So a weekend in Stirling then. Over Saint Patrick's, no less, with a big old rumble in the six nations for company. Never have I felt so heartbroken as when the French shunted their way over the tryline for the last time, and me halfway through eatin a lovely burger. Well, the remainder was bitter as all hell, let me tell you. No amounta cheese an bacon could cover the raw stench o undeserved defeat. That said, we've still a crackin team, an while I'm by no means expectin the Irish to go all the way, they could still give the best in the world a decent game of it.

Anyway. Stirling. My good pal Aaron, who recently turned 22 (see below), had largesse enough to provide a crackin weekend fulla drunken hilarity an pensive philosophising. That is, prank calls an talkin shite. It's always a revelation to take a look into the stage play o someone else's day to day life; to meet the characters, to warm to the drama and tensions between the players, and, for a while, to be a novelty in a few people's lives. They're crackin folks up there, I miss em already. Wee things like that make life worth gettin up for.

So Modest Mouse have released another belter. "They've got someone ridiculously famous now, haven't they?" says someone, possibly Amy. And yes, yes they have, the one and only Johnny Marr, once the guitarist of The Smiths. And their new single (above), is a sweepin symphony of a track, rockin and rollin with the best of them, with a nifty video and Isaac Brock's usual vocal spasmodia addin to the fun. Nice to see a band achieving popularity of a degree, but keepin their standards, even if they're much better produced these days than back in what some fans would call the band's heyday of Moon and Antarctica. They've certainly changed their style somewhat, but to me it seems more like a maturing process than selling out.

Even wholesale change is possible without compromising one's principles, or even without changing one's major motivations in life. Sometimes the goalposts move, and the choice is to change or atrophy. I like to think that that's never going to be much of a choice.

Thanks,
Dave.