Rockets

Eg White’s Adventure Man is a charming long playing record. The Coles are spinning it relentlessly in these balmy early summer days. I am a huge fan of the underrated and undervalued 24 Years of Hunger that White made with model Alice Temple back in 1991; Adventure Man is reminiscent of this recording. It’s a soulful blighter and teeming with numbers so melodic that one wakes up singing them in your head each morning. The White fellow has spent the last few years making his name as a songwriter, creating tuneful tracks for the likes of Will Young, Adele and Duffy (whoever they are) but this should not be held against him. Adventure Man is an appealing set of delights, packed with wit and quirkiness and a tuneful bliss. It remains warmly recommended and, if this site had an album of the month would, verily, deserve this honour.

Yesterday’s rugby really got me down. The Lions were defeated by a canny South African side in the last seconds of the second test and, sadly, the series has now been lost. The match was certainly there for the taking with the red shirts dominating possession and showing laudable verve and alacrity in attack. Losing a brace of props and a similar number of centres disturbed the away side’s rhythm but, it could be argued, the referee’s disappointing – and very early - decision to display only a yellow card at the rugged loosie, Schalk Burger, after a nasty gouging incident proved equally pivotal. These defeats, when gleeful victory seems there for the taking, really hit hard. I’ve felt this way after losses for my favoured local team, Gloucester, but can’t recall feeling as miserable as I did at no-side yesterday afternoon for many a month.