K has just returned from the hairdressers.

In recent days, the Tufts had actually begun to settle down, their combined length and weight having morphed the 'do into a comparatively less offensive latter-day Mullet. "Business on top; party round the back."

But now... they're back. Tuftier than ever. Like the snakes in Medusa's hair, one glance could turn a man to... OK, inapposite metaphor.

This means WAR, you know. Where are me fookin' fags?

1. American Mavericks: Harry Partch's Instruments. (submitted by Asta)
"Anyone can be a musician... although you do need a fairly zippy internet connection. My only real complaint is that there's no set up for melding the sounds together. Still... I liked the cloud chimes."

2. Cucina & Famiglia: Timpano Alla Big Night. (posted by Jill)
"Have you seen that Stanley Tucci movie, Big Night? Two Italian brothers struggling to keep their restaurant open in America have a huge feast to entice business. Dish follows dish until the highlight - a baked pasta meatball boiled egg concoction - brings foodie orgasmic pleasure to all who partake... I still haven't managed to have a big enough dining table to seat the numbers to make this, but I've always been fascinated by this recipe."

3. Design Is Kinky. (submitted by Jill)
"Lots of links to lots of pretty websites."

4. Epitonic. (submitted by Daron)
Free, legal MP3s from an impressive range of interesting acts.

5. ModHaus: modernist furnishings, decorative arts & cultural artifacts of the 1950s-70s. (submitted by Sue)
Rather cheekily, Sue has chosen to submit her own site! ("Blatantly obnoxious" is the term she used in her covering e-mail; but I'll just settle for "cheeky".) However, as Sue is a long-time reader rather than a passing commercial opportunist, we'll let her get away with it.

6. Orisinal: Morning Sunshine. (submitted by Daron)
Online games. (Yes! You heard! Online games on Troubled Diva - whatever next?)

7. Princess of Hearts. (submitted by Debster)
"A top example of modern poetry at its best."

8. SmartKlamp: the fine art of male circumcision. (submitted by Debster)
No home should be without one! Emphatically NOT for the squeamish.

9. The 80's Movies Rewind. (submitted by Jill)
"Every 80's movie, dissected by completely biased reviewers, with pictures! Every movies averages a score of 9 out of 10. Funny."

10. Variations On Gould. (submitted by Asta)
"For fans of Glen Gould, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) tried offering their listeners the chance to mix thier own sample of a Gould variation some time ago. I have been known to click on the birdsong key, and just let it play while I'm writing, usually in winter, when the birds are too busy shivering to sing for me outside my window."

11. Why Are Japanese Girls’ Comics full of Boys Bonking? (submitted by Alan)
"OK, here is an article that does NOT come from aldaily..."

Which is YOUR favourite? Please let me know in the comments box. I'll be taking your opinions into consideration when deciding on the winner.

Non-bloggers! You still have until Friday night to e-mail me (mikejla at btinternet dot com) with your most interesting links.

Tomorrow, I'll start posting some of the entries that I've received so far. (Not that I've received that many, mind you. The field is still open.)

Remember: a hand-made double mix CD awaits the sender of the best link. Because I do try to season my laziness with a modicum of generosity.

Over the past fifteen years, my mate Dymbel has had around thirty books published - nearly all of them falling within the all too frequently under-valued category of Young Adult Fiction. As Dymbel himself explains, this is not always the easiest of genres in which to operate, both in terms of critical prestige and financial reward. Nevertheless, his excellent, highly readable books (I've read 'em all!) remain consistently popular with his target readership, and he has successfully maintained his position as a well-respected player in his chosen field.

All of which makes the events of this week all the more astonishing.

Dymbel's most recent work, which hit the shelves at the end of last month, is a guide to eBay for UK users, called simply The eBay Book. This is his first non-fiction book, and his first book to be targeted directly at an adult audience. It is also the book which has taken him the shortest amount of time to research and write. (More background here.)

Since its publication, The eBay book has already earned three 5-star reviews on Amazon, who have placed it with a sales rank of 147. (Yesterday, it was 138.)

