Marvellous

Is there a better documentary series on TV than Wonderland? If there is, I'm yet to hear about it.

As explorations of that most fascinating of subjects - people and their idiosyncrasies - the hour-long films routinely encompass and elicit the broad spectrum of human emotion, each one markedly different in focus and yet all intimately and sensitely observed insights into the lives of others. Each prompts the viewer to engagement and reflection rather than encouraging ironic detachment, and the protagonists are respectfully portrayed as multi-faceted individuals rather than as mere two-dimensional caricatures paraded for our amusement (take note, Louis Theroux).

A fortnight ago, Two Jews On A Cruise saw rigidly orthodox Jews Gaby and Tikwah - the subjects of an earlier film - go on holiday. Personally speaking, I'll admit the entertainment value was heightened by Gaby's physical and (at times) attitudinal similarity to my father-in-law. But the way the strains in the pair's marriage were underlined and confronted made for superb (if occasionally uncomfortable) viewing.

And then came Granny's Moving In, which followed one couple's fraught attempts to cope with a strong-willed parent's advancing dementia by moving her into their house. Mother and child had switched conventional roles and responsibilities, with the former's desire to retain independence and teenager-esque dislike of being lectured shown coming into conflict repeatedly with the latter's concern for her safety, security and wellbeing. The programme was a sometimes humorous but always poignant reminder of the difficult negotiation most of us will be faced with at some point in our lives.

Quote of the day

"Did you hear me? I'm at your house. Clean your fucking attic!!!"

A dead man communicating from the beyond the grave to chastise his friend for domestic untidiness? Or just someone dicking about? The recipients of emails purportedly from Jack Froese have responded but are yet to receive replies - not even an out-of-office message.

Know Your Enemy

"I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival ... How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence ... I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all. "

Greg Smith seals his resignation from his senior position at Goldman Sachs in style.

Reasons To Be Cheerful Part II

(If you're wondering what this is all about, click here.)

#9 - Mission

Mexican food: uncomplicated, relatively cheap, fresh, colourful, bursting with flavour and heat, and unspeakably delicious. So why isn't it everywhere (not just London)? A mystery - but at least one small local chain is trying to spread the word.

Mission Burritos - who have two branches in Oxford city centre and further outlets in Bath, Bristol and Reading - take inspiration from the famous Mission District of San Francisco. As the name suggests, their focus is firmly on that street food classic the burrito. My preference is usually for the carnitas (marinated and pulled pork) but the steak is almost equally delicious. That main filling in place, the flour tortilla is then liberally loaded up with peppers and onions, rice, refried beans, salad, cheese, guacamole, sour cream and your choice of salsa (from mild through lip-tingling to sauce of Satan). The result: a burrito the size of a small barrel for about £6.

OK, so it's a fast food joint (even if the pulled pork has been slow-cooked for hours) so the seating arrangements are basic - a great long table you inevitably share with others or stools perched in the window where you feel like a shop dummy advertising the product to hungry passers-by. But if I'm in town, in a hurry and en route for a gig (a common occurrence, needless to say), then it's to the Mission that I head for quick, satisfying sustenance first.

The hairs on their chinny chin chins

Not one for pogonophobes, this...

The Torygraph has probably prompted its readership to rail about dumbing down and the end of civilisation by ranking the top 12 authors' beards. Alan Moore should win hands down, really. Nice (though not surprising) to see good ol' D H Lawrence make an appearance - the man whose facial fuzz prompted the authorities to suspect he was a dissident during the First World War.

Coincidentally, a list of the top 10 beards in sport has been compiled by Eurosport. Sebastian Chabal's helps to make him look like he just crawled out of a cave in prehistoric times, but South African cricketer Hashim Amla takes the biscuit for that eccentric chin-sprouting/bald bonce combination.

(Thanks to Ellie and Mo for the links.)

Lies, damned lies and statistics

Well done to Ben Goldacre for picking up on both Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and his sidekick Paul Burstow for trying to justify the Tories' plan to dismantle the NHS by flagrant abuse of statistics. Just come clean and admit it's ideologically motivated, eh?

Know Your Enemy

"Sometimes I'm ashamed of the business I'm in. What pointless, self-defeating bullying."

Stephen Fry, set to star in The Hobbit, risks biting the hand that feeds by criticising the film's lawyers for pressuring Southampton boozer the Hobbit to change its name.

