Song for Sunday

Amadou & Mariam – Sabali

Song for Sunday

Esau Mwamwaya – Warm Heart of Africa

Song for Sunday

U2 – BAD (Live)

Recently I've been listening to an amazing bootleg of U2 live at the Hammersmith Palais from December 6, 1982. This song came a year or two later but both take me back over twenty years to my early teenage years. Although I have to admit that I pretended I didn't actually like U2 until even later, when The Joshua Tree came out and they were already past their peak. Up until then they were always my younger sister's band and it wouldn't have been cool to admit that we liked any of the same music!

Song for Sunday

Raveonettes – Black/White

1000 novels

Another list. This time of 1000 novels that everyone must read. As Mrs Armitage would say 'who needs it?' Well, no-one really, but it did keep me occupied for a few evenings going through the list and ticking off the ones I have read.

The list is split into seven slightly contrived categories with about 140 titles in each one, designed I presume to fill up a dead news week in The Guardian. My top category turned out to be crime, which just edged out science fiction and fantasy (even more impressive when you consider that I have never knowingly read a fantasy novel) and then followed up by war and travel. My least read category was state of the nation, marginally behind love, with family and self and comedy not much higher up.

The precise numbers are as follows and, for anyone who is interested, here is the complete list as a spreadsheet, handily colour coded to show books I've read, am planning to read and planning to avoid.

Comedy - 21 out of 150 (14.0%)
Crime - 31 out of 148 (20.9%)
Family and self - 19 out of 146 (13.0%)
Love - 17 out of 141 (12.1%)
Science fiction and fantasy - 30 out of 149 (20.1%)
State of the nation - 16 out of 134 (11.9%)
War and travel - 25 out of 132 (18.9%)

A not-too-bad total of 159 out of the 1000, or almost 16%, and with another 111 books that I plan to read at some point. Feel free to add your own totals in the comments.

Forgotten bookmarks

Following the recent demise of Aloof from Inspiration (and the mysterious disappearance* of its previous incarnation at fangrrrl) I needed a substitute for the Places to Visit sidebar.

So, here it is: Forgotten Bookmarks. Stuff people have left in books. Brilliant!

* - Hello, is that the FBI? I would like to report a blog vanishing in suspicious circumstances.

Song for Sunday

Tunng – Bullets

The Beautiful Machine

Bikes and music. Sometimes the patterns of a life are set from early on. And it can be quite a shock to find others who you have never met with the same obsessions. He is also the only other person I have ever heard of who has suffered from sarcoidosis.

I enjoyed the early chapters a lot – he is great on growing up and the escape a bicycle offers. The years at university and just after are also fascinating, but from then on it becomes a bit hit-and-miss.

He is an opinionated and spirited writer, and you know he would be good company on a long ride, but the endless stories about rides he has done and coffee shops he has frequented lose their charm for the reader long before the author tires of them.

Tour round-up

So, farewell Tommo, Paul and Phil, late nights, Matt and Ned and Chris in the ITV podcast on the train to work and managing my own tour team.

All that remains is to check the predictions and see how we did this year. Pretty good I have to say. Certainly much better than last year ...

Top two on GC correct and only one place out for Lance. Bradley Wiggins surprised me to equal Robert Millar's fourth place from 25 years ago, but then again I don't know of anyone who predicted that! Evans and Sastre were big disappointments and Sastre couldn't even blame his team. I think that both are probably already past the peak of their careers, although it would be good if Cadel could prove me wrong.

Not bad on the green jersey either – if the commisars had stayed out of it and I had been a bit more optimistic about Thor. Boonen was completely invisible and if you had asked me I would have been hard pushed to even say when he abandoned. Quick Step would have been better with Alan Davies after all!

The mountain jersey wasn't quite so good – Sastre was 43rd and didn't do anything whatsoever in the mountains. Still, I was right about Contador in 3rd and Andy Schleck was close with his 4th place.

And finally, my fantasy team ended up 1556th with 1389 points. I could possibly have done even better if I had read the rules. Just wait for next year ...

Song for Sunday

The Skids – Into the Valley

Song for Sunday

Film School – Like You Know

Song for Sunday

The National – New Song

Apparently new album is on the way ...

Song for Sunday

Malcolm Middleton – Waxing Gibbous

Not really a song this week, more a little docu-video-thingy about Malkie's new album. But it is great. And so is the album. I would recommend that you go and buy it.

