Introducing PROFANE GRASS - With MGMT!

I find myself inherently distrustful of critical and popular consensus.

Don't get me wrong, there are things out there that receive huge amounts of praise because they deserve huge amounts of praise, just as there are things that receive huge amounts of criticism because they deserve huge amounts of criticism.

However, whilst I'm fine with the existence of sacred cows, I'm somehow less accepting of whatever the opposite of a sacred cow might be. Profane Grass?

This is almost certainly hypocritical, but let me explain my position a little. It can certainly be fun, invigorating and beneficial to reappraise a sacred cow, but for me, it just feels like life's too short for such behaviour. Why put so much effort into arguing that people are, for whatever reason, “wrong” to like something?

But the exact opposite behaviour – defending the Profane Grass – that's very much my bag, baby. This is the first of a (hopefully) regular feature in which I'll take something that seems generally agreed to be awful, and I'll tell you why you're wrong!

Science is on my side! Popular Science Magazine have just disabled comments on their website. They did this because it's been discovered that negativity can erode the popular consensus. Of course, they're talking about things that actually matter – such as evolution and climate change – whereas I concern myself with books, films, music.

But I couldn't help but wonder. If the public opinion of scientific theory could be swayed by overwhelming negativity, could the same apply to art?

Probably not. But it's food for thought. What if there are things out there – things that are generally considered to be “awful” - that are actually really good? What if Profane Grass only exists not because people have genuinely taken the time to make such an assessment based upon immersion and independent thought, but because people have found their minds to be swayed by overarching negativity?

Right now I'm practising bad science. However, defending the indefensible is fun and good for your soul. I'm reluctant to believe that there's anything out there that's genuinely devoid of worth. If the sign of a discerning critic is to slaughter a sacred cow, then surely he who venerates the Profane Grass must have God on their side.

I hope to cover many, many acres of Profane Grass, but I'm just so busy these days that I might not. Still, nobody's going to die if I neglect this place for long periods of time.

As an introduction, though, know that the new MGMT album isn't nearly as bad as most everyone says it is. In fact, it's really rather good.

I know it's been out for less than a fortnight, but I'm really good at recognising lazy criticism these days, and Those Who Know Better Than All Of Us About These Things have already declared this one to be a “failure”. But why? Well, if you read pretty much every review that's been written, you'll read the same narrative again and again.

Critics love a good narrative, and MGMT's is too tasty to resist. A band has two phenomenally successful earworms before dedicating themselves to meandering psychedelica? Hold me back! Hold me back!

Chart success, of course, is only ever treated as an important indicator of quality when it can be used as a weapon. That MGMT probably won't write a song as universally appealing as Kids or Time To Pretend ever again doesn't make them a failure of a band. Nobody's ever argued that cult appeal is a bad thing. Except, of course, where the Profane Grass grows.

MGMT (the album's eponymous – also apparently a bad thing) is a dense, dazed, queasy and meandering album. Many reviews have argued that it's devoid of melody, thereby proving that there are music critics out there who don't know what a melody is. The AV Club went as far as to declare that MGMT doesn't have any music on it. There goes that bookmark. How can anyone trust the judgement of a site that apparently doesn't even know what “music” is?

Essentially, the music of MGMT has been compared unfavourably to the second half of their first album, to the entirety of their second album and, most egregiously, to the music of the Animal Collective. So where do you stand if your appreciation of MGMT extends beyond their two megahits? More importantly, where do you stand if you recognise Animal Collective as part of the holy trinity of bands who serve to give your life meaning?

Detractors of MGMT (the album and the band) seem to think that people are still showing up expecting immediately appealing synthpop. Some people almost certainly are. But what about those with different expectations? What about those who have endless time – ridiculously late nights – to dedicate to sprawling fuzzy psychedelic jams? What about those who want their music to sound like a melted Beach Boys CD, or the aural equivalent of a drunken stupor on a hot afternoon? Do the opinions of these people not count?



