blame Canada....

As my very favourite Canadian might say, it's Adiós, muchachos from me for a few days as we head off to Banff with some friends to do a spot of skiing at Lake Louise, Sunshine and Norquay. Conditions look good, with plenty of lovely powder still coming down, so fingers crossed it should be a pleasant break. One of the beauties of a holiday in the Canadian Rockies is that we're not just going to be skiing but will also likely include hot springs, husky sledding, snow shoeing, a bit of hockey, lots of delicious Alberta beef and, hopefully, loads of Roots fleeces. Should be good. I'm looking forward to it.

Given the events of a few days ago, you'll be pleased to note that we already ski wearing helmets. I imagine that a few more people will be now, not that I imagine it would have made very much difference to an innocuous seeming tumble like that on a nursery slope.

Anyway. Back in ten days or so. Have fun, y'all and see you on the other side.

I'm gonna sticker my helmet, I reckon. I've some leftovers from my Guitar Hero box. A nice skull and crossbones, some flames and a bit of lightning? Rock on......

Laters.

and I get nervous every time you speak....

--
Shuffleathon 2008/9

It's been a long time coming, but after several weeks of listening, I'm finally ready to get my review of the CD that Mandy sent to me at the back end of January. The thing is, this isn't just a mixtape, it's the soundtrack (of sorts) to Mandy's NaNoWriMo novel from November last year. The novel itself is called "The Sea Between Us", and -- in Mandy's own words -- "The novel is geared towards young adults and is probably hilariously bad.... I've enclosed some excerpts so that you can see how each song fits into the story....It's obviously not my best mixtape (I would have better transitions, and really "Fix You" on a mix??), but I had to let the novel dictate my choices".

Fair enough.

Initially, I just listened to the CD in the car as I travelled to and from the office. In that context, it works just fine, but it really comes to life when you read the songs with each of the little extracts from the book. It's the story of a 16 year old girl called Emma and her new neighbour, an Irish boy called Eoghan who has just moved to Arkansas with his family. As Mandy says in the brief synopsis:

"They become friends, but she wants more. Frustrated, she starts a band to help let out the teenage angst. It does the trick, and they end up together. But the fates have more in store, and soon their happiness is challenged... READ THE BOOK!"

As the story is such an important part of why the songs were picked, I'm going to approach my review by including a snippet from the extracts to try and put the song into the context of the book, and then I'll say what I think of the song. Make sense? Well, anyway.

1. "Cemetry Gates" - The Smiths

I reached under my seat for a CD wallet and handed it to Eoghan. "You get to be DJ for the trip," I told him. He started flipping through the CDs and selected a Smiths CD.
"We're going old school today," he said.

Emma has met her new neighbour and is starting to get to know him (which basically seems to equate to making small talk while she fully absorbs what he's wearing (jeans, grey t-shirt, battered Puma Gazelles) and even how he smells (like soap plus something else she can quite place). Ah, young love.

I know this compilation isn't about me, but for future reference, you can never, ever go wrong by opening up a mixtape for me with a song by The Smiths. This is a good choice, too. It's from their most famous album ("The Queen is Dead"), but it's not one of their more famous tracks. As well as being a good song, it's also a really good example of the things that make Morrissey great as a lyricist: it's witty, playful and intelligent (well, apart from the misspelling in the title of the song, obviously). We're off to an excellent start.


2. "The Prettiest Star" - David Bowie

I knew I had heard the song before, but not this version. It was heavenly. "What version is this? It's not the same as the one I have."
"Do you like it?" I nodded, and he continued. "It's actually the original recording, which he made three years before rerecording it for Aladdin Sane. I prefer this version, actually." I closed my eyes again and listened more closely.

Anyone else getting the impression that these two are starting to bond over a love of music?

I own Aladdin Sane, but I'm afraid I don't know my Bowie well enough to have noticed the distinction in the versions, or even to especially recognise the track at all. It's instantly recognisable as Bowie, obviously... there's no one who sounds quite like him, after all..... The roughness of the guitar and of the recording probably marks this out as early Bowie. Hold on, this is no good: I'm going to have to listen to the later version. Oh, I'm totally with Eoghan here. Bowie's voice maybe sounds better (at least better recorded) on the Aladdin Sane version, but the backing track has definitely lost something by being glam-rocked up and given the full 1970s sheen. The earlier version is rawer, slower and far superior. This Irish kid has got good taste, you know! (Marc Bolan on guitar on this version, incidentally).

3. "Something Vague" - Bright Eyes
4. "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" - My Chemical Romance

"Bright Eyes, Emma? And early Bright Eyes, where Conor Oberst still sounds like a little boy crying into a fan. If you're going to insist on listening to sad bastard music, at least listen to something worthwhile," she said. "Let me get you something from my car." Claire and I share a lot of the same musical taste, but she strays into harder stuff sometimes, and I was apprehensive about what she'd bring back.
Entering the room again, she tossed a My Chemical Romance album onto the bed.
"Here, try this." I put it on, and Claire's enjoyment of the music lifted my spirits. We spent the evening dancing and shouting along with New Jersey's finest example of teenage angst.

Emma's not been able to snare Eoghan, and so her best friend is doing what best friends have been doing for time immemorial....

This is quite a good Bright Eyes song, actually. Yes, it's a slow burner, and yes Claire, Conor Oberst does sound like a little boy crying into a fan, but I quite like the way it builds up from a whisper to a shout and then back down again. Perhaps he's overdoing it a little and is a touch over-wrought, but it's not a bad little number. If you're feeling miserable, I can really see this doing the job. My Chemical Romance I'm not so sure. Yes, it's a great song, and yes, I did crank up the volume in my car every time it came on, but it's a bit too comedy for me to be music I can really wallow in. You want to make me cry? Sufjan Stevens every time. My Chemical Romance? Nah. Silly, shouty, comedy rock, innit? So: moping music, no. Dancing and shouting music, yes.

5. "Cold Days From the Birdhouse" - The Twilight Sad

The pain felt good. I could feel the cool piano keys pressing into my chest, and the sharp edge of the music stand cut into my forehead, but I didn't care. Tears of frustration seeped out of the corners of my eyes. I tried breathing slowly to calm myself down. I looked down at the keys, blurry through my tears, and I started hitting one key over and over.

At her moment of despair, Emma starts writing a song, almost by accident.... and forming a band becomes a real possibility and she suddenly has a new outlet for her feelings.

Mandy modestly admits that the song itself was the inspiration here for what Emma writes, with it's nagging, repeated single piano note. I think it's a masterstroke that ties the song and the text together, and as I read the excerpt whilst listening to the song, it pulled the music seamlessly together with the story. The song goes somewhere else, becoming much heavier in places than that single piano note might initially indicate, but it comes back towards the end of the song. Although I though the song was okay before reading the text, I didn't think it was anything special. Reading the little extract though, it all makes sense. Perfect! Great Scottish accent on the vocals here too.

6. "Can You Tell" - Ra Ra Riot

"First of all, how was the rehearsal?" Claire asked. "Did everyone get along?"
"Yeah, I think so. Rachel is pretty headstrong, you know, but she's a really good violinist. Her instincts are usually right. She told me about a new band out of New York, and they use a lot of violin and cello. She's going to let me borrow the CD. As for the rest of them, they all just tried to do their best."

