172 out of 200. Not too shabby; although, bearing in mind the vast numbers of latinate and hellenic roots, which by rights I should have known? Tut. Even if the breaking down of words into their component parts felt a little like cheating.

The library want one of my books back, which means I'm going to have to cram as much of it in as possible on the journeys to and from college, and check it in at the last possible moment. Thankfully it's not the Occult Philisophy in the Elizabethan Age, which is part of my School Of Night back-reading, and what's more Kristina is going to be reading it, which means I may for once be able to follow one of her blog entries without feeling hopelessly out-knowledged. ^_^ Also, Frances Yates is wonderful. Her placing Prospero in the line of hermetic-slash-goetic mages was one of the few things that got me through studying the Tempest and that endless run of colonialism! female absence! chess as equality! essays.

Am back from Cardiff, City Of Earthly Delights: the Central Line decided that it would be a nice idea to completely break down and leave me and several other passengers stuck in a sealed tube carriage half out of Euston Square with no information for half an hour, so I missed the train out there and the Warlocks with it. Still got the three-gigs-in-three-nights thing, though, because, hah!, the Star Spangles were playing the Barfly on Sunday night. Shit name, great band: like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Small Faces and Spandau Ballet having a fight in a dark alley with a gang of OI! punkers and swapping clothes in the process. Shouty unison choruses and Animals-esque microphone sharing - how could I but love them?

Idlewild, Friday night, were wonderful, but then they're Idlewild and I wouldn't expect anything less. It was the first gig of theirs I didn't mosh at, just danced at the side singing along (I know every single fucking word, and far too many of the little bits they do live that aren't on the records) and every so often poking A and going "that's two songs from Captain so far, and nothing from 100 broken windows? I know it's not my favourite album, but what is this, a Stalinist revision?" The support band were mediocre in that way it's very easy to blame on the sound quality, which was incredibly shoddy - Cardiff Students Union is even more like a school sports hall than ULU, and that's saying a lot - but their last song was very definintely subpar.

As for the NME awards tour... it was the first NME-Carling gig I've ever been to with an uniformly excellent bill. There's normally one Hybirds to each early Travis, one Starsailor to each Amen, one King Adora to each Mansun - but this year? All four bands were fantastic. So fantastic that 'fanTAStic' has become my new term of approval.

The Thrills are like a much less dull Webb Brothers, that 'sun-kissed California pop except from Dublin' cliche impossible to fault - it's what they are, and they're adorable as all get out with it. Interpol were ace, surprisingly danceable and rather akin to a lighthouse blaring out on a sultry night. You NewYorkistas over there better have seen them or be making plans to see them, because if you're not we will have to have Words. In fact, all you in-America-dwellers should go and see The Polyphonic Spree, because they're sparkly. What better entertainment is there than around twenty-five cheery people in white robes bouncing about on a stage far too small to take them all and mining a rich seam of very loud, very happy, very catchy and very good pop songs? Plus the added joys of the french horn player dancing like a lunatic until he fell over, the violin player who was in fact Haldir with a moustache, Tim deLaughter pointing out his son on the backdrop video to a roomful of coos, and a harp solo (solidarnos! ...but why crowdpleaser arpeggi glissandi yet no harmonics?). 'Soldier girl', in particular, was wonderful: by the end, this sheer noise of flute and brass and Theremin and guitar and voices buried somewhere in the mix so that the tune seemed to seep in through your pores rather than your ears and you sang along uncontrollably. I almost wish they were a cult, because then I could join. A and I didn't think anything could follow that, it was so utterly exhilarating and so very fun.

The Datsuns managed to. They have got to be the cheesiest band on the planet, superfluous guitar solos and really stuuupid on-stage crowdtalk, of the 'put your left hand up in the air - yeah! come on! that's it - now bring the other one up, like this, okay? right! - now BRING THEM TOGETHER! YEAH!' variety. When I wasn't dancing, I was laughing. Most of the time, though, I was dancing, because, man, the riffs, at least three to a song and all sheer quality. And if you can't appreciate big fat dumb rock'n'roll about not being able to get laid because you live in a small town somewhere in New Zealand, you have no soul. I'm just sayin'.

A, because she is a star, has lent me about fifteen albums for the duration of this week in an attempt to indoctrinate me in the ways of The Dirty Three and Built To Spill. I think I'm in love with the Reindeer Section, which shouldn't be surprising considering that they comprise members of Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Arab Strap, Idlewild and the rest of the Glasgow Indie Mafia. Could they be anything but fantastic? ...although I'm going to have to redo the XuQu soundtrack to make way for at least one of their songs, because cute Scots indiepop rules my life.

In other news, I have The Faculty on video, and I fancy the pants off Clea DuValle.