Seeing the Youtube of Jones/Simenon playing Guns of Brixton made me think of the Jimmy Cliff cover on his new EP Sacred Fire, which is very fine.

That must be a real buzz for Simenon in particular. Are there other cases of the Teacher paying tribute to the Students?

30 today. Don't forget, inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.

Have a good one.

To celebrate France reaching the World Cup final (no hard feelings) maybe it is time to say hats off ... and berets on

Duets II will apparently be number 1 in the US next week, which restores your faith in mankind. The fact that Amy Winehouse made her last recording for the CD has rightly attracted a lot of attention, because Amy and Tony do an excellent "Body and Soul". However, Amy is not the real stand out for me.

The two best duets are:

First, John Meyer joining Tony for "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)".

Second, an absolutely cracking performance by Lady Gaga on "The Lady Is A Tramp". When she does her thing she is most definitely not my cup of tea, but on this she is blooming marvellous.

The whole thing is great but these 2 duets are the pick of the bunch.

For those with fruit trees in the garden, what kind of autumn are you having?

I have had the most astonishing crop of apples and plums this year. Huge quantities and virtually no pest damage. After the weekend we have a huge quantity of plum jam and have boxed up enough apples to last the winter I reckon.

At the upcoming Gosport Festival one of the headliners is T-Rex, performing with "a new frontman".

I can see that having the original frontman would be a challenge, but how is that even possible?

Even Queen without Freddy makes more sense than that.

I am quite partial to Robyn but my wife has a violent dislike of her voice. I also rather like Duffy, but my son can't stand her.

Are there other artists who cause a household hullabaloo?

Now would be the time to crank up the Royal Wedding playlist I think

1. William, it was really nothing - The Smiths
2. Bukk-in-Ham Palace - Peter Tosh
3. Chalice in the Palace - U-Roy
4. Edward VIII - Lord Caresser
5. Rain King - Counting Crows
6. King for a Day - Jamiroquai
7. Kate - Ben Folds Five
8. I Want To Stay With You - Gallagher & Lyle
9. We've Only Just Begun - The Carpenters
10. The King Will Come - Wishbone Ash

Sorted. Many thanks all, that lot will be going on a spotify playlist this evening.

were interviewed on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning.

Here is a link to the interview.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9361000/9361290.stm

You can listen to their new single here -- it's a corker.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9361000/9361290.stm

The Daily Telegraph produced its Royal Wedding souvenir edition the day after the announcement but we have had to wait almost a week to get our hands on some proper mementos.

I may get my loved ones a set of Princess Kate thimbles, but maybe there are better alternatives out there. Seen anything else on the market?

When Muhammed Ali first fought Joe Frazier it was the fight of the century. Ali avenged his defeat in the rematch before proving his superiority over Smokin' Joe, emerging victorious from the Thrilla in Manila.

So, now Boris and Ken will square off again in The Cockney Confrontation (it's Friday, that's the best I can do).

What do we think? Will Boris get his comeuppance or is this one come back too many by Ken?

Any chance of getting these on the podcast

2 academics have produced a study with the catchy title "Pop Internationalism: Has a half century of world music trade displaced local culture?"

Basically they looked at the origin of every song to chart in 22 selected countries between 1960 and 2007 to see the balance between local artists and foreign artists. They wanted to see if local artists were getting displaced by foreigners as music by e.g. US or UK artists got ever easier to obtain.

Maybe a bit surprisingly the opposite seems to be happening -- more people seem to want music by local artists. Foreign artists accounted for 50 per cent of the hits in 1980 but only 30 per cent today. It seems that French increasingly want to listen to French artists, the Germans to German and the Finns to Finns.

Most of these national artists make pop music in styles that are clearly of US origin (and a growing number sing in English) but the findings suggest small might be beautiful -- artists from smaller countries are taking a growing share of world sales relative to GDP.

Anyway, the study is here if you want to know more. Warning! contains sums.