. It was like finding a fiver on the street when you're student.

Reading

Map of the Heart - John Porcellini. Collection of simply drawn, hand-done comics by Porcellini over years. I didn't get his stuff, but en masse, it's easier to warm to the deceptively simple style. Very simple drawings, sparse words, but very poetic and moving.

The Secret State - Peter Hennessy. I'm biased, but find it a great picture of the Cold War days - some great quirks (check out the exchange of official memos on using the AA to contact the PM if the four-minute warning comes in - wonderfully Yes Minister) and solid research and revelations. I remember a low-level constant fear of nuclear war in the late 70s/80s and had wondered recently whether that was just in my teenage-jangled head. Reading this, I recognise it wasn't - there was reality to it.

Superior Saturday, Lord Sunday - Garth Nix. Keeping pace with my eight-year old daughter who's starting devouring books. Fun, if not up to the JK Rowling mark, let alone Philip Pullman. Still, at least she's moved on from the Rainbow Fairies books...

Listening to

...and they have escaped the weight of darkness - Olafur Arnalds. Very soothing piano-and-strings. Nice to work to and wind down to in the evening. Discovered it from a youtube clip on this very blog.

Write About Love - Belle and Sebastian. Haven't really listened to them before (ditto Divine Comedy until this year), but enjoying this (although not to same extent as Bang Goes the Knighthood which hasn't left the e-turntable in months)

Fisherman's Woman - Emiliana Torrini. Found this because I was curious what else eg white (of eg and Alice's "Indian" fame) had done. Lovely light, but slightly quirky vocals, without going the full distance of quirky Icelandic female singers and ending up Bjorkland. "Sunny Road" is a favourite.

Watching

Not much telly watched in the house, and few movie visits, however...

The Ashes Highlights (and TMS/Five Live Sports Extra summing ups in listening to, I suppose). Joy unbounded - an England team on top of their game. Runs and wickets galore, with a real sharpness and pleasure in their performance. Beating Australia adds a slight tang, but the main is just seeing/hearing them play so well.

The First Men in the Moon. Fun adaptation of the HG Wells - and a lovely dedication to Lionel Jeffries for the version I remember seeing at the end of term at school in the 70s. A bit light - weaker on the moon than in the Earth-bound scenes - but a fun confectionery.

Dr Who Christmas Carol. Loved it with the kids. Just a couple of scary moments - flying sharks, anyone. I'd never paid much attention to Katherine Jenkins before, but she's very easy on the eye, isn't she?

I love Sebastian Faulks so I was very disappointed with this. He seems very pleased with himself in terms of his research into fund managers but has forgotten to write any characters. By far his most disappointing book.

Otherwise I am currently watching the DVD of Luther which I got for Christmas. I like it but when did British TV become so violent? (I live in Holland). I also dipped into Nassim Taleb's new book of aphorisms. Great to read a few of these per day. He does come over so pompous and superior although I suspect that is part of his appeal, at least to me. Similar 'dip in material' in the shape of 'Stories from the Back of the Bus' which is great if you've been into rugby for three decades like me.

Saw two films over Xmas after we were given a couple of free days in Munich while the in-laws looked after our two kids. One was the Banksy documentary which I thought was excellent despite it being so obviously a hoax, the second was the latest Woody Allen rubbish which was bearable because Naomi Watts was in it.

Craig raine - 'how snow falls'. Raine is a poet that does not hold back. Reading this I was a little shocked by it's brute force. However , it does prove that honesty is the best policy as I found some of the work really moving.I am carrying this collection around with me at the moment.

Edmund de waal -' Hare with amber eyes'. De waal is a famous ceramicist. He family legacy led him to research his past. A rich family background tied in with artistic historical figures followed by the nazi's taking it all . A truly moving and well written book.

Seamus Heaney - audio cds of all except his latest poems. a Christmas present . Mesmerising.

I may have covered a lot of this in my Christmas list, but here goes.

Heard: an awful lot of Orange Juice. The Coals to Newcastle box set is a beautiful thing. Well worth the price even just for the Sessions CD and You Can't Hide Your Love Forever.

Also picked up some of the things I missed last year at nice low prices: Neil Young, the Fall, Janelle Monae and Grinderman. Of those Grinderman and Neil Young really impressive. Oddly its the first Neil Young album I've bought - and love the production/concept of it (but know that been discussed here already).

Read: Suart Murdoch's diary - as described above - very good if you like that sort of thing; and Alan Browns book on the Blue Nile which I would recommend - I learned a good bit about the band that I didn't know, and it plays out nicely some of what was going on around Glasgow at that time.

