Something catchy and vaguely indie comes on the stereo, which is nice considering the dirge-like skindie grindie boy who’s been whingeing on about his A-levels for the last 20 minutes. Chris Swishblog is in charge of the stereo at work, so he occasionally gets emails from me along these lines:

“I like this song. What is it.”

“*Name of song* *artist*.”

Now, confusion arises when the conversation goes like this:

“I like this song. What is it.”

“Ike and Tina.” Total absence of River Deep Mountain High/presence of Arctic Monkeys-style screeching suggests piss being taken.

“Shurrup.”

“What? That’s what it is.”

“What, Ike and Tina of gratuitous domestic abuse fame?”

(All dirge-like skindie grindie boy’s songs sound familiar enough to mean that I’ve probably heard them at least once before, but I’ve never heard of a grindie band called Ike and Tina. And why would a grindie band that sounds like The Holloways and/or Just Jack call themselves something so kitsch and UnCool.)

“No, the SONG’S called Ike and Tina.”

“Oh. Right. Ye-es, but who’s the band.”

Incredulous look. ”It’s Jamie T.”

This is not fair. It has reggae in it and reggae is my fifth circle of hell. Also, the only thing I know about Jamie T is that he lives in Wimbledon, which, from my past recollections of Wimbledon, suggests that the only kids he’s likely to be down with are organically farmed ones from Waitrose.

“Oh. But you didn’t write the name down so I thought you were taking the piss?”

“I thought seeing as you have three magazines with Jamie T on the cover on your desk you’d know who he is.”

Explanation above. Oh well, Jamie T has one song that I do like listening to and that’s called ‘Ike and Tina’ and seeing as it’s only Tuesday, my new resolution is going very well.

I was having a “debate” about preconceptions last night over pasta and some very disappointing Paul Newman-branded vinaigrette, the opposition’s point being that all modern theatre is shit and me saying that’s not true, there are some truly outstanding actors/plays and that you can’t say that unless you see every single thing on offer which is bloody impossible and also wouldn’t leave me with any time to find vague solace in Jamie T etc etc. Having taken up assorted new year’s resolutions in the last two weeks and discarded them when I can’t be arsed (also known as “whims”), my latest one is to stop making generalisations and pigeon holing people after short notice, which, given I write about music and film and have a very low threshold for crap is really very hard.

The thing that spurred this one (replacing “Engage in neighbourhood activities: watch Celebrity Big Brother”, which lasted the opening show before I just couldn’t be arsed anymore) was doing an interview with the singer from Ghosts today, who recent readers will know are a band I absolutely cannot stand for being a) beige and b) wankers. On the phone the singer couldn’t have been nicer. He wasn’t remotely pretentious, gave decent answers and was basically much better and more patient than some of the people I’ve interviewed in the past who really should know better (Dot Allison, I’m looking at you.) So yes, I feel better disposed to Ghosts, even though their music is still deeply beige. Good luck to them, and I hope the singer finally gets to go to Glastonbury where I expect Jamie T will be playing on the main stage and everyone will know and love him apart from me. But I’ll cheer when he plays Ike and Tina.