It's not just me, is it?

Joe Lean and Jing Jang Jong are the band that make Northern Uproar seem cool and inspiring, aren’t they?

currently playing: Sons and Daughters – Gilt Complex

Advent 2007: Window 12

Window 12: An alien for Christmas!

Advent 2007: Window 11

I think I saw this promo on Fox News last week…

2007 Round-Up: DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

(I ♥ Michel Gondry)

currently playing: Saturday Looks Good To Me – Keep Walking

Advent 2007: Window 10

A festive addition to your USB port!

Advent 2007: Window 9

Putting Up The Tree!

Advent 2008: Window 8

Dude. It’s Die Hard.

Advent 2008: Window 7

A Christmas Kiss from Charlie's Angels - sadly forgotten pop groups a-go-go!

Window 7

Now Do The Same With Airwolf!

Page 80. Panel 1. “Miss Night” is better known as Emma Peel, the best of John Steed’s partners on The Avengers. Although in The Avengers she is Mrs. Peel, her birth name is Emma Knight, as her father is Sir John Knight, which explains the “John Night’s daughter” reference on Page 78. Peter Sanderson adds "Mrs. Emma Peel's maiden name and the name of her father were established in the 1966 "Avengers" episode "The House That Jack Built" (The fake newspaper from the episode should interest you). If we presume that Mrs. Peel is the same age as Diana Rigg, who played her, she would have been 20 years old in 1958." Philip & Emily Graves write, "Ms Knight was 21 when her father died, so we can reasonably assume that she is about a year older than Dame Diana Rigg." Andrew Teheran writes, "Might be out on a limb here but... John Night is continuously referred to as an industrialist. What keeps popping into my head is Knight Industries as in "Knight Industries Two Thousand", our favorite American Trans Am. Is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a KITT prototype? There is a British connection with the Devon Miles character." Andrew Bonia echoes this: "The Night Foundation - mentioned throughout as designing hi-tech equipment for both the UK and US could be a double reference to the Knight Foundation, the organization responsible for building the supercar K.I.T.T . in the television series Knight Rider."

Alan Moore is geekier than all of us. Put together.

currently playing: New Buffalo – Versary

2007 Round Up: Kate Nash — Foundations

Those pitchforks. You can put them down. Honest.

Having said that, I've been trying to get my head around this song all year. Nash herself comes across as a hideous creation by a music industry eager to replicate Lily Allen's success in 2006, softening the hard 'street' edges by mixing in a dollop of stage school, a touch of Tori Amos kookiness, and strapping on Audrey Hepburn's accent at the start of My Fair Lady.

"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!

It doesn't work. For example, while LDN offsets the rather bleak picture of London by having Lily seeing the optimistic side of things until they're brutally disabused (although the denouement is only really clear if you watch the video), Foundations features a hateful couple that you'd rather set on fire than listen to Kate whine on about their troubles for another three minutes.

Your face is pasty 'cause you've gone and got so wasted, what a surprise. Don't want to look at your face 'cause it's makin' me sick. You've gone and got sick on my trainers, I only got these yesterday.

Never has You are the generation that bought more shoes and you get what you deserve made more sense. Especially since it's all delivered in an accent that makes you want to stick knitting needles into your eardrums to make the pain stop. The 'bitter / fitter' rhyme in itself makes me want to smash the radio in.

And yet.

The chorus. My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation / and I know that I should let go but I can't. There's something about this, something wonderful and tragic about desperately holding on, because what if this is all there is? Is this the best I can do? Is this the best any of us can do? And you kind of fall for her a bit here. Happily, that's resolved by the lingering hard t on the end of 'can't' which makes you head for the hammers again. But for that brief moment, it's a wonderful song.

Being a bit slack this year, it seems. Hopefully the pace will pick up next week...