Biannual Book Review

I can see a trend developing here. Six months ago I posted a holiday book review bemoaning the fact that my last blog had been my previous holiday book review. I never did get round to that post about armchair activism, maybe sometime soon

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer - 10/10

There's a lot been written about this book both before and after it winning last year's Costa prize so I don't see much point in writing much more about it other than to say the award was well deserved and this is a fine piece of work. The book is both heart-rending and funny, full of warmth and the author's knowledge of the subject matter shines through. Read it.




Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre - 8/10

Generally known for his tongue-in-cheek crime novels, Brookmyre has given in to the constant nagging from fans and brought his sardonic wit to the sci-fi genre. With quotes on the cover from the late, great Iain M Banks and Charles Stross there was every indication from the start that he could manage the transition and he has. The concept of a character being stuck inside a video game isn't a new one but  Brookmyre pulls it off with aplomb in this romp of a novel

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn - 8/10

I loved Gone Girl when I read it last year and recently read her first novel, Sharp Objects, which was pretty good too so had high hopes of this, her second book. And those hopes were pretty much fulfilled. Alternate chapters deal with the present day search for answers by Libby Day into the murder of her morher and sisters and the events on the day leading up to the killings. I wasn't completely convinced by the obligatory twist at the end though having earlier worked out some of what it might be it didn't come as a complete surprise.

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner - 6/10

Wonderful writing but it takes an eternity to actually get anywhere. I stopped halfway through but may well go back to it as the prose is so good.

The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy - 9/10

Another cracking read from Douglas Kennedy as a Wall Street lawyer gets the chance to throw away his past and reinvent himself. The end can go one of two ways and I think I would have preferred the other one but the story is such a good one I can forgive the choice.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover and it seems to be especially true of just about anything by Douglas Kennedy. His publishers seem to think that chick-lit covers are appropriate for his work but THEY ARE NOT!!!!

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett - 9/10

I'm still only halfway through this but so far it's performing well and only a pathetic literary cliche rearing its ugly head like it did with Woman in the Fifth this time last year would seem likely to spoil it. If it does, I'll be very surprised.

Another Holiday, More Reading

Oh dear I haven't written a blog on here since my last holiday read review back in March. This time it's the results of 10 days in Corfu:

Going to Sea in a Sieve by Danny Baker - 10/10

I started it before we set off but as I finished it on holiday I guess it counts. He has a wealth of stories and tells them well. Find out how he didn't kill Bob Marley, he's not David Essex's brother and all about his intimate encounter with one of the cast from Hair. And laugh, a lot.





 Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh - 7/10

Death doesn't have to mean the end of love, so long as you're pretty enough. Even if you're still alive you may not stand much of a chance unless all your social networking profiles are right and if you become disconnected from that then what chance do you stand? A decent enough look at love and social networks in the near future.





Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young - 11/10

Being a Neil Young fan but loth to buy books in hardback, I've been waiting for the paperback version of this since before christmas. And I wasn't disappointed. If you want all the facts and figures then read 'Shakey' by Jimmy McDonough but if you want a real insight into the personality and life of the man then this is the book to read. It rambles and roams through his life, his family and his passions and always seems to come back to his current twin obsessions of his electric car project, Lincvolt and his campaign for better sound quality in digital music, Pono.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - 9/10

I didn't take this book on holiday, my wife did and she enjoyed it so much that I had to read it to find out what all the fuss was about and so that she could talk about it to me. And I'm very glad I did.

The Thousand Emperors by Gary Gibson - 8/10

Always on the lookout for a new sci-fi author that doesn't go on too much (really, a 600+ page brick generally turns me off when it comes to sci-fi), I found this and rather liked it. I'll probably search out some more.






 Archipelago by Monique Roffey - 8/10

I'd tried to read one of her earlier books on the recommendation of my wife but gave up after about 30 pages as it didn't engage me in the slightest. But this one did. A simple, beautifully told story about a man who sails off in search of himself after a traumatic life event.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo - 7/10

I haven't finished it yet but I will soon. It's not fantastic prose but it's such a great story and although I've seen the first 2 films, I've never read the book.