Two of my friends have come forward independently to pledge their support to the pub and, as one-time regulars, they will know better than Fry what they're talking about and fighting for.

Fuel for thought

A slightly worrying message sent to HQ by the driver of a bus I was on recently: "There's a gentleman in the Didcot area attempting to board Oxford-bound buses with a full can of petrol". Hopefully his car had just run out of juice and he wasn't really a determined arsonist...

The light fantastic

An album on revered indie Bella Union? Tours in support of both Low and Explosions In The Sky? It seems like an old primary school friend of mine is doing rather well for himself in Lanterns On The Lake. I've now invested in the aforementioned album (Gracious Tide, Take Me Home) - yet to listen to it, but am hoping I can report that the boy done good.

(Of course this is just another setback in my quest to wrap up the SWSL Top 10 Albums of 2011 - I'll have to give it time to impress before compiling the round-up...)

Summer's here

I saw my first swallow of summer on Saturday afternoon - tattooed onto the naked upper torso of a bloke pushing a pushchair in Merthyr Tydfil.

Recording history

Great to hear that John Peel will continue to inspire and influence musical tastes from beyond the grave, with the news that much of his record collection is going to be digitised and made available to browse online. At a rate of 100 albums a week, it'll probably be at least a month before all of his Fall records are up...

Know Your Enemy

"Banter is not humour; banter is what people have when they lack a sense of humour. Banter is a catch-all word for idiocy that warns the rest of us that Here Be Lads. Banter is Soccer AM. It is Andy Gray. It is middle-aged men on Top Gear pretending that they are edgy outsiders by mocking society's weakest, then going home to Chipping Norton where they live two doors down from the Prime Minister."

Hear hear - sense surprisingly to be found in the Torygraph courtesy of Tom Chivers.

(Thanks to Zoe for the link.)

Feel good hits of the 8th March

1. 'Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow' - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2. 'Dark In My Heart' - Lee Hazlewood
3. 'Winterkill' - Kid Dakota
4. 'Wired' - I Break Horses
5. 'Vessel' - Zola Jesus
6. 'I Know I Fucked Up' - Darren Heyman with Elizabeth Morris
7. 'Getting Bright At Night' - The Icarus Line
8. 'Benediction' - Thurston Moore
9. 'Mistress' - Marissa Nadler
10. 'Winterbirds' - Epic 45

Notes:

1. Just an excuse to link to that video again? Not quite. This - as well as #2, #6 and #10 - featured on winter-themed mixes I've received as part of a shuffleathon-type activity with work colleagues, which thus far I'm loving (and I'm only a couple in). It also featured on my own compilation, together with #3.

4. There I was thinking that Youth Lagoon's The Year Of Hibernation was going to make off with the shoegaze crown for 2011, and along comes Hearts - a really rather gorgeous album.

5. A couple of listens to Stridulum II was enough to convince me to invest in her latest, on which 'Vessel' is the definite stand-out.

7. Don't know what possessed me to dig out Penance Soiree for the first time in a while over the weekend, but I'm glad I did.

8. How could I ever have thought that Thurston Moore + guitar of any kind could possibly = bad?

Know your "crunkcore poser" from your "screamolester"

Your Scene Sucks: a host of recognisable music fan fashion stereotypes. I'm not adventurous enough - or young/daft enough, depending on how you look at it - to really fall into any category, though I suppose ""post rocker" comes closest.

(Thanks to Abbie for the link.)

Know Your Enemy

"I'm sick of Melvyn Bragg, Hugh Grant, Joan Bakewell and Anne Robinson. I'm sick of Vince Cable, the entire Labour Shadow Cabinet and all politicians.

I'm sick of squatters and travellers, pop music, British food, the BBC, surveillance cameras, my rotten pension, terrorists, Anglican bishops and having no money, and I just want to die.

My country, which I loved, is ruined. It will never be happy again. It is all self, self, self, moan, moan, moan. I cannot wait to get out and rest in peace."

A letter published in the Daily Heil from one Harry Simpson of Northwich. Following so swiftly on from their decision to cover the right-wingers-are-thick story, it's further evidence to suggest that the paper may be finally eating itself.

Quote of the day

"David Cameron: I did ride police horse loaned to Brooks"

Somewhat implausibly, a headline from the BBC News site rather than Daily Mash.

