Today's paper

Well, today I got Will Cohu's beautifully illustrated (by Mungo McCosh) Out of the Woods: the Armchair Guide to Trees, and Kate Fox's accessible but interesting Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour.

I've been listening to stuff I've only got on vinyl recently. So here's something by the wonderful The Delgados:





And because I like them and they have a similar name, something from the Del Fuegos.



Right, I'm off to Wightwick Manor with my mum and sister. Beats working!

Everybody needs a holiday

The world continues to crash round our ears. The environment is ruined to such an extent that there's no escape. It's too late. The NHS is being dismembered. The poor and the sick and the old and the young are under constant attack. Universities and schools are degraded in the pursuit of a low-skills, low-wage economy. This city has 25% empty shops and a host of social problems associated with social decay.

What's my MP, the lovely Paul Uppal, doing about it? Well, the good news is that he's put in a cameo appearance in the city. The bad news - according to his Twitter feed -  is that he's spending it lounging around in the gardens of a National Trust stately home, in the only area unaffected by his party's disgraceful policies. No doubt charming the rich old ladies who volunteer (and - entirely coincidentally - vote Conservative) there is exactly what Cameron thinks the Big Society is all about, but it's not going to get the rest of us out of the mire, is it?

Still, there's a great view from Wightwick Manor (one of my favourite places). From the manicured lawns, Uppal can gaze down on the tumbledown schools, abandoned nurseries and sink estates which are his and his party's legacy.

Wondering about Uppal's workrate? Well, this is what you get when you put his name into Google News:

Your search - "Paul Uppal" mp - did not match any documents.

Meanwhile, some naughty Wrexham supporter living here has also been teasing Mr. Uppal. Are we in a situation where his detractors put in more effort than the target of our affection?

Where I live, imaginary MP Paul Uppal (a man who’s only connection to Wolverhampton seems to have been getting a shiny Mick McCarthy sticker in his Italia 90 Panini album) represents us having won under First Past The Post.  

Even more books

In return for spending two whole days translating some Pierre Klossowski (bonkers French philosopher, novelist and artist), William has given me a copy of Bataille's Literature and Evil. I've only read The Story of the Eye so don't quite know what to expect. Onto the pile it goes…

I also received my 'Collector's Library' three-quarter size facsimile of William Morris's Kelmscott Chaucer. It's got too much gold on the outside for my taste, and the edition is completely monochrome - a huge disappointment - but it's still a beautiful edition, reflecting the height of Victorian guild-socialist thought and design from illustrations to typeface. It will certainly do until I can afford to blow a million or two on the real thing (though one of the 48 pigskin and vellum copies can be seen at Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton) and here are some images from the 425-copies first edition.