Cheating: Is it just something other countries get away with?

If you haven't seen Monsieur Henry juggle France into the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa, well, quite frankly where have you been? Oh, on an adventure holiday in the Brazilian rain forests, oh lovely, did you enjoy yourself? Jolly good, well I'll fill you in then.

Republic of Ireland were 1-0 up on the night, in the Stade de France, the second leg of the World Cup Play Offs, that Michel Platini had so very fairly fixed by seeding his beloved France (well when your President of UEFA, why wouldn't you give a helping hand to your underachieving home nation?)
Into extra time, and a whipped cross into the box was spinning out of play, when Thierry Henry, "instinctively" reached out his arm and nudged the ball to keep it in play and then controlled it with his hand, before poking the ball across goal (with his foot this time, how very sporting of him, why didn't he just grab it and through himself into the goal?) for William Gallas to head into the goal from 2 yards, equalise, and leave France 2-1 up on aggregate, heading for the World Cup.

The first reaction was that it was such an obvious handball(s), that the referee or linesman must have seen it? Of course not! The ball hit his chest according to the referee. He was so sure in the face of indignant, furious Irish faces. Or was that a cover for the knowledge that UEFA had offered him a nice, little brown envelope to make sure France didn't disgrace themselves and not qualify for a tournament they had won and been runners up in for two out of the past three occasions.

Players like Robbie Keane and Damien Duff were damning in their opinion that something sinister had happened, the latter convinced a sponsor agreement had already decided the result required. Keane was just as scathing in his assessment that Platini and Domenech (French coach) would have been texting each other throughout the debacle.

What is quite clear, is that ROI have been cheated out of qualifying for the World Cup. There are no bones about it, even the cheat himself, Thierry Henry has stated he did handle it and that there should be a replay. Of course he admitted this two days after the event, when FIFA had already made a statement that there could not possibly be a replay and why would we want to do something like that when we have got what we wanted (i made that last bit up).

There have been plenty of comment regarding, what if this happened in England's favour? If Gerrard burst into the area, basically caught the ball and crossed for Terry to nod the winning goal to give England the World Cup. Well, to that i say; That hasn't happened has it?

This situation hasn't happened for 23 years. Not since Maradona reached his chubby little pinkies up and flicked the ball over Peter Shilton, has the world seen such a blatant example of cheating, and with such an important outcome. Not only that, but for the observant, that happened AGAINST England, so maybe that would be justice. Of course karma has come back and bitten Diego on the arse, in the form of drug addiction, defeat to West Germany in the 1990 World Cup final, a shameful expulsion from the 1994 competition for failing a drugs test and a less than successful tenure as Argentina coach.

The likely hood of something like this happening again is slim.

Theirry Henry came on as a sub for his club Barcelona last night and the booing was deafening. This is a stadium full of Spaniards. So image if he ever came up against a group of Irish fans of any sport. He'd be sensible to turn heal and run.

This, coupled with the furore in the media, on every news programme and the comments from his peers and own countrymen, should act as a deterrent to any player considering either a) attempting to cheat b) or trying to get away with it. Henry may be full of remorse now, but he wasn't at the time, instead choosing to run after Gallas to celebrate.

He may regret it now, he may apologise and say the only fair thing would be to replay it, but he knows only too well he's safe, the result is set in stone, France will be playing in South Africa next summer and the Irish players left thinking what might have been.

Would the same thing happen if it the roles had been reversed? If Ireland had scored after a handball and been running round hugging each other at the final whistle, would UEFA and Platini have accepted the decision, but later organised the quiet assassination of the referee?

Some say, no, that FIFA and UEFA would have collaborated and brought out a new directive requiring a replay. This may or may not have happened. Its entirely possible with the politics involved in the governing of the beautiful game, especially if it had happened to a country like France. But it didn't. It happened to little old Ireland. No one cares about Ireland do they?

Except of course people do care. There has been outrage across the globe, and its the integrity of the game that has been tarnished and has caused the disgust at Henry. The manner of France's qualification will not be forgotten and sympathy for the Irish will run through the history of the game. People don't forget moments of great skill, fantastic games, brilliant players through out the years the game of football has been played, and that won't change. If anything, the annuls of football history has more possible chapters and volumes than ever before due to the way sport is shown all over the world by hundreds of TV channels, with thousands of programmes dedicated to it, with millions of websites and possibly billions of blogs, just like this one.

This won't be forgotten, and there will be repercussions. FIFA and UEFA would be wise to beware.

I'm home alone! The misses has abandoned me and I'm sitting in my dressing gown past midday, because i haven't got anything better to do today. So I'm sat here watching the grey sky outside my window and the rain tumble down. Actually i think it's stopped raining now. It was raining a minute ago, but i haven't just been sat here staring out the window, About a Boy's on ITV2. I can see why they've put it on on a Sunday afternoon, but there are a few curse words and discussions about randy, desperate single mothers and suicide. Maybe not what you'd put on when your gran comes round for Sunday lunch.



If you've ever found yourself just sitting, staring into space with nothing to do (well actually the washing machine has just stopped, so i could go hang that up, but i won't just yet), you will find your mind pondering the most pointless, mundane and ridiculous things. Like, what the front room would be like if you moved the sofa to the other wall and the bookshelf and table to where the sofa was. Or what it would be like if there really was such a thing as a time machine. You'd think it would be great, but films like Back to the Future do have a stark warning about what could happen if you fucked with anything when you went back.



I was thinking about this the other day (not the sofa moving thing, that was about an hour ago, when contemplating the angle of my head when watching TV) when i was on the bus going into the town that i work. Its quite an old market town with lots of old Tudor buildings and very small narrow roads that they've turned into an impossibly complicated and dangerous one way system. There is also a picture of the crossroads up to the wide street where the market still is, joining the main high street, in an office where i work. It depicts the busy market and crowded street circa 1540. I have found myself looking at it and wondering what it would be like back then. You could imagine it stank, everyone was a little bit dirty, and it would have been very loud, but it would be incredible to BE there, only for a while, half an hour or so.



But i couldn't see myself stopping there. If i could go back in time there would be hundreds of places and era's i would want to go to. For example, i was in the beautiful city of Durham a month ago and you could look across the bridge up at the Castle and Cathedral, across the rooftops and you could be in any century from the past 500 years. How could you not want to experience that?

