Culture

  • In the local library, which I visit once a week, they have  a Mystery Book on the Issues counter.  It is hidden inside a plain white A4 envelope.  On four consecutive Saturdays, I have been able to resist. This week I cracked.  I had to have it. They wouldn't let me have the Mystery Book on the counter.  Underneath the desk, there is a pile of plain white envelopes.  I get the one on the top, and leave the library without opening it. I'm expecting a middle-brow novel.  It would be great to have a handbook on gyro-copter mechanics, or a guide to the sacrificial customs of Ancient Mesopatamia.  However, I can't quite believe a library will let its

    Sep 15,
  • On a bootleg Jimi Hendrix album called Mr Pitiful (German sleeve, Swiss pressing) Jimi has a shambolic stab at a studio recording of Wooly Bully.  He is long gone dogbone stoned, and has lost his earphones.  He finds this hilarious, but nobody else knows what he's looking for.  You know, he giggles, the ear-things, man, the ear-goggles.  I always loved that.  And since i-pods came out even more so.  Tuck in the plastic ear-goggles and see the world differently, in your own chosen way.   My music, my timing, my world.  I-pod, me-pod. The i-pod is a wonderful invention, but I can't help feeling there are some unanswered design questions.  I don't use my ipod on the bus, not since I was made jumpy by the

    Aug 18,