Jack on the French

Loney Dear haunts young hearts

He has done a Ukelele session for a Belgian newspaper and toured with Andrew Bird and self-released albums and another one is here... This one is from Hall Music and it is beautiful without meaning to be.

London, please sort it out...

Tom Waits - Strange Weather by melomaniac_

the real inside

I don't know what my innards want
Exploding here and sinking there
they seem to want me to pretend
that before the pain was nothing there
and so they sit inside a cage
built around the story I know
Their tubes entwine with a mortal loss
of what was once imperious fun
they bend around my other mind
eager for its peace and void
filled with the weekend's perilous junk
that hides the truth that got annoyed
they simply want to flow with me
but don't have time or energy
so sluggishly they move in the rhythm
of a london tube stuck on it's own line
hoping that their green light comes
amidst the reds of bodily strife
and speedily make way to light
just as I will bring them rest.

The only thing I am liking about Christmas is AB FAB

Funny how bad Spanish makes me laugh

Here comes Community

The Chocolate Festival on the Southbank this weekend

Josh Rouse asks what the sun did

Ice-skating- past and present

This Henry Raeburn painting of a minister ice-skating at ease in 1795 leaves me pining for the past as I try to find a patch of ice all to myself in central London. It seems that the grace and control of the minister would be difficult to achieve in any London venue. He would have been knocked down by ungrateful little health hazards in the shape of teenagers. The pumping music aired at ludicrous volumes would ruin his clearly tranquil state of mind and he would be obliged to wear the one size fits all bright blue skates ressembling plastic lunch boxes with a blade stuck to the outside. If he wasn't wincing from the pain of it all, he would probably be unconscious in a corner having been rammed into the side by people claiming "ice attendant" status. Natural History museum , here we come... 

An Enlightened mid life crisis on HBO

A sunnier kind of earth

Las Acacias

 Set in Paraguay through to Argentina, I have a feeling that a film that is practically dialogue-free might just make up for it in visuals... The denoument is in Buenos Aires- could there be a better place to end up in?

Las Acacias at the ICA

Pre Christmas Perkins

Teneme En Tu Corazon (Keep Me In Your Heart) - Elvis Perkins by Sean O'Brien

l'art d'aimer

Born to listen to Lana

Other Voices need other sponsors

Other Voices is a music festival dubbed as the " musical winter camp" held in the most western point of Europe in Dingle, the above Irish village... It is unfortunately heading in the same direction as world banks as it comes to a close, with serious funding problems set for next year. Any sponsors out there reading this, strip your fat bulging wallets, forget the oversized christmas presents, forget flying Beyonce out for your private christmas gig and save this little village's claim to fame.

"Little folks become their little fate"

Horace

My red boots

Red boots laced in warmth
polished in tradition
brought to life
by a pair of other wordly feet
that know their place
in the sphere of their nation
in the rhythm of their elders
and the march of their past
and the waltzes of their present
and the krakowiak of tomorrow

A stunning show of world air traffic. Africa isn't moving

Underground film club

Click the link to see what films are playing this month

Fatoumata Diawara warms those 'ol cold bones

For you, pour toi, dla ciebie, para ti.