No-one’s giving out free ray-bans.

There is no way to find out who’s viewing your profile.

Amazon, Tesco and Asda are not giving out gift cards.

These are all scams. Each time you click on one, you are giving access to all of your personal data to these companies.Take a look at your “About” page. How much are you telling your friends about where you were born, went to school, your birthday…

But also, it’s clogging my timeline.

Be careful out there. It’s like a jungle, but instead of monkeys, there are bad people wanting to know your birthday/mothers maiden name/place of birth so they can try and hack your emails/credit cards.

So next time you see something, and think “Is this too good to be true?” I’m sorry to break this to you but it probably is. Sorry about that. Now stop clicking them!

I’ve done a silly thing called Foxes and Convicts for a few years now, and the result of that is a whole raft of ace live sessions of various Leeds* acts – so I popped them into a soundcloud playlist and wanda’s popped them on the site!

So, take a wee look. It’s at http://LeedsPlaylist.wordpress.com and well worth subscribing to (and submitting to) if you’re in Leeds and like music.

While I’m talking foxes, I’ve done a new Facebook page to keep everyone up to date with foxy goings on. Like it… If you like…

*and a little bit around and about

Apart from one thing. I’m a Chris Brookmyre fan, but haven’t gotten round to reading his latest, which sits a bit dusty on the shelf, quietly judging me for not picking it up and reading it. Holidays will probably be my first opportunity to read it, but in hardback (along with a couple of others languishing on my to-read list) it’ll be somewhat bulky to put in my luggage, especially when I now need to hand over every scrap of spare space to nappies and dummies and the like.

The Problem with Kindles

See the problem here? Now, I assume there’s a certain level of subsidy involved, and the more expensive e-books are keeping the price of the Kindle down. Also, it turns out VAT is payable on e-books, but not on paper books. The various tax implications of an e-book on cold pasties is mind-boggling.

So, what to do? It’d be cheaper to post all my books directly to the flat I’ll be staying in on holiday… but that sort of defeats the point. And then I’ll have to somehow get them home again, unless I just leave them to be enjoyed by anyone else visiting the flat who as so far has also held out against buying a kindle.

When music and movie companies tried this trick, there was consternation and people held out – but for some reason that doesn’t apply to e-books. To be fair to the publishers – they seem to be getting away with it and who can blame them for making their cash where they can…

Are they charging more for e-books simply because they can?

Kaiser Chiefs – the future is medieval: smart distribution system aside, this is 20 album tracks. I’d have loved quite a lot of it 15 years ago. If you want the big singalongs, go have another listen to an earlier album.

Lana Del Rey – Born to Die: Apparently you have to either love or hate her, there is no room for inbetween… Which is difficult cos it’s a pretty inconsistent album – opening with the title track made me realise how I’d quite liked it at first these radio, but now was BORED to die a death (see what I did there?) by it, it’s a bit up and down. Shades of the pretentious warbly indulgence of the latest Florence and the Machine album give way to some pregood decent electro tracks. A good 9 track album squeezed into a 15 track album. This years Jem. Remember her? Welsh girl. Was everywhere. For a while.

Django django – django django: NOW you’re talking. Excellent album, should be listened to in a dark crowded sweaty room filled with smoke before a set by Mothers of God.

Metronomy – the English Riviera: achingly cool electronic surf that bears relistening. Let it get under your skin. This will probably be everywhere this summer, and I’m Ok with that.

The Maccabees – Given to the Wild: excellent album, much darker than the brilliantly catchy lead single Pelican, which itself takes on a darker feel in the context of the songs. One that will be listened to again!

Florence + the machine – Ceremonials: warble warble, getting a bit interesting BIG NOTE, warbles, bit more of an interesting bit, going on a bit isn’t it? Oh we’re only half way through (repeat). Perhaps slightly over estimated the appetite for such a high number of tracks.

Howling bells – Radio wars: after stumbling on Golden Web on shuffle, I was looking forward to this, and it almost delivers eventually. Despite a pretty slow start, it does pick up towards the end. I reckon if I give it a couple more listens I’ll enjoy it more.

