Can a man be less self-aware and still remember to breathe?

In what seems to have been a completely un-ironic regurgitation of corporate buzzwords, Rahul Gandhi has enjoined the Congress (I) to be a more 'meritocratic' organisation.

This doesn't even need a punchline.

Also, I need to recant. A few weeks back, I was all agog about Scott Lynch, saying that his second novel was every bit the supremely entertaining and satisfying adventure yarn that his debut was. Well, I may have spoken too soon. Now that I've finished the damn thing, I have to say it takes a turn into lachrymose melodrama far too often, repeats plot points from the first book without sustaining the same air of dark, fantastic menace, and sadly, his flair for witty dialogue is starting to falter and sink to Eddings-like levels of 'everyone talks the same and makes the same kind of joke, kind of'. Maybe he's trying for a film deal? Anyway, Red Sails Under Red Skies (which could easily have been called Red Sails Over Red Seas - think about it) is only half as good as The Lies Of Locke Lamorra. Number three's going to be the decider.

In other news, the new Robert Plant album, the one with that hillbilly woman, is really boring. Strictly for the over-50 set and everyone who reads and obeys music reviews in the mainstream press (the same people who are calling Britney Spears' latest an 'artistic triumph'). Album of the year? Regurgitated country-blues chops, far too much compression + reverb on anodyne guitars and two voices singing together in a variety of simplistic ways does not make for a musical masterpiece. Has anyone ever noticed how, when Plant and Kraus sing in unison the cumulative result is to sound just like a somewhat less smarmy Don Henley? Not the happiest shade to invoke. Plant, and Page, should both just cut their losses and ask John Paul Jones if he'll let them join their band.