This week's televisual highlight? No contest - it had to be Johnny "unabashed" Vegas on Room 101. I simply cannot remember the last time either of us laughed so hard, for so long.

If you saw the program, and if it left you searching the web for "Beauty's Castle" - then seek no more. It is here. Thanks to Gina Snowdoll for the link. (Don't go on Kilroy - just don't!)

(Nothing Serious) We’re Only Blogging – WhistleBlog-a-boo – Destiny’s ChildBlog, Steal Or Borrow – New SeekersMr. Blog Stuff – Jean KnightAin’t Too Proud To Blog – The TemptationsBlame It On The Bloggie – The JacksonsSigh. I remember when he used to write all those heartfelt, intensely moving autobiographical pieces, and now it has come to this. How much lower can he sink?

Pop kids of "a certain age" will find plenty to divert, delight and instruct at the newly launched Essential Eighties site.

This is a mind-bogglingly exhaustive alphabetical directory of every single act who had their first top 40 single between 1980 and 1989. There are informative, amusing descriptions of every single act, and photos of most of them. The whole thing must have taken hours and hours to assemble, and as a pop obsessive myself, I can only tip my hat in appreciation.

Everything from Russ Abbott to Sydney Youngblood, via Baltimora, Danny Wilson, Icehouse, New Musik, Ray Parker Jr, Red Box and Then Jerico. It's like a TV Cream of Eighties pop, essentially.

That's my lunch break spoken for, then....

Sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Over the years, this holy trinity has served me well. Particularly in the 1990s, when they were all major triggering forces. Oh, the larks I have had!

But now, aged 40 (did I ever mention that?), I find my priorities have shifted by some distance.

The sex is now happily compartmentalised – which saves a lot of time and effort, quite frankly. The feeling of relief is considerable. As Molly Parkin once memorably put it - rather like being unchained from a lunatic.

The drugs no longer work like they did. Well, apart from dear old booze, of course. What will always elevate booze above all other drugs is this: there is an aesthetic involved in its consumption. And a rather fine aesthetic it is, too – one which actually develops with age and experience.

As for the rock and roll? Well, this does still pull my trigger – most definitely. Especially in a live environment. In this respect, John Peel has always been my role model. If he can still attend gigs in his sixties without compromising his dignity, then so can I in my forties.

So it is particularly irksome to find, two months in, that I have yet to see any live music this year. I have been unlucky, though:
· I didn’t find out about The Hives until too late.
· Mull Historical Society sold out.
· Dot Allison cancelled.
· Groove Armada have also just cancelled.
· The Vines are playing at a weekend, and we aren’t here at weekends.
· Ditto Clinic.

Still, there’s always Kylie in May, and Pulp in June. But that’s all so far away…

I need some live rock and roll! Badly!

You know that "How well do you know me" quiz from a couple of days ago? Well, I've been wondering how I only managed to get 90% when taking it myself. Obviously, when setting the quiz, I incorrectly marked one of the answers.

To this end, three of my former colleagues have been comparing their efforts with the correct answers which I provided. After some truly brilliant deduction work (particularly from Stereoboard), they have now managed to work out which answer was incorrectly set.

So, if you guessed that I had studied German at university, award yourself 10 extra points. If you guessed that I had studied Law at university, deduct 10 points.

This has all been far more intellectually stimulating than the original quiz, I have to say.

I realise that blogging about what you had for lunch is one of the sins crying to heaven for vengeance, but...since I'm already consigned to eternal damnation...

Dear Pret A Manger,

Whatever possesed you to add pieces of coconut to your Tropical Fruit Salads? They're too tough, and the husk is still attached, and I always end up leaving them at the bottom of the container. It's such a waste, and your Tropical Fruit Salads used to be so perfect. Please review this situation at your earliest possible convenience.

Yours, in anticipation of a prompt resolution to this problem,
Mike.

Don’t drink and blog – ach, bollocks to it…

If it wasn’t already bad enough that there are suddenly all these people endlessly writing about blogging - now we’ve got all these other people writing about how sick they are of all these people endlessly writing about blogging.

