Paperjam

This is the amazing new fourth or fifth design of the paper-jam website. I've lost count now, it's ridiculous. No animals were harmed in the making of this new site, but there was plenty of swearing, believe me.

One thing that was causing particular cursage was updating the structure of the database on the live server without trashing all the data that was there already... the answer was mysqldiff, which works out the structural difference between two databases. I used it to generate the update SQL script; it needed a bit of editing afterwards, but nothing serious.

Hooray for Stephan Skusa who wrote mysqldiff, there'll be a donation winging it's way over to him once my credit card has recovered from the sticky brown mess it's currently in.

Hoho. The new series from the makers of - wait for it - Spooks and Hustle had it's first episode tonight, and they almost managed to keep their hand off the Impossibly Daft Slow-Mo button, right up until our time-travelling hero John Sim and his thuggish boss, played by Philip Glenister, jump over a desk.

In slo-mo.

Well at least there was no hideously embarassing musical number, like in Hustle.

And it was going quite well, too before that, with some sly Back to the Future references (asking for a Diet Coke in a pub, the silly "this flyover! coming soon!"), and his 2006 consciousness leaking through a television set in the form of a hirsute Open University lecturer.

Beyond the set-up, the detective story was dreadfully thin, with a massive leap to finding the bad guy, but it'll be worth a go next week. Mind you, I watched the entire first series of Hustle too...

Have you yearned for a screen saver with the badly-kerned words "paper" and "jam" spinning slowly around, while the wonder of RSS lets you know what is going on around here at the same time.

You have? That's handy. Download the file below and put it in your Screensavers folder (you can find it in the Library), you can then turn it on through the screensaver settings.

Of course this all only works if you have OS X and are connected to the internet in some way, but hey aren't we all?

The file is here, don't worry it is only about 8k

Tiga, the electroclash survivor that apparently spent all of 1996 mourning the death of Tupac Shakir, seems to be everywhere right now, remixing everything in sight. Check his remix of LCD's Tribulations for especially guilty hands-in-the-air disco fun.

Now he's had a go at Depeche Mode's rather mardy 1985 single "Shake the Disease" for release on the upcoming 80s remix compilation "Future Retro " and it's a steely, minimal electro affair, well away from the limp and moany original. It's what it should have been in the first place.

Depeche have been having a good time of remixes at the moment, with the Thin White Duke and Bitstream mixes of "A Pain That I'm Used To".

Also on the compilation is a version of Yazoo's "Situation" (apparently in itself a house classic in it's Francois Kevorkian remix from 1982) by Richard X, which I was all excited about in my pathetic way, but it's bollocks, I'm afraid.

And especially for Jim, who has a soft spot for La Moz, a remix of "Suedehead" by Sparks. Good God. I've not heard this yet, I'd be intrigued...

We've been meaning to write about this for a while, but DVDborn rather beat us to it - there's a fantastic torrent available of a German TV special featuring Kraftwerk at the peak of their powers in 1981.

I haven't watched it all yet, because my jaw dropped and hit the stop button when I saw them doing a version of "Pocket Calculator". They're absolutely going for it, giving it a hundred and ten percent, with maximum jerky dancing, random audience participation and live, hot Stylophone action.

No laughing at the back please, trust me: a Stylophone through a huge PA system sounds raw and rude. There's plenty of bass, believe me.

At the risk of murdering our bandwidth allocation, here's the (rather murky) clip. You'll potentially need the evil Quicktime to make it work...

As every one knows, comics are for kids - and grown men who are still essentially children. With this in mind I can heartily recommend Ex Machina and The Filth to all the rest of you out there.

Ex Machina is very grown up, mixing politics, art scandals and a bit of 9/11 into what is essentially a flawed superhero story.

Meanwhile The Filth (by Grant Morrison who wrote The Invisibles) is a cavalcade of swearing, pornography, violence and general mysteriousness. Like The Invisibles, this is really great to read but a complete nightmare to describe in any concrete way. A whole lot of personal interpretation makes up the experience, which is usually the way with all good books.

As usual, if you are thinking of delving into the world of comics I would recommend first checking out Alan Moore's genius V for Vendetta and Watchmen, both of which are getting the film makeover as I type.

We're more than happy to fan the flames of the PR around the "axing" of the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet", which won't be shown in the UK because of legal worries.

For those that haven't seen the episode, it starts off with Stan looking for some free kicks 'cos of a lack of ready cash. Some Scientologists promise some free fun, so he gets tested by them and they then presume he's the reincarnation of founder L. Ron Hubbard.

So the episode goes on from there into a real all-guns blazing assault on Scientology, including an eye-opening rendition of the batshit-mad Xenu story, which according to Wikipedia is part of Scientology doctrine. Parker/Stone underline the insanity of the story by flashing up "This What Scientologists Actually Believe" across the screen.

The episode has made headlines over here (Ananova story here) for a (very funny) joke about Tom Cruise going into a closet to hide in Stan's house, and being "trapped" there. John Travolta, Nicole Kidman and R. Kelly all turn up to try and persuade him out, and a news crew stare in the camera and say repeatedly, "When will Tom Cruise come out of the closet?"

The story on Ananova about Tom threatening legal action looks to be complete cobblers though.

> An insider was quoted as saying... "Tom was said not to like the episode and Paramount didn't dare risk showing it again. It's a shame that UK audiences will never see it because it's very funny."

"An insider" saying that "Tom was said not to like the episode"? You could ask anyone that's seen it, they could tell you this much. It's interesting to see something reported over here in the UK based on nothing but a guess. Makes me wonder if Paramount have been trying to put this about to raise South Park's and Cruise's profile.