Tour de France 09

In theory Alberto Contador has to be the favourite for this year's race – climber's course, strongest team, blistering form and almost perfect preparation.

Will it all go according to plan though? I have my doubts. The team is riven into two clear camps by the presence of Armstrong, Bruyneel seems unsure of what he is doing and where his loyalties lie, the financial problems, the intriguing political maneuvering and the reappearance of our old friend Vinokourov all point to a team more likely to implode in shower of overheated egos than put riders on to the podium. One thing's for sure though: it should be fun to watch.

Could all this play into the hands of our local hero Cadel? I would like to hope so, but I suspect there is too much climbing, not enough time trialling and that his team won't be strong enough to either support him in the mountains or not lose time in the team time trial.

Astana's problems are more likely to benefit the other strong teams like Saxo Bank, Columbia and possibly even Garmin, playing into the hands of a canny operator like Bjarne Riis.

Sastre doesn't have the team to back him up this year and I suspect the best we will see from him are a couple of solo mountain wins in the Alps when he is already out of overall contention. He'll probably pick up the maillot à pois rouges for his efforts though.

And what about Menchov? He could well end up on the podium, but I have a feeling that he won't have totally recovered from his Giro efforts and will end up losing time somewhere on one of the big mountain stages.

Mark Cavendish should make it to Paris this year and I would be surprised if he doesn't have the green jersey on when he takes his first win on the Champs-Élysées. The last minute reinstatement of Tom Boonen should make things more interesting, but I can't see anyone challenging Cavendish in a straight-up sprint. His team is too well organised and he is just too fast. The margins won't be as big this year, but they will still be more than enough.

So here they are, my predictions for all three jerseys. Feel free to add your own in the comments or just tell me where I've got it wrong. And if anyone fancies a shot at picking their own team try the SBS Fantasy Tour and see if you can beat CDMC Racing ...

Yellow

1 Alberto Contador
2 Andy Schleck
3 Cadel Evans
4 Lance Armstrong
5 Carlos Sastre

Green
1 Mark Cavendish
2 Tom Boonen
3 Thor Hushovd


Mountains
1 Carlos Sastre
2 Andy Schleck
3 Alberto Contador

Song for Sunday

Broken Records – Until the Earth Begins to Part (Live at the Bedlam Theatre)

Kind-of like a Scottish Sigur Rós. And that can only be a good thing. Hope the album is as good.

The Slap

Melbourne needs more writers like Christos Tsiolkas.

It has taken me a few weeks to work out what I really think about The Slap. While I was reading it I felt mainly disgust and exasperation, but this had nothing to do with the writing.

I found the novel discomfiting and relentless in its depiction of people leading unhappy, trapped lives and for me the characters are without exception unattractive and awful. There are small episodes of joy and a few examples of people being nice to each other, but for the most part the tone is irredeemably depressing.

Much of my reaction may be due to the way he raises uncomfortable truths about Australian society in the context of a compelling and hugely readable narrative. Maybe I just recognise too much of what he is talking about. Maybe I should remember it is just a story ...

What is clear to me is that Tsiolkas is a great writer. The way he gets inside eight disparate characters, from teenage schoolgirl to immigrant Greek pensioner, creating wonderfully vivid and complete inner lives for them is brilliant. The other aspect of the narrative I loved is the way that Melbourne and it's sprawling suburbs are present as a vital and key element in the story, the perfectly observed details of location and inhabitants. He is also spot on with the cultural references and minutiae that suffuse most peoples lives, but which are usually bizarrely absent from novels.

The Slap is bound to provoke strong reactions (many stronger than mine), and it is only a matter of time before the self-appointed guardians of our morals are up in arms about all the shagging, but the more writers of this ability who are willing to raise and deal with difficult questions of race, identity and society the better. It might be an uncomfortable read, but it is great to have some intelligence and depth brought to the debate for once.

For more about The Slap, there is an interesting interview in Meanjin, discussion on Lateline and a great review by Literary Minded.

Song for Sunday

Arcade Fire – Wake Up

In anticipation of Glastonbury next weekend, a treat from 2007. Also take a look at the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are complete with a new version of the same song. Looks promising ...

Broooooce

My friend Norman gets married next month and this weekend he is having his stag-do at the British Grand Prix. Naturally I am sad that I can't make it (hope you all have a great time!), but if I did have unlimited resources and could fly to the UK twice in two months it would have been a tough call between whether I was more excited by that event or the opportunity to see Bruce Springsteen play the following Saturday night at Glastonbury.

