About Brailli

Hello! I tend to go by Tom Brailli but my full name is much more unwieldy. I am a biologist by training but I have spent most of my career working on clean energy innovation. I have also worked in international trade and the probation system. In my late adolescence and early adulthood, I worked in a bookshop, so I know a lot about the books of the 2010s.

This blog is for random collections of stuff. I don’t really maintain an editorial standard. The blog is primarily for puking out my thoughts on popular culture and sport. I don’t really intend for these posts to have an audience.

I’m going to keep the default image for obvious reasons.

2023 Reading!

In 2023, my goal was to read 52 books between Christmas 2022 and Christmas 2023. That used to be how much I read while commuting, but the pandemic knocked that down. In 2022 I got back up to 25 books, and in 2023 I wanted to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels.

Well, I did it.

I read 52 books – 30 physical novels, 2 physical novellas, 1 physical short story collection, 12 audiobooks, 5 ebooks, 1 graphic novel, and 1 digital graphic novel. This does not include “practical” books like recipe books or travel guides.

Excluding one audiobook with multiple authors, I read books by 48 different authors, of whom 33 were completely new to me and a further 4 (Simon Guerrier, Tom King, Nev Fountain, and George Saunders) were not new to me, but it was the first time I’d read a full-length novel by them. I read two books by Adrian Tchaikovsky, VE Schwab, and Josiah Bancroft.

I read my first (adult) book from authors from 12 different nations: Barbados, Côte D’Ivoire, Djibouti, modern Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Uganda. I usually classify authors by country of birth, but made an exception for Sony Labou Tansi, who was born in Kinshasa but spent most of his life in Brazzaville, and whose life and work was defined by that country.

In total, I read books by authors from twenty different countries. The USA was in first place with 19, followed by the UK (13). Australia and Nigeria tied for third with 2.

Gender… erm, this is slightly embarrassing. 30 by men, 17 by women, 4 by non-binary people, and that 1 “various authors”. Could be worse – but could also be much better.

Genre-wise, my tastes are still dominated by sci fi and fantasy, but there is a good amount of variety in there – bildungsromans, horror, autobiographical novels, magical realism, historical fiction, biography, crime, romance, Western, alternate history, family novels, humour, one work that I didn’t realise was erotica until I’d read it, and the worst book I read, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which my GP said would change my life. Mission accomplished – I will no longer accept book recommendations from doctors.

And now, the thing you’ve probably been waiting for – my favourites.

5. Jade City by Fonda Lee – part low fantasy, part Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, part The Godfather – a really enjoyable book I read over the summer that helped make a couple of bus journeys to Barnes more enjoyable.

4. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – a puzzle box of a novel that probably permanently reconfigured my brain the way that most of my favourite stories have done. Everyone focuses on “lesbian necromancer in space”, which is accurate, but that sells this so short.

3. Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill – a prequel to the fantastic Sea of Rust. The premise here isn’t quite as compelling, but the execution is, if anything, even better, despite being kneecapped by the dramatic irony. A really moving account of the relationship between a robot and the boy it cares for.

2. The Traitor Baru Cormorant (sold as The Traitor here in the UK) by Seth Dickinson- gripping, brutal, political, full of action and intrigue, with a lead character who makes Petyr Baelish look like Mr. Bean. What’s not to like? Well, maybe it’s a bit graphic in places, so your mileage may vary.

1. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – “She carves a door of blood and silver. It opens just for her.” Once I got over the lead character’s voice – very much a product of the 19th century – I was gripped by this intensely moving book. Nothing has quite come close this year.

Honourable mentions: TR Napper’s Vietnam-set heady cyberpunk extravaganza 36 Streets, Francesco Dimitri’s Southern Italy magical realist The Book of Hidden Things, and Robert Jackson Bennett’s trilogy starter Foundryside. All of which have a big dose of organised crime.

