Iron Man

Dear James,

A magical moment here from 1970, when Ozzy Osbourne tried and failed to get a load of insouciant Parisians to clap along to one of the slowest songs in Black Sabbath´s repertoire. Being an indie boy, you´ll be more familiar with The Cardigans´1997 cover, although youtube has nothing decent on the subject so here´s them doing a fine version of Sick and Tired instead.

All of which is a roundabout way of telling you what a manly thing I did today. I went to a hardware shop and bought some rawl plugs and screws to put up the shelves in my study. Given that Funseeker´s dad only drilled the holes in the wall for me 5 weeks ago, this is pretty fast manly work on my part. I might even get round to putting up the shelves before I forget where I put the bag of rawl plugs and screws. Rawl plug in Spanish is ¨talugo. There´s a new word for both of us. Though not one I´ve memorised yet, I just had to ask Funseeker for the third time today, and she´d forgotten how to say it. What a team. These sheves are never going to get put up.

You may recall that the Spanish for hardware shop is ferreteria, which sadly is not a ferret shop. Funseeker later told me over lunch that her sister had ben thinking of getting a ferret, but that they cost something like 1500 pounds over here and there´s only one guy who imports them. Imagine! The very epitome of working class northern life transformed into a status symbol. And black pudding´s not cheap neither.

In no way related to ferrets or rawl plugs, at the end of year barbecue at the studio last December, Pato told me how he went to a party with his architect father´s elderly architect friends. While there, one troubled looking architect told Pato how he was worried about his daughter. She never seemed to have a boyfriend and spent all her time playing heavy metal covers in an all-girl cumbia band. Their name? Kumbia Queers...