When I think of violins in a band, I always think of the Velvet Underground. When I think of cellos in a band, I always think of the Auteurs. But then, neither am I sixteen years old. Whilst this is clearly nothing like as good as either of those two bands (not many are), this is actually a really good song. The singer has a good voice, for starters, and the music rattles along nicely. It's tuneful, foot-tappable (it's best if I don't dance, for all concerned) and it's singable. I'm not sure if this not annoy me on repeated listens, but at the moment it feels fresh and it sounds good and I want to hear more by this lot. And it's upbeat, for God's sake. I never like upbeat music.....

7. "Australia" - The Shins

"I'm going to get an MP3 jack put in as soon as I can," he said. "But at least it has a CD player now." He put a Shins CD into the stereo.
I buckled the seat belt. "Can I trust your driving skills?"
"Why shouldn't you? I was only raised in two countries where we drive on the other side of the road, and I've only been driving for the last couple of months, and this is the first time I've ever been out on the road without a parent or instructor," he grinned. "So it's completely safe." He started the car.

Another upbeat song, presumably charting this optimistic stage in the life and love-life of a sixteen year old girl who thinks she's falling in love for the first time. Not quite as good as the song by Ra-Ra Riot, in my opinion, but I do quite like the way this saunters along with a spring in its step. Good music to drive to on a sunny day, in fact. This really is a very evocative soundtrack, you know.

8. "Talk About The Passion" - R.E.M.

I flipped on the lights in the office and turned to hand him his present. "Here, you go first."
He opened the card, in which I'd simply written "Merry Christmas" and signed my name. He then unwrapped the record.
"Murmur on vinyl? Deadly! I've been lookin for this for ages now. Thanks a million Emma." He gave me a tight hug....

Ah, old school R.E.M. Are there really sixteen year old kids anywhere in the world who fall in love over ancient albums by R.E.M. On vinyl? I really, really hope so. In fact, this is probably how everyone should fall in love. Why the hell should I be stuck with Huey Lewis and the News? Proper old school Michael Stipe lyric here too, making little attempt to make sense and, at one point, bursting into French. Combien du temps? Quite so, Michael, quite so.

9. "Like Dylan in the Movies" - Belle and Sebastian

Eoghan met me at the door. He looked tired, and his hair was damp from a recent shower. He was barefoot, and just had on jeans and a t-shirt. He gave me a long hug and invited me in. The house was cold and quiet.
"Where are your parents?" I asked.
"Sleeping, or trying to anyway. They don't do well with jet lag. Let's go into my room," he said. When we walked in, he shut the door. The stereo was playing Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister album. He turned it down a bit.

This is one of my very favourite songs by B&S, a band that I hated for many years before actually listening to them. Oh come on... the whole idea of them is so twee, isn't it? And then I heard If You're Feeling Sinister, still my favourite album of theirs, and I was forced to accept that I could hardly hate a band that, it turned out, I actually really, really liked. Damn them. I don't really have any really idea what this song is about, and I've never studied the lyrics closely enough to find out. I'm not even quite sure what Stuart Murdoch is saying in those muffled vocals, I just love the emotion and gentle urgency that he conjures up as he sings, with that lovely bass line driving on behind him. Great song. Along with "Piazza, New York Catcher", for me, the very best that they have done. Good choice, Mandy! This is a really big tick for me.

10. "Your Arms Around Me" - Jens Lekman

Eoghan sat down on the floor in front of the stereo and turned it on. I wasn't familiar with the song that was playing.
"What's this?" I said, sitting down next to him.
He handed me the CD case. "Jens Lekman. He's Swedish. My cousin turned me onto him over Christmas."
I listened for a moment. "Sounds like the Magnetic Fields meets Rufus Wainwright," I said.
"Only more Scandinavian," he grinned.

This song is absolutely worth the price of admission just for the lyric, "I was slicing up an avocado when you came up behind me / with your silent brand new sneakers". It sounds almost as though he's not being entirely serious, and that this might even be a joke song, but on reflection I think that's perhaps down to his Scandinavian-ness. This is sort of like the Divine Comedy, only good.

11. "The Sweetness Lies Within" - Hefner
12. "Counter Spark" - Sondre Lerche
13. "Everybody Knows (Except You)" - The Divine Comedy
14. "Fire In My Heart" - Super Furry Animals
15. "Red Right Ankle" - The Decemberists

Okay, I thought, and I put the headphones on. The first song was somewhat familiar. It sounded like Hefner, a British band I'd heard a couple of times before. Yes, no mistaking that singer's voice. I laughed out loud at the line "Wear clother that look good on you and boys will flock from all of Europe."
The next song was familiar to me, Sondre Lerche's "Counter Spark", a song I already loved. I lay back and listened to the words. He certainly got the details right, I though, as the lyrics referenced Sondre's gray eyes, the same color as Eoghan's.
He followed with a song I didn't know. The singer's voice was deep, and he was singing that "everybody knows that I love you, except you." I smiled when he sang about telling his mom and dad, wondering if Eoghan had ever mentioned his feelings for me to his parents.
The next song was a bit strange. It started out normally enough, a guy singing along with an acoustic guitar about having "a fire in my heart for you." The song built nicely, with more instruments and voices in harmony. The ending though, was a little out of control, with lots of falsetto harmonizing. I kind of liked it though, and I made a mental note to find out who it was.
A tear slid from beneath my closed eyelids at the next song, "Right Right Ankle" by the Decemberists. "This is the story of the boys who loved you, who love you now and loved you then." It was one of my favourite songs of all time. It was sweet, and quirky, and so beautiful. I couldn't even remember talking about it with Eoghan, and it made my heart beat wildly thinking that he had thought of me while listening to it.

I saw Hefner backing Billy Bragg somewhere in Bristol several years ago. Billy was superb, of course, but Hefner were good enough that I went out and bought the album containing this song. Like Emma, it took me a moment to place why I recognised this song, but it didn't take me long to recognise that voice, and also to recognise what an excellent song it is. Yes, his voice is mannered, and no, they're not the most original act in the world, but that is a good song. This Sondre Lerche song reminds me of something on the "High Fidelity" soundtrack (although not, I don't think, on the OST... and I can't see anything here either). Hmm. I definitely recognise this song from somewhere though. Nice enough, with a touch of the Wanndies about it..... Hold on, what's this? I think I recognise that sub-Scott Walker baritone and those stupid lyrical stylings....Ah, it's the Divine Comedy, of course. Truth be told, I don't really mind Neil Hannon, but I do find that he tries too hard to wear his intellect on his sleeve, and his homage to Scott Walker is there for all to see in his voice (even if I can't find fault in his choice of role model). This song is pleasant enough, I suppose, but it's too jokey for me to take it seriously. He can deliver it with as much gravitas as he can muster, but that simply isn't enough to carry this off. Annoying. Sorry. The Super Furries? Well now you're talking. I love the way that this starts out as a real, heart on sleeve ballad, goes a bit wonky along the way, and yet it still somehow manages to be a tender expression of emotion. That the SFA all over, really, isn't it? Wonky but brilliant. An object lesson to Neil Hannon in how to get your message across with humour and without needing to shove your tongue into your cheek. Needles and pins and the seven deadly sins? Superb lyric. The Decemberists are a band that I have heard of, but not actually heard... if you follow me. It's not a song that immediately grabs me, and I'm a little distracted by the lyrical similarity to Nick Cave's very, very different "Red Right Hand". It's a touch generically folky, for me, and although it seems to be delivered with genuine feeling, it's not something that I'm quite connecting with. It's a nice, quirky, wistful song though, and it's growing on me with every listen.

16. "Fix You" - Coldplay

Eoghan and I hadn't spent the night together, and even when we were alone in each other's bedrooms, there was usually a parent somewhere nearby. So we'd never really done much more than kissing. I was pretty sure I wanted more though.
Eoghan pulled me bac on the floor to dance to a Coldplay song. He smiled down at me as we danced, and I felt the fear leave me. I knew he would never hurt me, and besides, we had established boundaries in our physical relationship. I had nothing to worry about.

