We all get lost in a tangle from time to time, or so it seems to me.  Somewhere or other I got caught, addicted to following the ‘new’ in all the stuff that I consume. Which movie or book or song was the next best thing.  There’s nothing wrong with this, except you end up with a house full of review copies of books that you can’t quite persuade yourself to get rid of, a shelf full of cds that got 5 stars in some magazine that you never listen to, and can’t really remember the last movie you really loved.  You can end up feeling, as I do sometimes, quite lost in amongst the clustering, cluttering piles of stuff.

And yet…some of the old stuff still resonates, and some of the new has promise.  I listened to Madman Across the Water this morning and it doesn’t age, and I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark a few weeks ago, and it still delights.  And there is new stuff, too. Last year I found The Weepies, whose album say i am you, was my favourite new recording of 2007 and am waiting for the next eagerly. And though I almost never get to the movies these days, Hairspray was a surprising lot of fun. And books? Well, I have favourites from last year, and am part way through Iain Banks’ Matter.  It might stack up.