Last Sunday The Observer had a story about the lengths Michael Eavis went to persuading Springsteen to play the festival, accompanied by the following fax from Joe Strummer.


The fax actually has nothing to do with the eight-page document Eavis put together, although apparently some key quotes from Strummer about the festival swung the deal, but I love Strummer's endorsement of Springsteen's talents. Especially the bit about him crawling under the chords and whacking the starter motor with a spanner ...

And while we are on the subject, The Guardian had an interview last Friday with Gaslight Anthem which goes into their Springsteen influences, but reveals that their true hero was Joe Strummer.

Song for Sunday

Múm - Weeping Rock, Rock

Talking about running

According to Haruki Murakami there are two types of people – runners and non-runners. As a runner (albeit at this point in time a lapsed one) I tend to agree.

He isn't talking about people who go jogging either. Murakami runs one marathon a year and supplements this by doing ultra-marathons and triathlons in-between.

It is a short book and he interweaves biography, travelogue and notes about his writing with the stuff about running, creating a work that is delightfully personal and surprisingly affecting in places.

'Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional', he is told early on in his running career and this aphorism will be familiar to any devotee of endurance sport. The book is full of little gems and insights like this and at the end you feel like you've been listening to a particularly entertaining old friend talk about their view of life.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter where he recounts running a 62 mile ultra-marathon at Lake Saroma.

I don't know what sort of general significance running sixty-two miles by yourself has, but as an action that deviates from the ordinary but doesn't violate basic values, you'd expect it to afford you a special sort of self-awareness. It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are. And as a result, your view of your life, its colors and shape should be transformed. More or less, for better or for worse, this happened to me, and I was transformed.

He then goes on to describe what happens after he passes through the 47 mile mark:

I'm me, and at the same time not me. That's what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling. The mind wasn't so important.
...
Usually when I approach the end of a marathon, all I want to do is get it over with, and finish the race as soon as possible. That's all I can think of. But as I drew near the end of this ultramarathon, I wasn't really thinking about this. The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It's the same with our lives. Just because there's an end doesn't mean existence has a meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence.

Song for Sunday

Wild Light – Red House

And thanks to the wonders of the interhoobly if you enjoy the clip you can actually download an mp3 of the whole song for free here! Marvelous.

New Day Rising

Depending on what mood I am in when you ask me what my favourite band is, it is quite possible that I'll say Hüsker Dü. This photo from 1985 just reminds me of some of the many reasons why. Click here to see what I mean.

Giro d'Italia final reckoning

Zero jerseys out of three, but two of my predicted top five did make it into the top five and if you extend it to the top 6 then I managed to predict 50%. Even so, not a very impressive result – I promise to do better in July.

It was a fascinating race – with lots of very close racing – and both Menchov and di Luca have gone up in my estimation. Interesting to see if Menchov can carry the form over to the Tour. I doubt it, but we'll see ...

Great to see Cavendish take three stages and looking good for the green jersey in the Tour. Nice anecdote in The Observer recently about his win in Milan–San Remo:

Before the race he promised himself that if he won he would buy an Audi R8. After the race he started shopping around, but ultimately lost interest and decided to buy gifts for his team mates instead. 'I said to myself: "There's an 80 per cent chance that I will stay the same person, I will just have a nice car" but there was a small chance that it would change me,' he told the BBC's Inside Sport. 'I'm not willing to take that chance, so I don't have the car.'

Song for Sunday

Patti Smith – Because the Night

1 Get a copy of Easter (look it's only £4.37!)
2 Get some good headphones
3 Turn the volume to just-about-too-loud-to-be-bearable
4 Hit play on track 3 (why are all the best songs on an album always track 3?)
5 Sit back and wait for the drums to kick in
6 Go to number 4 and repeat until the kids start complaining of starvation

Song for Sunday

Gala – Faraway

Not enough Europop. As complaints about a country go it isn't really up there with military rule, corruption or bad coffee, but it is still a flaw. More or less serious depending on your point of view admittedly, but occasionally it does get to me. So, in a personal attempt to redress this lack in Australia's cultural landscape here is one of the finest exponents of the genre with a great example of what we are all missing. Just don't watch the video at work, unless you have a very understanding boss ...