It's absolutely fine for those who dig nothing of MGMT beyond those songs to dislike their more outlandish side - which, having overpowered their “accessible” side since day one, can be said to be their modus operandi. However, you must never, ever, ever let anybody tell you that you're "wrong" to like this album.

This dense music takes time to absorb, to inhabit, to explore. There are melodies here – beautiful sundrenched melodies, happily floating in space – and they're not even buried that deeply. And these songs might, on a first listen, sound aimless, but in time tight and hypnotic grooves begin to reveal themselves. Put simply, these aren't the random sound collages the critics would have us believe. They're positively laden with hooks, and if you allow yourself to be snagged, you will be snagged.

But before you're snagged, you must free your mind and allow it to drift. I recommend tea, incense, solitude and incense. It's that sort of album.

MGMT might not be an example of Profane Grass. It's only been out for a fortnight, after all, and reappraisals might be made by one and all once these grooves become more ingrained. The signs don't look good, though, and I fear that we might have to wait until the critics are unleashed upon their next album before it's begrudgingly acknowledged that MGMT wasn't that bad.

Until then, though, I will proudly fight for MGMT's corner. I'm going to tend to this Profane Grass, give it the love it deserves, because there's a huge hole in my life that's filled quite perfectly by music of this nature, thanks.

My Ten Favourite Tumblrs

Being an aggregator of both links and images, Tumblr is definitely the most addictive of all the various social media platforms. You can lose hours there, just looking.

I think I might one day start a Tumblr of my own. But honestly, what would I post? So instead, I would like to share my ten favourite Tumblrs.

These I find to be consistently interesting. They all make me feel as though I should get out more. Or perhaps they instead suggest that I should stay in more, so that I can spend more time looking at things.

And it must be pointed out that each image linked here is for illustrative purposes only. I don't own the rights to any of them and I will remove them if anyone asks me to/looks at me funny/threatens me with legal action.



 

Screenshots of Despair

Is there a term for the inhuman yet strangely miserable sentences generated automatically by computer programmes? Screenshots of Despair seeks out the best of them. Douglas Coupland and William Gibson probably have this one open in a tab at all times.

National Geographic Found

A collection of horizon-expanding photographs from the length and breadth of time and space as we know it. Spellbinding.

Uncertain Times

Like QI but without the smug self-satisfaction. Evidently run by a historian and a scholar, this one's a collection of curios, artefacts and photographs. Above is A Map of Nowhere Showing Everything.

Wild Planet

A hideous/enthralling mess of images and gifs that will strike a chord with anyone born circa 1987. James Ferraro probably has this one open in a tab at all times.

WWWTXT

Revisiting the early internet! Images from when the internet promised everything and was yet to fail us. (1980 - 94)

Gigs

It's amazing how much time you can spend looking at pictures of people playing music.

Untitled

This is Stanley Donwood's Tumblr! Radiohead artwork in alternative forms or as works in progress!

Shot By Shot

“A celebration of beautiful cinematography.”

Midnight Mushrumps

An immensely colourful and seemingly endless collection of images drawn from the worlds of sci-fi, fantasy and prog rock.

Bumpkin Agency

Actually, do not, under any circumstances, go here. A disturbing and consistently nauseating stream of toys, food, comics, cartoons and some things that are best left unmentioned. For a bit of horrible fun, spend two hours listening to latter day Scott Walker whilst trawling through this atrocity exhibition. Then see what happens when you attempt fiction.

First Listen - Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

I've said before how much I dislike doing things for the first time. Reading books is fine, and watching plays, but when it comes to films and albums, your first impressions are to be distrusted at all costs. Your first exposure to something  is an experience to get out of the way as soon as possible. Only once it's been overcome and your mind's free of preconception and prejudice can you truly appreciate what's there to be appreciated.

First listens are problematic enough when it's an album by The National or My Bloody Valentine, but when it's your very favourite band? How are you supposed to approach something so weighty?

