Slinky Dog is always bang-on…

You’ve seen Toy Story, right? When Woody can’t find his hat, and Slinky Dog waltzes in saying “Well, I got some good news and I got some bad news”… Here’s my good news:

I should be back in Hong Kong in the next three weeks. How fab is that? I can get back to my flat, my stable net connection (with REAL broadband!) and my life. But…

… the bad news? It means I’ll miss the last episode of Hotel Babylon! Noooooo!! The horror!! But then, what choice do I have? It’s not as if I can make the world wait just one week so I can watch the final part, just cos some good-looking bloke is in it…

Ah well. I’ll just have to trade Charlie/Max getting his kit off one last time for the knowledge that I’m back in my flat and back onto a serious job that actually changes the world. No, I’m not a spy. At least, not yet. So there’s nothing for it then, just have to take it on the chin, and all that. Which reminds me ~ if you haven’t heard the Arctic Monkeys’ new CD, “Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I’m Not”, do yourself a favour and go get a copy! I just bought it from iTunes the other night and crikey blimey Charlie, it’s fab. It’s not easy listening though ~ a group of young lads from Sheffield play some REALLY LOUD music ~ don’t be put off by thinking it’s all head-banging stuff, like I did to begin with ~ and write insightful lyrics about their city. It’s excellent, it’s original, it’s colourful (i.e., contains some swearing, but nothing too bad) and it’s been shunted to the top of my iPod list. It goes round and round and I keep waiting for “Mardy Bum” to play again, or “Riot Van”. Just great.

The reason I like this album is cos of the way it describes their city without ever having to tell you where it is… It’s like everyone already knows, because their own city is almost identical, save the big ways. You see? Everywhere is the same when you just look at the small things, it’s just the larger things that are different. “Riot Van” is about walking home from a drunken night out and getting stopped by the polis, “Still Take You Home” is pretty much what every bloke is thinking when he goes to your average Saturday night cattle-market hoping to go home with some new bird, and “Dancing Shoes” is the other side to going out on the piss and actually finding a target to chat up. “From The Ritz to the Rubble” is SUPERB ~ about bouncers on a pub or nightclub door, and how everything you do when you’re pissed would be impossible on any other day.

All the writing is fab here ~ sometimes it’s noisy stuff and I have to intercut it with other, less ear-bashing music, but overall it’s an album I could listen to over and over again. At the end of the day, all I want is lyrics I can identify with or at least appreciate with some understanding, and this album does it over and over again. Crikey blimey Charlie, listen to me, I sound like an advert for this band. I’ll stop here.

Again, it’s nearing 4am and it’s high-time I went to bed. Mind you, it’s blowing a gale and hammering down wi’ rain outside, so I’ve hee-haw chance of sleeping for a bit yet. I’ll gie it a go though.

Tags:
Hotel Babylon
Max Beesley
Arctic Monkeys