Read : "Leviathan, or The Whale" by Philip Hoare - goes on bit, but a good read nonetheless.

Heard : "Here's The Tender Coming" by the Unthanks - sounds great on a handful of listens.

Seen : The Hairy Bikers Tour Of Britain - top TV Cookery!

Seen: Crank 2
The first film is the best action movie made in over ten years. It's so bad it's genius. The sequel isn't as well "balanced" and is more of a mess than it should be. It's okay, just not a patch on the original. I get the impression a lot of cocaine was taken while making it.

Heard: Muse's The Resistance
Only heard it once. Seems good but too soon to tell. I expected more from the orchestral climax.

Read: Let The Right One In
Creepy Swedish story about a 13 year old boy who befriends a new neighbour, who turns out to be a vampire. Good but flawed film. Better as a book.

Wild Beasts - 'Two Dancers' album. With two vocalists who remind one of Billy MacKenzie and Scott Walker, tribal drums, fluid bass, soaring and crackling guitar and sparse piano, this sounds like nothing else right now. Stunning.

Seen - Flashforward [channel 5] Is it Sci-Fi, is it mystical mumbo jumbo or a global terrorist attack? Perhaps all three. Or something else. I don't know, but I enjoyed the first episode and look forward to finding out.

Read - Finally read 'If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things' 6 years after everyone else. Can't say I enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't seem to put it aside and move on to something else. In the end I'm glad I finished it and I find it has stayed with me. Currently 100 pages into 'The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo' and I am liking it a lot, so far. I'm returning to this because I'm enjoying it - it passes the 'Do I want To Read It In The Bath' test.

A Week In December - Sebastian Faulks. A good variety of characters set in just a week in 2007 in London. Enjoyable, informative and a good satire on our times.

Heard - Mariachi El Bronx - I didn't ever imagine I would buy a mariachi album (especially done by a metal band) but the songs are just charming and a breath of fresh air.

Seen - The Greengage Summer just released on dvd. Saw the film only once over 35 years ago and it has always stayed with me for some reason. Watching it again I'm not sure why other than I must have fallen in love at ten years old with a beautiful Susannah York. Good old fashioned film making.

Read: Started a few put-downable books this month before getting on to Alexander Walker's 'National Heroes', a study of the British film industry in the 70's/80's as well as buddy-buddy Billy Bragg biopic 'Still Suitable for Miners' by that Andy Colling fella.

Heard: I'm trying to spend more time with individual albums rather than my recent surface skimming method of hearing loads but not really listening. As a result, Minutemen's Double Nickle on the Dime has been on heavy rotation. It's a a jazz-funk-hardcore-punk basket full of ideas featuring some innovative guitar and forceful, immediate lyrics and worth spending some quality time with.

Seen: Norwegian Nazi-Zombie flick Dead Snow. In-jokery and film-geekery a-plenty and some proper gore. Watch with friends, a few beers and a little notepad so you can scribble down Norwegian curse words.

Read: Tom Wolfe - The Right Stuff. Stunning, stirring stuff detailing the earliest and often flawed steps of the space-racers and their families.

Heard:Paul Revere and The Raiders - The Legend of Paul Revere. Imagine The Beatles jamming with The Monkees to a garage-band backbeat and you're almost there.

Seen:The Blockheads and Billy Bragg at Village Green. A delight of a day out by the seaside.

Heard: Noah and the Whale - The first days of spring
Joyous pop-folkers release glum break-up record. Brimming with melancholy, low on lyrical complexity, none the worse for any of it. Oh yes, and the Love of An Orchestra is 2 minutes of wondrousness.

Seen: Alone in the Wild
Channel 4 self-filmed documentary following cameraman Ed Wardle as he attempts to survive for 3 months fending for himself in the Yukon. What starts as a Bear Grylls style affair swiftly shifts gear as Wardle fails to find food and, perhaps more worryingly, fails to cope with being all alone in the vast Canadian wilderness. Powerful stuff - well worth catching if it's repeated.

