Venichka doesn’t have a blog, but he has some rather nice pictures here and sometimes contributes to Harry’s Place. Anyway, as a Dagenham boy who now lives in Southend, what could be more appropriate than Billy Bragg singing A13 trunk road to the sea? Take it away, Billy…

If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness
Take the A road, the okay road that’s the best
Go motorin’ on the A13

If you’re looking for a thrill that’s new
Take in Fords, Dartford Tunnel and the river too
Go motorin’ on the A13

It starts down in Wapping
There ain’t no stopping
By-pass Barking and straight through Dagenham
Down to Grays Thurrock
And rather near Basildon
Pitsea, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Leigh-On-Sea,
Chalkwell, Prittlewell
Southend’s the end

If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness
Take the A road, the okay road that’s the best
Go motorin’ on the A13

Not to mention Klaus Tennstedt, the crazy-haired conductor of genius.

Last week’s EDW was Osbert Lancaster. I’ll tell you more about him when I’m less busy and not quite so ill.

(UPDATE. Bill writes: You might have acknowledged that I’d recognised Osbert Lancaster, you fecker. Happy to oblige, Bill, and I hope everyone will now head over to your blog and pat your head.)

One of the drawbacks to doing a four year degree, followed up by a postgraduate teaching qualification, is that you end up with five student loans instead of the usual three. That’s what I did and, because I compounded the error by refusing to earn flipping great wodges of cash, I’m still paying the things off a decade later.

No matter: the debt is nearly cleared. What delighted me was the fact that, when I rang this morning, the Student Loans Company’s automated telephone holding system started playing “Can I kick it?” by a Tribe Called Quest. A fine choice, and one calculated to inspire me to better and brighter things:

If you feel the urge to freak, do the jitterbug
Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug
Afrocentric living is a big shrug
A life filled with *HORN* that’s what I love
A lower plateau is what we’re above

Feel free, drop your pants, jack your hey-ya…

I’ve been a regular reader of Scott Pack’s blog, Me and My Big Mouth, for some time. I think I stumbled across it after Scott’s company, The Friday Project, published ambulance blogger Tom Reynolds‘ book Blood, Sweat and Tea. But whatever way I found it, I quickly came to enjoy Scott’s mix of books, music, photos, interviews and Friday Project news.

About a week ago, Scott had a brilliant idea:

To celebrate the fact that copying CDs may soon be legal and that my music posts on this blog tend to get more hits than book ones I am going to start a record club.

…here’s how it works. A small number of us, perhaps 5 or 6, join up. Every month (or whatever) we each make a compilation of music. We then burn copies on CD and send them to the other members. Simple really.

The thinking is that we should all end up with a pile of interesting CDs once a month and that (hopefully) there will be a bunch of new and exciting music for us to enjoy and investigate further.

I signed up in an instant, and there are now six of us busy burning our first CDs - themed, at Scott’s suggestion, as “Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself…” I’d say I’m not the only one who is having desperate second thoughts about their selection, but it’s too late now: we’ve agreed to get the stuff posted off for the weeked.

I’ll reveal my choices tomorrow, after the postman has struck. If you’re interested to see what’s in it, and what the others have chosen, take a look at the new Me and My Big Mouth Record Club blog. Who knows - you might find something you like.

I’ve been looking for some new blogs to read.

I normally come across fresh ones because of some new interest or enthusiasm, but once in while it’s a good idea to dredge through the unexpected and the unpredictable. That’s where Google’s ‘random blog’ button comes in handy. (Well, it does if you don’t mind gleaning through mountains of kitten photos, Spanish politics, spam sites and the like, hoping against hope to find something worth reading).

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I found this blog: My Summer Vacation, which has the rather splendid URL of warwillchangeawoman.blogspot.com.

Go and read it. The author, Liz, is in the United States Air Force. And the thing that caught my eye was this, her most recent post:

My sister and I were talking the other day/week, and she turned to me and said “you know, there’s no soundtrack for Iraq like there was for Vietnam.”

Sittin’ on the docks of the bay. We gotta get outta this place. What’s goin’ on, Fortunate son?

All those songs resonate with Vietnam era vets…but what resonates with Iraq vets? Did Soulja Boy resonate with veterans like it did with UW students during the homecoming parade? What brings back that flood of memories for vets that brings back that flood of memories for others in our generation?

Luckily, the only military experience I ever endured was as a schoolboy Royal Navy cadet. The soundtrack to that was more Joy Division than jolly boating songs. But when I think of Vietnam, I think of Apocalypse Now and songs like The Doors’ The End, The Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and, of course, The Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre.

Liz goes on to point out that the reason that there’s no soundtrack to the Iraq War is because, these days, it’s much easier to get hold of music - which means our tastes are rather more divergent than they used to be.

She’s got a point. But for the rest of us, I’m sure the soundtrack to the war will come along in a few years - it’ll just come pre-packaged as part of a film. If someone makes a good one.

I could be wrong of course: are there songs that really capture the spirit of the war?

I kicked off my day by staying in bed, crumbling croissants, sipping coffee and absorbing the first few chapters of Patrick O’Brian’s brilliant Post Captain. I’d just got to the bit when Captain Aubrey decides to throw a ball for the local gentry when some fool started honking on the front door buzzer.

It was the postman delivering, as he sometimes does, a parcel.

“It’s a parcel for you,” said my wife, who’d answered the door.

“Ah yes,” said I, remembering what it would be. “It’s a CD of strip tease music. Glamourpuss said she’d send it in return for those French albums I sent her earlier in the week.”

So I opened the package and, inside, was a brand new copy of Take it Off! Strip Tease Classics. There aren’t many better ways to start the morning than to be given a CD adorned with a girl in a pretty blue dress; especially when that dress is a hologram that vanishes to reveal a rather dashing set of foundation garments.

“Oh look,” I said after unfolding the bits of paper that were also inside the jiffy bag. “Puss has sent a striptease routine as well.”

I handed my wife a sheet of A4 entitled filled with lots of instructions about snapping legs open, circling upper bodies and that sort of thing.

I was immediately reminded of my efforts to cook things out of Nigel Slater’s books, and could imagine the performance: “Oh, hang on. No, that’s not right. Oh, of course snap legs shut. Ok, did that seem right? Right, now it says ‘Slide something down each leg’. What does that ’something’ say? I’ve spilt egg on it.”

I didn’t get far with this train of thought, though, as it was broken by the sound of giggling next to me.

“What’s so funny?”

And sadly, that’s where I’ll have to bring the tale to a close, because to tell it would give Glamourpuss’s game away. You’ll just have to console yourself with the notion that good tales are also more tease than they are strip.

Neither do good striptease routines often involve cardigans.

Glamourpuss seems to be rather chuffed with some French pop music I posted to her, and she’s particularly enjoying a song by Jacques Brel.

She’s also hinting that any reader who buys her a £95 pair of Damaris knickers might get a photo of her wearing them. Sounds a bargain, but I’ll leave that to richer and less married folk than me.

Still, as the Brel song above will remind you - we rarely buy presents hastily, but there’s always a danger we’ll give them away far too quickly.