Ah, Coldplay. Not fashionable, and I can well understand why you might want to back away from actually putting this onto a mixtape.... but Coldplay are actually okay with me. This is a long way from being my favourite Coldplay song, mind you. I thought "The Scientist" was a bit too much, and this is just a step on from there, with added church organ. I am in the video though, so perhaps I should revise my opinion. Nah. I'm sure it's delivered with real feeling (isn't it about trying to console his wife after the death of her father?), but the emotion is expressed in such woolly terms, presumably in an attempt to ring true for everyone, that it somehow feels hollow to me. I know Chris Martin always deals in vague generalisations, but I can't help but feel that the power of songs like this is often delivered in the details; the things that make a song intensely personal to the songwriter can often connect with a wider audience ("Hurt" being a good example, especially when done by Cash). This is a bit, well, meh. Still, I do like Coldplay, so it's not as though it's a song I can't listen to, and it probably is the kind of song that a sixteen year old could lose her virginity to, eh? Tears stream down your face / when you lose something you cannot replace? Maybe that's what he's singing about? Eh? Move on.....

17. "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)" - Arcade Fire

"I know the the two of you are overjoyed and all, and you want nothing more than to make out all night long, but you did invite all your friends to a party, Emma. And I happen to know you can't not dance to this song. So you both have until the count of three to get your asses on the dance floor. 1... 2...."
"Okay, okay!" I interrupted. Claire grabbed us both by the hand and pulled us into the living room. And she was right, I couldn't resist dancing. I was just too happy. We danced with abandon, knowing that everything was finally all right.

I love this song. Arcade Fire can be a little hit and miss with me, but they have done a number of absolutely wonderful songs, and this is certainly one of them. I don't think this song would sound the same, or as powerful, if it was performed by any other band. I love the way that the instruments all rattle along together and convey such urgency. Again, it's probably best if I don't dance, but it's definitely one to get me nodding my head along.

Now obviously I'm not a sixteen year old girl, and neither am I really all that interested in reading books targeted at a young adult audience (well, that's obviously a lie, as I read all the Harry Potters, loved the His Dark Materials Books and read comics all the time....). I have to say though, that I actually really enjoyed listening to this CD whilst reading the excerpts from Mandy's book. Who hasn't tried to find a way into someone's heart through a shared love of music and through an exchange of tapes? The CD is good enough to listen to in its own right, Coldplay and all. Of the stuff I haven't heard before, I like the songs by The Twilight Sad, Ra Ra Riot, The Shins, Jens Lekman, Sondre Lerche and the Decemberists... so that's a pretty good strike rate for any mixtape, I would say. What really makes this special though is the accompanying extracts, which breathe life into the whole thing. It's not neccessarily my cup of tea, but I am interested to know about Emma and Eoghan, and I love the way that the music weaves into the story, even in the short excerpts that I've been sent (and hopefully in the short extracts from those that I've copied out above). This works especially well with the song by the Twilight Sad, where that single, insistent piano note jumps right off the page and into the music. It's such a good idea, Mandy, and so well realised.

Hurray! A hit! A palpable hit!

---
8 reviews still to go:

Mandy
Charlie
Mike
Monogodo
Wombat
Joe the Troll
asta
Paul W

As always, any updates on progress should be sent to the email address in my profile.

Shuffler	Posted out	Received?
1. Me	yes	review
2. Mandy	yes	yes
3. Charlie	yes	yes
4. Planet Me	yes	review
5. Ian	yes	review
6. Mike	yes	yes
7. Jerry	yes	review
8. monogodo	yes	yes
9. Erika	yes	review
10. Michael	yes	review
11. Lisa	yes	review
12. Cody Bones	yes	review
13. Del	yes	review
14. RussL	yes	review
15. Tina	yes	review
16. Wombat	yes	yes
17. Joe the Troll	yes	yes
18. JamieS	yes	review
19. Cat	yes	review
20. Rol	yes	review
21. Beth	yes	review
22. asta	yes	yes
23. bedshaped	yes	review
24. Paul	yes	review
25. Alan	yes	review
26. Astronaut	yes	review
27. Threelight	yes	review
28. The Great Grape Ape	yes	review
29. Paul W	yes	yes
30. Ben	yes	review

Shuffleathon is based upon an original concept by the lovely, charming, delightful and generally wonderful YokoSpungeon.... thanks Yoko.

you've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real...

It's been a long time since his last go at this, way back in November 2007, but sometimes you just can't keep a good man down, can you? (and actually, it was that very post that inspired me to have a decent look at Flight of the Conchords, for which I am forever in his debt and his credit will thus always be pretty good around these parts....)

Yes, ladies and gentleworms, back again to entertain us for the fourth time in five years, it is my great pleasure to present for your earworming pleasure..... some no-doubt largely feedback based choices from.....

Earworms of the week - guest editor #96 - Ben

Yes, it’s me again – back for a fourth time. Can’t keep me away. Perhaps you should just get me a key cut, ST?

1. ‘Matador’ – Sky Larkin

Leeds trio Sky Larkin’s debut album The Golden Spike is currently on high rotation at SWSL Towers – unfussy indie rock in the vein of The Breeders, early Rilo Kiley and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show Your Bones, the only surprise being that they’re from t’Yorkshire rather than across the pond. ‘Matador’ is probably the stand-out, perhaps a tribute to the delicious Pieminister pie of the same name – steak, chorizo, olives, tomato, sherry and butter beans. Sorry, were you hungry?

2. ‘Zero’ – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Speaking of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs… If pulsing, shimmering lead single ‘Zero’ is any indication of what’s to come from imminent third album It’s Blitz, they’ve made another going-out album – but, unlike Fever To Tell, the destination dancefloor isn’t at the indie disco but the discotheque proper.

3. ‘Lawncare’ – Women

The fact that Women don’t actually have any female members isn’t the only confusing thing about them. The Calgary foursome’s album flits butterfly-like from musical flower to musical flower – from ambient to 60s beatpop to druggy psych to math rock to no wave punk – without ever alighting anywhere for long. ‘Lawncare’ starts off taut and focused, but, with the circular guitar motif repeating, drifts off into a hazy fug.

4. ‘Blessed Night’ – Howling Bells

My review of Howling Bells’ Oxford gig earlier this month is yet to come, but suffice to say ‘Blessed Night’ it was not. The song itself was a potent reminder of why I took their 2006 debut to my heart, at least – but also a glaring indicator of how badly they seem to have lost their way since.

5. ‘April Skies’ – The Jesus & Mary Chain

Darklands came off the shelf as part of my research for the latest Memories Can’t Wait piece on The Art Of Noise. Incredibly, once upon a time I thought ‘April Skies’ would be appropriate for a mixtape compiled as a romantic gesture – and, even more incredibly, she loved it.

6. ‘The SinKing’ – Crystal Stilts

If it’s the spirit of pre-Darklands J&MC you’re after, you could probably do worse than Crystal Stilts. The latest musical progeny of ever-fertile Brooklyn have got the Velvet-Underground-meets-Phil Spector vibe, the deep vocals, the stand-up drummer whose time-keeping is endearingly erratic and a shroud of reverb and feedback nearly as thick as the music press buzz surrounding them. Personally speaking, the jury’s still out on Alight Of Night (bought at the same time as a Crystal Antlers EP – I just needed Crystal Castles’ album to complete the set…), but ‘The SinKing’ – see what they done there? – kicks the arse of anything Glasvegas have ever done.

