Unexpected pleasure

I saw on telly recently (or maybe heard on the radio) that loads of people find their work colleagues annoying. I can sympathise. In the office where I currently work is someone who must rate particularly high on the scale of cheeky pointless oxygen thieves. I honestly would never get tired of waltzing on her face, preferably wearing crampons. She just cannot be quiet and do some work, she has to fill every second of her pathetic life with a loud and turgid running commentary of the cripplingly awful minutiae of her dire existence. Every aspect of her life is so much trouble, I wonder why she bothers to make the gargantuan effort of breathing.

Anyway, to escape the awful drone, I listen to stuff on my iPod so I can concentrate on work. The other week my cousin mentioned she's off to see John Cooper Clarke soon. I expressed surprise that he's still alive. Usually, listening to stuff I liked 20 or 30 years ago is a disappointment – most of it hasn't stood the test of time. Clarky described himself as a triumph of style over content when I last saw him in the early 90s, and I think he was only half kidding. So when “Post War Glamour Girl” brought a huge smile to my face and transported me to another place in the way that art (especially music) can sometimes, I was genuinely, and pleasantly, surprised.

Gig

There are two kinds of perfect gigs for me. The first is the Fall. At every Fall gig I've ever been to, there's a point where the excruitatingly repetitive nature of their music does something (good) to me.

The second is where the performers are so obviously enjoying the gig that you can't help it too. Generally they are also so good that they make me feel that I'm invloved - that I really could play/sing like that. Of course I can't, but the skill (or is it a talent?) is that they make me feel I could.