In other political news, Cameron's strategy chief has fled to the US to take up an unpaid academic sabbatical position. Apparently Steve Hilton is notorious for padding about the corridors of power in his socks without a tie chuntering on about "blue sky thinking". Wonder how Armando Iannucci came up with The Thick Of It's Stewart Pearson, then?

Losing its edge

Much hand-wringing about the state of modern popular music of late, it seems - and much of it very much misguided.

First, the Guardian's Alex Petridis has bemoaned the fact that pop and rock have lost their "gay edge". The flaws in his argument have been ruthlessly (and rightly) exposed here. Suffice to say, though, that he conveniently ignores a great deal (though that's something his interviewees do too) while also clinging to the painfully outmoded view that gayness necessarily equates to flamboyance and edginess. One of the industry figures quoted, former Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell, hints that perhaps the real issue is that homosexuality has become normalised - but Petridis is too busy on a nostalgia trip to pay much attention.

On a very similar note, blogger Ross Keen has lamented the alleged disappearance of the political from music. Perhaps the reason is much the same as for the supposed loss of Petridis' "gay edge" - times have changed since that oft-cited high water mark of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and politically anodyne pop music is simply a reflection of the apathy of the general public towards vanilla parties who are practically indistinguishable from one another. And I'm afraid the opinion of anyone who lauds a new Paul Weller album as an attempt to fill the vacuum and address the burning issues of the day is hardly to be trusted. Lest we forget, the Tory-voting turncoat has been peddling middle-of-the-road say-nothing shite for years...

(Thanks to Ben and Dave for the links.)

Embranden yourself!

Desperate to improve the web presence of your business? Don't fear: Twategy are on hand to advise you in the noble art of "creovative marketing"...

(Thanks to Zoe for the link.)

A class act

This is a fine collection of photos of London life, taken by Mark Neville and published in the New York Times, but undoubtedly the stand-out image is the primary school group...

(Thanks to Darryl for the link.)

Read it and don't weep

Consolation of sorts from Anthony Horowitz, who questions whether authors still need publishers before concluding that, ultimately, they do. Yay! We're not redundant just yet. Those who persist in claiming that publishers add nothing of value and just cream off the profits might be forced to revise their opinion if they compared some of what we get submitted with the finished article...

(Thanks to Ellie for the link.)

Setting Sun?

So, the first Sunday Sun sold over three million copies, then. Best make hay, Murdoch, before further allegations about this "culture of illegal payments" come out...

Quote of the day

"To me they're like what the Beatles are to other people."

Mark Lanegan, unbelievably enough, talking to The Quietus about his favourite albums. It's not the only curveball, either - the Gun Club and Joy Division, fair enough, but I wouldn't have picked him for a John Renbourn or Roxy Music fan.

Jen and Ben's eggcellent adventure


Operation: Good Life continues apace in our little corner of Oxfordshire. We've successfully cultivated the garden to the point that cherry tomato plants were springing up all over the place last summer; we've mastered the art of breadmaking (well, using our breadmaker, at least); and I've thrown myself into trying some more serious and adventurous cooking since the new year began (Mexican and Thai have regularly been on the menu, though the pork, cider and sage pie I concocted with the assistance of the Pieminister cookbook, Pieminister: A Pie For All Seasons).

And now the latest phase: chickens. Well, I say chickens, as that's what we THOUGHT we'd got. What we've ACTUALLY got has turned out to be two Polish chickens, Birinus and Alan, and a Polish frizzle cockerel called Hadrian. All have their own distinct and loveable characteristics and personalities, but Hadrian's our favourite - proud, inquisitive, excitable. So it's all the more saddening that he's definitely found his voice and usually spends an hour and a half (on and off) announcing his presence to the neighbourhood each morning, starting at around 7.30....

There's nothing much that can be done to stop him crowing (he doesn't seem to realise that piping down would be in his best interests), and we're increasingly resigned to the fact that he'll have to leave us before too long. For the time being, though, he'll no doubt enjoy strutting around the garden, pestering us for handfuls of mealworms, perching in suitably imperious fashion on the henhouse and being east Abingdon's alarm clock.

As for the two which actually are chickens starting to earn their keep, we've had no eggs yet. Cheeky little freeloaders...

