I hate James Kelman

I hate James Kelman and 'You Have To Be Careful In The Land Of The Free' is turning into my personal Vietnam. It goes on forever, I never get any closer to the end and I take absolutely no pleasure at all from reading it. It sucks at your soul, like watching Jordan and Gavin playing pool. It sits by my bed and radiates malevolence. I look for any excuse to avoid reading more of it. I read 'Generation X' in one sitting on the flight from Sydney. I read 'Fellowship of the Ring' inside four hours. But I've been reading the Kelman since November and I can't manage more than a dozen pages without getting... edgy. I also lapped up 'number9dream' by David Mitchell - if you haven't read any of his books yet, you should do so immediately. Like right now. 'Ghostwritten', 'number9dream' and 'Cloud Atlas' are simply astonishing pieces of work, especially 'Ghostwritten', 'number9dream' and 'Cloud Atlas'. I understand 'Black Swan Green' is just as good - that's on the hit-list once I've finished 'The History Of The World'. I've only just reached the Neanderthals, but's it's already fascinating stuff.

Little of substance to report. I've been looking for work, badly, and cooking occasional soup. I spend time in the garden, laying paving slabs and avoiding hornets. Jem and I have extended the patio around the vegetable patch. Working in the garden was a real chore when I was a kid - I quite enjoy it now. We mulched the plants by the back door, and already there are pumpkins pushing up through the woodchip. The meat ants have taken a beating in the driveway and the bonfire stack grows a new wing every with passing weekend. It's going to be a cracker once the fire ban is lifted. We cleared the rotten wood from up by the gate and found cockroaches, geckos, hissing crickets, huntsman spiders with legspan like a Slint CD...

Explosions In The Sky! Triple J radio is exactly what public broadcast should sound like, this is what you should hear when you turn on Radio 1 at home. A judgement call, but I'm making it. What is the point of playing exactly what the commercial stations play? Dross, trash, nothing. Public radio should be a forum for the things the commercials won't touch with a ten-foot clown pole, the new bands, new music, no matter how esoteric or unlistenable it might be. This is public service:

You made friends with ugly people so you'd stand out in a crowd
You were screaming at your mum and I was punching your dad
I said you must be a girl with shoes like that she said you know me well
You're only nineteen you don't need a boyfriend you're only nineteen
All this depends on the shoulders and bends we could be anyone have done anything I'm trying to trust you but I just don't know where you've been
What the sea wants the sea will have
Cos then she might be happy no longer lonely and I could take her out for pretty much free
Marilyn Monroe never married Henry Miller BUT IF SHE DID she might have felt like a woman instead of like a picture in a magazine
Colours and colours and colours and
I sailed a wild wild sea I climbed a tall tall mountain I met an old old man beneath a weeping willow tree
In the morning I can smell you on my pillow I need to know you won't get wrung out in the wash
You can't fool me, Dennis
Here we go again
A-wooooOOOOOOooooo
I like giants especially girl giants because all girls feel big sometimes regardless of their size
We busted out of class
Satan satan satan satan satan satan satan said DANCE!
And we'll all float on OK don't worry even if things wind up a bit too heavy we'll all float on OK
Ba-da ba ba DA da da da da!

Yeah so this week I have mostly been listening to The Fratellis and The Long Blondes and a Modest Mouse concert I taped off the radio. I'm climbing, trying to push my grade to 20 with some good stuff at the Hangout and a work experience kid with walleye follows you around talking and talking and talking. New climbing shoes: I'm never going back to lace-ups. Dips and crunches and cutting down on the beer, slinging paving slabs by the fingertips and sand everywhere. The hornets catch spiders and pump them full of venom. The spider is paralysed, bunched up and still twitching, dragged back to the burrow and injected with eggs. The larvae are incubated by the paralysed spider, and will eventually eat it, slowly.

Coincidentally, this is pretty much the fate I wish upon James Kelman every time I pick up his stinking book.

Check out the new links: cousin Jules did the snakes for 'Snakes On A Plane!' amongst many others - cousin Janey has published her first novel 'Gabbra's Song' - Iain 'Grumpy Old Bastard' Maloney has got some new and old writing up on The Watcher On The Quay - chum Banks' best music yet at My Friend Otto especially 'What Are You Looking At' - plus lots of Scottish bouldering news at Stone Country.

Hmmm. I have just noticed there are lots of names with 'J's in my family... Jules, Janey, Janet, Jayden, Jasmine, Jeremy, Jarrad, Justin, Joan, John, June, and there will certainly be more. But rather more disturbingly, and certainly more immediately, I have also just noticed that there are several very small ants in my coffee.