I’m sitting here working on some music reviews before going away to India.The best is a band called the Ear- lies, who I think will very popular. In fiction, I’m working on something to do with political radicals in the early seventies, but it’s not clear to me yet quite what story will come out.

My desk is a mess. I can see the keyboard, but there’s stuff piled up all over the rest of the (quite large) surface. I can see perhaps thirty CDs, about half out of their sleeves, some loose change, a badge saying “I ♥ 104.4 FM” which is the frequency for Resonance FM, a London-based art and sound station. There’s an iPod voice recorder attachment thingy still in its shrinkwrap, a phone, some postage stamps, a postcard from Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was put through my letterbox by mistake, a set of electrical screwdrivers, two different sets of speakers, one attached to the computer, the other to a mini hifi (also on desk), two pots of assorted pens, a tube ticket, a tray with unpaid bills and flyers and other things I ought to look at but am not, a frequent flyer card, the latest letter from an irate lady who thinks I have traduced the memory of her dead relative (a long story), another letter from a school wanting me to give prizes at their speech day, a couple of checkbooks, a copy of Daniel C. Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, and a copy of “Prairie Fire,” the Weather Underground manifesto. Under that there’s a bunch of other stuff…