Fifteen

Given that I gave up on writing album digests for a bit this year, I thought I would at least do a proper top ten list of my favourite albums. There are quite a few albums that I did not have room for and I might try to revisit those later. In the mean time, let's crack on. (To save time, I have in some instances pasted my original review from the appropriate album digest.)

I am writing a long post that I will either publish as one long post (about five or six thousand words) or as about seven smaller ones each closer to the average post length of about eight hundred words. I have to get it out-of-the-way soon as my mind needs to focus on my health economics essay.

Last week Underworld reissued their excellent second album “Second Toughest In The Infants” in various formats including a four disc super deluxe edition. I wrote about this album in my understated classics series and I want to share some thoughts on the reissue. I love this album so I was excited to hear the remaster and the additional material.

As much as I wanted it to, Satin Island by Tom McCarthy did not win the Booker Prize. Having read it all I realise it was a long shot. However it is an interesting book that deserved consideration, even if it does have some flaws.

As it is Halloween, I'm writing about a spooky understated classic. Liars' second album "They Were Wrong, So We Drowned" is a concept album about witches. It was the first of their albums that I owned having heard their name mentioned among those in the New York Post-punk revival scene at the start of the 00s.

In my review of the book I mentioned that a film adaptation of The Martian was on the way. I'm not sure why but it got released earlier than any of the dates that I'd seen and so on Saturday I found myself watching The Martian on the big screen. Could the film version deliver the same level of entertainment as the novel? Could Mark Watney (Matt Damon) get off Mars alive?

"Satin Island" is my pick for the Man Booker prize, announced tomorrow. I've not managed to read all of it yet. Also, I've only glanced at the others on the shortlist.

Time and Time Again is a ridiculously stupid novel by Ben Elton. A shadowy sect (established by Isaac Newton no less!) recruits a soldier to go back in time and prevent Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo in August 1914. I wonder if it all goes to plan and everyone lives happily ever after with no weird timey-wimey after-effects?

La Paz to Potosi

Y-12 is the United States' most secure weapons-grade Uranium storage facility. It is known as the "Fort Knox of Uranium". In 2012 it was infiltrated by three elderly peace protesters, sparking a major scandal about the safety of US nuclear sites. "Gods of Metal" by Eric Schlosser tells the story of that break-in alongside a history of both the anti-nuclear movement (in particular the Plowshares movement) and nuclear security in the United States.

It's difficult to write honestly about your feelings. It's difficult to write about your feelings consistently, for a living on a regular basis. It's difficult to write about your feelings when the world constantly intrudes with inanity, insanity and hatred. It's difficult to write under those conditions without seeming frayed, without coming loose at the edges.

Tonight I finally caught up with Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Larry 'Doc' Sportello who's put on to a case of possible kidnapping by his "ex-old lady" Shasta, played by Katherine Waterston.

This little masterpiece was released in 1991. I got my copy on cassette for Christmas that year, but by May in 1992 they'd already "retired" and split up.

A few months ago I wrote about an idea for a novel that I'd abandoned. I mentioned in that post that I'd abandoned it because there was another idea that I wanted to pursue. The working title for it is "Untitled 2". (It isn't really, I have an actual working title that would give things away or would at least make me feel like the idea was out in the world.)

I often ponder whether the joys of waking up early are greater than those of staying up late. Empirical evidence seems to bear this out: all those people who get to work before you do, super-eager to get everything done. But then all the people walking under your windows late at night, drunk and laughing, they sound like they're having a whale of a time too.

The Minions got their own movie, just as I predicted in my review of Despicable Me 2. I went to see it this week and I enjoyed it a lot. Here's a short review. Don't worry, there are no spoilers here that aren't in the trailer.

My previous post about Apple Music was more a response to how it was presented at the WWDC Keynote rather than to the idea of Apple Music itself. I should have known better than to use that clickbait title. I knew I wasn't writing about the product, more the flatness of its introduction (despite the names on show).

To reboot this series, Album Digest June 2015 features five fantastic albums from Hot Chip, Jamie xx, Blanck Mass, Holly Herndon, and The Orb. I could pick loads more as I've listened to a lot of albums since February but I decided to focus on the more electronic material. This means that I have no excuses for not continuing next month with a rockier theme.

A brief rant about Facebook: I hate the fact that the news feed defaults to “Top Stories” even though I change it back to “Most Recent” every time I log in. It’s a horrible pattern of user abuse that needs to stop. Time is time and that is that.

I found "Learn X in Y minutes" (www.learnxinyminutes.com) while researching the programming languages needed for a new project. The site aims to help people who know at least one programming language to learn others by proving a quick run through of the main language features. It's not quite enough to get you up and running. After all, having sample code doesn't get you the compiler. However, it's a nice start that shows you how similar (and different) language X is compared to the one(s) you already know.

Let's assume that Jim has just had a sudden unexpected expenditure: a neighbour released a bull into his back garden and it destroyed his conservatory. Let's assume that the conservatory is essential to Jim's wellbeing, so it has to be fixed immediately. As a result Jim's debts, which were previously small and well-managed, have now increased somewhat.

There's a reason I cannot and will not vote Conservative, and like most people's apparent motive for voting tory it is also a selfish one. As someone employed in the public sector, working to ensure the greater good, I'm a member of an increasingly endangered species.

