Emperor Fuckshit

The return is a little disappointing to me. Coco has not lived up to expectations since acquired, but I still think he would've been valuable to have around in 2009: Ellsbury had a streaky rookie campaign; we have to contend with Drew's likely off-days in the outfield; we now have no source of speed on the bench (particularly if Lugo is dealt or starts). Nevertheless, I'm going to hold off evaluating this trade for a little bit. Ramirez looks like he could be an excellent late-innings option, and the bull-pen was a major weakness last year. What's more, I think this is the sort of move that facilitates another. Is Masterson flipped? Does Buchholz go, and Masterson return to the rotation? Does Delcarmen get packaged to bring something back? Could Ramirez himself be turned right back around? The sine qua non of this Sox offseason is finding the catcher of the future. I think that all other moves can be linked to that end in one way or another. (Well, except maybe signing Paul McAnulty to a minor-league deal...)

There is a baseball team in Minnesota. Joe Mauer is their Catcher. He is good. #5 on the OPS+ leaderboard behind a balky DH, a first baseman, a left fielder and Alex Rod (we'll get to him). #2 on the OBP leaderboard behind Bradley, who played in 5 games this season and WAS A FUCKING DH. (Remember: Not making outs is absolutely the most important thing a hitter can do.) #4 on the VORP list behind Rodriguez, Sizemore and Pedroia, all of whom provided average defense (going by PMR) at positions easier than catcher, to a lesser or greater degree. #5 defensive catcher in the AL by PMR. The only other candidate who was in the top 5 at his position by PMR was Kevin Youkilis, who plays first base. Catcher is the hardest position to play. First is the easiest (other than DH, obviously). #1 by WPA. #1 easy. Context-specific king. If you believe in 'clutch', he's your guy. For the record, Rodriguez was #7 in WPA... on the Yankees. Mauer also had more PA than Rodriguez, despite being a catcher. In short, Mauer put together one of the top-five offensive performances in the AL whilst providing above-average defense at the game's toughest position. I don't know how to put it any simpler than that. (I'm kind of loathe to overstate the WPA argument, even though it helps my case a lot. I don't really believe in 'clutch' as a real phenomenon. But, nevertheless, I think that something like WPA can be useful in making reactive decisions about performance. It's useful for awards voting; less so or not at all for deciding where to spend free agent money, for example. Little to no predictive value, sure. But, like it or not, getting hits in big spots is valuable, and we are measuring value. I would never argue that a context-affected stat like WPA should be the be-all and end-all in such a debate. But we can never take performances out of context entirely, so we may as well use something like WPA as *part* of the equation -- it's at least far more sophisticated than something gauche and useless like RBI or even RISP or Close and Late or something.) Joe Mauer, guys. Joe Mauer.

There's this guy named Joe Mauer... EDIT: Probably should be a bit more substantive... Josh Hamilton is great. 6th in VORP; great offense for a CF. His SLG is only good for 9th in the league, though, and his on-base skills leave a lot to be desired (.371; barely above Chone Figgins and David DeJesus). What's more, he's not a very good defensive CF. PMR has him in the bottom 10 for the MLB as a whole, which isn't definitive, but isn't a good start. I think you're right about Quentin and Kinsler -- it's basically a PT issue for those guys. The only guys ahead of Kinsler in VORPr (VORP figured as a rate stat) are Milton Bradley and A-Rod. He played a mean 2B in 2007, but his PMR is down a little this year. Might be noise, or just year-to-year differential. A-Rod himself is interesting. It almost seems like he has to have a superhuman year to be in contention; it's not enough for him to just hit rockets. He missed some time this year, but still leads the AL in VORP. I think the defense argument (EDIT: and WPA, if you're into that) is the only reason I can deny him the hardware; it's so hard to look past Mauer on that score. Grady Sizemore hasn't gotten much play; probably because he was on a bad Cleveland team. Great offense from CF, but his defense looks to be only mediocre.

