5th February, 1938

I know we're all in the post-finale chill right now, but my bumper-size discussion of "Battle of the Bastards" is now up at Geek Syndicate.

Geek Syndicate Review: House Of Penance #3

Not the most fun time to be in the UK, is it? Still, take your minds of it by reading about an unravelling fictional nightmare.

Referendumbing Down

04:29 OK. It would most certainly seem that I have run out of interesting things to say. This wasn't what I wanted, but I'm well aware that I'm lucky enough for my transition to be far less problematic than many, many others. But it's half past four, and I have to be at work tomorrow and pretend that everything is OK for my students' sake.

Everyone be well.

DAY OF RECKONING

There once was a man from Allesley
Who decided inclusion was key
So though he likethed it not
He went to throw in his lot
With the marginally less shit Tory

If you can vote, and you haven't, please do.

11th February 1903

My piece on "No One" is up at Geek Syndicate now, as if anyone still wants to talk about that episode after yesterday. Still, I've allowed my politics to bleed into this one just a wee bit more than usual, so there's that.

No Apologies For The Infinite Radness 1.1.13 - "Your Sweet Voice" (Reindeer Section)

Reindeer Section was an idea of quiet genius. Throw together members of the best Scottish indy outfits - which at the time meant the best indy outfits in the world, and I will pull your hair in the most fey manner possible if you disagree - and see what they can come up with under the direction of Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody.

Somehow, though, it didn't quite work the first time. Y'all Get Scared Now, Y'Hear! felt more like a throat-clearing exercise than a coherent album. Fortunately, their second effort Son of Evil Reindeer proved an absolute triumph. Give too many cooks one broth and they'll spoil it. Ask them to put on a banquet and you'll be stuffing your face indefinitely.

"Your Sweet Voice" is not the sweetest morsel on this platter, but it's certainly the saddest, a short story about what happens once a relationship is over, but your former has left neither your heart nor your life. It's a standard slice of Lightbody's trademark bake of vague allusion to profound yearning, but there's a reason that got him as far as it did. Plus, as with his best songs, the meanings here change dramatically depending on where you think the speech marks should go. My advice: choose the conversation that sounds most devastatingly sad.

I remember with crystal clarity where I was when I heard this song; I was alone in my parent's house and had the album on whilst waiting to head off to a friend's house.  What I can't recall, at all, was who it was I thought of when one of my all-time favourite self-absorbed-white-boy-unlucky-in-love lyrics dropped:

I can't call you a friend
Cause when you left me here
You left me here to die
Don't worry I wont call you again
Cause when I take a hint
I take it pretty hard
And when you broke my heart
You broke it into shards of glass

Solipsistic? Sure. But it's indy music. That's defining yourself by what you don't have from day one. In any event, that's just fucking crushing. And it was crushing in a way that resonated with me. I felt my heart fall from its previous rhythm like a drunk punk drummer.

I don't remember why anymore. I know there was someone. I know there was someone and this reminded me of her and it was beautiful and awful. That memory, and that feeling, has survived over a decade past any connection to my love interest at the time.

And what is this kind of music for, if not to keep you pleasantly miserable long past your ability to remember why?

B-side: another track from Son Of Evil Reindeer that didn't quite make the cut for this series, but is still wonderful.



"Realistically I'm already halfway gone."

Grammar Is Important

"Shouldn't that be search and destroy?"
"Nah, mate. We're actually searching an actual place called Destroy. It's at one end of the Search and Destroy valley."
"That seems a little confusing. What happens if we destroy Destroy?"
"Don't destroy Destroy! How would we search it?"
"We could just search Search instead, and say we searched Destroy."
"We can't search Search."
"Why not?"
"Search was destroyed by people from Destroy. That's why we're here. We're searching Destroy for people the who destroyed Search. Then we'll destroy them."
"So shouldn't that be search and destroy?"