Sweet Nothings

Bloody disappointing Giving up on a TV series, especially one which has been praised to the skies and you feel you ought to like, is a strange business. True Blood has pulled in HBO's highest viewing figures since The Sopranos in the States, and being an Alan Ball creation it has an impressive pedigree. True, I never thought Six Feet Under to be quite the masterpiece that some reckoned (the stunning final sequence aside), and although American Beauty is a tremendous film, there was a story in Word magazine a while back that director Sam Mendes actually rewrote the ending because Ball's original script climaxed far less satisfactorily. But still, a Ball-produced, postmodern, Southern Gothic vampire melodrama - how could I possibly not like it? Quite easily, as it turned out. Firstly, I don't find vampires inherently interesting. Although True Blood 's central conceit - vampires co-existing with humans in modern-day America and living on artificial blood - is a good o

So I was thinking about writing what looks like being an annual piece about the last 12 months in music - blah blah female electro LadyLaRouxMachine yadda yadda - when the thought struck me that we’re near the end of the decade and I’ve not seen any definitive musical recaps of the noughties yet (which will be the last time I use that word, you’ll be pleased to know). So, written mostly from hazy memories and with very little in the way of research (which let’s be honest is no different to what the majority of these pieces will be like when they hit the newsstands), here are my brief reflections on popular music over the last decade. The 2000s seem like a slippery bugger to pin down. Now we’re at a safe distance from the 90s, a convenient middle-class rock journo shorthand has been developed - they started with NIRVANA! (with SUEDE! holding the flag for Brit guitars) then came OASIS!/BLUR!/RADIOHEAD!, then the latter two went weird, Oasis went down the drug dealer’s, The Verve died, Pu

I was chatting with a fellow Wolves fan last night, my friend's housemate's boyfriend as it happens. (I know, look at me chatting with unfamiliar people!) He was utterly convinced that we would survive this season in the Premier League, and that we'll even end up pushing for European qualification within a few years. From our brief conversation he seemed like an incredibly charismatic and positive bloke. He was also quite scarily tall, so perhaps these attributes are connected. If there was ever a moment that summed up my life in a microcosm then this was it. This guy was clearly one of life's optimists and as a result he was charming and popular, chatting away to everyone as well as sharing some romantic moments with his attractive girlfriend. Meanwhile, I'm one of those types who's forever stuck in a corner at parties, too self-conscious to work the room and make small talk and yet perversely, being more of a realist than a full-blown pessimist, not cynical en

I saw The Cribs at the Forum in Kentish Town last night. The last gig I'd been to was Noah and The Whale a couple of weeks previously, where from our position at the back we actually couldn't hear some of the quieter moments because so many people were bloody well talking. Why pay to see a gig if you're going to natter with your mates the whole time? And even if it's on a freebie, don't bloody go if you're not that into the band. Anyway, as you might expect last night was the polar opposite. The Cribs are a band you really have to jump around to, and despite my advancing years I assumed a position near the front and braved the headbanging hordes. Is headbanging the right term? I was going to use the term "mosh pit", but it somehow sounds a bit old-fashioned. Surely da kidz must have invented a new phrase by now... Speaking of kids, and taking nothing away from the Jarmans/Marr performance, by far the best moment of the night was the sight of an achingl

This is a very self-indulgent post about stuff in today's Guardian . Best you don't read it, really. Marina Hyde is reassuringly sanctimonious as ever about the Anton Du Beke racism row (her final paragraph is very good, mind), but oh no, not Lucy Mangan too! I love Lucy, it's fair to say. She is very probably my ideal woman and future life partner, she just doesn't know it yet. Sadly, today has seen our first fight. I don't think Anton should have been sacked. Leaving aside the rabid attempts in some quarters (Charlie Brooker today calls them "repugnant vested-interest newspaper scumbags") to denigrate and slur the Beeb, this all boils down to whether you should condemn a person utterly, and thereby cost them their job, on the basis of one single mistake. Ok, two mistakes - he also mentioned something about Leila possibly being a "terrorist" at one point. But he did apologise. If you believe the scurrilous rumours then Marina Hyde once shagged

I've just made a terrible mistake. Tonight I bought the latest WWE wrestling pay-per-view event on Sky Box Office, entitled Hell in a Cell, which promised much steel cage-related action. (This wasn't the terrible mistake, although the PPV was rather disappointing.) I always have to watch these things live, or before I go to work on the Monday, due to not being able to resist the temptation to read the results online. Now, PPVs start at 1am and go on till 4. The last few times, I've stayed up all night to watch them and only got a few hours sleep before work. Therefore I'd got into the habit of buying cans of [popular goth-targeted energy drink] to keep me awake for the duration, supplemented by a cup of tea towards the end. This time, I'd woken up quite early on Sunday morning and decided to go to bed at 10pm, get three hours sleep beforehand, watch the PPV and then get the rest of my full night's sleep quota - simple huh? Unfortunately, I continued with my habi