mind, Lil' Jon is working with Twista right now.

(also, D12 get all their Crunk Juice from Trader Joe's)

there's lots of snow in rural Indiana and it's fucking cold

kinda interesting Lil' Jon video (presumably for his latest choon, given it was no.2 on m2's hip-hop countdown tonight) with a cameo of a Kanye lookalike, clearly indulging in a lil' bit of ribbing re. the boi from the Chi

-

South no luv for the Midwest??

Melanie McFadyean on a "pile-up of shameful contradictions" at the Home Office

Spanish press in one-eyed twattery shockah

one more thing

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hail to the Matt

AIN'T NO FATHER TO HIS STYLE

a friend of mine sent me a txt msg yesterday that went

'remembering the Ol Dirty one by spinning some of that shit.
at least he went doing something he did best'

which is, eh, maybe you think it's a bit of a lame sentiment, but eh you know

___

Gary Younge makes some valuable points here whilst this is good [some sensible views on the Gbagbo regime from M. Chirac] and this is timely reading.

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gone fishing - the wide and noble Shannon - thence to visit my lover in the Chi, via Philly {if a proper, juicy cheesesteak is ate there will be reports and mayhaps pictures} ///

really <333-ing e crunk right now

Diana Hulton - 'Resister'

i feel awful now btw for being so rude about Ally Fogg after they drew everyone's attention to a superb exhibition of South African art at Salford Museum and Art Gallery.






CULTURE IS A WEAPON

RIP the ODB, one of the greats.

the NME once called the ODB the most rock'n'roll person on earth, but that's not really it, just a beautiful human bean, with a fine and lovely heart and spirit from accounts.

god what am i saying, don't be a twat, a person a person, a person

not been this upset since Ray Charles passed, so the Stones shining a light may have to help tonight.

oh 'return to the 36 chambers' you had some balls.

you know when you don't want to believe it...
?!
god i'm inarticulate

:(

you know when you wish you were eloquent.


rest in peace

He is a poet of great intelligence and great ecstasy; his poetry wouldn’t have survived without both.

- Adam Zagajewski on Czeslaw Milosz.

Ninety-five per cent of the houses were destroyed. Seven hundred of my family and friends were killed. We fought and killed because we had to. We beat the Soviets and our forefathers beat the British twice. So many people died.
It is very hard for some mujahedin; they have known nothing but war.

- Izatullah Atif Rooz.

Perceptive and fine essay (first volume of two; the second nearly as enjoyable) on John Clare by James Fenton, touching on his interests in folk music, botany and ornithology, as well as his verse.
Blake was brave by instinct and choice, Clare believed, and did you know Clare collected around 260 tunes?
ineffably great.

What is very difficult to gauge, when we consider Clare, is the impact of ephemeral publishing such as these handkerchiefs, and broadsides, chap-books, newspapers, and magazines.

i was glad that Robin got Michael Gove in there

1999’s Venus Beauty Institute.
A film about women.

i'd like to hear more of Vakill, one of the Windy City's more interesting emcees, indeed more Molemen fullstop would be good

This is a nice little Sun Ra page
http://www.missioncreep.com/mw/sunra.html

BLOG LINKAGE
Pop Life's [O. Wang] playlist
Pop Life's [D. Walmsley] jungle/grime take
Geeta in a bar (and Dan Selzer!)
Oliver, piping up, shouting the odds (he's right about Vanunu, eh)
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i'm off for the tie!fic {soon}

Samantha Power wrote a good article profiling Roméo Dallaire in a recent NYRB.

it's not available to read on the site but if you're arsed you could pay four sheets (US) to buy it for a bit, here

you may remember when i said 'babycakes' was the single of my year some weeks ago.

well i've not heard that for ages so my goldfish-like attention span has clearly let me down again reader(s)!

for example, i've been absolutely rinsing my CD copy of 'lose my breath' (1.97, music zone) all weekend, perhaps excessively so (though i'm currently hammering that jojo choon - incidentally she did a very enjoyable performance of leave right now on totp some weeks ago, in front of some i think it were Floridian swimming pool with some buff boys dancing with her - it's scary to think she essentially resembles lindsay lohan's jailbait sister as lindsay herself is only, what? 12? 13?).

'babycakes', top tune mind.