Tomorrow lunchtime, Dymbel will be making a live appearance on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show, talking to Jeremy about the book, and presumably about eBay in general. This was only confirmed yesterday, and I still haven't quite got over the initial excitement. (The above link will also allow you to listen to an archived version of the show for the following week or so.)

It doesn't end there, though. In preparation for tomorrow, Dymbel has been asked to host an eBay auction for the tie that Jeremy is wearing on today's show, in aid of Children In Need. The results of the auction will be announced live on tomorrow's show. At the time of writing, just two hours after the auction opened, and with no publicity save on Dymbel's blog, bidding for this item stands at £25.01, with 9 bids placed.

(Update: The tie eventually sold for £930, with 85 bids placed and over 29,000 page views.)

I dunno. A best-selling book... national media appearances... and now a celebrity charity auction; he's so showbiz all of a sudden! What's next, I wonder: Bush Tucker Trials in the jungle?

Unlike Morrissey, I love it when my friends become successful. Can you tell?

Joe. My. God.

I've already plugged him couple of times over on the Linkrack - and now I'm plugging him over here as well. Because he's that good. Deftly executed life stories of the highest calibre.

(In fact, some of the stories are so neatly turned that I initially wondered whether there was a fictional element to them. But we've been e-mailing, and Joe tells me they're all true. Which only serves to make them even better.)

Catch up with him now, while the archive is still of manageable proportions - then in a year's time, when he gets his book deal and the whole world is showering him with plaudits, you'll be able to lean back and murmur, in pleasingly self-satisfied tones, "Of course, I've been following him ever since the early days..."

The most recent story, Terrence Part 4, is possibly my favourite yet. As such, it's a damned good place to start.

Update: Be advised that Joe's content has since taken a distinct turn towards the Adult and Explicit. It's all as brilliant as ever, of course - but if you find graphic sexual material bothersome, then perhaps this isn't for you.

(image via leftlion.co.uk)

Sad news. Frank Robinson - better known to the citizens of Nottingham as Xylophone Man - passed away on Sunday, at the Queen's Medical Centre.

Full story - BBC.
Full story - Nottingham Evening Post.
2003 interview.
Tribute page.

Most importantly of all: Nixon of Popdizzy (who has written his own tribute) has started an online petition, calling on Nottingham City Council to erect a statue in Frank's honour, and calling on Nottingham Express Transit to name a tram after him.

You can sign and view the petition here. If you're "local", then please tell everyone. Thank you.

(Update: As of Friday afternoon, the petition has collected 1215 signatures.)

As several of you have already guessed, last night saw K attend his first rock gig since 1986: The Magic Band, supported by Wreckless Eric, at Nottingham's Rescue Rooms.

The reason for the 18-year gap: K feels highly uncomfortable in crowded situations where there is no ready escape route. A mild form of claustrophobia, I guess. This discomfort increases sharply in situations where collective hysteria is liable to hold sway: clapping, stamping, cheering, whooping, dancing, that sort of caper. As someone who places a high value upon his sense of individuality, these orchestrated mass responses are anathema to him, causing him to feel as if he is being submerged beneath a tidal wave.

This wasn't always the case. All through the mid-to-late 1970s, K was an ardent gig-goer. As a student in Leicester, he went to see practically every band that came to town, ending up at the De Montfort Hall on a more or less weekly basis. Until one fateful night in 1980 when Madness came to town, and the familiar venue filled up not with the usual bunch of affable stoners, but with a new breed of aggressively beered-up boot-boys. Heavy duty vibes, man. Gazing around the venue in dismay, alarm - and, above all, a new sense of alienation, a switch flicked that night, and K's gig-going came to an abrupt halt.

The last stand-up rock gig we attended together was James - at the Old Vic, back when they were still a quirky little indie band on Factory Records, with off-kilter tunes and arty leanings, who were being championed by the likes of Morrissey. That evening's small cluster of earnest, chin-stroking cognoscenti caused him no problems.

