Happy Talk

Apparently I'm supposed to write about new stuff and not simply stick up some old rubbish no one even wanted to read at the time. So here's a load of things I rilly rilly like right now. A mate once told me I'm better writing about things I don't like than things I do, so I will do a hate list soon – possibly under the brilliant title Crappy Talk – but not just now cos I'm bored with going about Morrissey. So here's reasons to be cheerful, one, two... ten (which left no room for the great Grinderman and Gold Panda albums).

1/ Kano
His new album shows him to be the only grime kid really moving beyond all that without joining in the charty cheese-up. Neither grime nor grime-pop (or whatever we call that), it's accessible in all the right ways, but still like, well, hard, and is easily the best he's done since his first and possibly better. I went to see him at Bush Hall last week. He was great; it was half empty. What gives?



2/ Patrick Neate - Jerusalem
Rap, reality TV, immigration, Africa, Nu-Lab dog days, AIDS, watching your leg being slowly eaten away by godknowswhat in an African jail cell with only rats for company, all books should be like this. So good I almost feel guilty for just borrowing it from the library.

3/ Joe Hart
An England keeper who doesn't spread through his defence like a bad day on the Stock Exchange. I won't say I told you so Fabio, cos you're not reading (but I did).

4/ Down Terrace
The only English film to successfully bridge the gap between Royle Family and Goodfellas. I'm interviewing the director tonight. Hopefully they were just messing with all that pushing-old-ladies-under-cars stuff.

5/ Syl Johnson - Complete Mythology box set
Take Al Green, batter the perma-grin, twinkly-eyed, just-been-invited-for-a-weekend-round-God's-house look out of him and that broken down lump weeping in the corner, that's Syl. He wound up on the same label as Al, Hi Records, but this massive box collates all the stuff before, including the tune that gave Ali G his catchphrase (not this one).


6/ Ed Balls
Or (Big) Ben if you're more familiar with The Thick Of It than real politicians. He was brilliant on yesterday's debate, being the only Labour leadership candidate to talk in policy rather than catchphrases and currently seems to be doing two shadow jobs (his own – education – and chancellor, where he's regularly picking apart Osbourne's axe-happy ways). He'd be a rubbish leader, but I may vote for him anyway since I know he can't win.
This just in: apparently BoJo says "I agree with Ed" on the economy. Is this a good or bad thing?

7/ Sian Anderson's blog
If it's half as entertaining as her tweets – all the joys of having a house full of teenagers with none of the grief – http://siananderson.blogspot.com/ is gonna be essential reading.

8/ Doug Stanhope
First time I saw Doug Stanhope I was disappointed his show was a little more reined-in than his DVD. No such trouble last week. Despite the drinking and stuttering he's now slicker than the sea round Deepwater and so near the knuckle you can hear them scraping along the ground. He didn't do this, though. Absolutely definitely NSFW. Probably not safe for home, or anywhere anyone else might hear.



9/ Breaking Bad Series 3
First series was all about Walt, second put some proper flesh on the other characters, this third is shaping up to be weird as fuck. Mexican dealers crawling to some shrine, the eyeball that follows him everywhere, the shyster I-can't-believe-he's-a-lawyer screwing Jesse's parents. Two eps in and already loving it. And Walt now has a natty little beard in place of that foul 70s 'tache he was rocking for series 1 and 2.

10/ Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner
Oh, there was room for this after all. It's like Fuck Buttons, Bibio and Caribou and all that other lovely stuff . That's enough YouTubeing for one post, so just google him yourself.