New Year – same old post Christmas torpor.
Welcome back readers and listeners and it’s a vaguely new format for a vaguely new year. Gone is the headline week of news and in comes the splash headline designed to lure unsuspecting readers to scroll down and discover the delights of the column, perhaps for the first time. However in other respects this New Year brings the usual first-world problem to the Hargreaves household. The relentless pursuit of a dairy-based high over the Christmas period has again led to a state of mind and body akin to most of the minor characters from The Walking Dead or, for the purists, Dawn of the Dead. Thank God the board did not include any of Mrs Kirkham’s particular delights as it’s difficult enough moving around and any… ahem… rush to the facilities would have been a difficult and, ultimately I suspect, unsuccessful endeavour.
So yet again I find myself trying not to be a cliche but considering visits to the swimming pool and gym as necessities if I’m going to get myself beach-ready for the AUK annual writer’s weekend that takes place in three weeks time, in Buxton.
A couple of things have come on my radar this week. Firstly, Sunny War from their 2023 album Anarchist Gospel very interesting and then some Dylan LeBlanc from his most recent. The radio show is a New Year comedown special. Mellow songs to mellow the mind and body featuring The Delines, Neil Young, Gil Scott Heron, Patterson Hood, Lambchop and many more. Turn on, tune in and flake out. As ever take what you want or need. See you next week, God willing, if the liposuction works….
