Paperjam

You may well have already read/watched/shaken your head in disbelief about the new "Terror Trial" legislation in America that was recently passed by the senate. If not you can read about it on the BBC web site

This cheeky little bill does two key things, firstly it seems to extend the murky category of "enemy combatant" to include:

- Anyone supporting terrorists by supplying weapons, money or Tesco club card points.

- The friends, family, pets and paperboys of all existing Guantanamo inmates.

- People officially designated as foreign-sounding or shifty-looking.

- Anybody who is gay.

The second part then allows the president to be a bit selective about exactly how he interprets the Geneva Convention, especially those pesky bits about fair trials and not torturing anyone. Helpfully the bill does explicitly rule out the use of rape and biological experimentation as forms of coercion, but apart from that it is pretty much open season on all those "enemy combatants".

The stock market has responded rapidly with shares in Black and Decker reaching a five-year high. Apparently they can't make more pliers quick enough.

The liberal media in the USA has responded in the most sensible way, by making jokes about it, the pick being this excerpt from Bill Maher.

Drinking beer and etiquette are not things that have mixed all that frequently in my life up till now. In fact politeness during pub visits for me thus far has extended to:

- Only looking down the barmaid's top for a maximum of ten seconds after she has noticed that you are looking down her top. Up to tens seconds: respectful, more than ten seconds: twisted pervert.

- Trying to get most of the sick outside of the door.

- Not arm-wrestling Tom ever, no matter how much he pleads.

But when northern shoplifter "Jane" (possibly her real name) was kind enough to nick a bottle of uber posh Deus beer for me, I knew I would have to try and change my uncouth ways.

When offered advice on how to open a bottle of Deus beer

DO: Listen carefully, accept any help offered and have a glass handy to pour the beer straight into.

DON'T: Say something like "Yeah, right. I do know how to open a bottle", followed by "Oh, I can't get the cork out". At this point under no circumstances should you let the cork fly out, followed by half the beer, while you stand there like an absolute tit.

When choosing food to accompany your posh beer experience

DO: Go for something light that will compliment the delicate taste of the beer, or should I say, biere. How about some subtle anti-pasta with a light salad?

DON'T: Get a stodgy as fuck, meat-feast pizza containing more grease than a James Dean look-a-like competition.

When sampling the beer

DO: Slowly sip the drink, allowing your taste buds to explore the various hints of flavour created by the master brewers of Belgium.

DON'T: Say "I'm not really sure about this, I'm going to like, really glug some of it down to see if it makes it any better". Glug down a load of the beer. Belch. Conclude with "Hmmmm, well I reckon it'd get you pissed anyway". Then drink the lot to prove the point.

You can find out more about this unfeasibly expensive beer at the website for Bosteels brewery. Allow me to direct you to the "Sound Off" button at the bottom of the page. They also do one called "Kwak" which I am definitely going to have to get hold of.

First it was The Young Knives rapidly selling out the poxy Academy 2 and forcing me into the hyper-inflated world of Ebay (my arse is still sore from paying for the last lot of tickets I got there). Now my nightmare is compounded by the release of the Art Brut tour schedule. Are they playing anywhere round here? Anywhere even vaguely nearby? Are they fuck.

The closest is either Manchester or Reading, the most likely is London, or possibly even Paris. I can only hope that this boycott of the Midlands is not due to the unfortunate confusion at the bar the first time we saw them in Birmingham. If so can only apologise.

And could I buy the Beck album in Woolworths today? No. No I fucking couldn't, not even after a ten minute wait in a queue listening to some Bon Jovi attrocity blaring out with Steve hanging around - a seething mass of indignation. Get to the counter with the box and after another ten minutes, the two rocket scientists on duty realised that Beck was probably filed under "B" and then that they had sold the one copy that they had.

No wonder they're going to the wall.

Well, we were all a bit gutted when it transpired that The Beta Band had knocked it on the head weren't we? Never mind, three of the minds that gave the world She's The One, Needles In My Eyes and the always magnificent Dry The Rain have re-appeared under the guise of The Aliens.

They put out an EP earlier this year, Alienoid Starmonica, which I must admit that I totally missed. Now downloaded from the evil iTunes I can report that The Aliens have a bit of a Beta Band thing going on, plus there is defintely a trace element of Super Furry Animals DNA in there too. Their evil, evil MySpace page has some tracks on plus you can check out videos for Robot Man and The Happy Song. Both of which contain the sort of dance moves that only the foolhardy or drunk would attempt to reproduce when they appear at the Birmingham Barfly on Friday 3rd November.

As you probably know, the people who brought us ace sitcom Spaced and the marvellous Shaun Of The Dead are now back with the alarmingly titled Hot Fuzz. Looks like it swaps SOTD's Romero homage for a strong streak of Woo-inspired gunplay and crazy action. Imagine it will still be fairly funny too though.

As well as meandering around the video blogs available at the Working Title web site, you can now check out the enigmatically titled "Teaser Trailer One" and "Teaser Trailer Two", which don't give much away but give a fairly clear indication of the tone involved; Brit-comedy/bullet festival.

Not sure exactly when it is out. but Empire have got the release date down as 12th February next year. We can only hope that Coldplay are not involved in any way at all. While you are in the mood, you might also want to check out the preview for Smokin' Aces, a film which might be terrible or could be inspired. Either way it's got a great trailer, with a bodycount that Stalin wouldn't sniff at.

A big, dual-thumbs-up from paper-jam for the rather vertiginous Patrick Hughes exhibition at the Waterhall Gallery over in Birmingham.

The above photo isn't really going to help you appeciate it any, but the canvasses are 3-dimensional in such a way as to complement the image, and give it the effect of real depth. It can make you feel a bit queasy as you walk up to a painting of a room, only to have it swing around violently as you move your head.

Also we recommend watching everyone else in the gallery looking at the pictures, bobbing around and looking generally confused. Try and avoid going when there's a bunch of bloody schoolkids though, they kept walking up to the paintings and touching them, which broke the illusion somewhat.