Just as a little addendum to my previous post, I'd like to invite you all to play a little game. It's called the 'Name Baseball Playing Men Who Were More Betterer at Playing the Baseball Game in the 2008 National League of National Baseball Playing Competition than Mr. Ryan James Howard Was' game. Anyone can join in the fun! (I've bolded first basemen and italicised Phillies. I have also included players who were traded into / out of the league in midseason -- just because they split time between two teams, it doesn't make Howard any better than them). Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, Chipper Jones, Lance Berkman, David Wright, Chase Utley, Jose Reyes, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Ludwick, Brian McCann, Nate McLouth, Manny Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Aramis Ramirez, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Lee, Andre Ethier, Stephen Drew, Prince Fielder, Dan Uggla, J.J. Hardy, Ryan Doumit, Carlos Delgado, Russell Martin, Troy Glaus, Matt Kemp, Joey Votto, Shane Victorino, Derrek Lee, Chris Iannetta, Mark Teixeira, Randy Winn. More debatable inclusions: Cristian Guzman: Depends how much you think mediocre defense at a premium position is worth over bad defense at a low-end position. Ryan Braun: How bad does a slugger's defense have to be before he's not really that valuable? Geovany Soto: Does horrible defense mitigate itself somewhat if you get it from a good-hitting catcher? Can a catcher redeem himself through vital, yet intangible, contributions to a team? Alfonso Soriano: Defense?! Conor Jackson: Is the gap between a mediocre defensive 1B and a bad one enough to bridge the gap in their relative offensive production? A lot of 'flattening' must occur at first: not many guys are really that great; not many will really kill you. Jasyon Werth: I'm actually almost sure he's better. So, there you go: Ryan Howard -- one of the most valuable 40 players in the NL this year! Probably! Excluding pitchers! I don't think there's anything wrong with striking out in and of itself. It's just another way to make an out, largely. If you look at the top 20 seasons for strikeouts in ML history, the names on that list are pretty mercurial: Jack Cust, Adam Dunn, Bobby Bonds, Mike Schmidt, Jim Thome, Cecil Fielder and Mo Vaughan can play for me any day. Jose Hernandez, Preston Wilson and Mark Reynolds a little less so. The problem with him is plate discipline. A .339 OBP is unlikely to make you an above-average Major League 1B, no matter how hard you slug (within reason, obviously). Burrell and Howard had similar offensive seasons in the last analysis. Unfortunately, Burrell put up those numbers whilst playing the worst LF in the National League. Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth were both better than Howard, though.

I'm a Sox fan, and I love Pedroia, but I don't think he deserves the award this year. It's close; but I would've gone with Joe Mauer. Mauer's OPS+ was 137, compared to Pedroia's 122, and Mauer did that whilst a catcher. Also, Mauer was 2nd in the league in OBP; which a lot of people have argued is slightly under-weighted by OPS. VORP actually gives the edge to Pedroia, narrowly: 60 to 57. But, looking at PMR (the only advanced defensive metric I have to hand), Pedroia places 19th out of all Major League 2B; Mauer is 13th out of the league's catchers. FRAA also likes Mauer a lot for what that's worth (not a lot). I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Mauer's slightly superior defense at a slightly harder position bridges the gap. And, having endured Varitek as my starting C all season, and looked with some apprehension at the possibilities for replacing him, I really have started to appreciate the value of a good-hitting catcher. I wonder if the modifications to replacement level made by VORP and similar stats sufficiently apprehend the current dearth of offensive talent behind the plate. WARP has the two as barely different (Pedroia at 9.8; Mauer at 9.6), but its fielding component is all buggered up, so I'm not sure how useful that is. For you fans of context-specificity, Mauer led the AL in WPA at a stroll, beating Pedroia by 4.88 to 3.29 (Pedroia ranked 6th). As far as I'm aware, WPA does not make a positional adjustment. Of course, almost all advanced rate stats (MLVr, VORPr) have Mauer killing Pedroia. Pedroia played eleven more games than Mauer; but 146 GP is still pretty damn good for a catcher. I'm not sure if I'd want to discount the difference in PT, as it seems like giving Mauer a double advantage, but it's something to think about. EDIT: For clarity, PMR ranks Pedroia 8th out of the AL's 2B, Mauer 5th out of its catchers. Ryan Howard ranked 29th (!!!!) in the NL in VORP. 47th (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) in OBP. Even in SLG, he was only 6th. 21st in WPA. Didn't crack the top 10 in OPS+, and BB-Ref's leaderboards don't go any further (I doubt he'd make the top 15 either). He did all this whilst playing below-average defense at the diamond's easiest position. Ryan Howard was the Philadelphia Phillies' 4th Most Valuable (Position) Player. If you want to make the 'the MVP must come from a successful team' argument; then I will disagree with you but concede that it has some validity. Bloodying Heck, though, at least choose a good player from a winning team. Interesting factoid: Of the 11 full-time 1B in the NL with 500 PA or more in 2008, Howard had a better OBP than only two: Mike Jacobs and James Loney. And how many points did RH whip Loney's ass by? 1. 1 'points'. For the record, anyone who doesn't think that Albert Pujols was the 2008 National League MVP is a gluebag. He led the league in VORP, SLG (by 62 points!), MLV, OPS and OPS+. He trailed Chipper Jones in OBP by a barely-significant 8 points. He was second in WPA to Lance Berkman. He is by far the best defensive 1B in the league. If you're into trad stats then (I pity you but) he was the only player to finish in the top 5 of all three Triple Crown categories. The man pisses value. I don't necessarily think that Penny will be over-priced (well, most free agents are technically 'overpriced', but he won't be a Zito or even a Sabathia). His injury worries are likely to scare off GMs, and there's a crop of pitching talent above him (Sabathia, Sheets, Burnett, Lowe, Peavy via trade). I think he could be a great option for a team looking to add some pitching to an already effective rotation. That's why I don't think the O's are the best destination for him, although I know where you're coming from. He intrigues me as a Sox fan: we already have Beckett, Matsuzaka and Lester penciled in, but could be looking for at least one extra arm. We could throw some money at him, and not worry too much if he underperforms, because we have other options (Wakefield if he returns, Bowden, Buchholz if he's still here, there's talk about re-signing Byrd, Masterson could go back to the rotation in a pinch). I'm not sure that he's fallen far enough to take a big-money one-year deal. But a short-term commitment like maybe 2/16 - 2/20 would interest me.