Shortly afterwards, I dragged him off to the Royal Concert Hall to see The Smiths. With The Queen Is Dead in the shops and Panic in the singles charts, the band were absolutely at the top of their game; it was a time when everything they did seemed Important, Definitive, imbued with Significance and Relevance. Consequently, the atmosphere inside the venue was one of the most emotionally charged that I have ever witnessed. Indie's answer to A Hard Day's Night, if you like.

As the band came on to a squall of screams, the whole crowd surged to their feet - even where we were, up in the circle. The two girls next to us became quite beside themselves with excitement, repeatedly squealing and clutching each other whenever the spotlight fell on their beloved Johnny Marr.

I glanced sideways at K. His face was set in stone: a stern, tense mask of barely concealed disgust. Leaning towards me, he indigantly hissed in my ear.

"If only those PRATS at the front hadn't decided to stand up, we could ALL have had a PERFECTLY GOOD VIEW..."

Talk about missing the point.

Half a dozen songs or so later, he leaned over again.

"The Smiths are brilliant - brilliant - but I have to go. Enjoy the rest of the show."

And that was that. For eighteen years.

With the arguable exception of that 1992 k.d.lang concert - also in the Royal Concert Hall, as it happens. Anticipating a relaxing evening of smoothly delivered, exquisitely sung torch songs with country overtones, we certainly weren't expecting the lesbian version of A Hard Day's Night. My God, but those dykes screamed the place down. As well they might; k.d. had only just come out as the world's first openly lesbian pop star, and she was looking hot. For K, this was enough to induce a fully-fledged, text-book-perfect panic attack, shortly before the end of the show. His worst ever, by some distance. We met him afterwards in the lobby, still shaking slightly, having been taken suddenly and violently ill in the loos. Never again, he vowed. Never again.

But then, we hadn't reckoned on Captain Beefheart's Magic Band reforming after over 20 years, and playing a handful of small club dates. (Minus Beefheart himself of course, whose retirement from the music business remains total.) For you have to understand this: although his albums may not get played too often these days, Captain Beefheart remains K's favourite rock artist of all time. As far as K is concerned, Beefheart is rock's one true, unassailable genius, with a talent to match his two favourite composers: Bach and Reich.

And God, don't the rest of us ever know it.

At seemingly every late night "all back to ours" session during the 1990s - of which there were many - there would invevitably come a point in the proceedings where K would solemnly rise to his feet, shuffle/stagger over to the CD cabinet, and pull out his cherished copy of Trout Mask Replica.

"We must ALL LISTEN to Captain Beefheart", he would announce to the room, steadfastly ignoring any quiet groans of protest from those of us who knew all too well what was about to come.

"The man is a GENIUS", he would slurringly declare, in an authoritative tone of voice which brooked no argument.

"I know what you're all thinking", he would parry, as Beefheart's uncompromisingly raw, scratchy, rasping, yowling, melody-free, free-form/avant-garde dislocated blues filled the room.

"You have to give it TIME, that's all. Hang on, I'll just turn it up a notch..."

At this point, one of two things would happen. Either someone would gently steer K away from the hi-fi and back onto the sofa, allowing me to put Maxwell back on (or Erykah Badu, or Björk, or Portishead, or one of the early Cafe Del Mar compilations) - or else everyone would suddenly comment on the lateness of the hour, and start ringing for taxis.

But usually the latter. Not that I was complaining; as far as I was concerned, Trout Mask Replica served perfectly as Chucking Out Time music. I don't think we ever got more than four or tracks in. In fact, I'm not even sure that I've ever made it through to the end of the album. Ever.

For here's the irony. Normally, I am the one pushing our sonic envelope, threatening to send K spare with my thrashy guitar bands and my thumping dance beats. (Most of the time, we agree to meet in the middle with world music, classic soul, acoustic singer-songwriters, jazz, or downtempo electronica.) With Beefheart, however, the tables are well and truly turned. I've just never got him. Structurally baffling. Emotionally obtuse. Irritatingly one-dimensional.

Horrible, tuneless racket. Call that music? They're just pulling notes out of a hat...

