I'd had this broken Isis CLOCK clock knocking around forever, but was recently inspired to dig it out after noticing an Isis RADIO radio on Pat Albeck's cluttered studio shelves.

Thing is, after fitting a new movement, I figured the white plastic was so sun-yellowed that it might as well be actually-yellow!

Vinyl dye is perfect for plastics, it permeates the surface and is less prone to unsightly scratches... apart from where I dug my nail in to test if it was dry. It wasn't.

The boy's managed to get off to sleep these past few stormy nights after some tiny white lies about how the awesome power of nature unleashed "is really nothing to be frightened of". The scaredy-cat cat, however, has been sleeping on my chest, with lightning-lit saucer eyes staring straight into mine at every peel of thunder.

Saddened to read of the death of bass giant, Charlie Haden (1937–2014)... but, boy, what a legacy to leave behind! Could post a link to Alice Coltrane's mesmeric Isis and Osiris or his own Song for Che from Liberation Music Orchestra (pictured, Haden far right), but here's the seminal Lonely Woman with Ornette Colman.

Reading Nina Stibbe's Love Nina this month has been a joy, not only does it evoke a strong sense of time and place (literary Camden in the 1980s), it's quietly hilarious too.

Nina's missives are so astute that the whole reads like a loosely structured but knowing narrative, written with all the cultural/emotional bite that's usually brought by hindsight.

Sad to say the hardcover jacket's a bit blah, while the new paperback cover's a travesty of ill-fitting populism… the US edition's my favourite so far.