Read - Bad Things by Michael Marshall
I love Michael Marshall's books (or Michael Marshall Smith in his orginal guise) and this thriller, while not his best, tells a gripping story about sudden deaths in a small mountain town that may, or may not, be the result of something supernatural. Highly recommended (and would also pass the above-mentioned bath test)

Read: 'Swag' and 'La Brava' by Elmore Leonard. The tightest prose you could ever imagine yet he seems to open up all of human nature. He's very funny too. Cool.

Heard: 'Pacific Ocean Blue' by Dennis Wilson. Borrowed a copy from the library because I wasn't sure. The opener, the highly rated River Song, I thought very uninspired but the rest of the album is incredible. Not sure if its the lost classic of the '70's but it is a fine piece of work.

Seen: 'Valkyrie'. Sigh... This could have been an excellent movie. What a story as source material; a failed plot to kill Hitler with all the risk, machination and political intrigue that implies. Instead we have 'Mission Impossible - The Early Years'. Stauffenberg is played like Ethan Hunt's possible Dad. Firm of jaw and determined of expression. Despite some worthy attempts at proper acting from the Brits in the cast it's simply Hollywood all the way.

Heard: Seven Forty Seven, new track by Boards Of Canada (brilliant stuff! Very My Bloody Valentine-y). Also Josh Pearson, ex of Lift To Experience doing a brilliant cover of I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. Downloaded Speech Debelle from emusic after she got the mercury. A bit worthy I thought, sorry judges. Maybe need to listen a few more times.

Seen: A Matter Of Life and Death (again) at a cinema for the first time. Also watched a rather good film called Brick, a film noir type thing set in an American High School which genuinely worked.

Read: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson which may be the source of every mismatched buddy action film ever made. Also read Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley which is funny and worth your time. Reading Soft City by Jonathan Raban just now.

read(ing): Autobiography of a Murderer ~ Hugh Collins
Glasgow hard man/ned/bad bastard tells his life story, chilling stuff and fascinating

saw: The Boat that Rocked
Cocked more like, dreadful 'feel good' movie that made me 'feel meh'

seen and heard: I punted this earlier in the week but it got zero response (at least it wasn't -13)

Dead Mantra by Dead Skeletons, not goth and from Iceland

Seen: Electric Dreams (BBC4) - Upgrade Me was good, and the 1970s programme was a virtual repeat of my childhood

Heard: Duckworth Lewis Method (late to the party as usual, but I got here in the end)

Read: Homebrewing For Dummies

Seen
Bronson - violent and scary...yuk!
Lost In Translation - nice views of Tokyo but it's a dull film.
The Big Lebowski - laughed a couple of times but I don't see what the fuss is about.
I'm not very good at watching films or maybe I just pick the wrong ones.

Read
Christopher Brookmyre - Country Of The Blind. Second time reading this and loved it more than the first time. A murder thriller with funny bits.
Peter James - Dead Simple - I almost stopped reading this as it was frightening me too much. I'm glad I carried on though. Murder mystery with lots of twists.
George Pelecanos - Hell To Pay - Second in the Derek Strange trilogy. Murder, drugs, bent cops etc in Washington DC. I prefer the above British authors.
Simon Kernick - Deadline - A thriller by a British writer I didn't like. Weak storyline with an unconvincing ending.

Heard
Eagles - Desperado - Got this in a car boot sale at the weekend. Not heard it for 25 years. Remembered almost every word. It'll be a while before it comes out again.
John Hiatt (and The Goners) - Beneath This Gruff Exterior - A dozen tracks written by Hiatt, mostly played in a bluesy style with tons of slide guitar from Sonny Landreth. Magic!
Ivor Cutler - Life In A Scotch Sitting Room Vol 2 - He may have known the Beatles and was a favourite of John Peel but I just don't get this. Might have been funny 30 years ago but it's beyond me.

seen
DVD: The Princess Bride, yet again and I never get sick of it. Yellow Submarine on import DVD and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which is worth it for Dom deLuise and Charles Durning alone.
Film: District 9 at the cinema. What a fabulous film: Alien meets V meets The Office. In South Africa. Fock!
TV: Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe. not only a good survey of gaming but a good history lesson and funny too. Very, very funny.

Heard
HJH reamsters (specifically Sgt Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Magical Mystery Tour). Also Computer World, Muse and, whisper it quiet Mika. Just like the first one, no inbetweens - either wonderful or execrable in roughly equal measure.

