My best mate is getting married on July 21st and I'm best man. We are trying to decide what to do for his stag. Any ideas? Here are the criteria:

- We'd like to stay in the UK but Ireland is an option
- He doesn't want to get very drunk but it would be nice to have a drink or two
- Obviously music's important to us. We're in our mid-thirties and like to think our dancing days aren't entirely behind us, but we also find most nightclubs fairly horrific
- The stag loves the great outdoors - camping, walking, wildlife. He's said he's tempted to just go up a mountain with a couple of mates.

I was wondering, Massive, if there is any way of combining the above? A properly remote music festival perhaps with an 'authentic camping experience'?

Or do you have any other recommendations or stag night tales you wish to share?

In the procrastination thread, several said they beat the lethargy blues by taking regular exercise. So what do you have on your headphones when you're doing it?

I've just taken up a very particular form of exercise myself. Don't laugh, but I've started skateboarding. Well, re-started skateboarding. I was a hardcore skater in my teens and continued to dabble a bit in my twenties. Now I'm in my mid-thirties, a father of three and never expected to fall off another skateboard again. But then this state-of-the-art indoor skatepark opened up in Hemel Hempstead, down the road from me, and it coincided with me developing a bit of a paunch. So I paid a visit and it was utterly thrilling. And amazingly I was nowhere near the oldest person there. I've visited many times since.

Anyway, I need music to skate to. All the Spotify playlists on my phone are geared for late night listening. You can't pull a frontside board slide to the lilting tones of Diamond Mine by King Creosote. Eventually I stuck on some Rage Against the Machine and At the Drive-In and it really helped me to pull off some, ahem, gnarly moves. But I need more. It doesn't have to be all nu-metal you know. This is just as effective.

(Ezy Rider by Jimi Hendrix)

What music do you exercise to?

I keep a diary. Nothing fancy - just at the weekend, or whenever I get a spare moment, I write up a few paragraphs in a Word document about what I've been up to, sometimes accompanied by a couple of relevant JPEGs.

Anyway, last year I included what I thought were some words and phrases that were none-more 2010. Not necessarily brand new words to the lexicon, but ones that seemed to be on everyone's lips or constantly in the papers. 'Coalition'. 'Cleggmania/I agree with Nick'. 'iPad'. 'Wagner'.

What are the words and phrases of 2011? 'Super-injunction' is one. What else?

(I was moved to write this post by seeing 'Unexpected item in the bagging area' down below.)

Did anyone see this? Heartbreaking stuff in places. Ron's apparent lack of belief in himself, and frustration at his own low profile (this from the man who wrote Strawberry Blonde!) I found really quite upsetting. And now he's taken a huge risk (including apparently sinking in quite a bit of his own money) in hiring former Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock to help deliver his one last shot at 'success' - whatever that might be these days. If this album doesn't make it, he says, he might jack it all in.

I couldn't really get on with the album when I tried it the other day on Spotify, but having seen this I almost want to buy it regardless, if only to help him claw back a couple of quid.

But his albums are always growers - Retriever and Cobblestone Runway didn't do much for me and now they're among my favourite records ever - so I'm going to keep on trying and hopefully its charms will reveal themselves. The doc showed him demoing a couple of beautiful songs on acoustic. I just hope Rock hasn't squeezed all the life out of them.

On iPlayer here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00z2nby/Ron_Sexsmith_Love_Shines/

I was really heartened by the response to ITFC's quandary. I was wondering if anyone could help with this - though it's nowhere near as serious.

I'm about to leave my job. It's a very small organisation, very poorly run by the CEO. Her poor running of the place is a large reason for my leaving, and I'm not the first to be driven out by her (though there are other reasons for going - not least the fact that the place will probably be wound up within a year). She is making colleagues' lives a misery, and one of them is urging me to use my exit interview to list all her faults in the hope it will change her behaviour and make life easier for him. He says I have nothing to lose as she's already done my reference.

I'm torn between wanting to help him and the thought this might come back to haunt me in future. I got a written warning for doing something stupid at work a while ago and this could be the basis of a bad reference in future. Have I really got 'nothing to lose'?

Can any of the Massive recommend some fairly easy - but not numbingly repetitive - basslines for a beginner bassist to plonk along to?

I'm a fairly competent rhythm guitarist, so not a complete novice. But I can't handle anything too challenging. I can manage some of Bruce Foxton's basslines for The Jam, and that kind of thing is pefect for me. Melodic, high up in the mix so I can hear what I'm playing along to, and challenging enough to be interesting but not unplayable. And loath as I am to praise anything by the lute spanker, I'm really enjoying playing along to bass parts on early Police numbers.

So what else can you recommend?

By the way I've just invested in one of these:

I'm a bit behind with the podcasts - I usually sync them from my laptop to my Android smartphone and listen during my commute. I haven't done it for a while so I have a few sitting at home waiting to be synced and listened to.

But does anyone know if there's a way I can download podcasts direct to my phone? I've tried the Google Listen app but the Word Podcast doesn't seem to be available via that.