You can see the episode here.

Feeling a bit down in grey old January? Cheer yourself up with Sixties French pop videos over at YouTube (via ilike).

Even the hardest of techno-loving hearts could not fail to be melted by Sixties teenage babypop star France Gall's hip-swinging "Laisse Tomber Les Filles". I love the stomping "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" which won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965.

There's also some rare film of Gitane-aholic Serge Gainsbourg not glued to a fag in the pervy-looking "Dents de lait, dents de loup" and "Les Sucettes", and then he's back with the cigs and Brigitte Bardot (toting a tommy gun) in the classic "Bonnie and Clyde". There's plenty of good stories on the indefatiguable Gainsbourg at the Guardian website.

Oh and don't watch "Tous les Gar‚àö?üons et Les Filles" if you've just eaten - Ms. Hardy is lipsyncing on one of those fairground boats and it's all a bit vertiginous.

As mentioned previously the new eight track album from the capital letter-hating bravecaptain aka Martin Carr is available for completely free download from his web site as of today. Thoughtfully, you can also grab the artwork to put in the CD case to make things look nice too.

Haven't had a chance to have a proper listen yet but did bung it on whilst doing some cooking and the first track "whatever happened to the fingertipsaint" is ace, with big organ sounds and very good for chopping up vegetables to. Unfortunately most of the album was then drowned out by the sounds of bubbling saucepans, stir-frying chicken and an extractor fan.

Once the food was ready I had reached the last two tracks, the juddering but tuneful "oh you" and the closer "jerusalem" featuring the politicised rap of Akira The Don, who you can read a onemusic interview with right here if you like.

All sounds good so far. More thoughts tomorrow when I've listened to it on the way to and, more importantly, back from work.

Oh yes, its the top half of the table for the Sky Blues following another win which was made up of:

• Everyone booing referee Uriah Rennie before the game had even started.
• A dour first half punctuated by amusing chants regarding the sexual orientation of the Brighton contingent "We can see you holding hands" was a highlight, to which they responded "You're too ugly to be gay". Touche.
• A proper old dust up at the back of the NTL stand, the perpetrator was removed by about 10 stewards to cries of "Wanker, wanker" from pretty much everyone in the place.
• Dele "Pele" Adebola taking the complete piss out of the Brighton defence, only to find that his teammates were not on the same wavelength, time and again.
• A single moment of quality when 87 year-old Dennis Wise nodded in an inviting Marcus Hall cross.
• The fans saluting Wise with "He's only five foot four, he'll break your fucking jaw", which he seemed to enjoy.
• Cov completely dominating the second half, with Wise outstanding and deserving of his second goal. At this point (to the tune of "Go West") a large proportion of the Cov crowd started singing "Your dad - takes it up the ass" to a now morose Seagulls faithfull.

For a more accurate depiction of events check out LAST. Needless to say if we can keep this sort of form up it might be a top half finish this year!

Tom over at ace music-tech blog MusicThing has gone mad on our new favourite thing YouTube, and scouted out a fair few classic music videos, including a suitably mental early TV performance from Iggy and the Stooges, a cracking new Prince single, and the most arse-shaking beat from James Brown's funky drummer Clyde Stubblefield.

Also check that Chaka Khan drumming performance mentioned in the comments. So far I've managed to find a load of scary old Gary Numan doing his Bowie-as-a-robot schtick ("We are glass"), Joy Division being impressively bleak ("Shadowplay") and yet more France Gall ("Quand on est ensemble").

The good news is that the video streaming seems to work through corporate firewalls (Flash videos over normal HTTP?), so if you're at work and the YouTube website isn't blocked, you should be able to get your Chaka Khan fix at your desk. And slow everyone elses connection at the same time, marvellous.

Over at Filth and Saving the World, our compatriot and lyrical postman Howe2 discovers Austin Stevens (...not Steve Austin), the South African photographer and renowned snake molester, currently doing roaring business on UK TV on Channel 5. Howe2 says:

> He bounds through dense, humid jungle upsetting various brands of reptiles by picking them up sometimes with tongs and almost certainly with a big stiffy...

...so what does this involve?

> All of this involves gripping the snake by the tail and using a set of litter pickers to grip the furious, highly dangerous snake behind the ears and froth to the point of explosion about it's fabulous scallyness and large pointy, serrated fangs, that i'm confident will smart if he sticks his face within striking distanced.

And it's great stuff. Less relentlessly chirpy than that other reptile-fancier, Steve Irwin, Stevens goes about his task with absurd relish, springing from on high to surprise a snake which is clearly not expecting a fondling from a crazy South African.

Emma the cynical wife looks quizzical all the way through, while I'm just grinning like a fool. She's thinking - how does the camera crew get there? Our crazy Austin is all on about being almost out of food, and being really lost - what are the camera crew doing? Are they just laughing at him inbetween mouthfuls of Kit Kat and Monster Munch?

Austin Steven's Adventures is on UK TV on Friday nights at 8pm, Channel 5. Here's a link to the Austin Stevens fansite, with the oddly homoerotic Flash animation (Austin, wet and dripping, shirt half-off, man-handling a whopping snake - I ask you...).

Ed Banger Records (here's the Ed Banger website, there's sod all there right now) seem to be doing the business at the moment, with a couple of Justice tracks ("One Minute to Midnight" and "Waters of Nazareth") that have had me doing the traditional lame-horse dancing round the kitchen.

