Top 10 - November

1. The Sword – Not even having heard their new album yet due to it not being Spotify hasn’t held me back from giving the sheer riffing genius of Warp Riders, the planet destroying riffs of which I’ve ridden through a couple of astral planes this past month.
2. Dark Chocolate

3. Monocle – I wish I could take credit for the line “Changing the world one first class ticket at a time” but unfortunately I can’t. The first thing I love about this magazine is that when you read it from your cramped seat on the budget airline you still think you’re somehow a hotshot jetsetter. The other thing is that it’s probably one of the only places I read about people giving a shit about having gone to the RCA.

4. Songs of Fire and Ice – The main reason it’s number 4 and not 1 is that I finished reading all 5000 pages so don’t know what to do with myself

5. Modernist lamps

6. Not living like an immigrant anymore – I don’t care what anyone says, and immigrant parents guilt aside, it’s amazing not really having to live like an immigrant anymore. There’s that whole bit about the power and honesty of the struggle but I’m over it.

7. Bilingualism for children now being cool – When I was a kid the whole sordid matter of my parents not speaking English at home was a matter of shame. Now, however, the fact that my kid has loads of languages thrown at her makes her cool.

8. Istanbul – Back again and can’t wait to commute from one continent to another.

9. Schnapps – The Stark words are already here for us in Northern Europe which means its time to warm up from the inside out Eastern style. I recommend having on hand home brew in plastic water bottles from ex Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union.

10. Wacom tablets