However, what happens if inadvertently you did do something that changed the course of history. Not just in the Back to the future "making your mother fall in love with you and nearly making yourself obsolete" variety, but actually changing major events. Because if time travel was universally possible then someone is bound to screw something up. After all there are enough idiots out there unaware of history that they would do something. Who knows? Maybe going to the very point Hitler and Chamberlain met in Austria and killing Hitler and therefore preventing WWII would still render a number of people non- existent (although of course in some cases that would be a good thing) or even worse, cause such a shift in time that a whole new course of events were created and that resulted in Great Britain being waged war on and even invaded and conquered by France again, or even worse....erm.....theres got to be someone worse...errrr..anyway, who could predict the catastrophic results, by doing something someone believed to be good.

You see what happens when your sat at home on a wet (well actually, its not raining anymore and its quite nice out there now) Sunday afternoon, all alone, with only your thoughts as company.....

I'm off to Newcastle in a bit. Flying to Newcastle. It's the only way to travel. I'm going to see my co-best man to arrange his stag night/weekend, because I'm his best man too. He gets married in April 2010 and I'm in October 2010. He's also the one flying me to Newcastle from Southampton.

I'm a little apprehensive about talking about his stag night/weekend. It means we are talking about his wedding, and that means i have to start thinking about my best mans speech. He has a little longer to worry about it.

What do i say? You automatically think you have to be funny, but then you also hear you shouldn't try too hard to be humorous. Go for the sensitive side, make people cry, stick with soppy and sentimental about how gorgeous the bride looks, what a great couple they make and how its fate that's brought them together. Avoid talking about exes, funny anecdotes that may embarrass and jokes that involve mothers, fathers, other family members and fat brides.

Unfortunately that leaves me a little dry on the content. I'm not the type of person who could miss a little bit of ridicule, embarrassment or banter. Neither is he, or our friends. I couldn't stand up and say how i love this dude and go all soppy without having a skin full and that, whilst very likely, would be a mistake and would guarantee an awful speech, and possibly a rant. I would be disappointed if he didn't do the same.

There are two many stories and events and memories i could drag up and talk about, I'm not entirely sure i will ever get the chance to be a best man again, so I'd like to make an effort. Maybe a slide show, some kind of programme to go with the main event. I doubt i will have the time or artistic ability to pull something off like that, but its one of the ideas I've got milling around up there.

You can't help getting nostalgic about things. Remembering when you were at school, the stupid things you did then, the parties, the festivals, the gigs, when you were in a band and rock stardom was an A&R guy away.

Ironically, i was on Facebook today and had a comment about a photo of me. I thought it was a recent night out, but someone had put a school photo from 1991 on there. I was 10 at the time, and there were a host of faces and names that i could not put together. There were a number of comments from different people that at first i didn't recognise and the picture on my Blackberry was too small to recognise the faces, but eventually things clicked into place and maiden names became apparent. They were discussing school trips and places we went to in junior school and remembering things that went on that i had all but banished from my memory.

Its amazing how other people talking about things that i had a vague involvement in can trigger recollection of all sorts of things that happened when i was young. Its also scary to discover people you haven't seen in 18 years are married with children. Even though it is perfectly reasonable and logical that they are you can't picture it. They are forever 10 years old and, if a girl, they smell. Not literally, just that when you were 10, all girls smelt, right?

On a day when all my thoughts have been about reminiscing, it makes you think about where you are, what you've got and maybe what you could have been or had. It makes you wonder what might have been, and also what other people are up to.

It seems to me you go through stages of your life. Chapters even. You have your childhood, your school years. Chapter 1. You have college, university, your twenties. Chapter 2. I feel like I'm coming to the end of chapter 2.

This year seems to have been a year of catching up with people I haven't seen in a long, long time.

Maybe next year will signify the next part of life. Chapter 3.

Back to the Future!!

I wonder what will happen in the next twenty or thirty years? Will we all be driving hover cars? Will the BNP be running the country? Will England have won a football World Cup?

Hopefully, I'll be alive, well, married with children, possibly, maybe probably, a grandad. I pray i will have seen Tottenham win a trophy (not the Carling Cup again, although beggars can't be choosers), maybe even the league and be in the Champions League regularly.

But, what music will we all be listening to? Currently we are back in the 80's. People that were barely born then, are making and dancing to songs that are either drenched in 80's synths and nostalgia or blatant rip offs of songs made in the 80's.

There are also actual bands from that era, making a come back for the big bucks! Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Kajagoogoo, the list goes on. Of course, it isn't for the money. Oh no! The fact that people are dressing like its 1985 again (minus the mullet) is reason enough to come back and soundtrack their everyday lives. Leg-ins and big baggy t-shirts are back, and so are Big Star and Bucks Fizz.

Then there is La Roux and Little Boots, making "original" music, that sounds like it was made whilst Margaret Thatcher was PM.

I personally don't wear leg-ins or own a copy of some hastily chucked together compilation double CD with every No.1 of the decade. I prefer, if your talking particular musical eras, the 70's and 60's.

I was thinking though, what will we will be listening to in 2034? In the next twenty five years, how many bands of the 90's and 00's will have split up acrimoniously, released two or three best of albums and re-convened to maybe record a new album and a huge money-spinning world tour?

Will Oasis have even stopped making albums? Will the Rolling Stones, somehow, still be going? They'll have a ten year break, where Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts will be cryogenically frozen, Keith Richards will of course still be alive as he is the anti-christ and, therefore, immortal.

I'm sure in the intervening years, a huge rockstar will die at 27 (Section 22 sub-section (d) of the Rock'n'Roll Rule Book), we will have a new "Greatest Band" and "Biggest Band in the World"TM every couple of years, and Madonna will re-invent herself as the "Queen Mother of Pop".

Whilst there have always been one hit wonders, the 90's and 00's have had a plethora of bands pop up, make a bit of noise, and then disappear. The "Second album syndrome" was born, and those bands who made a great debut couldn't re-discover that magic formula to make an equal or a better version. Although some would say an equal to the debut is exactly what wasn't required, and maybe that is and was the problem, pressure to make a better record either resulted in an over blown, sub-standard attempt or led to the implosion of a band, The Stone Roses possibly began that, and still hold the precedent.

So, which bands will we be telling our children we used to own all their Cd's (the physical probably being extinct), go to their gigs, buy the tour t-shirt and read the book? Will any of these bands be making re-appearances to earn that pension?

Its hard to imagine someone like Bono or Noel Gallagher being like a Mick or Robert Plant. Old and wrinkly, still playing the hits to possibly a third generation of fans. Will we be sitting on our phones or on the Internet at 8.58am, trying to buy tickets for The Strokes or Kings of Leon come back tour?

