The City, The City, The High Castle and Rufus T Firefly

As threatened following R-Man's extensive coverage of How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen last week, here are the last 3 books I've read, all of which I'd recommend to you:

The City & The City by China Mieville

I read a brief synopsis of this at the British Library's Science Fiction exhibit this summer, and having also heard rave reviews of Mieville's Kraken (now sitting on my "to read" pile). This is a essentially a great slice of noir with a novel (pun intended) spin: it's set in two cities which occupy the same geographical space, but whose citizens must ignore (or "unsee") their topographic neighbours. The punishment for acknowledging, let alone breaching the border between the cities is to be at the mercy of an unseen force that strikes terror into the populace. If that's not enough of an intriguing concept to draw you in I don't know what is. I loved it and can't wait to see what ideas Mieville has come up with in his other work.

Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends by Charlotte Chandler

Long time followers of the blog will know I'm a big Marx Brothers fan. Since my Dad sat us down in front of a video of Duck Soup as a child I've been sold. Over the years I've read various books about the brothers, including both Groucho and Harpo's autobiographies. Whereas they tend to focus on the early years (well, the first 50 or so years of their lives, through vaudeville and the classic movies), this book finds the author living with Groucho during the 1970s, in his 80's. It's a fascinating view of a super-celebrity coming to terms with old age whilst still entertaining, and often outwitting, an eclectic circle of celebrities, artists and performers including then-young bucks Bill Cosby and Jack Nicholson. As well as a fascinating biography, this book, by the very nature of its subject, reduced me to mirth constantly. It also taught me a thing or two about how to live and age, and saddened me that some great stories are now lost forever; on several occasions it's mentioned how Chico lived the most interesting and unbelievable life, but never committed it to paper. Interestingly it's also noted by several that the funniest brother in real life was Zeppo. All these moments lost in time like tears in rain...

The Man In The High Castle by Philip K Dick

A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report. Philip K Dick has made an indelible impression on science fiction both written on screen. Amongst the many of his works which haven't [yet] been put on film, possibly the most lauded is this one. I read a great piece by Dick once in which he defined science fiction, as opposed to fantasy, as being set in a world like our own but with one significant difference, and exploring the consequences of that difference. The premise of The Man In The High Castle is a simple one: the Nazis won World War 2. Dick explores the social and political ramifications of such a world, whilst also finding time to pit western and eastern philosophy against each other and trick you into thinking you're not reading science fiction at all...

If anyone wants to swap me for a recommendation of your own, drop us a line!

The Lords of Rocktober: Return of the Rock

Another early morning back at The Swamp for me, programming the drum machine in my pyjamas. How it got in my pyjamas I'll never know. An hour and a half and a glass of OJ later, our complete repertoire was in there and chromed to the hilt.

I think it's fair to say that Another Evening With Great Men was a success. The venue was once again full to capacity, and we enjoyed a documentary / night-vision chav horror mash-up from the Turrells, and a smoke-vision leather chrome-up from Ulterior.

I enjoyed our set a lot. I bled all over my Telecaster and sweated all over everything else. My beer poured itself all over the new drum machine and a monitor (fortunately nowhere near any of my wayward fluids) set on fire.

Thanks in no particular order to: Ulterior; Nick 'the long-suffering tour manager' Gough; John and Tom Turrell; H-Town and T-Fran for collecting money, selling t-shirts, and keeping the peace with wayward Portugese visitors; Nick and Simon at the Chameleon; DJ Howie Mac for rescuing the spillage; and Shawshank Poxon, future documentarian extraodinaire!

My apologies to the surprised attendees who had been told that Great Men were a folk duo...

Heifer cow is better than none

Business first: this Thursday, May 20th, Great Men are making our second appearance in Nottingham this year, headlining at the Golden Fleece with another duo called The Cupid Stunt, organised by the wonderful Will of I'm Not From London. You should totally come down for the following 3 reasons:

1) Music
2) Beer
3) It's free, and that includes as many high fives as you can eat

GUITAR GIMP PARAGRAPH 1: Although having previously suggested I might play my Black Lodge Telecaster on Thursday, I busted out my red Les Paul at practice and enjoyed it a lot, so who knows what could happen? And who cares? If you care, please write me a letter, or "electronic-mail" as the kidz say these days.

Yesterday I watched football on the television. Mr Kim made me do it, he promised beer and a dog. He wasn't lying. I'd still rather watch the Marx brothers, which I duly did. I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

GUITAR GIMP PARAGRAPH 2: I took receipt of 2 guitars from eBay this week. One is shrouded in security as R-Man and I turn it into the "Great Men Bennecaster" for Mental Benn. The other is a white Les Paul with black binding and I'll share it with y'all as soon as I've cleaned it up and put in some new chrome pickups.

R-Man is in Paris at the moment so in lieu of rock and roll I occupied myself in the only way I know how: driving to Manchester and back. I was kept company by the following albums all of which I recommend:

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
Slint - Spiderland
XTC - Drums and Wires
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

Oh by the way if you like films and/or Brian Blessed (you've got 2 eyes and a soul haven't you?) then you should have a look at the award winning short Mr Bojagi, written by an old friend of mine. Here it is!

Afternoon drinking, Duck Soup and Soviets in space

Things we've learned this week:

• Beeston has many tolerable pubs, but our recent favourite the Hop Pole does offer cracking beer in a good atmosphere. Particularly when you head out to Sainsbury's to buy lunch on a sunny afternoon, stop off for "one", and end up ordering Chinese takeaway at dinner time about 5 Harvest Pales later.

• The [relatively] new Nottingham Contemporary art gallery is pretty cool, and we enjoyed the Star City exhibition. I also liked the use of space and atmosphere within the exhibit, prompting thoughts of how this could translate to a future Evening With Great Men.

• Marx Brothers films are still as brilliant now as they were 80 years ago. In fact is it wrong that I found Duck Soup slightly topical what with the general election looming? To be honest I think Groucho would clean up on these televised debates.

Speaking of the election, make sure you go and vote! One of the candidates is going to become your MP whether you like it or not, so exercise the right to democracy that our grandfathers fought to protect for us. If you really don't want to vote for any of the candidates, turn up and write my name on the bottom of the slip: attendance without a vote is still better than staying home, as you're standing up and being counted (yes I am a mathematician as well as a rock star...).

And if you won't take my word for it, take Frank's!