Political Music Spotify Playlist
A quick post-election playlist for you…
Common People by Pulp is from Different Class, the best political album of the 90s. This is the live version from Glastonbury in 1995 – a gig I was lucky enough to be at, and still remember with awe fifteen years later.
Hard Times Of Old England Retold by The Imagined Village is a rewrite by Billy Bragg of the old folk song. With verses complaining about the banks, Tesco and post office closures, it only needs something about potholes and it’d be a Focus leaflet set to music.
No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In by The Bonzo Dog Band has been proven true again this week…
Power In The Darkness by The Tom Robinson Band is a good demonstration of the Liberal and Conservative ideas of freedom:
“Freedom to choose to do with your body/Freedom to believe what you like/Freedom for brothers to love one another/Freedom for black and white/Freedom from elitism, male domination/Freedom for the mother and wife/Freedom from Big Brother’s interrogation/Freedom to live your own life” versus
“Freedom from the Reds and the blacks and the criminals/Prostitutes, pansies and punks/Football hooligans, juvenile delinquents, lesbians and left-wing scum/Freedom from the niggers and the pakis and the unions/Freedom from the gypsies and the jews/Freedom from the long-haired layabouts and students, freedom from the likes of you”
Cunts Are Still Running The World by Jarvis Cocker. Yes, they are.
Taxes, Taxes by Hank Penny is also self-explanatory…
The Disappointed by XTC could almost be written about the Lib Dems at the moment – in this case ‘the ones who broke their hearts’ are the voters who deserted in the last hours.
The Trader by The Beach Boys is a song about the evils of imperialist capitalist exploitation, by a band who are thought of as the ultimate conservative whitebread Americans but at the time had two black South African members and a Puerto Rican keyboardist.
Things Are Changing (For The Better) by Diana Ross And The Supremes would be nice if it were true, wouldn’t it? This is instrumentally a Phil Spector production of a Brian Wilson song, but with the Supremes’ vocals replacing those of Darlene Love and the Blossoms (whose version isn’t on Spotify).
This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie is here because Spotify doesn’t have any versions of The Land, the Liberal Democrat party song, and this has a very similar message.- “There was a big high wall there, that tried to stop me/The side was painted, said ‘private property’/But on the back side, it didn’t say nothin’/This land was made for you and me”.
And Tramp The Dirt Down by Elvis Costello is far, far kinder about Thatcher than I would be…
Linkblogging For 29/10/09
Just a few quick links today…
Ubuntu has released its latest version today, Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala”. Ubuntu isn’t my GNU/Linux distribution of choice, but it is far and away the best for people who’ve had little previous experience with GNU/Linux, so if you’ve been thinking of shelling out a few hundred quid for WIndows 7, and maybe having to buy a new computer to run it on, why not try downloading a totally free, better new OS instead?
Those of you who don’t read XTC’s MySpace blog really should. This week, Andy Partridge is interviewed about Collideascope, and briefly references Ditko and Kirby.
The Mindless Ones posted some Annocommentations for League: Century, but like the teases they are they took it down again. I have a cached copy, though. Mwahahaha etc. They do still have a pretty spot-on review of the last issue of Planetary though.
An interesting article on ‘doing your good deed for the day‘. Remind me sometime to explain how this ties in to my belief that almost all political blogging is counterproductive (I don’t do my own blogging to be productive – I do it to let off steam. If I want to make an actual difference I’ll go out and do actual campaigning, which I don’t do enough of).
And some Twain and Einstein adventures by Michael Kupperman…
(Tomorrow, if you’re lucky, a defence of libertarianism…)
New Spotify Playlist – Pure Pop For Never People!
Sorry I’ve been a bit crap at updating recently. Between computer problems at home, pressure at work, and the general blandness of most of the comics recently, I’ve not really had any momentum for posting. Hopefully that’ll be back again soon and I’ll be back to the level of productivity from last month within a few days.
Anyway, the nights are drawing in, so we all need some cheerful pop music to pick us all up, and here is a playlist of just that.
Come On In by The Association is as good an opener for anything as you could hope for. The one time I DJ’d I started this up as soon as the doors opened (unfortunately, of course, no-one heard it as they hadn’t arrived yet. This is the kind of thing you don’t think of if you’ve never DJ’d before).