Holiday reading

One of the joys of a relaxing holiday in the sun is the opportunity to have a right good read. I know I can do that at home but on holiday there are no distractions and you can really kick back and get stuck into a few good novels. Here's the list from the past week in Lanzarote:

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch - 7/10

I spotted this on a buy one get one half price table at Waterstones and it looked interesting so thought I'd give it a go. It's not particularly smart or clever and has nothing at all really to say but it's quite fun. If I were to compare it with Laundry Files series by Charles Stross or just about anything by Jasper Fforde, with which it shares many similarities, it falls a little short but not far. There's every chance I'll be reading further books in the series at some date in the future but I'm not going to be racing out to buy them.


Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway - 9/10

What a cracking read. Not exactly an earth-shatteringly original story - a race to save the earth from the effects of a doomsday by a watchmaker with a family history - but the slight steampunk bent and the tales of London's underbelly give it some nice originality. The conclusion is pretty obvious and so Harkaway doesn't waste much time on teasing that part of the story out, just getting right to the point. I'll certainly be taking a look at his other work.


Filth by Irvine Welsh - 9/10

I don't know why I hadn't read it before or maybe I had and had forgotten it. The protagonist is a nasty piece of work with no real redeeming features, so fairly typical Welsh. From the blurb on the cover I'd expected it to be filthier than it turned out to be but it was still pretty bad and is not recommend for those of a sensitive nature. I notice they're making a film of it, I suspect I'll be there to see it.

The Woman in the Fifth by Douglas Kennedy - 2/10

I was absolutely loving this book until page 295, then I was a little wary and then the clunking, crass cliche fully kicked in. I carried on as I thought it may be able to recover and I rather liked the characters so I wanted to know what happened but to no avail. It actually got worse as a further awful literary cliche reared its ugly head and deprived the book of any sort of a climax. I won't spoil it all by telling you what dreadful misdemeanours were executed but safe to say it's the sort of thing that might have satisfied me when I was 10. I came away feeling completely conned and hoping that I would soon wake up and discover it was all just a horrible dream!

Guardian Crossword

My name is Sunny Jim (it isn't really but what the hell) and I'm a (Guardian) crossword addict (the proper one, not the quick one). There I've said it, I can't do without it. I can't be doing with the online version and it would be such a faff to print it out every day (except for those times when they print the wrong one, cue another snotty email to the readers' editor) that I buy the paper every day. When I'm abroad on holiday I mostly avoid the urge to buy the paper just for the crossword by taking a book of old crosswords with me.

I first started buying The Guardian when I was at UMIST doing Maths and it wasn't long before I took my first fledgling attempts at writing letters in those white boxes on the back page. I wasn't very good but soon got better. There were other students on my course who took an interest and very soon we were working collaboratively on each day's crossword by chalking it up on the blackboard in what passed for our common room and so sharing our answers between (never instead of, oh no) lectures and tutorials. Pretty soon we began to make a pretty decent fist of it and would occassionally even finish it, though we sometimes had to call on the help of the odd (and some of them were) professor to get the last few clues in.

One of the joys of the Guardian cryptic is that you know who you're dealing with, to some extent. Each day's puzzle is formally attributed to a compiler and so we began to recognise individual setters and it would give us some idea of the difficulty and our likely chances of completing a particular grid. Very early on, one compiler stood out, Araucaria. In 1966, Ximenes of the Observer (Derrick Macnutt) wrote a book which laid out a set of 'rules' that he felt should be present in a good crossword. We quickly learnt that Araucaria played fast and loose with these so-called rules and anything was fair in love and crosswords just so long as the answer could be readily and unambiguously determined.

So why this blog post? Well in today's paper there is a crossword that made me smile a great deal whilst also making me feel rather sad as I filled in the clues and worked my way towards the message that it contained. Once finished I also felt a great deal of admiration for a man who has brought me a deal of pleasure over the years and hopefully for some time to come yet. Who else but the crossword compiler's crossword compiler would announce to the world that they have cancer by way of a crossword puzzle?

Many thanks John and I hope there will be many more crosswords to come.

Station Buffets

There was a time when just about every station in the country featured a buffet which would also encompass a bar of some sort. They are becoming a thing of the past, nowadays replaced by some sort of branded outlet, devoid of character or any sort of variety of food or drink for sale. So it was with some delight that on a trip to Bridlington at the weekend we came across an echo of the past sitting by the entrance to the station, hiding behind a mass of flowers and foliage.

