I'm talking early 80's here. What logos (band or otherwise) did you love to reproduce on any available space?

Me:

The Beatles
The Jam
The Police
Adidas. Don't want to get too 'I heart 1982' but their trainers - Samba, Bamba et al, and their holdalls - fantastic!
Rucanor - a school holdall with a three star logo, very trendy in new-town central Scotland at least. Whatever happened to them?

Night night

Er, it's not what you think, honest.

But I know this for a fact, from extensive research (talking to a few women I know), that all females - no matter what their age - still love the music they heard when they were 15. And I mean ALL the music. I know a woman who's got some pretty nifto tastes these days, who is unfortunately saddled with a deep love of Rick Astley. Because that's who was wowing the pop charts when she was 15.

I know another who will despise just about any new music if she's not in the mood for it and likes nothing better than some extreme industrial, but whose eyes will still go all misty over Duran Duran and Culture Club.

So it got me thinking, do us blokes do the same thing? I think we do, deep down, we just won't admit it. (Remember I'm talking proper chart music here, not what John Peel was playing at the time). So when I was 15, I admit to liking the Cure, say, or the Bunnymen. But I also really liked Dire Straits. Brothers In Arms era. And Sting. And Level 42. Cos they were the big acts in 1985/6 when I was 15.

Yowch, it took a lot to admit that. Come on, be honest.

Maybe not, but I am still reeling from a recent encounter with 'Diddy' David Hamilton as he opened our village fete last weekend. DJ's were stars in their own right and all seem to have honed their craft on the pirate stations - and at some point, being into the music not just the career.

What I can't forgive though is judging our chocolate Labrador Meg to be only the 5th prettiest bitch in Upper Beeding.

Any other venerable DJ's doing the rounds?

I'll be off to Rab in Croatia for the annual trip to visit the FPO's family. It is actually a lovely island and this year we need to drive with the new arrival - should be fun.

Any advice on driving for a few days across Europe with an infant gratefully received!

Croatia is a lovely country and I would heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a change to the usual European desinations as it offers everything you need in terms of cultre, beaches, history and a national football team we can beat, and because it is not yet in the EU it is relatively cheap.

I went to see the Eagles on Tuesday night at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, and the next night sat in the Albert Hall watching Crosby Stills & Nash.

The Eagles appear in suits and skinny ties looking like Take That's great uncles, backed by a collection of crack session players - guitars, keyboards, horns, strings. The diamond vision screens do not do this band any favours - Don Henley and Timothy B Schmidt in particular looking like a hung-over Ricky Gervais and Skeletor respectively. When they sing however it's a different story - whether with the aid of technology or not - the harmonies are stunning. Each song, no matter how plodding, is lofted spectacularly skyward at the chorus.

Glen Frey is the stand-up comedian frontman - "This song is for my first wife, Plaintiff" - and Joe Walsh plays the village idiot. All the hits present and correct, interestingly it is Joe Walsh's catalogue that provides some of the most rousing moments - 'In The City', 'Funk 49', and 'Life's Been Good' - amongst the ballads. Henley's voice remains a thing of wonder though sometimes lost in the slick, professional and corporate sound. For me the closing 'Desperado' was a poignant reminder of what was the essence of this band before the corporate excesses closed in. It was a great night out.

At the Albert Hall then we gathered to pay homage to the group that arguably spawned the Eagles and that entire - once lauded, once reviled - Canyon sound. This is a stripped down event. Walking onstage to a standing ovation a delicate 'Helplessly Hoping' opens the show. No screens, no lasers, no costumes. Then, announcing that they are going to do something different, we get a beautiful version of 'Ruby Tuesday', then 'Reason To Believe', James Taylor's 'You Can Close Your Eyes' and Dylan's 'Girl From The North Country'. And if you do close your eyes you could maybe - just maybe - imagine you were sitting in Mama Cass's house in the Canyon listening to three guys play for their friends.

The Albert Hall becomes the most intimate setting for a simply gorgeous version of 'Guinnivere', with just Nash and Crosby on stage. It is easy to forget just what a great guitar player Crosby is. And he and Nash look and sound great.

The first half is primarily acoustic. Stills voice is now the weak link. You can sense that Nash in particular is very protective of him - slightly exposed on 'Girl From The North Country' there is palpable relief both on stage and in the crowd that he got through.

The second half rocks out - 'Long Time Gone', 'Almost Cut My Hair', 'Military Madness','Wooden Ships' - and Stills lead guitar is impressive, and his voice not as exposed. It seems to me that Nash is happy to lead from the back, and the spectacular set pieces come from Crosby - a scenario that surely no-one would have predicted 20 or even 10 years ago. It is hard to credit that having survived the excesses of 70s rock stardom these three men seem still to be able to tap into something magical and true.

There is no doubting the commitment that CSN bring to the stage, and that seems to me to be the most telling difference between these two bands. At no point did I ever feel CSN were there for any reason other than that they love to play. Watching the Eagles was a great night out, but being in the room with CSN was a truly moving experience.

Any ideas...mainly for foreign language films.