And now, here's Myspace sensation Uffie, who's impressed/made you run screaming in the opposite direction (delete as applicable) with her astonishingly inept but filthy spitting.

I love slightly rubbish rapping me - "Bad Young Brother" is still on my iPod somewhere, and our oddly named daft hiphop troupe the Cold Ghetto Suckers did a cover version of "Ice Ice Baby" with an Akai sampler and a Stylophone - Public Enemy meets Rolf Harris. You're lucky, there's no recordings available.

And Uffie reminds me of the sassy and squealing L'Trimm and JJ Fad, who came out with the bass-cone ripping "Supersonic" (produced by the Arabian Prince) at the arse-end of the Eighties.

Feadz and Mr.Oizo are on the production case here - but I recommend you head for the SebastiAn remix of "Pop the Glock", which sounds like a cute and sweet sounding vocoder rap. Until you realise how filthy she's being. Some have said this is all just a bit wrong, and "Ready to Uff" is near-guaranteed to make you feel pervy, like listening on to one-half of an 0898 'phone call.

She claims to be from Miami/Paris, but there's a British sound in her voice, particularly in some of the vowels, which suggests she's aping UK grime vocals to some extent. It'd be interesting to see how some of the UK styles could travel and affect the pop charts across the world - particularly the ponderous and evil dubstep sound. Or maybe I just prefer it if Lady Sovereign hadn't fallen off quite so badly...

Hear "Pop the Glock" and "Ready to Uff" over at Uffie's Myspace site. According to Discogs, the 12" is released on 27th Feb 2006 on Ed Banger Records in France.

Clearly I've had my head in a bucket since last August, 'cos I've only just discovered this new 7" issue of a 1981 record by a bunch of steel drummers doing a version of the Gary Numan robohit.

Apparently it was in a bit of a state and needed a bit of polishing up in the mastering by Red Hook, but it still sounds very funky and nearly completely ridiculous - check those lovely rough-arsed drums, Shitty Is Pretty in full effect.

As usual it was Shadow that got there first - this appears on Diminishing Returns. As well as the lovely 7", you can get it on the latest Rough Trade Counter Culture comp along with a bunch of other stuff from the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Sleater-Kinney and The Fall-ah.

Rotoscoping? One drug maniac? One kleptomaniac? Richard "I-don't-make-particularly-good-films" Linklater? The Shakespearian acting legend that is Keanu Reeves?

"A Scanner Darkly" has it all. Or at least it will do when it finally gets released in the US in the Summer. Possibly.

You might want to see the trailer (warning : huge .mov file, will need Quicktime). That rotoscoping/live cel shading thing looks a bit Bob Godfrey to me, with the outlines wriggling all over the place. Apart from on Keanu Reeves' expression-less, botoxed-from-birth face, that is.

Who knows if it'll be any good - the personnel aren't too auspicious, and we could see how Dick's stories are tricky to adapt for big audiences because of their downbeat endings.

At this point there was going to be a big picture of Godfrey's Roobarb and Custard, but I can't find any decent pictures. Draw a big cartoon dog in black felt tip, and shake it around in front of your face - there you go. That's your afternoon gone.

At long last, Lars von Trier's Manderlay is out in the UK. But if you are planning to go and see it, act quickly because I doubt it will be around for long. That is if you are able to find somewhere showing it. Although the film is on release from yesterday, unless you happen to live in London, screenings are few and far between.

For all you Midlands dwellers, the only place showing the film around here is the Cineworld on Broad Street in Birmingham and that is not until March 24th.

I would certainly recommend taking the time to track it down though as the indications are that it will be well worth the effort. The middle part of a potential trilogy (following Dogville) the film delves further into the dark heart of human nature and satirises more of what von Trier sees as American foibles. This time the continuing character, Grace, attempts a bit of regime change in a town where slavery is still enforced. With, I imagine, unforseen and not all together successful results.

The film is shot in the same style as Dogville (ie on a blank soundstage with few props and little scenery), which previously added an unreal quality to the bleak drama as it unfolded. John Hurt also returns to provide the god-like narration.

You can find more details on the Manderlay web site, which also houses the trailer.

...for this, the most worthless error type message of all time. Hang on I'll just pop over to LA so I can watch that Morrissey video.

Wankers.

Here's the second installment of Adam and Lee's TV podcast, full of swearing and pain.

This week they have a pop at the televisual trepanning that is Hotel Babylon and the annual joy that is Making Your Mind Up, the pre-Eurovision Wogan-fest that features various desperately grinning soon-to-be-ex-popstars dredged from yesterdays Top 40.

Also they dig through the wonder of the Armstrongs (swearaholic Coventry couple own double-glazing firm and somehow manage not to go out of business despite drowning in ineptitude) and the relative series lengths of Ally MacBeal and Boston Legal. Is it 17 episodes? Is it 22? Gawd knows!

Needless to say there's lots of swearing and full-blown Coventry accents, so watch out for that.

One thing, possibly the only thing, actually, that Jim (Morrissey fan and grim indie-loving chap) and I (electrodisco-loving hands-in-the-air dance person) agree on in the vast and frequently stinky field of music is that LCD Soundsystem Are The Shit. Also James Murphy is the sort of frontman (35, slight paunch) that we feel we could be. End every line with a Mark E. Smith "...aH!" and mess your hair up a bit, there you go.