Read
Francis Wheen's Strange Days Indeed. Loved his previous book How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World. And four Masters dissertations I have to mark by next Friday.

Seen; Spiral II. Superb French policier on BBC4. See the thread elsewhere.
True Blood. The final episode of Series 1 starts in about 10 minutes. I found myself going from mild interest to deep absorption.

Heard: There's only one thing to talk about this month, Chuck Prophet's Let Freedon Ring! This is Chuck's finest album yet (and he's set himself a high standard over the years). Blues, doo-wop, rock and more. Good singin', good playin' absolutely irresistible.

Read: Just finished American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer. I probably listed this a month ago. Brilliant portrait of the complex genius who is also know as the father of the atomic bomb. Your jaw will drop at the mendacity of Oppenheimer's enemies, assisted by the FBI, in the efforts to have his security clearance cancelled. At the same time you'll be perplexed at Oppenheimer's inability to mount a coherent defence. Yet they almost failed. It is a worthy Pulitzer Prize winner.

Ok not Keats ... but I have been reading Jonathan Coe's Rotters Club ... or rather, have been looking at the words and then falling asleep - (no reflection on the writing).

Seen: Let The Right One In - the Swedish vampire film. Downbeat and atmospheric but I thought the ending let it down a little.

Heard: Beatles ... natch ... oh, and lots of British folk/folkrock - Fairports, The Unthanks, Martin Simpson, Bert Jansch, Nic Jones - that sort of thing.

Read - "The Flight" by Brian Malessa. Superbly bleak, dark novel, describing a family's movements around Germany during the 2nd World War. The gang rape and child killing a Jew are the darkest points, clearly.

Watched - FlashForward. Loved it. See other thread on it if you haven't discovered it. The little twist at the end of the first episode was superb. Followed by Ross Noble touring Australia, just after it on C5. Also great but for different reasons.

Heard - King Cannibal "Let The Night Roar", Nitin Sawhney "Beyond Skin", Hope Of The States "Left", Sway "The Signature LP", and Yasushi Yoshida "Little Grace" are all sounding immense this week.

Read: Guernica, by Dave Boling. Described in the blurb on the back of the book as being like The English Patient and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, but I promise you it is better than this sounds. Basque culture, love, war, freedom fighters, smugglers, family feuds... A cracking good read.

Heard: Checkmate Savage - The Phantom Band. I am sure this is not news to many of you, but this album is very good. And fed right into my nostalgia fest for the Scottish homeland this month.

Seen: Spiral. I (and many others) have mentioned this a couple of times elsewhere on here, but this French cop show is 'magnifique'!

Read: Finally got round to Robert Graves' Greek Myths. Rather dry and academic, but excellent nonetheless.

Heard: Kraftwerk (Man Machine, Computer World), Goldfrapp (Felt Mountain), Electric Flag (American Music Band / Long Time Comin').

Seen: Brass Eye DVD, first time since it was broadcast. Stunning work of genius and so apt. Everyone should have it. American Gothic DVD. I only saw a couple of episodes at the time. Quality series that was sadly cancelled.

Seen:

DVD - Oliver Twist by David Lean. An genuine masterpiece, a film I never tire of.

DVD - Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio. Extraordinary imagery with a powerful message.

DVD - Nil By Mouth by Gary Oldman. Not exactly fun to watch, but absolutely riveting nevertheless.

DVD - The Mighty Boosh Series 1-3. Well *I* think it's bloody hilarious and so inventive.

DVD - The Claws of Axos. The Doctor, the Master and a miniskirted Jo Grant. Unbeatable.

TV - Napoli: City of the Damned by Ben Hopkins. Investigates how Naples became a city of vice and crime in the years following World War Two. A fascinating documentary.

Heard:

Afel Bocoum - Alkibar. Magical music from Mali.

Orchestra Baobab - Pirates Choice. Swoonsome sounds.

Jimmy Reed - The Essential Boss Man. The Bright Lights, Big City hitmaker's best. Oh yes.

Chess Pieces: The Very Best of Chess. Records don't sound like this any more unfortunately.

Read:

Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four Vol 7. Tales from Lee & Kirby's golden period... nuff said.

