Following on from Q (authored as Luther Blissett) and 54, comes a new novel Manituana by the Bologna fiction collective known as Wu Ming. Verso are publishing Shaun Whiteside’s English translation, the proof copies were circulated last month, and the book will be available in both the UK and the US shortly. Like the earlier tomes by the same authors, Manituana is a heavily researched historical novel that speaks as much about a future we have yet to make, as the past in which it is set. The main action takes place around the ‘American War of Independence’, with the focus on the alliance the Iroquois Indians made with the English.

Although I’ve been to Bergen four times in the past five years, I’ve never pulled the classic tourist move of arriving on a cruise ship. Known locally as the city of the seven hills, Bergen is in the language of love and tourist hype ‘the Rome of the north’; as are also Riga, Tallinn, York and Sutton Scotney. Bergen’s development as a Hanseatic trading port is a historical groove sensation, but today most visitors are more impressed by the bar prices; hot tip – take a bank loan before buying a round. This time around I discovered some cute local customs while sitting outside The Calibar (Vaskerelven 1, Bergen).

Since Herman Brood came up on a blog I posted a few days ago, I’ve been thinking about why I like his tune Rock & Roll Junkie. There are elements within it that on their own I would normally hate. Somehow the super-dumb boogie-woogie keyboards manage to become a non-irritating element in the overall racket. Brood’s voice is acceptable but nothing special, with his cracked English lyrics and pronunciation being a definite plus element. I guess most listeners will connect the lyrical content to Brood’s own life, since he is Holland’s most famous rock and roll junkie. That said, the words relate most immediately to music and only secondly to drugs:

Here’s a strange one pop-pickers, I was on the prowl for Viola Wills’ cover of If You Could Read My Mind when I stumbled across a bargain bin copy of the New World album Believe In Music, which features a different version of the tune I was looking for. The band name rang a vague bell, and so I turned the platter over and immediately noticed the Gordon Lightfoot song in the track listing. The album is a 1973 RAK release, and the Mickie Most connection (RAK was his label) brought back vague memories of early seventies singles by New World that were more familiar to me as tunes done by other acts: Rose Garden covered by Lynne Anderson and Tom Tom Turn Around, which had also been waxed by The Sweet.

I’ve liked Eddie Holman’s A Night To Remember for a long time, and I guess it’s familiar to me because it was one of the late Salsoul singles that contributed to a revival of interest in him. So when I spotted an original vinyl copy of the album that takes its title from this single in a bargain bin last week, I grabbed it with both hands. The tune A Night To Remember alone is worth a round pound of my money, or anyone else’s for that matter! And a quid was all I had to pay for a 12 inch 8 track vinyl trip right back to my last year at school.