Is this just a fad? Is the reunion tour and the come back of the old bands just of this era. Some would argue that music is stagnant, the re-hashing of old sounds and styles shows lack of imagination and ideas. The music charts have been saturated over recent years with re-mixes of a number of 80's songs that this generation didn't know and have been virtually claimed as the "artists" own, so will this just be how this musical era is defined? By the 80's.

It shouldn't be. There has been an influx of great bands in the past 9 years, that should let this decade stand alone as a great, original era for music. Bands will always be influenced and the current crop of new artists are young and take their influence from electronic music which is the stuff their parents played them.
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Its a constant debate about "real" music against "chart" music. Bands, who write their own songs and play their instruments, versus manufactured boy and girl bands, DJ's, dance groups and Uber producers. So how will our children and our children's children be influenced. What will our gran-kids be listening to in 25 years time?

And will we be able to get tickets to see the Shed Seven 30th anniversary tour?

One morning, in the autumn of 2006 (i think), i was waiting at the bus stop, when i got a call from an unknown number. It was a detective from Hampshire Constabulary. He asked me to confirm if i was a member of a church choir between 1988 and 1990. I did. He went on to ask if i could remember noticing anything i would describe as inappropriate behaviour by the choir master. It was fairly obvious what he was trying to find out. Had i been privy to the choir master sexual abusing any members of the choir or even myself?

In that moment i could not recall if i had seen anything, whilst being pretty sure i hadn't been touched. However, in hindsight, you start to think. What, when you were between 7 and 9 years old, would you consider inappropriate? Would any of these incidents been in my view? The detective asked me to confirm whether we had visited his house, been on trips with him to the swimming pool etc and we had, but nothing obvious came to mind. I could describe it as shock. You don't expect to be called at 8am and asked if you thought a man you used to trust was paedophile.

He was though. Convicted for sexual abuse of at least 3 choir boys during my time there. i wasn't one of them.

My point isn't about paedophiles, however, it is about the church. The church in question, knew about these abuses, and only saw fit to remove him from his position and requested he did not become a choirmaster again. Of course he very rapidly became a choir master and may or may not have indulged his perverted fantasies again.
When the case was brought to court, the rector of the church was interviewed by the South East and London Tonight news programmes. He wasn't the rector at the time, but found fit to defend the churches policy and treatment of the issue, which no doubt came from the head of the diocese of Guildford, by stating that things were different back then.
Different how? I appreciate we are talking about the last millenium but not five hundred years ago but, at the time, about 18 to 16 years past.
You start to wonder that this may have been, or still is, common practice in the Church of England, as much as rumours and fact are that it is rife within the Catholic church. I could start throwing accusations and slander at the church, but that would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. These are facts.

This has all come back to me after a colleague at work was handed a leaflet and small cartoon booklet from a member of a church in Farnham. The cartoon begins with two teenagers swearing and blaspheming. Someone nearby hears this and starts lecturing them about taking the lords name in vain, and begins to tell the story about Jesus. Apart from the fact that any normal teenager would have told him to F off as soon as he started berating them, this is clearly aimed at adolescents in an attempt to "turn them to Jesus". It will also turn them into homophobic bigots. Their interpretation of the bible, fiction or non-fiction, leaves a little to be desired. I quote from the cartoon speech bubbles "Jesus saw many of them become perverts, he created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" "Hey are you putting down the gay lifestyle" "God puts them down, big time". What on earth are they trying to teach children? Tolerance, love thy neighbour. Or hate and prejudice. They finish their little anti-gay rant with "So then being gay is a no-no?" " Absolutely, stay away from it. It smells of devils and death - God hates it"

If it wasn't so unbelievable, then you would find it funny, how incredibly out of touch the church is with the youth of today. Not that I'm claiming to be by any stretch. How is this filth allowed to be peddled by so called "Good, Godly people"? Are they so blinded by their faith that they can't see this is morally repugnant? I believe in free speech, but when anti-Semitic, fascist, racist literature is banned, how, just as it is "In the name of the Lord" is this acceptable for publication. Are there not laws to prevent this?

I will tell you who this is from. They describe themselves as "Every Home for Christ", which i assume is some sort of church. The publishers are Chick Publications, California. I think we are all aware of the fundamentalist right wing Christian churches in the states, that protest at funerals for dead soldiers, vandalise abortion clinics, and generally dislike any different colour and creed than themselves, but i thought maybe in quiet, peaceful Surrey towns and villages that this might be a bit much for your Sunday morning church goer. I was wrong. This was handed to my colleague by an old lady, a regular customer, even.

Combine these two incidents and you may come to the conclusion I'm not a Christian. Well you'd be right. I was once. It is acceptance of paedophilia and homophobia and the overwhelming desire to save face rather than protect people and go to the police, that have made me an agnostic. I will go as far to say i will never set foot into the church i once proudly sang in, despite the person i was christened alongside getting married there next month.

I suppose, living in a country that allows protests against our brave soldiers who have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to go un-condemned, i shouldn't expect anything less.

What music means to us!

If Glastonbury proves anything, its the power of music. That may sound like a cliche and a bit of a hippie, incense burning, free love statement, but it does. There is a power to music that cannot be denied or ignored. There isn't another art form that can invoke such emotion, without considering the genre or environment.

You can be sat on your own in your front room with a record on, or on a bus with your ipod on, or at a club, or watching a movie, because lets be clear, emotion is raised in a film by the use of a soundtrack, there's even an Oscar for it. Or you can be at a concert, gig, or festival like Glastonbury.

I wasn't fortunate enough to be there this year, but i watched a fair chunk of it on TV, and it blew me away just sitting on my sofa.

Everyone will have their own personal reasons for loving a song, an album, a band, a simple line of music, because it can transcend real life. It can send you back in time, It can make you happy or sad. Remind you of a time of your life, a memory, an event.
I was watching Status Quo play "Rockin all over the world", on Sunday night and i was immediately in my mum and dads old house, Live Aid on the video player, me and brother were Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, swinging our guitars.
I would imagine people old or young watching Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Blur were transported to another time and place.

There is one thing that everyone had in common listening to "The Boss" doing "Born to Run" or Neil Young doing "The Needle and the Damage done" or Blur doing "For Tomorrow". They were united in that song. Their reasons were different but the song remained the same. This is what great songs, great bands can do to people.

In an NME article about the Oasis gigs at Heaton Park, Manchester last month, there were technical problems with a generator and it meant the band were off stage for 40 minutes after the first few songs. Fueled by alcohol (and in some cases, drugs) there was an under current of violence and tension, bottles were thrown about, the tone of the peoples voices were aggressive.
In less than hour these people had their arms around each other, screaming "Don't Look Back in Anger" at the tops of those same voices.