If there is a way, it would save me faffing around with the laptop and I have a real hankering to listen to the Wilco Johnson one on the way home tonight...

I bought The Sea after Corinne's mesmerising Glastonbury performance and it is an incredible album. Beautiful songs played with warmth, tenderness and passion.

But knowing the circumstances in which it was written and recorded I find it almost unbearably moving. It actually upsets me to hear songs like Are You Here? and I'd Do It All Again - and just look at the lyrics to the title track:

So don't just stand there wishing life would fade away.
Don't you go around with anyone that makes you feel ashamed.

Goodbye Paradise...
I hope that someday you could try.
Goodbye... such a shame, that you'd give it all away.
Goodbye, goodbye.

I normally love a sad song but this... this is too raw. I know this is a record she had to make but I feel like I'm intruding. But I hope it is just me because on the strength of this record alone Bailey deserves the widest possible audience. An astonishing talent.

Does anyone else feel the same way about this album - or are there any other records you find too personal for comfort?

Ever get the feeling you know more about the next direction your favourite band should take than they do?

For instance, I know that what the world needs is an acoustic Neil Young and Crazy Horse album. No, really. Listen to Lotta Love and Look Out for My Love off of Comes a Time, or the Horse's beautiful harmonies on Pardon My Heart on Zuma. Of course every third album of his tends to be an acoustic one, but never with those players. Shame.

What career advice would you give to your favourite artist?

Over the years I've read and re-read Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head to the point where I know certain bits of it off by heart. I want to find out a bit more about how the songs were put together and recorded. Can anyone recommend any other good Beatle books along those lines? I've seen the The Beatles As Musicians books recommended elsewhere, but my grasp of musical theory is zero and I gather you have to be fairly well up on that stuff to get the most of them (plus they're very expensive on Amazon). Any other suggestions?

Someone posted here just a minute ago about how s/he wants to investigate certain artists but hasn't had the time yet, hasn't been grabbed by them so far or is struggling to overcome a blindspot in regard to those artists. I thought it was quite an interesting topic and tried to reply but the post had vanished!

Anyway since the poster mentioned R.E.M., Blur, The Smiths, Roxy and Nick Drake I made a little playlist for them showcasing what I feel is the best of those acts.

http://open.spotify.com/user/bossrc20/playlist/5G5sZ5ZbGsqt5cc0qvUfGT

R.E.M. - Country Feedback
Blur - This is a Low
Smiths - Please... Let Me Get What I Want
Nick Drake - River Man
Roxy Music - Streetlife

The first three choices attempt to disprove the conventional stereotype of those acts - so the R.E.M. one isn't jangly or whiny, the Blur one has no cheeky chappy chimney sweepness, and the Smiths one... well, it's still a bit depressing, but you can't picture Morrissey swinging gladioli to it.

As for the other Roxy and Drake choices... well, if you don't like those tracks, don't bother investigating any further.

Bet the OP will have magically reappeared by the time I post this.

I know there's enough sycophancy and back-slapping here as it is, but I've just had a powerful reminder of why I appreciate this site so much and thought I'd share it.

I've just posed a question on a guitar forum about whether I got a bad deal on a part exchange. The shop gave me £100 for my old amp, told me it would probably be sold on for £150, and now have it on display for £189. I asked the forum - in my first ever post - if I'd been cheated. Now, I don't mind being told I'm wrong. In fact, now I'm better informed I'll readily admit I have little grounds for complaint, especially as shops will often mark second hand gear up in the expectation of receiving a lower price. But what shocks is the sheer glee the other posters (many of whom displaying a lengthy list of vintage and modified guitar gear under their username like a badge of pride) have taken in telling me I'm wrong. One, 'Metalrulez', has told me to 'man up and move on'.

Hey, maybe I'm being thin-skinned. Maybe I should man up and move on from both my shop encounter and the guitar forum. But I can't help thinking if I'd had a similar experience, say, trying to offload my copy of Sade's Diamond Life at the record and tape exchange, I'd have had a more sympathetic response (even if it basically amounted to 'you're wrong') if I related it here.

So I was reminiscing on the "Great lesser known songs by really famous artists" thread about tracks by the House of Love and Morrissey that I adore but which never became well-loved parts of either artist's repertoire.

And the thing is, even I probably wouldn't like those songs if I heard them for the first time today. Yes I Am Blind by Morrissey struck a chord because I was going through a Kevin-the-Teenager phase and had just been dumped by a girl who happened to be a Christian. So when Moz sang "Little lamb on a hill, run fast if you can/Good Christians want to kill you and your life has not even begun", I thought - and this makes me cringe - "That's me that is."

But the song itself doesn't make me cringe - I still love it. And I just can't tell whether it's only because I'm still listening to it through my 17-year-old ears. Are the lyrics horribly trite? Does the song have appalling 80s production? I don't know, but I'd probably think so if I heard it for the first time on Spotify.

What songs can you not help liking but probably wouldn't stand if you heard them for the first time today? (And does anyone else actually like Yes I Am Blind?)