This made me snort. I'm 'much obilged', you might say...

I didn't know what you were referring to, so I did some research and apparently it was used as the cover of a bootleg album. So you could post it. So could I, in fact. It's very good, anyway.

The 'hundred greatest' is the laziest trope in journalism. What's the arsing point? A hundred names all of which have to, in one sense or another, be drawn from an 'acceptable' pool of talent/works, because the presentation is supposed to be 'authoritative' rather than 'editorial'. Never more than a couple of hundred words expended on why an artist is so great. The tone is so impersonal and half-arsed that the piece might as well be called 'here are 100 singers' -- when guests are roped in to offer their thoughts, their thoughts are boring as all fuck and (necessarily) can't form any sort of dialogue. Why is Aretha Franklin a little bit, but presumably not much, better than Ray Charles? And it's not like the pieces work as biography since they're so tokenistic. Inane, arbitrary, depth-less shit. I'd rather read a 5,000 word piece passionately arguing that Marti Pellow is the best vocalist ever to have graced the music industry than bilge like this. At least that might dredge up some unusual commentary, rather than just, "Marvin Gaye was black. I like him. I wish he hadn't died. He had a nice voice." Whether Stevie cunting Wonder placed 82nd or 63rd is of less than no importance: the idea is not to change the channel but to turn off the whole fucking TV. Also, does anyone actually read 'Rolling Stone'? Surely such a person would collapse in on themselves under the weight of their own tedium.

Spoiler: Click here to view

'Randum'. The actual best cover art ever is this:

Do you live with people who are Christians? I can understand you being a bit pissed off in those circumstances. And the 'waste of money' argument is a pretty good one: I don't actually buy presents for anyone at the moment, so I'm immune to that. Give it a few years, though...

'Jingle All the Way' is fantastic. I can't believe that it's Christmas unless/until I've seen that movie (and listened to 'A Fairytale of New York'). "AAAGH! ZIS TERBOMANNNN!!!!!" "I am NOT a POEVOERT!!!! I justwaslooking forTURBOMANDOLL!!!!" My suggestion would be 'A Hobo's Christmas'. It's a bad movie in almost all senses, but it's the kind of thing that you can't hate because it's so gentle and inoffensive and full of Christmas loveliness. Might be hard to track down (dirt-cheap made for TV movie), but it might be worth seeing if a crap cable channel is showing it. How can anyone hate a Christmas movie, anyway? They're Christmas movies, and so by definition heart-warming and gorgeous.