Our curiosity well and truly prodded, we took a look inside and it was like stepping onto the set of 'Brief Encounter'. There was a roaring fire, a marble topped bar sporting 2 handpumps and a few simple tables with bentwood chairs. The walls in the first room were covered in all sorts of railway memorabilia and in the second were enamalled advertising signs from days gone by. It was a little early for a pint but we figured that if we perhaps arrived at the station a little early for our return train to Scarborough, then it would be an ideal place to wait a while, which of course we did.

Bridlington station is a bit of a gem as well. I'm no train buff who delights in all things railway but I do have a passing interest and it was good to see that the station retains many of its original features and those parts that the owning train company no longer have need of are put to good use. The buffet is clearly a private concern and some of the other areas are given over to local community interest groups. Why can't more stations be like this one?

On Tuesday we visited another station bar, this time in Hartlepool. We were already aware of the existence of the Rat Race Ale House, so once again engineered our arrival for our return journey so that we were early enough to check out the facilities. And aren't we glad we did? It appears to occupy what used to be a store room at the station, next door to the buffet and small though it is, it's full of character and sells some excellent beer. If you fancy a quick pint of fizzy lager, don't bother with this place as they don't sell it, neither do they sell fizzy cider, fizzy beer nor alcopops. As well as real ale and real cider they also sell some Belgian beers, so we bought a couple of bottles of St. Bernardus Tripel for drinking when we got home.

There has been a bit of a resurgence of station based pubs of late with the Sheffiled, Euston and York Taps opening up (though their close alliance with Thornbridge, owned by the husband of the A4E owner puts me off them a bit) and there are a few station based pubs on the Transpennine Ale Trail. A few years ago The Head of Steam established a few places at or near stations too, though I'm not sure how many remain. The one I used to frequent at Euston has since been sold to Fullers, though last time I was there it was still selling a good variety of non-Fullers beers. St. Pancras and Paddington used to have decent characterful bars in the station, selling proper beer and even after refurbishment, the bars are still there, though they have of course been ponced up a bit. And also worth a mention is The Centurion in Newcastle station, which has been refurbished at great expense, restoring some fantastic old tile work in the process.

Keralan Cuisine

One thing I really miss about London is our favourite local Indian restaurant, La Kera. Unfortunately I also missed it when we lived there because it closed before we left. Tucked away down a side street in the entrance to an industrial estate, the so-called Wood Green Cultural Quarter, it didn't really get the business it deserved to. It was my introduction to Keralan food and I've loved it ever since.

It's not like the stuff you get in your average British Indian restaurant, actually more likely to be Pakistani or Bangladeshi, where meat comes smothered in a cloying, heavily spiced sauce and too much ghee. It's lighter, can still be nicely spicy and is full of flavour.

So, we were pleased when we came across Backwaters restaurant in our new home of Sunderland. The food is just as good as it was in La Kera, if not better, the staff just as friendly and unfortunately just as hidden from passing trade. We're not the only people who like the place either, check out the reviews on Trip Advisor. If I have one criticism, it's the decor and the tables but don't let that put you off, it's the food that is the star and when it's this good, I really couldn't care less about the lack of a table cloth and the use of paper serviettes.

More people need to know about this place and go and eat there on a regular basis because it deserves the trade. We were there last night and at 8pm on a Saturday night there were only 6 diners. When we left, suitably sated with brilliant food, the number of diners dropped to zero.

I've never felt any desire to go to India in general, it always come over as too busy, noisy and smelly for my liking but from what I've seen of Kerala, it's not like that at all. It appears much quieter, more laid back and the Backwaters look absolutely beautiful. Here's hoping we win the lottery soon and we can make the trip.

Finally, if you live anywhere near Sunderland or are visiting here any time soon, please, please, please make sure you eat at this hidden gem of a restaurant. 

30th June 2012 - went past Backwaters last night at 8:30 and the shutters were down. There was a note to say that they would be closed at lunchtimes during June but no mention of evening. We rang them tonight in the hope of going for dinner but there was no reply. Has it closed? Is there some sort of problem? We'll just have to wait and see.

Adventures in Record Collecting

Do you think you have a problem with record collecting? That maybe, just perhaps, you are a vinyl junkie? Then read Vinyl Junkies by Brett Milano like I just have and you'll probably find out that you are merely just obsessive and haven't got a full on addiction.