Mayor Of Simpleton by XTC is one of those list songs like What A Wonderful World, to which it bears a huge lyrical resemblance – “Never been near a university/Never took a paper or a learned degree… And I may be the mayor of Simpleton, but I know one thing and that’s I love you”. The music is insanely catchy, though, and I’m amazed this was never a hit. Everything here’s perfect and thought through – listen to that bassline from Colin Moulding, going all over the place, commenting on the main melody – but at the same time it’s *immediate* in a way much of XTC’s stuff isn’t… I actually considered just doing an XTC playlist today, they’re so great.
Broadway by Stew is one of his few cover versions, a radical reworking of the Clash song, turning it into a disco track backed by drum machine, analogue synth sounds and fast-picked banjo (presumably played by Probyn Gregory?), this gives some idea of what the Negro Problem’s side project The Covers Problem sounded like (at some point I must post an MP3 of their live cover of the full Thriller album).
I’ve posted Nerdy Boys by Candypants in more than one playlist before, but who cares? It’s the best pop single of the last decade.
7 And 7 Is by Love is the song that invented punk, back in 1966 when the rest of California was busy inventing hippysim, and it’s still one of the most ferocious records ever (fantastic song to play live, too, especially since the rhythm section has to do all the work while the guitarists just have to slash out chords). Drumming by the great Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer (I’ve told Holly that if we ever have a kid I’m going to name it Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer in tribute, which has ensured we shall remain child-free).
September Gurls by Big Star is the track that invented powerpop. Unfortunately, Spotify removed the three proper Big Star albums recently, so this is what sounds like a full-band demo – every element of the track is there, but not *quite* as tight as the finished version. For those who don’t know the original, though, it’ll more than suffice.
More Important Things by The Mockers is another catchy-as-hell harmony-based spiky jangly guitar song. Sometimes I like those.
Baby It’s Real by The Millennium is a track I’ve adored for ten years even though it breaks the cardinal rule of lyric-writing , Harry Nilsson’s “Never use the word baby unless you’re talking about a little person”.
Friends Of Mine by The Zombies is almost unique in that it’s a song about being happy about other people being in love, although rather sadly almost all the (real) people named in the backing vocals have either split up or died (Jean and Jim are still together forty-one years later though, if that’s any consolation).
This Whole World by The Beach Boys is an astonishing tour de force. Stupid lyrics, but in one minute fifty-seven this manages to cycle through something like five different keys, never settling on one for more than a couple of bars, in a completely unusual structure.
Thankful/It’s Over Now by Linus Of Hollywood is another example of LoH’s rather odd attitude to women (which I can only hope is a Randy Newman-esque ‘writing in character’ thing) – “If you would just leave and take all of your things I’d be grateful… don’t forget to take your mood swings/don’t forget to take your nasty attitude” over one of the most upbeat, bouncy pop tunes I’ve ever heard. Again, a cleverly-structured, complex piece.
And Jaded by The National Pep is my attempt at doing a pop song as clever and complex as the last couple, or even more so. And if you listen to it through spotify, I’ll get a whole shiny penny to share with my collaborators…
New Spotify Playlist – XTC, Laurie Biagini, Neil Innes, Wild Man Fisher
Before I start, I’d just like to apologise for the lack of content for a week – work’s finally calmed down, but I’ve essentially spent the last week asleep as a reaction to the lifting of four months’ constant stress.
Anyway, I’ve decided that to start posting again I’m going to do another hyperpost like series, this one starting off with thoughts on authorship rather than canon. I’m going to talk about Cerebus, Smile, Wednesday Comics and Strange Adventures, Darkseid and Jack Kirby, and copyright law, among other things. I’ll also try, next week, to get more Beatles stuff posted.
But in the meantime, here’s a playlist I’ve put together…
Hand 19 by Andy Partridge And Harold Budd is from an album I only discovered existed through Spotify, a collection of somewhat new-agey jazzy stuff. I almost wondered at first if it was a different Andy Partridge, but it has his melodic fingerprints…
How Sweet To Be An Idiot by Neil Innes is probably Innes’ most famous solo song, thanks to appearing on a couple of Monty Python things (and being ripped off by Oasis for Whatever). It’s deserved though – Innes is a *shockingly* underrated songwriter, easily as major a talent as someone like Ray Davies, who gets overlooked because so much of his material is hilariously funny, so the craft (an the often very poignany emotions) underlying it gets lost.