Seen: Belle and Sebastian at the Barrowlands - very good if not I'd say top form. was nice to be able to watch it back on NPR the next day. Its not something I'd want to keep, but does help you rememebr all the bits that blur in the moment.

Read

James Lee Burke's most recent The Glass Rainbow; beautifully written as ever, although I'm worried that Dave Robicheaux must be about 70 now and there can't be many more novels left! Worrying cliff hanger at the end (although best place for it..).

Heard

Got the new Pavlov's Dog CD - a bit disappointing but some good stuff on there. Found a live recording of theirs from '76, which was exciting. Can't think of anything else, but did dig out and play some vinyl (Groundhogs, Dream Academy, New Musik).

Seen

Christmas tv was the worst in living memory.
Loved Miranda on tv (a jewel in a morass of crap) so bought the first series which we'd missed on DVD. Such fun.
Dr Who of course; Matt Smith really is good and the writing by Steven Moffat is so much better than his predecessor.
Opened my Seinfeld box; but only watched the Festivus episode.
Started up with The (Complete) West Wing after a year off and am loving it. In awe of the writer and team that put it together.
Just started with dvd box of The Thick Of It as we only saw the last series. It isn't much like The West Wing is it?
Bought the film of In The Electric Mist - James Lee Burke - as I wanted to see it again. Enjoyed it more second time around.
Failed to see The Social Network - if it had been on locally it had gone by the time I thought to see it.

AOB

We didn't do much over Xmas; we weren't all well all the time and the weather was poor.

I'm no good at writing critical appraisals. short but sweet
SEEN
Party Down....both seasons of the finest comedy of recent years but sadly cancelled. A group of actors who pay the bills working for a catering company. The acting and writing is brilliant. The way Ron says "No" is worth it alone.

Wallander...Swedish Tv series..13 1hr 30mins episodes/Films,recommended by the massive endorsed by the Crouts.

HEARD
Broken Bells.....Dangermouse and James Mercer's collaboration. was ok,nothing more

Paolo Nutini..Sunny Side Up.....quite enjoyed this,loved the song "Candy" sounded like America (The band).

The Roots of Rockabilly...3cd set..fabulous

Hillbilly Bop 'n' Boogie: King/Federal's Roots of Rockabilly 1944-1956
also fabulous.

READ...
The Way Home...George Pelecanos ..big fan,up to the usual standard,which is very high indeed.

Road Dogs..Elmore Leonard...Love it when he revisits old characters,age shall not wither him.

Read: Ridiculously, I'm still working my way very slowly through the Rough Guide to Argentina, which I started when I was there in February. I do enjoy it, but rarely find time for reading and it's the kind of thing I can only read when in a scholarly mood. Otherwise, fRoots magazine and Time Out magazines, which I subscribe to and are more than enough to keep me busy. I confess I don't subscribe to Word for lack of time to do it justice, but a kind soul at work left four copies in the magazine rack, the last of which I've just finished reading (and will now return for others to enjoy!).

Heard: Sticking to recorded music (I guess live gigs go in the 'seen' section) I've been listening to a typically eclectic hodgepodge. As I'm writing up an interview with Jean 'Binta' Breeze at the moment, I've been listening to a lot of dub poetry and came across the 2010 album by Haji Mike and Dub Caravan called 'Virtual Oasis' - the name doesn't sound promising but it's great, mixing strong politics with good humour (Spotilink: http://tinyurl.com/3xowb7z).

Another theme has been Christmas music - my favourite finds have been:

- Stan Freberg's 'Christmas Dragnet' (YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/2uo7mbv) as added by a fellow Worder on the Christmas playlist

- Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band's 'Poor Little Jesus' (We7: http://tinyurl.com/2wt3v7n). Aside from classic Steeleye Span, I've always discounted Maddy as a bit of a honker, but this is gorgeous.

- Britten's 'A Ceremony of Carols' (Spotify: http://tinyurl.com/2weu8w9), particularly 'Adam Lay I-Bounden', which strangely reminds me of a song by the Baka Pygmies sung with Baka Beyond.

- 'A Celtic Christmas' - We7 tells me it's by the Crimson Ensemble (http://tinyurl.com/2vcqbjq) but there's no artist listed on the front cover. It's a festive favourite of my partner and his family, and isn't half as awful as the name suggests!

Other music that I've been enjoying includes Mary J. Blige, the Decemberists, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Missy Elliot, Kate Rusby, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Eva Cassidy, Benjamin Zephaniah, Karen James, the Watersons and Chris Wood.

