Blogwatch

Bon voyage and best wishes to Wan, off to Japan in pursuit of fame and fortune. He’s had to make substantial sacrifices, mind – not least missing out on how the ‘Eastenders’ plotline involving Laura, Gary, Lynne and the sprog turns out. Don’t worry Wan, I’ll keep you posted – and thanks for giving me the perfect excuse to watch even more avidly than normal.

More relocation, only this time within the virtual world. After a three month hiatus, This Is Not An Exit has reappeared here.

Badger Minor has linked to this discussion thread, all about favourite musical moments of the year so far. I have three: the sweeping passage building to the loud section in Mew’s ‘Comfortable Sounds’, the sudden and stunning electric thrust of urgency in the middle of Radiohead’s ‘2+2=5’, and (of course) the part in Electric Six’s ‘Gay Bar’ when it goes quiet and then the guitar line starts up again (although this moment is only at its most effective in conjunction with the video).

Olav’s been reading Douglas Coupland’s ‘Generation X’: “Yeah, so the glossary was nice, the definitions perfect and wrought with recognition, the sense of alienation piquant and true. But there's something so smug and hollow about it, so utterly superfluous that it left me utterly cold.” Very true – the narrative itself is unmemorable and feels slight, and I found myself turning the pages not for the story but merely for the terms at the bottom.

At a loose end? Try Sarah’s Northumberland-themed quiz. A word of warning, though: it’s fiendishly hard. I should know – that’s where I hail from.

If you’ve got X and Y chromosomes in your genetic make-up, and you’ve ever tried your hand at DIY, and felt utterly emasculated by your failures and absurdly proud of your successes (the chances are you have), then take a peek at Invisible Stranger’s hilarious tale of his manful and (ultimately) glorious struggle to put up a set of wooden blinds. It’s anecdotal postings like this that has made his one of my favourite blogs.

Elsewhere: Alex has been to see Buck 65 – “Imagine if Tom Waits rapped, and you’re probably close”; Kevin comments on Jello Biafra snubbing his former bandmates in the Dead Kennedys, who had invited him to join them for a reunion gig; and Ian has been engaged in his first spat with a fellow blogger. Been a while since I saw action, come to think of it – anyone fancy sending me a hysterically vitriolic email? Go on, it’ll make me feel loved…

And finally… Vaughan is preparing himself to be interviewed by an academic bod for a study of the weblog “phenomenon”, and finds himself at a loss for words. Any thoughts, anyone?