How funny. I was thinking abut Billy Bragg on the train in this morning. A friend and I were discussing ‘Greetings from the new Brunette’ the other day - ‘how can you lie back and think of England/ when you don’t even know who’s in the team?’…

Puss

Ah, thanks, yes, he has (or perhaps I mean “had”, actually) his moments.

I like the idea that Bragg (or - more recently, British Sea Power: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTl4dcfDpzg) are at least making some kind of attempt to mention these wonderful (or horrible, if you mean Grays or Basildon) places in verse.

I love how it is when one travels around, above all, Ireland, one frequently encounters places on road signs that one is familar with through folk songs, rebel songs, civil war songs, Energy Orchard songs, or just other songs.

It’d be great if that were true of England, too - - - perhaps the easiest (if rather excessive) way to achieve this would be to have a rather vicious civil war.

And I worry about people looking at me like a nutter if I am singing “Canvey Island” just at audible volume when I am on the Island…

Not just Ireland, Ven. One could say the same about the States, for instance. Driving through Arizona listening to Johnny Cash and Tom Waits is something I heartily recommend (if only I’d been in an open top Cadillac).

And, of course, it was Johnny Cash who wrote 40 Shades of Green. “I’d walk from Cork to Larne to see those 40 shades of green.”

I would walk from Larne to Cork to get away from Larne.

Or if we’re talking about English geography, here’s a song written by a Scotsman, performed by an Irishman about the Thames.

Imagine it played at closing time in the old North London Tavern and… oh, is that something in your eye?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCD4Pb-BOTc

I was just watching Bill Bailey and Billy Bragg singing unisex chipshop. Great stuff.

Before I point out that Thundersley (which may well be the place that London ends, and where England can begin) is, mainly, Bread & Cheese Hill apart, a bit north of the A13 (and as delightful as South Essex comes, which is fairly delightful, and definitely as hilly as it gets, which is not very, but more so than elsewhere), I feel I should remind you of the vital information that your loyal readership is still awaiting your ripping apart of the mayoral election propaganda literature of a certain floppy-haired former commissioner of articles by Taki…

I know nothing of Billy since my teens. But boy did I think he was cool.

Funny, I drove through the east coast in the U.S. in a ‘68 convertible mustang, listening to Johnny Cash & Tom Waits. I didn’t find the road signs but I felt damn good. Until I got busted for driving without a licence.

August