Daily Archive

I don’t get angry very often.  Everyone knows that.  I did once kick a hole in a wall, but no-one was there to see it, then I covered the hole with a Robbie Williams calendar, and was gone before the end of December, so somehow that doesn’t count.  But I read a really frustrating review of Volta in The Observer Music Monthly (yep, that’s about often enough) a week or two ago.  My hair was ruffled all the wrong way by the reviewer’s apparent ignorance of Kinshasa’s finest, Konono No.1 (unexcusable, surely they have been the name to drop over the last couple of years; I would have imagined that was particularly true in broadsheet - or Berliner - music critic circles), and by his gloriously point-missing request for a few more things he could hum along to, probably on the walk from his office to the nearest wine bar.  OK, I may not be am not the greatest writer on the planet, or even in this postcode, or - I suspect - even in this house, but I guarantee you that if I have nothing useful to say, I either won’t say it (see, mum, I remembered), or will at least try to disguise my ignorance with some stupid humour, misguided and overelaborate sea metaphors, misdirection, or perhaps some choice insults.   That, dear reader, is my customer charter, and if I fail to deliver I will refund your entrance fee (minus a deduction to cover administration costs).  Starting from the next review, obviously. 

Here’s hope.  Good buy.