(Not) Everybody Loves the Sunshine

Phew! What a Scorcher. Today's sky high temperatures probably won't appease those living in the North West of the country who woke up today to find a sudden withdrawal of privileges.(Once again our spectacularly inept Government proved beyond a shadow of doubt they really don't have a clue what's going on.) So if, like the Number One Son, you live in Manchester, I feel for you. I really do. As with Leicester, it can't be much fun standing on the naughty step as you watch the rest of the class go outside to play.

Ironically, James sent me his 2020 (So Far) playlist only yesterday and it's full of wall to wall Summer bangers. Party music, if you will; as long as the party is neither in your home or garden. Or with other people who aren't from your household. Give me strength.

Anyway, back to those bangers. James knows my love for the System. Here's a tune that is so heavily influenced by the soul funk duo who gave us You Are In My System (a huge hit for Robert Palmer) it's uncanny. I absolutely love it. 
This then goes out to anyone with an M postcode.

Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (2020)

Russia Report

This morning at 10.30am will see the long overdue publication of the Russia Report. The fact that Johnson and Cummings are in it up to their scrawny little necks is a given; we don't need a 50,000 word dossier to tell us we have one of the most corrupt governments in modern history. Or maybe we do. My faith in due political process is being pushed to new limits every day. Each day brings with it a cavalcade of fresh horrors that are quickly relegated to tomorrow's chip wrappers when yet more dead cats are thrown into proceedings. But this isn't the time or place* to throw shit around; like a lot of people I may have become more politically attuned since 2016 (everything was broken by the Brexit referendum), but save for the odd outburst I try to park my political views; which is not always easy.

...

Moving on, here's a link to a rather tasty Soviet mix from the Number One Son: three shin-kicking tunes that, remarkably, all carry the line  'Discussions with Russians'. Very timely, James! The song that opens proceedings is the first single ever released on the Stiff record label from the self proclaimed Jesus of Cool. 

Nick Lowe - So it Goes (1976)

I'm afraid tracks 2 and 3 that make up the playlist - great though they are - are both acts I know precious little about. Maybe James can shed some light on them...  

Beat Happening - I Love You (1985)

Young Presidents - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (2013)

* Twitter's the place for that sort of thing.

X

On this day in MMX a blog was born. 
My blog. Everyone seemed to be writing one at the time, so I thought why not me?
Back in 2010 my collection of randomly scribbled notes - then called 'Even Monkeys Fall Out Of Trees' - was set against a backdrop to a world where Prime Ministers were honourable, beer was ten bob a pint and nobody bothered locking their front doors.

Or that's how it appeared at the time.


Fast forward to MMXX and contrast the above to a world where all the familiar and reassuring signposts - pointing to hope, optimism and sunlit uplands - have been taken down and replaced with, well, precisely nothing. Nobody knows where we're going (certainly not the cunt presently occupying 10 Downing Street), or how; though Hell and handcart spring to mind. Who knew just a decade earlier that we'd be incrementally sleep walking into a dystopian nightmare? A nightmare we seem destined never to wake up from.

In other news, I'm thinking of getting a new kitten.

**********************

A huge thank you to all the waifs and strays who have swung by in the last 10 years - I couldn't, as they say, have done any of this without your continued support and friendship (whether from the sidelines or in 'real life'*).

* That said, there are still two people who I really do need to see in the flesh this year - they know who they are.

Cunts are Still Running the World

Yesterday was tough; waking up and realising it hadn't all been a bad dream. I could use this platform to have a rant, vent my spleen, tell the country they've been fucked over - again. But I won't, it's not that kinda place. Anyway, you know how I'm feeling, because you're probably feeling the same way too.

At a time when good news is pretty thin on the ground, take comfort in the fact that the Greens increased their share of the vote more than any other party, and gained 200,000 more votes than the Brexit Party. Take good news wherever you can get it; in a political landscape where, I'm afraid, cunts are still running the world.

Jarvis Cocker - Cunts are Still Running the World (2006)

Wouldn't you just love this to be #1 at Christmas?

This is What Democracy Looks Like

Mine is not a political blog, overtly or otherwise; I'd much rather be talking about biscuits. Or bass players. Even brass bands. Not Brexit, that's for sure. That said, it's not difficult to ascertain which side of the divide Are We There Yet? resides. But I can't let the events of yesterday go unrecorded. The recent actions of our new government, this far right Nationalist Party under its de facto leader Dominic Cummings (Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a mere puppet, albeit a vey dangerous puppet) meant that yesterday, I went on a march. Along with hundreds of thousands of like minded citizens up and down the  country, I stood shoulder to shoulder and demonstrated that what is currently happening in this country and its imminent crash out of Europe will not be carried out in my name.

I know that a lot of you feel the same. If you do, please do something (I'm sure some of you already are): sign a petition, write to your MP, attend a rally, protest, march. Doing nothing is not an option. This chilling quote (right) is from a dystopian future - A Handmaid's Tale - but could so easily have been written about these times. Our times. Please do everything you can to ensure we don't go down without a fight. To say that next week is probably the most important week in peacetime Britain is not hyperbole. Make yourself heard. It might be your last chance.

Staring at the Sun

Ciáran McFeely, aka Simple Kid, is from Ireland; you know, that land mass 70 miles west of Holyhead. The island we're just about to throw under the bus. Sorry, I digress. Anyway, McFeely is a Cork lad and his lo-fi musical stylings remind me very much of Beck (a resident of Los Angeles, roughly 5,000 miles west of Cork) and, let's face it, that's no bad thing.

I mention this for the simple reason that despite being old enough to know better I still make playlists; I'm picking James and Janneke up from the station on Saturday and I thought I'd put a few tunes in the car. It's gonna be 27 degrees this weekend, so I can't think of anything more apt.

Simple Kid - Staring at the Sun (2003)

I know how she feels

It's not going so great, is it? Johnson's only been in charge five minutes and already the Irish (both lots), the Scots and the Welsh are threatening to dissolve the Union. So much for those promised sunlit uplands. Stop the world I want to get off.

It will only be when the country is brought to its very knees and begs to come back into the EU fold that the leavers will finally wake up to the fact that, actually, what we have now is not so bad. It's workable. We trade with Europe; we trade with the rest of the world. And they trade with us. Frictionlessly. Everybody wins.



But come October 31st it's gonna be a cold wind that blows across the Channel and into the dystopian badlands of a once great Britain. Our just in time procurement chain will last seven days before essential supplies run out. Queues at the forecourt and fighting on the streets. And that's just for starters. It'll be like an episode of Survivors - that post apocalyptic drama from the 70s, only for real.

Or will it? All I know is, I've got a bad feeling about this. And it's not going away.

Dodgy - U.K.R.I.P. (1996)