I have 28 books on my TBR bookshelf. My first aim for 2024 is to get through them. 52 is not likely to be repeated – truthfully, I got off to a strong start before tailing off as I transitioned from do-nothing depression to pure distilled self-hatred, as well as reading a couple of dull bricks that I ultimately didn’t even finish, and I have other goals for the upcoming year that are more important to me than reading – but 35 seems like a reasonable stretch target, about two books every three weeks.

My various diagnoses

Physical:

– irritable bowel syndrome

– functionally bicuspid aortic valve

Developmental – autism spectrum disorder (previously Asperger’s Syndrome)

Mental:

– Chronic depression

– Generalised anxiety

– Social anxiety

– Adjustment disorder NOS

My 2,000 Days are over

It has happened. I have left London.

I was priced out. More than that, I found it impossible to even get viewings at habitable places. So back to Reading I go.

I wish I was still in London. But for posterity, I thought I should document why I made this decision.

Landlady selling up

My landlords, Rebecca and Adam (brother and sister), decided to sell up after the house went up for a remortgage. They hadn’t given me my two months of notice, but I wanted to move before it became an issue.

Inability to find somewhere suitable

I couldn’t find somewhere to live that was in a reasonable location (zone 3 or 4, <10 minutes walk from a station), good quality, not overcrowded, affordable, and, crucially, where they responded to my requests for a viewing.

Poor social life in London

In July I had a serious and painful falling out with my best friend in London.

I was already struggling and considering leaving, but that removed one of the main motivations I had to stay.

Closer to family

My parents moved to the edge of Hungerford last year. This turned a £10, 1-hour journey into a £30, 2-hour journey. I saw much less of them as a result.

That’s what it comes down to. I’d rather be in London, with friends, with a safe and stable place to live, and with my parents in Reading, but that is not the world I live in. Reading is my attempt at making the best of a bad situation.

Financial Advice for My Younger Self

Obligatory opening disclaimer: this is not advice for any real person. This is guidance that I wished I had when I started buying my own ETFs. It might not apply to your circumstances.

I’m not going to tell myself stuff that I couldn’t possibly have known, like when to buy and sell Bitcoin. This is just going to be sound advice that I probably could have accessed without time travel.

1. Don’t buy trackers for individual commodities like gold or platinum. Instead, buy an ETF that tracks a whole basket of commodities.
2. Don’t buy two ETFs that do the same thing. Buy the better of the two (see point 4).
3. Geography is not quite as important as you think (although it is important). Growth can still come from developed markets. Don’t skimp on S&P or QQQ, but “small cap” funds are also a good idea.
4. It’s unlikely that any ETF you buy will be substantially better performing than a similar one from a different company, so buy the one with the lowest fees.
5. When interest rates are high, or inflation is high, buy a money-market fund.

Slow travel: Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Prague, Český Krumlov, Zurich, and Paris

Well, I did it.

After I went to Bruges a few years ago, I looked up other beautiful continental cities. Prague was a frequent winner.

I gave up flying for leisure at the same time I started working on climate change in 2018. Summer 2019, I got a train to Barcelona and felt very pleased with myself. I did the return journey in one go, from Barcelona to London via Paris in one day.

After the pandemic, my first foreign holiday was to Bruges. I, predictably, got COVID for the first time. It was a pretty easy trip though – Bruges is a fairly short journey from Brussels, which has a direct Eurostar service.

The third country that gets direct Eurostar service is the Netherlands, so for this spring I booked myself a train to Amsterdam. I had planned on taking a few day trips, but ended up only going to Alkmaar. I’ll save Utrecht, Rotterdam, Leiden and the Hague for another trip.

The looming spectre was how the hell I was going to get to Prague.

Sleeper trains are often the best way to get to Eastern Europe without flying. So, all I had to go was to get a sleeper train to Prague. Except there’s an issue – the Austrian NightJets are the gateway from Paris to Vienna, and from there Budapest, Bucharest, and so forth. Vienna is both further east and further south than Prague, which is not ideal. And there are no sleeper services at all between Prague and Brussels or Paris or Amsterdam.

