Top 5: 05/18 - You're Not Going Backwards

Aye, it was freezing that week. We wrapped a house in plastic and correx, so to create a shell within a shell, an infinitesimally smaller house within the house, which might then grow, and molt into a home. Breaking out of its chrysalis it would turn its insides into outsides and radiate warmth into the streets and backyards circumventing it. Or so we hoped, before the plumbing broke...

Baby Huey & The Babysitters - California Dreamin'

Aye, it was freezing that week. Twas the week when the sun shone further and further away, with a brighter and brighter light. At last it was such an intense pinlight scream, that the sky around it turned all white, like an empty slot in a slide projector. And on that empty screen, black spots started to appear, dancing, promising imminent tales of faraway countries and fast-paced romance. But just as fantasies of warmer seasons started to form in the blank, the hail hit.

James Blake - If The Car Besides You Moves Ahead

Aye, it was freezing that week. Twas the week of traffic stuck in crystallised smog. A sickly grey-white, stiff mousse, where cars' headlights fractured in a thousand tiny beams in their attempts to break through. Where the roofs of double-deckers floated like abandoned surfboards on top of a frozen exhaust-sea. Where the green lights at the crossing lured you into a face on collision with a solid cloud of brittle vehicle parts mixed with the crunchy stool of pollution. If at last you managed to make your way around the icy ridge of solidified smoke – which stretched almost uninterrupted along the entire Lewisham Way – and down to the overground, you found the train stuck permanently to its track, nothing but a temporary shelter for a mute and shivering collection of foiled commuters, their faces scratched red from the abrasions of the morning air.

Princess Nokia - Brick City

Damn, it was freezing that week. I stayed in bed most of the weekend. Fevers and a splitting headache, what else could I do. I made up excuses for why most things in my life had come to a halt. I made up unlikely scenarios for a week that had gone by with nothing much happening. I listened to this strange eclectic hip hop record again to try and punch a small hole in the air through which I might slip out into real life again.

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol

I propose that you may judge a TV drama by its bad guy. Deadwood and Justified being two cases in point – the former with its Al Swearengen, the latter with Boyd Crowder; two of the most amazing and complex villains I've ever seen, and two of the best TV shows ever created. Now, Fargo is just lining excellent baddies up. I mean, they had Billy Bob Thornton in the first season. Hard to top. Second season there was a whole slew of multifaceted cold-blooded types. Now, with its third season, they're bringing David Thewlis. David. Thewlis. And it is, of course, fantastic. Plus of course Ewan McGregor in double roles, a razor sharp female detective duo, and the most delicious combinations of music and image imaginable. This tune here being just one of many a good example.