January 2023
What I've been up to
I committed to completing a whole year without alcohol, and am already some forty days in, having started just before Christmas. It’s too early to say how much difference it will make, but so far the pros have definitely outweighed the cons. On December 19th, when the commitment is complete, I might continue with the new normal, or may re-enact this climactic scene from ‘Ice Cold in Alex’, containing Sylvia Syms, who died this week.
Activities
I have tentatively started to build awareness of my songs online. Media coverage of my Chinese-language song-writing this month has appeared on London Daily Post, Static Dive, and Phoenix FM.
This has been helping to create anticipation ahead of some upcoming gigs. These include an online one on February 11th, to launch my last ever Chinese-language album 《我们需要谈谈麦凯文》, and a The Kev gig on May 26th at Manchester’s Castle Hotel.
Output
This month’s movie soundtrack was ‘Cancion del Mariachi’ from ‘Desperado’:
The essay/video essay was on the subject of school. I have also made slight updates to the ‘Manc-ing up’ skit and the song ‘Hope It Might Be So’:
Wider World
In the English-speaking world, police forces have had aa very bad month. In the UK, officer David Carrick pled guilty to multiple rapes, and in the United States, five former police officers have been charged over the killing of Tyre Nichols.
President Joe Biden said “(this is a) painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all.”
While in America, police have a notoriously fraught relationship with the black community, in the UK, a sordid culture of misogyny has been found in the police force.
Simplistic and unhelpful solutions such as ‘defund the police’ have been purported. Modern policing has its roots in protecting the powerful from an underclass, rather than attacking the roots of societal problems. Institutional failure to protect the most vulnerable could very well be a bug more than a feature.