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

Anybody else coming to see The Indelicates launch one of the albums of the year at Madame Jo Jo's tonight?

An unknown unknown: I was unaware that I did not know whether there are moles in Ireland. Apparently there are not. Whereas the snakes so famously driven out by St Guinness are not absent as such, only "poorly represented".

Since the century turned and everything started going madder, I've often said that there's no such thing as contemporary fiction anymore - you're either writing SF or historical. That Joe Stretch novel about which I was enthusing turned out to be both. Like Atomized, it had a framing narration from the future - but that future stemmed directly and divergently from the book's 'present', and that present must have been the past because the characters kept smoking in bars and cafes. Speaking of which, 2000AD is currently running a Savage strip in which Poptimism's venue, The Cross Kings, is one of the key locations. An alternate Cross Kings in an alternate London, one under neo-Stalinist occupation - but for all the brutalities of life under the Volgan jackboot, there are ashtrays on the pub tables.
In other science fiction news: wasn't 'The Fires of Pompeii' splendid? Having found Tate's performance one of the less dreadful aspects of 'Partners in Crime', here she was definitely the weak link. Not enough to ruin the episode by any means, but I did wish for Martha.

I suppose it was inevitable that should the Guardian publish an eminently sensible article questioning the vogue for China among galleries, and the dubious tone of some of the accompanying commentary, in light of recent reminders of the Chinese regime's failings, then the comments would instantly decline into name-calling and facile moral equivalence.

Finished The Wire last night. Not really ready to talk about it; what is there to say? It is what it is. Maybe in five, ten years - if we last that long - some kids who grew up on it will make something that compares. For now and for myself, I can only say that I'm glad I never got round to getting any LJ icons from it; right now I wouldn't want to identify as anyone in there.

New Bill Drummond participatory performance piece, running November-December on Kingsland Road - anyone else interested in attending?

Next Wednesday, ITV are showing a modern take on Frankenstein by Bodies' Jed Mercurio. The comparison's not exact, but if you think roughly in terms of Jekyll, you'll get there. After watching the first half, I was itching to plug it to all and sundry. It's incredibly well-timed, bouncing off the (arguable, possible) creation of artificial life into Jon Gibbs' prize-winning picture of lightning hitting a windmill at Scroby Sands. The cast is excellent, including Cherie Blair from The Queen as Frankenstein, that bloke from Drop The Dead Donkey, Servilia and Anthony from Rome, and Errol from Fifteen Storeys High. The monster's design is cunning, playing the same trick Dagon pulled when it based the Deep Ones on octopodes rather than fish, making the comfortably monstrous truly uncanny again. The sets and atmosphere have something of the same near-future despair as Children of Men, and the skies (post-volcanic storms such as those prevalent around Mary Shelley's writing of the original novel) are brilliant.
And then I got chance to watch the second half and...maybe it's my own fault for breaking the mood, but the magic was gone.

Every now and then I read a Graham Greene; I opted for A Gun For Sale this time mainly because I'd read a JM Coetzee piece claiming Brighton Rock as its sequel, and the idea of a famed book being the sequel to a less-known one interested me*. Finding an edition with an introduction by a fellow I used to know was a bonus, though personally I'd prefer to give away rather less of the plot, and restrain myself to saying that the book's conspiracy thriller plot is startlingly modern. Though perhaps it would be truer to say, in the field of human failure, we've yet to produce a writer who's advanced past Greene.
I had never really thought of the industrial Midlands as a territory of Greeneland, but really that was foolish of me; they're awash with the broken and the bitter and the compromised, bully boys "living in their vulgar, vivid way for five years before the long provincial interment of a lifetime".

Even with the humourless prigs up in arms about any chink in the smoking ban*, and the poisoning of hearts and minds against alcohol well underway, I was still quite amazed by the latest news from the fat front:
"In this environment it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good."
If you're going to take that line, if you're going to abandon any belief in personal choice or free will or human willpower, then surely it is inconsistent to persevere with democracy? How can the British people possibly be trusted to choose their leaders but not their lunch?

Plugging the NME's predictably dire 'Love Music Hate Racism' CD (if you loved music, you wouldn't be putting out CDs with The Enemy and both ex-'Libertines' on), Kele from Bloc Party says "there are lots of people who would be happier if I wasn't in this country". True, but that's got nothing to do with the colour of your skin, Kele - they just heard your album.

*As much as anything because it would spite the sort of lit-crit snobs who disdain sequels. Turns out it's more of a spin-off, but I suppose one shouldn't expect a Serious Writer to be competent in the use of such terms.
**And I think it's worth mentioning here - you know how one of the justifications was to protect those obliged (by our archaic unemployment laws) to work in pubs? The other night I passed a pub whose staff were enjoying the time-honoured afterhours staff pint. Two of them were also savouring fags; the others' faces betrayed no sign of discontent with this.

That line makes more sense now the charts mean nothing much, doesn't it? And David Devant's show on Friday...it was only an inchoate feeling until someone else put it into words for me, but it had an air of finality. Ten years on from the debut album, which was meant to make them stars, they played it in order. First track of the encore, the track which came as a free 7" with the vinyl version. And then apparently thrashing through every other song that came to mind...they did say that they'd see us in three years for the Shiney on the Inside anniversary show, but I'm not especially expecting to see them before that. I don't know, maybe it was just the hearing-album-in-order thing that got me. I've only seen that done before at launch shows, not commemorations.
As first support, the Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra were as delightful as ever; I especially enjoyed watching their effect on the uninitiated. And Boogaloo Stu was entertaining enough, even if his outfit was a little *too* tight. But The Reality (edit: apparently these were They Came From The Stars I Saw Them, lying)...I can only surmise that they're sponsored by tobacco industry, because they had the non-smokers heading out on their mates' fag breaks, just to get away. The 100 Club itself, it should be noted, *stinks*. Not the gym fug of the Borderline, more the hospital corridor smell of cheap industrial cleaner. David Devant did provide card Fantasy Fags, but they never got round to enacting whatever magic might have empowered them. And on top of the smell...I saw a psster for a George Melly show. And this set me thinking, a little later, all we need now to sum up everything that's made this past week so abysmal is a Fopp poster. Turn around, and there's an ad for an instore right behind me. From that point on I was just surprised by the absence of Catherine Tate.

The Purple Turtle, on the other hand, doesn't smell at all bad; surprising, I know. But the evening...in terms of the music and such, I still like Stay Beautiful. I find Client fairly boring, but inoffensive, especially since they seem to have laid off the faux sapphism. But the clientele, my dears! So many very ugly people. And I mean that in terms of behaviour as much as anything, though be assured, many of the faces and outfits definitely qualify too. I'm sure it's not normally like this, but it has really rather shaken me.

Bear in mind, I couldn't (until now) investigate people's objections to the end of Heroes in any depth for fear of spoilers - but I get the impression that it was widely loathed. Whereas I'm just vaguely disappointed in the way I often am at the end of big superhero stories by the decisions taken with too much of an eye on the franchise's value and too little on the story. Some bits, though, just don't make sense. ( Queries, incorporating spoilers )
As ever, it is Hiro's arc whose development interests me most.
Still, at least The Shield is still on top form. I've meandered enough before about the bleakness of its moral universe, to general disinterest on here, but this week's episode found another marvellous way to play that.

"Speaking in Hull, the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said..."I'm hoping that the central government will match up to what the council is trying to do. The response should be quick, fast and swift.""
Is there even a word for going past tautology and using *three* synonymous terms? Perhaps we should just file this as further evidence for Hitchens' argument that, where once the finest minds had nowhere to go but the clergy, times are very different now.