The LCD production wing, the DFA, seem to remix something every ten seconds, and somehow they all seem to be quality, if fairly similar. It goes like this : Take a track. Strip out most of the original music, leaving the vocals. Add impossibly funky but straightforward tight disco drums. Mix in some handclaps, agogos, bongos, and anything else you can find lying around in that school percussion box. Extend the track so it lasts about three weeks - the listener will have to make sure that they are ready to spend that time furiously dancing, until the finale when they are just leaping up and down screaming "COME ON!" as the whole thing judders to a squalling, climatic and hip-shaking finale.

Goldfrapp's "Slide In" is exactly like that, only imagine it taking place onboard a train to a particularly disco part of the Weimar Republic. Vocals are dispensed with after about five minutes, reflex arse-shaking will have kicked in after seven minutes, your mind will have shutdown after nine, and you may need hospitalisation when it finally ends, at 12 minutes 51 seconds.

Adam, the man who doesn't like anything says, "it's just too long", but it really isn't. It's really the ebb-and-flow that Murphy and Goldsworthy have absolutely nailed. The track doesn't consistently build, it quietens down, has a bit of a think, gets in a bit of a mood, sorts itself out and then brings the noise for the ending. I imagine they've set themselves a target, to try and out-epic the Patrick Cowley mix of "I feel love", and I think they've done it.

It appears on the b-side of their recent single "Ride a White Horse", although I can't guarantee it's the full version, which I know appeared on a promo 12". Have a listen to a chunk of it over at Juno.co.uk.

Really I'm not joking. Tom and I went last week and were distinctly underwhelmed. For a black-comedy/thriller it was un-funny, distinctly lacking in thrills and almost morbidly sentimental at times.

Brosnan was clearly having a great laugh playing an unpleasant character and seeing him waking up in a pile of shit was quite amusing (and strangely apt). However, the rest of the movie was as aimless as his accent, leading to a denouement that a blind rat locked in a box could have seen coming about a hundred miles off. Greg Kinnear playing some kind of latently psychopathic Ned Flanders character did not help at all. The whole debacle was thrown sharply into relief when I went to watch the excellent Good Night and Good Luck the next day.

As I am told that positive people end up living longer lets try and end this on a high by saying that the titles announcing the locale of various scenes are really very good indeed, full marks there. Plus the bit where Kinnear is giving his wife one on top of the washing machine is one of the more honest sex scenes in modern cinema, particularly his quality "vinegar strokes" facial contortions.

It was a very dark moment for me when my imac broke a few weeks back, and not just because it was the only light source at the time in my sad-looking room. First came denial - there were ultimately fruitless trawls through the techy backwaters of the online mac community looking for a miracle cure.

Next there was anger as the realisation that my hard drive had committed digital hari-kiri dawned, leaving me with a very expensive box that lit up and flashed a beautifully designed question mark at me but did fuck all else.

Finally came acceptance that I had completely lost everything and might as well take the computer in to the mac shop in the Bull Ring to get sorted. Their experts got onto it straight away, as you can see from the image the "Tobemeister" ascertained that the HD was indeed "Fuct" and they put a new one in, while managing to conform to every popular stereotype about IT support types. No complaints from me mind.

There is a reasonable happy end to the story as (despite Apple's evil DRM related attempts to prevent it) there is a way to rescue the many gigs of music off your ipod and get it back onto your mac. It is called iPodRip and it is worth its virtual weight in virtual gold, you can get it here.

Third time lucky for Adam and Lee's TV podcast, and we have some reviews of The Armstrongs, CSI:New York, Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe, The Wire, and Keen Eddie on DVD, which sounds pretty good actually.

Here's the link - Adam and Lee's TV podcast.

Black Ramps were kind enough to send me a copy of their Saucer Crash EP a few weeks back, due to the whole broken computer nightmare having a listen etc has had to wait. But I was able to admire the very nice bowling alley photo on the cover.

The Black Ramps are ploughing that melodic lo-fi furrow for all its worth; a bit scruffy but not really shambolic. Above all they seen to have been taking their Pavement tablets regularly, not necessarily a bad thing, it didn't do Blur any harm.

First track Saucer Crash is an audible Proust's Madeleine; A speedy rhythm section and crashing, clanging guitar over a yelped tale of alien-related girl enlargements, transporting me back to the staffs uni college road student union in the mid-nineties. Sonic Youth and Pavement are blaring out as I get pissed on cans of red stripe and conspicuously fail to arouse any interest in that bird with the tattoo and pink hair despite my dodgy donkey jacket. Oh well, Adidas t-shirt on and off to the Leek road disco nightmare for the next six months then.

Anyway, if Saucer Crash sounds reminiscent of Pavement, then Speak+Destroy sounds exactly like Pavement - a synthesis of Type Slowly and Transport Is Arranged. To my mind this is the best of the three tracks, but then I am a bit miserable.

Finally comes Rampenstein, which didn't do much for me, not as much fun as Saucer Crash and not nearly as dramatic as Speak+Destroy.

So there you have it, one for a bit of 90's nostalgia or for those who like a slightly rough edge to their indie -rock. I'm off to listen to Brighten The Corners. You can get more info on the nifty Black Ramps website, which has a rather cool Starsky And Hutch toy car on it and has other tracks to download plus the Saucer Crash video.

No really. Don't get involved. You've got a life to lead, you know - that washing up won't do itself, that website won't design itself, that Hoover won't run round the house for you.

So don't under any circumstances go to MacMame and download the latest version of the arcade game emulator, then get hold of a NeoGeo bios (oh that's very illegal - I can't tell you how to do that - but Mr. Google might be able to) and then locate a Metal Slug ROM and then...

