Miste

1. Pethead is the official term for a Pet Shop Boys fan. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call myself that, even though according to itunes I have 41 Pet Shop Boys albums, including the rather more obscure Relentless, Pop Art Mix, and Fundamentalism, and I think that Alternative, their collection of B-sides, is one of their best albums, and also that there will never be a better band. But I'm not obsessed -- I think Pethead suggests one's a bit obsessed. There's a very good fanzine called Literally, but I let my subscription lapse when I was feeling particularly poor as a post-grad. Anyway I was reminded of the greatness of the Pets when I saw this on popjustice; I hadn't realised before what a PSB song My Girl is. And this video has a low-fi charm. Suggs seems to be enjoying himself anyway.

PS Chris Lowe now just looks like he's referencing Sid from Skins, but I expect he takes it in his stride.

2. Also there was some graffiti by a bus stop I was at this afternoon about a "Zazou". And the only Zazou I can think of is in the Pet Shop Boys' In The Night (aka the Clothes Show Theme), and I can't remember who he was any more -- some sort of Moroccan WWII anti-war protestor? The graffiti on the other side of the pillar said "Über Alles". So I thought maybe it was all political. On the other hand, maybe Zazou is just a footballer I haven't heard of.

3. I've read a few more books now. A Year In the Life of The Man Who Fell Asleep was OK but there could have been less of it. It's a bit random. I liked the bit about godding, where strangers meet in car parks to watch furtively as someone has a religious experience. I put books on my amazon wishlist and then forget why; this one seems to be from a blog, which would usually put me off, not to mention an introduction by Julie Burchill. Sergii Lukyanenko's The Day Watch ROCKS! If it were a teenager it would be a bright boy with a ponytail and a large wardrobe of heavy metal tee-shirts; he would want to study Natural Sciences and take RPGs too seriously. Pelevin, on the other hand, would be a bit more androgynous and be one of those mathematicians who do maths swiftly and without blinking; his sense of humour would be easily missed. I didn't make the mistake of assuming there are only two interesting Russian authors at work at the moment, but it seems that Lubyanenko and Pelevin did, since each of their latests refers to the other author. Hard to gauge the tone, whether positive or not. Anyway the way that Lukyanenko's stuff is interesting, despite being unashamedly geeky and quoting Rammstein lyrics -- RAMMSTEIN! -- is that it's about some sort of policed truce between the Light, who are all moral, and the Dark, who are all about the freedom of the individual and who don't see why the tedious Light people should tell them what to do. But the Light, as soon as they start arresting Vampires not for hunting humans but for doing so without a licence, have automatically lost all their credibility.
I also read Then We Came To The End, which is pretty good. It's famously in the first person plural almost all the way through, and is quite good about that sort of collective knowing that people in an institution can do sometimes, and how creepy it is to become part of an institutional soap opera.

4. The Pet Shop Boys did an excellent remix of Rammstein's Mein Teil, which is about that wierd cannibalism case in Germany not that long ago, called the You Are What You Eat edit.

5. I don't want to be too middle-aged about this, but I think this video here:

although very good, is really for a remix of the original song, rather than being a new song which samples the old one. It's the way she sings 'And I'm just bored to tears' that makes it. I had never heard of Donna Hightower before this. The new version is bound to be a big hit, so maybe she'll have a revival. Here's the real thing.