The thirtieth understated classic is by a band named after a fish. There isn't a great deal for me to say about "Our Aim Is To Satisfy"[^1] apart from the usual insistence that it is quite good. There's no overarching theme to write about, and no deep personal story attached. It was bound to happen eventually.

Or, From There to Here With the Simpsons

I received a copy of The Martian by Andy Weir for Christmas. This week during some annual leave I managed to finish it. It's one of those novels that just flies by once it gets going. I've stayed up incredibly late to read it as it is full of those "just one more page" moments. It’s a readable and enjoyable story of an astronaut trapped on Mars.

Jodorowsky's Dune is a documentary about outlandish Chilean director Alejandro Jodorosky's attempt at a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune in the 1970s. As a big fan of the novel and of science fiction in general, I was very interested in this film. It does not disappoint. It gives a great insight into the mind of a little known (if slightly batty) director and shows even an artistic failure can lead to shock waves that can be felt in later work by others.

There is so much good writing out there. All you have to do is fire up the guardian website, or download the medium app to your smartphone, or visit my friend Barrie's site, or Lee's, and so on and so on.

Last night an impromptu firework display occurred. I watched it from my bathroom window. Very pretty and somewhat extravagant, given that there’s no reason for one on the calendar. I could have filmed it on meerkat but it would have diminished the spectacle. However, it did at least motivate me to write this piece that I have put off for a while (since about November I guess?). One where I find out (i.e. look up on Wikipedia) how fireworks work.

Glow is about a guy called Raf, a Londoner whose life is going nowhere in particular; a state of affairs not helped by “Non-24 Hour Sleep/Wake Syndrome”. One night while experimenting with a new ecstacy-like drug that’s apparently derived from a social anxiety medication for dogs, Raf meets a beautiful girl and then loses her to the crowd in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. From there a conspiracy evolves involving the titular dog-medication-derived drug, Burmese dissidents, corporate espionage, pirate radio stations, and urban foxes.

Ministry of Sound boss Lohan Presencer does the cry baby act in today's Guardian, complaining that Spotify's freemium model doesn't allow him to bathe in a Scrooge McDuck style swimming pool of golden coins any more. The cat is out of the bag for streaming music now, and no matter how much music companies cry foul they can't stop Spotify and their ilk, and there wouldn't be pots of gold waiting for them even if they could.

Aphex Twin "Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt2 EP"

I listened to Let It Come Down by Spiritualized for the first time during a difficult time in my life. I think this will always affect my feelings towards it. For me it's a great big comfort blanket of a record. Coming after one of the all-time best break-up albums (in an artistic sense) in "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" perhaps it's not that much of a surprise. Layered in orchestras, horn sections, and gospel choirs, it's not understated at all but hopefully I can persuade you that it is a classic.

I’m pretty close to a round number. To date I have written 298,500 words for this blog, not counting posts that I have discarded or deleted. This will be the 505th post currently on the blog, which makes for an average of just under 600 words per post. Some posts are just a picture or a video or a gallery though, so that distorts the average a bit.

You can't beat a good cheese grater. Cheese just tastes better in a sandwich once it has been grated. It's been proven by ACTUAL SCIENCE that this is the case: something about the increased surface area making it taste more zingy (NB. QI is not actually a peer-reviewed scientific journal). Of course the cheese we are grating here is a nice mature cheddar, you can't grate Camembert or Stilton (well technically you can, but why would you?). There are even cheeses that can be grated but don't deserve it, take Red Leicester for example: the ear wax of the cheese world.

I set myself the task of writing about a fictional character for this blog post, so this post is about Jackson X. His surname isn’t really X, it’s just one of the details about him that I haven’t fleshed out yet. This is because Jackson X is the one of the protagonists of the novel I’m (not) writing.

We hear a lot about our rights but these are given to us in return for fulfilling our responsibilities. One of these is engagement in the democratic process, and in particular voting. You should register to vote, that’s a no brainer. You should take an interest in what politics means for you locally, nationally, and internationally. On the day you to get to the polling station and cast your vote. Then you need to hold you representative accountable afterwards, even if he or she isn’t the person you voted for.

Album Digest January 2015 rounds up a few albums from the tail end of 2014 that I didn't get much time to write about. The only one of these six to be released this month is the excellent "No Cities To Love" by Sleater-Kinney.

One of the first lines of "The House That Guilt Built", the soft cricket-laden lament that opens The Meadowlands by The Wrens, is "I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be". The last line of the whole album is "this is not what you had planned". These bookending lines set the tone for this shimmering, ramshackle masterpiece - a fatigue and careworn pride in failing to meet impossible standards writ large over its first and last eighty or so seconds. "The Meadowlands" is probably the best record you've never heard, and once you have heard it, you will never be the same. Even better, it changes and you change with every single listen. If you're living your life and you really mean it, then this is the record for you.

Feersum Endjinn is one of Iain Banks' few non-Culture sci-fi novels. Like the Culture novels, an existential crisis drives the plot: in this case the action takes place on Earth in the far future and the sun has aged to a point where it will grow and swallow the earth. This is referred to as the Encroachment. The characters are divided between the good guys who seek to find a solution for the greater good and bad guys who use the Encroachment to consolidate their power and influence.

Just a brief message to wish everyone a happy new year. Getting my flat connected to the internet continues to be a trial so it's still not as easy to post as I would like. However, I have some workarounds now and I hope to write (and post) more often from now on.