I narrowed things down to two routes: hopping across Germany, or a sleeper train between Prague and Zurich. I decided to do both.

Because this was going to be a much more complex trip than my previous ones (even Barcelona), I booked through a specialist travel agent, Byway. There were advantages and disadvantages to this.

Advantage	Disadvantage
Much less hassle – booking and printing tickets	Less option to choose slightly disreputable (cheaper) accommodation
Covered in case of cancellation	Couldn’t book a cheap couchette, and instead had to take an expensive private sleeper berth
Kept in contact with me over WhatsApp when I had issues
Absorbed certain costs, leading to me getting free upgrades

With Byway, I agreed the following trip:

• Day 1: Eurostar to Brussels, train to Frankfurt am Main
• Day 2: Train to Nuremberg
• Day 3: Train to Cheb, transfer to Prague.
• Days 4-7: Prague
• Sleeper train to Zurich on Night 7.
• Day 7: Zurich, train to Paris
• Day 8: Eurostar back to London.

It would have been fairly easy to shave two days off by removing the stayovers in Frankfurt and Paris. However, as I didn’t really like my train from Amsterdam to London (compared to the longer Barcelona to Paris), I decided to break things up.

Why Frankfurt and Nuremberg? Simply put, they were the places I would need to change anyway. There was nowhere worth staying to the east of Nuremberg, though the long journey from Nuremberg to Prague could have used something to break it up other than Cheb train station.

Day 1: London sweat, Brussels panic, and Frankfurt

It was a sweltering day in London when I set off. I was sweating within seconds of getting on South Western Rail, and still dripping on the Victoria line. I bought myself some treats from the M&S in St Pancras (if I could then I would put an M&S in every major railway station, would have been so nice in Prague). Border security kept calling me “ma’am”, despite my beard and my biceps both being the thickest they have ever been. I was surprised to find that I was seated in Business Premier, with more comfortable seats and free at-table meals (that didn’t suit me). It turned out that Byway had upgraded me to First Class throughout at their expense because of an issue they had booking Eurostar tickets.

When we arrived in Brussels Midi/Zuid, the “departures” board had bad news: the train to Frankfurt would be departing from Brussels Nord. There were only a few minutes to make the connection, which seemed impossible. I rushed on a train heading that way, joined by a few locals and three South Korean businessmen. When the train arrived, we ran down to the concourse, then up onto the designated platform. Thankfully, the departure had been delayed to allow people to get there from Zuid.

I couldn’t find my coach, or any coach numbers at all so I just sat anywhere. Eventually, I asked “wo wagon ist das?”, was told “funfundzwanzeig”, and went off looking for achtundzwanzeig. Again, it turned out that this was first class, with really good air conditioning.

It was a fairly lengthy train journey through Liege, Aachen, and Cologne. We arrived at Frankfurt just after sunset. There was a chip shop in the station concourse where I bought some chips without the seller switching to English. I stayed in 25Hours, a three-star hotel a few minutes from the station. The room came with a free bottle of Apfelwein, which to me just tasted like cider. It was described as a “small double” but really the bed was more of a large single – you could theoretically fit two people on there but only just.

The next morning I bought breakfast at the station before getting my train to Nuremberg. I thought it was unreserved seating but the ticket inspector told me to go and sit in first class again. This was probably the nicest train I was on, but a fairly short journey of around two hours.

I’m getting bored, and if I am then you are too.

Nuremberg, in my view, is not worth it. The Palace of Justice is not a great sight – perhaps understandably, they didn’t seem to want to make a big thing of the place where Goring, Von Ribbentrop, Donitz and Hess were tried. It’s also a fair way out of the city centre, which itself is perfectly nice without being remarkable. I got on the metro and enjoyed a couple of parks.

The next day I got a train to Cheb, just the other side of the Czech border. Before we crossed the border, German police got on the train and asked for my passport. I gave it to them.