Oh no. Because you haven't done it, you won't need to know to turn smoothing off in the Options menu to make it run at a playable speed on an iBook G4. You also won't need to know that you'll need one of the latest versions of the NeoGeo BIOS, and about six hours spare as you lose yourself in sideways-scrolling mayhem.

Is there some sort of helpline?

Oooh its a nasty rainy night as Steve ferries myself and James W down the A45 towards a date with the groovy sounding but as yet mysterious 7 Inch Cinema.

Arriving at the nicely appointed Rainbow pub (owned by one of PWEI apparently) in Digbeth we dash in, paying a 2 quid cover charge to be confronted by a tasty looking pub dominated by a large projector screen showing what looks like a slightly scary eastern european animation from the 70's. Actually it turned out to be from the late 50s and was created by the same man who went on to direct Emmanuelle 5. Life is not always an upward curve.

Pints acquired from the friendly bar staff and a position at the end of the bar settled upon we are treated to a few more bits and pieces, although due to the pressures of time not I'm Bobby, which sounded cool, a Bollywood re-make using paper cut-outs and local children for actors.

After some musical interludes and more films, including some crazy automata and a short film about shady experiments which starts well but ends with some disturbing things happening to eyes - I study the programme intently for the duration and engage the (very nice) barmaid in conversation about why the peanuts on display are "The Drinker's Choice".

The highlight of the evening for us is the appearance of musical duo Black Galaxy playing music over the top of a short film by Derek Jarman, The Art Of Mirrors (pictured), unsettling, but none-the-less ace. The sound and vision mix really well. Following this there is an extended trawl through The Fall Of The House Of Usher and another Jarman short.

By this stage, time is marching on and unfortunately we all have work tomorrow, so it's off for a quick slash before I am dragged away from another conversation with the barmaid about Stoke-On-Trent, in order to drive home.

All in all a worthwhile trip, if a bit much for novices like us to absorb all in one go, if we go over again I imagine we will try to get there early doors so that we can get a seat and make sure that Badly Drawn Boy doesn't stick his tea-cosied head right in front of me.

More details about 7 inch cinema on their web site and if you are in the area give the Rainbow a go, very cool pub and the food looked cracking too.

1. The moment of horrible inevitability between banging one of your toes and the pain reaching your brain.
2. Running out of petrol in the middle of a contra-flow on the M1 at rush hour - whilst also desperate for a piss.
3. One moment realising that actually you don't really love them any more and the next noticing that the condom has split.
4. Any ambiguity mid-stride as to whether that was a fart, or there was perhaps more to it.
5. Guy Ritchie's Revolver
6. The man on the plane next to you suddenly leaping to his feet and screaming "Jihad!".
7. The shops are shut, the only food in your house is a pot noodle. After forcing it down you realise that it is 3 years past its sell-by date.
8. The doctor informing you that "this might pinch a bit"
9. Overhearing any friend of yours telling someone "You know he really likes you, yeah honest, he's always going on about it"
10. The day that your club announce the signing of Robbie Savage.

From an article on the BBC web site reflecting the reaction to the news that the FA want Scolari to be the new England coach. Clearly there is a rogue sports journalist at work in the corporation...

>Former England midfielder Peter Reid was disappointed that an English coach had been overlooked. > >"I have done my pro license like Sam Allardyce, Alan Curbishley and Steve McClaren," said Reid. > >"We paid £7,000 to do them and then when it comes to the top job none of the English lads get it, which I find really disappointing."

Usually I don't shave in the morning (if at all) due to concerns I have about the quality of my levels of concentration and basic motor functions after dragging myself out of bed. However as I got up late this morning and had an extra long, steamy hangover-reducing shower I thought I would have a go at it.

For the last 6 months or so I have sported what could laughingly be described as a goatee beard, in that there was a conscious decision to shave bits of my face and leave others, rather than the previous regime which involved shaving no more than once a week and more/less resembling a tramp depending on when you met me.

So this morning I whacked the shaving gel on and started to shave, while absent mindedly thinking about going to the cinema later. Suddenly I realised that I had gone a bit too far in from one side and lopped off the section of hair that connects the moustache to the chin bit. Thinking fast I tried to even things up on the other side, not a good idea - you end up looking like some kind of morris dancing nonce.

Panic started to set in as I then next considered going for some sort of Frank Zappa arrangement ('tache with little bit on chin) - but that made me look like some kind of crap musketeer. The bit on the chin had to go, so I was left with just a dodgy looking moustache. "Bollocks" I exclaimed loudly.

After what must have been about three seconds (where I actually considered going out in public looking like a driving instructor who reads too many of those novels about the SAS) I set to work removing the 'tache. Quite hard work actually, took a few goes with the Gillette to get it all off, like a stubborn patch of weeds.

Surveying the scene I was not impressed, there was some sort of pale, surprised-looking bloke staring back at me from the mirror. Amazing the difference a bit of half-arsed stubble can make.The effect of removing it is like taking a picture off a wall, the outline being left where it has blocked out the light.

Even though I get a lot of grief for being a scruffy unshaven bastard most of the time I imagine I am in for even more now until it grows back a bit. Might go to a joke shop and buy a false beard.

Heard this the other week on the nightmare that is Roundtable and loved it straight away. In fact I loved it as soon as I heard the title, before the music had even started I had a big grin all over my face. The song itself is a thing of beauty, on the one hand it is fey scottish indie music in the mould of Belle and Sebastian, meanwhile it is also a great pop song with a belting chorus featuring what I think was described by some muso on 6 Music as "dissonant chords".