One of two ways. Either you make the circumstances as informal and off-hand as possible or you go to great lengths to make things special and memorable. Having pre-ordered it the night it was announced, I had always assumed that my first listen to Tomorrow's Harvest – the new Boards of Canada – would be on headphones, in the dark, on vinyl. Yeah. I'm one of them.

I'd completely forgotten, though, that my vinyl pre-order also came with an MP3 download code. And last night I found myself alone in the dark, a little drunk, a bit sad and quite scared. Perfect circumstances, I thought, to listen to Tomorrow's Harvest for the first time.

But it seems I was more drunk than I previously thought. Because I woke up this morning with no recollection of having listened to the album. However, I find that I'd posted a stream of hysterical messages on Twitter, along with a series of images sourced from lord knows where.

Looking at those messages and images this morning, I realise two things. First of all, that I must have had rather a lot of wine last night. Second of all, that I must listen to Tomorrow's Harvest again as soon as possible.

“62 minutes and I'm in love with life again (if a little terrified of the future)”

“IT'S THAT GOOD. IT'S FUTURE FEAR AND PAST YEARNING UNITED IN PRESENT BALM”

“Hey, Boards of Canada? You make EVERYTHING seem OK. I need you. As it happens. Who knew?”

“Oh lord. This is already filling the hole only partially filled by Pye Audio Corner and Ghost Box over the past 8 years.”

“NO MUSIC HAS EVER BEEN OR WILL EVER BE BETTER ARGH I'VE MISSED THEM SO MUCH”

“THIS IS WHY MY DREAMS HAVE BEEN SO MONOCHROMATIC FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN”

That, evidently, is how you handle first listens. It turns out you have to be drunk and it has to be dark.

Post-Rock - Then What? Bill Drummond Says...

Some ten years ago Bill Drummond – a pretentious stain who's successfully post-moderned himself into almost total obscurity – did something utterly unforgivable. He took his midlife crisis and attempted to turn it into an art movement.

Upon realising that he didn't like music as much as he used to, he transformed what was most likely a dopamine release failure into a much wider “problem” with music itself and attempted to instigate an international day of “no music”.

He wrote:

“All recorded music has run its course.
It has all been consumed, traded, downloaded,
understood, heard before, sampled, learned,
revived, judged and found wanting.
Dispense with all previous forms of music and
music-making and start again.
Year zero now.”

And, with all due respect, the moment I read that I immediately lost all respect I could ever have harboured for Mr. Drummond. What a tedious embarrassment of a piss-artist.

Anyway, Mr. Drummond just turned 60, and he spent 17 hours of his sixtieth birthday stood on a manhole cover at the bottom of Liverpool's Matthew Street (because he's Bill Drummond). It turns out that he's been training a choir, and he didn't want to unleash it upon the world before turning 60 (because he's Bill Drummond).

In his words:

“People who have ever had any success within popular music (which I guess includes me) should never think their success gives them the right to do other art forms. The history of pop being littered with examples of highly regarded musicians who then go and embarrass themselves and compromise their achievements by attempting to mount exhibitions, publish novels, compose concertos, or even save the world.

"I did not want to be one of those.”

If his ethics make doing anything such an immense problem, surely he'd be much happier not doing anything at all? I for one would applaud his quiet retirement, so long as it was as quiet as it could possibly be. Silent, even.

But this is interesting. To quote Carrie Bradshaw, I got to thinking...

Specifically, I got to thinking about the subsequent careers of those “who have ever had any success with popular music”. It's fascinating, isn't it? If you've spent a significant portion of your young life playing chords, singing songs and giving interviews, what then?

I'm always keen to find out.

I once read that an ex Boo Radley now teaches IT, and that someone from The Thrills is now quite a whiz at LinkedIn.

And whilst those two fates are, in themselves, quite interesting, I have a couple of case studies which I find to be almost inspirational. As in, despite what Bill Drummond insists, creative minds need not be consigned to a single medium. Everyone's got a “right” to do whatever they want with their lives – not just “other art forms”, Bill.