What is it that makes people unite in such a euphoric way to a band, a gig, a song? The noise, the lights, the chorus of voices back at the band, drinking every last drop of sight and sound in.
Watching back, Radiohead, Glastonbury 1997, Oasis at Knebworth 1996, these are borderline spiritual events.

It is hard to describe in words, what a feeling is. What emotion is. You can use metaphors and similes, but in the end, its beyond words. You feel love, you feel hate, you feel indifference, or enthusiasm. I've been thinking about it, and its hard to describe what a favourite song feels like. It might make you want to dance, to laugh, to cry, to scream and shout. You can't describe that.

Someone once said to me, "If you had to choose, what would you rather be, deaf or blind?" Instantly i thought blind, because i couldn't live without hearing my favourite band, or discovering new bands and songs. Then i thought, well you wouldn't be able to see them at a gig. That came back to me at the weekend watching Glastonbury, so i closed my eyes and just listened. Its easy to say it didn't matter, because i could open my eyes, but almost involuntarily you find yourself closing your eyes at times when listening, concentration or contemplation. I think i could live without sight, i wouldn't want to, but i couldn't without listening.

For a minority, music isn't important. I don't think you can live without music influencing you in some way, even if music doesn't play a daily part of your life. I know its something i couldn't live without!

Its going to the Dogs!!

What is wrong with this country? Now that's a question we could discuss, debate, and fight about for a week and never get to the end of.
Of course its not just this country that's in trouble economically or socially, but i live here, I'm British or English or whatever, so I'm worried about Great Britain, the UK, England.

Where to start? Well there is recession. There is the corrupt, money grabbing democratically elected members of parliament who are stealing from us. There is the rise of the BNP (these last two not mutually exclusive). There is the issue of political correctness, health and safety morons stopping everyone doing anything that could have the remotest chance of being possibly, slightly dangerous, maybe. There is the problem with youth and gang culture. There is the threat of swine flu and MRSA and dirty hospitals. The list is plausibly endless.

For the sake of my rant, i shall pick a few specimens that have grabbed my attention and pricked my interest in leaving this isle and never returning.
The recession isn't one of them. There has been plenty of social comment on that. Some of it is beyond my comprehension, safe to say it must be the bankers fault, nothing to do with us as a nations reckless borrowing for the past decade. Fair enough its there to be borrowed and its obviously not all our fault, but capitalism works like thus. Supply and demand, we want it, they supply it. A bank isn't going to not lend just because it should have a moral conscience. If there is money to be made, they will make it, and we haven't been saying no, have we.

Anyway i said that wouldn't be one of the specimens. However, part of the issue is of course the government and parliament. Those banks that suddenly found themselves on the brink of the abyss, were bailed out by Gordon and Alistair. With our money. Throwing our money at a problem created by screwing up with our money. Well not mine, i bank with someone who hasn't needed propping up. Although of course it's my tax pennies that are propping the other banks up. Does that mean i have shares in these?

Of course Gordon and his chums in the cabinet, and also those two swords breadths away from the Labour benches (It was you Tories too, David), have been using our money for other things as well. Like, renovating a kitchen, or paying for a miniature duck house (they live OUTSIDE), or a digital camera. Or even paying for a mortgage that didn't exist. Also claiming twice as much rent than that was paid on a central office and second home in the capital.
I would love to have been there when the white paper was issued by some poor back seat MP to make transparent all expenses claims. They must have had a fit. Is he still alive do we know?

What was going through their minds when they were diddling us? Granted some were genuine mistakes, however they were clearly in the minority. They cannot seriously want us to believe that they didn't realise they were claiming for a mortgage they didn't pay anymore? They don't earn that much that they didn't notice when the expenses came through for x, y and z and they had twice as much as they did before when they paid their mortgage. Is anyone really fooled that they are sorry they did it, or just sorry they got caught? At anytime this year would they have noticed and stopped?
No, they wouldn't, because they were on to one seriously cushy number.

This leads nicely onto the issue with the BNP. Lets be categorically clear about this. They are not the answer. They are racist, bigoted fascists who haven't a faintest clue what they are on about. There is a genuine concern about immigration but their policy for dealing with it is not the way to go. Although lets not kid ourselves into thinking that is why they garnered so many votes in the European elections. This was a protest vote. A stupid protest vote. Not that Nick Griffin would admit it, but it was. Those interviewed in the wake of the results, who were asked why they voted British National Party, the majority answered that it was because they didn't want to vote for the "Big Three". Pandering to a proportion of the population who have lost their jobs in the recession by stating that the immigrants and foreign nationals have stolen their jobs only allows a wafer thin excuse for the disenfranchised to vote for these morons. Those who know no better have shown up at the polls and ticked the box as they don't trust MPs. And lets face it, the BNP can't boast many of them.

The problem is of course, who do you vote for? I haven't a clue! So i won't discuss that today.

The second part of my rant will be focused on political correctness and health and safety regulations that need the perpetrators of such guidelines sectioning. I'm talking banning Ba Ba Black Sheep and banning toilet rolls! Banning toilet rolls! What, in heavens name, will happen to you if you use a toilet roll? Of course theoretically you could scrunch it up and ram it into your eye, but you'd think even the most educationally challenged 5 year old may know not to do that, and even if they did, this would be an exception to the rule.
Teachers have been sent a 5-page dossier about the use of bluetac, its dangers and the need to wear goggles whilst using it. The only thing that might happen to a teacher whilst using bluetac is that a particularly naughty child might push them off the chair or stool they were using to put up a poster or such like. What do they think will happen that requires goggles? I haven't had the misfortune to read the document, and quite frankly I'm not sure it would help.
Also on the list of banned items are: Pritstick, egg boxes and conkers. I suppose banning pritstick will prevent any new form of solvent abuse, if that's even possible with pritstick. Egg boxes run the risk of having salmonella on them. Conkers run the risk of taking a small child's eye out. Maybe I'll give them that one, although that is still being generous.

I'm beginning to despair of this country. I could go on about other issues, but i fear I'd send you to sleep, if you haven't already.
The problem is, I haven't got any answers, but I'm afraid i don't think any of the people sat in the House of Commons do either.

Xenophobia rife in football!!

What is Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini's problem with England? Seriously! I mean , is it just simple jealousy. Platini as we know was a footballer, Blatter on the other hand I'm not sure, possibly, he can't have been that good, or we'd have heard of him as a world great. Maybe he was a sturdy centre-half for Basel or Grasshopper Zurich. No, a goalkeeper definitely. If he played he was a goalie. Or maybe he was the inspiration for Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows.