I've also been getting more and more into spoken word audio - there have been some interesting documentaries on Radio 4, the best being the lazily titled 'The Israeli Madonna' about singer Ofra Haza (BBC: http://tinyurl.com/2v4warl). I've also been listening to poetry on Spotify in a series of 'Anthology of English Verse' albums from Smithsonian Folkways featuring some hammy old actors in the Sixties performing works by the likes of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Blake and Lear. Volume 1 at http://tinyurl.com/3yzucm9.

Seen: Well, all sorts but I'll try to keep it brief as I've gone on a lot already.

In terms of live performance there was:

- Portico Quartet at the ICA, which was mesmerising. What is it about them that so enchants people like me who normally haven't managed to muster any great love for jazz? It's not like their doing a Jamie Cullam and making it particularly mainstream friendly...

- Richard Thompson, Philip Pickett and Musicians of the Globe at Cadogan Hall. Interesting to see but I was a bit tired and didn't have a great view. It was good, if a bit hesitant. I dunno, I'm on a bit of a downer on Thompson at the moment. I've been his biggest fan for years (not like all you Johnny-come-latelys in the mainstream press who have finally decided his every utterance is gold), but his performances at Meltdown never really took off for me, and his new album is a bit of a dud, relatively speaking. Perhaps we just need a bit of a break from each other...

- Bellowhead at the Royal Festival Hall, their performances were as engaging and forceful as ever, only beaten by the amazing view of the fireworks over the Thames, although overall the Hall felt a bit empty and lacked the festival atmosphere I hoped for.

- The Nutcracker at the Colosseum. I've never been to a ballet before and what a great start - even from the cheap seats it was absolutely enchanting.

Also out and about, I saw Peter Blake's wonderfully eclectic and eccentric collection at the Museum of Everything at Primrose Hill. The highlights were his collection of circus freak memorabilia and Walter Potter's compelling if slightly grim stuffed animals displays (pic: http://tinyurl.com/39tvrvt), culminating in the epic 'Who killed Cock Robin?' scene. It's reopened for a few weeks due to popular demand, and I really recommend it (if you're on a budget, note that they do practically mug you for your £3 'voluntary' donation on entry, but it's worth it). http://www.museumofeverything.com/exhibition3.php

On the tele (or more accurately the laptop), I've seen:

- The very very wonderfully and enchanting 'Wall-E'

- The rather more heavy going but worthwhile Italian mafia film 'Gomorrah', which shows the poverty, grit and moral compromises that get brushed aside in a lot of American mobster programmes. Although both this and the Sopranos (a big favourite of mine) are fairly blunt with the violence, simply filming this in a low tech way without the glossy picture makes it so much more real.

- Steve Martin in 'Leap of Faith' - I realised I didn't really know his work well, but this proved a surprisingly complex and satisfying film. I'd recommend it.

- 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' - great story, great adaptation.

- Radiohead at Glastonbury '97. Their 2003 Glasto gig was one of the best I've ever seen, so it was cool to see this one. In a period where I've not been listening to much rock music, this reminded me of how jaw-droppingly incredible it can be.

- A really inspiring trio of programmes on folk arts on BBC4 (with terrible names). 'Still Folk Dancing After All These Years' saw the Unthank sisters travel round England hunting out traditional dancing events, whilst 'Come Clog Dancing' followed a group of people organising a flashmob clog dance in Newcastle. Both were simple programmes that eloquently showed the beauty and heritage of traditional music and dance. The 'BBC 4 Christmas Session' on the other hand was a big, brash Victoriana-styled party in Shoreditch with a host of great young folk names. It got a lot of criticism in online folk circles, but from what I heard and saw (admittedly whilst working on something else) it was a lot of fun.

Sorry for the long post, I started off thinking I wouldn't be able to remember anything then it all came flooding back...

Chris

Heard:
I was very happy when Sweet Chariots' ( only ) album from 2000; "Beat Based/Song Centered/Spirit Led"; was reissued thanks to being used on the soundtrack to some TV series that I didn't watch. I used to own it but someone took off with it after a party, and I never managed to find it again until this new bonus verion showed up. I love it.
A Swedish classic!
I don't usually listen to a lot of Swedish music actually, but this last month of 2010 I managed to listen almost exclusively to homegrown talents by pure coincident...
Robyn - Body Talk, Nocolai Dunger - Play, jj - jj No. 3, A Real Cool Time Revisited: Swedish Punk, Pop And Garage Rock 1982-1989, and a lot of Turid as well ( sort of a swedish Sandy Denny ).
Hm, that's odd. I hadn't even thought of it until now.