---

i must also admit to quite liking the most recent single efforts from gwen stefani, the libertines and especially kings of leon (not too sure about the dancey stylings of the magnetic fields tho, or rather the free commuter paper metro's decision to give it 5 stars but 'lose my breath' "only" 3 stars...also what was their Ally Fogg on about during their recent Dizzee Ras touring shows previews, he moves away from standard grime templates by incorporating Eastern melodies, global palettes {not to mention Cap'n Sensible, admittedly} and such, does she not hear all the shakuhachi stylings on age-old grime releases, has she not read about Wiley emerging from Sterns' arms-laden?

hmm,
clearly not
i admit i was a bit miffed by that,
especially as we've pronounced wednesday grime day where i work [the other four week days are deliberately absurd fusions of genre-names, you know the score])
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oh, i think loaf is spot on - i tried it myself, didn't get very far, so went down the pub instead (for a very good pint of boddies)

right, i'm nearly done piping up in tabloid-style language about alleged Republican terrorist leaders but would just like to observe - real tabloid style - that here lies a work of brilliance

that's a shame

reports of the new OutKast album are very intriguing.

it will be fascinating to see what the apparently stripped down back to basics sound that 10 the Hard Way will be showcasing will do -

[must admit, i'm one of these cliched fans that quite possibly prefers 'Aquemini' above all else, though hearing Stankonia last night for the first time in ages made me remember just why i love it so much]

- in terms of sales and whatnot, it'll be especially interesting to see if some of the newer fans the boys picked up in the wake of their globe-straddling last LP will stick with 'em...

oh.
there's a thoughtful, provocative, and sobering letter in the guardian this morning.

The ones who passed away are still waiting for justice. Their eyes are still open and they are looking for it.

- Anonymous official at a Choeung Ek memorial, outside Phnom Penh.

Which ones will be killed in street fights or in the camps?
Which ones will join the Nazis?

oh, also, if you want to help, there's The Citizens Foundation - good, good people
[of all the hundreds of slums in Karachi you had to barrel into mine?!?]

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...EIGHT DAYS A WEEK

It was so peaceful and we did not encounter German resistance for five hours. Then all hell broke loose.
Desmond Wiggins, 80.

We realised what a cock-up it was pretty soon. It started with the RAF bombing a mental hospital because they were told it was a German camp. When the real Germans came across us, they threw everything at us – tank shells, mortars, flame-throwers, you name it. We did not have the firepower to match them.
Of course I remember losing my sight. I was told to lead some guys up into some woods from where we were getting a lot of flak. I was carrying a Bren gun and there was this almighty explosion. I rolled over and then it was as if someone had thrown a lot of grit into my eyes.
I rubbed them, apparently that was a mistake, because then a lot of blood started pouring out.

-Corporal Ray Sheriff, 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, 83-year old Arnhem veteran.

following the nine French peacekeepers (and one American aid or relief worker) being killed near Bouake yesterday i'm a bit puzzled by M. Chirac's insistence that the warplanes be destroyed.
apparently five of the country's military choppers will be destroyed also (said an official in Paris, according to the papers), leaving the Ivorian airforce with one item to call their own.

i can, er, appreciate the thinkingbehindthisreaction to such a calamitous tragedy, but, er, well, it's leaving the Ivorians a bit short eh...

+

Mark Steyn is truly obsessed with falling European birth rates; it seems he'll pipe up about it anywhere given half a chance (witness article mentioning same in today's Telegraph).
+

speaking of today's Telegraph, here's a sentence one doesn't type very often:

i was rather impressed with Michael Howard's interview conduct.

there again, he was being sensible in the face of the Telegraph's sloganeering and baiting on law and order issues.

quite nice lo-fi/ragged and_or fey Americana/hardcore (punk)/rock etc comp CD-R done for me by an indie colleague.
trklisting as follows:
1. American Football ‘Never Meant’
2. At the Drive-In ‘Initiation’
3. Cap’n Jazz ‘Oh Messy Life’
4. Modest Mouse ‘The World at Large’
5. Embrace (no, not those lot) ‘Dance of Days’
6. Fugazi ‘Cashout’
7. Josh Rouse ‘Straight to Hell’
8. Mates of State ‘I Have Space’
9. Minor Threat ‘Straight Edge’
10. Owen ‘Good Deeds’
11. Metronomes ‘Cub’
12. Pretty Girls Makes Graves ‘This is our emergency’
13. Rites of Spring ‘Hain’s Point’
14. Black Flag ‘I’m The One’
15. The Thermals ‘No Culture Icons’
16. These Arms Are Snakes ‘Diggers of Ditches Everywhere’
17. Very Secretary ‘Feeling Cheated’
18. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy ‘The Way’
19. Clinic ‘Distortions’
20. Interpol ‘Specialist’
21. Sufjan Stevens ‘The Dress Looks Nice on You’
22. Wheat ‘Don’t I Hold You’
23. Lullabye for the Working Class ‘The Man Vs. The Tide’

my favourite CD of recent weeks has been – shout to those in the know – the quite delightful Goin’ Crazy With The Blues: 19 tracks plotting a wonderful coverage of various roaring Twenties hits from Prague’s Original Syncopated Orchestra.
it really is adorable stuff, some of it so effervescent the music positively zings.

i did, however, listen to Duran Duran and Human League albums back to back the other day.

perhaps i’m spending too much time in TopShop.

although Amnesty are currently debating whether to drop their neutral position over the use of arms (Human Rights Watch have every intention of staying neutral).

they really shouldn't.

An asylum seeker from Somalia was murdered a few months after being deported by the Dutch authorities.
The UK has also forcibly returned Somali asylum applicants to southern Somalia, despite the lawlessness which results in frequent killings of civilians.