7. ‘The Twelve Steps’ – Spiritualized

“The only time I’m drink and drug free / Is when I get my drugs and drink for free”. OK, so rollicking garage rock ode to intoxication ‘The Twelve Steps’ is to some extent Jason Pierce playing up to a public caricature that is at least partially self-created. But he did also live it. Listen to last year’s post-near-death-experience album Songs In A&E and then Let It Come Down, the 2001 follow-up to the Mercury-winning Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and the album on which ‘The Twelve Steps’ appears, and try telling me that, when it comes to Pierce’s music, the drugs don’t work…

8. ‘The Fear’ – Lily Allen

Not listening to radio or watching music TV means that most of the time I float merrily along in a bubble, blissfully unaware of goings-on in Chartland. But every now and again – usually when out shopping – the bubble is pricked. And so it is that, on Saturday, I heard ‘The Fear’ for the first time. (Or so I thought, until discovering it’s the between-the-highlights incidental music on ‘Match Of The Day 2’.) A largely agreeable slice of sleek and paranoid electro-pop it is, too.

9. ‘Frolic’ – Luciano Michelini

Rather better known as the theme music to ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Apparently Larry David first came across it in a bank advert, but it’s hard to imagine it in any other context – except perhaps soundtracking a lost Laurel and Hardy film in which the duo play hapless Mafiosi. Since we’ve been living together again, we’ve been watching from the beginning of the first series on DVD, and as a result the eminently whistleable tune is never far from my lips.

10. ‘Jump’ – Van Halen

For absolutely no reason other than that I wrapped up a recent review of a Simon Munnery stand-up set with a reference to him knowing “how to roll with the punches”… Plus it allows me to direct you to this a cappella version by Justin Sousa and the MIT Logarhythms. Enjoy!

---

Yay! There's surely no better way to round off a countdown like that than with a little bit of poodle rock, eh? You sure know your market. Well, your host, anyway. As I'm off to Calgary on Wednesday, perhaps I should be sure to namecheck Women as often as possible in an attempt to impress the locals with my know-how? Or would I be better off sticking to Van Halen in backsticks Alberta? Yeah, perhaps you're right.

Thanks for playing Ben. I'm looking forward to the fifth installment already.....

Right. Weekend. I've got a goulash on, and a bottle of red wine on the go after fourteen hours or so that have seen me spend about 12 hours in the office, an hour or so in an MRI scanner and half an hour in the pool. I also got home to an appointment to "discuss possible treatments for your multiple sclerosis"..... I definitely need a drink.

Have a good weekend, y'all, and stay classy.

[Previous Guest Editors: Flash, The Urban Fox, Lord Bargain, Retro-Boy, Statue John, Ben, OLS, Ka, Jenni, Aravis, Yoko, Bee, Charlie, Tom, Di, Spin, The Ultimate Olympian, Damo, Mike, RedOne, The NumNum, Leah, Le Moine Perdu, clm, Michael, Hyde, Adem, Alecya, bytheseashore, adamant, Earworms of the Year 2005, Delrico Bandito, Graham, Lithaborn, Phil, Mark II, Stef, Kaptain Kobold, bedshaped, I have ordinary addictions, TheCatGirlSpeaks, Lord B rides again, Tina, Charlie II, Cody Bones, Poll Star, Jenni II, Martin, Del II, The Eye in the Sky, RussL, Lizzy's Hoax, Ben II, Earworms of the Year 2006, Sarah, Flash II, Erika, Hen, Pynchon, Troubled Diva, Graham II, Cat II, Statue John II, Sweeping the Nation, Aravis II, Olympian II, C, Planet-Me, Mike, Michael II, Eye in the Sky II, Charlie III, The Great Grape Ape, asta, Ben III, Earworms of the Year 2007, Cat III, JamieS & Wombat, Pynchon II, Briskate, Craig Cliff, Fiery Little Sod, Cody II, J, Yoko II, Rol, Lisa, Pollstar II, Joe the Troll, Eye in the Sky III, Jerry Cornelius, Stevious, Luke, FLS II, Earworms of the Year 2008, FLS III, Mik, Mark Again]

busy, busy....

Over the last few weeks, as the various changes and reorganisations being made in my office start to bite, my workload has gradually ramped up and up and up. I thought I was reasonably busy before, but all of a sudden, my diary is full from 9am to after 5pm and there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything done.

I left work after 7pm the other day, and when I arrived into the office the next morning, there were already another thirty unread emails waiting for me. I have documents to read and approve, and other documents to write, and they're just piling up waiting to be processed whilst I'm out in meetings collecting more work. Lucky for me, I'm usually fairly stress resistant to this sort of thing, and I'm pretty able to leave it well behind me when I leave the office for the evening. My recent news has also served to act as a healthy dose of perspective, reminding me of the things that are really important in life. My closest colleague is not bearing up so well: she's a tough cookie, but she works part-time and is really starting to struggle. Part of the problem is that the transformation going on at work has stripped us of the people who usually support us in our part of the organisation, and their replacements have not yet been recruited, leaving us swinging in the breeze as we try and keep things running as a completely new set of processes is rammed into place around us.

To make things worse, because I'm flying off to Canada for ten days holiday next week, I've got all that extra work to get done before I go. It's almost enough to make me regret the fact that I'm going away.... almost.... although it will leave my colleague feeling even more exposed.

Still, whilst I'm perhaps wishing that things were a bit quieter, I'm also acutely conscious that I should be careful what I wish for. No fewer than three of my friends have been made redundant recently. They worked in wildy different industries, but that didn't save them from becoming very directly affected by the economic downturn. In addition to that, another two of my friends work in the financial industry, and both are twiddling their thumbs nervously, wondering how to fill their days at work as the phone refuses to ring and wondering if they'll be looking for new jobs today, tomorrow or at any point in the near future. Rubbish.

Work is proper bobbins, but then I suppose that so is not working. There's a conundrum.

---

I played football for 90 minutes this evening. The first hour was brilliant: my team was being hammered, but for the first time in ages I was running and running and running around the pitch. Not exactly gamboling, but positively bouncing up and down the pitch. I was probably as ineffective as always, but I was really getting some miles under my belt and I felt good. The last half hour was not so good though: I started to lose the sensation in my thighs, and by the end of the game was pretty much reduced to hobbling around as I couldn't feel my legs properly, and I still can't feel the soles of my feet. I'm having another MRI scan tomorrow, but I have to admit that I'm a touch worried about how quickly things seem to have deteriorated. Best to focus on the good hour I did have, I think... Hey ho.

Tick tock, tick tock (La la la la la)

--
Shuffleathon 2008/9 Update.

About time we had one of these, I think. One new review to report, with Cat filing her thoughts on the CD she received from Ben. Nine still to go though. Remember that I've set a nominal target of the end of March for getting this whole damn thing finished, so if your review is still outstanding, then it would be great if you could at least send me a progress report of some sort. I know writing the review can be hard, but there's some poor sod out there who spent ages putting that CD together, so.... if you don't mind..... fingers out please.

Here's the naughty list of the 9 people with reviews still outstanding:

Me (although I'm hoping to be done this week)
Mandy
Charlie
Mike
Monogodo
Wombat
Joe the Troll
asta
Paul W (who has a very good excuse, given that his CD only arrived on Monday)

I'd really like to get this thing finished before I start thinking about the next one. We all knew we were going to have to write a review when we signed up, so this really shouldn't be news to anyone. Don't make me come over there.....

