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Deus Ex Machina

Unblinded by science, TV On The Radio are set to make real waves with their latest programme.

Jetty Lag

It seems a lot of people are still at sea with Late Of The Pier

No prizes for guessing what I think of fatty Adele

Miss Pridence Trog icon June 28
I’m sooooooo hungover. I’m glad I didn’t go to Glastonbury after all. I decided to go to Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday party instead, which was very moving. His actual birthday is not for a couple of weeks, but he is 90, so perhaps they brought it forward in case he died in the meantime. They had all the greats: Razorlight, Simple Minds… even had some African musicians, who did very well. If they could afford guitars and proper drums, there’s no reason why they couldn’t be as good as Scouting For Girls. It has nothing whatsoever to do with colour, as Nelson has demonstrated, being the greatest and most inspirational leader the world has ever seen after Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

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China, unlike glass and reputation, is hard to crack

You can dance with their daughter, but there’s an iron chastity belt downstairs with the key at the bottom of a tank of electric eels. You may submerge your head and fight the eels with your teeth to retrieve the key. Shanghai is a very romantic city.

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Sometimes you can choke on your own tasteless jokes

The Bone Dagger icon A friend of mine just emailed me a link to a life-affirming story on the BBC website about a Sikh chap who, had it not been for a surfeit of Special Brew in the airport bar, would have been the last passenger to board the doomed Pan Am 103 that exploded over Lockerbie almost 20 years ago. The article made me feel a bit guilty about the ‘Catch A Falling Star’ cartoon in this paper (sorry, but that was my sick idea) and also reminded me of another air crash anniversary-related anecdote, to compound my discomfort anew…

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Is Rick Ross just screwing around?

Rick Ross blew on to the charts with ‘Hustlin’’ last year, a certified gold single that had everyone, even the whitest frat boys, enamoured by just how gangsta the big man stunted. Named after ‘Freeway’ Ricky Ross, one of the biggest drug traffickers in the eighties, Rick endlessly crowed about how he had the Miami (which he cleverly renamed ‘Mi-Yayo’) coast on lockdown. Gangsta rap has its roots in braggadocio, sure, but Ross took it to another level of realness: he didn’t spit it, he lived it. Fuck the police, RAWWWS ran the streets.

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Leaders

Feeding Time
Can anyone be bothered to go to a festival next year?

As I write this from the warm shelter our Stoke Newington studio, hoards of people are sinking into the mud at Bestival. I hear there are tractors with jumbo 6′ wheels rendered useless and the corporate hospitality tents have been washed away. Of course I laughed my arse off when news first arrived, but you quickly realise that it’s not the promoters or the agents or the bands who are losing out, it’s the punters. As usual.