Makes me want to go out and invade a foreign country.

(It was St. Crispin’s Day on Tuesday in case you didn’t know).

I’ve been having a lovely old time exploring and listening to the British Library’s wonderful UK Sound Map, a huge online archive of ambient recordings made all over the country.

They range from the sublime…

…to the (slightly) ridiculous…

…to the Larkin-esque…

and the Morrissey-esque.

This one gives me my own personal Proustian rush.

Being a sentimental old expat I’ve found it quite a wistful experience at times and it’s pleasing to know there are British people out there who think that things like “a lonely office” and “a damp Friday afternoon” are worth recording because they are part of the nation’s character. What a miserable bunch we are.

In the same spirit, some songs that also wistfully evoke places and things.

Download: Walking In The Park — The Clientele
Download: Swallow Song — Vashti Bunyan
Download: Coney Island— Van Morrison

Symptoms include: Lack of energy, poor vision, tired thinking, heavy legs, loose bowels, delusions of grandeur, the inability to hit a cow’s arse with a banjo. Symptoms may induce anxiety, momentary euphoria, and feelings of depression in others.

Download: That Same Old Feeling – Pickettywitch (mp3)

If I should pass out, think only this of me;
That there’s some piss-stained corner of a town centre
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a smell of sick and curry;
And a Ladette whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her knickers to lower, her flesh to bare,
A body of England’s breathing English air,
Washed by the lager, snogged by yobs of home

And think, this girl, all dignity shed away,
Bladdered out of her mind, no less
Pukes up on her shoes the vodkas by bartenders given;
Head swimming, dreams of greasy takeaway,
And laughter, boys giving it large, sirens and broken glass;
On the piss, under an English heaven.

(Apologies to Rupert Brooke)

Download: Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees – Leyton Buzzards (mp3)

Though the phrase “Crisis? What Crisis?” was most famously used as a headline by The Sun during the Winter of Discontent in 1979 and was the title of a Supertramp album before that, I think it was first used on this cover of The Economist dated August 12, 1972. I don’t know what the story was about but knowing the era I imagine it was another economic or industrial disaster of some kind.

The funny thing about this cover is I assume we’re supposed to think the family are enjoying a life of languid pleasure, the idle working classes sunning themselves on the beach while the country goes down the shitter. And they have a radio! Luxury! Grandad in particular looks very happy stretched out in the sun. But looking at it now all I can think is how bloody uncomfortable and miserable they seem (well, apart from Grandad) sitting on that hot, pebbly beach fully-clothed, and with their six grubby kids they look more like a vagrant gypsy family than happy-go-lucky workers living off the fat of the land with their consumer electronics. Was this the best The Economist could do, or was life so bad in 1972 that people looked at that picture and thought “Lucky bastards”?

But at least in the summer of 1972 they would have this trio of (appropriate) hits to listen to on their fancy radio while they fried on the hot pebbles. I bet they’re not wearing any suntan lotion either and poor old mum will have to rub cold Calomine on their raw red skin when they get home.

Download: Automatically Sunshine – The Supremes (mp3)
Download: Sea Side Shuffle – Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs (mp3)
Download: School’s Out – Alice Cooper (mp3)

The Alice Cooper would probably have made Grandad wake from his snooze and say “What the bloody hell is this racket? Put on Jimmy Young!”