Apart from that I finally bought Afrocubism, and that in turn reminded me of my eternal favourite Taj Mahal who made an album with Toumani Diabaté in 1999 called Kulanjan, where the Mali "blues" meets the American blues. So I listened to both those albums a lot.

AOB:

I haven't had time to read or watch TV or movies, because I started making what is going to be my mothers' 80th birthday present in June.
When she turned 70 I bought a nicely bound book of blank pages that I filled with silly verse and funny illustrations, and I'm doing another one for this birthday.
I've written a lot of silly verse on different topics during these last months and on New Years Day I started writing them down and illustrating them in this book.
So I've been doing that for up to eight hours a day on my days off, and a couple of hours at night after work.
It's going really well, so I find it hard to make myself do anything else right now.

On the Music front:
Tradi Mods Vr Rockers - an alternative take on Congotronics. Excellent trippy trancey take on music from the Congo by Western artists. Particularly like the Andrew Bird track which fits the vibe perfectly.
The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever - new discovery for me. Love the song We can get together.
Alan Hull - When war is over. A big fan of his and it is a great shame he didnt leave us with a bigger legacy of solo stuff.
Graham Parker - Box of bootlegs. Great value boxset of 6 cd's marred by the appalling sound quality of the Rumour live show. Rest of the stuff exonerates him a little bit.
John and Yoko - Double fantasy stripped. Nice to hear these songs pared down.

On the Televisual front:
Saw the Little Fockers at the cinema. Doesn't require much use of the grey matter but funny nonetheless. De Niro has excellent comedy timing.
On BBC I really enjoyed the film Toast about the life of foodie Nigel Slater. Ken Stott was excellent and is fine and underrated British actor.
Also Cemetery Junction the Gervais/Merchant film.I found it very funny indeed and for me it is immortalised by the line 'Why does Noddy wear a hat with a bell on the end?' 'Because he is a c**t'. Puerile? Quite possibly but it made me laugh.

On the written word front:
The Shack by Wm Paul Young. About halfway through it and haven't yet decided whether it is happy clappy tripe or spiritually uplifting. Was told be someone who recommended it to me that it was the latter. Will reserve judgement.
Biggest disappointment is the inability to find time to read more - something I will have to try and rectify as I have a load of books waiting their turn.

Heard

Something extraordinary happened last month - I bought an album released in the last ten years that wasn't a reissue or a compilation. That being the wonderful Quiet is the New Loud by Kings of Convenience. Listening to it has made me realize that there is often a very thin line between my really enjoying a band and actively disliking them. They could so easily have strayed into territory marked "twee", "precious" and "overly-whimsical", but somehow they manage to avoid doing so, at least in my opinion. There are probably other groups that sound a bit like them that I would find intensely irritating because they wouldn't perform this musical balancing act with such aplomb.

Read

I've been immersed in the sumptuous visual record of The Smoke that is Lost London 1870-1945 by Philip Davies. It's an extraordinary book. Something that struck me is how the technical limitations of the plate cameras used to make these photographs were actually incredibly beneficial in terms of creating mood. The long exposure times required to record the scenes on film meant that people had to stand very still to appear clearly. When they didn't, one was left with a ghostly "trace" of the moving subject that is hugely evocative to the viewer looking at these images from a 21st Century perspective. All those nameless, everyday folk who have long shuffled off this mortal coil... their fleeting lives appear as the faintest impressions, which somehow makes them all the more real.

Seen

Finished watching the 1970s TV series Survivors. I thought it was extremely enjoyable overall, but it does suffer from the same flaws that blight a lot of episodic drama from that time. There is the occasional lack of narrative drive and consistency that means it really sags in places. The fact that it was penned by numerous writers didn't help in this regard. If the scripts had been tightened up it could have been a masterpiece, but I think it falls a little short of that.

Glad to see them get a mention on here. Wonderful band:

HEARD

You don’t get a guilt-free listening experience with Anal C**t whose new album (released digitally under the moniker Full Blown A.I.D.S ) is the equivalent of laughing at Madeleine McCann jokes. It’s misogynist, racist and homophobic. Like their previous albums I didn’t want to enjoy it. It’s also a career highpoint: A committed, heads-down, hard rock album composed of ten brilliant and occasionally funny songs, played with pedal-to-the-metal intensity by a band feeding off each other’s energy.

The closing ballad, I Wish My Dealer Was Open comes with an emo guitar solo that articulates the angst of being unable to score coke at unsocial hours. Yay! It’s Pink! is a twisted cousin of the Queens of the Stone Age cheerleader rock song - The Quick And To The Pointless. You won’t find a more honest appraisal of a touring band’s predatory relationship with groupies than Hot Girls On The Road which includes the memorable line: “I had her deep-throat me while I watched Tango & Cash.”