“Are you smuggling anything?” one of them asked.

“No.”

“Marijuana?”

“No.”

“Weapons?”

“No.”

Why they thought anyone would be smuggling cannabis out of Germany (where it is illegal, and valuable) and into Czechia (where it is legal, and not valuable) is beyond me. Also why they thought someone going from London to Prague would be smuggling weapons.

I changed at Cheb. It was clearly a station that had survived the communist era, put it that way. The town seems to be basically just a train station that inexplicably produced Pavel Nedved.

Yeah I’m really getting bored now. Maybe I’ll come back to this at some point and add photos.

What if the County Championship was a red-ball IPL?

You wake up in Heaven. God, it turns out, is a cricket fan, and wants to combine the auctions, concentration of talent, and spectacle of the IPL with the qualities of first-class cricket and the history of the County Championship.

Eight counties – the six that currently host a Test ground, plus Hampshire and Durham who have previously hosted Tests and aren’t Glamorgan – have been chosen to compete. The rules are as follows:

• This is an all-time squad, so everyone is eligible.
• To preserve a link between the county and the new team, counties are allowed to draft their best historic players before the competition starts. This ensures we don’t end up with Boycott playing for Lancashire. However, I limited this to players with at least some Test experience. I was slightly more generous with recent players who I have seen myself – I feel better equipped to judge Graham Onions than someone who took as many wickets 90 years ago.
• In line with IPL rules (rather than County Championship rules), teams are allowed four overseas players. This both significantly improves the quality of the competition and also provides a huge advantage to the team who picks first and gets Bradman. (I was tempted to exclude Bradman on that basis, but it wouldn’t be the true pinnacle of cricket without him).
• There is no “budget”, instead teams make draft picks in an order based on how many picks them have left, with selection “snaking” (i.e. when everyone has had a turn, the team who picked last gets to pick first next time round) to minimise the advantage of going first.

I owe a big debt of gratitude to fellow autistic cricket blogger AspiBlog, and his all-time county XIs like this one for Yorkshire. That being said, the flaws in my teams are entirely my own. In hindsight, I should have worked a bit harder to find players who didn’t meet AspiBlog’s criteria for all-time XIs (which valued excellent first-class records at one county more highly than I do), but did meet my criteria. David Gower, Shane Warne and Kyle Abbott at Hampshire are prime examples, as is Richard Hadlee at Nottinghamshire – unfortunately I didn’t think of that line of enquiry until I’d already done the draft.

Anyway, here are my teams.

Yorkshire: Boycott, Sutcliffe, Hutton, Root, Leyland, Rhodes, J. Bairstow (wk), Hadlee, Vaas, Trueman, Verity

Yorkshire has the highest proportion of “legacy” players. Three world-class openers (Hutton at three because he seems to have been the most rounded player), one of England’s greatest middle-order batsmen, two fine all-rounders, a leading English keeper-batsman, one of the great pre-war spinners, and Fred Trueman, arguably the greatest English fast bowler. This surplus of domestic talent meant that they only got to pick their extra players at quite a late stage, but managed to secure two extra seamers to round out their attack. Both Hadlee and Vaas were reasonable batters, giving this side huge depth. Trueman’s ferocity, Hadlee’s mastery of swing, and Vaas’ metronymic left arm will complement each other very nicely.

Surrey: Hobbs, J. Edrich, Barrington, Thorpe, May, Jardine, Stewart (wk), K. Miller, Ashwin, Bedser, Steyn

Another side rich in legacy batting talent. Hobbs was an elite opener, and Edrich, while not on that level, was still firmly world-class. Barrington is possibly the most dogged #3 England have ever had, even if he wasn’t as exciting to watch as Hammond or Compton. The middle order is strong, if slightly unexceptional, with Jardine being one of England’s greatest captains, and Stewart is an Edrich-level opener whose Test career was undermined by him regularly having to keep wicket. Keith Miller is a ridiculous selection at #8 that is only possible because a lot of teams couldn’t quite make room for him, and Ashwin is far too good a batsman to be at #9 (while also being one of the greatest spinners in history). Bedser is a legacy pick, but one of England’s great fast-mediums who fully warrants a selection, while Steyn rounds out the team with elite top pace.

