Depression Time

Sadly, I'm going to break my latest promise. I am not going to review Spiceworld The Movie, since I fear that it may lose some of my select audience who do not follow me for my popular music tastes. I am, however, going to despair slightly at the state of British politics which is, I suspect, far more up their street!

As ever, I watched Question Time from last night largely in order to give myself a justifiable reason to shout at the television. I didn't realise just how great an excuse I would receive until I saw the starting credits with the lovely Melanie Phillips leering suggestively out of the screen at me. Melanie Phillips, I have to report, is not the one woman in the world to turn me back to straightness. She is, instead, an evil harridan whom I abhor (and it's nice to be able to use that word, I can tell you!).

She was, possibly, slightly less awful than usual but do bear in mind that these things are relative. Climate change is a massive conspiracy, the British public are deluding themselves by now feeling that we may have been a little mislead about the Iraq war etc. is really not up to her usual level of odiousness. My particular favourites are always drawn from her massive sense of moral superiority and are usually well exhibited on the Moral Maze, when she is so...well, awful...that I physically can't listen to it.

I really can't be bothered to actually address the specific arguments from the evening because, as a well-established liberal (apparently apart from my acceptance of Fleetwood Mac!), you already know where I'm coming from, but I do sometimes just despair about there being any chance of our political leaders actually dealing with the rather large problems ahead without basically screwing the poor and disadvantaged.

Fortunately, though, Marcus Brigstocke was also on and always entertains me. So that's alright then.

Maybe Spiceworld is worth a look after all!

Rumour Mill

Having had a tiring and busy few weeks, I've decided I can't face writing yet another serious post, so I'm going for a lighter tone here.

I find myself inexplicably obsessed with Fleetwood Mac at the moment, and particularly the album Rumours. This started a couple of weeks before the recent documentary about the band, so it's not because of that. But I find myself wondering why on earth they have (or maybe had) a reputation for being a safe and steady band that your Dad would like.

Say what you want, but Rumours is a cracking album, bristling with tension, anger and revenge all set to very good pop/rock tunes.

Particular favourites? Nothing revolutionary, I think...Dreams, Go Your Own Way, The Chain and Gold Dust Woman will do nicely, thank you. So if you've not dusted your copy off for a while (pretty much everyone seems to own a copy), dig it out and give it a go.

And, out of interest, their last studio album, Say You Will, is surprisingly good for a band of their age!