There has not been much talk of music in the Ministry’s corridors to date this year. This is because having a banging headache for five months is not exactly conducive to sitting down and strapping on a pair of Boses.

However, I recently stumbled across the work of Sophie Madeleine, whose particular brand of ukulele-led comedy-cum-folk does not make me want to self-harm when I fire up iTunes.

After all any bearded Minister has to love this:

You can download Sophie’s album, Love.Life.Ukulele, for any amount you like (subject to a minimum payment of $5) from her website: it’s really rather splendid.

And if you don’t believe me, you can listen to the whole thing free here:

(I am blown away by Bandcamp, which – as well as having a brilliant name – is a damned sight better than the usual awful musician sites like MyShite and FaceCrap.)