That's what it comes down to, I think. FT fans who weren't that into Million Dead will say, "well, he's just a proficient folk artist, good for a sing along, he shouldn't have to be 'angry'". But people who really loved MD will feel... not quite 'betrayed', but... disappointed, I suppose is the word. I get the feeling that Frank could've been so much more. Sure, he might be a good acoustic folk-y singalong artist (and I'd dispute even that, really -- he's no Billy Bragg or Johnny Cash or anything; 'dull' is quite judicious), but there are loads of people who can do that. Frank circa MD was special. And that doesn't imply that MD fans 'could never have been happy' with solo Frank or anything as glib as that. Like I said, I enjoyed a lot of the early stuff. But since CP, he's just another bloke with a guitar. It'd be like if Steve Albini had disbanded Big Black and started a fairly good Polka band. Not bad for what it is but, come on... it's Steve Albini.

I listened to some of the Myspace uploads when they were 'The Quiet Kill'. They were all instrumentals at that point, and we're very one-note 'DUH-DUH-DUH-DUHDUHDUH'-type abortions. Haven't checked them out in a while though. Is it worth it? Do they have a vocalist these days? Oh, and have you been to Million-dead.org (recently)? They have a lot of early, hard-to-find stuff, but also unreleased songs which were demos for a never-released-or-even-anywhere-close-to-finished third album. No vocals, but still kind of interesting to get a glimpse of what might have been. (Link). I remember them being not that good, but I only gave them a quick listen, and that was a while ago.

He used to do quite a lot when he first started. I've seen/heard him play, at one time or another, 'After the Rush Hour', 'A Song to Ruin', 'Smiling at Strangers on Trains', 'Medicine' and 'Harmony No Harmony'. I'm sure I'm forgetting some; I have vague recollections of a version of 'Margot Kidder' or 'Achilles Lung' or maybe both. I doubt he does so anymore. I last saw him about 18 months ago, and there were no MD songs in the set. I don't think he'd be re-incorporating any, because of everything he's said about moving away from that style. I think the covers came from necessity more than anything, due to his paucity of material. I know it is/was a regular thing. He used to do 'We are the Champions' as well at times. I don't see how that mitigates it.

I loved Million Dead. There are maybe half a dozen bands/artists from 2000 onwards that I really adore, and they were one of them. The first album is just thirty-five minutes of tearing, screeching anger (with a five minute break for the title track, which is nevertheless still excellent), and that is incredibly rare these days. Political bands wearing their hearts on their sleeves and making few if any concessions to demographic-targeting and cleaning off the edges are a rare thing, as far as I can tell. 'A Song to Ruin' restored my faith in music, in Leftism, in... life, generally, I think. Cor. Some of their stuff that pre-dates ASTR is also surprisingly awesome, incidentally (the 'There are Ghosts' cover, 'Mute Group', 'Reformulating the Challenge...', 'Gnostic Front'). Though some of it, like any band's first recordings, suffers from ropey production. Their second album left me with a huge feeling of disappointment after the first few listens. It just sounded so full of filler. I heard that, at the time, they would compose their set-lists by writing down not the name of the song, but the artist that the song 'reminded them of'. To me, that sums up a lot of what was wrong with HNH: incredibly ersatz. Many of the most obvious tributes (Black Flag aping on 'Plan B' most notably) were miles wide of the mark due to production that didn't even attempt to recreate the relevant band's sound. Much more mellow, too, which was obviously a conscious attempt to make a 'change of direction'. I can see the thinking behind that, no-one wants to stand still creatively, but to me MD were so distinctive that more of the same would have been absolutely welcome. I have gotten into the album more recently, and there are a lot of good tracks in hindsight. It just wasn't what I was looking for at the time at all. Anyway, Franksolo. I remember being really excited after hearing his first few tracks. 'Harmony No Harmony' (the song) was already a fantastic omen, and 'The Real Damage' and 'Worse Things Happen at Sea' proved that he could take on new subject matter whilst remaining amusingly grounded and/or bitter and pissed off. At the same time, the 'After the Rush Hour' 'cover' and 'Nashville, Tennessee' proved that he could transfer his politics into a new sound. I remember having a chat with a mate at that point (also an ex-MD fan) and remarking that the lyrics to the first few songs were as good as anything from ASTR (my mate responded with, 'uh... if you say so...'). I continued to check out his new stuff now and then, and felt that 'Father's Day' (or 'My Dad's a Cunt' depending on which version you got) was the zenith of his marrying folk musicianship to gutsy politicised ranting. (His lyrics became more quasi-political and obviously personal at this point, but I kind of expected that, and didn't see it as necessarily a bad thing). I saw him live for the first time at roughly the time he released 'Campfire Punkrock'. Tiny venue, great atmosphere, broadness of crowd composition that YI mentioned. Excellent gig. Except... as his encore he played a cover of 'Dancing Queen' (and didn't play 'Father's Day' at any point). This, I felt, was a bad omen. The self-satisfied, 'look what I'm doing' irony of the song choice aside, it was kind of a warning that he was now very much just 'doing what he wanted to do' / pissing about. That's fine; good luck to him. But the scene needs musically proficient, angry musicians. He could be that if he so chose. I was disappointed. I checked out some of the stuff released in between CP and the album, and then went to see him again before the release of 'Sleep is for the Week'. He was playing with Dive Dive this time, which completely shot the intimacy factor to shit. And the songs were just... bland. The extra instruments were a case of subtraction by addition, and it was just an incredibly boring experience. One of his songs ('We Were Anarchists', I think) has the lyric, "I've got friends who are bankers / and it'd be an easy rhyme to call them wankers / but in truth I admire how they live." I mean... just fuck off. If you're experiencing some kind of regretful guilt about your youthful extremism then fine, whatever, but the catharsis doesn't need to be public. The only bright spot I can remember was 'Thatcher Fucked the Kids', and I think that was more for the shouty chorus than anything else. I kind of got off the train at that point. Bought the album and was underwhelmed, which at that point I expected. I haven't acquired 'Love Song and Ire' by any means. He's welcome to do whatever he likes, obviously, and he seems like a nice enough bloke. But his tastes for anthemic self-referentiality are coming to the fore now, and it's at the expense of his creativity and, more broadly speaking, his work. There was an interview with him that I read not long after MD split in which he said he doubted he would form another 'hardcore' band, because he was 'bored of shouting at people'. Fine, mellow out, good luck to you. But I won't be around to watch it: the world already has one Badly Drawn Boy. EDIT: Accidentally described ASTR as 'the fist album'. Must've been Freudian...

