school's question time tonight which i didnt bother to apply for, but wish i did when i saw that the young panel member was a very right wing ukip member who at one point said, "i dont know anything about iran, but the whole thing needs to sort itself out" and subsequently made it painfully clear throughout that he hadnt read a newspaper and didnt know anything at all about politics. is this really an appropriate ambassador for my age group? also iain duncan smith got all the claps from the audience, further compounding my worry about how right wing everyone my age seems to be these days. for example, the reaction to david cameron's zero tolerance on knife possession was really positive from the audience, when i thought kids would be more understanding of people who'd been drawn into carrying knives, but i guess everyone's been sort of sucked into the whole 'yob' rubbish, even people who come into contact with them on a daily basis and know them personally...

i dunno, i think the whole 'united youth' thing died with nirvana (or perhaps rave) and there's never really been a general attitude of young people since then-we prefer these days to divide into intensely different groups that bitterly hate each other. but if there is a general consensus of my 'peers' (shudder) right now, it's certainly conservative which as i've said before doesnt make any sense to me.

----------------------

i've always found marvin gaye's 'sexual healing' an intensely creepy track-imagine someone seriously saying those words to you-but now i've heard hot chips version and it's suddenly made brilliant, as is the case with anything.

----------------------

i sometimes like to pair songs together than i think are connected in some way and listen to them next to each other. at present i've done this with 'this year' by the mountain goats and the classic 'destination unknown' by alex gaudino. i know it sounds weird but i think they're both very similar songs. both are about breaking away from the ordinary, which in the case of the mountain goats is a staple subject, and for gaudino it's all about not individual freedom, but instead moving away from present monotony in huge groups, an army even, even if they're not sure what they want, they're still gonna flee towards their utopian haven (the dancefloor)

first line of 'destination unknown': "i left my job my boss my car and my home"

first line of 'this year': "i broke free on a saturday morning, i put the pedal to the floor"

i generally like to listen to 'this year' first, as it sort of makes a story-a guy starts off by just driving away from his life but is gradually joined by thousands of others as the marching rhythm of destination unknown kicks in.