The Corsham nuclear bunker, courtesy of the BBC. Not cheery, obviously.
I’ve already waxed lyrical about Godley and Creme’s Under Your Thumb elsewhere. This, however, is An Englishman in New York and I can’t begin to count the ways in which it is wonderful.
This version is from the German TV show Musikladen (I think) and isn’t actually the one I wanted to post. The original video (which is thematically identical but a more overtly visual experience) is here, but won’t allow me to embed it. Bugger. That said: each version has its own surreal, spine-chilling charm, and there are a couple of details with this one (the lighting, the computer typeface, the bit where they’re watching on the monitor) that might even make it the better to watch.
I love this band. Absolutely fucking adore them.
John Preston in The Telegraph gets arsey about swearing but misses the most interesting point: can we imagine a society where no taboo expletives remain?
A heart-warmingly personal tribute to the late, lamented Nick Sanderson of Earl Brutus, linked in turn from this rather enjoyable piece by Roy Sanderson for the Quietus. Features public-school japes, backwards haircuts, lust for a lighthouse, and Peter Gabriel’s living room. As so many great tales should.
This, from the Media Guardian website yesterday, has made my day. Good work, un-named Sunday Express executive.
A very interesting argument, this: Darian Leader in the Guardian has a pop at CBT for being a “quick fix”; Vaughan Bell replies: wouldn’t it help to know what you’re talking about?
Before I started studying any of this, I drew a naive distinction between what I saw as “counselling” — targeted treatment, for want of a better word, of a specific trouble — and “therapy” … which, to be honest, I saw as a bit of a racket. “Feeling unhappy? What you need is to spend the rest of your life talking to me. At £80 a pop. Sign here, and here.”
It is, as is so often the case, substantially more complex than my initial flippancy suggested. But this little spat does touch on one issue I find compelling: is it always desirable, necessary or even healthy to plumb the depths of the mind?
I was mightily impressed that one of the first things my developmental psychology tutor told us to consider was a Radiohead video. Not for sentimental or indeed economic/globalist reasons; for social-constructivist ones.
So: a new perspective, already. But with a top soundtrack.
