The wall guy

I took precisely zero photos of the picturesque views of Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside - not doing very well at the moment, am I? - because I kept leaving my camera in the B&B. Did get this nice one of a wall at Crewe Station, though. Wait, come back!

DIY: How to write blurb

"A tragic/astonishing/rubbish meditation on love and loss/identity and selfhood/apples and pears, [book title] confirms [author's name] as one of [country in question]'s most promising/daring/pouting novelists/storytellers/blurb writers."

Insane in the Ukraine

Woah, check out the Ukraine's Got Talent winner. She's no Stavros Flatley, of course, but good stuff nonetheless. Outsanding, you could say, if you liked dreadful puns, which we don't.

(via Holy Moly)

The Goose honks elsewhere

A bit more extracurricular writing for The Quietus from me, by way of the new Brendan Benson album over here. By the way, did you ever read their fantastic interview with Sir Patrick Moore? I wish I had his reviewing skillz. "This song did make an impression on me. A negative one. Ha ha ha!"

Well-chosen numberplate

We were up in Sandbach, Cheshire, for a wedding, and spotted this outside our hotel:

Pictures of the bride and groom never come out right anyway.

All Quietus on the Richmond Font

I'm sure you're all dying to know what I thought of Richmond Fontaine's new album, We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River... Stop panicking: I reviewed it for The Quietus, so you can find out here. Ironic last line, given length of article.


PS Yikes, it's been over a month since I last posted here. Sorry, that's probably a new record. Um, I've been away on holiday, you know, cut me some slack. Well, since Saturday, anyway. The other three weeks were just really busy. Why? Tune in to find out. Maybe.