Marcy from the rather wonderful Lost in Your Inbox has inspired me to write a post I’ve been intending to scribble out for a wee while now; one about an exotic visitor I used to have, and hope I still do. Back when this site was on Blogger I used to have an almost daily visit from someone in French Polynesia. Now that Song, by Toad has moved to WordPress I don’t get anything like the quality of stats I used to, so I have no idea if my Polynesian friend is still a regular visitor here. If you are: hello there, delighted to have you with us, and do say hi in the comments section.

Anyhow, as Mrs. Toad observed, this is a small example of one of my favourite things about the information age. Only very recently, it would have been unimaginable for someone living on an island that is part of a remote Pacific archipelago to maintain any sort of an active, everyday interest in obscure indie music, but now it is not just possible, but really rather easy. I sort of like that. Why someone living in a tropical island paradise would want to waste part of his day reading my dithering cynicism is rather beyond me, but it’s a nice thought.

So in honour of my visitor from French Polynesia I am going to post some French songs. Or some with bits of French in them. The poor bastard may be utterly sick of the sound of the French language by now, so this might be irritating as hell, but it seemed sort of appropriate.

Blur w. Francoise Hardy – To the End One of the best b-sides of all time by anyone, ever.
The Wedding Present – Pourquoi Est-tu Devenue Si Raisonnable? Splendidly shit French accent from Mr. Gedge.
Francoiz Breut – Si Tu Disais Excellent, sultry French girl indie.
Calexico – Si Tu Disais An English version of the same song. Brilliant.
Calexico – The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Marianne Dissard – Merci de Rien du Tout Marianne’s lovely voice sang the French part in The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Her solo stuff is truly lovely stuff.

Apart from signalling the collapse of civillised society as we know it, graffiti also exists as a legitimate art form. Banksy is currently the most famous proponent of this particular skill, but I rather unjustly dismissed him out of hand when he first began to gain notoriety. Basically, the sort of people I always heard talking about him were the sort of people who were so carefully positioned at the windswept bleeding edge of alternative culture that I have long since developed a nervous twitch (often manifesting itself as something curiously resembling a punch in the head) whenever they start waffling on about anything, anything that is Quite. This. Cool. Personal prejudices aside, however, a pal of mine was given a Banksy book by his missus recently and I had a quick flip through it, and hastily ate my words. He really is talented. Just go and browse his website for a bit – you won’t be disappointed.

Most relevantly to this post I can’t help but notice that, as with other art forms, although most often ones which happen to be internet based, there are a surprising number of people out there willing to give us the benefit of their time and skills for absolutely nothing. I never cease to be amazed by the blogosphere, not by the vast mountains of dross which undeniably exist out here, but by the surprising number of really high quality writers and thinkers who so happily give away their time and thoughts for free.

Applying this to the graffiti I began the post talking about, the pictures accompanying this post are taken from a little electrical switching station thingy very near where I live. This horrendous act of vandalism and lack of respect for public property – snigger, sorry – this selfless donation of someone’s time, effort and really excellent illustration skills really impresses me. Why has he/she bothered? There’s no signature, no glory to be had, but every time I walk past this otherwise nondescript grey box I am impressed and cheered up by the quality and the impudence of these three little pieces of work.

Hooray for vandals!

Maximo Park – Graffiti

And yes, we will sing to you in French:

Marianne Dissard – Les Confettis
This is a very delicate song, so listen to it in the evening in peace. To buy the rest of the album – it’s gorgeous, by the way, so I heartily recommend it – go to her website, here. Joey Burns of Calexico fame wrote a lot of the music, if that helps convince you, and Marianne sang on their brilliant song The Ballad of Cable Hogue.