So there I am, cutting and pasting, fitting in the text I wrote about last weekend's glory days, when Andy calls to inform me that a man has been shot five times at a tube station not far from here. That's after the shock of yesterday, of realising that had it gone as was obviously planned, we'd be looking at more trauma, many more dead, more disruption and shock. Yesterday was a busy day and I came back into London from the North, so what with all the hassles on transport and the fact it took me close to two hors to get home, it's no surprise I couldn't face trekking out to the Clor gig I'd been looking forward to. And now this again. Apparently we are all putting on a brave face, returning to things as normal. That's what all the news reports keep saying. Apparently we are not afraid, and a man has quit his job to run a website where we can all post our messages of support. Well excuse the latent pessimist in me, but can I come out here and say that I am afraid. I don't like seeing police presence at the entrance to every tube station in London, as there was by 6pm last night. I don't like to see sniffer dogs in the hallways, I don't like checking an empty tube carriage for any sign of suspect tampering when I get into it on my own, I don't like the rucksacks that perfectly innocent tourists happen to leave by the doors that make me wonder why is nobody holding onto that, and more than anything else I don't like to think that at any point somebody I really care about might become a victim of a savage and cruel attack. I am a rational adult, and I accept that the point of terrorism is to make us scared and shaken, but in the same way that no amount of reassuring a child that the dentist won't hurt them before the drill hits that bit of the tooth the anaesthetic didn;t quite reach, so I feel we cannot stick our heads in the sand and say that everything and everyone in the city is going around its business as before. It's not true, and no amount of sending in cameraphone pictures with a pint in your hand and a smile on your face to self-serving websites is going to stop people on a mission to kill. It took more than removing all the litter bins from tube station platforms to stop the IRA atrocities, and we ought to be honest about staying vigilant and taking that bit of extra time to worry over our journeys, check what is going on around us.

Weekend is my favourite Jean-Luc Godard film - in fact it's one of my absolutely favourite of anyone's films. If you haven't seen it (and you really should, even given my throwaway description) it's a sort of Marxist parable about greed, infidelity and cannibalism. Oh and it has a traffic jam scene that lasts for as long as most traffic jams, and has to be among the most protracted tracking shots in the history of cinema.
Anyhow, that's not really the point here. This was simply an excuse to introduce a post about last weekend. As anyone who knows me well will attest, I'm not one for relaxing particularly, or for looking on the bright side of things, which makes it all the more remarkable that last weekend was just one of those times that makes it feel great to be alive. I don't quite know how to put it into words. It was a glorious time, the weather was amazing, there was some kind of unbroken positive spirit throughout, it was a little like a living breathing Polyphonic Spree song.
If you are to assume that the weekend starts on a Friday night then it started brilliantly with a concert by the singer Kathryn Williams in the exquisite surroundings of Wren's St. James's Church in Picadilly. She was great, and the hush of the church was the perfect setting. Then on Saturday we spent lots of time at the Country Fair in our local park. We went for breakfast and again in the afternoon with friends, walking round the stalls, admiring he sheep shearing and animals made out of vegetables, chatting with horticultural types and basking in the sunshine. Then to Bush Hall for another exquisite performance in a beautiful place: the sister duo Coco Rosie (their new record is now my most hotly awaited item on the basis of the songs they played), and after that for a drunken knees up at our local pub, the Prince Albert, to mark their closing for a refit. Actually, we'd been to the Albert before Coco Rosie too, partaking of their free barbecue ribs and chops, but by the time we returned it was a mass of merry regulars, the people I've seen and sometimes talked to since I first went there in 1987, and I even had a wee dance surprisingly. By the time I was kind of drunk myself and, chanting along to the Clash's Guns Of Brixton, I was suddenly overcome by a gooey feeling of how much I love living in Brixton, despite all of its annoying ways sometimes.
By this stage I'd usually suspect that this effervescence was too good to last, but we did it all again, with different people, on Sunday. Park, Country Show again (watching the parachutists and sinking a cold beer), barbecue in our garden, lovely music, then rounding it all off with a therapeutic bit of washing up and a lie in the deckchair with a chilled wine, watching the stars come out. Of course I recognise how Molesworth this is ("hello trees, hello flowers") but it was just a perfect weekend. Perfection with nothing to irritate me or spoil the flow. Didn't Aldous Huxley saysomething along the lines of "there is something unusually boring in hearing about other people's happiness"? Well, too bad. I'd like to commemorate 48 hours of joy, and give a big shout out to Kathy, Zara, Sylvia, Andy S, Joe, Simon, Marfa and especially Hitch for making it all possible.

Architecture In Helsinki
Originally uploaded by IanMac1.

