Honourable mentions:
+ The iconic performance of Rock’n'Roll Suicide at Hammersmith Apollo, 1973
+ Five Years performed on the Old Grey Whistle Test 1972
+ I adore Slow Burn, such an underrated song from Heathen. Live 2002.
+ And “Heroes” always did sound better in the German version.

My winter mitts? A fairly quick, uncomplicated knit. I used a pattern I found in The Knitting Book and yarn given to me by my mother. I have tiny hands, so went down a few needle sizes and I also added thumbs. The yarn matches a cowl and a hat I made earlier, so I’m all set for winter now. Bring it on.

I am spending today swatching for a future project/design. I played around with charts in Excel earlier and now I’m trying to figure out which texture I like best. It is always fun trying to strike a balance between my personal aesthetics, an imagined level of difficulty, and the actual purpose of the pattern.

I had a quick Twitter exchange with a few people after I came up with a true lace chart (i.e. lace knitted on both sides). I loved the idea of the pattern, but when I started to work it up in 4ply I knew it did not work in such a relatively heavy yarn. Twitterati consensus was that true lace is scary. I don’t think this is necessarily true, but I know that this is what many people feel. Honestly, this project is not one for ‘scary’ lace so that chart was shelved alongside many other charts. Hopefully I will find the right project for it at some point.

Meanwhile I have come up with another chart – or, rather, four different versions of the same chart. I am busy swatching trying to figure out which version works best. I’m using some leftover Old Maiden Aunt merino/silk for the swatches. I need more of this yarn, I really do. It’s beautiful to work with on my new Addi bamboo needles.

Finally, the soundtrack for work: I rediscovered this album this morning. The light is pale and thin. Like you. Has it really been 19 years?

And so for my own pleasure (and indulgence), I decided to make my own Desert Island Disc iPod playlist. I added far more than eight records to my playlist, of course, but for your listening pleasure I shall stick to eight records (one per entry) and even add a few words.

I grew up in a very large family filled with people obsessed with (mostly American) pop culture circa 1940-1965. This recent Guardian article on so-called superfans rattled me because I had no idea that this sort of behaviour was in any way unusual. I grew up surrounded by pop culture memorabilia: big murals of Sinatra et al on the walls, concert tickets carefully curated, mountains of carefully sourced vinyls, autographs, signed photos, VHS tapes of 1940s musicals, and handwritten databases detailing when this or that song was recorded. What do you mean your childhood wasn’t like that?

Over dinner my uncles would toss out the first names of stars, as though they knew them personally: Frank, Dean, Bing .. Occasionally they did know the people they gossiped about. My dotty aunt T. briefly dated Gustav. My other dotty aunt A. semi-stalked Otto for four decades. Looking back, I can see that this approved pop culture was predominantly white pop culture. It was also two or three decades out of sync with contemporary pop culture.

My gran has always loved Fats Domino. I remember her playing Blueberry Hill, Ain’t That A Shame and I Hear You Knocking whenever my uncles weren’t around (“Fats is okay, but he’s no Frank, if you know what I mean” – oh, I can hear them). And for me Fats Domino is about happiness, about feeling loved and about a tiny glimpse of freedom: there is a world beyond my large, chaotic family and so many things to discover.

I am the product of my family, of course. I had a phase of obsessively hoarding bootlegs, travelling to foreign countries for concerts, subscribing to mailing lists and knowing the name of certain musicians’ dogs – but unlike my uncles it did not turn into a lifestyle. To this day, I have a thing for 1940s MGM musicals and I’m still on a first-name basis with Frank – but it is Fats Domino that I keep coming back to.

Other lovely things right now:

• I find this picture of David Tennant in the Fright Night remake strangely compelling. I always did have a weakness for almost-Glaswegian men wearing eyeliner.
• “Not since Bowie before him had anyone been as responsible for raising awkward questions between parents and their sons as Brett Anderson.” Suede is back in fashion here in the UK – so the media say. Suede fell hard from grace when fey, lithe men wearing girls’ shirts were displaced by laddish beer lout music (i.e. Oasis). I particularly liked the quote: “Apparently it wasn’t just me who’d been sat at home in 1995 doused in glitter and eyeliner watching Performance on repeat” .. oh no, dear journalist, oh no.
• I should rewatch Velvet Goldmine soon too.
• Moving on from eyeliner and glitter, how about a Warhol Spock? Okay, so it’s Leonard Nimoy wearing makeup but it’s slightly different..
• My beloved kiwi band The Phoenix Foundation is being championed by the mighty hipster godfather himself, Jarvis Cocker. Going Fishing is always on my iPod. Kiwi music is the best, honestly.

And with that, I am off to back my bag. Not-so-sunny Aberdeenshire awaits and I have books and knitting to pack.

This song has been in my head all day. A short, simple song and all the better for it.

John Grant’s voice is stunning.

It has been a very long week. All my best intentions and all my best-laid plans flew out the window whilst I tried to hold on to my sanity and get through a mountain of work. I have been playing catch-up ever since returning from Denmark and I think I’m almost nearly there.

These things have helped me through the week:

• He Will Have His Way – the follow-up to She Will Have Her Way, funnily enough. Boy & Bear’s version of Fall At Your Feet is quite possibly my favourite Finn cover (fighting it out with Holly Throsby’s Not the Girl You Think You Are) and I also really like the surf rock take on Shark Attack.
• Humoncomics can be very hit-or-miss, but I liked their take on Scandinavian cuisines. I made Danish rice pudding this week – it’s a main course in Denmark and makes for wonderful comfort food. We did not have any leftovers, though, or I would have made some klatkager the next day.
• Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving. If you have a dog or ever known one, you should read this. I still remember how betrayed my dog looked when we moved across town (I was 18. He was deeply upset on a profound level).
• This youtube video made me smile one cloudy, grey November morning: Dannii & Kylie Minogue flash mob in Sydney.

My shawl beckons me (as does that cup of tea). Have a lovely weekend.

ETA: And here’s a very topical song too..

Occasionally a project flies under the radar and I only mention it when it becomes a Finished Object on Ravelry. This little project was in danger of becoming one of those stealthy projects, but I could not resist shooting a photo this morning.

David likes his crocheted hats and I’m making him his third. The first was a bit too small (and the peak of the cap very wonky) but he wears the second version quite frequently. The third incarnation is made from a woolblend yarn (machine-washable!) and I’m playing quite a bit with the structural elements. Using UK crochet terminology, I have turned the half-treble crochets at the edge of the hat into single crochets crocheting into the back loop only. The firm fabric is a very pleasing result, but I really, really like how the resulting horizontal lines break up the vertical lines of the half-treble rows making up the hat itself.  I won’t have a chance to crochet the peak this weekend, but I’m pondering how to make it as pleasing to the eye as the rest of the hat.

And now for yet another instalment in my songs-of-the-decade rundown. Madrugada and their haunting song, “Majesty” . The Kids Are On the High Street is equally good.

More songs: Kylie Minogue: Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. I suspect we’ll still be singing along to this one in 2030. Lady Gaga: Bad Romance. Yes, it has just been released, but I cannot stop listening to it. Brilliant pure pop. Les Fatals Picards: L’Amour a la Francaise. France’s 2007 Eurovision entry. Costumes by Jean-Paul Gautier. Song in the grand Plastic Bertrand tradition. It is a beautiful thing. And to round off this rather poppy segment, who better than Madonna and her fabulous Hung Up?