I never took the advice in that book

Sometimes (not that often -- this is an egotistical process) I look at other people's blogs. Most people I know don't write them, or at least don't write interesting ones (though there are honourable exceptions) so I read the blogs of people I don't know. Which is kind of weird. But it was by doing this that I found I was far from the only person affected by Jonny Kennedy's life and death story (and don't forget the TV critics. They are people too.)

Which is all a long way round of saying that tonight I felt the need, after lots of red wine (and I was supposed to be giving wine up for Lent -- ARSE) to go back to my roots. Which is, when you're in your 30s and you're pissed, the music that a) saved your life and b) you were listening to when you were 17, to reference just two recent posts.

So I f0und myself singing along to every little word on Billy Bragg's Preaching to the Converted. But I only really put it on for a CD rendition of the songs on the Days Like These EP. Including Scholarship Is the Enemy of Romance.

I never understood it 20 years ago, and I certainly don't understand it now, but that doesn't make it any less fabulous. This weekend I will be playing Damon and Naomi to teenage girls. Maybe I'll try a bit of early Billy as well.

joella