'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

Citizens of Finny P: anyone got any idea what's happened on Hanley Road? Neither Google News nor shopkeepers has anything. I would say that the Dairy finally got the reaction it deserves, except that it's still open for business and the police/medical presence seems to be concentrated around a red door next to the Chinese takeaway.

Scanning my spam folder for the inevitable victims of Gmail's over-eager gatekeeping, I see mails from earlier this week boasting "Become really wanted by women in 2008!" I'm used to viagra and bank scams, but spam selling time machines? Even only short-hop ones? That's tempting.

Left to my own devices on V-Day - Richmond's across the international date line or something - I contented myself with gigging and the (very full) Prom. The Sex Tourists and 18 Carat Love Affair both on fine form, the latter covering 'The Look of Love (Part 1)' which, while not the Lexicon of Love track I'd have chosen for Valentine's Day, is still clearly ace. Steve, having by now come to recognise me as an enthusiastic shouter-along on 'Five Rounds Rapid', got a bit overenthusiastic while sticking the mic in my face and chinned me, but hey, that's showbusiness.

All the crisp blogging lately has been about those new Walkers flavours, but for me the overlooked story is the pickled onion renaissance. The old-style Monster Munch got some attention, but as well as the return of the cyclic, yummy Pickled Onion Walkers Crisp, corner shops have lately started dangling a new challenger, Pickled Onion Crunchy Sticks, which I can strongly recommend. PO used to be my second favourite flavour, but salt & vinegar's not what it was - presumably because the saltiness necessary for a decent bite is anathema under new health agendas. Oh Walkers Max Salt & Vinegar, thou shouldst be living at this hour - but in your absence, increasingly I find pickled onion is where satisfying crisping is at. The downside being, the effect on one's breath is a lot more pernicious than with S&V.

Have abandoned Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian 100 pages in, about the latest I ever quit a book. Yes, the savagery, yes the prose, but...there was no through line. I suspected I was just going to get another 230 pages of the same and when the 'plot' is murderous picaresque, and the central character essentially a cypher, why would I want to do that? I can handle blank leads if it's, say, an early Angela Carter, because the book is shorter for one thing, but also because the incidents through which they travel have a dream-like logic, and a wonder to them. But for an atrocity exhibition like this, I need someone to follow.