Now that the India vs Pakistan cricket has finished, I can turn my attention to a blog. We've also just spent an hour dipping into the Radio 1 birthday album, which features 40 of today's Top 20 habitues covering 40 years of hits. Some grim moments here, as you might imagine: Robbie Williams does "Lola"; our era's pre-eminent power trio The Fratellis having a crack at "All Along The Watchtower"; Razorlight's particularly masochistic "Englishman In New York".
Just back from the Mercury Music Prize scrum down in Covent Garden. I realise that making a fuss about this sort of thing is playing into the hands of the organisers, on the grounds that any publicity is good publicity and all. And, yes, there are a bunch of records here that I like: the Arctic Monkeys (a deserving winner, I'd say), Amy Winehouse and the Klaxons, for a start. I guess as a measure of how healthy new British music is right now, it's OK. And the absence of Editors, The Fratellis, The Twang and so on is mildly satisfying.
