Art imitating art

Having done the decent thing and finished The Office when it was still good, Ricky Gervais has, until recently, only dusted David Brent off on a couple of charity-related occasions. In the last year or so though, he's become slightly less principled about his most famous creation. Perhaps with one eye on how the "Mid-Morning Matters" series of online episodes gave Steve Coogan a way to bring Alan Partridge back to the masses, ultimately yielding a best-selling spoof autobiography and excellent big-screen outing, Gervais released a series of videos on YouTube entitled "Learn guitar with David Brent". Each would feature some fairly standard Brent buffoonery at the start, and end with a toe-curling song performed in earnest fashion by Wernham Hogg's most famous redundant employee. For example, here's the episode that incorporates his paean to Slough ("John Betjeman famously slagged it off. I'd love him to come down and do it to our faces - gets a slap! Not when he's old and in a wheelchair but before that...")

So far, so Gervais. Except now the improbably named Chazwick Bradley Bundick, better known as the hipper-than-thou American act Toro Y Moi, has only gone and recorded a serious cover version of Slough. And it's alright, as long as you tune out the comedy lyrics about being equidistant from London and Reading. Have a listen.