As always, any updates on progress should be sent to the email address in my profile. The reviews are always my favourite bit.

Shuffler	Posted out	Received?
1. Me	yes	yes
2. Mandy	yes	yes
3. Charlie	yes	yes
4. Planet Me	yes	review
5. Ian	yes	review
6. Mike	yes	yes
7. Jerry	yes	review
8. monogodo	yes	yes
9. Erika	yes	review
10. Michael	yes	review
11. Lisa	yes	review
12. Cody Bones	yes	review
13. Del	yes	review
14. RussL	yes	review
15. Tina	yes	review
16. Wombat	yes	yes
17. Joe the Troll	yes	yes
18. JamieS	yes	review
19. Cat	yes	review
20. Rol	yes	review
21. Beth	yes	review
22. asta	yes	yes
23. bedshaped	yes	review
24. Paul	yes	review
25. Alan	yes	review
26. Astronaut	yes	review
27. Threelight	yes	review
28. The Great Grape Ape	yes	review
29. Paul W	yes	yes
30. Ben	yes	review

Shuffleathon is based upon an original concept by the lovely, charming, delightful and generally wonderful YokoSpungeon.... thanks Yoko.

the echoes they surround....

Swimming is pretty tedious. The best thing that can be said for tonight's swim was that, by the time I got to the gym after leaving the office, I virtually had the pool to myself. In fact, about the only other people there were two girls having a good old natter as they swam up and down in the lane next to me.

The thirty of so minutes I spend at the pool, two or three times a week, is about the only time that I am alone with my thoughts and without any kind of external distractions. They play music around the pool, but as my ears spend almost the whole time below water, I don't hear a damn thing. I'd love to be able to say that I spent this time productively, and that as well as exercising my body, I get some quality thinking done. The sad truth, however, is that I either spend the whole time trying not to forget how many lengths I have done ("twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six .... shit ....um .... twenty, twenty, twenty, etc.") or I find my brain gets stuck on a single thought that I just can't seem to shake off.

Today was little different, although at least I had a lane to myself for the duration and didn't need a battle of wills with anyone over their lack of end-of-lane courtesy.

As I surfaced at the end of my last length, I was just in time to catch a snippet of the two girls in the next door lane as they made their leisurely way back up the pool:

"Oh my God! Leanne had an orgy when she was 20!"
"No!"
"Yeah. She told me herself!"
"Really? Oh my God!"

Diverting though Leanne's dalliance with "Jonathan, Jonathan's dad and Lee" sounded, it wasn't quite enough to make me wish that I could hear underwater.

Perhaps it's just as well that this is one of my (soon to arrive) birthday presents from C. Maybe a waterproof MP3 player is just what I need to take my mind off the things I'm not thinking about whilst swimming.

I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak....

I received a letter from my neurologist today. At first glance, it looked as though it was written in English. I really should have known better, and a closer look revealed the magnitude of my mistake:

"I saw [ST] in a follow up about two years after he was last seen by me. In the meantime, he has noticed his symptoms are more prominent and he has had a few events that could qualify as relapses, in particular, an episode in which he fell over, he has stumbled a few times before....he has paraesthesia in the hands and numbness in the feet. He has a reverse Uhthoff's phenomenon and that the cold tends to accentuate the symptoms....his EDSS is between 2.5 and 3.

"I think we are dealing with more than random fluctuations in the old established symptoms and I think we are dealing with clear cut, albeit mild, relapses. This would in principle, therefore, fulfill criteria for dissemination in time and in order to get a better idea about dissemination in space, we obtain a repeat MRI scan.

"Regardless of that, he does fulfill the ABN criteria for disease modifying treatment despite the fact that the previous demyelinating pathology is related to the spinal cord only. We will therefore put him in contact with our MS Nurses for a discussion about available disease modifying treatments and we will give him an appointment in the Disease Modifying Drugs Clinic....."

etc.

That clears that up then, eh?

To be fair to him, given that it's actually a letter to my GP, my dad (who is a doctor and asked to be kept informed), and the MS clinic people at the hospital, then perhaps I should forgive the use of the medical jargon. After all, I'm only the patient, so I've been copied in as a courtesy. Still, I'm not altogether sure what I'm supposed to do with this information, as it doesn't really tell me anything at all. Certainly little that I can understand (reverse Uhtoff's Phenomenon you say? An EDSS score of between 2.5 and 3? Hmmmm. Interesting).

I know he's waiting to see the results of the scan I'm having on Friday, and I know that I'm a lot less in limboland than I was a week ago, but still..... it's not exactly crystal clear, is it? Perhaps it never will be.

I've actually been feeling the symptoms a lot more heavily since I saw the neurologist last week, but I'm fairly convinced that it's my brain playing tricks on me and not anything new. I don't know why this would be the case. Perhaps I was in denial before; perhaps there's a part of me that has heard the diagnosis and wants to give in to it. Whatever, I'm nothing if not stubborn and it's going to take more than this to get to me. I was tired at work today, and my left shoulder was really troubling me, to the extent that I actually found typing uncomfortable. So what did I do when I got home? I went out running.

It might sound counter-intuitive, but I find that the best cure for this fatigue is exercise. It's getting physically harder to go out running, it's true, but - now more than ever - I really cherish the feeling of freedom that it gives me. I'll not give that up without a fight.

Besides, I've got a lycra fetish and I'd hate to get all dressed up with nowhere to go.

you're a big boy now, so let's not talk about growth...

Snow Patrol @ Nottingham Arena, 12th March 2009

I think I've said before how quite how much the mood and demeanour of a band can affect your enjoyment of a gig: if they're smiling, interacting with the crowd and generally looking as though they're enjoying themselves, then I find that their enjoyment is somehow broadcast out to the crowd. The reverse is also true, and if a band is clearly going through the motions, then I find that this can transfer across into the audience too, and you really have to be up for a gig to really enjoy it when the band themselves clearly are not. I suppose it's a statement of the obvious to say that the reverse is also true, and that the mood of an audience can sometimes lift a band up to even greater heights. Most people really seemed to enjoy Snow Patrol in the Arena last night: it was a big crowd and, like many arena crowds, they looked like the sort of people -- with the best will in the world -- who don't go out to a great deal of gigs and were absolutely determined to make the best of it. Snow Patrol being the band that they are, there were also lots and lots of couples in the audience too. They had a blast, and Gary Lightbody and the band really seemed to feed off their enthusiasm. They're not a cool band, and I was not very surprised to find out when I got to work this morning that the gig had also been attended by my boss, one of our programme managers and by my director. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it was that kind of a gig.

As I frequently say here, I'm not a massive fan of arena gigs. The size of the venue generally precludes intimacy, the sound is often poor and the crowds are inevitably different to those found in smaller venues. The Metallica gig the other day served to remind me of how good gigs like these can be, though, and I've given Snow Patrol a 10/10 gig review in the past (the only one I've ever awarded, actually), so I should really have been hoping for the best from the evening.

Unfortunately, I was in a filthy mood. I've had a bit of a week, both at work and beyond, which had culminated in me receiving a miscued shot full in the face at football about an hour before the gig. A sore nose, a headache and a full imprint of my teeth on the inside of my cheek was never really going to help put me in the right frame of mind for the show. Sure enough, shortly before the band came on, there was a little display on the backdrop showing the other cities on this tour, appearing one-by-one, with the little slogan "All these places feel like home" on the bottom. It's one of Snow Patrol's song lyrics, of course. The screen then faded, to be replaced with a message saying that tonight was Nottingham..... the crowd went wild, but I thought it was awfully cheesy and made a mental note to deduct a mark before the band had even taken to the stage. Yup, I was in a bad mood.