The book had been sat on the waiting to read pile for quite a while and I picked it up this morning for a quick flick through to see if it was worth reading. Several hours later, I've just put it down and felt the urge to blog about it immediately.

Some people may question my devotion to my record collection but it is as nothing compared to those owned by some of the characters chronicled in this excellent book. I count my records in hundreds, well I don't count them at all and they may well creep into the thousand but we're talking here about people who can't actually count their records at all because they number in the tens or even hundreds of thousands.

It may sound like the book was merely cathartic for me, having determined that I'm not that much of a junkie after all but it also provides a lot of insight into just why people collect stuff and what's so special about records. It's more than just the music that's on them, though obviously that's a huge part of it, but they're such wonderfully tactile and visual items that you miss out on if it's all on CD, or even worse just a series of ones and zeros on a storage device somewhere.

And of course, throughout my reading of the book, the turntable was spinning as I selected a load of music that I haven't listened to in far too long.

If you know that music sounds better on vinyl, then you should probably read this book.

It was pandemonium

I was directed to a site about Pandemonium Records in Manchester. The owner has been an obsessive collector of vinyl for years but also used to have several shops around the city, one of which I used to shop in in Fallowfield as a student. Due to my own much milder obsessiveness I still have every record I ever bought there and some of them still have the price label on.

Some Records

I made this list of records a while ago. I'm not sure what, if anything, they're meant to represent and I don't think the order is important:

Screamadelica, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, The Clash, London Calling, It's a Shame About Ray, Leftism, Live Rust, After The Goldrush, Low Life, Giant Steps, Wish You Were Here, Strangeways Here We Come, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Talk Talk Talk, Star, Laid, Doolittle, Nevermind, Live At The Witchtrials, Pablo Honey, Dare, Daydream Nation, Hup, Grand Prix, Rattus Norvegicus

Glastonbury's Friday Night Frustration

It's been a while since I've done anything here, with moving home more of an excuse than a reason. So hopefully this is the start of something more regular.

I've been going to the Glastonbury Festival on and off since 1986. Some years I just don't feel like it, others I've felt like it but due to the recent increase in popularity, haven't been able to get a ticket. 2011 looked like falling into the latter category. I missed the inital sale due to being on a train at the time and failed to get beyond the holding screen when the initial resale took place. Fortunately, earlier this week there was a second resale and I was lucky enough to get through to the booking screen fairly quickly. The money has been taken out of my account and so it looks like I'm going.

Having secured a ticket, I could finally start looking at who was on when and put together some vague plans, it's Glastonbury that's all they can be, of what I'd like to see. As usual there are clashes but none so bad as on the Friday night when there are no fewer than five acts I'd like to see, all playing at the same time.

I'm no fan of Bono who seems to disappear further up his own arse every time he opens his mouth but there's no denying that U2 have to be worth seeing. I loved the first three albums, have never seen them live and would no doubt enjoy their performance. But is that enough given the competition.

Primal Scream are playing the whole of Screamadelica. How could I miss that? I've seen them loads of times and I never get sick of listening to the album. They can be a bit hit and miss but the last time I saw them at the Hop Farm festival supporting Neil Young they were on top form.

One of the best albums of last year for me was Ce Lo Green's The Lady Killer. What a voice, what great songs and what soul.

Then there are my two festival favourites, Billy Bragg and Fat Boy Slim. I saw them both at my first Glastonbury all those years ago (ok, FBS was just plain old Norman Cook, bass player with The Housemartins back than) and at most of the ones since. Undoubtedly they'll both be playing elsewhere on site over the course of the weekend but where and when?

So there's my dilemma. What to do on Friday night after Mozza's finished. Five acts that I'd love to see. It may seem that I'm complaining but I'm not. It's the sort of 'problem' you just have to deal with at Glastonbury and I'm just happy that I'm going to be there to deal with it.

Bring on the cider bus.

Yorkshire Music

Somehow last night I'd managed to earworm myself with 'Will You Stay Tonight' by Sheffield band, The Comsat Angels and so dug out the albums ready to play this morning. I'd not listened to them for a while and it's always good to renew an acquaintance with music as good as that. Searching round for something to read, I spotted 'I'll Go To T'Foot Of Our Stage - The Story of Yorkshire Pop Music' by Craig Ferguson sitting on the bookshelf where it had lain for over a year without me getting round to reading it. And so came about a theme for the day.