Anyway, I got it today and have played far too often this evening already, which could mean that like a fifteen year-old with easy access to cider for the first time, I'll be sick of it soon. However fate has stepped in and helpfully broken my computer meaning that I can't put the song on my ipod and completely play it to death. Hooray (sort of).

This also means that I can't watch the video at Camera Obscura's web site either. They look about as happy about it as I do.

Imagine that one day Rupert Murdoch wakes up and decides to buy Leyton Orient, then he perusades Zinedine Zidane to go and play for them. Does't seem very likely does it? Well in the 1970s, business, media mogul and sports nut Steve Ross decided to buy into the North American Soccer League by investing in the New York franchise. At the time soccer (as they insist on calling it) had a public profile somewhere between bear baiting and dwarf tossing in the grand scheme of American sports.

The New York Cosmos (as in short for cosmopolitans) were a rag tag bunch including a giant striker with comedy hair and a keeper with a penchant for getting his cock out in ladies magazines, they played on a shitty pitch covered in broken glass in front of a crowd of about 200. Then they broke the bank to sign Pele.

This film explains how this kickstarted a total revolution, within a couple of years the team also included Beckenbuaer, Carlos Alberto and Georgio Chinaglia and were playing in Giants Stadium in front of 70,000.

We are treated to the sights and sounds of some truly great footballers taking the complete piss out of a bunch of half arsed amateurs, Pele nutmegging a series of clueless defenders is especially good. Matt Dillon narrates, while a series of candid and conflicting interviews paints the picture of the irresistable rise and eventual fall of the Cosmos and indeed the whole structure of soccer in America.

Chief architect of this is the rather unpleasant Chinaglia, who looks like Tony Soprano, sounds welsh and has the ego to match his phenominal goal scoring record. Brutally unapologetic, he is the sort of person that you would never want to meet, but he is terrific value as an interviewee.

Aside from the cracking soundtrack, priceless archive material and superb editing, the cost of admission is almost entirely justified for the moment where Pele completely clatters the preening cock that is Rodney Marsh, could have done with a few slo-mo replays there.

Having heard Mark Kermode slay the film (and Tom Hanks' hair) a week or two ago, my parents telling me that weren't going to watch it because of the terrible reviews, and also not being able to get past the first thirty pages of the book because the prose style annoyed me so much, I was fully expecting a big steaming, 149 minute long turd of a film.

So, incredibly, it was actually better than I thought. But... there are so many things wrong with it.

It's not giving anything away to say that a murder happens in the first reel, inside the Louvre. The film cuts between the murder and Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) giving a lecture on signs to a packed theatre, which suggests that the two events are happening at the same time.

Captain Fache (played by a reasonably bored looking Jean Reno) and the rest of the Paris police then assume that Langdon dunnit by some scribblings left by the dead man, despite the fact that 500 people could verify his whereabouts at the time of the murder. We find out later on that Fache is not exactly 100% honest copper material, but even so, this wound me up.

Also, the script... the script...

> Langdon / Hanks : ...all the letters are mixed up > > Neveu / Tautou : (looks thoughtful) Ah. An anagram

... right, thanks for that explanation.

Audrey Tautou looks fabulous throughout, but I'd better shut up about her if I want to reach my second wedding anniversary. Both her and Hanks are incredibly wooden throughout, possibly due to the script - although Ian McKellen manages to make a decent fist of his conspiracy theory-obsessed scholar.

Super-scary Paul Bettany mopes about a lot in his monk's robes, slapping himself about a bit with a cat o'nine tails and talking in something ancient on a mobile phone. When he disposes of a nun, he pulls the same menacing "oh you've really upset me" face as in Gangster No.1, which made me grin as I remembered. I amused myself for the next couple of scenes by having a go myself (widen eyes, turn head to one side, and breathe in deeply - there, you got it).

The ropey scripting and the wooden acting could be halfway forgivable if there was some tension built up, but my knuckles remained their usual yellowy-pink throughout, even during the Smart car backwards chase scene.

And when it ended there was an enormous sense of - oh, was that it? Is that all that everyone is so excited about?

This is the first year that the BBC have put the French Open fully onto their red-button interactive service, and I've been loving what little I've seen of it.

One of the noticable differences is the occasionally dizzying French camera work, zooming and panning away skywards before a crossfade into the next shot. They're also oddly keen on this (possibly vintage 80s Quantel Paintbox?) effect, where they superimpose a black and white shot of a tennis player above the court - seen above from the Massu/Federer match. It gets slightly more disturbing when, from a high aerial shot looking down on the court, they superimpose the returner's face on the court in front of the server.

However the commentary has made me want to stab myself in the ears - with Sam Smith and John Lloyd engaging in excrutiating mid-Atlantic conversation ("Thirdee-love to Federer"), and repeatedly referring to Federer as "the best player in the world" like a broken record. Well, maybe he is, but not on clay. Wait 'til he comes up against the improbably muscular Nadal.

John Lloyd is the fool the BBC get in when Becker is at home with scaffolding round his hair being serviced by young ladies. Looking forward to Michael Stich on Radio 5, and the usual Becker bizarre-ness throughout Wimbledon.

Yes, the band that launched a thousand t-shirts (including the severely faded one that I wore to play tennis the other night) are back with new single Hibernation. Judging by the amount of e-mails I am getting from them, there is something of a push to try and get this into the charts. You can try a preview over at their MySpace page or go crazy like me and splash out the four quid they are asking for the (limited edition) single at the Neds Atomic Dustbin web site. Remember, these are the people who gave the world Kill Your Television.

