Music Monday: Hadouken!

My 29th year was the best year of my life: I'd been teaching for a couple of years, and school was stress-free and easy; I was living in a great flat but paying a pittance in rent; and perhaps most importantly, some other young teachers had started working at my school and we'd discovered a shared love of indie music, festivals and road trips, and started going to the local indie dive every weekend. 

There are a handful of songs that conjure up memories - The Long Blondes' Once And Never Again (to which, on the eve of my 30th birthday, my friend Abby changed the words: "29, you're only 29 for God's sake, you don't need a boyfriend"); Two Doors Down by Mystery Jets; Hot Chip's floorfiller, Over And Over - but this one, by Leeds-based grime/guitar band Hadouken!, is the defining tune of that era.  Messy, chaotic, fast and silly, it would get us onto the dancefloor without hesitation.

As I was packing my case to go away this weekend - and realised that I was taking no fewer than four different polka dot dresses - I got That Boy, That Girl wedged firmly in my head: "That girl is an indie Cindy, Lego haircut and polka dot dress...".  I don't think Hadouken! meant it as a compliment, but I'm proud to be an indie Cindy.