Round-up

Hello readers! Its been ages since I’ve posted here, so I thought I would do a round-up post, detailing some stuff I’ve been up to recently. In no particular order:

• Reading Dan‘s new blog, Stephen King Reviewed, in which Dan is reading and reviewing in order every book written by (you guessed it) Stephen King. I’m not a massive fan of King, but Dan makes them sound more interesting than I remember from the few I’ve read.
• Watching Iron Maiden at their recent Twickenham show, which was great fun, and not least to people watch. They played stuff from their classic run of 80s albums, meaning the dread words “this is a number from our new album” weren’t uttered once.
• Visiting Dublin for the BIALL Conference. Dublin is an interesting place, and it reminded me a lot of northern industrial cities like Manchester or Glasgow. We did all the touristy stuff like visiting the Guinness brewery and the zoo, as well as eating very well, and drinking a fair amount of Guinness.
• Going to Devizes to visit Kate and Will. Devizes is a nice little town, and is home to Wadworth brewery, meaning that there is seemingly a pub on every corner, all of which serve very good beer.
• Listening to a bunch of different music, including: Prins Thomas’ Cosmo Galactic Prism mix, an excellent Steinski compilation, Neu!, the new Girl Talk record, (available on a pay-what-you-want basis here), and Studio’s Yearbook 2, which is a compilation of remixes. Currently on my shopping list are the new Hold Steady record, and Harvey Milk’s new one, which sounds like it will be pretty interesting stoner/doom metal.
• Getting to grips with the new version of last.fm. Pros: seems to load a lot faster than the old version. Cons: not so sure about the layout, and it seems that they’re moving away from using the software as a player, a feature I liked. There’s been a great deal of discussion (read: moaning) about it here.
• Getting excited about the upcoming Green Man Festival. There are a record number of people I know going this year (probably about 25!), including my brother, Tom P and Tom A, meaning that it should be great fun. Also, the line-up is looking particularly strong this year, with late announcement of the Junior Boys as the icing on the cake.
• Reading some good books, including the excellent Warlock by Oakley Hall (thanks again Tom!) and a collection of J.G. Ballard short stories which I picked up for 50p at a local fete.
• Reading the always-interesting Potlatch‘s thoughts on Wetherspoon’s pubs and Stoke Newington. He characterises the campaigns to keep the likes of Nando’s and Tesco out of Stokey as employing “leftwing radical rhetoric, but with rightwing exclusionary goals.” This is a really interesting idea, but not one I’m sure I agree with. Anyone else?

Okay that’s all I can think of for the mo. It may be an empty promise, but more updates to follow!