That was a joke outburst, btw (or the ultimate piece of passive aggression?). I quite like the new layout, although would like to be informed next time, if only so as am able to cut and paste various details. Anyway, am very excited about recent purchases. Firstly, just yesterday bought Natalie Merchant's The House Carpenter's Daughter. For those who don't know, this is a collection of traditional and contemporary folk music that Ms Merchant's collected from archives, churches and various other "folky" type places across the USA. And the result is BRILLIANT - I love this album! Particularly Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow ("well, tomorrow was to be my wedding day/ but oh, my god, where can he be?") and Weeping Pilgrim ("well I weep and I moan and I move slowly on/ I'm a poor mourning pilgrim bound for Canaan land"). It's such a relief to have a new Natalie Merchant album that isn't a total downer. While this is a sad album, you don't have to be catatonically depressed to listen to it (which you do have to be to listen to Ophelia, which I happen to think is one of the best albums ever. Pity I can't listen to it). So, yay for The House Carpenter's Daughter. Also, am reading James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, which is about a black preacher's son growing up in the 1930s, coming to terms with his rejection of God, homosexuality and bastard father. Possibly one of the best books I've read in a long time (probably since Patrick White's Riders in the Chariots, which gave me nightmares in which I saw evil), so yay for Baldwin too. Feeling very culturally stimulated this week.