For starters (and, you'll soon see, that that was a very clever pun), let's look at Sam Herlihy.

Sam used to sing and play in The Hope of the States. Now he writes about food. Sam Herlihy is a food writer. I don't read many food writers, but I don't think I've ever read better.

Sam Herlihy can write. His lyrics for The Hope Of The States could tend to be a bit overwrought, but Jesus Christ, his food writing's incredible. It's tangled, rambling, caustic and utterly delicious. It's like haggis served atop a bed of green spaghetti washed down by cheap wine that tastes expensive.

Some choice excerpts:

“Quorn is to food what Japanese-porn is to porn; weird, the best bits blocked out, really grim and miserable.”

“I have been forced to change my cooking style. Out with my usual spicy Asian Szechuan hipster fatty nonsense and in with plainer food. More simple food? No, I can still render our kitchen as downtown Nagasaki if a fridge had exploded instead of an atom bomb. Quicker food? Nope, I can still take four hours over the cooking. Nicer food? Nah, it’s not my world this butter and potato and rosemary planet. My food is trying to be ‘Bladerunner’ and Raiden from ‘Mortal Kombat’ and this stuff is all period drama Keira Knightly and Mr Darcy britches or something.”

Not only do I want to eat that man's food, I want to listen to him – all night – talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Having read just one of his articles, Sam Herlihy instantly leapt to the top of my fantasy dinner party guestlist. He's not only the guest of honour, though. He's now also the chef.

What makes his writing so compelling is its very groundlessness. His tangents, his anecdotes, his crazy ideas and the impression you get – probably accurate – that he's writing this in one sitting and has something of a cavalier attitude towards editing.

He's apparently burning up with bitterness and resentment (he doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about Morrissey, for example), but never is his writing more engrossing than when he hates on himself. This one, where he talks about finding his first ever restaurant review, is priceless.

But it's never more fascinating than when he veers wildly from the topic of food to talk about what must be his deepest passion – music. This one, on the discrepancy between skill and technique, is truly one of the finest, most compelling pieces of music writing I've ever read.

So that's Sam Herlihy. The Hope Of The States were brilliant, but I do believe that in food writing he may have found his true calling. Take that, Bill.

And then comes Crispian Mills. It may not be wholly accurate to talk about his latest endeavours as a “post” musical career, as Kula Shaker still seem to be an ongoing concern, having released an album as recently as 2010. But again, as much as I enjoy Kula Shaker, I do believe that Crispian Mills was always supposed to be a writer/director.



His debut film is A Fantastic Fear of Everything. It didn't appear to make much of an impact upon release, but having just watched it, I believe it to have all the trappings of a future cult-classic.

It's a strange film set in a strange world. Like the films of Wes Anderson, it's not exactly a period piece, but nothing's new. This is a terrifyingly oppressive world in which bookshelves turn into skulls, launderettes are the scariest places imaginable and you're still allowed to smoke in restaurants. Everybody's dressed like it's the 70s and they listen to gangsta rap on cassette.

Simon Pegg plays Jack, an accidental children's author with a carving knife glued to his hand. He's driven himself to the point of insanity through researching Victorian serial killers, and his life becomes unbearable when he learns that he'll have to visit a launderette.

Jack is like a cross between Withnail and I, and it therefore comes as no surprise that the film's based on a Bruce Robinson short story. But what's truly remarkable was the look and feel of the film. Crispian Mills, responsible for such lyrics as “you're a wizard in a blizzard”, directs like Edgar Wright and Michel Gondry collaborating on an episode of Psychoville. It's unhinged, hysterically stylised and absolutely beautiful to look at. Best of all, though, are the periodic forays into stop motion animation by co-director Chris Hopewell (who was responsible for Radiohead's There There video).

