I remember seeing, reprinted somewhere, a correction in a local newspaper. The original article noted the contribution of a couple of spinster sisters to the handicrafts section of a local show - a village or county fair. The correction read:

The article should have stated that the judges commended the Misses Smith for their display of 'smocking and rugs', and not 'smoking drugs'.

Any other favourite misreporting or misprints fom the Massive?

Whilst reading my sister's copy of 'Jackie' magazine during the mid 1970s - purely for research, you understand - I recall a news article about the transformation of a particular rock star, a member of a very popular group. The mag noted that this individual had previously sported glasses, a moustache/beard of notable luxuriance, lank hair, and had a very introverted stage mien. Recent photographic evidence indicated the emergence - chrysalis-style - of a contact lens-wearing, clean shaven, feather cut, open-necked and chain wearing butterfly. This was coupled with a greater stage presence.

The conclusion was along the lines of: phew girls! cop a load of this fella! A bit of a hunk, and no mistake!

Who has that newly desirable individual? His makeover coincided with the start of his group becoming more commercial, though he was not to see it through and left shortly thereafter.

Any other left-field sex symbols from the world of rock n'roll?

If I see a photo of myself wearing a Thin Lizzy t-shirt, I know that it was taken in the early summer of 1979. I bought it in Woolworths - there was a booth where you could get a blank t-shirt stencilled with the transfer of your choice. I got it the day after my first serious snog - in celebration as I recall.

It was my number one choice for only a short while - replaced in my wardrobe by a t-shirt commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Bowmore distillery. We went to Islay that summer.

A snap with me sporting the 'Blues Breakers' t-shirt I made in art class can be accurately dated according to whether the sleeves were intact or removed.

Does a favourite t-shirt connect you to a particular time and place?

Craig Brown wrote these great little three-line put-downs, viz:

Our children enjoyed pommes frites
Your children ate French fries
Their children stuffed themselves with chips

or

I built up a sound financial base to ensure my future independence
You sailed pretty close to the wind
He lined his pockets

Any Massive-friendly ones?

I have a catholic and diverse taste in music
You are willing to listen to different things
He doesn't know what he likes

I think the best country music walks a fine line. It flirts with the mawkish and sentimental, but doesn’t quite slip over.

About 15 years ago, someone gave me a tape of Iris DeMent’s ‘My Life’. I fell in love with it, and it is still one of my favourites. It does drop into the sentimental on a few tracks, but the majority tell simple stories of ordinary lives – frustration, love, loss, Friday night dances. Someone asked us a few weeks ago which albums are in our musical DNA – ‘My Life’ is definitely in mine.

So it was with some excitement that I bought her follow-up, ‘The Way I Should’. A scan of the track titles set some alarm bells going: ‘There is a Wall in Washington’, ‘Wasteland of the Free’. And yes – she’d turned political. It was awful. Overproduced, strident in parts, lacking in warmth. I have hardly played it since. The disappointment was too much.

Folks in the Midwest have a high incidence of reporting close encounters with UFOs. I sometimes think that a doppelganger made the follow up, whilst Iris, marooned on Omicron Persei 8, continues to write her lovely music.

Are there any Iris-heads out there? Should I try again with TWIS? I’m sure it’s been done here before, but any other examples where an artist you love has totally disappointed you with a follow-up?

And here is the lady herself – the opening track from ‘My Life’

Just wanted to share this headline from todays Yahoo news:

'A student has attacked a Hells Angels motorcycle gang with a puppy before escaping on a stolen bulldozer.'

That is all. It just made me smile.

Many years ago, when this internet thing was new to me, I needed a graphic to illustrate a presentation I was pulling together. This was to be shown at the launch of our new department. The image I was after, to highlight the concept that we were moving to a new era, was the one where we see several images side by side of the evolution of man – a chimp, a chimp on two legs brandishing a bone as a club and so on through to Homo erectus and finally a be-loinclothed modern man clutching a spear.

How was one to find this, though? I was not experienced in this kind of thing. My first thought – and many of you will be here before me – was to type in ‘Bronze record label’. This was rejected – I needed it to be linear and not circular. I recalled some advice about web searching – basically to keep the phrase short and with all the key words that you needed included.