Nevertheless - faced with the novel prospect of K attending a stand-up gig in a crowded, sweaty venue, all other considerations paled into insignificance. Would he be OK? Would he be able to make it through to the end of the set without bolting for the door? If nothing else, he needed a strong support group: myself, Dymbel and Buni. We'd be there for him. We'd help him pull through.

To be continued.

Note: The Magic Band will be performing live on tonight's John Peel show on Radio 1. The performance will start at around 10:15 p.m, and will last between 45 and 60 minutes. Without wishing to pre-empt the rest of the story, I strongly urge you to catch it.

Tonight, K is going to do something which he hasn't done for 18 years, but which I do quite regularly.

What do you suppose this might be?

As a tribute to the late Anthony Buckeridge, I am delighted to discover that the digital radio station BBC7 will be re-broadcasting Stephen Fry's readings of the Jennings series during early August, in its Best Sellers slot (Monday to Friday, 09:00 or 09:15, repeated 18:30 or 18:45, dates as yet unconfirmed).

Even better: the station has also unearthed the only surviving recording of the early 1970s dramatisations of the Jennings series, and will be broadcasting it on Sunday August 15. This is of particular interest to me, as Jennings and Darbyshire were played by two classmates of mine: Stephen Jenkins as Darbyshire, and a certain Jeremy Clarkson as Jennings. Full details (such as they are) can be found in this week's BBC7 newsletter.

Many thanks to Ionicus for mailing me with the info.

I'm a frail soul; one vigorous bout of pruning, and I'll be all aches and pains for days afterwards. I simply wasn't built for Manual Labour.

Where physical torpor leads, mental atrophy is sure to follow. It is therefore most propitious that my South African buddy (and midweek partner-in-crime) Alan should have chosen today to shower me, quite unexpectedly, with all manner of hypertextual goodness. Having duly savoured and digested this slew of high calibre linkage, I now propose to share it with the group.

(Torpor? Atrophy? Propitious? You can tell I'm feeling fragile; all the fancy words are coming out. Such wanton lexical flourishes are frequently deployed to mask a profound inner fatigue, hem hem.)

1. "Gayle" is South Africa's version of Polari: an underground gay slang which became common currency in certain quarters during more repressed times. Never having heard of it before today, I was fascinated to read through these two short sample lexicons.

• From no less a body than the English Teachers' Online Network of South Africa: a lexicon and - goodness! - a comprehension test. Such liberalism!
• Unlike Polari, a large proportion of Gayle is based around ascribing different meanings to women's names. I'm particularly taken with the way that straight men are referred to as "Barbara", the mentally deranged as "Mildred", and inquisitive queens as "Pandora".

2. Who says that Britain no longer affects US English? I hadn't realised that we were still in a position to exert such an influence.

3. Blocked: why do writers stop writing? A lengthy, fascinating piece which posits the notion (quite new to me) that Writer's Block is a particularly American syndrome.

4. Opening Soon: where the coming attractions are the trailers themselves. That guy with the deep, sonorous, gravelly voice who has done, like, everything of note in the past 40 years? His name is Don LaFontaine.

---

Tell yer what, right.

This is strictly for those of you without blogs of your own. Between now and Friday, please e-mail me (mikejla at btinternet dot com) with the most interesting links that you can find. There's no minimum or maximum; send as many, or as few, as you like. If I like 'em, I'll publish 'em. Simple as that.

As an added inducement, I'm also offering a prize for the provider of my favourite link of the week; namely, a copy of my two sizzling hot Midsummer Burn CDs.

So come on, non-bloggers! Hit me with your best shot! Show the rest of us how it's done!

Why, my temples are fairly throbbing with the anticipatory thrill of it all. In which case, I think it's time I went for a nice quiet lie-down in a darkened room.

(The above was written on Monday but not posted until Tuesday, owing to an extended bout of Bloggeration.)

From über-trendy bleeding-hedge cultdom, to the Glastonbury main stage and the top of the UK album charts, in less than a year. How heartening it is to see that, just occasionally, the good people can still Make It Big, for all the right reasons.