Lancashire: Washbrook, Atherton, Paynter, S. Smith, Lloyd, De Villiers (wk), Flintoff, Briggs, Barnes, Statham, Anderson

Only two players – Smith and De Villiers – are drafted. Clive Lloyd gets in as a genuine Lancashire player, the first but not the last overseas player to be selected for their county.

Washbrook and Atherton are the two weakest openers so far, but will aim to set a good foundation for an incredible middle order. Paynter is underrated in discussions of great England batsmen due to his small sample size (his Test record far outstrips his first-class record). Steve Smith, if anything, is underrated due to anti-recency bias. Lloyd is one of the greatest captains ever, and De Villiers is the rare example of a world-class batsman whose average didn’t drop when he had the gloves, making him a great choice at 6. This allows me to fit in not just Freddie Flintoff, but all three of Sydney Barnes (statistically the closest thing to the Bradman of bowling), Brian Statham (ferocious seamer), and Jimmy Anderson (leading Test wicket taking fast bowler, ageing like fine wine). Johnny Briggs provides the spin option – I am cautious about including spinners from the era of uncovered pitches, and maybe someone like Saqlain Mushtaq would have been a better selection.

Warwickshire: Amiss, Hayden, Trott, Dexter, Kallis, Bell, Prior (wk), Dev, Snow, L. Gibbs, Willis.

OK, there’s an obvious issue here: I forgot Chris Woakes. This caused Warwickshire to get a better draft placement, and also caused them to spend their second pick on Kapil Dev, who is exactly the same sort of player as Woakes. Unfortunately, fixing that oversight (like most oversights of that nature) would mean redoing the draft, and I don’t want to do that.

Amiss, Trott, Bell, Willis, and West Indian spinner Lance Gibbs are the only legacy selections. They’re joined by South African batting all-rounder Kallis (the fourth pick in the entire draft), Indian bowling all-rounder Dev, and Australian opening batsman Hayden. Ted Dexter, Matt Prior, and Jon Snow are the first domestic players to be drafted for a county.

You could quibble a bit about the batting order. I chose to notionally list Dexter above Kallis so that Kallis could get a break after bowling. If Warwickshire were batting first, conversely, then Kallis would probably go out at four. I also should probably have selected Usman Khawaja ahead of Matthew Hayden, but Hayden being an outstanding opening batsman for his whole career earns him extra points, as opposed to Khawaja’s decade as a mediocre #3.

Nottinghamshire: Simpson, Duckett, Hammond, Gower, Sobers, Greig, Gilchrist (wk), Swann, Broad, Larwood, McGrath

If you’re thinking, “wow, how did Nottinghamshire manage to draft such a great team?” – yeah, you’re right to think that. I remembered Ben Duckett existed midway through the draft and retroactively awarded him to them, after they had already use the second draft pick to select Adam Gilchrist.

Their legacy players are Duckett, Swann, Broad, Larwood, and the great West Indian all-rounder Garfield Sobers, who otherwise would have been a strong contender (alongside Gilchrist) for the second person to be drated after Bradman. Graeme Swann is the greatest English spinner of the last 50 years, Stuart Broad is a top-class seamer, and Ben Duckett is… OK, it’s not been long since he got back in the England team, but he’s done very well. Harold Larwood, of course, is practically synonymous with high-pace aggressive bowling.

Sobers aside, their overseas players are three Australians – Bob Simpson, Gilchrist, and Glenn McGrath. Simpson is underrated, McGrath is not.

The team is rounded out by some excellent domestic drafts. Wally Hammond is probably the greatest English batsman, David Gower is very good, and Tony Greig is arguably a better all-rounder than Botham. I think Notts win the prize for best drafting.

