Getting it Taped

Not owning a CD player in the car I have to rely on the radio and tapes for in-car entertainment. This evening I have made a cassette for the journey to and fro work. The Futureheads’eponymous debut is the ‘A’ side, a jagged little pill and a buzzing collection of short, quirky songs. The same could be said of Pere Ubu’s The Modern Dance, the other side, a burst of punk/funk rhythms that sounds fantastic and contempory 26 years after its release. Both albums are less than 40 minutes long which is exactly as it should be.

Something is certainly, if not rotten, then slightly ‘on the turn’ in the state of Kingsholm. The inquest into last weekend’s defeat against Stade rumbles on and the negative postings on the message boards outnumber the more upbeat ones by roughly twenty to one. My mood remains reflective and I suppose my main sense of disquiet is that the club never seem to get it quite right and sustain a period of development and growth. I thought the world was our oyster two or three years ago but we appear to have gone backwards at an alarming rate with key players not replaced adequately and the quality of the football certainly lacking the verve and invention of our Powergen Cup winning year. I consider that the morning Tom Walkinshaw opened his bank statement and discovered he wasn’t as flush as he once was coincided with the start of the club’s decline. I note that the once very vocal and extrovert Scot seems much less keen to address the masses at Kingsholm. I wonder why.

I do adore BBC 6Music not just for the high quality of the music the digital station plays or for the intelligence of the presenters who all know their stuff and are genuine fans as opposed to being mere ‘celebrities’. I like the station for its competitions and the Cole family has this week clocked up its ninth - ninth! - prize, a rather wonderful Martin Scorcese box set.