… course Dizzee & all that lott I’m sure are totally unaware of all this feverish bloggoid discourse around them… and probably just as well…

… the most striking thing about the Mercury result, what with Ms Dynamite last year, is that it’s the second year running that someone who’s not only UK “urban” but who came up through the pirates has won it. Which suggests that it’s actually some kinda objective fact that pirate radio/h-core continuum is actually the UK’s leading edge, this nation’s saving grace…

… “objective”, maybe, but far from accepted. My God those comments from the public are kinda scary--fear, condescension, “it’s just not music”… it’s easy to forget that most bits of the UK don’t have any black people or Asians…

… feeling oddly vindicated in my grime-as-digital-folk theory by learning that the Mercury panel includes Colin Irwin, Melody Maker’s folk music expert in days of yore. He used to write about Martin Carthy and such, and now his own personal Mercury fave is… Dizzee Rascal! Blew his socks off apparently. (Fall fiends might want to search out a great piece by Colin on the band making Hex Enduction Hour in Iceland, it’s on the web somewhere… look for early cameo appearance of Einar from the Sugarcubes)

… Simon Frith, you my n***a 4 life…