Just thought their may be some bargin hunters out there.

Fanfarlo got mentioned a lot in the best of 2009 (half-time):

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/its-a-half-time-report-type-thing

I mentioned this at the bottom of the strand, but thought it should maybe get more prominence: their album, with four bonus tracks, is available as a download from:

http://www.fanfarlo.com/

for $1 until the 4th July!! It IS good.

Time to own up. I was involved in home-taping. And we know what the adverts said was the result.

It started off on the easy stuff –the radio. You never forget the first time, and mine was hard to beat. John Peel’s festive 50 of 1978. A Philips 590 transistor radio. My portable cassette recorder, its in-built microphone – about the size of a penny piece – placed next to it. No direct connection, just a blanket thrown over to keep extraneous sound out. The family downstairs warned to stir out of their seats at their own peril for four nights in a row (I missed 50-41). The adrenaline rush as the C90 approached the end of each side: will this song finish before it runs out? Is there enough left for another song? If so, please let it be a punk/new wave shortie and not something lasting 12 minutes by Van Morrison.

Thence to the hard stuff – records. A borrowed double live album off a friend’s older brother – Made in Japan, The Song Remains the Same, Live and Dangerous. Will all four sides fit on a C90 or is it a C120 job? OK – time to jack up, a 5-pin DIN connector needed. Write the tracks on the insert, or make your own artwork. Sometimes all you have to hand is a pre-recorded cassette you no longer want to keep – time to get busy with the sellotape over the snap-off recording protector.

So to the record companies – I’m sorry. I did go on to buy all the records anyway (and the remasters, and the Deluxe editions etc etc) but how you staggered on into the CD age I don’t know.

I hope the statute of limitations has expired, or else I may ask for a file to be slipped into my next subscription edition of the Word.

Anyone else for absolution?

I'm spending a not insubstantial period of my life putting together an archive of all the lyrics of the great Half Man Half Biscuit - and yesterday I added the song Fretwork Homework which contains the verse:

We’re into the final of The Battle Of The Bands
And we’re gonna win ‘cos we’ve got the most fans
A day in the studio and two hundred quid
And a coveted support slot with Lisa Dominique

Now, my curiosity about Ms Dominique was piqued by this, but on investigation, I can't find any references to her since about 2002. I'm rather worried, because as any HMHB fan knows, a mention in a Nigel Blackwell song can very often lead to premature expiration. He seems to have that effect on many celebrities - the song Rod Hull is Alive - Why? being a particularly fine example, because he quite quickly wasn't.

So are you out there, Lisa Dominique?

...Little Boots as all hype - obviously without actually bothering to listen.

But then I saw this and was really quite impressed.

I eagerly await my kicking from the Massive.

Suitably postmodern, from an email from Nature:

Nature News Twitters the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened — 40 years on. The Tweets, located at
http://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40
follow Apollo 11’s crew to the moon and back. On this day 40 years ago, for example, the Washington Daily News reported that Time-Life offered the astronauts $400,000 for exclusive book rights to the Apollo 11 story.

Follow this story and the journey on Twitter and gain context surrounding the moon mission and its fallout for science and the wider world in an accompanying blog.
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=4&m=33490882&r=MTc3MDU5NDE5NAS2&b=...

Access the Apollo 40 years on Nature News special as Nature looks at the legacy of the Apollo missions, as well as prospects for future manned missions that could see humans once again set foot on the Moon http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=23&m=33490882&r=MTc3MDU5NDE5NAS2&b...

[NB The embedded Twitter link didn't work so I've put in a working one]

Currently ripping through 'The Count of Monte Cristo' which is a rain-forest worrying 1243 pages long - not including the notes at the end.

By far and away the longest book I've ever attempted.

In my usual spirit of intellectual dwarfism I have only one question - what's the longest book you've ever read?

To completion. And was it worth it?

I've long believed that there are two categories of artist. There are those who understand the nature of their talent (however small) and why people like it, and those who are bewildered by it.

In music, the first category is made up of journeymen artists, who put out a long succession of music that is tailor-made to please their fans. They don't overreach themselves. Tom Petty is perhaps an example. The second category is an interesting one, because it not only includes giants like McCartney (who struggles to connect with the public and himself regularly), but also people who become famous by accident in talent shows, or through a surprise hit single.

McCartney obviously suffers for it, I reckon. He really tries so hard. The most recent release (Electric Arguments - which I like) could be seen as deliberately making a bad record to see if it connects with people, perhaps based on the realization that the ones he really sweats over are not popular.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject? Who are the people who are at home with their talents? Who are the people who struggle to understand it?

Apart from convincing a load of illiterates that they do know how to spell after all, Quentin Tarantino's new film "Inglourious Basterds" seems set to create a whole load of new myths about World War II.
* Special Forces were forever dropping squads of cool-looking chaps into occupied Europe just because they knew how cruel the Nazis could be
* The inability to speak the local languages was not a handicap at all but the wrong sort of haircut might have been
* Mel Brooks really did have Hitler down, didn't he?