Well, can I be the first to say that I’m sick of all these people endlessly writing about how sick they are of all these other people endlessly writing about blogging?

Thangyew, anng’night (hic).

Watching tonight's BBC1 documentary The Boy Can't Help It, about Tourette's Syndrome sufferer John Davidson, I suddenly remembered this: John's Not Mad About The Boy - an audio/visual collaboration between the Cartel Communique and the bootleg scene's man of the moment, Osymyso. It's an extraordinary piece of work, which samples Tears For Fears, Dinah Washington, Eminem, Christina Aguilera and Robbie Williams, as well as the foul mouthed but deeply lovable John Davidson himself. The Real Audio file is available for downloading (10 mb) or streaming.

Meg said: I urge you to buy Kind Of Blue, the outstanding, classic Miles Davis album.

I've always been more of a Sketches Of Spain man myself (there's nothing else out there which sounds quite like it), but Meg is a woman of some influence, so I did as I was urged. My £4.99 (in Selectadisc, this lunchtime) was well spent. Oh God, it's just sublime.

So, it's time to risk an "open question" for once. Have you ever bought a CD because of something you read on a weblog? If so, what was the CD and what was the weblog?

Our lifts have mirrors on all three walls. I work on the top floor. At lunchtime, the lifts always start off full. As we ascend, I stand there, staring into nothing, avoiding eye contact. Eventually, I’m the last one left.

In the few remaining seconds before my floor, I snap back to life and start checking myself feverishly from every angle. Tweaking, straightening, patting myself down. How’s the hair round the back of the head? Bum looking OK, or are the jeans too saggy? Through the shirt, the fleece and the jacket, can you still see the outline of my belly? Turn slowly this way and that, breathe in, back straight. Yeah, suppose you’ll do.

Except for that bloody awful hairdo. The perils of using a different hairdresser while Ant was away: she’s left it too long on top. It’s starting to part, right up at the peak, right in the centre. Christ – give it a couple more days, and I’ll start looking like David Cassidy.

Me: So, how are things with your girlfriend these days?

Former colleague: Oh, everything’s fantastic, thank you. She’s living with me now. You instinctively develop these little routines together, don’t you – like at breakfast, she’ll know I want an orange juice, and she’ll just get it now, without needing to ask.

Me: Yeah, we’ve evolved a breakfast routine as well. It involves staying two storeys apart from each other at all times.

FC: No!

Me: Oh, absolutely. I have a wash, then go down and have breakfast. He has breakfast, then comes upstairs and washes. We’re too grumpy to be in the same room as each other for the first hour of the day. It’s a male thing, right?

FC: No way! I’m always in a really good mood first thing. No Mike, it’s not a male thing – it’s just a grumpy thing with the two of you.

Me: Or maybe it’s just that our intellects are so vast, and our personalities so expansive, that it takes a good hour for us to power up to full strength.

FC: Yes Mike. I’m sure that’s what it is.

So. Farewell then
Spike Milligan.

You once called
Prince Charles a
"grovelling little bastard"
on live TV.

I loved you
for that.

There aren't many
poems that I
know off by heart.

But this
is one of them.

So. Farewell then
Sue MacGregor.

"Dowager duchess of
Dingly Dell".

That's what nasty
old Brian
Redhead called
you.

But K and I
thought you were
simply smashing.

Our mornings won't be
the same
without you.

This fad is just too much fun to pass up. How well do you know me? Take this quiz and find out...
(Link via David)

Party In The Palace.

From Ananova:You can apply for tickets for the concert, which takes place on June 3 in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, by going here. Oh, and there's some classical nonsense a couple of days earlier, as well...

Jim O’Rourke: Insignificance.

Like Aim’s Hinterland (of which more below), one of my main reasons for buying Insignificance was its Album Of The Month status in another magazine (Uncut) whose judgement I’ve learnt to trust. I’d also heard bits and bobs of O’Rourke’s stuff around the place, and was aware of his production work with Stereolab, the High Llamas, Will Oldham and Smog. Low-key low-fi with arty leanings, right? In this case…most definitely wrong.

