- Saw Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks at the refurbished Ritz last week. Whilst I enjoyed them, the set was perhaps a little too focused on new material. I'm a big fan of Mirror Traffic, and I fully understand why artists don't want to play songs from albums they've already toured to death, but performing nothing from Pig Lib was a little disappointing to me (it's probably my favourite of his solo records). Still, "Church On White" was a lovely way to end the evening. Helping make the evening great: Girls, who have blossomed into a fantastic band. Whether or not a support band should play for over an hour is open to debate, though, no matter how good they may be. The venue, which was characterful back when I was underage drinking there at the start of the 21st century (characterful being shorthand for "a scuzzy little dump"), looks good, although having to pay £4 for even the worst of alcoholic beverages may well deter me from attending in the future.

- Also saw The Future, a couple of days afterwards. So far, I have failed to write anything about it, but it definitely had a big effect on me, and I'll be trying to get some words down at some point. It's run at the Cornerhouse was ludicrously brief, given that they showed Submarine for what seemed like years, and will probably do the same with We Need To Talk About Kevin. Yawn.

- Posted the first part of my coverage of the X-Men relaunch over at Onward, Manchester, with more to come next week (quite a bit more, actually, as I'm well behind at the moment). The two flagship titles, Wolverine and the X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, are far and away the pick of the bunch. Which is as it should be, although some of the other titles haven't impressed me, and I'm already considering dropping a couple.

- Very disappointed to learn that Peter Hook and the Light have been performing Closer. What a massive hypocrite he is. Actual quote from Hook, following the souring of relations between him and Bernard Sumner: "New Order without Peter Hook is like Queen without Freddie Mercury." And Joy Division without Ian Curtis is a massive waste of time, so why bother?