It's been a long, weird trip…

I'm now exhausted - written several lectures (another one to write tonight), attended a stressful departmental meeting, gone to some introductory lectures and went for a swim. For a peaceful moment, I have to retreat to the loo - currently with Stephen Greenblatt's Learning to Curse, which I really should have read years ago.

I also got my Shazam t-shirt, in honour of the mighty Spaced.

Oops…

Welcome, fans directed here from Richard Thompson's site. Come for the music criticism - stay for the cheap sarcasm…

For the rest of you, last night I went to Richard Thompson's '1000 Years of Popular Music' show. He's the brilliant folk/rock guitarist formerly of Fairport Convention fame, of whom you should have heard. I was definitely the youngest person in the audience, which was a shame as the show was astonishing. 

I missed the first 15 minutes, so arrived in time for 1603 - madrigals, some Purcell, then a stream of strikers' ballads, music hall, light opera, country, jazz, rock'n'roll, Australian Beatles-light, The Korgis, a Beatles medley (would the purists approve?) and finally a Nelly Furtado track, all sung by Thompson, Debra Dobkin (a cool drumming singer who looked like Marsha from Spaced) and Judith Owen who rather over-egged some of it, such as Down By The Sally Garden. What a raconteur RT is too - almost as good as Julian Cope, who actually made me cry with laughter at the Glee Club a couple of years ago.

Here's Thompson doing his party-piece.