The generation game

So, according to the Guardian's John Harris, rock 'n' roll is now the near-exclusive preserve of the old. Well that's that, then - we might as well jack it in. I suppose you probably can't expect much else from a journalist who also writes for nostalgic rag Mojo.

Meanwhile, sad news from Canada, where Women's Christopher Reimer has died suddenly at the age of just 26. His band released two intriguing and occasionally brilliant hard-to-categorise albums, Women and Public Strain, on Jagjaguwar before an on-stage spat resulted in indefinite hiatus. A terrible shame, as they certainly seemed to have a lot still to offer.

SWSL Albums Of 2011: out of sight earshot, out of mind

Knowing when to draw the line - it's sometimes difficult to know. Particularly when it comes to deciding when I've heard enough to be able to survey the previous year's musical outpourings without running the risk of missing out something critical, writing off a record prematurely or being caught in the throes of a temporary passion for an album which really isn't all that great. Pathetic, I know, but the embarrassment at committing any one of the above faux pas can be acute.

However, following a flurry of recent purchases, I have now forced myself to draw the line and so, by way of preamble to the big annual countdown, I detail below in no particular order some of the albums that might have found their way into the overall list had I heard them in full, rather than just the (representative?) sample tracks I've linked to and commented on briefly. There are a number of superb songs in amongst them, and some fine videos too. Hopefully one or two might strike a chord...

tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l
Sample track: 'Bizness'
Merrill Garbus' second stab at Afro-pop futurism. Yelpy.

KURT VILE - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Sample track: 'Baby's Arms'
"Celestial finger-picking". So sayeth Pitchfork - and who am I to argue, having not heard the album?

COLD CAVE - Cherish The Light Years
Sample track: 'Confetti'
Hardcore and power electronics veterans join forces to craft synth-pop monster with black ice in its veins.

ESBEN AND THE WITCH - Violet Cries
Sample track: 'Marching Song'
Youthful Brighton trio channelling the spirits of the dead and tormented. It's grim doon south.

J MASCIS - Several Shades Of Why
Sample track: 'Is It Done'
He might be in Neil Young campfire mode, but even still the electric wizard can't resist unleashing the odd screeching solo.

THE TWILIGHT SINGERS - Dynamite Steps
Sample track: 'On The Corner'
Trademark lustful nocturnal melodrama from Greg Dulli, just in time to whet appetites for this summer's Afghan Whigs reunion.

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER - Last Summer
Sample track: 'My Mistakes'
Quick, while brother Matthew isn't looking! The Fiery Furnaces sneaks out some delightfully uncomplicated, breezy pop.

TIMES NEW VIKING - Dancer Equired
Sample track: 'No Room To Live'
A glimpse of what's been hiding beneath the scuzz all this time: another Crystal Stilts. I wonder what prompted them to lose the disguise?

SUUNS - Zeroes QC
Sample track: 'Up Past The Nursery'
At last, a band who recognise and appreciate Clinic's charms, even down to aping Ade Blackburn's sinister through-clenched-teeth murmurings and hissings.

COLOURMUSIC - My ___ Is Pink
Sample track: 'You For Leaving Me'
Don't be seduced into pigeonholing them on the grounds of their Fleet Foxes beards! Perhaps the reason Wayne Coyne was impressed by Colourmusic was because they do gospel-fuzz-funk better than any of the tracks on the Lips' At War With The Mystics.

GIRLS - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Sample track: 'Vomit'
Unexpectedly lengthy and carefully crafted epic from a band who seemed a bit shambolic and unfocused even by slackers' standards at Green Man in 2010.

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Sample track: 'Midnight City'
It was probably only a matter of time before Anthony Gonzalez put out a double album. That we can forgive him - but allowing ubiquitous lead single 'Midnight Sun' to be used in Made In Chelsea? Hmm...

MARISSA NADLER - Marissa Nadler
Sample track: 'Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning'
Country-tinged tales of heartbreak and sorrow. Ever thought about hooking up with Josh T Pearson, Marissa? You'd give that Campbell and Lanegan a damn good run for their money.

BEIRUT - The Rip Tide
Sample track: 'East Harlem'
For once, Zach Condon chooses not to colour an album with cross-cultural borrowings but instead just to play it straight.

HANDSOME FURS - Sound Kapital
Sample track: 'Serve The People'
Husband-and-wife combo Dan Boeckner (of Wolf Parade) and Alexei Perry downsize the guitars and make a play for the big time.