Snow Patrol came on and began to play. The set was a mix of material from their new album, "A Hundred Million Suns", and from their last two albums, "Final Straw" and "Eyes Open". As usual, they didn't play anything from their first two albums, but because most of that stuff isn't anywhere near as good, that was no surprise either. They sounded okay and seemed perky enough, with Lightbody in particular bouncing around with his usual wide-eyed enthusiasm.... but they just weren't doing it for me. Something seemed to be missing. They've been playing arenas for a while now, so it would be wrong to say that they're not by nature an arena band, but for me they seemed to be going through the motions. As a band, I think they've really got some fantastic songs. "Run" was the start of something really special for this band, and -- along with "Chasing Cars" -- is probably the song that sums them up best: they're all about heart-on-sleeve declarations of love and bruised, heartfelt declarations. Lightbody is not as articulate a song-writer as Elbow's Guy Garvey, but he's very much from the same school of thought and, like Garvey, seems the kind of man who works best when he is in love. "Final Straw" was their breakthough, and although "Eyes Open" seems, on the face of it, to be more of the same, actually it's an even better album, with stronger, deeper songs. The new album, sadly, is different. The band are still operating in the same emotional landscape, but they don't have the same strength of material to fall back on. "Crack the Shutters" has been somewhat optimistically tagged as the new "Chasing Cars", but really it's nothing of the sort. Far better are songs like "If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It" or "Take Back the City", where the band take a step away from the ballads and flex their musical muscles a little bit. But the ballads are Snow Patrol's trademark and their livelihood: they need songs that can be used on "Grey's Anatomy" and that's what Lightbody has gone for. For me it doesn't work, and neither does the live show.

Good songs are needlessly thrown away: "Run" is done as a solo acoustic number early in the set, although perhaps he's sick of hearing the Leona Lewis version and is keen to move on. "Chasing Cars" is played almost at a whisper for several minutes mid-set, presumably to allow the crowd to take up the slack, before the band come back full blast for the last chorus. It doesn't work, and two of the band's trump cards are tossed aside. I don't know how long the band have been on tour, but Lightbody is fluffing lyrics all night (and gleefully admitting as much to the crowd), there's also quite a lot of giggling. I'm sure they're not meaning to laugh at us, but we've paid more than £30 to be here tonight, and I think we have a right to expect a band to be a little more professional. The encore, when it comes, is terribly misjudged, with about 20 minutes dedicated to "The Lightning Strike", the final song on the new album, and three separate pieces of music glued together. It drags, and no amount of fancy animation on the screen can take away from that fact. They finish with "Open Your Eyes", but it's a terrible anti-climax, and for perhaps the first time ever, I sit in the interminable queue of idiots in the car park wondering why the hell I stayed to the end.

They're a good band. I know they're a good band. I don't care that they're not cool - I think they've got some brilliant songs and I think that Lightbody is a very endearing front man. I just think that they've got it wrong and we should be expecting more from them than this. The majority of the crowd lapped it up, of course, and my colleagues seemed surprised when I expressed my disappointment. Perhaps I'm being too critical, but because I was expecting more tonight, I think I actually enjoyed this gig less than the Kaiser Chiefs a few weeks ago. I listened to the new album again this morning, and actually found that it has grown on me a bit, so perhaps I have allowed my mood to sway my judgment too much.

Hmmm.

As a band, they've probably never been as successful, but I think they have a lot to prove with their next record. They waited a long time for success, and I have nothing against their formula, as long as the songs are good enough. Tonight I thought they were very, very disappointing.

But then, I was in a bad mood.

Verdict: 4 / 10

** no earworms this week, I'm afraid, unless I suddenly experience an unexpected energy surge later this evening.... but Ben should be here as Guest Editor next week. Have a good weekend, y'all.

poison pen

We had a note pushed through our door the other day. It was in a plain brown envelope with "FROM A NEIGHBOUR" written across the front. C. was hopeful that this might be someone returning the tax disc she managed to lose between the front door and her car, but I've seen things like this before and had an inkling that it might be something else entirely. Indeed, upon opening the envelope, I was confronted by a piece of hole-punched A4 paper entirely filled with a carefully handwritten note. Well, I say carefully written, but as it is riddled with typos, appalling punctuation and features the liberal use of correction fluid, perhaps that not quite the right phrase. It's all in capitals and literally every other word is underlined wihth two pen strokes, presumably for emphasis.

I noted all of this, and then read on with a sense of some trepidation.

WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINGING OFF HAVING A CAT DOOR ON THE FRONT, RIGHT NEAR THE MAIN ROAD. YOUR CAR DOOR SHOULD BE AT THE BACK NEAR GARDEN. WAY YOUR 2 CATS SHOULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT UP THE GARDEN WAY. I HAD TO STOP A CAR FOR YOUR CAT THE TABBY ONE WHO IS VERY SCARED OF CARS FOR IT TO CROSS THE ROAD, I DONT KNOW IF YOU WORK IN THE DAY YOU DONT SEEM TO LOOK OUT FOR YOUR CATS, AT ALL YOU LET THEM WANDER. IF YOU ARE NOT THERE IN THE DAYTIME YOUR TWO CATS SHOULD BE KEPT IN. AWAY FROM THE ROADS. PUT YOUR CAT DOOR NR GARDEN END WHERE IT IS SAFE. AND YOU SHOULD BE OUTSIDE SOMETIMES WATCHING THEM. YOU HAVE 2 VERY LOVELEY CATS I WOULDNT LIKE ANY HARM TO COME TO THEM.

(A ANIMAL LOVER)

I read the letter again, scarcely able to believe what I was reading. It didn't really get any better second time around, and now I was just angry. Leaving aside the fact that we only have the one cat, I am struggling to understand where this person gets off leaving us an anonymous note like this. What are they expecting us to do, exactly? Yes, the cat flap is in the front door, and yes, I would have preferred it to be in the back door... but it wouldn't fit on the door. Besides, that cat flap has been in place for more than a year now, and I fail to understand how they think that having it on the side of the house would prevent our cat from wandering onto the road. What the hell is "the garden way" anyway? When we got our cat, we made some choices for her. Among those choices was our decision that she should have free access outside. We can close the flap, but we choose to let her come and go as she pleases during both day and night. We do both work during the day (again, something that's not very difficult for all but the most casual of observers to work out), but we consider it better for our cat's welfare that we don't shut her up indoors whilst we are away. Actually, I rather think she spends most of the day asleep on her beanbag, but she can go outside whenever she likes. She's not very road smart, I agree, and I wish she wouldn't sit on the road as a car approaches, but what exactly can I do about that? Most of our other neighbours know her well, and because she's friendly, they pick her up and move her when they need to. Rather than imprisoning her indoors, I'd much prefer that she lives as free-range a life as possible, even if that does perhaps introduce a risk that she might get hurt by cars on our (reasonably) quiet suburban street.



But why do I feel I have to justify our choices at all? What gives this anonymous note sender the right to be so damn rude and yet so apparently keen to remain anonymous? They have felt moved enough to write out this note, but they haven't even taken the trouble to check their facts before shooting from the hip. If they really cared about our cat (and I find it hard to believe that anyone could care about the welfare of that cat than we do - she's positively doted upon), then would they not just have a word with us? What, exactly, is this note supposed to achieve?



I know I'm wasting my energy just thinking about this, but sometimes people really piss me off.

and I'm living for history....

