Bloody cold hell! London, along with much of Europe, is currently sitting under a blanket of snow. In fact, the Telegraph claims that this storm is “[t]he worst snowfall for nearly 20 years [that] has paralysed Britain.” Even though all the schools, railways, and most of the London businesses were closed today, some really cool eyewitness pictures have at least come out of it. Also, Lily Allen went for a paparazzi snowball fight before working on a snowman and still managing to hold onto her ciggie. Such talent:

Incidentally, if anyone happens to discover the likes of, say, Pete “Call Me Peter” Doherty engaging in a snowball fight, please do send them in. That would include you, Peter, because I’m gonna pimp your music now.

On March 9, Grace/Wastelands, the first solo album by Peter Doherty, will be released. Of course, either the record label or someone else has conveniently leaked the first single, “Last of the English Roses,” which is actually quite good. Listen to the radio rip to decide for yourself. Peter’s album features some guest artists, most notably Graham Coxon of Blur, who had this to say:

Coxon wrote, “I would not have entertained the idea of playing on his record if I had not heard such a lot of promise when listening to the demos.” Writing about his relationship with Doherty, he wrote, “I actually like Pete as a person a lot. He is very funny, warm and charming. He has rough press and not surprisingly so. He is also very impressionable, quite vulnerable, rather too trusting and needlessly gets himself into some difficulties – basically and unfortunately for him, he is a scumbag magnet. I really do think it’s easy to think Pete is a waster. I also have been more than a little angry with him at times for pissing his talent up the wall on too many occasions. But I think when he sees through the murk at what opportunities are there for him he can really come up with the goods… Well, I think he did with these songs anyway. Some songs here touched me quite deep to be honest. And lyrically I think he’s bang on with this record.”

Certainly, the rather eventful life of Pete Doherty would, presumably, leave no absence of song fodder. In particular, I do hope that Peter will, one day, write a song about the time he found a rotting animal carcass in his home:

“Someone brought in a dead deer while I was out,” Doherty claimed. “Somehow they got in and left the deer in the house. That was quite terrifying. I’d been in the house for a couple of days and then I found this rotting, headless carcass of a deer in one of the far rooms.”

So, it took Doherty’s drugged up nose a few days to become repelled at the stench of rotting animal. At least the bloke admits to feeling a wee bit of abhorrence at the discovery. As to Doherty’s precise reaction, I can’t help but wonder if it went something like this.