The album kicks off with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (who guests throughout) delivering a swaggering riff which has been universally compared to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, and some sneering, f***-you and buggered-if-I-care lyrics. It’s not exactly what you’d expect. It also sounds completely glorious. A couple of minutes into the same track, the mood suddenly and surprisingly shifts into gentle, melodic, acoustic tinkling, before bouncing back into the riff again. It all works extremely well.

Essentially, this is an accessible, tuneful, commercial sounding album of grown-up pop-rock, with weird bits around the edges. Its lush harmonic arrangements conceal some vituperative and downright nasty lyrics, delivered in a deceptively deadpan manner. There are only seven songs, and the album only lasts 38 minutes, but this is no bother – it’s the right length for this particular song cycle. O’Rourke hasn’t completely abandoned his “post-rock” roots either – just wait till you hear the closing section of the final track. Again, it’s not what you’d expect.

A fine album, which has slowly dug its way into my consciousness over the last couple of weeks – initially intriguing, ultimately engrossing. And almost worth buying for the pervy cover art alone. Oh, and it’s the third O’Rourke album in a row to be named after a Nicholas Roeg film (the other two being Bad Timing and Eureka). O’Rourke has also produced the forthcoming, and much vaunted, Wilco album – and having heard the collaboration with Jeff Tweedy on this offering, I now cannot wait to hear it.

Today's top links.

A couple of wonderful little pieces of writing by Paul Ford at Ftrain...

1. Game for Small Sounds is written entirely in words of one syllable, and makes you want to go off and try something similar. The further you read, the less stilted and more natural the prose starts to sound – as if all words only had one syllable.

2. Robot Exclusion Protocol is a cute little futuristic nightmare which posits a world that is entirely indexed by Google.

Meanwhile, GPS Drawing is a project devoted to creating “drawings” made by taking journeys (by car, foot, bike, boat, plane, whatever) that form words and patterns, with the journeys all plotted by GPS (Global Positioning System - K's favourite toy of 2001). Worthy of a Turnip Prize at the very least, surely. I also find to my delight that they’ve journeyed through Nottingham in the shape of a butterly. Ooh, pretty!
(Link via Hydragenic).

Aim: Hinterland.

What follows is a “first impressions” review. In a week or so, I’ll follow it up with a “now that I’ve got to know you” review.

I bought this CD because I enjoyed the few tracks by Aim that I’d heard before - Cold Water Music and Kate Rogers’ Sail. The album has also picked up some ecstatic reviews, most notably in the always-reliable Jockey Slut magazine, where it is the current issue’s Album Of The Month.

Aim are based in Barrow-in-Furness, and record for Manchester’s Grand Central label, home of the slightly better known Rae & Christian. Stylistically, this album covers broadly similar territory. If you like what Rae & Christian do, then chances are you’ll love this.

So what does it sound like? Well, crassly put, this is moody UK hip-hop overlain with atmospheric Mancunian miserablism. However, we are miles away from “bling bling”, motherf***ing bitches and gangsta posturing here. Instead, the overall mood is gently introspective and melancholy. Bedsit hip-hop, if you like. It’s music for a grey weekday afternoon where nothing much is happening, and you don’t much care. It’s also very beautiful – all sorts of intricate little sonic ideas weave in and out of the 13 tracks on offer – and impressively original.

There are songs, there are raps, and there are instrumental mood pieces. The songs stand out immediately. Kate Rogers is back, singing The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice, and Stephen “Babybird” Jones delivers an uncharacteristic falsetto lead vocal on Good Disease, supposedly in a “Four Tops style”.

