Random ramblings of a Sunday afternoon

Boy, this blog is dying on its arse, isn't it? I can barely manage one post a week and even then I seldom have anything interesting to say. Ugh. For what it's worth, here are some headlines to tide you over:

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Attended an Underworld gig on Thursday night at the Roundhouse in London. All kinds of awesomeness. Despite their latest album, Oblivion With Bells, being a more relaxed and ambient affair than previous records, they still know how to get people's butts movin' on the dance floor. And singer/guitarist Karl Hyde, bless him, is one of the best frontmen in the business. He bounces around the stage with such joyful abandon that you can't help but grin like a fool and cheer like a lunatic. His enthusiasm is not only infectious but also possibly lethal.

Highlights must include Two Months Off into Kittens into Moaner into Born Slippy [NUXX] into Shudder/King Of Snake - I was flippin' knackered once that little mix came to an end; and Rez/Cowgirl/Rez/Cowgirl was bloody brilliant too.

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For reasons that are far too convoluted to go into, I seem to be engaged in cyber-sex with a pair of sock puppets

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Current cultural artefacts entering my head via various orifices and organs:

• Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suites (Suite No. 3, Gayane's Adagio - used by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey to introduce the Discovery One on its way to Jupiter - is a sublime piece of music).
• Talking Heads, the early Eno produced stuff: funky, arty, post-punk goodness, yeah!
• Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec. No, not a self-help book but a wonderful French novel that describes a Parisian block of flats, its occupants, their lives and tales relating to their possessions. Funny, inventive and sad. Highly recommended.
• The TV show Heroes - enjoyable, well-written sci-fi/fantasy although it does sometimes take an awful long time for anything to happen. Addictive stuff nevertheless.

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I am also preparing for National Novel Writing Month by trawling the internet for information about bizarre sex fetishes and reading a critical study of the films of Luis Buñuel.

Don't ask.