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Apologies for the light blogging in recent weeks.

Still about, but cold weather and other such suck-ass stuff has intervened. Currently involved in this campaign at a grassroots level, after being partially involved in this other campaign previously. (Also at a grassroots level).

Both campaigns, however slightly, have gone some way in exorcising the spirit of Tommy Jackson from my frozen bones.

Why the sleeve of Win's, 'You've Got The Power', as an accompanying pic to the post? No other reason than the fact that a kind chap by the name of Eddie has made the song temporarily available for download on a fan page for Win on - you've guessed it - MurdochSpace MySpace.

As my two Win albums have long since been hocked to some smug muso bastard at Record & Tape Exchange on Camden High Street - come the revolution, those bastards are going up against the wall before the capitalist class but after that bloke who put the kibosh on Smiths' Bovril Crisps - I'm just grateful to get my greedy wee mitts on the mp3 whilst it's up for grabs.

Undeniably dated in a way that only songs recorded between 1984-1987 can be - anybody Wang Chunging Tonight? - try and get past the plinkity-plonk keyboards and the tinny production so you can wrap your ears around one of the best lost singles of that lost musical weekend best known as the mid-eighties.

It can be played on its own, or if you have the means, could I suggest that you also sample Love and Money's 'Candybar Express' as a sweet.

Win's main man was Davey Henderson, still releasing music as part of the band Nectarine Number 9, but best known as the voice and guitar of the seminal post-punksters, the Fire Engines.

Do you have a CD in your music collection from some band with choppy angular guitars and shouty vocals? Whether they or you know it or not - musical copyright lawyers are looking in - they probably ripped off the Fire Engines. Think early Fall, but with a better looking singer and lyrics that didn't namecheck shop assistants at the Cheetham Hill branch of Debenhams

Strange but true, but the Fire Engines evolved out the band 'The Dirty Reds', who had the actor Tam Dean Burn as their lead singer. Dean Burn was a parliamentary candidate for the CPGB/Weekly Worker mob back in the nineties in a Glasgow seat. It was pre-internet so I don't have the exact facts and figures at my fingertips.

How do I know this obscure lefty political bullshit? A blend of wikipedia; too many hours mispent in Housmans and Porcupine . . . breathing in paper dust and polemics; and 'after the pub closes' styled half-pissed sectariana conversations.

Back to my regular irregular blogging soon.