Happy New Year readers!
This is the first time in as long as I can remember that I haven't spent the New Year at a bash with lots of people crossing arms and singing Auld Lang Syne. But from what I've heard, I'm not alone. Gale force winds have cancelled celbrations across the country. My friends in Edinburgh have discovered Hogmany cancelled, the same goes for parties in Belfast, Liverpool, Newcastle etc. I'm not going to a party as I've just taken Heather back to the airport and I don't really feel like it. I think a book and a hot bath will be a fitting way to usher in 2007. I'm reading JPod at the moment, very like Microserfs, or any Douglas Coupland novel for that matter but if you like him, then there's little in this book to take issue with.
Anyway, goodbye 2006, hello 2007. Let's hope it's a good one.
The wine we opened was a 2001 Château Camail. It was great. From a tiny property owned by Francois Masson-Regnault perched on a hilltop overlooking the region of Sauternes, it was once the site of 'La Tour Camail' a beacon signalling to ships on their way up the might Garonne river.
The Guardian blog has a wonderful piece on Tintin, and the role of comics in growing up. I remember devouring all the Asterix and Tintin comics that I could get my hands on. David, my brother decided that I was going through them at too fast a pace and that I should learn to ration myself. He allowed me to read one a month. He then kept several back that I could only read on special occasions. I still haven't read 
Here, Gene Clark of The Byrds joined banjo virtuoso Doug Dillard to give a bluegrass edge to some of the finest songs Clark would ever conjure.
In protest at the ubiquity of psychedelia, The Byrds went country. Sweetheart of the Rodeo combined counter-culture with cowboys and wrote the book on country-rock.
Harris's major-label debut still stands as the pinnacle of an illustrious career. Although she borrowed her mentor Gram Parson's band, this shows that she could stand on her own two feet. 
Via this soundtrack to the Coen brothers' film, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch et al introduced bluegrass music to casual record-buyers who thought they knew better.
This, the major-label debut of Minnesota's Jayhawks, was produced by Rick Rubin. It's anyone's guess as to why they haven't become this century's answer to The Eagles. 
The post-punk Parsons' first solo album proved that he could create country classics for fun. Good enough to buy Adams credit for an entire future of erratic albums. 
Welch gives a modern-day edge to songs that could be Depression-era originals. The success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack owes much to her anachronistic approach. 
Born into poverty and a mother of four by 18, Lynn brought her fair share of country credentials to this collaboration with Jack White of The White Stripes. Respectful, but raw and soulful. 
