...And this is what I really know...

Today is hot. Really hot. Hot enough for me to get out of the sun, and just look at the heat from a distance, as I cower indoors, away from pollen and sunburn.
The real advantage of staying indoors, is that the stereo is there. Which means I can play this whilst looking at the sun:
Colourbox "Baby I Love You So"

I'm a dried up seed........

Went jogging this morning, along the promenade in Brighton. One of the first tunes to pop up on the ipod shuffle was "Ambition" by The Subway Sect. I've loved "Ambition for years, probably ending up loving it even more after it was covered by The Jesus And Mary Chain (it was a staple of the early live gigs I saw, and ended up as the b-side to the 12" of "Never Understand"). I can remember Jim Reid being interviewed about the song, and asserting they had covered it because The Subway Sect "had made such a huge mess of the song in the first place". Nothing could be further from the truth. It's one of the only Punk songs I know which can transmit all of its anger and frustration in a truly effective way. It's fairly accurate to say it's not as stereotypically "punky" as their first single "Nobody's Scared", but that's missing the point.
It was the lyrics of "Ambition" that supplied with the material for my first real piece of graffiti - in large letters on a development of flats round the corner from my house in Hatch End:
"Am I guided, or is life free?
'Cos nothing ever seems to happen to me"
Here's footage of The Subway Sect, live in Glasgow last year, performing it: