Modern Times

In what constitutes a reasonable birthday present - I'm on the new Bob Dylan album.

It was my first non parent-led trip to London, fifteen years ago, and my girlfriend and I couldn't get off the train quick enough. Straight to Camden Town.

Within minutes of arriving we passed a velvet-suited, top-hatted fella. Camden was jaw-dropping enough but I remember the shot of excitement as I realised we'd bumped into a seemingly unaccompanied Bobby Dylan.

I managed to get some photos of my girlfriend getting an autograph and as more people gathered around, realised that Dave Stewart was shooting the whole thing on a 16mm camera.

The next day on the tube we saw the story on the front page of The Guardian, but the photos stayed Up North and I haven't seen them since.

Well, a limited-edition of 'Modern Times' comes with a DVD containing the promo shot that day and there I am, hovering in the background...

There's also a fantastic shot of my girlfriend approaching him for an autograph, but it's 4am, again, so I'll just add a few more thoughts:

1. I knew that week that I wanted to live in London. Even if I presumed you didn't meet your 'heroes' everyday.
2. Being people's 'hero' makes you more than a little odd, which in turn only makes you more mythical.
3. Keep copies of important photographs.

Meanwhile, Modern Times is a bloody good album. I recommend the DVD version.

How's Them Apples?

Great news from across the border. If only hops were fruit.

We can all dream.

WSJ

Wide awake. It's 4am and I'm having the World Service jitters.

A common issue for many Radio 4 junkies, this is today's version:

Sunday afternoon in the pub, takeaway food and too early to bed with The Westminster Hour on the radio. A lackadaisical approach to the sleep function and 5 hours later you're waking up to some crazy World Service program, that often leaves you in a restless insomniac confusion.

And so it was that about an hour ago I'm roused by the collective jeering of the Turkish parliament as they heckled an MP who refused to remove her Islamic headdress in 1996.

This is not the way to be woken up in the middle of the night, especially when you're prone to suffocating anxiety.

Having just managed to avoid the upright, not-a-chance-in-hell-of-getting-back-to-sleep awakeness that can ruin a night, I watered and de-watered and headed back off to sleep pleased that some calming 'world' music had followed the screaming Turks.

Minutes later though, just in that foggy half-sleep, I'm suddenly aware that someone is being throttled at the foot of my bed.

And she's not going quietly.

Actually she's a singer from Northern Canada who's style would have been interesting on 'Later...' but is fucking frightening unannounced in the middle of the night.

The unreasonable dominoing that occurs for me in these situations means however that almost immediately I know that any chance of a peaceful night is bolloxed. Within seconds I leap from issue to issue and in a minute or two I'm knotted up and far too awake for a Monday morning.

And so here I sit and there's even less of a point to this post than usual, and certainly no punchline.

The link to the crazy Canadian, Tanya Tagaq, is here, however. Well worth a listen.

Testing. 1,3 Testing.

While I'm here - it's also well worth a little look at Mike Marqusee's blog on Comment Is Free.

This piece on the British Citizenship Test is particularly interesting.

That's A Good Balloon

For those interested (and you should be, indeed you should be) Goodballoon has returned to the interweb over at Goodballoon's Paunch.

It's always worth a visit (and an RSS feed I reckon) - here.

In other news, the talented but illusive Finlay have their albums now available on iTunes and eMusic. You can check them out over at MySpace.

Meanwhile I sit here listening to Alice Cooper's show on Planet Rock, reading and weeping at the Sunday papers but still taking an unhealthy solice in the MacBook firmware update...

Oh dear.

Moove It

On a tech note - anyone suffering from Macbook burn and the dreaded 'mooing' fan, get the new firmware update from Apple (choose 'software update' from the Apple dropdown menu).

At last my new laptop is everything it should be. That is, it's fast, quiet and now doesn't give me hot sweats and red thighs.

Which is a good name for a magazine.

Oh Christ...

Jesus wept...