The 50(ish) greatest albums of all time
Love & Hate and Feelings of A Similar Vein
Album #6 : Michael Kiwanuka — Love & Hate
What can you say that hasn’t already been said about this album? Despite being the most recent album on my list, Love & Hate has been described as ‘a sprawling soul opus’ & ‘a dazzling melting pot of sound’, it was nominated (along with Kiwanuka’s other two albums) for the Mercury Prize as well as the MOBOs for best album and BBC Music Awards for best album.
So much for ‘the difficult second album’, Love & Hate is Kiwanuka’s coming-of-age after his debut Home Again. It is strained, emotional, complex, but it is also beautiful, catchy and at times outright fun. In short, Love & Hate is pretty much perfect.
Similarly, what can you do when faced with an inescapable pandemic? A lot of my extended family (including my fiancée) work in medicine in some capacity — they all go out every day and toil in the face of what is happening and, confronted with that, just staying indoors and ‘doing my bit to keep up the old Blitz spirit!’ didn’t really seem like enough. So, I started giving blood.
I know others have felt the same way — that is why WhatsApp-based local support groups cropped up across the country. People were sat at home with nothing to do and felt helpless — so they helped.
I am not claiming to be some great, noble guy; I only started giving blood because friends of mine felt the same way I did — they took action, and I was swept along. Embarrassingly, to me giving blood was always something other people did. It never dawned on me that I could (or should) do it too. The turning point for me was something a friend said:
If you were in hospital you would expect it to be there, and where do you think it comes from!?
Because of those conversations, on Saturday I went to give blood for the third time. I would encourage you all to do the same. If nothing else, it is a legitimate reason to leave the house and you get a chocolate biscuit at the end. Win-win.
If you are worried about it, I can understand. The thought of voluntarily losing a pint of blood is a bit nerve-wracking — there are very few situations when losing that amount of blood is a good thing — but there is nothing that the staff haven’t seen before. Every single member of staff at Glasgow’s blood donation centre were professional, caring, kind and, above all, happy. The whole operation was run so smoothly, you don’t even really have time to think about what is going on.
Plus, it helps that they are chatty — when I get nervous about stuff, I make jokes. On Saturday, the radio was playing the ‘top 200 soul-food songs of all time’ and that led to me having some absolutely daft chat about “banging choons” and my Saturday afternoon trip out to the blood donation centre being ‘as close to a club as I have been in nine months.’ The response:
“I know, you’re so desperate to leave the house you’re about to let me stick a big needle in your arm!”
A top-tip for giving blood — ask the staff about the biscuit selection. Last time I got a Tunnock’s caramel wafer, but they’ve been making healthier choices recently, so some research was required. After a confession that the staff had sampled everything on offer (which I won’t begrudge them, there are very few perks of working in the NHS), I got a tip-off that the Nairn’s chocolate chip cookies were the best to look out for. After all, it’s not what you know, but who you know.
As I left, the women in the next bed (who had been really enjoying the music) smiled at me, told me to “keep singing” and, honestly, I thought I might cry. The display of pure, unfettered kindness on display from both staff and donors in that centre is a credit to people’s resilience in the face of extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I felt lighter, brighter and absolutely euphoric.
Or maybe I had just lost a pint of blood.
Either way, as I emerged blinking into the sharp, crisp winter sunshine I thought my near flawless mood couldn’t get any better. Until I put my headphones on, pressed play on Kiwanuka, and it was perfect.
