Rage Against the Machine’s Wake Up is just perfect at the end of The Matrix, I think.

Yes indeed. Excellent use of music throughout Our Friends in the North. A series that gives the usual suspects – Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad – a run for their money, IMO.

Was listening to that earlier this evening. Have moved on to Band of Bands from 2023 (yes, just 3 years ago) – I find What I Like to be particularly uplifting and I commend it to the house:

It’s fantastic album – now sold out though, I think. My Only Desire put out some quality recordings.

Here’s a bit of solo piano:

At the risk of trivialising this important event, I wonder what odds I would get for Mark Kelly as next president of the USA?

I am absolutely loving it. Though the naming of a ‘bright’ landmark after the late wife of one of the crew had me in bits – very moving, particularly when they supported each other with a spontaneous group hug. […]

I think we’re all agreed that a Crest of a Knave box set looks nailed on after this. But what about after? I have to admit that was the point where I stopped buying the albums (though kept going to gigs).

It can be quite pronounced. The giveaway was the captain’s request that we make our cabins ‘sea safe’ ie no objects liable to fall over and roll about. I found myself holding on to a fixed point, waiting for the […]

Another vote here for Hurtigruten. No cheesy entertainment, a lot of Norway. The one caveat I have is that their ships are small – you really do notice the movement when they’re on the open sea.

Well, I’m in. I was at the Hammersmith concert and thought it was great. I think I have a BBC transcription album somewhere. As I’ve possibly said before, the concert began with IA removing covers to reveal the […]

I started the month with a bracing read. Lyndsey Stonebridge’s book on Hannah Arendt and her ideas “We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience” was enthralling and depressing […]

I am signed up to get Telegraph emails – there must have been an article I was interested in – and they are absolutely rabid in their hatred of Starmer. Almost identical to the hobbyist left. There’s your […]

That’s the hobbyist left in a nutshell. Actually doing stuff and making a difference is *boring*. Slogans and posturing is what really matters. Aside from Starmer getting it right on Iran, another striking example […]

I think their opposition to medical research is as bad. Interesting that – as far as I know – none of their local councillors has tried to stop any council’s environmental protection work that involves killing […]

Their anti-science stance, particularly as regards GM crops and the use of animals in medical research. The only party to have passed a law banning “vivisection” is, in fact, the Nazi party.

A slightly lateral viewpoint. We are in a largely unreported epidemic of online gambling addiction. This is down to a very wealthy industry ruthlessly targeting and exploiting its “customers”. Now, imagine the […]

Interesting that the Greens and Reform are essentially two iterations of the same phenomenon – a reactionary populism drawing inspiration from 1930s Germany.

ha ha I look forward to those as well!