Harumph. I can't believe that it took almost a whole day before anyone noticed the broken link on yesterday's Hatfield & The North track. Did the phrase Canterbury jazz-prog at its finest not send your hearts racing with eager anticipation, then? Pah. Pearls before swine! You don't know what you're missing.

So here, rather grudgingly, are today's selections.

Item 142. Laura Lee - Women's Love Rights (1971)

The mot juste is "sassier".

1tem 143. Prefab Sprout - Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone) (1983)

Is early Prefab Sprout really ripe for re-appraisal? The Blissblog Uber-hipsters seem to think so...

Thatchenfreude is completed. Unlike most blog entries, you should start at the top and read downwards. You know, like normal web pages.

There have been several entries in my Diva Rhyming Slang quiz, but no perfect scores as yet. I'll keep the competition open until after the weekend.

Naked Blog is keeping a tally of all sites which have Dummified themselves in support of D4D. There's an issue at stake here. If we make enough fuss, then maybe companies who pursue such petty-minded bullying tactics will realise that they are actually in danger of damaging their brands, not strengthening them...?

A major ceremonial event is taking place, along the lines of the Garter Ceremony, Remembrance Sunday, or the opening of Parliament. Flag-waving crowds and television cameras line the streets. I have secured a superb viewpoint, looking directly down into the abbey, where the ceremony is in full, seamless flow. Seemingly the entire British Establishment is in attendance: royals, peers, politicians, clergy, that sort of crowd.

From the pulpit, it is announced that Lady Thatcher will now give the formal address. She steps forward, immaculate in black, but with her hair looking uncharacteristically unkempt.

My heart lurches with excitement and fear.

This must have been arranged months ago - before the shock of her recent widowhood, before the Alzheimer's had started to kick in so visibly. Surely she is in no fit state? Why has this been allowed to go ahead?

Thatcher looks around at the assembled dignitaries, with her usual air of supreme confidence. Maybe her reflex instincts will take over. Maybe she can still do this. After all, it's only a matter of reading pre-prepared words from a sheet of paper. How hard can that be?

There is no sheet of paper. She's going to extemporise. I hold my breath.

Thatcher smiles regally, and begins to speak.

Well, I expect you have all made your plans for Christmas by now...

In the middle of July? Does she not even know the time of the year any more? This is already worse than I had expected.

As Thatcher burbles on - confidently, amiably, but making absolutely no sense whatsoever - a mounting sense of unease develops within the abbey. By now, she is drifting aimlessly around the area between the pulpit and the lectern, oblivious and unstoppable. Something must be done.

A tight phalanx of morning-suited functionaries moves slowly and silently towards her.

Carefully avoiding any sudden movements which might startle her, this phalanx draws within inches of the rambling former premier. She is either completely unaware of their approach, or is simply pretending not to have noticed it. This strikes me as entirely typical. She is still in full flow - maybe a little louder, maybe a little shriller.

All at once, the group of functionaries simultaneously lock Thatcher in a close embrace, surrounding her from all sides. It is a soft, sympathetic sort of embrace, which has the appearance of a rather stately group hug. Their calm, sensitive professionalism impresses me tremendously.

The embrace is, however, all too much for the bewildered old woman, who now bursts into fits of heaving sobs, her face nuzzled into the charcoal grey waistcoats of her rescuers. After decades of tight emotional self-control, something within her has finally broken.

As the sobs continue unabated, an inconsolable Margaret Thatcher gradually slides downwards, eventually coming to rest, sprawled out, face forwards, on the cold stone floor of the abbey - a writhing mass, a picture of abject humiliation. A humiliation which is not yet quite complete.

For as she continues to writhe about, so the hem of her skirt...

...rides further and further up her thigh, slowly revealing the white underwear beneath, until she ends up fully exposed, skirt bunched around her waist, cotton-clad backside on full public display, as the cameras move in and the world's lenses feast themselves on tomorrow's front-page splash. No-one comes to her aid this time. She is quite alone in the world.

By now, I am doubled up in fits of hysterical laughter, pointing my finger and gasping for breath. Poetic justice! Serves the evil old witch right! Just how fantastic is this? I look around, expecting everyone to be sharing my glee...

...and find myself next to Tony Blackburn (for it is he). Who looks straight back at me, with a mixture of disbelief, sorrow and disgust. His voice is stern.

- I don't understand how you can react like that, when someone is in so much distress.

- Oh, come on - this is Thatcher. Think about all the misery that she inflicted on this country! She deserves everything that's coming to her.

- You're forgetting that she's also human. She has just lost her husband, for God's sake. No-one deserves to be humiliated like that. No-one.

My triumphalist glee sticks in my throat.

Then I woke up, and it was all a dream.

One of those dreams which haunts you for the rest of the day.

To what degree should you separate the "human being" from their belief system?

Or rather, from the consequences of their belief system?

Or rather, from your perception of the consequences of their belief system?

Or rather, from the general perception of the consequences of their belief system, as held
by people with a broadly similar belief system to your own?

If, indeed, you still adhere to that belief system?

A strange day for such pre-occupations, considering that...

...we were about to go and listen to a talk given by a former Conservative MP turned writer and broadcaster, who served in the Thatcher government - and then to have a pub lunch with him afterwards.

