The Duckworth-Lewis Method - Meeting Mr Miandad [Single]

  

Divine Comedy Records/1969 Records

Unlike many people I never quite got along with Neil Hannon or The Divine Comedy. I won't lie to you and say I ever lost much sleep about it, but on reflection I think the problem was that the whole empirical Britishness thing to me just reeked of tweedy intellectualising - with Something For The Weekend and Alfie excepted.

He's now formed a band named after an arcane mathematical formula used to settle rained off cricket matches, and produced a concept album about the sport, just to remove any lingering doubts you had about his screaming Jeeves and Wooster complex. 'Meeting Mr Miandad' (The Miandad in question - as if you really care - is Javed, a renowned former player) is a chugging piece of psychedelic flavoured pop, what music might sound like if like Ray Davies took to writing songs for Jeff Lynne.

It's an open chord away from his day job, but at least Hannon manages to rhyme "Pakistan" and "Camper Van" whilst waiting for his elevenses. As you suspect was the intention, the whole thing's shamelessly anachronistic, but not in a good way. Afterwards I found myself wondering what's next - Blur doing a record about Monopoly?