Ian McEwan on crisps

One day I hope Ian McEwan will write a whole novel about crisps. But this will do for now.

"He was a man to take his pleasures seriously. The trick was to set the fragment on the centre of the tongue and, after a moment's spreading sensation, push the potato up hard to shatter against the roof of the mouth. His theory was that the rigid irregular surface caused tiny abrasions in the soft flesh into which salt and chemicals poured, creating a mild and distinctive pleasure-pain."

Ian McEwan, Solar (Jonathan Cape: London, 2010)

Cruising for a Susan

2.51 blew my mind.

Birthday books

What I got last year...
...and the year before

Niko case

From The Observer:

"Tom Bissell was an acclaimed, prize-winning young writer. Then he started playing the video game Grand Theft Auto. For three years he has been cocaine addicted, sleep deprived and barely able to write a word. Any regrets? Absolutely none."

That's a great standfirst. The full article - here - is even better ("Soon my pillowcases bore rusty coins of nasal drippage"), so go and read it this second.

Window win

A blog post! Don't get too excited, though, just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of Moroccan windows I found in the archives. Look, but don't touch.

Just the ticket

"I'm sorry, sir, but that train ticket is not valid."
"It's valid where I'm going."
"And where is that, sir?"
"The void."
"Oh, that's fine, then."

Nice sentence

"He came to a marketplace, where old men who looked as if they had heard the crying of their children fade and turn to silence too many times led donkeys carrying panniers of gnarled, sawed-up tree roots, drawn like wisdom teeth from the back jaws of deforested hills, to sell as firewood."

James Meek, We Are Now Beginning Out Descent (Canongate: London, 2008)

Sebald
Self
Brooker

"Coffay"

Should probably get away from the old "...of 2009" thing, but this bit from Adam and Joe's BBC 6 Music podcast (aka "Podmax") made me laugh harder than anything else last year.



A quick iTunes podscan reveals my ears bathed in over 20 hours of A&J last year, with an estimated 12 of those hours spent emitting bizarre giggling sounds. Oh, go on, then:

Best podcasts of 2009:

1. Adam and Joe BBC 6 Music podcast
2. Everything else

My new year's resolutions

1. To use more specific labels on my blog posts.
2. Er, that's it.

Top 20 tracks of 2009

I really wanted to be part of the tornado of top 10 lists that nearly took down the internet in December, but it was a busy month. I did this and this, which kind of counts, I guess.

Never mind! About a week too late, here are my top 20 tracks of 2009, with a Spotify link at the bottom so you can listen and, if you like, post a comment about how wrong I am, particularly if your name's Charlie No.4, who will probably pour boiling Lemsip on my trousers for putting Kasabian in there, or if your 'job' title's "Gigwise journalist", who thought Dan Black had one of the worst albums of all 2009 - the worst of all 2009! I'mma have to go into hiding now, like Rushdie. Dunno why I started talking like Kanye, there, he's not in the list.

On a side note, why did everyone ignore the Doves album in the end of year polls? I know they're fucking boring and that, but wasn't it all right? I've stopped giving albums more than one spin, so don't ask me. Nah, s'just I have a special place in my heart for those boys after Jimi Goodwin snapped at me for suggesting Lost Souls sounded a tiny bit different to Sub Sub's 'Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)' in an interview ("If you'd listened to the rest of the album..." snarked he. "Well if you'd sold a few more copies, it'd be up on Spotify..." I should have said, although he probably would have responded by asking what Spotify was and then pointing out that this was the year 2000 and that I didn't even have an email account, and wouldn't have a fucking MySpace login for at least four years).

Anyway here's the list which is, in the words of Dermot O'Leary, in NO PARTICULAR ORDER. Talking to you, Olly Murs.

Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Angela - Jarvis Cocker
The Fear - Lily Allen
Symphonies - Dan Black
Auditorium - Mos Def ft Slick Rick
In for the Kill - La Roux
Magpie to the Morning - Neko Case
Sticks 'n' Stones - Jamie T
Metropes - Orphans and Vandals
Wheatfields - Brett Anderson
The Pharoahs - Neko Case
Fire - Kasabian
Ludlow St. - Julian Casablancas
Sea Within A Sea - The Horrors
Cigarette Pack - Dan Black
This Love is Fucking Right! - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Zorbing - Stornoway
Lifelines - Doves
A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson
Remorse Code - Richard Hawley

Click to listen in Spotify


Twenty-five tracks of 2007 (didn't do one last year, for some reason)
Twenty-five tracks of 2006
Twenty-five tracks of 2005