Being of a broadly autobiographical nature, the talk was naturally peppered with a few choice anecdotes relating to Mrs. Thatcher. One particular anecdote centred on a potentially humiliating episode involving Thatcher's leg, an amorous dog and a newspaper photographer, in which Thatcher saved face by refusing to admit that anything was amiss. Barely four hours old, my dream snapped back into even clearer mental focus.

Over lunch, I briefly considered regaling the table with the story of my dream. In the right company, this could have provided much entertainment. But maybe not in this company. After all, the story did rather depend on my gleeful “serves the old bag right” reaction. It wouldn’t have been polite.

Looking around the table, I calculated a broad-right to broad-left ratio of five to three. A distant echo sounded in my head – the echo of the person I was fifteen, twenty years ago. You’re having lunch with a bunch of bloody Tories! What the hell has happened to you?

Then I looked again, and saw that none of us were letting our respective political belief systems stand in the way of the perfectly amiable conversations that were taking place. It wasn’t at all difficult to find common ground. Particularly, it has to be said, when the subject of Blair, Campbell and the "dodgy dossiers" came up.

When talk turned to the Buxton festival once again, and to the line-up of speakers that had been booked, I seized my chance to unite the table.

Did you see the posters? Germaine Greer: in conversation? That’ll be a first, then!

Uproar.

Bull’s-eye.

Item 140. Laura Lee - Wedlock Is A Padlock (1970)

I think the mot juste here is "sassy". More from Laura tomorrow.

1tem 141. Hatfield & The North - Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (incorporating Oh What A Lonely Lifetime) (1975)

Subsequently re-recorded/re-worked for The Rotters Club* (also a fantastic novel by Jonathan Coe), this was specially recorded for a Virgin compilation called V (back when Virgin still had Serious Prog Cred, if that doesn’t sound too oxymoronic these days). Canterbury jazz-prog at its finest, with noticeable Robert Wyatt-esque vocal influences.

* Anyone recognise the title of Track 5?

Partially inspired by my 100x100 wheeze, The Yes/No Interlude has embarked on an ambitious venture (the n+1 project), whereby each post has to contain one more word than the post before it – until Blogger returns the dreaded BIG POST ERROR (now returning over 500 results in Google; I’ve started keeping a graph). He’ll never do it, will he?

Remember last year’s Midsummer Night's Burn? Well, the dudes at funjunkie have resurrected the concept. Sign up; burn a summer-related CD; put two copies in the post; get two CDs in return.

Venusberg rants eloquently about the Jeffrey John affair. Amen, brother.

1. Not You, The Other One (15 votes)
Sarah’s fine blog will probably return in August.

2. Swish Cottage (13 votes)
David has no plans to de-hiate, meaning that Swish Cottage may remain closed indefinitely.

3. not.so.soft: life, unfolding (9 votes)
Meg is "doing something a bit exciting" and promises to reveal all "in due course".

4. Acerbia (8 votes)
"Everything is peachy keen again", says D – before providing us with another Gorgeous Pouting Acerbia Girl. Phwooar! Cartoon Lust!

5. little.red.boat (7 votes)
Anna is back. She is also madly and passionately in lurve (woo!), and feeling proper poorly (boo!).

Lyle of Destruction For Dummies has received an "Oy! Hands off our brand!" missive from Wiley Inc, publishers of the "For Dummies" books.

Points arising:

Said missive was sent not via e-mail, but left in Lyle’s comments box for all the world to see.

Lyle’s long-running and popular site is, of course, in Google’s Top 10 for "for dummies". So it’s taken Wiley how long to type "for dummies" into a search engine?

Wiley cite something called "federal law" – which, since the UK isn’t actually the 51st state of the US just yet, doesn’t really apply.

(Continued in next post.)

Anyone who can’t see that this is a parody/pastiche site (a justifiable defence, apparently) must be a Dummy of the highest order (besides, there’s even a disclaimer).

Are we really to believe that sites like this can possibly affect sales of Wiley’s books in any way? It’s probably costing them more to “defend their brand” via ludicrous actions like this.

And they’ve done this before, you know. Hilarious.

Understandably, Lyle has decided that maybe this isn’t a battle worth fighting to the bitter end – so he’s purchasing a new domain: Dummies For Destruction.

Ludicrous, huh? You couldn’t make it up.

Update: Part 3 is in the comments - which seem to be playing up, so if you can't read them then follow this link instead.

You see all those words and pictures below? Baffling, aren’t they?

Well, let me offer you some assistance.

As Nigel spotted in the attached comments box, this is an exercise in Diva Rhyming Slang. In other words: each picture is a rhyming clue for the word it has replaced.

Here’s an example.

My is .

In this example, the solution would be:

My name (game) is Mike (bike).

Your task, should you accept it, is to decipher the message. As an incentive, the first correct answer to reach me (mikejla at btinternet-dot-com) wins a top-quality TD coffee mug.

Ready…steady…GO!

been for the two with a of (, the !), so I haven't like . about that. It also that I won't be to tomorrow, which is a bit of a . Still, the are on the now, so I mustn't .

I that this hasn't a of
" " - but I didn't you to that I'd gone on . That has never been my . So don't - is still and .