Batwatch

Isn't it brilliant when people who do extraordinary are things are really quite, well, ordinary?  You know, people who make amazing things, where part of their beauty lies in the fact that you feel you, and/or your mates, could almost have made it yourself.  So cool that it seems effortless, basically.

Good examples of this are: everything that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have ever had anything to do with; the lovely music of Evan Dando; Tracy Emin.

I would add to this little list, one Natasha Khan (aka Bat for Lashes).  As you probably know, she makes beautiful, accessible pop music that isn't even slightly dumbed down - a rarity in these lowest-common-denominator pop music times.  Plus - you know all those girls wearing gold headbands halfway down their foreheads?  Kind of her fault.

We have quite a lot in common, really - similar ages and influences, both largely from the London suburbs with disparate multi-national extended families, now both settled by the seaside in Brighton.  So, I see her around town quite a bit, which is why I was discussing this very concept with friends last night - for a girl who makes incredible, quite ethereal music, she is really normal.  Like, a very pretty and talented version of normal.

She hangs out in a cafe round the corner from my flat quite a lot, she loves nosing around in Snooper's Paradise, her boyfriend works in the Dorset (our local), and whenever we saw her at ATP (I make it sound like it was an accident, but admittedly a rather smitten Jimmy did start a concerted campaign of 'Batwatch') she looked like she was having a laugh and a lovely time.

This is something to aspire to; I think really quite a lovely life.  A good balance.  Be the best version of normal that it's possible to be.


I dream of home.