Book: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. The inspiration for Polly Toynbee’s Hard Work, Nickel and Dimed documents the life of the poorly paid in the US. Better written, more humorous and generally a lighter read than Toynbee’s diatribe, this one’s recommended for everyone.

CD: It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah, by Black Grape. The drunken genius of British pop that is Shaun Ryder made one helluva comeback with this record in 1995. Full of great groove, lyrical gems (my favourite being probably ”Jesus was a black man / Jesus was Batman / No no no wait / That was Bruce Wayne”) and out-of-tune singing, which is very hard to master. You can probably pick this up for pennies at your local used CD store, so go check it out now.

DVD: The Family Guy, season two R2 DVD. Still happy for finding this at £12 at Kelly’s Records. Actually I haven’t even had a chance to take a look at the episodes, but I just know they’re gonna be great. That and the fact that I’ve seen some of them on the telly. Ahem. So.