Cheap shot maybe, but his constant anti-English spite is wearing thin. Grinding my gears if you will!

This is on the back of his gushing sentiments regarding Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer to Real Madrid for a mind-bogglingly ridiculous £80m. Or euros. Or U.S dollars. I think it was a new World Record transfer fee, depending on the exchange rate for € to £. Or € to $. Or £ to $. Or if the moon is in Uranus. Or if FIFA say so.
For some reason this ridiculous amount of money is OK for a person that can kick a football quite hard with a clever little dip right at the end to totally bamboozle the goalkeeper and all in attendance and leave them foaming at the mouth.
Never mind that it would bail out Northern Rock Building Society, or pay off a third world countries debt or house the world's homeless. For some reason the fact that it was Real Madrid is fine. Not only that though, they had already splashed out £56m on Kaka, and will being signing David Villa from Valencia for £40m imminently.

Speaking in South Africa, before the beginning of the Confederations Cup, Blatter said " We are in a very sensitive market these days, but in football we are in a good market. It is a game of the people, and people want their stars, OK it is a lot of money, but he is performing".
He also described Ronaldo as "the Picasso of football" and two years ago claimed Ronaldo was a "modern day slave" because Manchester United did not want to sell him. You could build a case that Blatter has more than a professional interest in the Portugese winger.

How this contrasts to his opinions regarding Manchester City's attempted bid to sign Kaka for £100m. He said at the time "Is it morally acceptable to offer such sums of money for just one player". Now let me just clarify: Is he suggesting £100m is morally corrupt but £80m is absolutely acceptable?

During the same press conference yesterday, he always made a comparison between the transfer of Luis Figo from Barcelona to Real Madrid for £37m and the sale of a Picasso painting for £100m at Sotherbys and that this was hidden away for no-one to see, but the transfer of a footballer is there for all to see. Now he assumes we all should have equal interest in art as football. I'll leave the comments about women footballers needing tighter shorts for another day, but this does not only demonstrate his clear bias against England and the Premier league but also a chemical imbalance in the mans brain.

I would love for someone to put these contradicting quotes to him at a future public event, such as the next Miss Switzerland contest or maybe even at the after-party for Ronaldo's un-veiling at Madrid, something he obviously wants to celebrate.

What he has against us i'd like to know. I realise he and Platini have a huge problem with the influx of foreign owners of Premier league clubs, but we never hear them pose a question as to where Real or Barcelona get their bottomless pit of cash from. Its quite fascinating.

Personally, whilst they can do very little or nothing about the money our clubs have or the amounts we wish to spend on players while their favourite clubs get to spend what they like, i call for Monsieur Blatter to "Shut the fuck up".

Where did it all go wrong?

What did you want to be when you grew up when you were at school? Astronaut? Fireman? Tomato? I wanted to be a rock'n'roll star. Or more specifically Noel Gallagher. I probably wasn't alone either. In fact I'm positive i wasn't because the other three members of the band i was in wanted the same thing. Maybe not Noel. The singer wanted to be Liam. He may deny that now, but he did. We all wanted to be famous. We all wanted, or maybe just hoped, we would be as big as Oasis.
Although, most 16-20 year olds in 1996 wanted to be a rock star.

Its now 2009. I'm 28 in two days. Its fair to say I'm not a rock'n'roll star. Not even close. We made a demo in 1999, played a couple of gigs, and two of us fucked off to Uni. That was that.
I work in customer services, for a major high street bank. What happened? How did this happen?

I could blame the education system. How, at 14 years old, are you supposed to make a decision that will effect the rest of your life. Choose your "options", which means picking subjects that you would to do at GCSE. Why in Gods name did i choose Art. Played the guitar, sang in a church choir, and despite not choosing Music or Drama, was the male lead in the school play. I couldn't draw.......anything. Useless i was. Do you know why i chose Art? Because i had a vague interest in Archaeology. According to the computer system we used to identify possible careers that linked with our subject options, Art would be useful, along with History, Maths, English and Science. I say again, how at the age of 14, am i supposed to know that i will definitely want to be an archaeologist. FOURTEEN. A boy of that age has only one interest. Wanking! Sorry, but its true. That and music and football, generally speaking.
So, there i was, stuck with my decision. To try and draw and paint, with the slight possibility that i may or may not grow up to be Tony Robinson's Digger-up-of-old-Roman-pots on Time Team.
You won't be surprised to learn, I'm not. I'm also not in my 50's with a massive, bushy grey beard, pretending to be Indiana Jones, minus the Nazis chasing after me.

The fact that I'm not an archaeologist is my own fault. Mainly because i never really wanted to be one. That was pretty obvious to me early on. I also never wanted to become a lawyer and yet i found myself doing a Law degree.
They say that you don't truly know what you want to do, career wise, until your 40. That's as maybe, but its a bit late then. You can't use that as an excuse, when you're under paid and miserable, in a job you never wanted to do in the first place. In your 20's.

Some people are lucky. They know exactly what they want to be from the beginning. Some people fall, accidentally into a job they love and live happily ever after. Some people never find their true calling and just accept their lot in life and get on with it.
I think I've found what i want to do. I'm lucky in some respects, that i can do it as a hobby, or i can be serious without ever earning any money from it. Or i can catch a break and it can be my career. I'm doing it right now. I probably don't do it enough, or try hard enough and create an opportunity for myself to do this for a living. Have to start somewhere.

Where did it all go wrong? I think maybe i just don't know. Do i need to know? Would it help to know?

All i do know is that when I'm sat at work, I'm wishing i was always doing this.

Nobodies laughing at the BBC

Has anybody been watching the re-make of Reggie Perrin on BBC1. Martin Clunes takes the lead role that Leonard Rossiter made his own in the seventies. Now i don't, as a rule, watch BBC sitcoms anymore. I try and avoid them like a nasty strain of flu that found its origins within a pig from Central America. If i hadn't seen the first two episodes and had purely read the reviews by so called "TV critics", I wouldn't be making a date with my sofa and remote on Friday night, 9.30. However, i did watch them, and i have to admit i found it funny. Shock, horror. A BBC sitcom that isn't written by Gervais and Merchant, funny? Yes. This is mainly because this isn't an attempt to cast an exact copy of Rossiter, or try and make a 21st Century version that is firmly routed in the 1970's. This is a different beast. This is a different script, written by the man who wrote the best BBC sitcom of the nineties, Men Behaving Badly, oddly enough with Martin Clunes playing a leading part. Having said that MBB was independently written, and first commissioned by ITV and only picked up by the BBC once ITV dumped it after one series.