(Amnesty International UK)

pub team would not be a harsh description

I watch him in the kitchen, and I think of how much it hurts to love somebody. How deep the hurt is, how almost unbearable. It's not the love that hurts; it's the possibility of anything happening to the object of your love. Like, I would not want Dennis to lose his mind. But I'd be much more fearful of me losing my mind, because then he'd be the one left alone.

Just like I want him to die first, so that he doesn't have to lose me and then be alone. Or if I do have to die first, I want to find him another boyfriend beforehand, I want to hand-pick somebody and then get to know this person and make sure he's up to the task. I imagine there would be paperwork involved, with serious consequences if he breached the contract in any way. Love, unconditional. Or else you will lose your 401(k) plan, and your credit report will be forever destroyed, and there will be prison time.

So then I stop myself from thinking these thoughts because it's like tearing at a wound, opening it wider when it's trying to heal. Or actually, it's more like inflicting the wound yourself with a paring knife.

What's painful and wonderful about loving somebody is loving their small things, like the way he is able to smile when he sips his wine, the way his hands fall down at his sides, fingers slightly cupped, or the way he is conducting the orchestra on the radio. Or now, the way he is lighting candles, just now this one in front of me. This is the one he lit first, actually. The one in front of me. Even though there was one on the way, he passed that one, lit it next.

The truth is, Dennis has no bad qualities and no faults. When he's working late and I'm alone, or sometimes when we're in bed together, the lights off, I try and make even a small list in my mind of his faults: Things I Put Up With Out of Love. But I haven't been able to think of a single thing that I am not able to first overlook and then come to cherish. Even the fact that he sometimes loses things has led to a treasured nickname: Mittenclips.

Because sometimes, he misplaces things: keys, his wallet, our car once. But his face, when he sees that he's done this -- where are my keys? -- it's the most precious crestfallen face, and I tell him, "Have you checked the pockets on that jacket you wore last night?" And I check the bathroom and the floor under the sofa and all the unlikely but possible places for lost things to be. And we always, always manage to find whatever was missing.

Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling with the facts. Why me? Didn't I already have a big love once? And lost it? So why should I get it again? I've had to stop trying to look for cracks and flaws to prove that it's not as good as it seems. Because it's as good as it seems. Even when we fight, we fight inside the container of good.

Somehow, through the flip of a coin, I ended up here. Feeling like somebody at the top of the heart-lung transplant recipient list. Damaged but invigorated and fucking lucky.

from Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs

'I'm sorry mother.

I could not resist this delicious cobra.'

ALEXIS PETRIDIS
a sincere apology

gosh i've been a sour-spirited and inaccurate little moaner the last few days haven't i?
huge amounts of the most contrite brown-nosing must be sent to the guardian journo after my wrong-headed and mean attack on his article from wednesday.
it really isn't good enough.
simply unacceptable.

cheers.

Manchester Matters: Fri.05.Nov

the likes of Van Morrison, the Chemicals, Joss Stone and Anastacia might all be playing in town tonight, but look at this
- Kenny Dixon Jr's first ever Mancunian date

sublime

in the interests of balance, i should perhaps point out that they've a lo-fi champ playing the same venue 24 hours later

- indie in rude health,
what a contrast to the moribund blah haemorrhagic blah revolutionary ideals quashed in dead ends blah compromised and faded inert junk blah of 'dance music' eh

chilling words from the Prime Minister

sickening

txt from a friend sent the other evening (round about midnight)

I'm watching a clarinetist and a guy in a nappy play 30s jazz hits. They are astonishing. I wish, more than anything, you were here.

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belated congratulations to President Karzai by the way
(oh, this blog is read by some of the top boys in Kabul, didn't you know?)

p.s.
say what you like about Mark Steyn (we do round our way) but he called Mr Daschle losing Dakota Sud ages ago
p.p.s.
here are some things that have recently happened in southern Thailand

has there been a general election then Mr Blackadder?

[oh, OK, go Barack go etc]
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meanwhile

Alexis Petridis dance music dead blah blah - lots of strawmen, irrelevant or wrong side avenues, and the general foolish plucking at thin air Petridis can be solid at (grime abstruse, better stop listening to it
and you've got bad taste for liking 'call on me' tsk)

meanwhile

'twas announced a few days ago that
Bolton, northwest England {among others} welcomes African refugees in landmark programme - tad dispiriting the council leader had to point out "This group of people are not asylum seekers; they have been specially pre-selected on the basis of need and have already been granted full refugee status by the government" but one must be realistic about that...

but also
superb anti-European headline in the Daily Express this morning

QUEEN HAS TO EAT IN HITLER'S BANQUET HALL

i especially enjoyed that the front page got in that "pop-star Michael Jackson" dangled his baby from the balcony of same hotel
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currently feeling

lex 'fourteen days'

here's that ENSAAF report, Twenty Years of Impunity