Not one of those groovy hippies, I’m more a wannabe hippy who tends to have an opinion on pretty much everything

Shame on me. Mere days after slating Mrs. Hippy for furniture related torture she lays out a four figure sum on taking me on holiday. I’m a bad, bad man.

It seems we’re going on a cruise, partly because I like water but mainly because she can get some kind of two for one deal from Virgin Cruise Holidays through work, and we both like the idea of seeing lots of places in a single holiday. I’m a little concerned about how I’ll deal with Daily Mail reading retirees every day but herself assures me it’s all very egalitarian and unfussy on board these days, so long as one doesn’t piss in the lido pool or throw cigarettes off the side. Best keep it to four pints a night max then.

It looks like our options are either a Dubai cruise or floating around the Mediterranean, which kind of has me torn. I’d rather spend time in France, Spain, Italy etc than the Middle East, but something about the crassness of Dubai combined with my perceptions of cruising as a holiday for people with more money than sense (not to mention taste) makes Dubai seem like a natural choice.

Anyone been on one of these things? Any thoughts?

Mrs. Hippy and I have been shopping for our forthcoming co-habitation this week, necessitating many visits to the big blue & yellow box at Brent Park. If our relationship survives this it’ll survive anything: one more meatball dinner or twenty minute walk to buy a plate at the far end of the rat maze and I’m going to flip. Scandhoovians pastimes such as alcoholism and suicide are starting to seem mighty appealing.

I’ve suggested she make it up to me by buying a rubber coated sofa but “wipe down” isn’t on the list of preferred attributes for living room furniture, apparently. I blame Laura Ashley for this shocking lack of foresight amongst the modern furniture purchasing public.

Nice one, Hamas.

I was almost rooting for you after hearing all the shite the Israelis have been pulling today, but I’m back to thinking each side is as cuntish as the other now. Thanks for setting me straight.

I’ve just faced the outside world for the first time since Christmas Eve, and what a grey, miserable sight it is here in Greenwich at the moment. 90% of people seem to be walking around with faces like the proverbial slapped arse.

I blame it on the relentless “branding” and promotion of the credit crunch by the media. And, you know, lots of people being skint.

One good thing about keeping one’s head down over Christmas is that it isn’t too painful on the wallet once you’ve got the presents out of the way. I’ve holed up at home or made brief forays to friends for the last few days and haven’t spent a penny since Christmas Eve. w00t!

The always awesome Big Picture are releasing their best photographs of 2008. Two more sets to come before the end of this week. Huzzah for tBP!

The news is all in a tizzy today about the fact that a documentary featuring an assisted suicide is airing on Sky Real Lives tonight, and various anti-euthanasia pundits have been trotted out to do interviews during the course of the day. Many of their objections were ludicrous.

Dr Peter Saunders thought we might “start to believe in a story that there is such a thing as a life not worth living”, which sounds like nonsense to me. If I’m a 12 year old Tutsi girl with nothing to look forward to but my tits and feet being hacked off before I’m raped to death, well, I’m pretty sure I’d take a cyanide capsule if I had it. Sometimes there’s just no possibility of hope or joy left in life. Ask anyone who’s ever lived in Doncaster.

The worst was hearing the normally smart and compassionate Lady Ilora Finlay, who today, unfortunately, was merely compassionate. She said “This programme is broadcasting something which is very private, which is someone dying and which is illegal in this country”.

When I first heard Lady Finlay’s comments on The Today Show they were bracketed by recorded opinions from the suicide in question, Craig Ewert, and his wife Mary. Both were, if not enthusiastic, then stoic and sure about their desire to see the details of assisted suicide in the public domain. Lady Finlay seems to think she’s a better judge of what should remain private in their lives than they are.

She also objected on the grounds that the documentary was showing something “illegal in this country”. This in spite of the fact that documentaries featuring illegal activities (both in the UK and abroad) are ten a penny. I don’t recall hearing Lady Finlay sound off when “A Very British Gangster” was aired, or about the constant reruns of “Police, Camera, Action” and “America’s Drunkest Cops” for that matter.

All a bit of a storm in a teacup really, but I’m surprised the anti-euthanasia contingent couldn’t come up with anything better. The argument against could be pretty much summed up as “we don’t like it”, which is a shame because it’s a big enough subject to have a proper debate about.

I doubt that argument will happen in my lifetime though. It strikes me as being like the debate over decriminalisation of cannabis and other soft drugs: something 80% of people think makes sense but no politician could consider because 20% of the remaining 20% would start a fucking civil war.

I just did all my christmas shopping. It took two hours from start to finish and I didn’t have to shoulder a single child or eledery shopper out of my way, nor did I spend three hours trying to park. Bless you, Internet.

