with polka dots

A scary lady from the Library, at least in a multiple incarnation, as noticed when one of the reading groups returned a pile of copies.

Speaking of reading material (and scary ladies, for that matter), I finally got round to starting Jeanette Winterson's autobiography (ish) 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?' this week and was disappointed and irritated enough to stop again pretty soon. It seems a bit unfair to slate someone writing an autobiography for being too self-absorbed but this really comes across as little more than a literary misery memoir. About thirty pages in I found myself feeling sorry for her adoptive mother - the fabulous, towering, monster of 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit' - so I gave up shortly after. Winterson says that Northerners, particularly in the sixties, have/had a habit of making the everyday into really good stories, tales worthy of the telling, but, since she'd already done this with her early life in 'Oranges...', it seems odd that she'd then expect us to read a rather dull load of proselytizing about the original subject matter. I'd really enjoyed 'The Daylight Gate' recently, and picked up 'Oranges...', which I originally read years ago, in the library the other day only to find myself completely sucked in by the first couple of pages - I think I'll just re-read that instead...

On a slightly happier note, Mark Kozelek's covers album 'Like Rats', turns out to be surprisingly good (he's not been adverse to releasing a bit of filler in recent years, so the omens were not that great.) There's some pretty cool readings of eighties punk to go with his earlier AC/DC covers (I was reminded of the line in 'Cruiser' about a misspent adolescence "listening to Hanoi Rocks and Social D") but I particularly like his cover of Genesis' 'Carpet Crawlers'. Epically pretentious and confused as it is, you wouldn't expect concept double album 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' to be rich pickings for covers, but it's interesting that similarly left field troubador of americana Jeff Buckley also had a pretty good stab at one...