Brand New just sort-of surprise-released their new record after eight years of waiting and a few days of teasing and I have no one else to talk to about it yet because I only just noticed at midnight so now I'm up for another hour while I listen through it. Anyone else in a similar position? I'm three songs in and it…

Oh god, we used to play the exact same settings, but called it Spistols (speed pistols).

Never been able to get on board with Teenage Fanclub, even though they're held in such high esteem by a lot of musicians I love. Maybe that's the problem - I spent years hearing people build off their sound in ways I like more before going back and hearing the raw material, so to speak.

I watched Confessions of a Shopaholic once and the most infuriating thing about it is how she becomes an overnight journalistic success after writing one blog. Anonymously. How are people even finding it if she's not promoting it on social? Her new blog isn't going to get indexed on Google any time soon. It shows a…

Sure haven't. Just spied a niche Buffy reference in the sidebar there.

Yeah my fidget spinner costs £2.50 and stops me from browsing the internet when I'm mildly distracted at work (obviously not every single time because here I am) but grown adults in my office are dropping, what, ten times that a go for these tacky big-headed doll things? I'm with you there.

Good lord that's a fairly esoteric title reference.

He's got a trapper keeper full of appointments, right?

Lengthy Femputations is the name of my chillwave solo project, jsyk.

There's a vegan diner in Manchester (the England one) called VRev. A "tuna" sandwich made of chickpeas and vegan cheese, followed by a seitan chicken burger with tempeh bacon, pretzel-topped donuts and a vegan milkshake is prob the best meal I've had in recent memory. A+.

Haha, definitely! There's obvious fond videogame memories around Goldeneye too, of course…

Goldeneye is kind of the perfect balance between seriousness and campiness (he POWERSLIDES A TANK) that all pre-Craig Bonds aspired to…

I really liked Lucky Number Slevin! At least, I think I did. Ecks vs Sever I remember was supposed to be truly awful, but the tie-in game adaptation was a surprisingly good FPS on the Game Boy Advance. Which is a ridiculous thing to type.

It just feels so hard to care about this album at all.

I don't think there's any stretch of records of two or more I could uniformly say are great. Maybe three at a push… I always thought their gold was struck a little more randomly.

That's how they get you. Fascinating band, hard work in practice. I like talking about The Fall more than I like listening to The Fall. I don't think I've actually listened to them for three years but they're one of my favourite bands to discuss.

Always thought Post-TLC was a bit of a sprawling mess but I'm with you on the first two - some of the best they've done.

Oh it's you again. I honestly think anyone who likes everything The Fall have done without being aware of their shortcomings as a band is honestly lying to themselves. Also, Pitchfork are generally endlessly critical of things (apart from their flavours of the year, I'll give you that), but they've actually been very…

Again I'd say that's a bit lopsided. Not enough Brix yet. Kurious Oranj is always in the running for my fav Fall album because she's all over it.

Written by Marc Burrows - I remember he did a big article for the Guardian about getting into them for the first time and it was ridiculously fawning and uncritical - I'm pretty sure he just doesn't want people to think he doesn't get it.