Nothing Compares "2U" is the bomb. That is all.

Ten Songs I would like Planet Sunflower to cover

Christina Aguilera: The Voice Within
Madder Rose: While Away
Tina Arena: Chains
Nick Cave, his quiff and his Bad Seeds: Papa Won't Leave You, Henry
Lots of people, but I'm thinking mainly of Johnnie Ray: My Ideal
The Shangri-Las: Out in the Streets
The Long Vacation: See the World
The Divine Comedy: Your Daddy's Car
Virginia Astley: Some Small Hope
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Taste the Floor

A C90 from 1993 or so

Sympathy for the Devil The Rolling Stones
Beautiful John Madder Rose
Taste the Floor The Jesus & Mary Chain
Year In Song Mary Margaret O'Hara
Words of Advice For Young People William S. Burroughs
Queen Bitch David Bowie
Spectators Of Suicide Manic Street Preachers
When I Get To Heaven Ice Cube
Thank You Friends Big Star
Hit The Sugarcubes
Suckling The Wendys
Love Will Tear Us Apart Joy Division
Slow My Bloody Valentine
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Saint Etienne
Transmitting Live From Mars De La Soul
Destroy the Heart The House of Love
Thieves Like Us New Order
The Needle And The Damage Done Neil Young
Another Girl, Another Planet The Only Ones
Hate My Way Throwing Muses
Would Not Be Denied Buffalo Tom
Gene Clark Teenage Fanclub

Not bad, really. I'd still happily listen to most of this. It owes a large debt to Chris F (Muses, JAMC, MMO'H, Bowie). Suckling was a favourite of Kes and I from a free Factory tape that came affixed to an issue of Select.

The Buffalo Tom is a bit of a mystery. I think Ben Jones lent me this record. It's good! Quite what I thought I was being denied at the time is equally a mystery...or maybe not.

I don't think Bjork has made a better record than Hit, except perhaps Ooops.

Sympathy now just brings the memory of Nick G's heroic dancing to it at Ross' wedding, the only time I have ever seen a round of applause for a man dancing to a record.

I don't really believe that Ice Cube is a very good muslim (though my evidence comes from his other records)

Terry Bickers should have made better records than he did after leaving The House of Love.

Third is a really depressing, druggy record, but songs from it in isolation ALWAYS make me smile.

Thieves Like Us really is peerless. Neil Tennant's favourite New Order, too (source: neworderstory).

"Never interfere in a boy and girl fight." Thanks Bill. Failed to follow that one. But then most of your "advice" is lunatic anyway. It is you who are the terminal fool.

I still love Gene Clark like a cretinous fanboy. I did love an 8 bar riff, didn't I? But this is one of the best.

A word on this whole "Hallelujah" nonsense. I was privileged to meet Jeff Buckley. By most other accounts, and certainly in my experience, he was at ease with people who liked his music, and wanted to share the music he liked with others. In the course of a five minute conversation with him, he recommended three bands he thought I might like, from the wildly obscure to the very popular. He obviously took great delight in interpreting other people’s songs, and I don’t think he would have condemned the interpretations of others, however they may have reached the public consciousness. The comparisons of worth between the Leonard Cohen original and his own would have been pretty dull to him, I think- he just wanted to get on to the next song, or the next voice, that entranced and inspired him. If more people are inclined to seek out, say, his version of “Satisfied Mind”, or “The Way Young Lovers Do”, or “Corpus Christi Carol”, because of The X-Factor, then so much the better. There is no innate worth in music. It’s just another thing that we share with each other- another way to relate.

Having noticed that I blog once every six months, and then only under duress, Tom has sent me another one of those meme things.

Four things

Four jobs I've had in my life:

Library Assistant
Sachet Packer
Wood Sander
Marketing Product Manager

These are actually the only four jobs I have had, except that the last one has involved a number of nominal promotions. And indeed, a number of nominal promotions. Arf.

Four films I can watch over and over:

Crumb
The English Patient
Sleeper
Twelve Monkeys

Four TV programmes I love to watch:

Anything directed by Stephen Poliakoff
CSI
Press Gang
Doctor Who

Four places I've been on holiday:

Aarhus
Corfu
Goteburg
Bochum

Four of my favourite dishes:

Bread Pudding
Corned Beef Rissoles
Honey Lemon Chicken
Flaeskesteg

Four websites I visit daily:

Ilxor
The Guardian
Comic Book Resources
Gmail

Four places I would rather be right now:

Denmark
Skye
Nijmegen
Asleep

I'm not sure I know any other 'bloggers'.

I said to K this morning that I still couldn't quite believe we'd won the Ashes. You didn't, she said, they're still playing in hell. I refrained from saying that that was exactly where we seemed to be playing Australia in the 1990s. Yesterday I put all of my newspaper clippings in a scrapbook with, to borrow from Gideon Haigh, all the concentration of a small boy over a complicated jigsaw. It was an amazing summer. Three things I will remember especially: (a) Harmison's ball to dismiss Clarke at Edgbaston; (b) Strauss' catch off Gilchrist at Trent Bridge and (c) see below. 

A marvellous article from the LRB comparing the fortunes of the superpowers, cricketing and otherwise, is here. Possibly the only article which draws the comparison between Kim Hughes and Jimmy Carter, but none the less entertaining for it.

Prebends Bridge, Durham. August 2005. (Courtesy H.J. Thomas) 

The Happy Couple. Morpeth, August 2005 

Hello Tom! Silver Street, Durham, August 2005