A Fantastic Fear of Everything is one of those films that's “not for everyone” (but what film is?), but it left an indelible mark on me. I won't stop thinking about this film for some time. It's imperfectly structured and, at times, somewhat clumsy in its execution, but credit where it's due - this is a directorial debut. I'm just...stunned that the man who wrote Govinda should go on to create a film that pays tribute to both Michael Mann and The Hedgehog in the Fog. Incredible.

Bill Drummond wouldn't like A Fantastic Fear of Everything, and he'd probably find Sam Herlihy's writing a little tough to swallow. But then, Bill Drummond doesn't actually like anything (because he's Bill Drummond).

Personally, I find it quite wonderful that these two musicians (who were, in the grand scheme of things, “also rans”) should have avoided disappearing completely. That their subsequent work is, in some ways, a lot more appealing than their music perhaps ever was should be a real “egg on the face” moment for old Bill.

I hope for similar changes in direction for all of the stars of Britpop and its immediate aftermath. Maybe Shed Seven could open a holiday camp!

There's No Messing With Doris Lessing

I'm not likely to ever appear on Desert Island Discs, but of the three things they ask of you – seven records, one book and one luxury item – I think I'd have the greatest difficulty in deciding upon a single book to satisfy me for the rest of my days.

Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook is exactly the sort of book to which you could dedicate a few lifetimes and still uncover fresh layers on subsequent reads.

Yes, this book is layered. But it's not layered like an onion – neat, even and stacked – it's layered like a scrunched up ball of paper – violent, overlapping and chaotic. Less than 100 pages in I understood that this – my initial reading – wouldn't be enough. Having finished it this afternoon I was gasping for breath. It's now been added to a pile – alongside James Joyce's Ulysses – of books that I'll need to read again at some point.

And that pile could act as a shortlist for the sort of books that I could happily take to a desert island, though I doubt that even a few decades in the sun would be enough to uncover all that could be uncovered. These aren't Desert Island Books. They're Eternity Books. Afterlife Books.

Like everything written at any point before today, The Golden Notebook is, in parts, a little dated. It's also utterly, horribly overwhelming. It's about so many things that it would be disingenuous to say that it's “about” any one thing, but it can be broadly summed up as an exhaustive exploration – in extreme close-up – of one woman's nervous breakdown, one thought at a time – over 576 demanding pages.

And in detailing this descent, it touches on so many themes that reading The Golden Notebook is like simultaneously reading five heavy novels at once in the back row of a particularly demanding socio-economic lecture.

Art, literature, identity, humanity, creativity, motherhood, communism, race, sex, gender, betrayal, writer's block – you can't describe this book without sounding like David Bowie describing his latest album.

I was very, very pleased to finish, because every single second spent with The Golden Notebook eventually felt unbearably heavy – just like, I imagine, would every single second spent with depression. I'm glad to have come out from the other side, but I don't regret, for one second, having picked up the book in the first place. Maybe I'll return to The Golden Notebook when I've more time on my hands, more experience under my belt and no tempting pristine copy of Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – freshly donated by a friend. But until then, I feel drained.

But what a wonderful, indispensable draining experience it was. Because Doris Lessing! This was my first exposure to Doris Lessing, but even if I just had the text of The Golden Notebook to go on, I'd already have enough evidence to suggest that even a word as magnificent as “genius” doesn't even begin to describe her.

Because bookending The Golden Notebook was an preface from Lessing – recently written – and an interview. On this initial exposure, I took much more from her non-fiction than I did her fiction, simply because her words and her ideas are nothing short of inspirational – perhaps even life-affirming.

I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the position of critics in our society. Do we need them at all? Probably not. But Lessing puts their role – their responsibilities – in a most intriguing light:

“...writers are looking in the critics for an alter ego, that other self more intelligent than oneself who has seen what one is reaching for, and who judges you only by whether you have matched up to your aim or not... But what he, the writer, is asking is impossible. Why should he expect this extraordinary being, the perfect critic (who does occasionally exist), why should there be anyone else who comprehends what he is trying to do? After all, there is only one person spinning that particular cocoon, only one person whose business it is to spin it...It is not possible for reviewers and critics to provide what they purport to provide – and for which writers so ridiculously and childishly yearn.”

