Blogwatch

Welcome...

An Itinerant Scholar In Brighton is the brand spanking new blog of FinDeSiecle. An SWSL associate newly resident in Brighton and studying for a PGCE, he's an inveterate reader, film buff and user of words like "littoral".

Meanwhile...

Jonathan updates us on The Tale Of The Mysterious Parka - "What I reckon is this; some modern day Mancunian Arthur Daley has found himself lumbered with an Ancoats warehouse full of slightly ragged old Parkas, and hit upon a novel way of getting them shifted - just send them out to random unsuspecting individuals, and, by way of a mysterious note in the ticket pocket, elicit a bit of curiosity".

Elsewhere...

Kenny salivates eloquently over Ladytron (now there's an image he'd like...) - "For encore, we get 'The Last One Standing', slightly slower of tempo but with an undeniably catchy chorus and plenty of soaring 'aaah-AAAHs' for Helen to tease her tonsils around. This is followed, inevitably, by 'Seventeen', a song of such simple but unutterable genius (and Dead Kenny never uses the word genius lightly) that Lennon and McCartney would have drunk each other's piss to have written it. Helen and Mira join each other at the middle of the stage for some slinky, synchronised moves as they deliver the devastating lines of a tune that acts like a serotonin virus that just keeps on giving".

Pete is equally enthusiastic about alt-country duo Believers - "As is usual, they arrived without fanfare, said their hellos, picked up their guitars and started playing. From the very first note, me and my elderly companions looked at each other in acknowledgement that we were about to witness something special. There is something about seeing two people armed only with acoustic guitars, absolutely hypnotise a room, hold it spellbound. The guy, as mentioned, had cool stamped through him like a stick of rock, but he was cool, not cold and in any case his partners warmth would thaw all but the iciest of rooms".

Simon gets his teeth into the week's Top 40 - "Ricky Martin - 'I Don't Care'. Now there's a hostage to fortune title. The problem with Martin, as evidenced by the type of promo he's been doing, is that he now needs to be aimed at an older audience because he's been so long away kids are going to go 'sorry, Livin' La what?'".

Betty makes a discovery - "Not turning up at events that I've been invited to and therefore annoying people is quite enjoyable".

Alan goes to a Jack The Ripper conference in Brighton and meets Jeremy Beadle - "Very approachable, a great pisstaker (my favourite type of person), and over the course of the weekend obviously a lot of folk staying at the hotel approached him for autographs and photos, he could not have been nicer or done more for any one of them".

Pete reviews Joss Whedon's 'Serenity' - "Compared to the vast majority of movies featuring space ships that get a wide cinematic release it was a fucking masterpiece of modern movie making and that I was expecting more says a lot, not just about the state of films generally but about Joss Whedon's potential".

Alex defends his excitement at the prospect of having beans on toast for tea - "Honestly, I'm not some troglodyte, Loaded-reading, nu-sexist 'lad' who thinks that cooking is woman's work and who never learned to do anything more than work a can opener and a microwave. Seriously. I can cook. I like to cook. I lived alone for the best part of three years and while, yes, I did give custom my local chinese and indian takeaways, they did not provide more than a fraction of my total diet, and nor did the microwave".

The Girl recalls how watching a contortionist in the company of her parents led to acute embarrassment (NSFW).

And finally...

Long Suffering Wife, er, suffers after ingesting copious quantities of Thatchers Cheddar Valley cider in The Anchor on Saturday evening. An evil and corrupting influence? Moi?