millionreasons | 2010 in Twelve Days

There was a heatwave. I melted, unhappily. I got heat bumps, styes in the eye, heat-stroke on the walk home from work. I got fed up of the noise and the heat and wrote a rant in which I called the Great British public Tory-voting, Diana-worshipping, celebrity-gawping, high-street shopping, sweat-shop buying, sheep-like fools. I don't think I was wrong.

Book: Mark Steel - What's Going On? Tony Blair....moan....Joe Strummer's dead...moan...I'm 40....moan...my girlfriend makes me sleep on the settee....moan. Amongst the complaints is a very funny, intelligent book half way between diatribe and memoir; skilled political analysis of the New Labour years on one hand and self-deprecatory anecdotes on the other (the time he had to get a Tory shadow minister to open his bottle of beer, when he made friends with Bob Monkhouse) with many amusing similes along the way.

Film - A Single Man

TV: The IT Crowd

Although it has the same themes as a regular BBC1 7 p.m. sitcom (misunderstandings, white lies, black lies, people wanting to get ahead, social embarrassment), the beauty of The IT Crowd just involves putting the characters in insane situatoins. It got a better once Mr Linehan got Moss, Jen and Roy out of the office (there's not that much humour in IT once you've made: "have you turned it off and on again" into a catchphrase) and into the world where they can be awkward and riduculous and hilarious.

Songs: Johnny Boy - You are the generation. Can't believe no-one told me about these 60s/80s kids before
Belle and Sebastian - I know where the summer goes. This song got into my head when it was hot and refused to leave until it cooled down. "The smell of hot desk and the glitter of your step"
Fake Blood - Fix Yr Accent 90s retro is here already

Days Out: Wayland Smithy, Field Day

Holiday: Ironbridge