Stranger In Town

READ Jeremy Clarkson's "Born To Be Riled" and you'll find a lot of articles about cars
Actually, pretty much all of them - not a huge surprise given Clarkson has been a motoring journalist for well over 20 years and is now one of the presenters on the UK version of Top Gear.
But scattered throughout the book - along with various comments about governments and national stereotypes - are references to a gentleman by the name of Bob Seger. In fact, Clarkson writes one of his columns about meeting the man and talking cars over some fried alligator. As you do.
Ask anyone to name a Bob Seger song and they'll probably mention Old Time Rock And Roll, featured in the movie Risky Business where Tom Cruise dances around in his reg grundies.
That song comes from Seger's 10th album Stranger In Town, a 9-track bad boy that's never the same song to song.
The album kicks off with Hollywood Nights, five minutes worth of bluesy story-telling that's absolutely perfect for a drive down a deserted freeway of a night time. Listen to this bad boy as the freeway lights go flashing by and you'll have an easy explanation for the nice policeman when he/she inevitably pulls you over for speeding. Even the first bloke to drive under the influence of this song did that: according to Songfacts musician Billy Payne was listening away when he noticed he'd topped 100 miles per hour!
Track #2 Still The Same drops back down a notch, taking your foot back off the accelerator and switching into cruise control. It's slighty downbeat, but that's ok because there's quite a few speed cameras coming up and you've escaped the big bad speeding ticket once already.
Batting number 3 is the aforementioned Old Time Rock And Roll - listen to this at home and try not dance around in sunnies and underwear! It's also a song that comes to mind every time I hit a nightclub and that stupid "if you were born in the 80s" song comes on for about the 467th time this year. But I digress...
Time to drop back down a notch then with Till It Shines, another sorrowful track with its very own sorrowful guitar solo during the chorus. This would probably match your mood if you were driving out of town away from another failed relationship. Is that a bit country? Possibly, but the song does dip its toe in those waters...
Number 5 is alive though with Feel Like A Number particularly suited to driving down a four-lane non-freeway/motorway road in a soft-top convertible with the roof down, the sunnies on and the speakers PUMPING. Not that I've done that, but it just seems right.
For those that like their blues track 6 will do it for you. Ain't Got No Money wouldn't be out of place on Memphis' Beale Street, possibly in that bar on the other side and down the end of the street from BB King's version. One to listen travelling between Chicago and Seger's home city of Detroit.
You wouldn't listen to track 7 in a car though. No, ideally you'd play - nay, sing - We've Got Tonite to a prospective partner as you both faced up to the fact you're trapped in a secluded cabin up in the mountains and a massive snowfall has trapped you in, although happily there's a lot of firewood, kindling and matches handy.
Fans of Billy Joel will recognise similarities between his Scenes From An Italian Restaurant and track 8's Brave Strangers - although Seger's song starts quickly, goes slow about 2:20 in, then picks back up about 4:15 (the reverse to Joel's track). Even so, it's a good track to have on a particularly boring stretch of road, eg the Hay Plains of NSW or any US highway where the speed limit isn't quite high enough.
As the name suggests, The Famous Final Scene is the album's famous final fling. While the rest of the album ebbs and flows, track 9 brings it all to a halt as you reach your destination - a slow halt "as the light fades from the screen from the famous final scene"...
After listening to this album, who wouldn't want to talk cars over fried alligator?

Simply The Best?

INTERESTING article in today's Sydney Morning Herald about Australia and how it's viewed in the USA. In it, Peter Hartcher makes mention of four encounters he had regarding Australia around the time of the presidential election.
For those with time or motivation-related issues, the general gist of the article is that the Hawke, Keating, Howard and Rudd governments (from 1983 to the present day) have all contributed to Australia having a high standing in the world today. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright describes our electoral system as "the leading model"; a Wall Street Journal columnist asks not what an Obama government means for Australia, but rather what a Rudd government means for the US; a leading economist suggests Australia could actually avoid recession in the next few years; while a leading US banker suggested his country could take lessons from Australia in how to deal with the crisis.
Three of these deal with Australia from an economic standpoint - clearly not my area of expertise! But is Australia really at the top?
Nay-sayers certainly have plenty to point out. Indigenous health and educations standards are still well below the rest of the population; environmental issues (including the declining state of the Murray-Darling basin and the future of the Great Barrier Reef) require long-term planning; while there are those that say that Australia's three tiers of government (federal, state and local for those playing at home) means large amounts of red tape stifling growth.
Of course, anyone concerned about the last should probably check out red tape in the European Union. The words "you're kidding" often spring to mind...
But then, no country is without its own issues. Iceland's economy just went into free-fall; other Scandanavian countries can be prohibitively expensive; while close cousins New Zealand have to work to rectify a brain-drain to countries such as Australia, the UK and the USA.
After spending time overseas, I can say it's a relief not to worry about putting bags down for a second or things in pockets, never to be seen again. The general friendliness of Australians is also a blessed relief after the surliness of your average Londoner.
So yeah, I would say we're up there: but as Hartcher said towards the end of his article, this is no time for complacency.