Unnoticed by everyone - including me - this blog turned 5 last week. That first, tentative entry was made on Tuesday 2nd March 2004, and far from being a stunning introduction of my explosive manifesto to the online world, it didn't even have a title. It's not a very interesting post, and I wasn't going to to write posts on an anything like regular basis for another few months yet.... but it was a momentous monent for me in the sense that it was the start of something that has subsequently seen me produce something like 1,417 posts in 1,825 days and signalled the disappearance of the first of God-knows how many hours into the blogosphere. A journey of several hundred thousand words begins with that first post.

I do claim in that first entry that blogging was something that I'd "sort of been thinking about...for ages", but I certainly can't remember now whatever it was that drove me to start or why I chose to use Blogger instead of WordPress or LiveJournal or any of the many other available alternatives. It all too clearly wasn't inspiration. In all honesty, I probably wasn't thinking much at all as I selected a username in haste that I have been stuck with ever since, chose a template that I subsequently haven't bothered to change, and began to write those trivial twitterings about doing the ironing and other nothings.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

And I wonder where my life has gone.

SwissToni: mildly embarrassed purveyor of mundanity online since March 2004.

---

Other things that happened on this momentous day in history:

> John Kerry wins the Super Tuesday primaries in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island and caucus in Minnesota, effectively clinching the nomination.

> The Palestinian Authority's prisoners' affairs ministry states in its monthly statistical report that the number of Palestinian prisoners has risen to around 7,500. Of those 336 are children, 75 female and 943 in need of medical treatment. Of the 166 prisoners who died, 41% died as a result of medical negligence, while 18% died as a result of torture

> NASA announces that Mars rover Opportunity landed in an area where "liquid water once drenched the surface".

> Oregon prepares to begin solemnizing same-sex marriages, after its attorney issues a legal opinion deeming such marriages lawful.

> Bernard Ebbers, ex-CEO of Worldcom, is indicted on three counts of conspiracy for his alleged role in that company's $11 billion accounting scandal in 2002.

> Iraq gets a Bill of Rights, including guarantees of freedom of religion and press, in the form of the Law of Administering the Iraqi State for the Transitional Period

> The European Union imposes additional 5% tariffs on a wide range of goods imported from the United States, such as honey, paper, and nuclear reactors.

> The European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe is successfully launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on a mission to investigate the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

... oh, so maybe I was the big news story of the day then?

and it's all in my head....

I went to see my neurologist yesterday afternoon. I last saw him about two years ago, shortly before we went to Ecuador. At that time, he sent me for another MRI scan, and when that scan showed no new lesions on my spinal cord, we reached something of an impasse: I was frustrated that I seemed to be stuck in limbo with no news or progress on my condition, but the neurologist was waiting for me to cross the arbitrarily drawn diagnostic line that would take me from Transverse Myelitis and into Multiple Sclerosis - a condition that he is currently researching and running various clinical trials. I was certainly in no hurry to be diagnosed with an as-yet incurable condition, but not knowing what was wrong with me or how it might progress was extremely frustratating. The idea that I might have to sit around waiting for a relapse that might never come was not terribly appealing to me, particularly when I was already suffering the widespread symptoms of the lesion on my cervical spinal cord.

Life goes on, of course, so over the two years since that last visit, I've tried to put the worry of what might happen out of my head, and to concentrate on making the best of what I still have. I have numbness from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, I have some muscle weakness and I have pins & needles in hands and feet. That's not great, but I can still run, swim, cycle, play football and all the rest of the things that I used to do. Perhaps I can't do them to the level that I used to before the lesion arrived in 2005, but then, I'm also nearly 4 years older than I was then, so perhaps that's only to be expected?

As I mentioned the other week, my symptoms seem to have worsened over the last twelve months, culminating in that morning when I fell over because my right leg wasn't working properly. Although I wasn't sure if this counted as the new symptoms that my neurologist was looking for, I did think it was probably worth checking in with him again... after all, a lot can happen in two years (and, if you're so inclined, you can track my progress by reading all my other posts on this subject here).

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting very much more from the consultation than a referral for another MRI scan to see if there was anything new going on inside my central nervous system. I did get another referral to have more scans, but I also got a lot more than I was expecting. After the usual, fairly cursory seeming examination, my neurologist told me that more scans were needed, but that whatever the results of those scans - whether or not they revealed any additional lesions in my brain or my spinal cord - he thought that things had moved on and that treatment was now appropriate. You might remember that my diagnosis since 2005 has been Transverse Myelitis: a single lesion (or sclerosis) on my neck. By definition, in order to be diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, then at least one other lesion was going to need to be identified. That's what I thought, anyway. Apparently my symptoms have advanced enough that the diagnosis of TM can be questioned. My symptoms could all still be explained by a single lesion, but in my neurologist's opinion, they are more likely to be explained by something else and that I am likely to be in danger of having further relapses that may worsen my condition - indeed, my neurologist thinks that the incident with my leg may have been just such a relapse.

So, whatever the outcome of my scan, it looks like I'm going to be put onto some treatment to help stave off the risk of relapses (and the available treatments are thought to reduce the frequency of attacks by some 30-50%, with a greater chance of success the earlier they are started). This is quite a big deal for several reasons - not least the fact that these treatments are self-administered injections, either daily or weekly. Learning how to do this is one thing, but then actually doing it every day or ever week for the forseeable future is quite a thought. The second thing is that, in order to qualify for the treatment, I would need to be formally diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Yes, subject to the results of the next scan, I may only have one demonstrable lesion, but it turns out that there is something called Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS) and apparently although my MS might not be a clearcut case, it effectively is still MS, and if I start treatment, then I will be officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

So there it is: the label.

I had a label before, but it was a label that didn't really mean anything to most people. This new label is different though: it has baggage; people have heard of it and they have pre-conceptions about it. Having this new label may mean that people look at me differently and will make assumptions about me and about my future. Some of those assumptions may turn out to be true, but one thing that isn't changing is that I still don't know what's going to happen to me and how this thing is going to develop.

So I'm going to have some more scans, and whether or not the scans make me a clinically clear-cut case or not, I'm going to be going to an MS clinic, I'm going to see an MS nurse and I'm going to learn how to inject myself with something to try and slow the development of my condition down. My neurologist also sounded me out about participating in some clinical trials - MS is one of those 'lucky' conditions that attracts quite a lot of funding and has several promising treatments in the pipeline. I'm not sure about that, but after months... years... of limbo, it's nice to be finally presented with some options.

I don't know what I think really. I can hardly say that the diagnosis was a surprise, and it's always been on the cards really.... but it's one thing to know it's a possibility and quite another to sit in front of a neurologist telling you that it's what he thinks you've got and that you ought to start discussing your treatment options. I think that perhaps this is going to take a little time to sink in.

show me the constellation....

What a week that was. I attended so many meetings and failed to read so many emails that I think I might just curl up into a little ball and sob for the next couple of days before climbing back on board the office fun bus on Monday. Perhaps it's just as well that this isn't really an option for me this weekend. You see, I turn 35 tomorrow and, along with a couple of my oldest friends who hit the same age within a few days of me, we're having a bit of a "do" tomorrow. We're renting The Screen Room, a 22 seat cinema in Nottingham and we're going to serve champagne and then have a screening of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (this was hotly debated, and I think "The Empire Strikes Back" has been a little unlucky, to be honest*). After the film, we're all heading over to a delicious (and apparently very authentic, so my visiting offshore colleagues tell me) Southern Indian restaurant for a birthday meal. After that.... well, who knows? I'm looking forward to it. We're halfway to our allotted three score years and ten, so it's only fitting that we should kick off the downhill part of the journey in style, eh?

