Mogwai number 1 album shocker

 It's very odd when someone you know ends up having the best selling album in the UK.  I've known members of mogwai for nearly 30 years and it's just amazing to see them do so well.  Hard work pays off!

WANDAVISION

 I spent a lot of my childhood reading Marvel superhero comics.  I think the first one I read was the UK weekly Secret Wars comic although I also read Spiderman and Zoids.  Prior to that I read the Beano and Battle Action Force, Star Wars Weekly and Transformers Weekly.  I loved it all and it was all mind rotting garbage but in a good way.  Comic books and punk rock made me who I am today.

I was always a bit of an obsessive kid, always wanting to read more and know more and understand more. I'm still a bit like that which is good and bad.  I was into Marvel in a big way, I read the official handbook of the marvel universe cover to cover and I learned all about the crazy, colourful minor characters of the Marvel Universe including all of the B listers and the C listers, like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Now the Vision and the Scarlet Witch had a couple of limited series published in America in the early '80s and the stories in those comics were very off the wall.  Some of the weirdest comics out there with a mind bending storyline.  Definitely not mainstream and probably the product of some serious drugs.  Bad hippy drugs.

And it seems that Disney have made that mad shit into a TV series.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.....

Black Country, New Road - the stage school Slint?

 Referring to a band as the stage school Slint is pretty cruel.  It's also unfair because their first album, 'For the first time' is actually pretty good.  Listening to it there are hints of Slint and Nick Cave and probably the Tindersticks all of which are positives in my mind.  

Musically they sound like they would be fun live although I don't think we will be seeing any live music for a while now.  This is probably more of an issue for me as the 43 year old father of a one year old.  I think my gig-going days are on hold for a while anyway.

The music has nice instrumental sections and some fairly funny lyrics.  Not much distorted guitar but some good dynamics.  Worth a listen.

Spiral season 8

 I've been watching Spiral for a long time now.  I first wrote about it on here in 2013 although I think I've been watching it a bit longer than that now.  It's hard to watch subtitled stiff with a young child but certainly worth it.

Series 8 is the final series and it is  edge of the seat viewing.  I was fairly certain that key members of the case would be bumped off at any time and when I made it to the last episode last night I was left satisfied. Spiral is a slow burner and, as is common with European drama, they do bad things to the cast and play on your emotions.  Paris is made to seem miserable.

Very enjoyable.  Watch it before the Tory party ban it for good!

COVID nutters

 The reality of the pandemic is clearly hard for some to accept.  It was always one of those existential fears that I had, having read lots of science fiction and studied biology and then medicine at university.  I'd read a lot about pandemics in the past.  I knew they were bad and that we were due one.  I knew it would probably happen.  It's just a bit of a shitter that it actually happened.

COVID has happened.  It's almost everywhere and it kills tons of people.  Accept it and deal with it.

Some people can't or won't accept it.  Some reach for a comfortable conspiracy theory to protect them from the brutal truth that humanity is sometimes insignificant in the face of nature and a wee virus could wipe us all out.  COVID-19 isn't going to eliminate the human race but it's still nasty.  We need to do what we can to reduce and avoid infections.  Vaccines, washing our hands, social distancing, wearing masks - all small personal sacrifices to reduce infection rates and reduce deaths.  Some people can't so this.  Idiots like Ian Brown of the Stone Roses and various quack doctors post mad shit on the internet and people believe them and that has consequences.

The UK government haven't helped.  Initial standard Eton arrogance quickly followed by bewildered blind  panic bolstered by exceptionalism from Dominic Cummings and standard avarice has muddied the water creating a fertile breeding ground for the conspiracy theory nutters.  We need a government of adults and the UK does not have this.  

We will be living with COVID forever.  We will probably need yearly COVID vaccines for some time and normality will take some time to return.

The big lesson is don't eat random wild animals.