Mi mye – the time and the loneliness: as unassuming as he is talented, Jaime Mi Mye has crafted another wonderfully musical, witty, gorgeous album that you just want to give a big old hug to. There seems to be a pretty good rule of thumb at the moment – Scotsman in Yorkshire releases album = that’s an album you really should get.

Bon Iver – Bon Iver – a lovely gentle reintroduction to the daily commute, warming my cockles on a cold train platform. That last track weirded me out though, it’s like an 80′s soft rock tune tried to muscle its way in…

SBTRKT – SBTRKT – corking album, great blend of chilled out beats with some silky voices, without drifting into the cheese. Achingly cool nephew of the artful dodger.

Coldplay – MYLO XYLTO – what’s up with the capital letters, and general disregard for vowels? Never mind, this is a standard release with no huge surprises from the chaps with the moisturised faces and healthy tour schedule. A good reference for the singalongs in huge arenas.

Foster the People – Torches – Loved it. That “pumped up kicks” tune is bloody everywhere, being played to death, however the rest of album sounds like they’re putting in just enough effort to take it from standard drumsguitarsbasskeyboards into something a bit cleverer, without Trying Too Hard. Nice songmanship too. Perhaps I just expected them to be a bit dull, so they seem better because of it? Regardless, I’ll be giving this one a relisten for certain.

I hope you all had a magnificent night and are still hurting a bit from it. I stayed up far too late watching fireworks and forgetting I had a baby that would be awake 4 hours later. OUCH.

So. Resolutions! I usually make the same old ones that get screwed up within 48hrs of the year starting (no drinking, chocolate, winding up people on the Internet, yadda yadda yadda) but this year I fancied doing something a bit different, a bit more productive, and one I had half a chance of doing for the whole year.

This year, I am going to listen to 104 albums that I have not listened to before.

Me, not listening to any of these albums

That’s 2 a week. All year. Most of them aren’t out yet. Quite a few of them probably haven’t been writtenyet. But that excites me. I don’t have a favourite album from last year because I just didn’t hear whole albums… Which is a pretty big thing for me, I’ve had a favourite album of the year for every year since I was 14. Now a lot of that is the general life disruption of parenthood, and a bit of it is listening to a few songs and jumping off to something else like a musical hummingbird with ADHD. But no more. Concentrate Sean, concentrate!

I’m sure some of it will be rubbish, but some might be better than I expect. I’m trying to do this without any pre-judgements, in the same way Mark Kermode can go into a “big mommas house” movie to judge it a standalone piece…

I’ll keep a tally of what I’ve got planned to listen to and what I have listened to on this post… And if you have any recommendations, do tell me in the comments below!

To listen to:

SBTRKT – SBTRKT
Foster the people – torches
Laura Marling – a creature I don’t know*
Coldplay – Mylo xyloto*
Florence and the machine – ceremonials
The villagers – becoming a jackal
The decemberists – the king is dead
The black keys – el camino
Wild beasts – smother
King creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond mine
Lisa Hannigan – passenger
My morning jacket – Circuital

And what else am I missing…?

*yes, I KNOW I should have gotten round to these already. Sorry. That’s why I’m doing this.

I’ve decided to leave March of Dimes.

It’s been an extroardinary few years, and I’m very thankful for the time I got to spend with them, but it’s time to move on and do something new-but-I’m-not-sure-what with music and videos and things Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of it.

Right. Now what happens?

So, the Foxes and Convicts Christmas Special went out last week, and the acts were all brilliant! As a special thank you to everyone who’s listened in over the past year, here’s a special video version of the show – all the Christmassy songs in glorious high definition

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Featuring:

Gary Stewart

Martin Plock

Silky

Steph Stephenson

and

Tag Team Preacher’s Steve Ward

Also, in a first for Foxes, we’ll be releasing a YouTube playlist of 5 featured songs from the show too, so you can see the Christmassy magic. It’ll be out on Friday.

Till then, enjoy this wee preview trailer for the show!

Merry christmas! Xx