The book's a good read*, chronicling the pop and rock music of my home county from Ronnie Hilton to Richard Hawley. Early on it poses the question: ‘Why have so relatively few Yorkshire pop acts been successful?’ and glibly answers: ‘Because most of them are crap’. The author then spends another 225 pages proving this wrong and given that it’s inspired my listening today, I have to agree.

It’s got plenty of anecdotes and interesting facts too. Did you know that Ian Reddington who played Vernon Tomlin in Coronation Street, was once in a band called Musical Vomit with Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17? As I was working through it, band names and artists that I associate with Yorkshire kept popping into my head and he dealt with nearly every one of them. Sadly he missed out that great prog-folk-rock act from Harrogate, Wally who were the first band I ever saw live. Shame.

So far today I’ve listened to: The Comsat Angels, New Model Army, The Wedding Present, The Mekons, Scars, The Human League, Gang of Four, 2.3, Black Star Liner, The Redskins and Pale Saints.

Ready and waiting for another day, in no particular order, are: Wally, Delta 5, Pulp, Terrorvision, Babybird, Shed Seven, Heaven 17, Kaiser Chiefs, Be Bop Deluxe, The Cribs, Arctic Monkeys, The Music, The Cult, The Sisters of Mercy, Jake Thackray and The Housemartins.

*and an easy one too, it's taken me less than a day to read it, though I did miss out TNWOBHM

Lahore Kebab House, N22

The Lahore Kebab House just off Commercial Road in London E1 has a legendary reputation for good food and service. Plenty of friends, many of whom used to work round the corner from it, have given it glowing recommendations over the years but for some reason I’ve never been, though I’ve always wanted to. So when I read in the local newspaper that they‘d opened a branch just round the corner from our house, I knew I had to pay a visit. It seemed a bit strange that they were branching out, though I’ve since learnt that they’ve already got a branch in Streatham, and that of all places to branch out to they should choose Wood Green Shopping City but I’m certainly glad they did.

Tucked away in the ‘Food Court’ of The Mall, as it’s now called, between Subway and Burger King, it seems a little out of place but hopefully people will soon realise it’s there and start using it lots as it deserves to be as successful as its parent. That said, it was by no means empty and seemed to be doing a steady trade both in the restaurant and at the take away counter and as I left a group of five came in. There’s no red flock wallpaper or any of the other trappings of the classic British curry house but it’s comfortable and clean and the food and service are top notch.

Dinnertime for me normally consists of a sandwich and a packet of crisps but I breakfasted early and lightly today in preparation for something a bit more filling. I’d heard about their lamb chops so I had to have them and then I went for my usual order when eating from a curry house that I’m new to, Chicken Madras, served up with Pilau Rice and a Tandoori Paratha. I would have liked to have washed it down with a Cobra but they don’t have a licence so I ordered an orange juice instead. In addition, when I sat down they served me with a simple salad and a bowl of raitha.

When the lamb chops came, I was a little taken aback by the amount. The menu said: five pieces, but they were larger than I’d anticipated and arrived sizzling on a skillet with onion and fresh coriander. They were well above my expectations, tender, juicy and spicy and despite knowing that I still had a fair amount of food to come I polished them off with relish, leaving behind a pile of gnawed bones.

The waiter asked if I was ready for the main course and checked that I knew that a madras is hot. Yes on both counts but now I started to worry that it would be too hot. I needn’t have worried, it was perfectly spiced, the rice was perfectly cooked and the paratha did what it needed to do. With the exception of the butter brushed on the paratha, the food wasn’t at all greasy, the chicken wasn’t at all rubbery and the whole lot was an absolute delight to eat and all that was left at the end was a few grains of rice and a clean plate. Ok, so now I’m completely stuffed and probably won’t be able to face much in the way of tea but what the hell, it was a lovely dinner and I’ll be going back very soon.

Our favourite local curry house, La Kera on Coburg Road, closed a couple of years ago and is sadly missed but in The Lahore Kebab House, I think we’ve found a suitable replacement at last.

