Recommendations

Watching: The Other Final, which was a fascinating documentary about a football match between Montserrat and Bhutan in 2002. Doesn't sound like much, I admit, but it took place on the same day as the World Cup Final between Brazil and Germany at a time when Bhutan and Montserrat were the two lowest ranked teams in the FIFA international rankings.

Reading: Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold. This has been the book I've been reading on those spare moments of the trip to or from work recently and p[art of me feels guilty about having finished it off the train, but I'm also slightly bereft as it's been doing a fantastic job of cutting down my journey to something that seems to take almost no time at all. It's a book that draws you into its setting (San Francisco around the start of the twentieth century) and brings it all alive, not in nostalgia but as the living, breathing society it was, mixing history together with fiction in a quite charming way. Definitely worth reading, and I'll be looking out for Gold's next book.

Listening: The Thorns by The Thorns. I've been a big fan of Matthew Sweet since I first heard Girlfriend back in 1992, but I'd missed hearing about The Thorns when the album first came out in June. It was only when I read a review of a Dixie Chicks concert that I discovered he'd got together with Shawn Mullins and Peter Droge to form a group. So, it was straight to Amazon to order it, and I think I've already listened to it about six times since I got it this afternoon. It's an excellent album of bittersweet country-rock-alternative-folk-pop (what do you want? a full review?) and you should all go and buy it or I just won't respect you as an audience. Or something.