* I had a conversation with a female colleague of mine today in which she insisted that Last Crusade was more of a guy film than ESB. What? Not only is it a sci-fi film, but it's the über sci-fi film; the one that attracts the most fervent attention of the geeks. Is that really more of a chick flick? Really? Is Han Solo more of a draw than Indiana Jones? Hmmm. She rejected my suggestion that she was a geek, but I think she's got to be in a minority on that one.

Anyway. Before all that, it has to be time for earworms, doesn't it? Against all the odds, I've got another guest editor for you to enjoy. He's a regular round these parts, and is always most welcome. Ladies and gentleworms, without further ado, it is my great pleasure to present for your earworming enjoyment........
--
Earworms of the week - guest editor #95 - Mark

I've done quite a few earworms in my time, and I suppose it's time for me to come clean and confess, I've got some devilish earworms going on at the moment. Recently, I've discovered - or rediscovered - a couple of bands that I've not really heard for a long time, and quite a few songs have been knocking around in there, slowly driving me bonkers when I can't switch them off, which is quite often.

1. No Line On The Horizon - U2

Title track from the new album which I downloaded the other day. It's a slinky, post modern crossbreed between the Zooropa title track and something off “Pop”, alongside huge, floating mantra vocals. Guitars squelch like wonky machines, the rhythms saunter and glide, and this song is the first indicator that U2 have finally stopped safe and are going back out there on a journey of discovery.

2. The Whole Of The Moon - The Waterboys

I found myself transferring a lot of vinyl over to MP3 courtesy of some very useful software over the past couple of months, and unwrapped six or seven vinyl LP's by The Waterboys. Facing spending several hours, I thought I'd look up the current state of their discography, and was pleased to see that almost all of the albums have either been reissued with bonus tracks and demos, or are currently available rather cheap online. Overall, I think the average spend per album turned up at £5 for the albums by shopping prudently and using Ebay for some of the rarer titles. "The Whole Of The Moon" is their most accessible and obvious song, but also the distillation in one five minute chunk of everything about the band that is admirable, a vast sound, a dreaming, aspirational lyric, and a melody that is both humble and grand at the same time. A vastly under-rated band, and one that surely, in time, will come to the public eye again in some way.

3. There I Go Again - Power Of Dreams

The theme that's coming with this Earworm so far is that it seems to be exclusively Irish, or once-Irish based rock acts. I've written about POD before, suffice to say that they were groomed for stardom, written off as a failure after Nirvana happened, displayed all the promise of U2 and had sales equable to Swervedriver, but were much much better. This is a rampaging 3 minute romp that is equal parts Velvet Underground, U2, and Pixies.

4. 1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails have released four albums and a concert DVD in the past two years, and this song - alongside the rest of the Slip album (available free from their website) - is proof positive that whilst Nine Inch Nails do not reinvent their music, that the new stuff is neither crap nor tired. At least Reznor finally seems to be moving beyond the somewhat juvenile lyrics and approach of a couple of old albums, and is starting to explore the position in the world and how everything fits together whilst still layering his songs in dense and efficient production and strong, imaginative songwriting. One of the few that gets better with age.

5. When Somebody Loved Me - from Toy Story 2

It's as if someone throws dirt in my eye everytime I hear this song. I never thought that I could empathise with a disused toy, but this song isn't about a toy, in the way that 2001 isn't about a monolith, this song explores the very form of love as the most profound of human emotions. This song should be sung at divorces and funerals by people with voices like angels.

6. Broken Beat & Scarred - Metallica

I saw Metallica playing on Monday, and for some reason I cannot fathom, a tiny fraction of this song has been repeating in my head for days ; the guitar/drums riff breakdown at the end of the instrumental section. To say their new album is rather good is an understatement : the songwriting is tested on humans for irritancy, classical, and thoroughly WAAAARGH! I'm not quite sure what these words mean, but it conveys the song, and the band. With the number of time signatures, tempo changes, and different parts and motifs, it's almost as if the band are classical composers, albeit using guitars and screaming instead of a traditional orchestra. It would be easy to think of them as going back to a safe, and signature sound plodding along as a nostalgia act, but they, like some, are still boldly plowing forward, which is only to be commended.

7. First We Take Manhattan - Leonard Cohen

Cohen DVD's arrived at the house last week, and thus, this rather splendid song has been rotating on the television several times as it is a staple of his live set. It sounds both utterly of it's time – being set in the age of the Berlin Wall and the war between capitalism and communism, and also timeless. “They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom”, indeed.

8. Skull Ring - The Stooges

I've recently become a huge fan of The Stooges. Don't quite know why and can't put my finger on it, but they clicked with me. And this song, one of four from the 2003 Skull Ring album by Iggy, was their 'first' reunion song. Unlike many other bands that reform and suck, The Stooges came back with something like their original raw power, albeit in super concentrated form. It's catchy, dirty, and absolutely brilliant.

9. The Chase – Giorgio Moroder

“The Chase” is the opening, epic track taken from the 1978 soundtrack to Midnight Express. The soundtrack for the film sounds mostly oddly ethereal now, but this is – and always has been – a classic, epic nine minute romp. It sounds oddly like Kraftwerk, but it isn't, and was largely cobbled together by boffins in a studio somewhere in Germany, presumably using wires and gaffer tape. Whilst it appears a simplistic instrumental nursery rhyme, one should never mistake a sparse melody for simple, as the space between the notes counts as much as the notes themselves. It is a romp, an eastern-flavoured exotic instrumental from the golden age of krautrock (albeit at the tail end, where the only proponents were synth noodlers like Moroder, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream). Moroder is probably best known for defining a generation of Hollywood soundtracks alongside his engineer Harold Faltermeyer, and between them have records such as “Call Me”, the Pet Shop Boys “Behaviour”, soundtracks to “Scarface”, “Beverley Hills Cop”, “Top Gun”, “Fletch”, “American Gigolo”, and numerous others to their combined belts. The track paces along at a powerful 4/4 that works equally well within the film and on record, and ties nicely in tempo and key with the next song.

10.Robotronik - Kraftwerk

As I was lying in bed last night, my brain is setting itself to sleep, and one of the things I often do, is play songs in my head. These are songs I've heard millions of times, and know every inflection of. In my mind, as I drift off to sleep I take these songs apart, and remix them, alter them, extending and changing parts, like those old fashion 12” mixes that came on vinyl in 1988. As a result I tried to engineer a mental DJ mix of “The Chase” and this : since they have roughly the same tempo and key, and some parts that are similar (breakdowns and comebacks), I created a combination of the two. “Robotronik” sounds familiar, but isn't. Though the track was a staple of Kraftwerk's live set for ten years (between 1991 and 1998), it was never on an album, as it is a spiky rearrangement re-recording of 1978's “The Robots”. Live, it was often used as a medley with it's parent song. For “The Robots”, the video screens would show dancing robots. As it turned into this song, the screens would fold away to reveal automated synchronised robot ballet from automated lookalikes. Genius. The only place this has been released is on the b-side to the 1991 “Robots” remixes single so is rare as hens teeth, which is a great shame (as indeed the whole Kraftwerk discography has fiercely eschewed reissues and best-of compilations, and thus is in a fairly spartan state).

So there you have it. Earworms du jour. Hope you are all doing well, and see you soon. M

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Ah, Mark... as eclectic and interesting a selection as I could possibly have imagined. From The Waterboys to Kraftwerk via Metallica. Nice work. Thanks for playing.

Right. Bottle of oddly salty white wine open, the (birthday) weekend begins. Have a good weekend y'all, and stay classy.


Next week: Ben

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