Music, writing, reading, football, photography, radio, films, art, mountain biking, hillwalking, travelling, socialising, forgetting things.
Some things I like...
Enlightened thinkers, spectacular eccentrics, maniacs and mooks.
3 Times Round, 10 Balls, 15 Minutes, 24 Hour Taco Shop, 808 State, Aberfeldy, Against Me!, The Aggrolites, Air, Alkaline Trio, Allister, Amphetameanies, An Ocean Between Us, Anti-Flag, The Aquabats, Arctic Monkeys, Asian Dub Foundation, Audioweb, Bad Manners, Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, Devendra Banhart, The Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, The Beautiful South, Bedlam Ago Go, Bedouin Soundclash, Belle and Sebastian, Bentley Rhythm Ace, The Beta Band, Big D and the Kids Table, Big Hand, Bis, Black Affair, Black Grape, Black Kids, Boards of Canada, Bombskare, Bouncing Souls, The Boy Lacks Patience, Ian Brown, The Buzzcocks, Isobel Campbell, Capdown, Captain Everything!, Catch 22, The Chinkees, The Clash, Jimmy Cliff, Cole Appleyard, Blake Collins, Sam Cooke, The Coral, De La Soul, The Dead 60s, Dead Kennedys, The Delgados, Dick Dangerous and the Love Bastards, Dr John, Dresden Dolls, Ian Dury, Even in Blackouts, The Fall, Found, Fourgoodmen, Franz Ferdinand, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Gogol Bordello, Goodbye:Suspect, Gorillaz, Gym Class Heroes, Hadouken!, Half Man Half Biscuit, Happy Mondays, Heavens, Jimi Hendrix, The Hijacks, Hit The Lights, David Holmes, House of Pain, The Housemartins, Idlewild, Inspiral Carpets, Sam Isaac, The Jam, The JB Conspiracy, Joe Viterbo, Jurassic 5, The King Blues, The La's, The LaFontaines, The Lawrence Arms, Luke Leighfield, Lemon Jelly, Less Than Jake, The Libertines, Lo Fidelity Allstars, Looper, Los Campesinos, Lost on Campus, Mick MacNeil, Mad Caddies, Madness, Make Model, Bob Marley, Damian Marley, Maroon Town, Martha and the Vandellas, Curtis Mayfield, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, Missin' a Bit, Mother and the Addicts, Motion City Soundtrack, Mull Historical Society, MxPx, New Found Glory, New Order, The Newtown Grunts, NOFX, Nomeansno, Not Your Saviour, One Man Race, Operation Ivy, OPM, Outl4w, Mike Park, Pink Kross, The Planet Smashers, Pop Will Eat Itself, Primal Scream, Prolapse, Propagandhi, Public Enemy, Punchline, Rage Against The Machine, The Ramones, Rancid, Random Hand, Otis Redding, Reel Big Fish, The Replicas, The Rezillos, Ride, Root System, Royksopp, RX Bandits, S-Type, Salako, Say Anything, Screeching Weasel, The Secret Goldfish, The Selecter, Marlena Shaw, Simple Minds, Simply Ronnie, The Skarsoles, The Skatalites, Sly and the Family Stone, Small Faces, The South Sea Company, Spaceman Lance, The Specials, Spiritualized, State of Affairs, The Stitch Up, The Stone Roses, Streetlight Manifesto, Strike Anywhere, Strung Out, Sublime, Suburban Legends, Sundowner, Supergrass, Sweaterlife, Jamie T, Taking Back Sunday, Taking Chase, Tauntra, Teenage Fanclub, The Teenagers, They Might Be Giants, Yann Tiersen, The Ting Tings, To My Boy, Toots and the Maytals, Tragical History Tour, Transplants, A Tribe Called Quest, The Try Hards, The Undertones, UNKLE, The Upstarts, The Uptown Shufflers, The Velvet Underground, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Weakerthans, The Wedding Present, The Wonder Stuff, You Suspect, Frank Zappa, The Zutons.
12 Angry Men, 24 Hour Party People, Ae Fond Kiss, American Beauty, Anchorman, BASEketball, Brassed Off, Brick, Central Station, Cinema Paradiso, Citizen Kane, City of God, The Commitments, Dazed And Confused, The Debt Collector, The Edukators, Elephant, Glengarry Glen Ross, Goodbye Lenin!, Goodfellas, Hot Fuzz, Kes, LA Confidential, Late Night Shopping, The Magdalene Sisters, Morvern Callar, My Name is Joe, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ordinary People, Orphans, Paranoid Park, The Pianist, Ratcatcher, Riff Raff, Run Lola Run, Shallow Grave, Sideways, Super Size Me, Sweet Sixteen, Team America, Trainspotting, The Usual Suspects, Who I Am And What I Want, Withnail And I, Das Wunder von Bern.
Absolutely, The Armando Iannucci Shows, Big Train, Boys From The Black Stuff, Brass Eye, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Day Today, Early Doors, Extras, Have I Got News For You, High Times, The IT Crowd, I'm Alan Partridge, Mock The Week, Monkey Dust, Nathan Barley, The Office, Peep Show, QI, Saxondale, Shameless, The Simpsons, The Smoking Room, Spaced.
Fiction
Alan Bissett - Boyracers
Roddy Doyle - The Van
Laura Hird - Born Free
Alasdair Gray - Lanark
James Kelman - You Have to be Careful in the Land of the Free
Mark McNay - Fresh
Mikael Niemi - Popular Music
George Orwell - 1984
Bruce Robinson - The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman
Jose Saramago - Blindness
Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting
John Williams - Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub.
Non-Fiction
Kevin Booth - Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution
Nick Davies - Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
David Downing - Passovotchka: Moscow Dynamo in Britain 1945
Sam Harris - The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason
Thomas Hauser - Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
Arthur Herman - The Scottish Enlightenment
Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger - Tor! The Story of German Football
Christopher Hitchens - The Trial of Henry Kissinger
James Kelman - Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural and Political
Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner - Freakonomics
Charles Mackay - Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Stuart Maconie - Cider With Roadies
Sherwin B Nuland - Leonardo da Vinci
Paul Outhwaite - One Conciousness: An Analysis of Bill Hicks' Comedy
Alistair Owen - Smoking in Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson
John Peel - Margrave of the Marshes
Jim Riordan - Comrade Jim: The Spy Who Played For Spartak
Bertrand Russell - History of Western Philosophy
Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Mark Steel - Reasons to be Cheerful
Sudhir Venkatesh - Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Crosses the Line
Francis Wheen - How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World
Kevin Williamson - Drugs and the Party Line
...and any of Gary Larson's 'Far Side' books.
Muhammad Ali, Dougie Arnott, Nigel Blackwell, Robert Burns, Richard Dawkins, Roddy Doyle, Joseph Heller, Bill Hicks, Laura Hird, James Kelman, John MacLean, Diego Maradona, Paul Merton, Phil O'Donnell, Thomas Paine, Rosa Parks, Andy Paton, John Peel, Paul Robeson, Bruce Robinson, Bertrand Russell, Linda Smith, Mark E Smith, Mark Twain, Sudhir Venkatesh, Leonardo da Vinci, Fritz Walter, Francis Wheen.