Buttons Of Your Mind by The Scaffold is a rather lovely B-side to their novelty hit Lily The Pink. It sounds like a poor man’s Bonzo Dog Band – which is, of course, what The Scaffold essentially were – but they have their moments. (For those who don’t know, The Scaffold were a comedy group which featured the poet Roger McGough and Paul McCartney’s brother).
Stagger Lee by Mississippi John Hurt is still my favourite version of this – a completely different song to the more well-known one performed by everyone from Lloyd Price to Nick Cave, but containing many of the same lines.
Season Cycle by XTC is, amazingly, from the same album as Dear God. Rather amazing that the band capable of such a terrible song about atheism could also be capable of such a wonderful song about religious awe at nature. Rather obviously ripped off from Sagittarius’ version of My World Fell Down, but none the worse for that.
Mr Guru by Laurie Biagini is a fun piece of 60s pastiche from someone who does a lot of that sort of thing. It actually sounds rather like Bananarama, but in a good way, if you can believe that.
Good Sounds by Linus Of Hollywood is one of the best pure pop tracks of the last decade – an absolutely gorgeous, fun chorus with some rather disturbing lyrics – “I was just thinking/We were both drinking/So we should fool around/Things would be much easier if you’d just stay the night”, along with a promise to ‘play your favourite record if you promise that you’ll stay’ is rather too creepy to be an effective pickup line, or at least so I hope…
Cross Hatched World by Chewy Marble is by far my favourite song from last year’s Modulations, their first album in several years, a Beach Boysy track about drawing.
Loveland by The Mello Cads is a fantastic piece of lounge music pastiche, based around Come On In by The Association (which if I remember rightly was the theme music for lead Cad David Ponak’s radio show for a few years) but with some rather incongruous Indian stylings and backwards guitar on top. The Mello Cads are one of about a million bands with Probyn Gregory and Nelson Bragg in, always a sign of excellence.
I’ve Loved Her So Long by Neil Young is from his eponymous first solo album, which I still consider the best thing he ever did. Jack Nitzsche’s arrangements, and the more melodic stuff Young was doing then, place this firmly in ‘interesting LA pop’ territory with The Monkees, Love and Jimmy Webb, rather than the hippie singer-songwriter or proto-grunge furrows he spent much of the rest of his career in.
Flaming Carrot Theme Song by Wild Man Fisher is a theme for the great surrealistic 80s indie comic.
Don’t Make Me Over by The Swinging Blue Jeans is one of the great late-Merseybeat singles, obviously no match for Dionne Warwick’s original, sung as it is by a slightly flat Scouser, but that in itself is its charm – when Ray Ennis sings “Accept me for what I am”, it’s a flawed human doing so, rather than a vocal goddess.
Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf is the song which Led Zeppelin… er… homaged in The Lemon Song. However, good as Led Zep are, Howlin’ Wolf is roughly ten quadrillion times better – he sounds like he could bite Robert Plant’s head off between phrases.
And Long Black Limousine by Elvis Presley is a masterpiece of resentment and nastiness. She went off and said she’d be in a fancy car – well look at her now, she’s in a limousine all right – a hearse. That’ll teach her for wanting to do something with her life, won’t it, the stuck-up bitch? She’s dead now and everyone can see her funeral. It’s a thoroughly unpleasant song, as so many of those in this playlist are, but dear god Elvis’ voice in the last verse after the key change… what a singer…
Spotify Playlist for 27/07 – Scott Walker, Bach, Os Mutantes
A couple of things about today’s Spotify playlist. Firstly, I’m starting to lose track of what I’ve posted before, so if some tracks come up more than once, forgive me. I’m assuming no-one’s listening to *all* of these, anyway, just the ones that sound interesting to them.
The other thing is the notable lack of female artists. This is partly because my record collection is male-dominated, but also a lot of my favourite female performers (Carolyn Edwards and Joanna Newsom to name two) aren’t on Spotify yet. Anyone know of any really good female singers/songwriters I’d like?
Anyway, today’s playlist
Cossacks Are by Scott Walker is the opening song from his most recent (and to my mind best) album, The Drift. I have absolutely no idea what it’s about, but it sounds astonishing. Remember, this is someone who started his career in a boy band doing Four Seasons covers…
The Knife by Genesis is included after reading Gavin B’s post about it – it’s almost good enough to forgive them for Phil Collins.