Naive: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design. A collection of graphic work that is simultaneously modern and timeless.

Read;
just Finishing The Smoking Diaries By Simon Gray, Just starting Moondust by Andrew Smith. ( already starting to look at the Moon with wistful, wonderous and sad eyes.
Seen:
Going through the Seinfeld Box sets very fast. Oh such joy, as a belive may have been mentioned in other recent threads, we can say that we were there when this was broadcast on telly!
Dollhouse: just finished Season one. Season two starts in a couple of weeks. Joss Wheedon is really like, so underatedy.
Heard.
Old school nothing new, Dave Edmunds "Tracks on wax 4" , "They Might be Giants", Lloyd cole Anti depressant, and some beatles stuff...don't know wht but recently got into them all over again....strange.

Reading : Doors Open: Ian Rankin. Meh ! I miss Rebus
Watching: The US version of Life on Mars; Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli, it good but could be a whole lot better
Listening: John Prine Anthology box set. Magnificent

Read: 'Sashenka' by Simon Montefiore
Follows a posh teenage Russian girl who becomes a Bolshevik in 1916 and rises to "trusted worker" status under Stalin. The last third of the novel, in 1994 tracking her disappearance after she falls from grace and the story of her children. Excellent worldbuilding and atmosphere and a gripping read. Not as girly as the cover makes it look.

Heard: Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter
Listened only once so far. Very atmospheric and I think a work of art. Not yet sure how welcome the individual tracks will be on shuffle. More listening required.

Seen: Electric Dreams, 1. The 1970s (BBC 4)
A middle class family is stripped of all their tech and lives a year a day through the 1970s. Their house is rejigged and they must live without central heating and other mod cons. "New" pieces of kit are delivered each day according to the year they are living in. They move from B&W to Colour TV, take delivery of a 'Pong' game console, ride Choppers and discover the glories of frozen food. For me the highlight was David Quantick showing up to teach the teenage boy how to make a mix tape on a 70s music centre. Still available on iplayer if you hurry...

I read Time Out New York and the Blue Guide to Boston & Cambridge, which I bought years ago. Both were read for work but were really enjoyable, allowing me to see the cities with fresh eyes; Time Out conveyed the excitement of hitting the streets, the Blue Guide chock full of often fascinating historical anecdotes.

Films: Last Chance Harvey, Looking For Eric.
The first is a middle-aged romance, with two excellent actors having fun in the lead roles, making what could have been very run of the mill a delight.
Looking for Eric is worth it for the goals alone. As the man said: "I am Cantona!"
I caught a couple of episodes of The Choir on television. Reality tv can be uncynical, absorbing and heartwarming. Gareth Malone is the Man!

Recent listening: Kris Drever, Justin Townes Earle, Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic.
Two singer-songwriters with talent in spades Both JTE's albums and "Navigator" by Kris Drever are full of good songs, well performed. I'll be playing these albums for years to come.

Still reading: Stieg Larsson - 'The Girl Who Played With Fire'. It's quite long. It's brilliance I have alluded to elsewhere. I believe the final part of the trilogy is due out in paperback any time soon. A cracking thriller with none of the usual cliches and a lead character/heroine for our times. A disturbed young woman with Asperger's who had a troubled childhood in care. A genius hacker with a photographic memory and an extremely violent temper. Yet loveable.

Last heard: 'Rubber Soul'. Now I am listening to this again after a long time, I find myself most admiring 'Norwegian Wood', 'Drive My Car' and 'The Word' above all. These seem the strongest efforts. Other tracks I find less fully realised and less incisive. 'In My Life' is pleasant, but I wonder if these apparently deeper works are overrated because they appear to be saying something important, whereas there are better recordings. It's all good though, as they are inclined to say these days - I am being picky.

Last seen. 'Electric Dreams' on TV (seventies). I enjoy the nostalgic evocation, though all this glib, decade-ist summarising is heard too often - everything was brown, the winter of discontent ushering in Thatcher etc. It would be good to see a fresh approach, questioning some of the assumptions and generalisations. Perhaps part of getting older is seeing your past times more and more simplified and misunderstood. It was a fun programme though!

Read: Transition by Iain Banks. Fantastic conceit of a novel disappears up it's own fundament. Disappointing. Gave up and romped through Pandaemonium, the new Christopher Brookmyre book, overnight.

