Starting the year with a big one

Listening to That's not my name and Shut Up and Let Me Go like its 2007 or something.

Having a lemonade in Britons Protection today felt very sacriligious. Roll on non-sobriety.

Just ordered Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie after seeing a clip. Anyone seen it?

Its a slow burner compared to Classic Objects, perhaps harking back a bit to the incredible Apocalypse, Girl but Iris Silver Mist by Jenny Hval is definitely one of the years best, and very much a winter album.

Glad there were no xmas songs playing in Tesco but the emotional double whammy of REM Man on the Moon & Dire Straits Romeo & Juliet almost had me bawling in the aisles on a dark, cold Tuesday. Maybe time to put the tree up

Well, that's two months without alcohol, cos of my eye op and the various medications I'm on, I'd just rather not at the moment. So could be a non festive pre Xmas period (though I will have some wine on xmas day if not before). Can't say its made me feel better, but no hangovers anyway!

I realise its a new month, so expect a new substack later today. Special edition DVDs; John Le Carre; the bottom of the Beatles barrel & more. Sign up here, to get in your inbox.... adrianslatcher.substack.com

Explaining to dad the linking thread between CICS COBOL and A.I. and the sad neglect of data standards. I am always shocked at how much of my programming career I can recall nearly 30 years after leaving it.

The quality of the poems is the new Poetry London is the most consistently good I have seen in ages.

Finding this compelling, ridiculous, and frustrating in equal measures; the writing veering from brilliant to barely comprehensible. Its 700 pafes but whizzing through it and nothing has actually happened!

The last week i have been much less tired, but still too tired to go out. The plus side is that each evening I have written part of a new piece, somehow managing 5000 words and still on first chapter. Favourite words used so far: trill, jeroboam, chafer, Kunstmuseum.

Amazing. Great to see.

I think gubernatorial has to join caucus and filibuster in favourite words only ever used in American politics.

Felt poorly on my non working day, and a few tech priblems, but, hey, i struggled on. Consoling spending time in a house full of books.

Soft Cell, Henry James and the late Victorians, Ian McEwan, Olivia Laing, sound collage, Elizabeth Alker on pop/classical xover. New substack in your inbox now. adrianslatcher.substack.com/p/wave-goodbye

My new substack is being published tomorrow - Elizabeth Alker on pop and contemporary classical; novels by McEwan and Laing; sound collage; Soft Cell; and Henry James and the late Victorians. Sign up here adrianslatcher.substack.com

Looking through old magazines, tickets, notebooks and letters surely some emerging narrative to my life, but I'm not sure what exactly. Something about the shift of the present into an amber past...and how much is now lost of that story because of digital.

You've got good taste

Enjoying a noisy afternoon

Reading Flannery O'Connor & listening to the Band.

Recovery from an op is slow. You have a normal day, even go out see friends for a couple of hrs, then next day (today) feel like death. Its been a full week to be fair. 3-day weekend now.

All her cultural references are my cultural references. Not often that happens. A strange autofiction, short but satisfying.

I am so much the audience for ALL the cultural references in here. I even went to the Basquiat show she attends, as well as being a longstanding Kathy Acker fan. A strange, if slight, autofiction.

Reading Crudo by Olivia Laing, I suspect I might be its target audience. Kathy Acker, American Nazis, internet memes. Occasionally reminds me of my own writing.

Today's stupid plan. Do a PhD on "the modern in late Victorian and Edwardian art and literature".

Great to be asked to contribute some new music to this collage cum Podcast, a nice antidote to '25's over stimulated enshittified attention economy open.spotify.com/episode/2JXH...

Having Mondays off definitely creates a space in my life that I otherwise wouldn't have time for. When else would I pick up and devour a long Henry James story from 1884?

Planning on a series of ltd edition pamphlets featuring unpublished and reissued work. #1 test copy -2 experimental poetry sequences, 36 pages, dressed up like a 1970s H&S leaflet.

Electrelane..now theres a band people don't talk about nearly enough.

Are there any good (recent?) essays on T.S. Eliot's poetry that are a must read? I've got the Cambridge Companion which is useful. A.I. only comes up with his own essays (all good, but that wasn't my question A.I.)

Housebound for a few days after an op so listening to a few comfort choice CDs. Track fron each here. open.spotify.com/playlist/6q6...

Stockport's forgotten SF writer in this month's substack amongst other things. adrianslatcher.substack.com/p/freshers-w...

Catching up on some current affairs

Interesting piece in the TLS from one writer of short intense books on another, Not sure Gwendoline Riley comes away liking Muriel Spark in a review of a new biography & letters. Spark was...spikey shall we say.

Found one of my holy grail albums at the weekend. Only ever seen in the wild once before.

Bloody hell. I don't think I've read anything both so original and devastating in years. Remarkable. Robinson Crusoe meets the Road.

Continuing my unblemished record of never once making a poetry prize short or longlist. What is that now? 30 years? Hope springs eternal, etc. etc.

Just finished Robert Harris Conclave, very readable and obviously written as an easy treatment for a movie (which I havent seen yet) but its so melodramatic, the prose is barely serviceable, and the chatacterisation is simplistic. I guess thats where we are now. Very well researched.

Appear to have started a new musical project. Need a new alias. Favourite at the moment is Horses on the Camargue. Too long? What kind of music would tou expect?

Fontaines DC, Kneecap, English Teacher and Murder Capital, what a great lineup at a sold out Wythenshawe Park.

After a really tough fortnight (work, health, bereavement) I am off for 11 days after tomorrow and have a new polo shirt, and seeing Fontaines DC for first time on Friday.

It would have been Tove Jansson's birthday (b. 1914) heres my review of The Summer Book, a perfect summer read artoffiction.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-...

My mum's old friend has been reading "Loners" and just said it reminds her of H.G. Wells. I will take that! Adding to the list, Dahl, Clowes, Beckett, Kafka & Trevor! www.confingopublishing.uk/product-page...

I keep reading great books that nobody else has read so i cant talk about them. This year Any human heart, Futility, the Last Samurai, the Zone of interest, Cakes and ale, in a lonely place, and now Memoirs of Hadrian. Anyone?

My summer books recommendations adrianslatcher.substack.com/p/summer-boo...

And then there were six.... So lovely to be part of this collection of art enhanced short story pocket books, and at the David Bevan launch on Wednesday. @confingopublishing.bsky.social All available here.... www.confingopublishing.uk/shop

On the Sabbath bench in Brum last December

Great to hear David Bevan tonight talkimg about books and birds for the launch of Sightings from @confingopublishing.bsky.social with @nicholasroyle.bsky.social

I'm sure nobody wants me to write a memoir. Starts-writing-a-memoir.