Going out for a burger. Returning the wrong DVD to the shop. Forgetting to re-charge the battery on your mobile phone. It might not sound like the stuff of great drama, but in the hands of Mike Skinner, these mundane experiences are merely the starting point for some gloriously entertaining shaggy dog stories. Having single-handedly revitalised the English rap genre with his superb debut Original Pirate Material, the Brummie wide boy has now gone one step further and produced a concept album about his further adventures on the mean streets of London. The story itself is admittedly pretty thin (boy meets girl, boy heads off on holiday, boy loses girl etc), but what's far more important is that Skinner's ear for everyday speech is as finely-tuned as ever. And while his scratchy garage backing tracks aren't exactly hi-fi, it hardly matters when his theatrical vocal performances are so compelling. As the man himself would say, what a result.
