I thought this might give you some insight into the sophistication of Word’s working methods. On the right you see the cover of the next issue. Now marvel at the interpretive skills of the great André Carrilho as, on the left, is my original sketch for it, photographed on my phone and sent as a text message to his bunker in Portugal. We liked his illustration so much we decided to go with it. It's got the feel of a few other staple-bound, thought-provoking periodicals we all read and feel a connection with, and it moves us even further from the slightly moth-eaten world of the old-school rock monthlies. Along with this format change is one other slight alternation: there’s even more to read – more columns, conjecture, epic pictures, insight, long and considered chunks of great writing. More of the stuff you're always telling us you value the most. David Hepworth, Fraser Lewry and I talk about it – with barely suppressed and boyish delight – in this new podcast, as well as getting to grips with some of your questions. Word 85 is out next Thursday – though UK subscribers might well get their copy this weekend.

Please let us know what you think once you've read it.

You can either subscribe to get the podcast every week here or just stream it below:

To celebrate the release of It Might Get Loud on digital download on iTunes, we’re giving away a pair of shiny new 16GB iPod Nanos, each with video recording capability.

The movie explores the long history of the electric guitar, and follows Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge as they meet to trade ideas and play together. Described as "stirring... a fascinating journey" by the New York Times, the film is a must for anyone concerned that the guitar hero might be a dying breed.

All you need to do to be in with a chance to win one of the iPods is to answer the question below or click 'go to form' if it isn't displaying.

This week's podcast features: a recap of last Friday's social, an in-depth discussion of the miracle that is The Word's One Hit Wonders Playlist, the Tweeters' questions answered, a chat with Idris "Stringer Bell" Elba about his upcoming EP "High Class Problems Vol 1" which he's releasing in February under the name of Driis and the strange experience of sharing the same space as exceptionally good-looking people.

You can either subscribe to get the podcast every week here or just stream it below:

This week we welcome Phil Smee to the pod. Phil's name is somewhere in your record collection, probably on a reissue which he will have either designed, annotated or helped compile. Phil is the one we have to thank for the Motorhead logo, that massive boxed set of Elektra records that came out a few years back, the Bam Caruso label and the invention of an entire genre known as Freakbeat. He brought along mint condition copies of the first Pink Floyd single, a reggae tune written by Nick Drake (both pictured left) and an early pressing of "Hey Jude" on the Parlophone label. We talked records old, new, borrowed, reissued and rare.

You can either subscribe to the podcast here or stream it below.

If for any reason you haven't been getting the 'casts lately, go to iTunes, look for "Word podcast" and check your settings. If in doubt unsubscribe and then immediately resubscribe.

There's only one group of people who listen to more music and go to more gigs than we do, and that's you. That's why we want you to contribute your views on these to our website where they can be enjoyed, and even occasionally disagreed with, by other readers. Some people have already been doing this in our informal "My night with...." series. Now we want to move this up a gear and to encourage more people to take part by providing you with a form to make posting your reviews easier. Because we feel that the best writing is generally the most economical, we've provided you with special templates to follow. This could make things easier and also more interesting.

We want to hear about the shows you've been to, from the large-scale and lavish to the curious and local, and we've provided a field in which you can supply details of the venue, what happened, what it made you think and any other comments you'd care to add. We also want to know what CDs you're listening to. These may be ones we've missed or ones we didn't make sufficient fuss about or even things we made too much fuss of. You have a similar template to work within.

We're going to start taking the best and most interesting of those and publishing them in a dedicated part of the reviews section in the magazine called Massive Attack (or summat like that). In the meantime, you can start by clicking the normal "create content" link beneath your user name. As well as the usual "blog entry" option, there are links to contribute to these new sections. Once completed, the reviews will appear in the "My Night Out With..." and "My Night In With..." sections on the website - you'll find links in the main navigation above.

Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens features in Word To The Wise in the latest issue of the magazine, talking about his book The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll, and we've made this available in our Backstage Podcasts series. This is an occasional series that has in the past featured the likes of David Simon, Clive James, Don Felder and many others. If you haven't already subscribed then you can do so here or at iTunes.

Because you may not have your podcast preferences sorted out as tidily as you might, it's not a bad idea to go your iTunes podcast page, hit unsubscribe from our podcasts and then re-subscribe. That way you may find them flowing more freely. While you're at it you could add some kind of testimonial. It's a while since any one has commented. A bell will ring in heaven if you do.

As a fresh edition of The Word drops onto the shelves of the quality news-vendor, The Word's own Bunk & McNulty (Mark Ellen & Kate Mossman) take to the stage once again to examine its gleaming pages.

Also in this issue: Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, TMZ, Viggo Mortensen, The Avett Brothers, Rebecca Front, Gil Scott-Heron, lone girls with guitars, the art of ghost-writing, Midlake, the Best and Worst of Kids' TV, Edward Barton, All Tomorrow's Parties, Smokey Robinson, Taylor Swift, David Essex, Paul Whitehouse & Charlie Higson, Lauren Laverne, Robert Forster, and the value of vinyl.

Plus: our round-up of the very best in new music, film, DVD and books, and columnists David Hepworth, Andrew Collins, Barry McIlheney and Pete Silverton, and our free, 15-track CD featuring the very best new music of February 2010, including tracks from OK Go, Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Hidden Cameras, Yeasayer, Chip Taylor and many more...

