Discouragers of the Estuarine Waders,

It's only the 3rd of April and southern England has a hosepipe ban, I have not paid too much attention to the news today or even watched the Wright Stuff so I don't know whether any of the bulletins ran with interviews with the public, they probably did. When this issue first hit the news I did see a few video montages of Joe Public interviews, amongst them is always the mandatory "we're an island and surrounded with water, what's the problem?" comment. I am irked by the people making flippant comments on situations where they don't understand all the facts, especially on scientific issues. Desalination plants are costly to build and run. I also bet there would be complaints from NIMBYs about the construction of plants. There are also environmental issues over the disposal of the hypersaline brine that is generated from such plants.

I quote this comment, made in the form of a poem, from a member of the public, posted on the BBC website on the controversial issue;

Bath with a close friend on a cold Friday evening.

Picture this, a day in December

Warm water, freezing cold weather

Saving the nation, from its own irrigation

Plugging the leaks, with this Friday temptation.

Rubbish, no offence like.

In the muso spot, I ordered the Be Your Own Pet and Secret Machines albums last week, I await their arrival although I'm disappointed that the former does not include the single "Damn Damn Leash". After hearing Marc Riley play some of the tracks from "City and Eastern Songs" by Jeffrey and Jack Lewis, I've been turned into a huge fan of their work, that album, itself, is fantastic. Long, rambling, quiet monologues sit beside really fast, upbeat numbers where they scream "Have you seen, have you seen my time machine?", it shouldn't work but it does. The track called "Moving" is a favourite of mine, it sums up the emotions of moving house, it perfectly captures the sadness of the empty house and seeing a whole life in cardboard box form, the song has its humourous touches, of course, but I thought the song was so much like life. Jeff Lewis is going to be appearing on Marc's Rocket Science show, I look forward to it. I recently purchased an older album by Jeff, "It's the Ones Who've Cracked That the Light Shines Through", which contains the same successful formula and it has a truly wonderful title. I tried to buy another of his back catalogue on eBay but I must not be such a big Jeff Lewis fan as I lost - I was riled by the selling scampeteer charging £3.50 for postage and did not bid too high. In fact, I was the winning bidder with 8 seconds left but such was my annoyance at the great postage rip-off, I eventually hoped that I would lose, so everyone was a winner. I actually ordered the new Archie Bronson Outfit album tonight too, I had completely forgotten about my intention to buy it (after my quest last month) until I was remembered by the good musicologists of the Fence Records forum - postage was only 50p.

Finally, the national treasure that is King Creosote played a live session on the Vic Galloway programme for Radio Scotland, he was amazing. I was lucky enough that KC supported Belle & Sebastian when I went to their gig at the ABC Glasgow in February, I really should have seen much more of KC due to the Fifecestershire connection but I suppose I'll see him again, one day.

The photograph accompanying this cat story is of Seafield Tower, Kirkcaldy.