It's cold under the blanket.

Today I turned eighteen. It has been possibly the most boring, uneventful birthday ever, but I guess every year more of the novelty of birthdays wears off a bit more. I got up, ate cornflakes and revised proof by induction. Two cards, some chocolates, nothing else. I'm not really bothered any more, to be honest. I feel like I've already celebrated. And two weeks before exams is not a brilliant time to go wild. I feel sleepy and peaceful, anyway. I have wonderful CDs to listen to, and plenty of tea to drink. No one else is home: my parents are on holiday, my brother's gone to the pub. The postman brought a parcel, but I slept through the doorbell and didn't wake up until one. Tony Benn was on Any Questions, which was a neat little birthday surprise. Perhaps I'll have an afternoon nap. I'm still in my pyjamas at half past five.

We Are Scientists was a truly great. Fresh and energetic and funny. Lots of moving and trampling though. Ironically the crowd were at their wildest and most violent when the band played 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt'. The last song they played, just before the desperate stampede to get out was 'The Great Escape'.

I was thinking about Paul Wells' arguments about New Labour today. Paul Wells is an incredibly frustrating person to have an argument with: he is not only notoriously right wing, but also completely reactionary and doesn't appear to support taxes, the Welfare State or civil liberties. In fact he behaves like a member of the 19th century aristocracy. He completely disregards Blair's policies on education, privatisation and private financing and dismisses any suggestion of Blair as a neo-conservative or Thatcherite. More controversially he is under the impression that Hitler was left wing, leading me to the conclusion that he is either a far right propagandist or completely ignorant. Hitler attempted, and almost succeeded in murdering the German left and trade union movement. His policies were not grounded in some kind of left wing economic ideology, but rather in racial superiority, capitalism and fascism. How can Paul Wells label Hitler a socialist when socialism involves the people controlling the means of production? In Nazi Germany the means of production was controlled by private capitalists.

I love Paul. I just hate his politics. Sometimes I get the feeling lots of people think that about me.

Show Your Bones is a wonderful wonderful album and I will listen to it until the cows come home.
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