You probably didn't come here to wade through twaddle about Morrissey so maybe I'll leave it at this. As I said, I do enjoy the new album and I'm glad he is still around, but I also think he fell well short of what he might have been aiming for, and what I know he could have produced. That album cover is provocative, seeming to promise stylish and literate confrontation...M. has been holed up for seven years and he's about to saunter out like James Cagney, blasting away at the Establishment. Only it's a toy gun, turns out, and I think maybe his trousers fell down as well. It's a shame because we really need more artists and musicians to lash out and use their magic these days. The "attack" songs on You Are the Quarry should have been of the calibre of "Margaret on the Guillotine" from Viva Hate, one of the best songs to close an album and one that shows the talent Morrissey had for expressing the disgust and weariness permeating Thatcher's days. That moan of "please die..." and a bit later the sound of a heavy blade falling, abruptly cutting off Vini Reilly's lovely mournful guitar playing said more in 1988 than the whole of this new album achieves. Maybe it's worth noting that M. didn't show up for any of the five scheduled Craig Kilbourn shows. And that the last song on the new cd is called "You Know I Couldn't Last".