venta

It's Friday! But it's not three o'clock, and it's not time to boogie at your desk.

However, by the time 3pm hoves into view, I confidently expect to be involved in a highly complex Pintwatch mission involving trains. You seem like a trustworthy bunch of people, so I'm sure that if I post this now you'll all be good and won't read it til the correct time. You know I'll be very disappointed in you if I hear any reports of premature boogying.

So off you go. Come back later.

Right. Is it 3pm ? Are you sure ? Ok, off we go:

It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

Friday afternoons need a little something. I think they need a Top Tune. Something to make you shuffle in your seat and, if possible, Boogie At Your Desk. I'll be endeavouring to fill this gap some Fridays this year.

I'm not claiming that any track provided to enable At-Desk Boogying is one of the world's best or most profound pieces of music. It will, however, be one of the tunes which make me smile, and which have at some stage made me surreptitiously Boogie At My Desk.

Desks are not compulsory, of course. Feel free to boogie through your office, in your bedroom, round your lab, across your classroom, on the train - wherever you find yourself on a Friday afternoon.

If you like the track, go out and buy the album it belongs to - I'll try and recommend a suitable CD to purchase for any BAYD track.

This link will expire at some point in the future.

Today you were invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

The Housemartins - We're Not Deep

Yes, yes, I know there's absolutely nothing cool about liking The Housemartins. There's a bit of kitsch value in Happy Hour[*], but beyond that they're just a faint marker point in the howling credibility gap between The Beautiful South and Fatboy Slim.

I bought a tape copy of London Nil Hull 4 , second hand, for coppers last year. I was after cheap car-stereo fodder, and figured it was worth a try. It's gentle-sounding, very deceptive and terribly, terribly English, like an older, poppier forerunner of Belle & Sebastian[**]. You get the feeling that they could write a song about the biggest heartbreak in the world, hide it behind a pretty melody and a glossy guitar riff and all the people who sang along would never notice.

Besides, the album has silly comments in the sleevenotes, which is always a winner with me.

[*] Footnote for

onebyone,

wimble, ChrisC, and anyone else involved in that conversation so far: The Housemartins, Happy Hour ?

[**] Yes, yes, I know what the smartarses are going to say. Shh. Last year I was developing a wonderful theory of English suburban pop until I realised that Belle & Sebastian are bloody Scottish.