I note that on iTunes the album’s genre is listed as Cock Rock.

WATCHED

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley) is a strong late contender for my favourite film of 2010. Toronto resident, Scott Pilgrim’s, endearingly lame attempts at winning the heart of pink-haired courier, Ramona Flowers, brings him into conflict with her league of evil ex-lovers, assembled by the floppy-haired, indie-record-producing douchebag Gideon Graves. This leads to a series of one-on-one battles, styled in the manner of arcade beat-em-ups, where defeated enemies explode in showers of low denominational coinage and nobody gets arrested for murder.

Like High Fidelity, Scott Pilgrim affectionately mocks the culture it celebrates: From the multitude of Indie bands attempting to stand out from the crowd by having girl drummers - to the po-faced group whose song titles are only slightly shorter than their songs (Sample title: “I am so sad. So very, very sad.”) - to the superior vegan whose lifestyle choice “just makes you better than most people” and whose rock star credentials leave him only too happy to punch the highlights out of a girl’s hair.

The supporting cast is excellent, notably Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace, and Alison Pill as Kim Pine - the deadpan drummer of Sex Bob-Omb - a po-faced hipster Dorothy Parker, prone to dispensing sound bites such as: “Scott, If your life had a face, I would punch it.”

This is a beautiful film to look at. There’s a lovely scene set in a park at night, on some swings, that made me mourn for the uncomplicated, innocent relationships of my youth.

I avoided this at the cinema because I thought it would be twee and irritating. I was so wrong.

OUT & ABOUT

Walking along the cinder path from Chalkwell to Leigh-on-Sea, my nephew Jack spied the former Royal Navy mine hunter, The Wilton, now enjoying retirement as the headquarters of Essex Yacht Club. A gun on the foredeck had been angled as if poised to execute a small Christmas tree which had been fastened to the top of a mast on the prow.

“We should take that boat to Germany and kill Hitler,” said Jack, displaying an admirable desire to put the world to rights, and the hereditary tendency for people in our family to be incredibly late for things.

“That sounds like a good plan,” I said. “Do you want to drive or shoot?”

“I want to drive,” he said. “No actually, you drive and I’ll shoot.”

My reading has been mixed, of late. I downloaded a nice little batch of free out-of-copyright Philip K. Dick fiction from Project Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org

to read on my Kindle and afterwards read Jah Wobble's book "Memoirs of a Geezer" (paid-for Amazon download).

The PKD stories were uniformly good '50s Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff filled with dark wit and the cold war paranoia of America at that time. Very reminiscent of my early/mid '70s post-hippy past (I was a -huge- PKD fan in those drug-addled days).
The Jah Wobble book was a more mixed experience. A peculiar mix of almost hippyish cod spirituality and working-class-with-attitude agression. He seems to have something to gripe about with almost everyone he mentions, yet he almost invariably back-pedals and with a "on the other hand" he says something complimentary or at least conciliatory. As with Keef's "Life" there's good background historical/cultural information but I was a bit bored by the Attitude by the end of the book.

Musically, I was unimpressed by Jools 2011 Hootenanny apart from Cee Lo Green who really showed his class as a singer.
Oliver Nelson's "Blues and the Abstract Truth" has been enjoyed anew, as have Horace Silver's "Song For My Father" and "Cape Verdean Blues". The Orb have had some play, also Klaus Schulze and Ashra/Ash Ra Tempel. Old '50s and '60s R&B/Soul, as usual, gets played and odds & ends from the "Nuggets" box of '60s garage/psychedelia too.

Not much TV has been watched. The Xmas Dr Who got off to an amazing start and although I thought it flagged a little at the half-way mark it was a jolly good romp. Just the thing for Christmas viewing. I'm looking forward to the next series. Also looking forward to more "Sherlock" and another series of "Luther".

My social life has been a bit woeful of late, due to advanced impecuniosity (Is that a word? It is now!). No gigs attended for quite a few months now. Hopefully the upcoming Wilko Johnson gig will mark a return to getting out and about a bit more.

2010 couldn't have really been a worse year what with financial problems and my brother's youngest boy being killed by an IED in Afghanistan, but I'm confident of better times in 2011.

The one thing I forgot to mention was the best of the whole Christmas period - listening patiently and in the right order to BBC Radio 4's The Complete Smiley. Absolutely superb - great adaptations of Le Carre's gripping material and Simon Russell Beale with a perfect aural-world weariness and intelligent resignation. Can't recommend it highly enough.