Desert Island Discs

I listened to Morrissey on Desert Island Discs on Sunday. I very rarely listen to live radio (iPlayer all the way), but I felt that it was important to listen to it at the same time as everyone else. Plus I was painting my kitchen.

It was wonderful. Morrissey was amusing and warm, and Kirsty Young utterly starstruck. You should listen on iPlayer. Really you should.

Inevitably, it brought up the question of what my seven tracks would be. Marc and I were in a lovely tapas bar in Honor Oak (Tapastry) and spent a few minutes looking like losers, tapping our respective lists onto our iPhones.

This is the list I gave. I don't think it's the right one, but I'm going to have fun going back to it every now and then, to see what stays, and what doesn't.

In no particular order;


The White Stripes - Hotel Yorba





Le Tigre - Deceptacon





Pulp - Mis-Shapes





Prokofiev - Romeo & Juliet (Dance of the Knights)





Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else but You





Patrick Wolf - Magic Position





The Carpenters - Yesterday Once More





So yes. I'd like to point out that I've always loved the Prokofiev, even before the awesomeness of The Apprentice. But I suspect it's appearance in this list is just to make myself appear to be slightly cultured.

And yes - I've always loved Moldy Peaches. Neither to I make any apologies for The Carpenters.

What is most surprising is how few of my favourite bands appear on this. I'm pretty sure I should have a Smiths song on there - but which one? That's more the problem.





Back to work. I've loved listening to all these songs this afternoon. Go on YouTube and find the proper Pulp video (it wouldn't let me embed) - it's ace.

Friday afternoon is made for blogging

I had a lovely chat in the office today, about the evolution on book covers.

It was inspired by this book;

A copy of which was brought into the office by Matt. I've blogged elsewhere about my obsession with buying Agatha Christie novels for their covers, but this prompted a different discussion, mainly about the evolution of book covers over the years.

This is particularly relevant as we have just published new editions of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. I had never before seen these covers

(apologies for the quality)

shown in the Front Cover book, and published by Pan in 1987. A quick Google search shows a raft of different covers. Of course, this can largely be explained by different countries publishing with entirely different covers, but it is fascinating to see that the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book was published with this cover;

And is now this;

An all singing, all dancing sticker edition, where you get to make your own (my favourite so far, on the Sci-Fi now Flickr stream is this little beauty

- Do Panic!

That this evolution has happened via this;

and this

I think is pretty amusing.

Well that's an image heavy/low content post!

Well this is terribly exciting. I can now blog from my phone. Still unlikely to say anything interesting... Far more likely that they will just be extended Twitter posts.


-- Post From My iPhone

How strange it is to read words wot you have written, and not remember them at all.

I should start again. Twitter gives me endless pieces of useless information on which to muse.

The Music Room

This is a little bit of a shameless plug for the day job, but I'm shoving this up here in the vain hope that someone will chance across it, take a chance, and buy The Music Room, by Will Fiennes. The story of his childhood in the family's moated castle, and the impact of his brother's epilepsy on the family life, it's rather slight, sensitive, and most wonderfully written.

I'm providing an easy link here, so all you have to do is click buy here, and then 'buy' on the website, and then sit back and wait for this really lovely book to arrive, improving the standard of your like immeasurably.

Honestly, it really is that good. Don't take my word for it though, listen to those lovely people at The Guardian Review, who made it their book of the week last week.

Sunday Express plumbs new depths

Occasionally you come across something that turns you into one of those doom-mongers who wail that society is broken and there's nothing we can do about it. Today's story in the Sunday Express has had that effect on me.

Am I naive? Of course I don't expect a high standard of reporting from the Express. There aren't many that read it for an incisive view of current affairs (actually, I'm not sure there are many that read it at all), but I was absolutely shocked that the chain of command at the Express decided that this;

story about the survivors of the Dunblane massacre was a good idea, and no

t the disgustingly offensive piece of vitriol it seems to me. How DARE they? I had intended to write a rather longer piece about how this is not only a massively unpleasant invasion of privacy, but the sort of misplced holier-than-thou preaching which has become the norm in certain parts of the British press, which exist apparently only to keep us all in a heightened state of outrage. But just thinking about it has made me tired, and it should really be patently obvious to anyone who reads it quite how abhorrent this piece is. The rest is below;

I came across the story on Twitter, via @Glinner, which creates an interesting topic, perhaps best left for another time. The second image is thanks to @OneInchMan.

Shocking news...

I'm alive.

The blog hasn't been updated because I was busy, and didn't really have anything interesting to say.

I still don't have anything particularly interesting to say, but due to personal circumstances, am back having a bit more time.

Long, rambling, rather pointless musings to follow.