VERONICA FALLS - Veronica Falls
Sample track: 'Beachy Head'
Indiepop fanatics with a death fixation. Makes a change from girls and hairslides.

DEAD SKELETONS - Dead Magick
Sample track: 'Dead Mantra'
On the subject of death fixations... All you need to know about this is that Julian Cope probably approves.

DIRTY BEACHES - Badlands
Sample track: 'Lord Knows Best'
They don't make 'em like this anymore. Except actually they do - well, Alex Zhang Hungtai does, anyway. "Minimalist rockabilly", he claims, with a Beat heart and a soft spot for David Lynch and Suicide.

BARN OWL - Lost In The Glare
Sample track: 'Midnight Tide'
Sensuous pastoral drone, like Six Organs Of Admittance nodding off to sleep, only with Sunn 0))) occasionally lurking beneath the window.

CYMBALS EAT GUITARS - Lenses Alien
Sample track: 'Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)'
What Lenses Alien's schizophrenic and sprawlingly ambitious opening track says about the album as a whole is anybody's guess.

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Sample track: 'Ffunny Ffrends'
Another album opener here, this one akin to on-hiatus psych-art-poppers Women getting funky.

TIM HECKER - Ravedeath, 1972
Sample track: 'Hatred Of Music I'
The drone aficionado's album of choice for 2011. The forboding soundtrack to those night terrors.

REAL ESTATE - Days
Sample track: 'It's Real'
Bittersweet power pop jingle-jangle that's airy and unassuming enough to suggest it could steal your heart without you noticing.

And that's all for now - fuller reviews of all the albums I did hear in their entirety and, of course, the Top 10 to come.

Know Your Enemy

"I stopped shaving and discovered I was more popular. Maybe people can't see my ordinary, rather dour facial expressions as easily and so they don't seem to think I'm the total jerk they seemed to think I was before."

The Magnetic Fields' Stephen Merritt, clearly a master of the art of self-deprecation.

You give skinny love a bad name

With hindsight, it was the tribute band mash-up waiting to happen: Bon Joviver. Here's to them playing a slot at Fat Lil's in Witney some time soon.

(Thanks to Paul for the link.)

Quote of the day

"Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has apparently found rare Joy Division and New Order master tapes when digging up the basement of a new restaurant in Manchester."

I could be wrong, NME, but somehow I doubt that Oliver was personally doing the digging.

The story becomes slightly less odd when you learn that the building in which the restaurant is to be situated is a former bank, and that the tapes (as well as gold, jewellry and even a gun) were in deposit boxes. All of the finds have been returned to the Treasury, apparently - with Peter Hook seemingly intent on continuing to butcher Unknown Pleasures all over the place, it's nice to know that at least one small part of Joy Division's legacy is in safer hands...

Update

Actually, thanks to Simon and according to Manchester Confidential, very little of this is true - a textbook case of churnalism of which I'm also guilty...

Any Porto in a storm

So, no Glastonbury this year, a wedding the weekend of Green Man, most probably on holiday the weekend of the resurrected Truck and the one December ATP (curated by The National) not holding much appeal - what to do for 2012's festival action? Well, we've found a solution: the new Primavera offshoot, Optimus Primavera Sound, in Porto in June.

We're back in Derbyshire for our wedding anniversary when the established Barcelona Primavera festival is on, but have decided to prolong our holiday and head out to Portugal immediately afterwards. The line-up for Porto is a slightly scaled-down version of its Spanish cousin, but that's hardly grounds for complaint when it still boasts the likes of Yo La Tengo, Shellac, Spiritualized, Sleepy Sun, Dirty Three, Explosions In The Sky, The Flaming Lips, The XX, Wavves and Lee Ranaldo. Add to that both the Afghan Whigs and Codeine and my main reasons for going to ATP's I'll Be Your Mirror in May have been removed - this will kill both birds with one stone.

Superb music, (hopefully) good weather, a new city to explore (plus a couple of nights in Lisbon afterwards) - can't wait...

To like is not to love

Fond of absent-mindedly clicking "Like" on Facebook? Ever described a technological gadget as "sexy"? If so, then Jonathan Franzen's got some stern words for you: you're a narcissist and quite possibly incapable of recognising or feeling true love...

(Thanks to Phil for the link.)