Thanks to Keith and Dave for their CDs (and everyone for their birthday gifts and greetings). Keith's compilation is an eclectic mix - from opera to end of the pier blues via Ozzy Osbourne - personal favourites are Wooden Shjips (I was just reading about them in the Wire) and Lolly and Ross (is that a Mr Teeth performance perchance?). Keith's new CD Power of the Octopus is great, seems much longer than 15mins and shows much maturity in production and braveness in its combining or sources: blues, noise, psychedelia. Get your copy now!

Carter USM + Sultans of Ping @ Brixton Academy Fri 2 Nov
There was a great degree of anticipation about this event - the farewell gig Carter never played when they split in '98. And their audience has not gone away, just got more consolidated judging by the interest in their solo projects. So to a sold out Brixton Academy Dave and I went, catching up in the bars from Elephant to Brixton via Camberwell, seeing more Carter shirts the closer we got. To arrive to CARTER USM SOLD OUT in big lights through the darkness was a wonderful feeling, and we were certainly in the mood for dancing.

Sultans of PingSultans have been having something of a revival in the past year or so, and we saw them at the Highbury Garage a while back - a smaller but otherwise packed venue, great atmosphere and possibly one of the greatest glam punk performances you're ever likely to see. In this venue with only half the crowd inside it was hard to recapture that atmosphere, but plenty of people were dancing and singing their ever clever words. This was the point at which I probably felt the most free and intimate with the music during the night, and able to dance in some space; but after only what seemed like a handful of songs they were off and I spent the next half an hour trying to get drinks from the bar - about 20% of which ended up on the floor, my hands and people's shirts by the time I found my way back.

Carter USM play After the WatershedThe moment Carter took the stage there was an enormous surge and just like the old days we were being shoved ever forward and this way and that. Crowd surfers set off doing their tumbling thing despite the charmingly ineffective icons. After a song or two it was clear to me that i) I couldn't really see the stage, especially without my glasses on which I couldn't afford for them to get crushed; and ii) I wasn't really enjoying the experience like I used to and would prefer to be able to see and jump and shout without fearing for my safety. So I moved back to where the girls and couples and other woosies like me were enjoying the music.

I can't think of one song they didn't play, and the only one they did play which I didn't know Dave told me and I realised it was an early one I'd heard the name of. The show was accompanied with great lighting and image/film back drops.  Les did lots of guitaring but the focus was as ever mainly on Jim. For 'England' Jim came on in a crown and robes, after which Les returned in the shorts, T-shirt and cycling cap of olden times and enjoyed his first beer in 3 months. Indeed, they both looked very healthy and fit, and perhaps more comfortable with their aukward looks than ever before. They played for about 2 hours with the ubiquitous encore (more like a brief rest for a breather before continuing), but at the end I just felt like I'd had a really good time and it was right to end it there. No need to compare it with times before, no regrets, no wishing it was still 1993. We still have the records and the t-shirts, and lots of other great things have come since. And Jim's recent solo work matches his writing talent with new tenderness.

Wilhelm Sasnal 'Tarnow Train Station' 2006
The Painting of Modern Life @ Hayward Gallery
This exhibition takes its title from an essay by Beaudelaire, but really it begins with the democratisation of photography and its impact on modern painting. The earliest paintings shown by artists working 'after' photography are by Warhol and Richter, from which we proceed through Artschwager, Hockney, Hamilton, Kippenberger and other greats, to more recent works by Tuymans, Dumas, Sasnal, Morley etc.

I didn't really expect to like it as much as I did, but I felt more and more sensitivity as the exhibition proceeded. Particular favourites were Wilhelm Sasnal's train station and petrol stations, Richter's Jackie-O 'Woman with Umbrella', Vija Celmins' 'Freeway', Richard Hamilton's 'Mother and Child', Robert Bechtle's '61 Pontiac', all the Franz Gertsch, Luc Tuymans' Hitler 'Die Wandeling', all the Peter Doig, Eberhard Havekost's 'Luft' which looks like Duncan, and 'American Lip Gloss, BO6'. Kippenberger and Hockneys were disappointing - perhaps not the best choices of their work - and Dumas should be outed as a fraud; but a great exhibition, especially the added insights in the free guide, which is better read afterwards.

I popped into the BFI Southbank and saw the Mark Lewis art films on show. I particularly liked 'Isosceles' and 'Downtown: Tilt, Zoom, and Pan' - more inspiration for my new ventures in filmmaking.

This weekend is a 'Beat Weekend' with the London International Poetry and Song Festival at the Marquee: 3 days of music and poetry celebrating 50 years of Kerouac and Cassidy. Line up includes Arthur Brown, Pete Jagger, Seb Rochford, and comedy from Jeremy Hardy amongst others.

Nosce Te Ipsum: Tempus Fugit  is an exhibition about the links between Magic, Medicine and Religion by Lorraine Clarke at the Truman Brewery , Brick Lane E1 from 16 Nov to 25 Nov (daily 1-9pm). www.nosce-te-ipsum.co.uk

check out Deptford animator, film-maker, photographer, decorator (?) and artist Chris Getliffe: www.getliffe.com

Ten Years celebrates the period of time the Emily Tsingou Gallery has been around (all the time we've been in London, Dunx), with a rotating programme of works by all the artists, including Vanessa Beecroft, Gilbert and George,  Fischli & Weiss, Keith Coventry, Julie Verhoeven, Martin Kippenberger and loads more. www.emilytsingougallery.com

Point A > B is a digital art installation at the Jerwood Space and the CCA in Glasgow (10 Nov - 9 Dec) www.jerwoodspace.co.uk

Whitechapel Laboratory: Langlands and Bell
forthcoming Whitechapel Friday nights include: 9 Nov Upset the Rhythm (new sounds from USA); 16 Nov Where the Wild Things Are (female artists); 23 Nov It's About Time (Rhythm, hip hop DJs); 30 Nov Open City (indie folk); 7 Dec eclectic Le Gun publication night; 14 Dec Sex Pistol Glenn Matlock + guests.
www.whitechapel.org

24-HOUR PARTY PEOPLE?
Friday 9 November, 8pm, Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall £8
Lemn Sissay brings Manchester-loving poets, authors and musicians to celebrate the city with DJ Dave Haslam and guests.
RATIONAL REC GOES SOUTH
Saturday 10 November, 7.30pm, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall £5
Interdisciplinary arts occasion combining film, text, performance, debate and new music leaves Bethnal Green for a night on the Southbank www.southbankcentre.co.uk
ALL MODERN ART IS LEFT WING – DISCUSS
Wednesday 14 November, 6.30pm, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
'The Right conserves and the Left creates' (AA Gill). An Art Fund debate with Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry, Conservative Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey, cultural commentator Munira Mirza and rising artist Jonathan Yeo. Chaired by Tim Marlow, Director of Exhibitions at White Cube.
£12 from The Art Fund Box Office: 08700 503688

Arnolfini (Bristol) www.arnolfini.org.uk
Forthcoming this autumn: Franco B performance, Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle films in full, Will Self in conversation, as well as exhibitions, films and much more.