Heli's got it. Up north of me, with a fan switched on at Heaven and Hell Radio, she asks: "Isn't it time the G8 summit did something to global warming?"
To it? Even if they could, the thought of some of those G8 leaders doing anything more than they have chills my heart. But her link, to an article in 'The Independent', is worth checking out in full, since I've not seen anybody state so clearly before in the mainstream press, as John Houghton comments:
"Scientists now agree that the central European heatwave of 2003, which led to the death of over 20,000 people, was largely due to an increase in greenhouse gases, for which humans are responsible."
Scores, some say hundreds, of them in France, remember? Those black crosses I mentioned appearing in the entrance halls of buildings around this part of town and elsewhere in Paris?
We're still only June, the temperature in the street at 8:30 pm tonight was +32° C in the shade ... what will they be saying about 2005? As people started complaining, that minister, whoever he was, I forget, eventually rushing back from his holiday and saying: "Oh, I'm ever so sorry. Didn't we have a plan for all this?"
I should lay off the cynicism. Being at the Factory that can be difficult, but once someone's singing some sense into me it gets increasingly hard to stay bitter...
The truth remains I'm glad that Heli and a few others blog on, indefatigably and in her case usually briefly, reminding us how hard those stupid, thoughtless and often short-sighted bastards need kicking.
The G8 ideas I was kicking around during my "political" hours of the day were more about music and who, in Africa, gets to write what in the next few days about the major musical projects for that weekend, especially what the Africans make of it all.
During one preparatory chat with Helen, who's in Nairobi right now and knows so much about some very hot spots in eastern central Africa, she works -- as people can -- for both us and the BBC.
"I wonder many people in Rwanda," she mused for a moment, "have even heard of Bob Geldof."
"Good question," I said. "So do I."
So we'll find out a few things like that...
 Doubtless, you'll be getting more here apart from one or two points I've already made. Perhaps not when it happens. We'll all be up to the eyeballs in G8 and Africa, flavour of the year, but the Desk chief has asked me to firm up my vacation dates. As usual, they're last minute. As usual, they're not as planned, but you have to fit in with world leaders and where their plans put your work mates.
As usual I want to be free & around town in August, already agreed for the first three weeks of that month this year, and now a last chunk of July looks good for the rest. If it's not too hot, you might get a few inspired thoughts less coloured, once more, by the heat of the day's endless flow of nonsense.
Frank speaking: there's hot ... and there's Ani
Ani diFranco, to be precise. You get nothing new when I tell you today's VoW album is 'Evolve', since Ani did that more than two years ago. This particular picture -- you've had quite enough of their inevitably fine bodies for a while -- I stole for the fun value from 'asteroid-b612' (aka 'The Cygnus Loop'.)
Ani can be a lot of fun. She makes being serious about life fun and she can even do it with anger. Maybe this blog should be a kind of "wiki", I think, knowing some entries should stay open for more perceptions while albums grow on me. People who say this particular album was aptly named are right: it's a big change on the "old Ani".
"i speak without reservation from what i know and who i am. i do so with the understanding that all people should have the right to offer their voice to the chorus whether the result is harmony or dissonance, the worldsong is a colorless dirge without the differences that distinguish us, and it is that difference which should be celebrated not condemned. should any part of my music offend you, please do not close your ears to it. just take what you can use and go on."
She said that years ago when people called her the "l'il folksinger", and there's another open letter at a site Margie Gillespie left behind in '99, but like all of the women whose music I write about she's carved her own path and like many she's done her best to be a spanner in the wheels of the industry.
She's poetic and very outspoken, now has an Ani diFranco space on the Net and guess what? The New York connection is almost becoming a nuisance, I'm not doing it on purpose.
When I return down her road, it'll be once I've remedied recent ... excesses and have something to say about 'Knuckle Down' (her latest). But if hers is not a familiar name, 'Evolve' is a very good place to start.
If she was a familiar name, but hasn't been for several years ... "Evolve' is a very good place to start. For why? Because yes you do get Ani the angry, the witty, the lover, the political sniper and the folksinger, a woman who knows what to do with guitars. But you also get what I guess she herself would consider her first wholly seamless bid to build on her foundations and move into, for instance, jazz.
Not just traditional jazz either. Somebody who's already written about this so well that I'll simply link and quote is Ari Levenfeld (PopMatters).
To each their own ears; mine don't have the problem's Ari's did that day when they found Ani a little too taken by her new experiments in style to give her soul-searching and her lyrics the place he'd have liked. For me, the mix works.
But for this, he gets the last word on Ani:
"'Serpentine' represents the promise of what combination of well thought out, Wynton Marselis-inspired arrangements can be, when coupled with Difranco's lyrical stabs. It's a long, meandering piece of work that takes some time to build. To evolve, maybe. It includes the best of her break-beat acoustic guitar picking and a jazzy bass line that takes just long enough to kick in. If this is a glimpse of what Difranco is attempting to evolve into, she might just make Charles Darwin proud."
I don't know what Darwin would make of the G8, but he was a practical kind of fellow. The Americans will doubtless arrive with a big box of spanners, but if Bush and some of his pals fancy doing anything practical themselves before everybody comes out with some "joint declaration" so watered down they'd do better to save the water for the places that need it, they could try dropping by Ani's hairdresser on their way over.
11:16:56 PM link 
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