To be precise, I'm looking for pictures/scans of old Word cover CDs, preferably online for ease of access. I recently took it into my head that I simply must have cover art for everything - and I mean everything - in my iTunes library, and now, several weeks later I am almost done, but I've come unstuck on the early Word discs.

Now a quick e-ferret has located this: http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/now-hear-cover-archive , which is tremendous but it only goes back to June 2007, and there are a fair few cds which predate that, both Now Hear This-es and Word Of Mouth-s.

A further search of the archives finds lots of individual links like this: http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/1576-now-hear-cover , but the links that page and the others like it provide, to a page on the Rocking Vicar site, no longer work.

So does anyone know where I might find these elusive early works? Or will I just have to dig the original discs out (fingers crossed that I can find them all!) and feed them through the scanner one by one?

...but in trying to second-guess what their readers are going to think about them, terrified of causing offence."

So says Alex Petridis here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/02/alexis-petridis-writing-albu...

I think I can guess to whom he is referring in this column, but is it really the case? I know we've discussed this sort of thing before - Be Here Now being the oft-cited prime example - but that was long ago in a Britpop far away. I admit Word is the only music magazine I read, though I idly flick through others when I pass them in the shops, and maybe that's the case with the big reviews but I don't tend to read them.

Also interesting to note the main point of the article, which is the Guardian's new plan to invite anyone who wants to to review every album ever made. There are apparently 3 million pages of albums to choose from, or you can add your own if that just isn't enough. Will we now see a drop in Word traffic whilst the Massive swarms across the Grauniad, discussing every last syllable and semiquaver recorded by the Richard Thompson/Morrissey/The Fall etc.?

The number of kiddie-related links in this week's Something For The Weekend made me think of this:

It's a real book, you can buy it in real life or Kindle-ised, or as the above-featured audiobook. All necessary links can be found here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/14/go-the-fuck-to-sleep-1.html

After reading part 1 today I started wondering what might appear in next month's sequel feature.

The "teaser" blurb at the end of Part 1 mentions scratching, acid house bass, and disco toms, but what else could there be?

I humbly suggest:

The rim-click - reggae and rock ballads would be lost without it.

Wah-wah guitar (yes you already mentioned wah-wah clav, but surely the guitar version deserves it's own mention, if only for it's contribution to the "mucky industries")

Roland TR-808

The "Amen break"

The donk

I've have a spare ticket for this event this evening, if anyone is interested. Tickets were only £6 so buy me a drink and we can call it evens.

An evening with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers

The British Humanist Association is pleased to present an evening in conversation with Humanist of the Year 2009 PZ Myers, and Vice President of the British Humanist Association Richard Dawkins at the Institute of Education in London on Thursday 9th June 2011.

Start time: 7:00pm for 7:30pm start - 8:30pm

Venue: Logan Hall, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/148?page=1

Inspired by Brookster's recent namesake thread, I wondered if we might be able to come up with a few good job swaps between celebs of the same name.

For example:

Cilla Black - singer with the Pixies; Frank Black - host of Blind Date.

Neil Morrissey - singer with The Smiths; Steven Morrissey - star of Men Behaving Badly.

Rowan Williams - star of countless Carry On films; Kenneth Williams - Archbishop of Canterbury.

That sort of thing. Any suggestions?

See here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13407712

I popped into WH Smith to buy the new Word today (sadly my subscription has lapsed as I'm somewhat brassic at present), and was perusing the proximate periodicals when a hand reached past me to pick up the latest copy of "Guitarist". The hand belonged to a schoolgirl, about 15 years old at a guess, who informed her friend "I'll be getting this at the weekend". She went on to explain how she could only buy the magazine when her mum had money to give her, meaning she'd had to pass up recent issues with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck on the cover, but "Come Saturday this'll be mine! The SG guitar on the cover - isn't it beautiful?"

My mind was already boggling at the concept of a teenage black girl on the fringes of east London wanting to know the details of Jeff Beck's favourite plectrum, when she uttered the Massive-tastic clincher: "Most of what's on my ipod came from reading this".

Forget my subscription, if I see her again I think I'll buy one for her. The future is safe.

It's... err... different!

