Love and marriage

I'm back in the zone. Have no excuses. Well I've been spending my blogging time penning a best man speech for a wedding in Hampshire this weekend. And also spending time firing guns and ping pong balls on stag fun in Chichester, west Sussex. When I've not been doing that I've been listening to the wonderful new albums by Martha Wainwright and Joan As Police Woman. But normal service will be resumed very shortly, if only to bump that awful pic of Peter Perrett down the pecking order.

Reunion with rehab?

Watched the all-new, none-less pretentious Later With Jools Holland last night. The big question may have been, ooh, Estelle or Adele (and there was only one winner - Estelle had all the funk and didn't try and just present a masterclass in stretching a bad melody/concept over four minutes), but all me and Dee could think was WHAT THE BLUE BLAZES HAS HAPPENED TO THE SINGER FROM THE ONLY ONES??? (third left in this picture). He heliumed his way through Another Girl, Another Planet looking like a skeleton in shades. I seriously thought he'd buckle under the weight of his guitar. I love the Only Ones, but I'm not sure going on tour is the best thing for Peter Perrett.

Tourism? It's a dump

Spotted this sign on my travels around Grimsby. The idea of a tourist bureau staff, huddled behind this corrugated shutter, never seeing daylight, sharing a site with the council's municipal waste team, struck an Orwellian chord.

Raef (Not) Fines

Favourite moment from last night's Apprentice, was when appalling laquered dark-eyed Raef hit back at the really quite okay Alex as he defended his miserable ability to not know the price of fish.

"This is not the time for hyperbole, Alex" the future Tory MP decried. Seconds earlier he had extolled his hard work not knowing the difference between sharks and hamsters by saying "I had blood, literally, coming from my hands." Hyperbole for some then, it seems.

The one thing that will put an end to evicted Nicolas's appalling smugness was the fact that he will be bald by the time he's 28 and look rather like a worse Brian Eno.

Listening: Radio Four at 40

Reading: Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut (again); Confederacy Of Dunces (again) Flat Earth News

Brief candles Zombies

Some footage of the Zombies reunion two weeks ago. Shaky cameras do not diminish how lovely this gig was, 40 years since they last played together - but coulda been yesterday. Big plaudits to the drummer and bassist, who haven't played professionally, let alone to 20,000 folks since '67.

Bad puns

I've been forking about down the allotment for a few weeks now. Trevor, the previous occupant who drives/pedals one of those key-operated bikes, had planted rows of lavender which we have had to uproot painstakingly and painfully, before 'turning' the ground over and then giving the soil some much needed nutrition. All this life-affirming pursuit reminds me how many bad puns come from allotments. My love of a gardening cliche ' faster than shit off shovel' 'where there's muck, there's grass' 'it's a forking disgrace' etc etc is growing far faster than any plant-life as yet. Next week we put down some perenials, whatever that means. But I'm still legit, still rock n' roll. I was listening to Dead Kennedy's while a-chittling.
Reading: No Country For Old Men (brilliant, somebody should make a film of it. I reckon that Javier bloke...oh right); Aberyswith Mon Amour - Malcolm Pryce; Flat Earth News - Nick Davies
Watching: The Sopranos (note - not good to introduce fiancee to this in final season. Christopher has just died and she cares not.)
Saving hard for: The Wire Season Four (no drama is better than this. Nothing. Not even Dexter.)
Listening: Drill n' bass, dubstep, new Supergrass, old Nick Lowe

Cops and downs

Me and Dee have been watching Dexter, a cop show TURRRRRNED ON ITS HEAD!!! (as the advert would probably go). Dee loves it. Me, I'm grimacing behind a cushion at all the bloody boney bits. For those not in the know, it's about Dexter, a forensics expert who is also a serial killer. But it's okay because he only kills serial killers, making him some sort of twisted hero. Like Jeffrey Dahmer arm-wrestling Ed Gein for light entertainment (and how long before that show's on BBCThree?). One can only wonder at the moral conflict that Dexter (not helped by the fact that he looks like Ben Folds) must feel. Whatever next for the cop, superhero show? Bestial cops? Sadists on spacehoppers?