Snow joke

I'm happy today. Despite the fact that the Ultimate Authority of the Hegemon got a 7% pay rise (from £213,000 to £228,000) while lots of us lost our jobs and the institution was fined several million pounds by the government, and there's still lots of marking to do, it's snowing, which always makes me happy. I've also received the latest Stile Antico recording (John Sheppard's Media Vita and other music), and new albums by The Imagined Village and Spiers and Boden.

Another happy man is Pharyngula, the militant atheist and biologist, who's come up with a cunning plan. Institute a state religion in the US by means of a game show like Pop Idol. One of the rounds involves giving each faith a terminally ill child: to win, you have to get said child to recover through prayer! More fiendish details here.

Meanwhile, here's some Morton Feldman, in honour of his birth 84 years ago today.

Youtube isn't just for fat kids trying out dance moves, you know

This is Stile Antico, the new kids on the block currently dominated by The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars

This is the news

Obviously I've plenty of work to do, so I'm wondering how other countries deal with news and what they prioritise.

Here's the English version of Deutsche Welle (the equivalent of BBC World): vaguely liberal and highly international. Good European citizens.

France24 is also wide ranging, featuring Madoff, the Honduras coup, Argentina's election, Afghanistan and Jackson. There doesn't seem to be any particular focus on French colonial links.

The BBC's World page is, of course, top quality, though it does feature stories with a UK link slightly more often that the others.

I have a real soft spot for America's NPR (National Public Radio), which always struggles financially but produces great programming on a minuscule budget, a bit like Radios 2, 3 and 4 put together. It's not quite the equivalent of countries' international channels, so is far more domestic, but it's an interesting read. There's a particularly good review of my favourite Renaissance music ensemble, Stile Antico and a concert to listen to online.

Any other international services you lot rate? Back to hiraeth for now though… Here's the news in Welsh, though rather disappointingly, the BBC appears to think that Welsh-speakers are only interested in Wales.

Back in Stumville

I'm now back in Wolverhampton. How the very sentence thrills me. What is good is finding more presents from Santa Amazon in my office. In particular, Vince Cable's The Storm, his centrist analysis of the current financial disaster. (keep paying those fees, kids. Vole needs books). It's too rightwing for me, but then most things are.

I also got Stile Antico's anthology of Middle Ages/Renaissance settings of the Song of Songs (the erotic stuff that somehow got into the Bible - hear some on that link). I know this will bore or befuddle many of you, but I love all sorts of music, and Lassus, Palestrina et al. are up there with the Field Mice and Elastica in terms of genius. (I'm joking: you can't compare them). They're all good, but Stile Antico sing works of genius staggeringly well. Only The Sixteen (what a stunningly arrogant and, dammit, justified name) and the Tallis Scholars compete on that particular and rarefied playing field.