"Another ringer with the slick trigger finger for Her Majesty"

I've been listening to the new Bond theme repeatedly on my way into work.
I am so James Bond.

Dead Set

I'd like to take this opportunity to enthuse wildly over Charlie Brooker's forthcoming series, 'Dead Set'. It starts tomorrow on E4. I'm a big Brooker fan - his journalism regularly makes me chuckle, Nathan Barley is an incredible creation and Screen Wipe is just devastatingly wonderful - so I'm quite giddy with excitement about this.

But there are two major reasons why I probably shouldn't be:

Firstly, Brooker has made it clear it's not just a comedy with a bit of a zombie backdrop, but it's going to be genuinely gory horror. In his Guardian article about it, he made this point particularly clear, stating: "I sincerely hope some of you vomit."
And if anyone does, it'll be me. I'm pretty squeamish, regularly feel queasy when channel-hopping past Holby City, and this is probably not the sort of thing I'd normally watch.

Probably more importantly, I don't yet know how I'm actually going to see the show. We still only have FOUR channels in my house. It's like the dark ages, or 1996. And I'm not sure if it'll be on 4od, because I can't get that either - I have a mac. I am technologically incompatible with Charlie Brooker. And so, although it's unsupportive, I'm going to have to hope some unscrupulous technical genius makes it available to download somewhere or watch on youtube.

Maybe, because I wish nothing but joy and success upon him, I'll buy the DVD when it comes out. But I refer you back to point one for the reason why I need to check I can endure more than 20 seconds of it before investing actual money.

Credit Munch

After weeks of naive optimism, and with recession officially just minutes away, I have finally been struck a devastating blow by the current economic crisis... Pret have put the price of their Superclub sandwich up from £2.85 to £2.89. And, it could be my imagination, but it looks ever so slightly less crammed with chicken-and-bacon-y deliciousness.
I am withdrawing all my savings first thing tomorrow, and if you need me over the next six months you'll find me hiding under the bed. We're definitely doomed.

"If love is just a game, then how come it's no fun? If love is just a game, how come I've never won?"

Don't be misled – this isn't going to be a rant on the state of my love life. (That's best summed up by my post from the 9th October.)

It's actually a lyric from the wonderful Noah and the Whale, who I went to see last night at the Carling Academy in Oxford. It was the first night of their headline tour, and I like to think it was a good start, the crowd were wildly enthusiastic. For me, it was one of those rare gigs where everything was just perfect. Firstly, and most importantly, their fans seem to be mostly very short – I felt like I was one of the annoying tall people which was a new experience – and I had one of the best views I've ever had of a gig. They looked so pleased, and a little surprised, with the response they were getting that it was incredibly endearing. They played my three favourite songs – Jocasta, Rocks and Daggers and Five Years Time – all in a row. And I discovered that there is something even better than a man with a guitar – a man with a fiddle. Tom Hobden, quite adorable. Although I was shocked to realise when I got home and did some googling on the band that he is younger than me, which feels inappropriate and wrong. It always seems unfair that there should be people younger than me who are so hugely talented when I am yet to develop any noticeable talents of my own, and I can remember days when my heroes were all twice my age.

Anyway, before I get onto the good old days (when, incidentally, you could get a bag of crisps and a Capri Sun and still have change from 50p) I'll conclude. Noah and the Whale = brill, and I cannot stop humming along. If I had one criticism, it was the absence of Laura Marling's beautiful backing vocals, but it was testament to their brilliance that I didn't let my fierce Marling-loyalty stand in the way of enjoying every minute enormously.

"Like when you wake up behind the bar trying to remember where you are..."

So my attempt to write something every day has seriously failed. Probably no bad thing. But it has been an eventful week.

Overall, I've been in very high spirits:
- Last night I went to see my absolute hero, the lovely gorgeous fantastic singer Jenny Lewis. She was, of course, fabulous. I wont rant on about tall people at gigs, though it was marred slightly by the fact that the best view I got of her was through the display on someone else's outstretched camera, and other than that I was mostly left squinting at the top of her hat. But she was quite charming, and although her new album - Acid Tongue - doesn't yet live up to Rabbit Fur Coat, the songs all sounded brilliant, especially Acid Tongue itself, The Next Messiah and Sing A Song For Them. And Rise Up With Fists - maybe my favourite Jenny Lewis song. Although as soon as I wrote that I thought of all my other favourites (pretty much every song on Rabbit Fur Coat. It really is a good album.)
- Perhaps more importantly, I work in an international college and this week we passed the challenging middle stage of an inspection process. And I have the best registers the inspector has seen!
- My fave person at work got back from a three week holiday. I was saved from talking to myself any longer.
- I went on a one day First Aid course, and have since then cried out "I know First Aid!" at every opportunity. I don't know why, I'm literally terrified of ever having to use the skills, so everyone around me has to be extremely careful.
- Today I had a reckless shopping spree (despite my gran's warnings about the recession - I don't really understand what it is so there's no point worrying) and bought, amongst other things, some really comfy new PJs and moo cow patterned slippers.
- Finally, flicking through the Guardian Guide this evening, three things made me smile: Charlie Brooker on the cover; Adam and Joe in Radio Pick of the Day today (it was a brilliant show); and Radio Pick of the Day on Monday is the aforementioned Jenny Lewis in session on Radcliffe and Maconie. Can't wait.

