Drinking Blood-Stained Water Out of The Reservoir

"Between the Red Cross Hospital and the center of the city I saw nothing that wasn't burned to a crisp. Streetcars were standing at Kawaya-cho and Kamiya-cho and inside were dozens of bodies, blackened beyond recognition. I saw fire reservoirs filled to the brim with dead people who looked as though they had been boiled alive. In one reservoir I saw a man, horribly burned, crouching beside another man who was dead. He was drinking blood-stained water out of the reservoir. Even if I had tried to stop him, it wouldn't have done any good; he was completely out of his head.”

From Michihiko Hachiya, Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician August 6-September 30, 1945

Fabpants Recommends: Ballboy - I Worked on the Ships. Here we have an old Peel favourite with a new brilliant album. This album makes me want to listen to its younger brother. The CD case sits on the shelf and stares at me, but I’m too scared to touch. I have a feeling that ‘I Worked on the Ships’ will make ‘A Guide for the Daylight Hours’ sound like the work of a toddler that’s just wet himself in the sandpit. Of course, I loved ‘A Guide for the Daylight Hours’, but this 2008 release smells, tastes and sounds perfect. It’s beautiful, funny, melancholy and heart-warming. It makes me want to hug myself.

“I lie awake
Half-blind, half-drunk, in a half-religious daze
And think about
The life I had, the life I had before I made
Songs for Kylie”

By the way, both Laura Marling and Lonely Ghosts are playing End of the Road Festival. I hope that they meet. Tom Denney of Lonely Ghosts was once in a great band called Help She Can't Swim. Did the indie riot kids pre-empt Laura by announcing her poor water mobility first? Yes, Laura Marling's debut is called 'Alas I Cannot Swim'. But you knew that.