Hampshire: Trescothick, Gooch, Bradman, Pietersen, R. Smith, A. Flower (wk), Imran Khan, Woakes, Marshall, Laker, Tyson

Only three legacy picks: Pietersen, Robin Smith, and the West Indian seamer Malcolm Marshall (arguably the greatest seam bowler of all time). That granted them the first draft pick, and there should be no surprise about who they picked. Added to Bradman and Marshall are two other elite overseas players, wicketkeeper Andy Flower and all-rounder Imran Khan, who honestly could have switched batting positions easily. Spinner Jim Laker was the first domestic player to be drafted for any team. An attack of Khan, Marshall, and Laker would be terrifying in its own right – now imagine the terrifying sight of Frank Tyson at first change, and Chris Woakes in English conditions at second change.

This team would win the championship, no doubt, even if the English batting options are fairly weak.

Durham: Gavaskar, Cook, G. Pollock, Tendulkar, Stokes, Collingwood, Knott (wk), Warne, Wood, Harmison, Onions

All five of Durham’s legacy players are 21st century players, and four of them are seamers. This inevitably shapes their side. There is no need for seamers or all-rounders, allowing them to focus their draft picks on elite batting options, an elite spinner, and Alan Knott to keep wicket.

Sunil Gavaskar is their first draft pick because elite openers are in high demand (Yorkshire hoarded them), and he’s joined as a foreign player by countryman Sachin Tendulkar, South Africa’s Graeme Pollock, and Australian spinner Shane Warne. The team is rounded out by Alistair Cook – a very astute pick, as the best English opener who isn’t a legacy selection. Finally, Knott is one of the better pre-Gilchrist keeper-batsmen, although not on the level of the Englishman selected by Middlesex.

Middlesex: Strauss, Haynes, Headley, D. Compton, Hendren, Botham, Ames, Akram, Emburey, Fraser, Ambrose

Legacy players: Strauss, Compton, Hendren, Emburey, Fraser, and West Indian Desmond Haynes. All fine players. Fraser wouldn’t have been my first choice as an English seamer, but isn’t an outrageous selection to round out the teams, while Emburey was a useful spinner whose career is tarnished by his decision to go on both rebel tours.

Overseas players: George Headley (a serious contender for the second greatest batsman of all time), Wasim Akram (Pakistani left-arm seamer who could bat; absolutely devastating swinger of the ball), and Curtley Ambrose (statistically up there with Marshall and Garner), and well as Haynes, a fine opener.

Domestic drafts are Botham, England’s most icnonic all-rounder who will be stunned not to be given the new ball, and Les Ames, England’s greatest ever wicket-kepper batsman.

Lessons Learned

The first and most obvious lesson is that I should have worked harder to find, for example, five legacy players for each side.

Similarly, I would probably drop Briggs and Verity from their sides. Three reasons: first, comparing spinners who played in the uncovered era to the modern day is impossible; second, because Yorkshire and Surrey didn’t need so many legacy players; and third, because it would open up two extra spots for spinners. There is no room in these sides for Murali, Anil Kumble, Saqlain Mushtaq, Abdul Qadir, Richie Benaud, Alf Valentine, Bill O’Reilly, Ravi Jadeja, BS Bedi, Daniel Vettori, or even Derek Underwood – the only drafted spinners are Warne, Laker, and Ashwin, unless you count Greig. Now there’s no world in which all of them get drafted, but there is a world where two more of them do.

On that note, perhaps I could have drafted larger squads of perhaps 15 or 16, with the substitutes being allowed to be foreign, and perhaps mandating certain other restrictions like requiring every squad to contain a spinning all-rounder, or a left-arm seamer.

I’d also like a greater variety of nations to be represented. The foreigners selected, perhaps unsurprisingly, skew towards the West Indies and Australia. There are a few Indians and South Africans, but only two Pakistanis, one Kiwi, one Sri Lankan (Vaas!) and one Zimbabwean. Larger squads would help there.