Heard: Liquid Acrobat As Regards The Air, Incredible String Band. An old favourite on high rotation. Boards of Canada, Boc Maxima.

Seen: Coboy Bebop. Japanese anime series. Lead character is based on Bob Dylan - imagine that if you can.

Seen: District 9 - Watch in amazement as over the course of 90 minutes City of God slowly segues into Transformers vs. Iron Man. (This is currently the No. 1 box-office film in Spain. Mrs V and I were alone when we saw it. The cinema is on its last legs, I think.)

Heard: Trojan Country Reggae Box Set - Does exactly, precisely what it says on the tin: "I was dancin' chicka-chicka wid my darlin' BOOM! To the Tennessee Waltz chicka-chicka...."

Read: Richard Morgan's Market Forces. A very good writer (and plotter and character developer) who deserves a wider readership than just genre audiences.

Books: Just done Homicide/ The Corner/Generation Kill in a three week burst. As I said elsewhere, low bottom dope fiend for Simon/ Burns. Next up Jeff Jarvis' What Would Goodle Do? and some research related Irish political stuff.
Music: Discovered Mouse on Mars for the first time and had Rachid Taha on in the car. And Steve Earle on various podcasts out running - new definitive version of 'Pancho & Lefty'? The cracked voice now perfect foe the song.
Been researching and writing a lot lately so not much telly but can only concur with Spiral II and the now peerlessly enthusiastic and engaging Hairy Bikers.

Seen: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with my son this afternoon. Great fun. We both giggled all the way through. "Gummy bears"!

Read: currently reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and am thoroughly enjoying it. Before that it was Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, inspired by a summer trip to Barcelona.

Heard: recently released albums that I have enjoyed include: the Arctic Monkeys' Humbug, the Wild Beasts' Two Dancers, and, on the recommendation of Word bloggers, Madness's ...Norton Folgate. Also inspired by the Blog I enjoyed listening to Doolittle last night with the volume turned WAY up!

Music - New Ian Brown album, "My Way" is really good. I think its a grower, more subtle than his last album. Particularly the beats. Am also enjoying the new Slaraffeland album, "We're On Your Side" - like the second Arcade Fire album should have sounded - excited and inventive.

Book - started reading Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" this morning. Not impressed to be honest. So far it just seems to be badly written pseudo-psychological nihilism purporting to be a novel about a smug little git. Which is never a good thing.

DVD - watched "Southland Tales" yesterday for the first time sober. It makes slightly more sense, but I haven't figured it all out yet. And I probably never will. But I enjoy it, even if it did get completely slated when it came out.

Music - Kraftwerk at Bestival while dressed as a robot.

Absolutely amazing, one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Followed by the frankly ludicrous DJ Jaguar Skills on the Afterburner stage shooting flames into the air - brilliant.

New albums/EPs by Flaming Lips, Phenomenal Handclap Band & Paul Westerberg all ace

Book - Tom Robbins - Another Roadside Attraction

Fantastic first novel from 1971. You can smell the patchouli in the pages

Seen - I've been pleasantly surprised by Jamie's America or whatever it's called. Knocks the esteemed Mr Fry's tour of the states into a cocked cowboy hat. I just wish he'd stop calling everyone 'brother'.

Seen: The first episode of new series of The Thick Of It - utterly, utterly brilliant. Can say no more.
Nouvelle Vague at the Roundhouse - much better live than recorded, tp notch version of too drunk to fuck and love will tear us apart - melanie pain's solo stuff sounded worth a listen too

Heard: Califone album All My friend's Are Funeral Singers - a band that just get better with every album, capable of experimenting without losing their essence. each album seems to have added layers to their sound.

Read: Finally got round to The Road, very glad not to have read the last few pages in public. Stunning in every sense

SEEN: The Felice Brothers in Whelan's (Dublin). Is there a better live act around? Also saw the Hitchcock film Stage Fright on dvd (was there ever a better comedy actor than Alister Sim?)

HEARD: Monsters Of Rock and also Psonic Psunspot by Dukes Of Strosphear. Great tunes all 'round.

READ: Haven't even finished November's The WORD yet !