Today I leave for Stanislav. Or, I would have- had my waiting up til 2am last night for an ebay auction to end been succesful. Fish, sea. We, in the land  of plenty. This is where your seven hundred billion will go. Nah ( Read more... )

Do you kill the moralistic gangster or the corrupt cop? They're brothers. Aim. All this to the sound of records dug out from the furthest recesses. Punk imbued with litergy and the academia of the academia, an elite bunch of supposed do-gooders emboldened with linguistic wankery. Heracles' unsure identity, Milton's conniving devils. All that is ( Read more... )

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Oh my days. The weekend was lovely. Nearly stayed out for a reasonable amount of time with Tim, Eleanor, Jerome and Alex. Spent Sunday in a radio communications office in Vauxhall with Phil, only to walk nearly 5 miles across London in search of rare PSUs. I walked past Parliament Square, and fulfilled a 6 year long ambition in meeting Brian Haw, ( Read more... )

"They speak with strong regional accents (occasionally even strong regional dialects), they dress in very non-glamorous ways (at times bordering on the scruffy), they often display an almost total lack of the kind of cultural capital that might moderate the behaviour of others on television, but above all they appear to be entirely bereft of the ( Read more... )

Listening to John McCain (or, as Will.I.Am refers to him 'the turtle') orate the packed Republican convention, I'm reminded of those Sunday afternoons spent as a child, languishing in the musk and familiar haze of our Methodist Church. The slow, elderly voice, stumbling over the sound of itself, coming across to patronise unevenly. I imagine that ( Read more... )

What kind of society are we? Since 15th July, an 8 year old boy has been kept locked up by the British immigration removal authority. The boy is Iranian, he and his mother having fled Iran after an arrest warrant was put out for her following the discovery of extracts of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in her flat. The child's lawyer has instructed ( Read more... )

At 29:51, episode 6 of the HBO drama Generation Kill, in a scene depicting US marines escorting refugees from Baghdad down the Al Qut highway, the soundbed samples a small child crying. The sample actually comes from the Tool track 'Cesaro Summability, #12 on the album Aenema. I think I'm the first person in the world to have noticed and checked ( Read more... )

I have some auctions up at the moment, and if you like your vinyl, and like it limited edition, out of print etc- you should check it out:

Portishead - Third box set (double 180g lp, machine gun 12", usb stick, and numbered screen print)
Wolves in the Throne Room - Diadem of 12 stars (double 180g lp, white vinyl- very limited edition)
Omar Rodriguez ( Read more... )

Woke up Friday. Went to Paddington, drank coffee, got on train. Met Potter at Reading station and gave him his Arsenal away kit (Fabregas 4 on the back). Met little brother. Went to Reading Festival. Saw Blood Red Shoes, Dizzee Rascal, Biffy Clyro, Qotsa and Rage Against the Machine (who were good, but whose crowd wasn't). Met Natasha and Steve. ( Read more... )