... for today at least. This has been a great year for new favourite bands: Arcade Fire, Dungen, White Magic and now comes Architecture In Helsinki. Multi-instrumentalists from Australia, their CD is called In Case We Die and proves that if XTC were the overriding influence of last year's new crop, this year it's Talking Heads (with a dash of Tom Tom Club thrown in). A friend of mine saw them live this week and was blown away. I was gutted to miss it (being in Montreux) but they've added another date next Thursday and the anticipation is already heady. The sound of summer surely, when we finally get our summer back.

Lawrence
Originally uploaded by IanMac1.

A few posts back I made an attempt to get to grips with the new record by Go-Kart Mozart, the latest strange affair from the genius that is Lawrence. Today I was cheered no end by the short interview with him that appears in the Guardian's Review section. Proof that lawrence has lost none of his eccentricity, obsession with pop detritus and most importantly cleanliness and hygiene. Treat yourself to it by clicking on the link.

Krispy Kreme
Originally uploaded by IanMac1.

Every now and again the dog manages to get hold of something she shouldn't from a place where we shouldn't really have left it. In this case: doughnuts. If anyone from a major food advertiser is reading this, she's available for photoshoots and commercials and is very sophisticated in her tastes.

Freddie
Originally uploaded by IanMac1.

No, I'm not referring to the adorable Andy H. This may be quite the oddest thing in Montreux: a lakeside tribute sculpture to former resident Freddie Mercury. Anyone for a slimline Freddie Swiss Army knife? Well now you know where to get them...

Kraftwerk
Originally uploaded by IanMac1.

Okay - apologies straight away for the shitty picture. The truth is I am so dead against any idiot who takes photos at a concert and those people usually get on my nerves. But I knew I'd be writing about this and really felt I ought to try and capture a real live shot to accompany my post.
We went all the way to Montreux to see Kraftwerk. Or to be more honest, I decided we'd go all the way to see them. Not that any justification is needed but I felt: what the hell, you're only 40 once, I cannot think of anything I'd rather do to celebrate this supposedly momentous occasion. Should you think this is madness for just some pop concert or other, a bit of background. Obsessed with music from virtually the minute I could speak, I can still feel the thrill I had as a kid hearing Autobahn on the radio. Discovering that the group would be playing in Glasgow a couple of years later, and going to see them when I was 12. The subsequent tours: Glasgow Apollo in 1981 for Computer World, when they invited the audience to "play a little melody" on doctored pocket calculators. The (in retrospect rather disappointing) E-generation comeback at Brixton Academy in 1991, and then the triumph of last year's mega tour - once again at Brixton, possibly the greatest live show I have ever witnessed.
So I can't disguise the enthusiasm I feel for this band. It's written all over this page anyway, but in case you'd missed the point, Kraftwerk get my vote as the greatest pop music of the 20th century.
The 21st has a long way to go - but jeez, does this show set the standard. Andy would confirm how excited I was. I tempered my eating and drinking to make sure everything was at prime comfort level. I had to go to the toilet several times beforehand to rid myself of post-show nerves (and come on, I'm only the audience for God's sake). It's pathetic - it was just like a kid failing to sleep on Christmas Eve because of the anticipation.
The Miles Davis Hall is a perfect size - only holds about 1500 people. Some guys have worn red shirts and black ties in honour of classic Werk styling. A woman on her own in front of me is doing a Sudoku puzzle as she waits. We are about three rows from the front of the low, club-style stage. The lights dim and the Man-Machine refrain blasts out.
After that it's just a two hour blur of genius. Genius genius genius. The show is the same as last year, with one set change by moving all the versions of Tour Dr France together. The opening of Man Machine is as spine-tingling as ever. I even danced, which is highly unusual for me. Up close it's possible to work out some of what they are doing up there, and it's not all just checking e-mail or cycling reports. Ralf certainly has some kind of keyboard which means he can play melody lines live (this is particularly noticable on bits of Radioactivity and during his final solo at the end). The middle two appear to specialise in rhythm generation and sound manipulation: pitch shifting, bending notes and eq-ing the bass and treble levels, sometimes dropping the frequencies flat and low like a dub reggae mixer. Only Florian gives nothing away, icy faced for most of the set. There's a bit of on-stage eye communication and some smiling and that's it. But with melodies like this, and a light and video presentation of such style and wit, who needs guitarists dropping to their knees? So the upshot of all this is: Kraftwerk still unrivalled and unequalled. Worth a trip to Switzerland, and hell I'd even say further than that. Next stop is Electric Picnic in Ireland and then I think I can wait a few more years for whatever their next show brings. Oh, and it poured solidly all day in Montreux having been a lakeside sun-filled paradise for the previous days, hence the title of this post - a little homage to the wonderment of Denim.