There's been such a resurgence of talk about the virtues of mono remasters, needledrops and the lost world of the visible label that we wanted to work out attitudes to vinyl among the Massive.

Have you got a minute to fill out this simple survey?

Steve Lamacq joins us in the pod to improvise on a theme of indie. In a wide-ranging conversation we cover what it's like to listen to spend your Sunday afternoon listening to demos, have Richey Manic carve his arm in front of you, "discover" Coldplay, talk to the parents of 17-year-olds with stars in their eyes, hang about backstage and live on a diet of cider and crisps. He also answers questions from the Massive. Steve's site is here.

You can either subscribe to the podcast here or stream it below.

In which David Hepworth, Andrew Harrison and Fraser Lewry find their conversation ranging across such diverse topics as: why Gordon Brown may be the last non-telegenic Prime Minister, whether "The Thick Of It" is still funny or just up its own fundament, what you can divine about X Factor without watching it, how Cheryl Cole became the nation's sweetheart, George "Porky" Peckham's unique contribution to rock history, why vinyl should be an essentially French concept and round up your observations about the variance between real Christmas and Christmas as depicted in pop songs and TV programmes.

You can either stream the podcast below or sign up to subscribe above.

We keep reading that the world's biggest magazine publishers are wondering whether they might be able to "do an iTunes" for magazines. Determined not to be caught out like the record companies were, they are looking at ways they can reproduce the magazine experience on-line. We say, good luck with that.

While they're getting ready to spend millions we're offering what we call an "e-dition" of the magazine as an additional benefit to subscribers. Every month we'll send you a URL via email. All you have to do is put this in your browser and you'll be directed to the new issue in a form which is browseable, zoomable, searchable, clickable and accessible from anywhere you can access the web. This video explains how it works. If you haven't subscribed this is as good a time as any to do it. Follow this link and you can get a whole year's worth for just £36 (offer stands for this month only).

If you're a Word subscriber, you can ensure you receive the e-mails notifying you of each month's e-dition URL by logging in to your subscription account and ensuring your e-mail address is up to date.

Peter Silverton's indispensible new book "Filthy English" is sub-titled "the how, why, when and what of everyday swearing". This week he joined Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Fraser Lewry in the pod to talk, in wholly unexpurgated fashion, about the history, culture and - let's face it - humour of swearing. We've covered the derivation of the word testicles, the things that made Shakespeare's audience snigger, the contrasting swearing habits of Catholic and Protestant countries, the key turning points in the history of swearing on TV, what Nick Cave said when he was told not to and how The Wire made poetry out of that four syllable epithet. If you are likely to be in any way offended don't listen.

It's the usual drill. You can sign up to get the free podcast regularly here or stream it below.

The news that Borders is going into administration is first of all bad news for the 1,000 staff who work there. It's also bad news for those buyers who regularly browse its extensive magazine selection and buy their favourite titles - including this one - there. Borders has always been a great supporter of independent titles and there's no doubt we won't be the only people who will miss it.

If you are one of those Borders magazine shoppers there is one way you can make sure you keep getting your favourite magazine, saving yourself quite a lot of money at the same time. Subscribe. It comes direct to your door, unsullied and un-earmarked by the browser before and it costs as little as £36 a year on direct debit or £42 on a credit card. That's for a whole year, which, as we've noted, is a fraction of what Cheryl Cole spends on her eyelashes, Mark Ellen spends on strong coffee and one reader invests in his feet. Follow this link or call 01793 592 853. Do it now.

We're back with Mark Hagen, the man who has the job that many members of the Massive would most like. He zooms round the world putting together music programmes for the BBC, nosing round Elvis's old digs with Suzi Quatro, trying to winkle off-cuts of Top Of The Pops footage out of far-flung archives and fantasising about finding an unheard Nick Drake session in the depths of the BBC library. What have the BBC got and what have they lost and why doesn't some of it get shown? These and many other questions answered in this tour-de-pod. You can subscribe to get the podcast regularly here. Or you can stream it below.

What with summer holidays and all that, we've not been able to get Mark Ellen and Kate Mossman together during on-sale week for a few months, but this week they're BACK BACK BACK with a new video, a visual treat in which the usual corpsing and mistakes have been edited out in our traditional (i.e. clumsy) in-house style. In this clip, the dynamic duo reveal some of their favourite moments from the December 2009 issue of The Word.

In this issue: The Specials and Madness, rare photos of Blondie, Jimmy Carr, Stephen Moyer, Mumford & Sons, Jo Brand, the Best and Worst Monsters, Lily Allen and the rise of the blogging bullies, Phill Jupitus, Paul Haig, Holly Johnson, Richard Linklater, James Ellroy, David McAlmont & Michael Nyman, Sarah Millican, a Word To The Wise with Ben Goldacre, Chris Evans, Eddie Kramer on Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, plus our round-up of the very best in new music, film, DVD and books, and columnists David Hepworth, Andrew Collins, Sophie Heawood, Giles Smith and Barry McIlheney.

And finally: our free, 15-track CD features Luke Haines, Pugwash, The Flaming Lips, McAlmont & Nyman, Teitur, Dave Rawlings Machine and many more...