Playlist from April 23, 2008

Camera Obscura -- Number One Son (Underachievers Please Try Harder)
Ballboy -- Where Do The Nights of Sleep Go To WHen They Do Not Come To Me (Guide for the Daylight Hours)
Art Brut -- My Little Brother (Bang Bang Rock n Roll)
Sugarcubes -- Walkabout (Stick Around for Joy)
U2 -- Dioscotheque (Pop)
James -- Come Home (Best of...)
British Sea Power -- Waving Flags (Do You Like Rock Music?)
Aztec Camera -- Good Morning Britain (Retrospect)
Basement Jaxx -- Lucky Star (Kish Kash)
Inspiral Carpets, feat. Mark E. Smith -- I Want You (Saturn 5)
The Jam -- Going Underground (The Sound of The Jam)
Ash -- Girl From Mars (1977)
Ed Harcourt -- Watching The Sun Come Up (From Every Sphere)
Elbow -- One Day Like This (The Seldom Seen Kid)
Morrissey -- Suedehead (Greatest Hits)
Madness -- MIchael Caine (Divine Madness)
Ballboy -- A Europewide Search for Love (Guide for the Daylight Hours)
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci -- Where Does Yer Go Now? (How I Long to Feel that Summer in My Heart)
Divine Comedy -- In Pursuit of Happiness (A Short Album About Love)
Hot Chip -- Ready for the Floor (Made in the Dark)
Hidden Cameras -- Breathe On It (The Smell of Our Own)
Sinead O'Connor -- The Emperor's New Clothes (I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got)
Ray Davies -- No One Listens (Working Man's Cafe)

The Living Library -- Borrow a Person for a 30-Minute Chat

What a fascinating idea!

It was like the school disco all over again. As some unexpected spring sunshine brightened up the Finchley Road last Sunday lunchtime, 15 of us were waiting nervously in a room in Swiss Cottage's sleek new leisure centre to be borrowed as “books” in the UK's first ever Living Library.

The idea, which comes from Scandinavia, is simple: instead of books, readers can come to the library and borrow a person for a 30-minute chat. The human “books” on offer vary from event to event but always include a healthy cross-section of stereotypes. Last weekend, the small but richly diverse list included Police Officer, Vegan, Male Nanny and Lifelong Activist as well as Person with Mental Health Difficulties and Young Person Excluded from School. I was there as Gay Man.

Playlist from April 9, 2008

Reindeer Section -- I'll Be Here WHen You Wake (Son of Evil Reindeer)
Dubstar -- Just a Girl, She Said (Goodbye)
Kirsty MacColl -- Soho Square (Titanic Days)
Divine Comedy -- Songs of Love (Casanova)
Turin Brakes -- Future Boy (Optimist EP)
Elbow -- Scattered Black and Whites (Asleep at the Back)
Oakenfold, feat. Nelly Furtado & Tricky -- The Harder they Come (Perfecto Chills)
Radiohead -- Nude (In Rainbows)
Flotation Toy Warning -- Donald Pleasance (Bluffers Guide to the Flight Deck)
Bloc Party -- Pioneers, M83 remix (Silent Alarm Remixed)
British Sea Power -- Canvey Island (Do You LIke Rock Music?)
JAMC -- Just Like Honey (Psychocandy)
My Bloody Valentine -- Only Shallow (Loveless)
Morrissey -- Every Day Is Like Sunday (Greatest Hits)
Liam Finn -- Gather to the Chapel (I'll Be LIightning)
Hot Chip -- Ready for the Floor (Made in the Dark)
Prefab Sprout -- Wild Horses (Jordan)
Electrelane -- Cut and Run (No Shouts No Calls)
Stereolab -- Ping Pong (Mars Audiac Quintet)
MIA -- Paper Planes (Kala)
Beth Gibbons -- Mysteries (Out of Season)
Mojave 3 -- Love Songs on the Radio (Ask Me Tomorrow)
Black Box Recorder -- Goodnight Kiss (Facts of Life)

Playlist from March 26th, 2008

Ballboy -- Avant Garde Music (Guide for the Daylight Hours)
Lightning Seeds -- Pure (Cloudcuckooland)
Looper -- On the Flipside (The Geometrid)
KT Tunstall -- If Only (Drastic Fantastic)
Divine Comedy -- Tonight We Fly (Promenade)
The Specials -- A Message To You Rudy (The Specials)
ELO -- Mr. Blue Sky (Out of the Blue)
John Lennon -- Oh Yoko (Rushmore OST)
Camera Obscura -- Let's Get Out of This Country (Let's Get Out of This Country)
British Sea Power -- No Lucifer (Do You Like Rock Music?)
Franz Ferdinand -- You're The Reason I'm Leaving (You Could Have It So Much Better...)
Editors -- Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors (An End Has A Start)
Cocteau Twins -- Calfskin Smack (Milk and Kisses)
Ikara Colt -- At the Lodge (Chat and Business)
Forward Russia -- Nine (Give Me a Wall)
Aereogramme -- The Black Path (Sleep and Release)
Flotation Toy Warning -- Popstar Researching Oblivion (Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck)
Hot Chip -- Ready for the Floor (Made in the Dark)
Cribs -- I'm a Realist (Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever)
Liam Finn -- Second Chance (I'll Be Lightning)
The The -- True Happiness This Way Lies & Love is Stronger than Death (Dusk)
Beautiful South -- Song for Whoever (Welcome to...)
Trashcan Sinatras -- All The Dark Horses (Weightlifting)
Badly Drawn Boy -- Degrees of Separation (Born in the UK)

English Haute Cuisine

Yes, it's an ice cream cone filled with mashed potato, drizzled with gravy, sprinkled with peas, and then speared by a big fat sausage.

Bon appetit.

Thom Yorke and the Radioheads

Just thought I'd post a link to this storming live set by Radiohead. They appeared in an intimate venue at the BBC, playing lots of stuff from In Rainbows as well as older stuff, to an extremely lucky audience. If you listen to the whole show, you'll also catch a great half-hour interview with Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien, in which they come across as a really nice couple of blokes, and a far cry from the gloomy, hypersensitive, delicate sulkmeisters they so often come across as elsewhere in the media.

Anyone who likes the band should catch this show.