So according to Lessing, critics have an unrealistic idea of their position in society, and writers have nobody but themselves to blame for this, for it was they who placed critics on their pedestal.

But it apparently goes further than this. Lessing believes that, from a very young age, we're conditioned – even brainwashed – to refuse to recognise the true value and intent of what we read.

“It starts when the child is as young as five or six, when he arrives at school. It starts with marks, rewards, “places”, “streams”, stars – and still in many places, stripes. This horserace mentality, the victor and loser way of thinking, leads to “Writer X is, is not, a few paces ahead or Writer Y. Writer Y has fallen behind. In his last book, Writer Z has shown himself to be better than Writer A.” From the very beginning, the child is trained to think in this way: always in terms of comparison, of success, and of failure.”

Lessing extrapolates political connotations from this – children are conditioned to respect authority, to not think for themselves – but when I read this I also applied it to every other kind of criticism – especially music criticism, the obtuse nature of which has given me so much gripe in recent years.

“These children who have spent years inside the training system become critics and reviewers, and cannot give what the author, the artist, so foolishly looks for – imaginative and original judgement. What they can do, and what they do very well, is to tell the writer how the book or play accords with current patterns of feeling and thinking – the climate of opinion.”

When I read that, I wanted to shout: “Ha! Take THAT, every critic with whom I've ever taken issue.” I wanted to reach through the page and give Doris a high five. 15 pages into my first ever exposure to the writing of Doris Lessing, and I already wanted to marry her.

Critics aren't nearly as important at they think they are – or as they want us to think they are. Instead, due to inherent weaknesses instilled from childhood, they are nothing more than, as Doris so brilliantly puts it, “litmus paper”. They're not arbiters of taste and opinion. They're products of taste and opinion – just like everyone else.

Critics – and writers too – could learn a thing or two from Doris. It seems that the relationship will always be codependent, but there's nothing stopping it from being healthier.

Less cynical and pessimistic – but infinitely more poignant – is the interview included at the end of my copy of The Golden Notebook. Asked if she stops reading other people's books when writing her own, she replies:

“ I have stopped with my current book, because my time is running out. I'm 87 [she's now 93], I'm not going to live forever and I want to finish this book I'm writing now. I'll go back to being a good reader when I finish it.”

Wow.

Finally, she offers a very good reason for good people - “boulder pushers”, as they're called by The Golden Notebook's protagonist – to remain optimistic. She's asked how living through “one of the most tumultuous centuries in our history” has affected her.

“Well, I've lived through Hitler, ranting and raving; Mussolini too; the Soviet Union, which we thought would last for all time; the British Empire, which seemed impregnable; the colour bar in Rhodesia and elsewhere; the heydey of European empires. It was inconceivable to think that these would disappear. They seemed permanent. Now not one of them remains – and I think that is a recipe for optimism!”

So to sum up, I think I'm in love with Doris Lessing.

Wrapped Up In Books

No friends, no money, no daylight. My first semester at university was terrible.

The closest thing I had to a social life were weekly meetings of the Warp and Megalomaniac societies, both of which were all-but filled with embittered third-years and mature students - hardly conducive to the wild and boundless hedonism that I had expected university to be. Warp was the science-fiction society, where no discussions of science-fiction ever took place. Instead we sat in a bar designed for mature students that was lit like a dentist's office and smelled a bit funny. Still. The jukebox was good.

The Megalomaniacs described themselves as “the political satire society”, and I think the only way you could have met a more unpleasant bunch of people would be had you attended a meeting of the University of Manchester Young Tories, Facists and Football Fans Society. Cynical by default, they never smiled, only sneered. They weren't all bad. Indeed, one of them would later help to secure victory for Manchester in University Challenge. But as a group they were set in their ways and about the exact opposite of the sort of people I wanted to meet.

