An exquisitely beautiful return to blogging

Haven't posted for what seems like ages. What a pathetic excuse for a blogger I am. In mitigation, I've been busy clambering onto the bottom rung of the property ladder, and I've still got a lot of sorting out in my new house to do, so it'll probably be a little while til I get back to proper blogging.

Meanwhile, I'll post this exquisite and lovely video by the Mummers, whose album and sad backstory I acquired from the Guardian.

John Lennon died 30 years ago today

Very strange to think that he'd be 70 now if he lived. The Beatles were the first band I really became obsessed about, annexing my dad's record collection which took in almost all of their albums (apart from, oddly, Sgt. Pepper).

Lennon espoused all sorts of causes during his time - peace, love, avant-garde art, transcendental meditation, but he always seemed to have an ability to cut through all the crap and express exactly what he thought. On the "Imagine" film of his life, there's a clip of a man who had turned up at Lennon's mansion, apparently believing Lennon was speaking to him through his songs, specifically "Carry That Weight".

Lennon, though, swiftly disabused the man of the notion. "How could I have been speaking to you? I've never even met you."

He did record a load of old tosh in his time (Revolution 9, Two Virgins, practically anything after 1975) but I loved him best when letting go and rocking out.

Like dolphins can swim

Watched the X Factor last night.

I know, I know. I'm not proud. I've got kids, that's my excuse.

Anyway. "Heroes", by David Bowie, is the latest victim of the Simon Cowell juggernaut, in the name of the British Army charity, Help For Heroes.

I hate this. A great song, having the context and nuance wrung out of it by a bunch of talent school wannabes. "Hallelujah" was hard enough to deal with. Have they gone too far this time?

It's instructive that they missed out some of the lyrics. "Heroes" (and the quotation marks are part of the title, symbolising the ironic sense the song was meant to be taken in) to me is a song which celebrates a young couple embracing by the Berlin Wall, beneath that concrete monolith which served as a proxy for the crushing dominance of the Russian Army and the Cold War in general (actually, the couple in the song were producer Tony Visconti and his lover, which Bowie admitted a few years back).

The anthemic nature of the music stands in complete contrast to Bowie's howling, wailing, almost pathetic vocal. You know that the couple in the song are doomed, but they don't care - there's ultimately nothing heroic about their actions that will stand the test of time, but they can be heroes, to themselves, just for one day.

And you
You can be mean
And I
I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers
And that is a fact
Yes we're lovers
And that is that

We're nothing
And nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying
Then you better not stay
But we could be safer
Just for one day

Doesn't really fit for a song about disfigured soldiers. Couldn't they have used "Hero" by Mariah Carey?

Here's the original, anyway.

Simon Price, prince among journalists

Back in the days when I used to spend my evenings listening to the Evening Session with Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley, while rooting through my back copies of Melody Maker to read that 60 Foot Dolls interview for the thousandth time, Simon Price was like a blast of fresh, sarcastic, slightly perfumed air into my dull world.

Devoted Manic Street Preachers follower, espouser of New Romantic revivalists, and wearer of increasingly odd hairstyles and make-up, Pricey was always the most entertaining writer on the paper at the time (with Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes not far behind).

And for you lucky, lucky people living today, he's still kicking out reviews for the Independent on Sunday.

If only there was something funny to say about Blunt. Like, I dunno, a play on the rhyming possibilities of his surname. Sadly my mind's gone blank in the face of the musical horrors, so let's play this straight: Some Kind of Trouble stinks and from now on, we need only concern ourselves with precisely how it stinks.

Priceless. (See what I did there?)

Let's all meet up in the year 2011... doesn't quite have the same ring to it

The Republicans have made gains in the midterm elections. Britain is being run by public schoolboys. Fighting is still going on in Afghanistan, bombs are still going off in Iraq, and we're still running out of oil.

Fortunately, Pulp have decided to reform, which immediately cancels out the negative effects of all the above.

For those who weren't around during the Britpop years, Pulp were Officially The 3rd Best Britpop Band, after Blur and Oasis, although I always thought it was a little unfair to rank the three of them, as they were all so different. I prefer their 1995 album Different Class myself, but my mate Kenny reckons that His'n'Hers was a superior album, and this formed part of his hypothesis that 1994 was the greatest year for music ever, which I found fairly compelling.

But Jarvis Cocker, the lead singer, was an inspiration to millions of geeks everywhere. He was skinny, awkward, wore thick-rimmed NHS specs, and threw shapes like you wouldn't believe.

(Coincidentally, or maybe not, he was also a dead ringer for my A-level Sociology teacher. Phil, I still remember that the Badger is the only mammal with a bone in its penis. Your lessons were clearly worth the effort.)

Jarvis' greatest moment was the 1996 Brit Awards, when he heroically provided expert physical commentary on Michael Jackson's narcissistic performance of the execrable Earth Song. Check 0:22 and 0:34 for his erudite opinion on the King Of Pop.



That should be enough to send anyone who doesn't already know scurrying to iTunes or somewhere and start downloading Pulp's back catalogue. Jarvis Cocker, genius and Michael Jackson-botherer, I salute you.