Generally, there’s a rhythm to the week, and as the days get longer and the mornings lighter, that rhythm tends to stretch a bit. I’ve always been a ‘morning person’; I’ve spent most of my life living with people who haven’t been. So it’s been difficult explaining to them that sometimes, quite often to be fair, there is nothing better than getting up at stupid o’clock in the morning and just drinking in the world for a bit.
Every day, we’re assaulted with the latest atrocity or examples of mendacious, vicious greed. Our screens are rammed with hurt and hate, and it can feel like the world has turned to shit in front of our eyes, but… it hasn’t. At least not all of it. Without getting all evangelical about it, I’m here to say that when I sit in the shed with a cup of tea listening to a blackbird singing at 6 a.m. to no one in particular and the sun starts to crease the sky with splashes of red or purple, I am joyful and thankful. Merely a twist of fate means that I am sitting in a garden in Middle England sucking cold air into my lungs rather than cowering in a dust-filled cellar in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon or Ukraine. How lucky am I?
So what do you do with that luck? You pass it on. You do everything you can to make the life of someone not as lucky as you better, at least that seems the right thing to do. So here’s a couple of organisations you might want to support, just once or regularly. This isn’t a salve for conscience; it’s a positive action that has positive consequences. And in today’s world, that is a win in anybody’s language.
British Red Cross – Ukraine Appeal
This post was prompted not only by my morning ruminations, but also by the news that there is a new War Child album Help 2, some thirty years after the first one featuring an incredible line-up of contributors including Anna Calvi, Arctic Monkeys, Arlo Parks, Arooj Aftab, Bat For Lashes, Beabadoobee, Beck, Beth Gibbons, Big Thief, Black Country, New Road, Cameron Winter, Damon Albarn, Depeche Mode, Dove Ellis, Ellie Rowsell, English Teacher, Ezra Collective, Foals, Fontaines D.C., Graham Coxon, Greentea Peng, Grian Chatten, Kae Tempest, King Krule, Nilüfer Yanya, Oasis, Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp, Sampha, The Last Dinner Party, Wet Leg and Young Fathers. Not your average americana stuff, I grant you, but worth a listen nonetheless and then perhaps a purchase, as all proceeds go to Warchild
So the sounds this week are from the album, and the radio show features some spiffing stuff, particularly tracks from TV series I’m watching at the moment, such as Southland, Shrinking, Mr Inbetween and more. As ever…
