Are they allowed to drill the shit out of things before 8am on a Saturday morning? It's literally right next door to my flat and they also have halogen lights that they keep on all night right outside my window.

I could cope with all that if they weren't shouting at each other in godawful Bristolian, which as we all know is a fake westcountry accent because Bristol is in the south midlands.

(I know this is probably one for 'That's Britain!' on BBC1, but I'm not at that level of mouth-foaming anger yet. Plus Nick Knowles is a knobber. Which is pleasingly alliterative.

I'm fairly sure we said that the person in first place at the end of the first week got lunch with la Mossman and a mention on the pod, no? [/lie]

Danny Baker on Desert Island Discs at 1115. Go you to you wireless sets.

In a weekend where, looking back on it, you took comfort and joy where it was sparingly provided amid the horror and human tragedy (China, Norway and Camden included), the Candyman shone a rainbow out of the radio on Saturday morning.

Is there a game as gripping, as replete with the sum of human behaviour, as 'Chattelships (tm)'? A 4x4 grid populated with your most prized possessions. Hits mean they're lost and you can only save them if you win the game and therefore shoot down your opposer's four darlings.

Rife for a tv transfer I think!

It's been mentioned before here, chez nous, but Big Train really was special.

(The actor) Kevin Eldon doing Mao doing Ferry, with a little bit of 'Jet' thrown in for starters; Simon Pegg looking like the ultimate Numanoid on guitar and Mark Heap as Eno.

Without wanting to spoil the issue, I'd like to offer thanks to the team for this month's issue. When I came home this evening to find Reg staring up at me from the doormat (disturbing mental image, there) I was very disappointed. It just didn't feel 'Word'y enough. But boy oh boy was I wrong. Credit to Rob F for bringing out the passion and the love for music the guy still feels- it was palpable throughout the interview. And, to reference the very last answer...

... I bet he does now.

Now to crack on with the rest of the issue.

Sky Arts tonight - 'From the basement' with The Fall and My Morning Jacket (8pm), A punk doco (9), and a Bjork gig from Reykjavik in 2008 (1035). And also the repeat of Rich Hall's superb 'Dirty South' on BBC4 at 9.

Sky Arts tomorrow - Neil young 'Silver and Gold' gig from 1999

Sky Arts Thursday - 9pm Radiohead live at Eurockeenes, The history of The Clash doco at 1035, The Sex Pistols 'There'll Always be an England' at 1135.

Oh, and Bruce Springsteen night on BBC4 next Saturday.

Added to getting tickets to see Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle being recorded, it's going to be a fun and cheap week.

This may float boats.

Now, I have little truck with the religious elements of this festive period, but there are two carols that are guaranteed to bring that tear, the happysad tear, to my eye.

I need say no more about them. It really doesn't matter who's singing them, and it really doesn't matter what the production is like. It's the tone and the melody and the way it makes me think of my family and my friends, my local on Christmas Eve, the football on Boxing Day: essentially, home. 2 days to go and First Great Western holding up OK so far.

Now, I'm a big Oasis fan. First gig, soundtracked a pretty mundane South Hams childhood, blahdy blahdy blah. I am constantly surprised at the faux outrage of the Massive at the 'OMG, they're copying the Beatles and they're not very good' schtick. Sometimes we find meaning in the most meaningless things so, essentially, jog on.

However, young William JP Gallagher doesn't make it easy on himself. Witness the tracklisting of the new Beady Eye album:

'Different Gear, Still Speeding' Tracklisting:

Four Letter Word
Millionaire
The Roller
Beatles And Stones
Wind Up Dream
Bring The Light
For Anyone
Kill For A Dream
Standing On The Edge Of The Noise
Wigwam
Three Ring Circus
The Beat Goes On
The Morning Son

Yeeshk. That is really stinking up the place.

Hullo, respected massive.

I'm looking for some advice. I have a 12-inch black disc with a hole in it. is this a record?

Oh, the hilarity.

Right, down to B Ts, as the Candyman might say. I'm looking for a record player. Nothing fancy or dancey, just something to play the boxload of vinyl i've managed to accumulate down the years (no more than that: I'm a child of the 80s).

I'd quite like it to look nice and classic without being huge. It should ideally go on top of my chest of drawers.

Any joy?

In the safe knowledge that the Massive's tastes trawl the wide spectrum of modern cultural life, I beg its help.

I'm looking for a book. I don't know the title or the author, but I remember a review intriguing me a few weeks ago. The reviewer was lauding the author as a new Don DeLillo, and the book a contender for the title of great American novel.

I know that the cover image is of two young baseball players circa the 50s.

Not much to go on I know, but I trust in the Massive.

I saw this on a blog and thought it might just be slap bang in the village green of the Massive's bailiwick.

http://www.davidbergman.net/blog/2009/01/22/how-i-made-a-1474-megapixel-...

A gigapan is, I'm reliably informed by wikipedia, "a robotic platform that attaches to a digital camera and some computer software. The robotic platform allows a user to take a photograph, then it will re-aim the camera with great precision, to take another photograph. After taking many photos, the software stitches all the pictures into a gigapixel image."

It's pretty nifty. You can zoom in to see pretty much any face anywhere in the whole crowd.

Could it perhaps be put to some use at Glastonbury? "Yes, that's me there with a pint of scrumpy and a vegetable samosa of debatable quality right at the top of the valley!"

With a scant amount of Christmas cash burning a hole in my pocket, I've got my eye on a new DAB set to offset my intermittent internet access and I'm hoping that someone among the massive can offer some assistance.

Ideally i'd like one that can dock and play stuff from my iPod and can also wake me up with a DAB station. I've seen a lot of machines that do a couple of these things but it baffles me that they seem to only offer FM/AM on the clock radio alarm. Oh, and i'd like something that offers at least semi-decent sound quality too.

Not too much to ask is it? Yes? Oh, Ok then.

This may have been done before, but one of the highlihts of Baker/Ball's first R2 show the other saturday was mr Baker imploring us to call in with our "greatest single word ever uttered in music".

Baker volunteered Lulu's "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllll" from "Shout", and IIRC Ball voted for "Lou-ay" from Louie Louie but what's yours?

Mine would be either the sotto voce "beautiful" courtesy of Mavis Staples at the end of The Last Waltz version of The Weight, or Mr William John Paul Gallagher adding syllables a plenty to the word "sunshine".