Pale And Precious by The Dukes Of Stratosphear is XTC in their guise as a fake 60s psych band doing a perfect Beach Boys pastiche, while still managing to be a truly great song in its own right. Gorgeous stuff. Just listen to the “Don’t care what the others might say” section – it’s got *exactly* the same unexpected chord progression – and indeed the same distrust of other people in general and wish they’d disappear attached to an absolute adoration of one person in particular – that would happen in a Brian Wilson song at that point.
At this point, the playlist is a little proggy, so there’s a couple of simpler songs.
I’m Leaving It All Up To You by Don & Dewey is a song I found on a wonderful compilation called Frank Zappa’s Jukebox, which consists of stuff that Zappa listened to as a teenager, and so is a mixture of ‘difficult’ modern classical, skronking jazz and greasy blues and doo-wop. It’s an absolute treasure of a compilation.
Shakin’ All Over by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates is one of those records that was an absolutely massive hit in Britain in the early ’60s but almost no-one outside the UK knows. It’s a shame as it’s one of the great records of that period between Elvis getting drafted and the first Beatles record, which is generally regarded as a dead period in music but in fact produced people like Roy Orbison, Del Shannon and others who were far more influential than people now realise.
Movie Magg by Carl Perkins is a great record in its own right, but also a window into a time that seems a million years ago – this is a song about taking a girl to the cinema, but on the back of a horse. And recorded in the 1950s. The weird juxtaposition of the modern (the electrical kinematograph still seems modern to me, I am afraid) and what feels like the ancient, a song about a lost way of life that is still in the memory of many living, in a song that was a modern pop song at the time my Dad was born, seems very strange to me…
You Don’t Have To Walk In The Rain by The Turtles is from one of the very great overlooked albums of the 60s, Turtle Soup. This was the Turtles’ attempt to make their own Village Green Preservation Society and was produced by Ray Davies, and is a halfway house between the Kinks’ English pastoral and the Turtles’ California pop whose closest comparison is probably Odessey & Oracle. This was the single from the album, and the most conventional track on it, but I love the line “I look at your face/I love you anyway”.
Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball? by Buddy Johnson is for my wife, who’s spent most of the last few weeks watching rounders over the internet rather than talking to her long-suffering husband ;)
Opening Titles by Don Preston is another of Preston’s orchestral pieces. I’m becoming more and more convinced, the more I hear of Preston’s work, that he had the potential to be a true great had he not spent the last forty years in the shadow of his old boss. Shame.
The Prelude to the first Lute Suite in E Minor by Bach is just here because I like Bach’s lute pieces. So should you.
Lady Came From Baltimore by Scott Walker is as different from the opening track as you could get – a cover of a folk-pop song by Tim Hardin – but is still a lovely little track, overlooked in comparison to the darker stuff on Walker’s first few solo albums.
Arnaldo Said by the Wondermints is the only Wondermints track on Spotify at the moment, unfortunately. Weirdly, this is on an Os Mutantes tribute album, even though it’s a Wondermints original. But speaking of Mutantes…
Bat Macumba by Os Mutantes is my favourite track by Brazil’s greatest psychedelic band – not much of a song, but just listen to it as a *sound*, the way the totally different sonic environments are laid on each other…
Everyone Says I Love You by Janet Klein is a lovely little acoustic performance of the Marx Brothers song from Horse Feathers (and if I lent any of you my box set of Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers and Monkey Business, could I have it back, please? I’ve completely forgotten who I lent it to…)
Wonderful/Song For Children by Rufus Wainwright is a stunning performance of the first half of the second movement of Smile, and shows that Smile wasn’t just a great record, but the songs were great songs. Wonderful, especially, deserves to be regarded as part of ‘the great American songbook’.
Send Me To The ‘Lectric Chair by Bessie Smith is another track by one of the all-time great blues singers, but to be honest I’ve included it for the horn playing.
And Over The Reef by Duncan Browne is a song I’m not even sure I like, but there’s something to it… it’s a very twee, folky thing which could smack of James Taylor, but there’s a sort of Incredible String Bandness about it that makes it work… I think… what do you think?
Anyway, I’m off til a week on Tuesday. Don’t turn this place into a tip while I’m gone…
Spotify Superheroes
It’s been nearly two weeks since my last weekly playlist, hasn’t it? This needs to be rectified. Some of you may notice a slight theme throughout this week’s playlist…
Superman by R.E.M is a song that many, many people arriving at my blog through search engines are looking for. A cover of a 60s track by The Clique, this is a joyous bit of powerpop fun.