Sigh, going to work when the weather is this good and the world cup is about to kick off is a total nightmare. While I was in the office last week (drawing yet more diagrams involving little squares with little arrows between them on a whiteboard) my mind started to wander. Surely there must be a job where you can get out and enjoy the summer as well as watching as much of the footy as possible.

Then the answer hit me: professional gambler, I could give that a go, how hard can it be?

Anyway, in preparation for this radical career change I have set myself a challenge. Over the course of the world cup I have allocated myself fifty quid to bet on whatever seems likely to win me more money and at the end I'll know whether I have what it takes to stand in the bookies all day, smoking roll-ups and swearing at horses.

To kick things off, I've put two bets on.

1. A pound on Italian striker Luca Toni to be the golden boot at 18/1. He's scored 30 odd goals in the yawn-inducing defenders paradise that is Serie A so I reckon he should be able to bag a few against the likes of Ghana and the USA.

2. Two pounds on David Beckham to open the scoring against Paraguay. The odds were 12/1 and have since gone down once everyone saw the ball they are using bend all over the shop from long range German strikes. The logic here is that Paraguay are probably going to kick Crouch and Owen all over the park and Becks takes all the free kicks.

There will be an update soon, maybe even a chart of some decription.

Well those bastards on the FIFA technical committee certainly kicked me in the bollocks when they announced that, because Beckham's majestic freekick glanced off some Paraguayan's eybrows, it was an own-goal. Then there was the crossbar-bothering Luca Toni who falls over an awful lot for someone who is 6 foot 5 inches tall and built like a wardrobe. Still Italy are playing the good ol' USA next and they looked absolutely appalling didn't they? So some hope for Toni to progress towards the golden boot if he can stop thinking about doing his hair for a few minutes.

Oh well, hoping to recoup at least a few quid I did an accumulator (betting on a number of results to all come in) on a bunch of absolute certainties; Mexico, Portugal, Italy, France and Brazil to all win their opening games against fairly mediocre looking opposition.

- Mexico were what pundits diplomatically call "Direct" in dispatching Iran.

- Figo was excellent for Portugal as they beat Angola.

- Italy did well to put two past the powerful (i.e. dirty) Ghana, including some fantastic rolling around on the floor in fake agony.

- Brazil somehow beat Croatia, despite fielding the laziest frontmen ever seen in Adriano and Ronaldo, the latter making me feel particularly thin and quick.

Of course France messed the whole thing up by playing out the most horrific no-score bore-draw it has ever been my misfortune to catch the second half of. Apparently the first half was worse. Shudder. Even Mick McCarthy was taking the piss by saying that the French needed a "Revolution", Please Mick, no more of that.

In addition to these losses I punted two quid away on toothsome trickster Ronaldinho to score first against Croatia, but of course he didn't. Consequently I am six quid down so far and my dream of professional gambling riches is looking a touch shaky to say the least.

On the plus side the world cup has been fairly entertaining so far, especially some of the BBC punditry. Bringing in the Brazilian elbow merchant Leonardo is a particular masterstroke, he sits there looking like a very confused hairdresser, trying to understand the likes of Strachan, Shearer and Hansen. Occasionally he interjects the odd comment like "Mmmmmmm, Ronaldinho. Nice action. Very well mmmmm". Martin O'Neill arguing with Marcel Desailly the other night was ace too.

Sandi Thom's musical death sentence "I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair)" dredges up some sort of memories over at this BBC News Magazine article, where some LSE students are interviewed and asked for their opinions on decades they didn't actually live through. The public comments are mostly as wistful, pining for those half-remembered times, viewed through the fog of thirty years and the memory pollution of TV's "I love the 1970s".

I didn't live through the 1960s either, and was only four by the end of the 70s, but I can understand how much better it was back then. What with the always imminent threat of nuclear attack. And when our car industry was merely under constant threat of closure rather than in its death throes. And those race riots, and sus laws. And three TV channels. And the three-day week. Ah, classic.

Even the terrorists generally had the courtesy to give you a ring before blowing your house/pub up.

In all the excitement of my non-stop, hedonistic, smoking crack with supermodels while skydiving lifestyle, I forgot to review this a few weeks back. Brick is a "Just how much more black could it be?" film noir mystery played out by a bunch of American high school students and starring the kid out of Third Rock From The Sun. Sounds absolutely terrible doesn't it?

Well, actually it is great; really mean spirited, slow burning and rather dream-like. The film revolves around a young man's search for his ex-girlfriend after he receives a suitably cryptic distress message. The cryptic stuff doesn't end there, with the whole cast talking in some kind of 50's throwback slang, which should jar horribly, but doesn't. The plot describes a web of drugs, crime, jealousy and revenge and reminded me of many things (A Fistfull Of Dollars, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) without specifically resembling any of them.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan is excellent, delivering hard-boiled, couldn't give a fuck, sarcasm (in a way that I have attempted to perfect for years), while getting his head badly kicked in every five minutes (which I managed to perfect at an early age). He seems to have made the transition from child star to actor fairly successfully and if it doesn't work out he could certainly have crack at a career as a runner.

Brick now seems to be playing at a few more places, I definitely recommend you try to catch it at the cinema, just don't ask too many questions like: Where are all the other parents? What is the obsession with footwear? and How on earth did they get that chandelier in the back of the van?

