Let it snow, let it snow

I'm a happy Vole now the wind's howling and the rain's falling. A good dump of lovely snow over the benighted Dark Place would be wonderful. What could be more seasonal than eating Easter eggs in front of a roaring fire? If we live that long, of course: the Daily Express thinks that we're all going to die from 'extreme' weather this week, despite devoting most of its pages to Was Princess Diana Murdered Before She Exposed Global Warming As Hoax?' stories.

Anyway, I appear to have found myself in quite a good mood. Despite being tortured in the quiet coach by a chap who put headphones on then proceeded to play Heart FM (imagine Céline Dion's lovemaking mix tape) on the his phone's speaker, I've regained my natural bonhomie. Mostly as the result of writing a 3000 word stinking review of the worst book I've ever read, Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society. I know that I mocked P D James's inept and weird Death Comes To Pemberley last week but she didn't say things like American liberals have 'very similar goals' to 'people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular'. He says this shortly after claiming that lefties are rude arrogant and vicious, while those on the right are polite and measured. Apparently liberals and Nazis are the same because they both wanted a minimum wage, state old-age care and regulated markets. So when the Lib Dems start building gas ovens, don't say you weren't warned.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense. I spent lunchtime discussing Baudrillard and spree-killing over vegetable samosas, and now it's time to read draft dissertation chapters by my final-year students. If you're reading, tutees, keep banging the rocks together.

Obviously for this kind of task, I'll need some soothing music to reduce the blood pressure. Here's some Trespassers William doing one of my favourite Ride tracks.



Which obviously leads me to Ride themselves - one of the wonderful bands killed off by Britpop. Most of the bands then only had one syllable. Pulp, Blur, Lush… Anyway, Ride were kings of Shoegaze, now happily revived for a new generation. Play these. They're ace.

I miss Shoegaze

Some Slowdive ('Souvlaki Space Station' from the epic album Souvlaki), and my favourite Mojave 3 track, 'Mercy', though the full electric version has more power. Shoegaze is now highly fashionable as an influence over some electronic bands, but they just don't have the shame that's so integral to the genre.