With these flaws in mind, I will probably redo this exercise one day.

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Unrequited love is underrated

That’s it, that’s the post.

Unrequited love gets a bad reputation because of the “unrequited” part. I can see where that comes from, but at the end of the day, love is still love.

The best songs of the last 10 years

I left school ten years ago. Here are my ten favourite songs from the intervening years. I have decided to exclude Carly Rae Jepsen to give everyone else a chance. I have also generally tried to avoid 2013 releases because I was only just out of school then. Finally, I have excluded anything I wouldn’t feel comfortable singing along to, which rules out most hip-hop (apologies to Kendrick, Chance, and RTJ) and also things that it isn’t actually possible to sing along to, or songs with very disturbing lyrics.

This list is unranked – it’s sort of how I would arrange these songs on a playlist. Also, my “writing about music” skills are pretty diminished from years of neglect. I used to be good at this, I swear.

1. Mitski – “Happy”
2. Car Seat Headrest – “Vincent”
3. Frank Turner – “Untainted Love”
4. Alex The Astronaut – “Not Worth Hiding”
5. Vampire Weekend – “Harmony Hall”
6. The Big Moon – “Take a Piece”
7. The National – “I’ll Still Destroy You”
8. Arcade Fire – “Put Your Money On Me”
9. The National – “Light Years”
10. The Big Moon – “Satellites”

Mitski – “Happy”

“Your Best American Girl” gets a lot of the attention, and with good cause, but the imagery here is just so good. “If you’re going, take this heart, I’ll have no more use of it when there’s no more you”.

Car Seat Headrest – “Vincent”

“For the past year, I’ve been living in a town that gets a lot of tourists in the summer months,

They come and they stay for a couple of days but hey, I’m living here every day”

This song, coming in a one-two punch with “Fill In The Blank” is one of the best depictions of depression on wax. It was extremely relatable for me at a time when I was living in Reading and could only see my friends when they came home in the summer.

Frank Turner – “Untainted Love”

OK, I don’t relate to this at all, but it’s so powerful. Turner frankly discusses his drug addiction, how he misses cocaine, how great it was to have no commitments – but that he would rather have love.

Alex the Astronaut – “Not Worth Hiding”

Alex the Astronaut is Australian, so her 2017 gay rights anthem was timely there but came a little late for it to really get the traction it deserved in the UK or US. But it’s extremely good, and still as necessary. “Tell me, anyone, if you love them as a daughter, could you love them as a son? We all smile at different faces, we all blush at different names, but holding someone’s hand should never make you feel ashamed.” Chills.

Vampire Weekend – “Harmony Hall”

Either the last album I bought before leaving school or the first I bought after leaving was Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend. I have written on multiple platforms about how much that album means to me. That album is constant lyrical genius, but particularly exceptional extended metaphors are “Step” and “Ya Hey”.

Vampire Weekend were the sort of early career band who it seemed could be relied on to release albums fairly regularly. Alas. It took them six years to release the follow-up, Father of the Bride. But that album had another work on par with “Step” and “Ya Hey” – “Harmony Hall”. This is supposed to just be a song about different points of view, but it is hard not to read it as a searing attack on Trumpism and neofascism in all its forms. “Beneath these velvet gloves I hie the shameful crooked hands of a moneylender, ’cause I still remember” is such an evocative line.

The Big Moon – “Take A Piece”

Juliette Jackson’s songwriting skills are extremely underrated. This is a song about the relationship between artist and audience, creativity and sanity. Critically, we could say that it glamorises mental illness, but I prefer to think of it as normalising a phenomenon that is stigmatised (hearing voices).

The National – “I’ll Still Destroy You”

It’s quite hard to explain why I like this song so much. It’s basically a song about what a good song it is, but it’s so cathartic and evocative. “This one’s like your sister’s best friends in a bath, calling you to join them; you can’t avoid them”. “Put your heels against the wall, I swear you’ve gotten a little bit taller since I saw you”. “It’s just the lights coming on.” It’s nostalgic and cosy while also containing some of Matt Berninger’s most confessional lyrics (“I have helpless friendships and bad taste in liquids”).