Wonder Woman by Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint is not, as Spotify thinks, by the Attractions, but is from the Costello/Toussaint/Impostors album The River In Reverse, an album they recorded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This is an old Toussaint song from the 70s.
That’s Really Super, Supergirl by XTC is off what is possibly XTC’s most consistent album, Skylarking. Holly loved this one til she realised it really was about, as she put it, “Supergirl’s emo boyfriend”. I love it *because* of that…
“Batman” Theme by Neal Hefti is the 60s TV theme, in an arrangement that has an ocarina solo. Who could ask for more?
Sunshine Superman by Donovan is one of his better singles – a very enjoyable bit of pop-psychedelic 60s nonsense.
Sgt Rock Is Going To Help Me is our second XTC song, but given that they are both one of the best bands ever and bona-fide comic fans (Andy Partridge is a fan of Kubert and Ditko especially) it seems reasonable.
(Incidentally, one of my favourite facts from the About Time series, which I’ve read over the last couple of months, is that “Andrew Partridge of Swindon” was a runner-up in a 1968 ‘Design A Doctor Who Monster’ competition on Blue Peter. )
The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How To Be In Love by The Flaming Lips is from the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack, though I don’t remember it from the film, and quite what Mohammed Ali has to do with anything I don’t know…
Boy Wonder by The Undertones is a classic bit of pop-punk from the late 70s. Annoyingly, Feargal Sharkey, the interestingly-named frontman of the band, went on first to record one of the most cloying, awful singles of the 80s (A Good Heart), and then to become an executive for ‘UK Music’ (the British equivalent of the RIAA). He was great as a teenager, though…
Superman by Benny Goodman is a surprisingly-raw sounding instrumental for the Goodman big band (Goodman usually saved the more dissonant stuff for the small groups). I don’t know any details of the recording, but that sounds very like Cootie Williams on trumpet, and he was only in Goodman’s band in 1940, after leaving Ellington, so we’ll say it’s from then.
Plastic Man by The Kinks is one of those attacks on The Businessman In His Suit And Tie that were so popular in the mid-60s, where rock stars attack people for daring to have jobs and live in suburbia. It’s a fun one though.
Barbara Allen by Lois Lane is a version of the old folk song by a Dutch band. Not my favourite version of the song, but a nice one.
Mr Sandman by The Chordettes is a song you all know. However it sounds stranger than you remember – those backing vocals almost sound sampled, a la I’m Not In Love/Star Me Kitten. Also, the Beach Boys fans among you could note that the ‘my children were raised’ section of Heroes & Villains was ripped off from it. The song definitely shows its age though in the line about “wavy hair like Liberace”…
1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Richard Thompson is a great song. And, well, Black Lightning’s a superhero.
Animal Man by Kim Fowley is as silly as you’d imagine.
And Wolverine Blues by Jelly Roll Morton is a great little track by the man who claimed to have invented jazz…
Personal Is Political Playlist
Continuing with the theme from yesterday, this week’s Spotify playlist (which you can access from here ) is based around the themes of politics, police violence, the Depression, depression and poverty.
We start with a little spoken section, by Laurel And Hardy, in which they are Victims Of The Depression.
Following this is Bing Crosby with the Depression-era classic Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?. Co-written of course by the great Yip Harburg, one of the greatest songwriters of the ‘Golden Age of American Song’. A little-known fact about Harburg is that ‘Yip’ was actually short for ‘yipsel’, which in turn was short for Young Person’s Socialist League – Harburg was an incredibly political songwriter. But he’s probably best known now, other than this song, for Over The Rainbow, April In Paris and It’s Only A Paper Moon.
Following this is Linton Kwesi Johnson with Reggae Fi Peach. Johnson was a very politically-active dub poet in the early 1980s, and this is his tribute to Blair Peach, a teacher who was battered to death by the police when taking part in an Anti-Nazi League protest.
XTC‘s Earn Enough For Us is a song that means a lot to me – it essentially describes my life for the first two years after I married (as well as the year before) – “I’ve been praying I can keep you/and can earn enough for us”. Not political as such, but a perfect description of the life of low earners.
