The much hyped half time show at the Superbowl seemed to be heavy on auto tune and lip synch and light on entertainment unless Madge hoofing around on a variety of OTT sets floats your boat. It sank mine.

I write occasional blogs on the topic of pay and benefits for the professional body I belong to (yeah, I know.....)

This article prompted me to wonder if I could write something about music and the impact that monetary squabbles have had on bands

(Jazz leaders lessons for business) http://bit.ly/uGz7KF

I've got some material on how Queen were thought to have prolonged their recording career by splitting royalties equally 4 ways no matter who wrote what, and Bill Wyman's moans and groans in his autobiography about how unfair he thought things were with the Stones, but I'd welcome either

- any other examples you can think of, and
- any further references you might have to the two examples mentioned above

Thanks.

It's about to become official it seems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15364774

I'll sue anyone who disagrees with me, under my real name of Eric Patrick Clap.

May be of interest to some of the Massive.

Whispering Bob presents the first of 16 hour long episodes tonight. Each show will cover one series of the show and include some archive er.. footage, plus some interviews with guests reflecting back on appearances on the show. Tonight Sir Elton and Alice Cooper from the first series which spanned 1971/1972. Some music recorded especially for the show as well.

More here:
http://bbc.in/puF219
http://bit.ly/nK4xws

I've noticed that some clever types have produced CDs for exchange at Mingles that have either embedded TOC data, or CD text. I'd like to be able to do the same thing - burn a CD so that if you slap it into iTunes or WMP, the artists and track names come up. I think this comes form the TOC data (but I'm not sure).

Can anyone steer me towards a means of doing this, in Windows?

Ta.

Don't think I've seen anyone else post this

http://bit.ly/m2vo9s

Given Danny's usual reticence to talk about himself and his illness, this unusually frank. And how about that Chris Evans eh?

The thread about The Who prompted this. In my daily fight to prove I'm not really a corporate drone I have changed the ringtone on my company mobile to Baba O'Reilly*. I know, I know, The Man can't hold me down. Before that, it was Green Onions. Plastow Patricia was briefly considered but rejected on the grounds that without the job I wouldn't have the phone.

My wife tolerated my quest to establish Living On A Prayer on her iPhone (not that the fecking thing ever has enough signal to actually receive a call). A colleague has Yakety Sax (used by Benny Hill) set to ring each time his boss calls, which always makes me smile.

Anyone else indulge? Any good suggestions? Or Colin Hunt territory?

* I must have gone 15 years thinking this song was called "Teenage Wasteland"

My step daughter wants a web site set up to help promote her work as an artist and photographer. She also has very little money - enough to pay for some advert free webspace but not enough for professional design seems to be out of the question. And it has to be up and running by the end of July, when she has an exhibition starting.

I've no HTML skills, but I have in the past set up websites using on-line templates hosted by people like 1&1 or GoDaddy. My frustration with them is the lack of flexibility in the templates provided.

Do any of the Massive have any knowledge of template based hosts that they would recommend - the website will be pretty minimalist; it would be great if it could show pictures so that when clicked on they pop up in a bigger window.

Any advice will be gratefully recieved.

Last night's BBC documentary proved quite enjoyable. Although familiar with their hits, I didn't know much about the back story, and was quite taken in with the way in which Barry and Robin were filmed side by side, whilst an archive footage of Maurice was cut in. I thought it worked very well.

One thing left me bemused. Absolutely no mention of Andy Gibb. Any ideas why?

No, not that one. This one.

(NSFWish)

LA look set to, er, go all the way again. To the final.

Step daughter number 2 is 19 tomorrow. A levels are safely and successfully behind her, and apart from the trifling matter of funding, a Uni place awaits in Oct 11.

So, it's off to Australia, NZ, Fiji and Thailand with a girlfriend for 3 months. Destinations seem to have been chosen not for their cultural or aesthetic value, but more on where her girlfriends borthers went when they did it, and where they can have the best time.

Enquiries as to the more detailed nature of the itinerary are dismissed, and as has been the case since she was about 7, a firm belief that she knows all she needs to know, and why don't we just butt out. A particular sticking point seems be how she will stay in touch - naive suggestions of using Skype mixed with a view which is she'll be in touch if she needs something. Contact via Facebook is met with a po faced response as it may mean we can read everything she and her mates post, and she's not having that. Neither the GLW or I are on Facebook, so we don't know if this is true.

We think that having her get in touch to get hold of money will work - it certainly does now - but we're not sure how to make this happen. If any of the Massive have any useful experiences or tips we'd be glad to hear them

Chortle reports that Pink Floyd have refused Harry Hill permission to call his new comedy album "Bright Side Of The Moon", and Apple have knocked back "Sgt Pepper Vol 2".

Leaves me wondering how bands could have such powers? I know they control who can or can't record their songs, but I didn't know it extended to similar sounds album titles. Seems a bit po faced.

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/10/05/11869/that_joke_isnt_funny_anym...

When I was younger, and able to go out on shcool nights, I'd sometime visit the Comdey Store in London for Improv Night. Although the cast would vary a little, Jim was ever present, and it seemed that he always made me laugh more than any of the rest.

By the late 90's seeing him in Edinburgh the imact that MS was having on him was evident, but shows like My MS & Me in 2005 showed he was as funny as ever.

Via Twitter, I saw mention of a new blog, the link to which is below. It's not often something that I read on-line knocks me back, but this really did. In a week where I was feeling sorry for myself following a cold and the return of some tinnitus such humour and dignity in the face of such adversity has given me a very worthwhile perspective update.

http://mrjimsweeney.blogspot.com/

Since joing Twitter last week I was wondering if I was missing the point. But then I saw the trend about ACS:Law, the UK legal firm that have been tracking down file sharers and demanding compensation. Fascinating stuff!

If you've not seen the reports the following links are worth a look

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11425789
http://bbc.in/aT8kmk

It seems perfrectly logical that copyright holders would look for ways of shutting file sharing down, but there seems to be a growing sense that ACS:Law are the legal equivalent of wheel clampers. The collapse of their on line security after a DNS attack has brought all manner of stuff into the public domain, not least that ACS's success rate was around 30%, with compensation demands typically £495. Of the money ACS collected, around 35% seems to have gone to the copyright holder.

Talk Talk have always maintained that being forced to disclose customer details would put them in a difficult position legally, and for the time being still won't do so. Sky may yet come to regret what they handed over to ACS and is now all over the net.

I still haven't come across anyone I know well enough to ask some dumb iPad questions, so if the more tech savy Massive would indulge me ..

- I'm tempted to buy one in the USA. Would that be a stupid idea? (I know the warrenty won't be valid).

- I know that you use iTunes to get music on to the iPad as you would an iPod, but what about other data?

- I assume 3G is necessary if you expect to be out of wireless range fairly often. Have I got that right? And if so, is 3G coverage up to much in the UK?

I suppose considering a Dell Streak as an alternative would be a dumb idea?