Nine Feet Underground

'Anything can happen in the next half hour'  (Stingray, if you're wondering) After hearing The Auteurs on the radio and looking at the just-released box set of all their albums, instead of just buying it, I remember that somewhere I have a 3CD set called 'Luke Haines Is Dead' which contains a lot of Auteurs songs, a few solo ones and some other tracks he released under the band name Baader Meinhof.  I know what it looks like, I know it's in an old-style 3CD case, but can I find it? Can I fuck! Eventually, after going through the shelves multiple times, looking to see if I've mis-filed it, I come upon it amongst the ever growing unfiled pile. I've found it and it does contain what I'm looking for (not U2). Change of plans for the morning, and once I'm organised I return to 'Ulysses', deepening my knowledge and digging out my copy of the first hand-written draft of the episode we're currently reading. Ahead of Wednesday evening's di...

A colder night, followed by a rainy start to the day.  I've got lots of boring things to do, so the weather isn't going to be a distraction from getting them done. I'm going to start the day slowly: eat breakfast whilst doing online food shopping and once that's done, start the washing and the rest of today's exciting jobs. Yesterday I said I'd explain where I'd heard the Bob Vylan track that I'd chosen, so here goes.  One of the little pleasures of Christmas, of which there are many, is the annual 2CD compilation of the best tracks of the year, according to Rough Trade.  It's always titled 'Counter Culture', this years being 'Counter Culture 20'!  The beauty of this set, crammed full of new songs, is that 90% or more of it you'll never have heard, and given Rough Trade shops pedigree in sniffing out the good stuff, the majority of it will be excellent. Out of 36 tracks on this years set, I've only heard three of the songs and...