Post hand in play list

Well here it is my top twenty of the moment and actually I am finding it incredibly hard to limit it to just twenty. My mind is exploding with all kinds of music at the moment ranging from Jamaican music like Ernest Ranglin to rock bands like Audioslave and Led Zeppelin to more quiet music like Belle and Sebastian.

Anyway here goes:

1) Thank You - Led Zeppelin

2) Can't Stop - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

3) The Boy With the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian

4) Armagideon Time - The Clash

5) Karma Police - Radiohead

6) Somewhere a Clock is Ticking - Snow Patrol

7) King and Country - Seth Lakeman

8) Freedom (90) - George Michael

9) The Needle and the Damage Done - Neil Young

10) Bruise Pristine - Placebo

11) Let it Loose - The Rolling Stones

12) Wake up Jamaica - Dennis Alcapone

13) Problem Is - The Dub Pistols

14) Revelatios - Audioslave

15) All These Things That I've Done - The Killers

16) Rocking Universally - Willie Williams

17) Martha Cecilia - Andres Landeros

18) Baby, Baby - The Vibrators

19) Pain Killer - Turin Brakes

20) Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

After the Hand In

Well after a rather large gap in my blogging activity, due to the workload in the lastt few months of my degree I have decided to make a comeback. The degree is finished bar the marks, which we will get in mid June and since I have handed in my final work I have found that I have been listening to a massive amount of music. It's as if some mental space has cleared.


I haven't however started reading a novel yet - but that is in part due to the fact that the last novel I read was so good that nothing else seems to measure up. Mary George of Allnorthover by poet Lavinia Greenlaw is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. The novel is set in a small Essex town in the late 1970s. the writing is both visceral and beautiful and is evocative of the time and place. There is no danger of Greenlaw becoming rambly or overly poetic - although the prose is highly descriptive in places the plot bowls the story along sucking the reader in and inducing the rare quality of a book that you just can't put down because you really care about what happens next.

Playpus with Aardvark Rising

I am considering inventing a whhole new star sign system using animals to symbolise each sign. Under this new system I would be Platypus with Aardvark rising.

The Art of Procrastination

I find once again that I am procrastinating instead of doing my work. It is exactly the kind of thing that I was arguing with my son about this morning before he went to his dads. What is it with the human mind and the avoidance of the task in hand? It's true I know one or two people who seem to be able to complete an assignment or a piece of work well before their deadline (well one actually) but the majority of the people that I know, like me, leave it until the last minute. I'm not so bad these days that I have to stay up all night the day before a piece of work is due in, but I am down to the last couple of days.


There's more than one flavor of procrastination. People procrastinate for different reasons. Dr. Ferrari identifies three basic types of procrastinators:

arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.

avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.

decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.

I think that I probably fall into the avoider category - Dr Ferrari suggests that the only way to solve this problem is cognitive behavioural therapy.

I think I had better just get on with my work!

Top Twenty for Autumn

After a musically barren few weeks my inclination for listening to music is back with a vengence. I must have sniffed a new album in the breeze because last week I had an overwhelming desire to listen to Snow Patrol. It is great when you have a break from a band and then rediscover them - it is like hearing them anew all over again.

This week the same thing happened with Keane. I bought "Hopes and Fears" by Keane a ccouple of years ago, listened to it a bit and then pretty much forgot about it. Then for some inexplicable reason this week I had a driving urge to listen to it, I had forgotten what a great album it is - I liked it when I bought it but I like it even more now, so much so that I found myself in HMV today buying the next two.

Top Twenty Tracks for Autumn

1. Keane - Bedshaped
2. Pendulum - The Other Side
3. Snow Patrol - Run
4. Elbow - Mirrorball
5. The Levellers - Battle of the Beanfield
6. New Model Army - Green and the Grey
7. Suede - The Wild Ones
8. Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
9. Keane - Somewhere Only we Know
10. The Last Shadow Puppets - My Mistakes Were Made for You
11. Wheatus - The London Sun
12. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Ramshackle Day Parade
13. White Stripes - Dead Leaves on Dirty Ground
14. Elbow - The Bones of You
15. Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla
16. REM - The One I Love
17. Chemical Brothers - All Rights Reversed
18. Placebo - Pure Morning
19. Pulp - Pencil Skirt
20. Primal Scream - Some Velvet Morning

Primal Scream vs Kasabian

I was listening to the track "Swastika Eyes" by Primal Scream today (one of my favourites and sudenly found that it was reminding me of another track "Reason Is Treason" by Kasabian. I had never noticed this before but sure enough if you play the tracks one after the other there is some definite similarity although I can't put my finger on what it is - maybe it is the sirens and pulsing beat.

In the Dust

I have been playing around more with the idea of juxtaposing text onto surfaces where you wouldn't expect to see it. I especially liked this pne as the text looked like it had been there for a long time. If you want to read more about artistic process visit my artists blog at:http://visual-poetics.blogspot.com/