Amsterdam

Am in the middle of moving to Amsterdam for a new job that for once is actually interesting and pay a salary that is above the minimum wage. Will be sans internet for about a month while I look for an apartment, so still nothing to report, really, other than more apologies for my continued radio silence.

But just quickly and retroactively:

a) Yah boo sucks to the Tories for winning the Canadian election, but remember, kids, the left also advanced, despite Layton’s pathetic rightward frolics (strategically stupid as well – retreat back to the Anglophone left’s traditional anti-Quebec chauvinism and you wreck any chances of advancing in that province, which must be engaged if one is to ever win a federal election. Doug has more along these lines.);

b) Obviously I’m not in favour of burning down Danish embassies over some ropily executed cartoon blasphemy (although burning down American embassies over their various imperial exertions is an entirely different kettle of fisken, and, heck, while we’re at it, Haitians: fill your boots ransacking the local Canadian chancellery), but has any one actually had a look at these drawings? Whatever we may say about freedom of speech and blasphemy, the cartoons are manifestly racist, with caricatures of Muslims not radically distinct from the doodles of buck-toothed, thick-specs-wearing Japs or hook-nosed Shylocks of yore (Lenny, as always, has been note-perfect on this one);

c) My friend Justin of Different Day has decided to have a go at this whole podcasting lark, with ‘The Thousand Beer Show – Pop, politics and pintage’, (so titled for the renowned abundance of the substance in Belgium) and your correspondent was the first invited guest. You can have a listen to my wretched, stumbling pretensions at rock knowledge and an atrociously over-simplified account of the recent Canadian general election here;

and

d) Husky Rescue, Two Gallants [which I saw opening for the Decemberists long before the NME got their inky little paws on the duo], and The Kooks.