No money – well. No student has much in the way of assets. But I was, for some reason, particularly poor – to the extent that I was surviving almost exclusively on a diet comprised of three staples – brown bread, crunchy peanut butter and Lidl's own-brand 8p instant noodles – with the odd pint of Fosters boosting my weekly calorie intake every time I did a load of laundry. I was very likely in a state of malnourishment – evidenced by the sores that appeared on my face, the cluster migraines I got at night (that would only intensify when I closed my eyes) and the fact that I blacked out when I went home for Christmas and ate some turkey and vegetables.

And no daylight. This was because my ground-floor room looked out onto a concrete parade ground that students often used as a football pitch. They had a tendency to stare into my room, so I took to shutting my curtains every time a game started. Eventually it got to the point where I wouldn't bother opening them again.

My first semester at university was terrible.

But I read a lot. It was, to all intents and purposes, all I had. Reading filled time. I had a lot of time to fill, and not much of it could be filled with studying. So I read and read and read – knowing, at the back of my mind, that I'd be at a genuine loss as to what to do with myself were I to run out of books to read. I was therefore really quite frightened of running out of books. It didn't bear thinking about.

Now that I've a lovely circle of friends and family, three more jobs than I deserve and plenty of sunlight, I don't have nearly so much time for reading – but I wouldn't have it any other way. But I find myself buying books all the time, to the extent that I've already acquired more books than I could possibly read in a lifetime.

Having such an immense backlog – combined with my tendency to compel myself to do a set amount of things in a set amount of time – has, I now realise, made me develop a less than ideal approach to reading. Rather than considering that I have the remainder of my natural life to devote to reading as many books as I want, I've found myself, on a few occasions, only reading a book for the sake of reading a book – so that it could be removed from the pile.

This is the exact opposite of the position I was in during that first terrible university semester. Back then I learned to appreciate the immense importance of books through convincing myself that, without them, I would die. These days I'm trying to recapture the ability to read one book at a time – and to grace that one book with every ounce of appreciation I'm willing to give it.

But still. It's nice to know that no matter how bad things should get, I will never, ever, ever run out of things to read – which is possibly about as close as you can possibly get to ensuring lifelong happiness.

At the very least, I'm never going to get bored.

So I'm here now, with an immense guilty groan of books next to me, most of which are just waiting - quite impatiently - to be read. I don't necessarily structure my reading habits, but I have certain rules. As a new year begins I find myself reading colourful genre fiction – possibly in reaction to the relentless drabness of that time of year. Over the summer, I want plot and I want as many pages as possible – the sort of story in which you can really lose yourself. Towards the end of October I'll turn to ghost stories, because who doesn't? As Autumn decays into winter I'll see through the change with some Victorian Gothic, and then, come Christmas, it's time for Dickens. I read one or two Dickens each year over the extended Christmas period, and I like to think that once I've finally read through his oeuvre, I'll simply read it all again. And again and again, until I die. Yeah!

Books are inexpensive, lovely to look at, lovely to hold, and whether they're ordered or cluttered, when you have a lot of them in your life your life feels more complete.

Books, then, are your friends for life. They even smell nice. Go hug a book now. NOW.

Ready Player One - It's Egg Hunting Season!

In little over a week, the whole Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt has progressed significantly. At the time of writing, we have five of the six numbers – but we're still no closer to discovering what it all means.

It turns out that The Record Store Day Incident (as it's now being called – how Fortean!) was just the kick-off. Whilst everyone initially thought that there'd be a different code on each of the six records (of which only four have apparently been found), instead it appears that each code will reveal itself in a different way.

First there was all the rigmarole on the band's YouTube channel. Since then, subsequent codes have been variously revealed through clever gif manipulation; through broadcasts on NPR and on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show (number stations!) and, best of all, through the above advert that was broadcast on The Cartoon Network (of all places).

The most intriguing event, though, has been a projection on the building opposite London's Rough Trade store (where the second vinyl was found). The staff of the store claimed total ignorance. And, despite rumours circulating that the door of the building would open at midnight (for the first Boards of Canada gig since 2002?), very little came of this.