Hmmmm. My dream of leaving the daily grind for an exotic life of professional gambling is fading faster than the chances of Wembley stadium being finished sometime before the London Olympics Since we last spoke, money has been thrown away on:

- The open goal spurning Podolski getting one for Germany against Poland (oh how I swore at the TV that night)

- Advertising starlet Joe Cole scoring against T&T

- Freak legged brazilian full-back Carlos scoring first against the might of Australia (did you see the state of that free kick, shocking)

All dead losses unfortunately. So now it is up to England to recoup some cash for me. I'm going for moody, moody Michael Owen (5/1) to bang in the first goal against the Swedes, plus I reckon that we will triumph 2-1 against our managers country of origin (at 8/1) despite the fact that we haven't beaten them since 1968 and Sven is putting out a suspiciously weakened side.

My ongoing bet on hulking Italian striker Luca Toni to be the golden boot is looking completely laughable, he looks like he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.

Now, you'd think that TV companies would be keen to let you know what is on their channel at a given time. Here are our programmes! You should watch them, they're really great!

But Broadcasting Data Services, bless their misguided cotton socks, have decided to quote the Broadcasting Act 1990 and threatened Andrew Flegg's ace bleb.org with Bad Legal Stuff, saying that he should be paying royalties for republishing BBC and ITV listings.

Flegg pointed out that the BBC publish XML listings through their Backstage initiative for free reuse, so they've backed down on the BBC listings, and now Flegg cannot publish the ITV listings.

All seems a bit daft really. I don't know about you, but I could barely give a fuck about ITV programmes - they need all the help they can get. Having said that, it sets a precedent - and I'd encourage you all (yep, both of you) to sign the petition over at Petitiononline.

Well the Mexico v Argentina match was great wasn't it? Although while watching it we all noted that either side would probably absolutely hammer England.

Speaking of Sven and his men, I have yet to receive the e-mail asking not to bet on them any more (after the injuries to Owen and that last minute travesty of an equaliser to make it 2-2) but it can can only be a matter of time. My demonic/extremely unlucky influence has already been called into question in certain quarters.

So for what hopefully won't be their last game, I have trudged back to Ladbrokes and (hopeless romantic that I am) have put a quid on England to win 2-0. Additionally, after watching Frank Lampard have more shots than any other player in the entire competition, there is two pounds on him to score first. Come on Frank, daddy needs a new pair of shoes, no really, I do.

If you haven't seen this yet get yourself straight over to the BBC 2 web site sharpish, it will be there for a week or so. The marvellous Lips tear through The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, followed by a bit of fairly boring stuff (including The Strokes).

After this they do The W.A.N.D. with Wayne Coyne wearing a huge pair of rubber hands, kind of like a mystic Kenny Everrett back from the beyond. Touchingly they ditch the bad language, a bit ironic as they are followed by the ultra sweary acoustic troubador Plan B.

They finish off, as they did at the Birmingham Academy, with War Pigs. Wayne goes barking and throws confetti everywhere while trying to get the scared looking audience going.

Good tips on making splatter paintings too, for those of us who have done such things so poorly in the past.

I heard about this the other day : "Federer is wearing a white jacket on to the court, with his own logo on the front" - sounds rubbish, right?

Oddly, I think it really works. Although it does look like he's trying to compete with the Ralph Lauren designed Wimbledon uniform, which is rather natty too.

Not bad.

On the ladies front, we have Bethanie Mattek, who got slaughtered today by Venus Williams, and her rather fabulous knee-high socks. Officer, put the cuffs on now - I'm having bad thoughts.

It's 2 cans of lager on a sweaty train for me and Nick followed by a mix up with ginger chicken noodles and a very tactile waitress. Then a couple of subterranean drinks in the deserted Yard Of Ale before we head to the Academy. Nightmare at the bar; I get two pints and a pair of double whiskies, £17, I feel faint. Balancing the empty glasses on a precarious ledge somewhere we head back in when the band start up.

Laid back guitar pop with plenty of spliff smoke hanging in the air. Chilled. After a bit, (Dr ?) Anton Newcombe's blood alcohol level reaches the point for him to start giving a bit of love to the crowd. It's something of a ramble about the germans bombing the chippy and how we all need a blow-job - but it is quite funny. The BJM start getting into it and the music gets really good, if a touch riff-tastic, it could just be that I am pissed by now. Some of the songs descend into extended workout action, which is quite good. We try to get a bit of crowd action going, nothing happens - they are all completely stoned, but the band are jumping around regardless.

We meet the lovely Jo who works at the council in Worcester, she acts like she isn't a lawyer but I suspect she might be. Her pissed friend got her a ticket for her birthday. Dr Anton dedicates a song to her and says he would like to shag all the housewives in the country on her behalf. No-one understands, they play a song theat sounds a bit REM, Nick and I are unimpressed. Jo goes to the bar for us, what a star.

The music gets more shamelessly retro but is still totally entertaining, Anton gets his kit off to reveal the sort of strange child-like torso that can only be acheived by maintaining a really strict heroin habit. The ranting between songs is going on a bit now, the bombed-the-chippy stuff is getting a bit tired. Is he going to kick off? Thankfully no.

It all finishes up in an appropriate hail of riffs and drum rolls, Jo's mate reckons they are getting a lift home with the band, Jo really doesn't look so sure. We wish her good luck and get to Moor Street in plenty of time for the last train. We both enjoyed it immensely without really being able to say why. If you want to see the BJM I would definitely recommend somewhere smaller like the Academy 2 where it can be intense and closed in, also get a few drinks down your neck beforehand, it will help immeasurably.

Finally a word for the crowd tonight: You were shit (mostly).

Seemingly having come out of his Parisian retirement and dumped the whole Spooner business, Jarvis has now popped up on MySpace touting this protest song. You can check it out a