I’m planning to celebrate my birthday, 
and the 50th anniversary of the Windscale nuclear accident ((Speaking of which, Palgrave has just issued a new edition of my mother’s book Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident.)), by going to see the Mekons at Town Hall Seattle tomorrow. I vaguely remember them as a highly-political punk band, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of their “post-modern country” work. However, as a loyal reader of Dan Dare in my childhood, how could I pass up an opportunity to see a band that was named after his arch-enemy? ((Bizarrely, the write-up at the Town Hall website states that “they took their name from a classic British science fiction comic hero”. Hero?! That leader of a bunch of green jackbooted Venusian thugs? Hardly…))