Arcade Fire – “Put Your Money On Me”

When I left school, Arcade Fire were unquestionably my favourite active band, and quite possibly my favourite outright.

Alas.

Later that year they released Reflektor. That one has grown on me with time, but does lack a song that deserves inclusion on this list. There has then twice been big delays before the arrival of LPs 5 and 6, each worse than the one before it.

“Put Your Money On Me” is one of four standout tracks on Everything Now, and for my money is comfortably the best. It’s a love song with a strong Abba influence. There is good imagery about “chloroform skies and clouds made of Ambien” carpeting the “basement of heaven” where people are before they are born. There is dread, tension, great harmonies, and tragedy. It’s a straight banger.

Anyway, Win Butler’s unsavoury sexual habits have now become widespread, and they don’t make good music any longer either.

The National – “Light Years”

“Oh the glory of it all was lost on me, until I saw how hard it’d be to reach you

And I would always be light years away from you.”

MOOD

The Big Moon – “Satellites”

God, this song is devastating. It’s mostly about Jackson’s insecurities regarding parenthood, but also her absolute certainty that she will unconditionally love her child, and there’s even a story arc. A lot of the imagery is really good too.

A league of distinctive kits

I have long admired the football kits of Serie A.

Italian kit designs have noticeably different design tendencies to English designs. Both countries like red, white, and blue. English teams seem to like orange, claret, and yellow, while Italian teams are happy to use black as a major colour, and also use a richer range of colours like purple, burgundy, and pink.

So, what would a league where every team had a distinct home kit look like?

Somewhat arbitrarily, here are some of my favourite one- and two-colour combinations from football kits, starting with some of the most common ones:

1. Solid red – overused? Sure. But in a vacuum, shirts like Liverpool or Man United’s are good.
2. Solid blue – likewise, this is overused, but for good reason. Examples include Chelsea, Everton, and Rangers.
3. Solid sky blue – less common, but still good, used by the likes of Man City and Lazio.
4. Solid white – most famously associated with Real Madrid.
5. Solid purple – to me this is the colour of Fiorentina, but it’s also used by clubs like Anderlecht.
6. Solid orange – the Dutch obviously own this, with Blackpool one of the few other users.
7. Solid yellow – Villarreal, the Yellow Submarine.
8. Solid black – rare, but used by Orlando Pirates and DC United.
9. Solid pink – Palermo of Italy and Sport Boys of Callao in Peru are the two most famous all-pink teams.
10. Solid green – green is usually a package deal with white, but Saint Etienne have solid green shirts.
11. Blue and white – my personal bias, given my Reading background, but also used by Porto, Real Sociedad, and many more.
12. Red and white – also very common, Athletic Bilbao, Ajax, and many more.
13. Green and white – Celtic, Sporting Lisbon, and the rest.
14. Red and black – AC Milan are the definitive wearers
15. Blue and black – Inter and Atalanta
16. Green and black – Sassuolo
17. Black and white – Juventus and Newcastle
18. Blue and red – obviously there’s Barcelona and PSG, but also Italian clubs like Bologna and Genoa
19. Yellow and green – of course, the colours of Norwich, and a small country called Brazil.
20. Blue and yellow – I’m surprised Boca Juniors don’t have more imitators.
21. Yellow and black – Borussia Dortmund and Watford
22. Orange and black – Hull City represent!
23. Solid burgundy – a deeply underrated colour, worn by Torino as well as that one Arsenal kit when they closed Highbury.
24. Claret and blue – a very English colour, the two most prominent wearers in the world are West Ham and Aston Villa.
25. Yellow and claret – not an obvious combination, but used by Bradford and Motherwell.
26. Solid brown – worn by St Pauli, this isn’t the most aesthetic kit but points for creativity.