August 2, 2002
Innerviews writer Anil Prasad arrives in Norwich for the patented ‘Bowness Tour Of The Fine City’.
Anil is tall and friendly, and with the right backing band and sensual production, his rich Canadian voice could transform him into the 21st Century Isaac Hayes. Idealist to the last, I’m not so sure he’d be up for it.
Along with verbally righting the wrongs of corporate industries, discussing racism in the US and the UK (Oldham riots etc…), I introduce Anil to Welsh Rarebit at the King Of Hearts and we listen to bits of the new No-Man and Centrozoon albums. I also play him a Henry Fool track (Pills In The Afternoon). Written last month, this already feels like something I’ve known all my life. Unfortunately, I fail to convince him that Goldie’s Saturnzreturn is the most undervalued and bizarre album of the last half decade.
During ‘the tour’, we bump into Anne from the group Fiel Garvie (an interesting PJ Harvey/Throwing Muses style combo), the owner of excellent local shop Dots And Squiggles (sadly closing down at the end of the month) and Fiona from my occasional college course. By God, I’m popular!
Michael Bearpark arrives an hour later than expected and myself and Peter force him to watch the DVD of The Imposter. An adequate sci-fi romp, it’s based on a Philip K Dick short story that’s remarkably similar to the much hyped Minority Report. Not as good as MR, it’s certainly not much worse either. For my part, I prefer Tom Cruise in the magnificent, underrated Magnolia.