I heard a Rumer

We watched the Hootenanny last night in our now regular ritual of welcoming in the New Year. Jools introduced Rumer to the microphone and I felt a bit worried. Another woman singer who I'd heard of but had never heard. Would she be any good or would she be a member of that all too frequent band of women singers nowadays who sing all the right notes and far too many more besides? I should have trusted Jools' judgement, she was great. She sang all the right notes, only the right notes, in the right order and sang them beautifully.

I don't know who's really to blame for this trend in recent years to sing five notes when one will do but Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey must take their share of it. Why do they do it? Are they trying to show off some sort of vocal dexterity by singing so many notes? Or are they so rubbish that they think that if they sing five instead of one that at least one of them will be the right one? Whatever, it sounds crap to me and it's one of the many reasons I don't watch stuff like X Factor. It may be fine if you're on a Swiss hillside trying to communicate with someone in the next valley but leave that to Frank Ifield. Remember, Less is More.

Anyway, she may have looked as though she takes fashion tips from Liza Minnelli but what an absolutely belting voice Rumer has. I also enjoyed Plan B who I've not really listened to before so I'll be making a trip down The High Road to HMV in the near future.

On Thursday night we went to the ballet. I haven't anything to add to what Glenda has to say about it, so read about it here.

I'm no Eddie Windass

But my blue cheese scones are pretty good. I can't do pastry though, my hands are too warm.

Labour of Love

No, not another post about UB40, I think I'd rather forget about them for a while.

It seems to have taken over my life for the past couple of months but I've finally posted the last in the series 50 Years Of Corrie In 50 Days over on the Coronation Street blog, ready to go live the day before the Corrie's 50th birthday. It was first conceived as an idea on the train back from Manchester after the 50th anniversary press party held on the Coronation Street set back in September. I don't think I had an inkling of the amount of work involved at the time. In fact I seem to remember that I thought it would only take me a couple of weeks to write a blog post to cover every year of the Street. The excess of J W Lees Coronation Street Ale must have muddled my thinking somewhat.

There was a lot of reading involved, researching of storylines, collecting of dates and searching out of pictures. Credit must go to the works of Daran Little, Sean Egan and Tim Randall, without whose books none of it would have been possible, and to all at corrie.net for lots of info on characters and dates. It's been a lot of fun to produce such an epic (for me anyway) piece of work and I don't think I could have done it for anything other than Corrie which has a very special place in my life. Without it, I wouldn't be as happy a chap as I am.

I need another project now, let's hope that it involves packing up the house and moving to Sunderland.

Signing Off

To the Forum (T & C as was) in Kentish Town last night to see UB40. It's the 30th anniversary of the release of Signing Off and they're celebrating the milestone with a tour in which they play the album in full before coming back on and doing some of their hits. It's become a popular format lately and I've been to a few similar gigs in the recent past, including Dare, Architecture and Morality, and It's a Shame About Ray.

They've all been good and the format has really worked but I think that's largely down to the fact that the albums that have been performed have been excellent and full of crowd pleasers. Unfortunately I don't think Signing Off qualifies in this respect. It's only got a couple of hits on it and it showed as the crowd didn't really get going until they played Food for Thought and then it all went rather flat again. The second half was a bit better but I was left wanting to listen to some proper reggae. I never had high expectations of the gig but even then, I came away feeling disappointed.

There should really have been some poignancy to the gig as the album was first released as a Tory government was in the throes of implementing a hate-filled, anti working class, anti anybody unlucky enough to be poor or vulnerable agenda and dressing it up as essential medicine for an ailing economy while ensuring that big business and bankers felt none of the pain. Thirty years later and we're here again but you'd never have guessed it from the attitude of the band who didn't even bother to engage with the audience on the obvious parallels that could have been drawn, They didn't even play One in Ten. Maybe they're all Liberal Democrats now.

Kirsty Karaoke

To Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night to see A Concert for Kirsty MacColl. Kirsty would have been 50 yesterday if only she hadn’t been killed by some rich twat in a boat off the coast of Mexico nearly 10 years ago.

The first and last time I ever saw Kirsty MacColl play live was in the same venue  about 10 years ago. She herself declared it to be about the best gig she’d ever done, largely due to her lack of nerves which had blighted her all through her career but on this tour she had her partner on stage with her and that seemed to do the trick.