Oh, and for any fellow Shields/Butcher boosters, the night was nicely capped off by a drunken MSN conversation when I got in that involved coming up with 'much less cool' names for MBV songs. We got: 'When You Have a Kip', 'Don't Do That', 'Lots of Ladies', 'Where are We Going?', 'Not That Deep', 'Oh, I See', 'Let's Tongue Wrestle!', 'Shortly', 'You are Drunk', 'That's Enough, Thanks', 'I'm Winded!', 'My Fingers Have Fallen Off', 'Arrive on Your Tod', 'Every Now and Then', 'Not so Fast' and, lastly, 'Run Me Over in a Car'.

My Bloody Valentine at the Apollo in Manchester. Firstly, I only got tickets about two days before the gig. I paid like three quid to my mate who got four from E-Bay. We got completely blindsided. I had, pretty much coincidentally, been listening the fuck out of them for the past week. They're just a good summer band. I didn't even know they were on tour until my mate who lives in Norwich mentioned that he was going to see them in London. I presumed I would've missed out on tickets for any reachable venue; apparently not. The actual gig was just perfect. Almost the exact set-list that I would've wanted (I would've substituted 'Soft as Snow...' in for 'Cigarette in Your Bed', but I didn't really expect to hear 'Soft...' because seemingly no-one likes that song). Gorgeous ethereal quality to it. The first time that I've been to a gig with video or some kind of visual effect (or any kind of non-aural accompaniment) and thought 'yeah... this gig would be sub-optimal without this...'. Dancing, head-nodding, accidentally twatting the girl next to me whilst busting a move too many to 'Soon'. Ah... The nice thing about going to see MBV is that you can really believe that it's no different to how seeing them in the 90s would've been. They have no new material to try to crowbar in around songs that are actually, you know, good. They don't really have a mystique/aura/oftheirtimeishness to have rubbed off (c.f. seeing Gang of Four and the Undertones in the Noughties). It's 'all about the music, man'. One of the best experiences of my life. I could quite happily spend the remainder of my existence just going to that gig over and over again on repeat until I die. EDIT: I'd also recently split up with my ex in circumstances that Kevin Shields appears to have cribbed (using a time machine, I suppose, the crafty Mick bastard) precisely for the lyrics to 'You Never Should'. So I was able to convince myself that they were tacitly dedicating that song to me.