Still, it seemed to confirm not just the authenticity of this whole thing (as if there remained any doubters), but also the unbearably exciting notion that something's happening.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that my love for Boards of Canada runs through me like the lettering on Blackpool Rock, my part in this will only ever be as an observer. With a string of six numbers making up a 36 digit code, it's obvious that this will ultimately present a mathematical problem.

Reincarnation is a nice idea, and I like to think that, before you regenerate, you get to choose certain traits – like an RPG character creation screen. Well, if I'm given a second chance of life, above all I'd like to try my hands at being somebody with an inherent interest in science, technology and mathematics.

At the moment, though scientific and mathematical theories can pique my interest, I feel as though the very wiring of my brain prevents me from truly comprehending anything I read about – let alone from forming or applying any of my own theories.

It's always been like this. At school I pushed myself to get an A in GCSE Maths, but I was really only learning by rote exactly the information that would be required to pass that specific exam. I had no underlying understanding or appreciation of the information, and I promptly forgot pretty much everything I'd learned the second I finally put my pencil down at the end of the exam.

Still. I might not have developed a very scientific mind, but I think I've more than made up for that through my love of music, films, history, words, grammar and stories – by which I mean books.

So whilst I can't play an active part in the Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt, I can at least enjoy it as a bloody good story.

And as a bloody good story, it's particularly enjoyable because the whole thing reminds me of a bloody good story I read recently.



Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a very popular book indeed. It's so popular, that people dress as it for Halloween. Not as characters from the book, mind, but as the book itself.

I don't think even Twilight elicited that level of devotion.

Ready Player One takes place in 2044. The world isn't quite a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but society and the economy appeared to have collapsed and things are quite awful. So most people spend their time inside a ridiculously immersive virtual reality environment called OASIS.

Designed by an obsessive savant called Halliday, I really wish that OASIS actually existed in real life. It's a seemingly infinite universe in which you can be whoever you want, do whatever you want and fully-explore the locations of pretty much any sci-fi or fantasy universe you could care to mention.

Before passing away, Halliday reveals that he's hidden an Easter Egg somewhere in OASIS, and whoever finds it will inherit his vast fortune. The novel details the exploits of a player called Parzival and his friends in their quest to track down this elusive egg.

As the novel goes, it's far from perfect. It's told in the first person – from Parzival's perspective – and it's implied that he's telling his story so that future generations will understand “what really happened”. But if that's the case, I've no idea why he feels the need to pepper his narrative with such excessive cultural-economic infodumps. It's fascinating for us early 21st century readers to get an insight into his world, but surely Parzival's intended audience would already be painfully familiar with the world he's describing? After all, they've never known any other.

The world-building, then, is clumsy at best, and the final “message” appears to undermine absolutely everything that's come before. But still, Ready Player One remains some of the best genre fiction I've read in recent years.

This is partly because it's so engaging. The idea that your obsessive knowledge of pop culture might save the world (a virtual world at that) is very appealing to anyone who likes films, music and video games as more than just part of a lifestyle.

But the most remarkable thing about Ready Player One is that everything Parzival achieves he does so under his own volition - using a combination of knowledge, intuition and incredible courage. Parzival is therefore a real hero, and a most refreshing change from the “chosen one” trope that still seems to dominate genre fiction.

Honestly, is there anything more boring than a meek hero who has greatness thrust upon him? I'm certainly had enough of that idea. From now on, I only want heroes who know what they're doing, know why they're doing it and, crucially, who want to do it.

Which is why Ready Player One is such an engaging, refreshing read. All this useless knowledge I've built up over the years? It might not always be useless.

So my lack of mathematical knowledge might force me to take a regretful back seat in this Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt. But you never know. One day, there might be something greater at stake – the fate of the world! - and it might depend on deep knowledge and appreciation of my specific interests.

But until then, hey! New Boards of Canada album!

Probably. All of this has to lead to something.