I’m away for a few days (in Scotland, where the weather is beautiful and I got sunburnt today while pootling about in a boat) but still in touch with the world, and wanted to note:

a) The untimely passing of Fopp. I first went to Fopp in Edinburgh in…ooh, must have been 1992 or 93, and continued to pour money into their tills while I worked in Aberdeen during the 90s. Fopp furnished me with most of my Tom Waits collection, actually, now I think about it. It was, for a long time, the perfect shop for a lover of eclectic music on a student budget. When it opened in London, I was chuffed, and I have to admit to being sad to hear it’s closing its doors this week. RIP FOPP.

b) I’ve been following the 1000 films to see before you die partwork in this week’s papers with some interest, and I’ve been trying to figure out how many ‘ve seen. My current breakdown is as follows:

A: 16
B: 27
C: 14
D: 10
E: 7
F: 10
G: 13
H: 6
I: 8
J: 6
K: 3
L: 5
M: 19
N: 1
O: 7
P: 11
Q: 0
R: 4
S: 27
T: 19
U: 3
V: 1
W: 8
X: 1
Y: 2
Z: 1

Making a total of just 229 from the full 1000.

By my reckoning, if I’ve got another 771 films which I absolutely MUST watch before I die, I’d better get cracking because at an average of 2 hours per film, that’s going to take me nearly 100,000 hours, or somewhere in the region of 9 1/2 weeks.

Which is sort of fitting, really.