Indulge me, please…

Browsing a favourite music blog last week I discovered that yesterday's David McAlmont gig at the Leicester Square Theatre would be featuring an appearance from Bernard Butler, and after hoisting my jaw from the floor I instantly bought 2 tickets, thinking that finding someone among my circle of acquaintances who'd share my excitement would be a trivial task. Alas, I was mistaken. No problem, it'll make a nice spontaneous night out with my new lady-friend, who'll surely have the taste and distinction to recognise a sumptuous evening's musical entertainment when she hears it. That may be the case, but it became something of a moot point when she dumped me by text message on Sunday night. She's "not in the right place", apparently. But in her defence she does live in Essex.

Monday found a further round of ever-more desperate text invitations, all dashed on the rocks of indifference or prior engagements, so I was faced with a choice. I could stay home, douse myself in gin and bawl myself to death on the kitchen floor. But no, I thought, that's just what she would have wanted. So instead I dressed myself in a suit and tie - it just seemed right for the occasion, and given the circumstances - held my head high, and sallied forth to be healed by the voice of a angel. And oh how he healed me. A fragile "My Funny Valentine" gave way to a sleazy "Blues In The Night", followed by pearl after gem after pearl, by turns warm, buttery, feline, vulnerable and rapturous, but the peak for me was when he invited Bernard on stage for a guitar-and-voice take on "Yes". As a teenager who only came to realise the glory of Suede just as Butler was jumping ship his resurfacing with David McAlmont in 1995 was a thrill that little had ever matched in my life by that point. "Yes" has always been my go-to song for when I need a lift, the magnificent booming groove, the raucous fun of the band's performance and David's mesmerising voice floating across the top, at once sublime, then exultant, it all combines to move me in a way little else can. It was no surprise then, that as one of the defining musical partnerships of my adolescence reunited before my eyes to sing of strength and resilience in the face of rejection, I burst into tears. But they felt so good, this was exactly what I needed and all I needed to feel alive and strong again. I have never doubted the healing power of music but right there and then I was transported, refreshed and renewed.

And that was only the first half of the show! To be honest the rest of the evening is a little blurred in my memory. Butler returned periodically, elegant torch songs hugged the room, and a voice and double-bass rendition of "Never, Never, Never", sung, perched perilously mid-audience, to the elderly mother of a man currently filming David for a documentary, was memorable for overcoming the self-conscious silliness of it's execution. Throughout the night David was a charming host, witty, generous and surprisingly honest, fielding regular questions from the audience and answering them with thoughtful, sincere replies, and heaping copious praise upon his various collaborators and backing musicians.

All in all, a sumptuous night, the affection in the room for David (and for Bernard) was sincere and heartfelt, and I left feeling thrilled yet blissful. And then a drunken Irish man mistook me for Bernard Butler. Who could ask for more?

I've been playing this over and over all evening, it's Snow White cut up, shuffled and mixed into a Lemon Jelly-esque chillout delight. That may sound hideous on paper, but in practice it's quite bewitching.

All the work of this fella: http://www.pogomix.net/

Take a look at his YouTube page for similar works built from the component parts of Toy Story, Terminator, Mary Poppins and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron

I find that whenever a topic grows to more than one page the little yellow "new" tags don't appear when a new reply is added to the second page. Is it just me or do others get this too?

I missed out on getting tickets to see the Divine Comedy in London this year, but fond some going spare for the Cambridge date, easily drivable within an hour for me, and I have a friend in the town I thought I could meet up with and bring along to the gig. She's up for it but admits she's never heard a note of TDC, so I sent her a Spotify playlist of a few highlights from each album to give her an idea of what to expect. But no, she's got a limited bandwidth connection which rules out Spotify, so she asked if I could perhaps email her a few mp3s instead.

Swiftly skirting issues of file-sharing for the moment (besides, it's all for the greater good of TDC if I convert her to The Cause, as I suspect I will), I decided 3 songs would be a good balance between giving her an introduction to the music and not overstuffing her inbox. So I chose:

Songs Of Love
Down In The Street Below
Our Mutual Friend

Did I choose correctly?

If you had to introduce someone to a beloved act of yours, with only three songs to demonstrate their particular marvels, what would you choose?