Most of my purchases were CDs, DVDs and books so Amazon saw the majority of my money, along with a John Lewis (the bathrobe). I also bought two bongs for my sister (she’s just started university and seems to have amassed a collection already) from a place called Shiva Head Shop.

When I ordered the bongs I didn’t notice the online head shop had retail premises less than a mile from my flat, and being new to the area I didn’t know it was there. So it was a bit of a surprise when my order turned up 40 minutes later, presented in person by one of the owners of Shiva Head Shop. So much for online shopping being impersonal! He was passing anyway so saved himself the price of postage and got to deliver a bit of personal service too, which is always good. Thanks for the newbie tips on Greenwich mate

Hopefully Sis will be happy with the bongs and the rest will be happy with the obviously Amazon-sourced books and whatnot. Though I’m beginning to think that giving out presents which are almost all DVDs, Books & so on from Amazon makes some relatives who think you’re cheating. “I had to struggle through Bluewater at lunchtime on a Saturday, why didn’t you, you c*nt!”

TV on the Radio’s “Dear Science,” has only been around for six weeks but iTunes is telling me I’ve listened to it over a hundred times since its release date. Its that kind of album: accessible enough that you’re singing along from the second listen but complex enough that you’ll make at new discoveries every time you play it.

It won’t surprise many TVotR’s fans that their latest effort is a work of genius, but it will throw many, me included, that it’s this kind of genius.

Previous TVotR recordings were, to put it mildly, a little bit out there. There was almost always a strong tune and worthwhile lyrics but it was sometimes hard to find them amidst the layers of found and sampled noise, kaleidoscope mix of musical styles and Tunde & Kyp’s fuzzed up vocals. Until now TV on the Radio were pretty much what you might expect from the “Experimental New York art-rock” label they’ve so often been tagged with.

“Dear Science,” pulls that pigeon hole from the wall, smashes it with a hammer then proceeds to dance all night on the remains. It’s a big, blustering album with TVotR’s funk, jazz, hip-hop and rock influences being raided for their most entertaining rather than most esoteric qualities. There’s half a dozen tracks that would do the lads proud as singles, and the album as a whole is a gem that’ll bring them a lot of new fans.

Long term fans needn’t fear the band has lost their edge: dark lyrics and a sampling/instrumental style that make you feel like the combined contents of a music shop and a junk store are being thrown are both in evidence. This isn’t a band that have sold out, they’ve just taken to partying rather than playing with pocket calculators.

Barring a seriously good late upset in December I think “Dear Science,” is album of the year, and hopefully a lot of new fans will be receiving it in their Christmas stockings this year. Well done Tunde Adebimpe, David Sitekand Kyp Malone, with Sitek taking additional credit for being the man in the producer’s chair.

As I write this Mumbai is burning and I’m seeing 20+ text message sized updates a minte from people on the ground via Tweetgrid Mumbai. I wish it was something less horrific so I could rejoice in the whole citizen journalism/Little Brother thing, but as it stands I just feel sick.

I may be in touch with my inner hippy but I usually draw the line at reading romance novels: I’m all for Love in a general sense but if the specifics mean reading about some 18th century governess who gets kidnapped by a pirate that looks like Fabio you can leave me out of it, thankyouveryfuckingmuch.

My friend Noel is quite aware of this and pestered me to read The Time Traveler’s Wife anyway, and may Lord Shiva bless him for pestering me until I gave in. What a book. I haven’t been quite so leaky around the eyes over a love story since I watched La Vita é Bella at the tail end of a three day Ecstasy bender.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is the story of Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire, a couple who could register a patent on the phrase “meant to be together”. Clare first meets Henry when she is six years old, Henry first meets Clare when he is thirty six, and it’s pretty much love at first sight for both of them. It might sound like the type of affair that would inspire an anti-paedo campaign from the Daily Mail but the central conceit of the novel – Henry’s genetic disorder that causes him to spontaneously time travel – ensures it’s not as twisted as it sounds. Honest.

In many senses it’s a remarkably straightforward book that charts a love affair from inception to conclusion. But Audrey Niffenegger performs a remarkable literary sleight of hand by weaving fantasy, in the form of Henry’s inadvertent time travelling, throughout. It’s a simple – and at first glance rather silly – premise which rapidly draws you in and sends the story soaring to heights that will make even the most red-blooded, beer-guzzling, hairy-chested bloke feel a twinge of romantic vertigo. If you’ve ever thought “we’ll be together forever”, even for a moment, you’ll respond to this beautiful book.

I’m quite a bit behind the times when it comes to The Time Traveler’s Wife (it was published in 2003) so I’ll leave the gushing there for now, but if your girlfriend has been banging on about this book for months or years and you’ve caved enough to look it up on the Internet let me add my voice to the choir in saying READ IT NOW! If you’ve got the slightest bit of romance in your soul you won’t regret it.