Cake.

What happens when you introduce a one year old girl to a slice of chocolate cake?

This.

Happy birthday Hope.

Cage the Elephant - Thank you, Happy birthday

This album is a fraud. No, really, it is. I mean, it's good -really good- but it sounds like Cage the Elephant have raided my CD collection and got stuck in the section where the Pixies, Nirvana and a little bit of the Melvins are kept, because if you threw those 3 bands into a pot and boiled them (bear with me, this slightly clunky analogy will finish soon) you'd end up with CtE.
60% Pixies, 35% Nirvana, just a dash of Melvins, perfect.

Anyway, on to the album itself. It's good -better than their much ballyhoo'd debut cut- and tracks like "Aberdeen" and "Shake me Down" are impossibly catchy, whilst "Japanese Buffalo" might be the best track I've heard this year (that isn't written by PJ Harvey). However "Indy Kids seems too contrived with it's musings about "being just like you" and doesn't sit well with the rest of the album, but the hits here far outweight the misses, and this would be a good addition to any collection.

If you're going to rip someone off, make sure it's someone good.

Meat America

No, that isn't a typo - it's the title of a set of images by photographer Dominic Espiscopo.
They won't be to everyones' tastes but I like them, particularly the shot of Louisiana with a slick of olive oil beneath it, very funny. Anyway, have a look.

More here and here

PJ Harvey -Let England Shake

For me, a new PJ Harvey album is a cause to celebrate. There hasn't been a single one I haven't enjoyed listening to again and again, so when I found out that the theme of LES was war, I was slightly concerned -I mean who wants to listen to an hour of war songs?- Not me, that's for sure. However, whatever misgivings I might have had about the album were torpedo'd halfway through the first song.
Put simply, this is PJ's finest effort since 2000's Stories from the City, Stories From the Sea.

You see, this album is not only about war, it's about nationalism and imperialism as well and how their effects are felt by the people on the receiving end of their twin pronged attack.
This is a history lesson on the regimes and bloodshed of the reasonably recent past, a history lesson done with beautiful, haunting vocals and heartstring tugging guitars. It's Harveys' lament to her country, chronicling her distress and her love for England. Just Brilliant.

Go and buy it, download it, whatever - just make sure you get a copy.

Just .......WTF. Part 2, 371.

Most famous faces never get to see their biopics, as there seems to be some kind of unwritten Hollywood rule that the star in question is dead before he or she is immortalised on the silver screen. Yes, I know -you're sitting thinking "What the hell is he wittering on about?" - but you'll never guess who has their screen epic about to hit the big screen. Actually, you probably know already as it's been advertised pretty much non-stop for about a week or so now.

Yes, it's the child with hair that looks like I cut it -with a strimmer- the tiny antichrist himself, Dustbin Beaver.
Sorry, Justin Bieber.

Now, is it just me but doesn't a film chronicling the lifetime achievements of a 16 year old seem a tad premature? I mean, he's only been well known for a year or so -and I'm guessing that he's not Johnny Cash in his off screen/stage life- so what's the incentive to go to the film?  What's that, there is no incentive and it's a cynical marketing ploy to separate young girls from their pocket money? Oh, that's ok then.

There's no homosexual subtext to this picture, none whatsoever.

Short thoughts

As I mentioned in my "bored" post below, last week my wife and daughter went to see a car and my sister in laws' newly arrived twins. As I anticipated, the twins -Robert and Gemma- were, in fact, exceedingly cute. There's a shock, all babies are cute. Well almost all babies. A few years back when our girls were babies themselves there was this unfortunate kid called William and boy, cute was the last word you'd use to describe him. If you'd painted the top of his head green people would've thought it was a watermelon, it was that massive. Anyway I digress. The car she went to look at was a grey Ford Focus, the car that'll be here soon is a green Renault Megane. OK. Close enough.

A green Renault Megane, yesterday

The football transfer window came to a close and in a totally unexpected turn of events, Liverpool fans proved themselves to be utter tools. Again. I know, it's a terrible shock and totally out of character, but there you go.

Instead of celebrating the fact they'd just signed Uruguay's second best striker to replace Spain's second best striker, they showed their displeasure in a more....... incendiary manner. Mind, you, their mood may not have been helped by the fact they'd just spent £35 million on a stupid looking geordie with a crap haircut and a prison record longer than Lee Bowyers'.

"Cry-y-ying, Over You...."

And in Queensland, which has been through a bit of a rough time lately -the terrible floods which cost a lot of lives have barely subsided, the locals predilection for wearing cowboy hats in public- they may have finally gotten a bit of a break with the news that Cyclone Yasi missed the two largest population centres in it's path -Townsville and Cairns- and slammed in to the coastline between the two. It's about time something went right up there. Now, if we can just sort out the cowboy hat thing.......

Cyclone Yasi yesterday, robbing Queenslanders of their hats