That is not to say Simon Nye has always struck gold, Beast being one less than hilarious attempt. He wouldn't be alone though. It is sometimes a mystery as to who commissions BBC comedies. The art of creating a funny sitcom that can be screened before the watershed is a lost one. Even with the characters and actors from the most successful and long running sitcom ever, the script writers are churning out cliched, formulaic, obvious comedy that contain jokes you could see from a mile off.

It makes you wonder why they bother. ITV did. They used to screen tosh that had viewers turning over in droves. They obviously had the good sense to watch a Channel 4 sitcom and realise the game was up. The list is as long as your arm of great, genre-shattering, genuinely hilarious shows, The Inbetweeners, Peep Show and The IT Crowd the pinnacle of the iceberg.

It does have to be said however that these shows are very much aimed at the 18-35 demographic. Always after watershed, often not earlier than 10pm, very very rude, with sex and bad language aplenty, although brilliantly written, brilliantly shot, and superbly cast.

There is a world of difference between these two channels. There are fresh ideas, young people taking centre stage in acting, writing and producing. You get the feeling Auntie is taking direct control of all aspects of BBC comedy. More recently, as already stated, using actors that originally graced our screens in the early 80's, or more importantly were at the peak of their powers back then, or even earlier. I'm thinking Green, Green Grass of Home, My Family, After You've Gone and that awful thing Caroline Quentin fronted. (Would just like to add My Family was funny to start with)

You have to wonder if the Beeb will ever come up with a classic again. Any of those "Greatest Sitcoms/Sitcom characters/Comedy Characters" programmes that showcase the best of British Comedy include a BBC sitcom. Citizen Smith, Only Fools and Horses, Porridge, BlackAdder, Butterflies, Men Behaving Badly, Faulty Towers, Open all Hours, Steptoe and Son and of course Reggie Perrin. There are of course more. It would take too long. One thing you can guarantee is that not one will be from the last ten years.

Is it time for the BBC to give up? Or just time for a revolution.

Is it too late?

The Man in Black: Losing the plot - an appendix

For evidence to back up my theory above, see Chelsea v Barcelona 06/05/09, and keep a close eye on referee Tom Henning Ovrebo. Although this does not excuse the reactions of Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack. Incompetence personified. Prosecution rests.

The Man in Black: Losing the plot!?!?!

It doesn't take much for you average football fan to get enraged. Especially if a hideous grievance has been done to your team. Just at the weekend my home town team lost a Play-Off Final, at home. We had already thrown the league title away, and now we put in an insipid performance and lost. And yet the thing that angered me the most that day was when the opposing team scored the only goal of the game, they chose to run up and start celebrating in front of the stand of home fans i was in. They knew what they were doing too. This wasn't a coincidence or an unfortunate proximity for their low key hand shakes and slaps on the back. This was standing arms out stretched, team mates jumping on their backs, fists pumping. Un-necessary and could have incited a riot. Idiots.

There are lots of irrational feelings that a football match can uncover. Anger, sorrow, self-pity, pride, morose, happiness, ecstasy, jubilation and more. There aren't many feelings that can't be brought to the surface by a football match. As long as you have the bug. Otherwise this will sound like insanity.

At every match there is one man that will always court controversy, at least as far as you, or your friends or fellow fans are concerned. That man wears black (most of the time), blows a whistle and runs around with the power to make or ruin your weekend.

Unfair criticism is levelled at referees, reactions by fans to decisions are off the cuff, made in an instant and full of bias and through blinkered eyes.
To counter the accusations and insults from players, managers and fans alike, the F.A produce a new campaign for officials. The "RESPECT" initiative. A good idea, right? Referees have a difficult job. not made any easier by intimidation by players and management.

Wrong.

The referee now has his own bullet proof vest. A sanctuary for their ego. An excuse for their mistakes.

Because, they make mistakes. We all do. We forgive mistakes.

However, there are mistakes, and then there is incompetence, and certain referees have been making mistake after mistake with breathtaking incompetence.

These aren't difficult decisions in some cases. They are very easy. They are situations where a player has quite obviously played the ball, or not touched an opponent, or it has not been hand to ball. Or on the other hand, the player hasn't touched the ball, the player has touched an opponent, or it was ball to hand. There are instances of all those examples last weekend and the weekend before, ad infinite.

The issue isn't the decision per se. It isn't the repeated mistakes necessarily. It is the arrogance. The refusal to admit these mistakes. The inability to learn from these mistakes. The false apology when they admit a mistake but still add an excuse, "I thought the player was taken out by the goalkeeper".

Right there is the crux of the problem. He "thought". He can't have thought an incident occurred, it either did or it didn't. He was fouled or he wasn't. The ball was played or it wasn't. Maybe that is the problem. The referee is thinking. Thinking about the consequence of what decision he makes. Thinking that he may be shouted at by a high profile manager and/or player. Thinking he may be lambasted in the red tops the next day. Thinking, because he is being assessed.

I'm not suggesting i would be any better. My grandmother on the other hand. Joke. I really wouldn't be. Although the issue is that not everyone can be a professional referee, just like not everyone can be a professional footballer. The difference being that if a player is poor, he is dropped. He is no longer picked for the match day squad, he is banished to the reserves, isn't offered a new contract and is released, possibly never to be picked up by another professional team. A referee's indiscretion is either ignored, or pathetically punished by a temporary relegation only for them to be eased back in when no-one is looking. Nonsense.

There is no argument to suggest to be a referee isn't a thankless, difficult profession. There is probably no other job where you will get nothing but criticism and abuse. However, they are paid well, obviously not as well as a player, with a minimal chance of recourse. No performance plan, no first, second or final warning. Just support, backing and rejection of every poor performance and decision, with the added bonus of filling the F.A's coffers with recompense for a trumped up disrepute charge levelled at the manager or player of the club the referee just relegated by refusing a penalty. Not to mention the fine and loss of three points that a colleague ripped away from the same team earlier in the season. Don't worry though, these things balance out in a season. Try telling that to the teams that go down by a point or on goal difference.

Its a smoke-screen for not being cool!

I'm sat in my flat with not much else to do, but slightly antagonised by something i won't go into.
When suddenly appeared a taste in my mouth, a smell in my nostrils and a feeling in my lungs. I felt like i wanted a cigarette.