And, although something a bit rubbish did happen, I was half expecting it and had quite geniusly resisted reading Charlie Brooker's Guardian column all week so I had something when I needed cheering up. Nothing like an invisible apocalypse to bring joy back into your heart.

Tired. That is all.

I meant to try and write something here every day, but on days when my brain is as numb as it is right now, this is probably a bad idea.

Late again

I missed the bus this morning.

It's not an uncommon occurrence - I've probably missed at least 40% of the buses/trains I've tried to catch in my life, and every day I was at school I had to run like a maniac while the bus sat and waited for me, or didn't occasionally, depending on how the driver liked to get their kicks. As you can imagine, I was really one of the cool kids at school.

The problem seems to lie in how I think about time. For some reason, despite the fact that it is a glaringly obvious feature of the universe, I can't seem to get it into my head that it takes TIME to get to the bus stop. No matter how many days it happens, I still somehow imagine that if I've managed to jumble all my clothes on by the time the bus should be leaving, that's enough. And in actual fact, there's a five minute walk to the bus stop that I just haven't considered, not to mention a whole load of making sure I've got everything in my bag, finding my jacket, and putting on shoes. On top of this, the more time I have, the more I relax and don't bother rushing, so my routine expands to overfill whatever time I give it.

Fortunately, I still live with my parents and my dad is going the same way as me this morning, so I've got a lift.

Unfortunately, he has no need to rush, so I'm left twiddling my thumbs while he has some pancakes and a leisurely shower. On top of this, he is blessing me with some of his pearls of wisdom: "you need to change your internal body clock by a few minutes" is a good one. And "you need the bus driver's number so you can ring him when you're leaving the house" could just be the solution to all my woes.

The only trouble is, I'm late and it's irritating.

Doing cool things...

"You should write a blog, you do loads of cool things", a friend said to me yesterday. And so, because yes I would jump off a cliff if she told me to, I am.

Sadly, it's not really true about the cool things - I'm usually in my jimjams by about half seven - but I'd just mentioned I was going to A Tribute to Nico at the Royal Festival Hall, which I'd seen quite a lot of hype for. Unfortunately, I imagine it'll get pretty mixed reviews - the audience didn't seem to fully go with it, mostly because it was pretty challenging to work out who anybody was, and you can only enthuse over complete strangers for so long. The trouble with tortured musicians communicating exquisitely through their art is that it doesn't help all that much with the practical side of things. A German family came up to me in the interval and asked if I could explain what was happening and if John Cale had been on yet, and as he was pretty integral to the whole thing I don't know what hope the Fiery Furnaces, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, or Liz Green had. I don't think I helped the family much, they started rambling on about Nico's importance in "the Factory", and although I'm almost certain that they meant this in the Warhol sense, they were so puzzled that it's possible they'd mistaken the whole thing for an evening dedicated to an old pal from their days in the steel works.

Highlights were:
1. Guillemots being totally brilliant despite the shouts of "Who are you?" from the audience.
2. The fantastic Nick Franglen of Lemon Jelly grinning away as part of Cale's band, and the way the two of them looked like they were great pals.
3. Lisa Gerrard in a stunning dress-and-shoes combo that made it literally impossible to walk like a normal human being.
4. Liz Green - whose name I only worked out after a bit of googling this morning - who is quite brilliant.
5. The Band Aid style singalong at the end. And a guy sitting behind me having the exact same thought and shouting out "Do They Know It's Christmas!" as they started.

So, it was an interesting night - there were some very good bits, but overall it didn't really hang together all that well, and I'm glad I had a free ticket. The trouble with tributes is that they are always missing the thing that's so special about the tribute-worthy one, and everybody involved - while they may be brilliant in their own right - doesn't actually get to do anything much.

I think I might have preferred, just slightly, sitting at home listening to 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' in my pyjamas.