With all the usual apologies/caveats etc if this is yesterday's chip wrappers; but it's new(s) to me.

Grappelli played on Wish You Were Here and they didn't bother using it. Hear it here!

...would like to wish bargepole a very Merry Christmas. Indeed he would like to wish all Word readers, bloggers and podcast listeners (old and new) the compliments of the season. John Medd also looks forward to a flurry of bloggers in the New Year talking about themselves in the third person.

WHIPPING POST!

Further to Paul Waring's timely reminder that Shack may/may not be the BBITW; my take on things can be summed up thus - if I've been to see an artist/band 3 or more times then they must have something going for them. Dredging my memory bank, I can think of the following bunch of misfits that got me to part with my hard earned on more than one occasion:

In no particular order: Shack, Girl, Wreckless Eric, Def Leppard, Dodgy, Richard Thompson, Ian Dury, Joe Strummer, Nick Lowe, UFO, The Buzzcocks, Roachford, Squeeze, Joe Jackson, Martin Taylor, Claire Martin, The Slackers, The Bootleg Beatles, Rocket From The Crypt...

If there is such a thing as a Word Magazine Venn Diagram I'd be interested to see if this list dovetails with any other Word regular gig goers.

I need to track down a photograph for a piece I'm writing: it's a snap of The Sex Pistols in a London restaurant filling their faces. And seated at the next table is Michael Caine and a few of his cronies. It dates back to circa '77 and was published in one of the Sunday glossies.

If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd be most grateful.

Still missed.

Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise. I said, 'Listen, mate, life has surface noise.'

On Last Word this afternoon...

What 5 words would you like to see/hear preceding Simon Cowell?

The ATM regulars have probably heard all this before. Notwithstanding same, however, I'm looking for a few suggestions for our first read in my newly formed Book Club. You know the pack drill - it's gotta be short(ish), appeal to both boys and girls, not be particularly noir, not be particularly pink and if it can ruffle a few feathers along the way, then that's a bonus. It can be Magnus Mills, Susan Hill, Conan Doyle, Nick Hornby, Ian Fleming, Joe Lansdale, Anne Tyler, Keith Waterhouse, Jack Finney (OK, so they're a few of my suggestions) but I need a shortlist of 6 by the middle of next week.

If I should get embroiled in any unseemly business, with my face splashed all over the front pages, I hope the press come up with a catchy four syllable reworking of my surname; it's sure to get me off the hook.

When my iPod finishes playing a Podcast it then naturally defaults to the first song alphabetically on it. So when, for example, Kerry Shale tells us what to do if we've been affected by any of the issues raised etc., I then hear the tub-thumping intro to Gary Gilmore's Eyes by The Adverts. But that's all I do hear. I then reach over and turn it off; I can't remember when I last listened to it all the way through.

So what's the first track, alphabetically, on yours?

cover versions were a motorway it would be strewn with pileups and fatalities. Not to mention the hard shoulder - nose to tail with breakdowns awaiting recovery. Cue Cilla Black: I don't think I've ever heard a cover version where the whole meaning of the song has been altered, nay butchered, by changing just a handful of words.

I've always had a love/hate with the cover mounted CD (cmCD); not just The Word's but cmCDs in general. As a taster to bands you have never heard it should tick all the right boxes. But how do you know that the chosen track by the unknown (to you) band is representative of their sound? You don't. It's a starting point. And, as with many starting points, they often peter out (often within the first 30 seconds).

Consequently I've always given cmCDs 20 minutes of my time. Give or take. The track has 60 seconds to impress me. If it does it gets a black marker pen tick next to it and I'll listen to it all. If it hasn't done it for me within the first minute it gets a black cross next to it and I fast forward.

I then end up, usually, with a cmCD with anywhere between 3 and 6 (I have the stats) ticks. They are then promoted to the hard drive from where they queue up to get on my iPod.

Anyway, enough of all this pretentious nonsense. All I really wanted to say was that the cmCD that came with the Amy Winehouse edition was sublime. Every track got a tick and they all made it onto my iPod.

I should get out more.

...I'm going to post a two minute YouTube clip of a rather wonderful piece of music; however, that's what Patrick C did earlier with The Tramp and I think he's still reeling from his recent appearance in front of the kangaroo court.

OK, so let me give it context.

It's a foot-tapping ditty entitled All Up by Ocean Colour Scene and it's an instrumental slice of cod Northern Soul that probably came out when Britpop was still in its first flush of youth.

So, why am I posting it and why do I think the rest of you will like it?

Well, it being a Saturday evening, it's the sort of tune that will aid the cooking of any meal you're preparing tonight or, equally, facilitate the process of 'getting ready' for your Saturday night on the tiles.

And if it doesn't do either of the above then please don't get all heavy handed with me - life's too short. Anyway, I've gotta go. It's time to put my falling over trousers on as the sun prepares to cross the yard arm.

Seriously, I'm playing Earls Court tomorrow. I only mention it because it appears they're tearing it down after the 2012 Olympics.

Why would you raze an Art Deco building like that? Maybe if we get enough 'up' arrows we can change their minds? Or shall we just go to the pub instead?

We've all done it: 'It's not for me!'