I've been smoke-free, for the second time, for 8 weeks to the day. I think. Something like that anyway. The first time i quit, in 2006, it lasted over 18 months. Then the occasional social ciggy kept appearing, then the odd one ponced from a work colleague, and then i bought 10 Marlboro Lights and it started all over again. I didn't smoke as much as before, and that's not me in denial, i really didn't. I used to smoke at home, and more when i was out, but what stopped that, more than anything, was the smoking ban. Legal and imposed by my girlfriend.

When i gave up the first time, i felt like i wanted to, when my friends and family were telling me to, round about New Years. But i don't do things when people tell me to, only when i want to. I only went to the gym and went on a diet and lost nearly 5 stone, when i wanted to, so i wasn't going to be bullied into quitting smoking. I waited 5 days, then gave up. Not cold-turkey though. I had nicorette gum. Tasted disgusting, but worked. This time I've used nothing. Just plain old regular Wriggleys Extra and will power.

To my surprised, it wasn't that hard. I did stop at the beginning of a week off work, which helped, but i expected to start craving when i went back to work. Nothing. What also helped was that no-one else smoked at work anymore. A fellow colleague had quit before me, and two regular inhabitants of the pub garden, had left for a different branch. They both still smoke.

The only thing that made me think about smoking, was people on TV. I have always dismissed the influence of TV on peoples behaviour and habits, but there is a certain mesmerizing element to watching your heroes in bands or what have you, lighting up, looking indescribably cool.
That's not to say, i instantly legged it to the garage and bought some, but it did make me think.

Of course it isn't cool. It's stupid. Its expensive. It's killing you. I don't care that i sound like your typical, hypocritical ex-smoker. Good. I am a hypocrite. Cos yeah it did feel good. That first cigarette after work (not so much in the morning, always made me a little light headed), or at lunchtime after a particularly trying morning. Or with the first pint on a Friday night.

Right now, i feel much better for not smoking. I'm glad i quit. I don't really miss it. I think its for the last time. I don't want to be smoking in my thirties, and they are approaching. I'm getting married next year, and hopefully starting a family soon after, so i don't want to be smoking, outside, on my own, when its pissing it down with rain, whilst my wife and kid(s) are inside. More importantly, i don't wanna die before my kids grow up. Those adverts are annoying to smokers, the ones with the parents all saying what they want to do with or for their children, but smoke, so may never do it. They are a little patronising, but the message is right. It really isn't worth it.

I used to think "Am i not cool if i don't smoke?". Then i would think "I'm not cool anyway". There is definitely a self satisfied, smug look on people faces when they are smoking, in a group, all the men trying to hold their cigarettes in a way that doesn't look gay, and the women, gesturing with the hand its held in, posing as if it is a fashion accessory.
On the other hand, there is the only one that does, stood slightly away from their friends, looking sheepish, almost embarrassed.

I'm pretty sure i don't want to be one of them anymore.

Do you remember the first time?

"Do you remember the first time" sang Jarvis (Cocker, singer from Pulp).
I saw Terrorvision from Bradford last night. It wasn't the first time. The first time i had seen them was 11 years virtually to the day. May Bank Holiday Weekend 1997. Brighton Essential Festival. Indie Day.
We had to wait outside the tent as Bodycount had overrun. Too busy shouting obscenities about the police. I was 15. 16 in 7 days. Last night i was 26. 27 in 6 days. I felt 15 again. It was almost as if 11 years hadn't gone by.
Now i know I'm not OLD. Not technically. And every person over the age of 30 who i say i feel old to (and my girlfriend; same age) respond by telling me to shut up, or to wait till I'm 30 (i very nearly am) or even 40. But that is what the point is not. I'm not old, i know that. I'm OLDER. Which is still scary. Whilst i was being crushed and pushed around last night screaming every word of every song, i had regressed. I was a teenager. And so was everyone else around me. No-one (and by that i mean probably 90% of the crowd) WAS a teenager.
They were my age, or slightly younger, or slightly older, or a lot older.
I talked to a couple of them, who laughed when i said i felt old and they said they WERE old and i should wait till i was nearly 40.
Typical.
This was before Terrorvision came on. I saw one or two of them mid-set. They were teenagers again, you could see it in their face. Maybe, unlike me, they wouldn't admit it, or even acknowledge it to themselves, but they were. They had regressed too.
You see older people at gigs starring the latest NME band (because you don't stop liking good music) but they look like they know they shouldn't be there. Some thrive on that, but all around them young, good looking teenagers and early twenties nubiles are strutting like peacocks as if they are the newest cast member of the TV show Skins. All impossibly skinny and svelte with hipster jeans, converse and a tight t-shirt with no hint of fat underneath.
They even looked old. The band. Its hard to describe watching people that you used to associate with your youth looking every bit their age. Time should have stood still in the intervening years whilst you got older and got a job, and put on weight and lost hair. But Tony, Mark, Leigh and Shutty should have stayed the same age, forever young. Forever the Terrovision i saw in a tent, in Brighton. 11 years ago.
Last night wasn't any ones first time. It wasn't supposed to be, and it never was going to be. It was a celebration of being young, when your not anymore.

How can one person split society so?

Whatever your thoughts and feelings about reality tv, you can't deny its impact on society today.
Some magazines would barely exist if it wasn't for Big Brother, X Factor et al, and some people would have nothing to watch or talk about.
It seems to be re-cycling itself to an extent now too. Last night some bloke who was a runner up in one of the singing contests, finally won one of these things. The fact that finishing second a few years ago made him a "celebrity", allowed him the indignity of being a "household name" before the country discovered he could dance and skate a bit.

If there was anyone that embodied the name "Reality tv celebrity" it was Jade Goody. And if anyone pretends they don't know who this person is they are lying. Or live in a cave in the Hebrides's.
She sat naked on a couch, drunk, screaming about everyone at home seeing her "kebab". She called a Bollywood actress a "poppadom" and nearly started a diplomatic incident. She was then on the Indian Big Brother and given the devastating news she had cervical cancer. Finally she lived out her days on tv. Where else?

Whatever you think of her, and for the record, when she was originally on BB, i thought she was a loud mouthed idiot. When she was on Celebrity BB, i thought she was an arrogant, egotistical, loud mouthed idiot. When she was diagnosed, i thought she displayed it in a crass and garish manner, using it as a cash cow for her sons, however well intended.

I think you can tell by now, i wasn't her biggest fan. I will admit i laughed at some jokes that were in very poor taste, and felt a little moral outrage when i discovered she had ignored two abnormal smear tests.

In the end though, you wouldn't wish a death as painful on your worst enemy. Whatever they had done.