The album ends with a recording of beat poet Charles Bukowski talking about his overriding need to escape the banality of his everyday working life. Indeed, Bukowski is credited as an influence on the entire album. I didn’t know much about him, so I went and looked him up. This is what I found (from this source):There’s a website for the Aim album to be found here, and a track by track description to be found here. A description of the album’s overall mood sums things up rather well, and is worth reproducing here:One final observation - this album sounds deeply, achingly hip. It is the very essence of contemporary cool. I could imagine it wafting out of every cafe and gallery in Hoxton (if indeed Hoxton is still the hip place to be - I really wouldn't know these days). It would be the perfect CD to impress your new date. And there's nothing wrong with that either, as far as I'm concerned - part of the fun of pop music is the way it plays around with aspirations towards being cool, hip, reflecting the moment. Aim would probably deny this until they were blue in the face, mind you - but they are, none the less, terribly, terribly trendy, and hurrah for that.

Brrring Brrring.

- Hello…

- Hello, is that Troubled Diva?

- Oh, [giggle] so you found the weblog then?

- Yes I did – what fun! “Lunging at Part Two” all those years ago, eh? Lunge – now that’s a word I hadn’t heard in years. And what a great word it is – I must start using it again.

- Well, I think “lunge” is probably the most accurate description of my seduction technique at that time. Crude, but undeniably effective. What I lacked in words, I made up for in deeds, you see.

- Oh, so maybe this is where I’ve been going wrong with women recently. Do you think I’d maybe benefit from doing a spot of lunging myself?

- Hmmph, I’m not sure that would work too well. I think that on the whole, we men are quite happy to be lunged at. It’s a language we understand. But with women, I think it’s all a bit more involved than that. You have to do clever tactical things like conversation first – far too complicated for me, I’m afraid. I really would have made a terrible heterosexual…

debo.blogspot.com

My main activity in a weekend of exceptional, blissful uneventfulness (save for a magnificent meal with K’s family on Friday night at the Michelin starred Fischer’s @ Baslow Hall) has been to work my way through Deborah Devonshire’s recently published Counting My Chickens…and other home thoughts - a well chosen birthday present from my mother.

“Debo” is better known as the Duchess of Devonshire, resident owner of Chatsworth House, and one of the two surviving Mitford sisters. Her delightful little book is basically a compendium of random jottings on this and that – and as such, it reads remarkably like a weblog. debo.blogspot.com – I for one would love to see it.

She is not the world’s greatest intellect, nor is she the world’s greatest writer (although she’s not at all bad at it), but she’s nobody’s fool either. She is also interesting, witty, opinionated, informed, guilelessly plain speaking, and quite devoid of any of the self-important pomp that one might expect from someone in her position. A bit of an old reactionary at times maybe, but a good egg none the less.

The old girl does make me giggle sometimes, though. Writing about the recent TV adaptation of her sister Nancy’s semi-autobiographical comic novel Love In A Cold Climate, she begins like this:Erm, excuse me Debo love – you are a bloody duchess, you know...

Let me also share this little vignette with you.

Tickling Dame Judi’s bottom.

The village shop only took delivery of three Observers this morning, which had all gone by 9.45. However, there were still plenty of Sunday Telegraphs on offer (it’s that kind of village), so we spent the rest of the morning sampling its delights instead.

You are immediately aware of being on foreign territory. Unlike The Observer, which devotes whole pages to the subject, The Sunday Telegraph’s coverage of modern music is rather grudgingly consigned to a couple of boxes on the back page of the Review section. Its two beat-of-the-street “rock critics” are called Caspar Llewellyn Smith and James Delingpole, whose rather disdainful coverage of their subject matter made me start to wonder whether they were in fact would-be country diarists who had drawn the short straw. They are suspiciously fond of complaining about the frightful din and the lack of a decent tune. Spiritualized, apparently, are “like putting your head in the engine of a jet plane and listening for feedback”. To be honest, when compared to the annoying style-mag hipster aspirations of most of the other broadsheets, I find this all rather charming.

My favourite story in this week’s paper comes in an article about the filming of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, to be released on Friday and starring Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey and Cate “goddess” Blanchett (if you saw her on last night’s Parkinson, radiantly beautiful, intelligent, stylish and charming in an old-school way that is seldom found amongst movie stars these days, then you’ll know what I’m talking about).

It turns out that, stuck out on location in a remote, wintry corner of Newfoundland, Spacey and Dench developed a surprisingly close friendship…