She’s influenced so many people over the years that there were queues of artist wanting to sing at this benefit gig for Kirsty’s favourite charity, Music Fund for Cuba. We’d been promised Johnny Marr and David Gray, who failed to show up and inevitably Shane McGowan was lost in the bottom of a glass somewhere in Dublin when he should have been singing 'Fairytale of New York'.

But it didn’t matter as most of the stars who turned up for a night of Kirsty Karaoke did a brilliant job. I say ‘most’ as I don’t understand why a Corr was allowed on stage to murder ‘They Don’t Know’. Fortunately the organisers redeemed themselves by bringing on Kim Wilde later on to show her how it should be done. Great performances too from Alison Moyet, Billy Bragg (doing a cover version of one of his own songs), Jackie Clune (who knew she could sing), Eddi Reader, Boo Hewerdine, James Walsh, Catherine Tate and even Phill Jupitus.

It was left to a couple of members of Kirsty’s band to sum the night up. They’d clearly had a fantastic time and had enjoyed playing songs that they’d not done for a long time. Here’s hoping they get to play them again soon.

Save The Wenlock

I found out tonight that one of my favourite pubs is threatened with closure. Steve & Will have run The Wenlock Arms since 1994 but have decided to call it a day and an offer has been received from a developer. The sale is far from complete but it would seem that should the place be sold to a developer then the chances of it remaining a pub will be slim to none. It's been a pub since 1835 so it would be a great shame if this were to end.

I've been drinking in the place on and off since it was reopened in 1994, having worked nearby for much of the time. What intially drew me there was the great selection of well kept beer but it's more than a place just for real ale fans it is a true locals pub at the very heart of the community. For a several years I was a member of a works darts team that used the pub as its home venue and we were always made very welcome by the locals who felt that we were representing the pub as well as our office. Away teams loved the pub too, generally turning up early and staying on long after the match had finished to enjoy the excellent beer and atmosphere of the place.

The fight is on to Save The Wenlock and we can but hope that it is successful.

Unfunny observational comedy

A friend texted me last night. "Michael McIntyre, completely unfunny. How is he so popular?" I must admit to having hardly seen him on the telly despite his being so ubiquitous. So I flicked through the channels and found him. With hundreds of channels to choose from, it's a virtual certainty that he's on somewhere. He was doing a riff about hoovering. Apparently some people follow the hoover around the room and others stand in one place and move it backwards and forwards. This is funny?

I blame Peter Kay for making this kind of unfunny observational comedy popular. He's a great writer and Phoenix Nights is brilliant but when it comes to stand up (or sit down as it was on Paul O'Grady's new chat show on Friday night) I think he's lost it. Merely reciting the names of sweets and toys from the 70's is not comedy. If it was everybody could be a successful stand up comedian.

What about Top Trumps and Aztec bars, eh!

Now where's my Perrier award?

From A to Z

I've been making great progress spending more time with my music collection and less time with BBC 6 Music. I'm now down to just listening to the breakfast show and so largely avoid the repetitious hell of the playlist. This has been made a little easier with Lauren Laverne going off on maternity leave (good luck Auntie La La) though that situation may change when Huey Morgan from Fun Lovin' Criminals steps into the fray as her temporary replacement.

It's not as simple as it seems though. My music collection is fairly large despite being culled somewhat in the past couple of months, so the problem is what to listen to next. I can listen to all my favourite albums (and I have) but that doesn't do justice to all the other stuff that's there. Just because an album isn't on my ever-changing virtual all-time favourites list, doesn't mean it isn't worth listening to. There are some absolute gems in there that just never seem to fight their way into my attention. So how to go about picking what to put on the turntable or slide into the CD player?

Last week I worked my way through my vinyl albums using the alphabet as a method of selection, trying to pick things that I hadn't listened to for a while. All went well until I got to 'Q'. No Queen, Queens Of The Stone Age, Quintessence, Q-Tips or Quicksilver Messenger Service. So in the end it came down to a choice between an old dance single by DJ Quicksilver or searching out something by ? And The Mysterians, which I'm sure to have somewhere on a CD compilation. I went with the former as it was easy to find and it's on vinyl like everything else in the A to Z. See below for a list of the selections.

So, what next? After having a day or two of general browsing, I'm currently picking my way through eponymous albums on CD, for no better reason than there seem to be quite a few and I rather like the word 'eponymous'.