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In Australia, the outback is everywhere 

She's turning the other way down here   

I watched an interview with the singer years ago and he tried to present himself as an enigmatic poet but just came off as a wolly. It was so bad I haven't been able to listen to the band since, and they weren't that bad. Maybe I need to give them another chance because they seem to be doing well.

I just woke up from a dream in which I was playing my first gig with a new band. Cazz Grant was introducing us to the crowd of three or four people , saying, maybe don't bother watching the first bit, wait till they've warmed up a bit, but don't watch the end where everyone is a bit bored. Just watch the middle bit, because that bit will be good 

Then we start, and the stage is huge and I can't remember a single riff and I'm looking at the other guitarist, trying to figure out what's going on. I'm giving out saying we should have had a jam, and he replies that he was too busy with his job in the bank to jam, but he still knows the songs!

I'm just thinking, do I have to wing an entire fucking gig!   

I'm like a broken record, but it baffles me how many people think he is the right man for the job; people who are supposedly "conservative", who sit by and watch him tear everything apart and contaminate the world with his grotesque ego.

The new lad, buy comparison, sounds like his inspiration only extends to modern metalcore. Not much substance there, really.

The video is silly. The music is OK in a typically FF way- nothing surprising in it, but it's grand. The vocals suck. The chorus is way too poppy. On Demanufacture, which is the only album I ever got into by them, the choruses may have been clean sung, but they had a bit of darkness to them. A goth influence maybe? They at least didn't just sound like pop melodies.

Abigor- Verwüstung/ Invoke The Dark Age LP. Another stunning release from DSR, who are one of the most reliable sources of high quality reissues in recent times. I've ignored Abigor over the years for no real reason I can think of. Their later, modern sound isn't really for me, but their early 'true' BM sound is just the stuff.

Sold. I'll grab one or both of those. Thanks lad.

No stress. I can't get enough of his stuff so I'll be interested in seeing what you make of them.

He must be a right star!

No, nothing?

Fuck.

OK - give me an Ian McEwan recommendation, I've seen the name being bandied about for decades, I've never known where to start.

Two of his more recent masterpieces (in my opinion) are Nutshell and Machines Like Me. If either of those grab you, just dive right in. He had his own style and is pretty dam consistent in quality.

No, I don't think I've seen it. Must see if it's on Netflix over here. There's a mini series of The Slap knocking about and the sun of a friend of my in-laws is in it. I'm famous, is what I'm saying.

I've missed this drama but it could go either way. The lefties being offended that he's being transphobic, or whatever,  or the right because he's going after Trump Almighty. I'll google it.

Edit. He's a racist. There you go!

Finished 'Dead Europe' (Christos Tsiolkas) the other day about a Australian guy of Greek descent who comes back on a photography trip, a lot of nightlife and drugtaking ensues and no small amount of graphic sex. An interesting look at the seedy underbelly of a decaying continent . Must have a look around for the movie of it.

I read it years ago and enjoyed it at the time, but the details are hazy.
Weren't there ghosts hovering in the background? Tsiolkas is an incredible writer- his sex scenes are graphic indeed, and that's just a feature of his writing. They can be challenging  I think I own all of his books at this stage. You should try The Slap, which was the first of his I read, an amazing drama about the fallout among a group of friends after an adult slaps someone else's child who is being a brat. Incredibly told piece of fiction. I have to revisit it because, again, it's been a good decade since I read it. Barracuda is another beaut. I was only thinking the other day he must have a new one on the way as it's been a couple of years since his last one, but whenever I see something new by him in the book shop, I dont bother looking around at anything else, I just grab it. Same with Ian McEwan. Some writers you just don't fuck around with!

Who is seeking to ban Ali G?

Fair enough. Cunt of an ending all the same. Just terrible.

Look, he wrote the book in 2014 (if you're saying it was written ten years before the film came out), which you claim is prescient, but seems to me like he was just at the cutting edge of that ideological movement that bubbled up several years later. He didn't pluck the concept out of thin air. And maybe if it hadn't become such a hot topic for a few years the ending might have been more interesting and rare, if still a bit random. But there's no denying (but of course you will anyway, because you'll fight every lefty cause to the bitter death) that the film came along, promoting a particular message and ideological view point at a time when that ideological viewpoint had come to maturity (lol) within society. And that ideology poisoned the end of the film, much in the same way it poisoned political and cultural discourse for several years. Sucky.