A couple of weeks ago I saw Sven Helbig perform his Pocket Symphonies at HOME with Manchester Camerata with visuals by Chris Paul Daniels - here's what I thought. More artistic obituaries - John Ashbery and Walter Becker, two great chroniclers of the American condition - died on the same weekend. Next week I'm seeing Chris Krauss talking about her Kathy Acker biography, so remembering one of my favourite writers. With nuclear brinkmanship back in the news I also look at the honourable history of nuclear war songs from the sixties and eightes.