Lovely song. Contains Sara Quin, theramin and cake.

...those Pan's People got involved in some weird stuff, but this takes the biscuit. What was he thinking of?

QUOTE: "I find television very educating.
Every time somebody turns on the
set, I go into the other room and
read a book"
~ Groucho Marks

I knew his cousin, Harpo Spencer.

...back from a rather exhausting weekend involving a trip from Cornwall to Cardiff with mountains of paperwork to win my Oz FPO what is thrillingly called by the UK Border Agency Indefinite Right to Remain, ie they won't chuck her out and put her on a plane to Brisbane (she passed, hurrah!), followed by two days in Lewes with my aged mother and a drive back to Cornwall. Can't think of anything better to soothe the soul than my current fave.

1755: The BBC's "newscopter" is on its way to Lewisham - so make sure you tune into the News Channel for live pictures of what's going on there.

Sorry if this has come up before, but I've been brooding over it for most of a 5-hr drive...

She's Not There by the Zombies popped up on the shuffle, on one of the rare occasions when the Dame allowed someone else to have a go. (Still a lot of work to do on Shuffle Probability Theory, IMHO.)

Great song, but oh, that instro break! A sudden tsunami of look-at-me electric piano noodlings, all over the place and nothing like what you want to hear. A great relief when he gets to that major chord and the song starts again. I thought Rod Argent was supposed to be good at that sort of thing?

That got me thinking about other ill-advised instrumental breaks in otherwise great songs. It's All Over Now comes to mind. A great chunk of Keef, but seems to belong in another song altogether - they swap that great loping beat for something much chunkier and four-square just to accommodate it.

Any other suggestions?

...he gets everywhere!

Since I'm guessing that at least some members of the Massive have indulged in the guilty pleasures of planespotting at some time in their lives, I thought you should know that they have been abolished. According to the brochure for the Royal International Air Tattoo, they are now called "aviologists", and seem to need the word "serious" attached...Serious aviologists will be able to enjoy "every twist and turn" for a whole six days for a mere £198. What are you waiting for?

If, like me, you have a sneaking fondness for Daryl Hall & John Oates, you may enjoy this:

http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/

Cheesy in places, and a bit Daryl-centric, but also hours and hours of great musicians doing their thing and having a ball.

Can I commend this impassioned slice of autobiography to the Massive?

http://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/2010/11/living-all-way-through-rock-...

He may be a bit off beam on the subject of Humble Pie, and I could trump him here and there, but otherwise, spot on.

...this has come up before, I'm sure, but nothing seems to have happened in the meantime. Renewed my subscription yesterday, and as a result sent the following email:
Just to say the the sneaky opt-in tick after 5 opt-out ticks on your renewal page is very dodgy indeed, and unworthy of a fine magazine. Please sort it!

Got the following, er, response this morning:
Thank you for your email regarding Jamie magazine. We welcome feedback from our customers to enable us to improve our service and would like to thank you for taking the time to contact us with your comments, which have been taken into consideration. If you have any further problems or queries please do not hesitate to contact us for further assistance. Kind regards

Notice that we suddenly seem to be talking about a different mag altogether. Notice the complete lack of engagement with the issue. I think we're talking brushoff here, aren't we?

...It really doesn't get any better, just been watching 3 great great singers doing their thing - catch it on iPlayer before it disappears.

Thought the Massive might enjoy this site, http://sideshowalley.tv/ - rootsy, Word-friendly acoustic music brilliantly filmed in one take in various Melbourne back alleys. Midlake are the only ones I've ever heard of, but all good. The metal band playing acoustic for the first time ever and way out of their comfort zone are particularly enjoyable.

http://www.nme.com/news/led-zeppelin/52675

For that sort of money, I think I'd want a Les Paul thrown in. Anybody tempted?

Can I commend this wonderful thing to the Massive if nobody's done so? Every year the Oxford American magazine (that's Oxford, Mississippi) does a music issue with a CD attached. This year's is actually a double CD, one devoted just to Arkansas music - a total of 53 tracks of Southern soul, country, r&b goodness from the past 50 years with a whacked-out intro from Lucinda Williams (the way she says Arkansas is almost worth the admission price on its own). It's an amazing mixture of the half-familiar (Bukka White, Billy Lee Riley, Baby Washington, Sleepy LaBeef, Sonny Burgess) and the definitely not (Johnny & Dolores, the Windbreakers(!), Bobby Brown and the Curious, Little Bob & the Lollipops and the Gunbunnies). It costs just south of 14 quid to have it sent to the UK - a bargain, especially since the mag contains great writing about every single track. You could probably [ahem] get the music on a torrent near you, but then you wouldn't get the mag and that would be a shame, because it's definitely a keeper.

More details here including how to buy a copy: http://bit.ly/1f7vNd