Therefore i cannot ignore the disgusting, foul-mouthed and gutter surfing comments, dripping with bile, that i have read. You don't have to like someone to not feel your heart strings tug, when you think of those two boys, getting up yesterday morning, to give their mum a mothers day card, to be taken aside and told she had died. I cannot imagine what they are going through.
The comments such as "i couldn't care less about those two brats" are beyond belief. Heart of stone. It genuinely scares me to think there are people out there that make those kind of comments and start discussing conspiracy theories. Pathetic.

On the flip side to this, the out-pouring of grief, akin to the aftermath of Princess Di's premature passing, is a little OTT! I may be making enemies here when i say that the publics perception that she consciously made these tv programmes to heighten awareness of the disease, is more than a little shortsighted. She admitted that it was to make as much money as possible for her boys. Not sure what she had done with the alleged million pounds she earned immediately after BB, or after the advances for her book, appearance fee for Celeb BB etc etc, but you can't argue about her motives.

I have friends who have lost their mothers, i can't begin to understand what that is like. So any help these two boys could get to succeed in life, i couldn't begrudge.

Jade Goody died to soon. Too soon for her family. I would never have wished her dead, however much i disliked her. She epitomised the Reality tv, disposable culture, nothing behind the facade. It won't change anything. There are those who feel she was the spokesman for the no-mark, no talent, big-mouthed, fame hungry morons who audition every year for these shows just to get there fizog on the goggle-box.

At the end of the day, she stole the limelight for too long, but shes gone. Those two boys have no mother. That's the reality.

Was music better before?

I've just finished watching an episode of "The Seven Ages of Rock" on UK History (its not "Yesterday", i refuse to call it that, its a HISTORY channel, not what was on the telly the day before) and I've posed the question, was music better 40, 30, 20 years ago, than it is now? It was the one about Stadium Rock. Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Police, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen. Just watching it gave me goosebumps. I've only had the pleasure of being at one stadium concert, that was Oasis saying cheerio to the old Wembley. They had had a terrible 12 months, lost two band members and released a less than fantastic follow up to the less than fantastic, Be Here Now. They could have been better would be the crux of it.



So who would be able to follow them up? Oasis i mean. Arctic Monkeys are the closest. They are the nearest thing we have to an Oasis. They are/were the nearest we had to The Stone Roses. And so on and so on.



Having the ability to be a stadium rock band is not the reason i started this post. Its whether there will ever be bands to compete with the greats? Although is it fair to compare?



The search for originality is the holy grail for all new bands. Its the impossible dream. Your never going to be totally new. There only so many chords and only so many ways they can go together, and therefore, only so many songs that don't sound the same. You try though, you strive for that freshness, that illusive new sound that will stand the test of time. The issue is though; your going to be influenced. The Beatles were influenced by their heroes, the Rolling Stones, The Who, i could go on. Oasis, we all know who they were influenced by. Not original but they took their influences, moulded the Oasis sound and ran with it.



That's the thing. The sound. Or making it your own.



You could say it was easier back in the 60's. The reaction to the Beatles and the Stones were unprecedented. The scenes of wild hysteria were shocking. Even today they seem un-real. Things hadn't been done before, it was easy to experiment, the influence of drugs, the "swinging sixties", it was a creative period. Maybe they over did it. Maybe they wrote the book, sold the t-shirt and cornered the greatest album of all time polls, forever, and nothing will ever live up to their billing.

Its hard not to feel like that when you watch the pioneers of rock BEGIN stadium rock. The Beatles at Shea Stadium, NYC. Then Led Zeppelin took the mantle and made it a regular occurrence.

Listening to Robert Plant belt out "Rock'n'Roll", it feels like that nothing else can touch it. "Stairway to Heaven" is as transcendent now as it was for those at Knebworth in 1979.

Can anyone live up to those moments? Those stadium gigs aren't the be all and end all of music, today or back then. Maybe its because its the nostalgic side of us see those times with rose tinted glasses, nothing could possibly top those, albums, gigs, those times, era defining music.

Will the Arctic Monkeys define the beginning of the millennium? Will this time stand out like those that have gone before? Time will tell!

The end of the physical entity!

Does anyone remember 1998? I struggle, but I'm thinking specifically of an event. Its when, in my eyes, the release of the recorded sound, as a physical format, began to die. The powers that be, that regulate the pop charts, decided that CD single releases, more specifically its length or track amount, had to be changed. No longer could a band release 4 tracks per format, or E.Ps if you will, that could still be allowed to register a chart placing. At the time, and in my purest guise, i chose to believe this was pandering to the chart acts that either couldn't or didn't write there own songs (and i included those that either covered or destroyed original material, by singing very badly, in harmony over a computerized backing track, or those who just took a song, ripped the heart and soul out of it, and replaced it with a sanitized, club thumping beat and electronic bleeps and beeps). I believed they couldn't fill four tracks on a CD with original material and as they, unfortunately, constituted the majority of the charts, this had to be changed. After all, there are only so many remixes you can do before they all start sounding the same. One.
Now, i don't intend to use this to demonstrate my music snobbery, but i do believe that you have to write your own songs and be able to play an instrument to be classed as an artist. And before you throw a number of the greatest frontmen alive at me, Mick Jagger, Liam Gallagher, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey et al could all play something.

I just can't help but reminisce about those days. I used to be an avid singles collector, maybe compensating for the lack of vinyl that i started hoarding in the late 80's, and it meant something. There were some great B-side bands when they were allowed to release B-sides, Oasis and Mansun, the best in my opinion. There are only a few bands that release B-sides albums and be held in the same esteem as their LP releases. Those two being the ultimate at their craft.

As the age of the physical release draws close, its hard not to feel that music is becoming disposable, "throw away". You hear a song, you like it, you identify it using your mobile phone, you log on to i-tunes, you download it, you stick it on your i-pod. Done. That's it, you listen to it occasionally, and you forget about it. There's no anticipation. You don't have to wait to buy and listen to an album or a song, its there almost instantaneously. Its not treasured. There's no real collection there, its all digital. Lifeless.

I will admit that in certain instances, it is useful to find that song you lost, or you literally cannot find, and i have no doubt people discover bands and may well buy the album, but it is how they buy that is the problem. People cannot say it isn't the end of the CD. Its not even just the indie shops that are suffering. The credit crunch is effecting all types of business', but Zavvi are in major trouble and HMV are losing out hand over fist.

Soon, maybe be not next week or next month or even next year, but sooner than you think, you won't be able to buy a CD.