That's really nice. I'd wear it if I could find one snug-fitting enough. The Walhol pastiche is admittedly rather played-out, but I was still surprised to see it in this context. According to their website, the pop-art collage is their third kit. It's available in small.

Billy Bragg -- Levi Stubbs' Tears. Just an incredibly sad story, backed with a pretty simple guitar part. The trumpet part at the end, during the solo, gives it a slightly haunting or dream-like quality too. The lyrics "When the world falls apart / Some things stay in place" are delivered fantastically, and sent shivers down my spine when I heard it performed live. It has a unique tone as well... sad, but kind of defiant and grimly hopeful. Keren Ann -- By the Cathedral. Another piece of evidence to back up my conviction that trumpets solos are fucking depressing. There's something I find really touching about the lyrics "darling... I've been mellow and tender, darling". Sort of recalls to me the feeling of desperately wanting to show someone how you feel and how you've changed, but being unable to do so for whatever reason. Big Country -- Chance. Yeah, alright, Big Country. But the story told by the lyrics is genuinely moving, I think, and the bagpipe-esque guitars have a certain sorrowful quality. And whilst crude and sort of 'do you see?', the closing "Oh, Lord, I never felt so low" repetition is sang well enough to work. Like 'Levin Stubbs Tears' it's sort of particularly bleak because it talks about the kind of depression that, rather than being temporary and desperate, just builds up slowly over the course of a life. Sunny Day Real Estate -- In Circles. It reminds me of a girl. "I long / to heal your wounds / though I bleed myself / I bleed myself." The lyrics are pretty much the perfect example of effective simplicity, and the beginning couplet of just "sincerity / trust in me" is ace, and allows Enigk to do what he does best... hold notes at a very high pitch. A lot of other stuff from 'Diary' is pretty depressing, really, most notably 'Sometimes'. 'Seven' is sad too, but has a hopeful volta, and is too aesthetically pleasing to be really sad. It's just emotive generally, I think. The Smiths -- I Know it's Over. Obvious choice, but fuck it. I'm sure I'm missing some stuff that has had an affect on me in the past, and I feel remiss for not including a 'Today is the Day' song, but that's what jumps out at me right now.

My thoughts posted verbatim from another board: Three actors, one character. As if David Brent was such an interesting and layered character he needed to be split three ways (with Stiller doing 'Pompous Manager Cunt', the Woman Who Can't Act playing 'Daft Racist' and Gervais himself doing a nice line in replacing jokes with social awkwardness). Bah. It was what I expected pretty much. I was surprised at all the various 'edgy' topics (disability, murder, racism) being dealt with simultaneously - how will they fill the remaining episodes? But obviously it's this type of humour Gervais wants to push to the fore, if his stand-up shows are anything to go by. As for Stiller, he really didn't add anything. A couple of his lines made me laugh, but that's not really saying much for him seeing as he borrowed his delivery style from Gervais. His presence was, at least, a mild diversion from that woman who was really annoying. I laughed a few times, but not enough to counteract the overall tone and subject matter of the show - not to mention it being stylistically indistinguishable from The Office - which really grated. I won't write it off completely yet, mostly out of optimism because I actually did like series one of the Office and, initially, series two - until the Emperor's new clothes were dramatically torn off on repeated viewings.

Thanks for that. I will check out Burmese Days, it sounds like a pretty good read. I was aware of the...uh...two-partedness in RTWP, and I'd be much more interested in tracking down the essay on socialism (part two) than the first, narrative part. 1984 slipped my mind in the first post. I'd say it's a good read and perhaps the most accessible of his works, other than AF. However, from a modern perspective, it seems bizarre that such an important anti-authoritarian work has fallen into the culture of petty, pop-liberalism today. BIG BRUTHA IS WATCHIN YOU, MAH FREND. But still, Orwell can hardly be blamed for that... I will try to find '...Spanish Beans' on the internet somewhere, sounds interesting. I agree HTC is one of Orwell's best and certainly his best work of reportage. Dissapointed you didn't think much of CUFA or KTAF. The latter in particular probably appeals more to the idealistic young anti-capitalist in us all (well, in me anyway). I might re-read it to see if I still like it now I've matured a bit. Another one added to the pile, I guess...