Glad To Be Gay by The Tom Robinson Band is a song I loved when I was a very young child – my parents got quite embarassed picking five-year-old me up from school and having me sing it loudly on the way out. Robinson was an overly didactic lyricist of the Billy Bragg type, but this one is genuinely heartfelt, and still moving even now I’m old enough to know what it’s about…
The Policeman’s Jig is a great little song from Jake Thackray. Someone should really write a book on Thackray, and the particularly Yorkshire way he combines an earthy sense of humour and an utter loathing of all forms of authority with a very devout Catholic faith. This is definitely Thackray in anti-authority mode, and anti-censorship.
Political Science by Randy Newman is a song I used to think was an overly-broad satire, but which appears to have been used by the Bush regime as a policy briefing document…
Shipbuilding by Elvis Costello is one of the very best songs ever written, looking at one of the more pointless wars of our time (the Falklands) from the point of view of the unemployed dock workers who were given work again by the conflict – “Is it worth it? A new winter coat and shoes for the wife/And a bicycle for the boy’s birthday/It’s just a rumour that’s been spread around town, soon we’ll be shipbuilding”. A more damning indictment of the Thatcher years – and a sadder song – you’ll never hear.
Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ But Trash by The Clovers and Get A Job by The Silhouettes are two great doo-wop classics. Doo-wop these days is thought of as mindless silliness, but it was a really vibrant, inventive artform for a few years in the late 50s.
WPA Blues is credited to Meade Lux Lewis, but it’s far more guitar-based than Lewis’ normal stuff (Lewis was one of the all-time great boogie-woogie piano players) , so much so that I’m not even sure it’s him. Either way, it’s a great little track. (For those who don’t know the WPA was the Roosevelt-era public works programme which was brought in to try to end the Depression).
Money Honey by Little Richard is just great.
Up The Junction by Squeeze is very much of a piece with Earn Enough For Us, a glorious story song which was a huge hit over here but never did anything in the US.
‘Til I Die by The Beach Boys is the greatest track ever about the other kind of depression, and probably the best song Brian Wilson ever wrote without a collaborator.
And just in case that was too depressing for you, we finish with a nice cheery track – Music To Commit Suicide By by Roy Wood.
Let me know what you think, and if I should carry on doing these…
Linkblogging for 18/01/09
Off to see Richard Thompson perform 1000 Years Of Popular Music tonight, so I may do an Albums You Should Own on that when we get back. In the meantime, some links…
RAB posts a great video of XTC as a tribute to two great people who died recently – Patrick McGoohan and John Mortimer. As well as being a great song (The Man Who Murdered Love) the post itself is very good and worth reading, especially the last couple of sentences.
Mention of Patrick McGoohan reminds me that because of the remake (which will undoubtedly be dreadful) you can currently stream every episode of The Prisoner, one of the greatest TV series of all time, legally and for free.
Alix at Lib Dem Voice has a good summing up of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Amypoodle at Mindless Ones has a good review of the latest Final Crisis (which I’ll be writing about soonish mysef). Have you noticed how certain ‘net critics (not Amypoodle, who like myself has loved the series from the start) are starting to revise their opinion of this story now it’s turned into a big fight scene and they don’t have to think any more? Jog, on the other hand, dislikes the issue for pretty much that reason. I loved it, myself…
ETA this was taken down (as some of the comments below note) then came back up again, greatly expanded. Some of the comments in the expanded version are very like my own review, written between it going down and coming up, making mine look rather like an ‘edited highlights’ version of theirs.
And Chris Bird looks at the environmental case for eating meat…
Linkblogging for 17/01/09
I’m still far busier than I expected this week, so I’m still behind on my email correspondence – apologies to those who’ve emailed me recently.
Anyway, in lieu of a longer post, here’s some links:
Debi writes about Thomas Hariot – the most pioneering scientist you’ve never heard of.
Bobsy shows us his pants.
Over on Lib Dem Voice they’re talking about what the ‘liberal attitude to immigration’ should be. Some of the comments there make sense, but some are horribly, nastily racist. Let them know what you think…
People buying tube tickets will soon be automatically giving their consent to be searched by transport police. Well, that’s one more reason for me to avoid That London…
An interesting post about the Einstein/Bohr dialogue about quantum physics.
Cerebus: A Diablog continue their reading of the greatest comic series in history.
Andy Partridge discussing how Jack Kirby influenced one of his songs. (Surprising, because Partridge has always struck me as more of a DC person, and here he’s talking about Ant-Man. Still, it’s another example of XTC and comics, two of my favourite things, overlapping).
Free comic stories by Rick Veitch and Mark Evanier and Tom Yeates and some others.
And pillock has an excellent post on From Hell.
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