Thus it was that on my work PC I searched for images using the phrase ‘Men becoming erect’.

Never has a back arrow been pressed so quickly.

Are there any combination of words for which you’d really not like to see/hear the results? ‘Shaun Ryder a cappella’, for instance?

It would appear that Terry Butcher has temporarily assumed canine form:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/30/diego-maradona-bitten-dog...

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m irritated by lyrics that don’t scan – specifically where the emphasis is awry.

You’ve written the music – and I’m assuming that generally it precedes the words – and you’re going to go to the trouble of recording it. Why, then, do you try and cram an ill-scanning word in instead of choosing another, better fitting one? Or, if the phrase is of such importance, save it intact for a tune where the emphasis fits the metre.

I mean, Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serrr-en-ge-tee` is kind of annoying, but I don’t listen to Toto much. My enjoyment of KT Tunstall’s great Other Side of the World, however, is definitely tempered because of her ty`-ered ex-cu-ses`. Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens has four – four! – mangled words in as many minutes.

I know it sounds like a grumpy old man thing. Sorry about that. But to me, a lyric that truly doesn’t scan shows a lack of craft.

If there's one album which I'd love to see reissued it's the 1972 self-titled album by Spring (or American Spring, as they were known outside the USA).

They comprised Brian Wilson's wife, Marilyn, and her sister, Diane Rovell. Brian produced the album. I've only heard those tracks which are on youtube, but they are really something special. Their take on Dennis Wilson's 'Forever' is, to my ears, even better than the Beach Boys version.

Other tracks like Sweet Mountain, Superstar and Tennessee Waltz (also on youtube) are equally lovely.

Does anyone, more knowledgable than me in these areas, know whether it's likely to become available anytime? Has anyone else been seduced by these few beautiful songs?

My college in London, in the early ‘80s, had a small but diverse record library – actually mostly cassette tapes (records were probably too fragile for the student hordes; CDs were yet to come). I won’t go as far to say that my musical tastes were formed there, but – gosh – they were certainly broadened. I’m sure their copy of Sandy Denny’s The North Star Grassman and the Ravens must have been rendered transparent by our flat’s primitive cassette recorder.

Later on, the record libraries at Edinburgh’s George IV Bridge, Hertford, and Hatfield’s central library were sources of rich pickings – not necessarily in rock/pop, which tended often to the mainstream, but classical, jazz and folk. What’s more, all for a modest fee, at a time when I wasn’t exactly flush.

Does anyone else share my gratitude for record libraries, and are there any particular gems you were exposed to therein?

George was always my favourite Beatle. Partly because he was the youngest and hence closest in age to me, partly because he looked so damn cool in the picture on the reverse of my sister’s mid-70s reissue of Hey Jude (they made it a hit, you know).

Mostly though, I think it was because he was the Quiet One. I was a bit quiet too – I liked my music and my books - and so I identified with him. Later too, I also felt more affinity with those more in the background – John Paul Jones say, or Richard Wright. I'm sure there are a few more examples you could name.

So were you like me, happy in the shadows? Or were you up front in your heads, with the alpha males and females, as John and Paul, Roger, Chrissie or Jimmy?

Further to the Best Of/Worst Of in this month's Word, those of us who grew up north of the border will recall that probably the most 'popular' music show in the 70's/80's was Thingummyjig. Popular in the sense that it was prime time on STV. Popular in no other sense, unless tartan kitsch, heedrum-hodrum music and ersatz barn dances are your thing.

Anyway, here, for your delectation, is today's Dylan cover version. 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight', by the one and only (please God) Flying Haggis.

A certain record came on the radio when I was in the car yesterday, and as usual I sang along (I was alone; no innocents were harmed).

It struck me afterwards that I had been singing along to the backing, not the main vocals. I guess that I must always have done so with this particular song, and I realised that there are a fair number of other songs where I do the same.

Any lip-reading onlooker would have been able to decipher that what was coming out of my mouth – I hesitate to use the word ‘singing’ – was:

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
Just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit,
Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit,
Just a just a just a just a just a just a just a just a just a little bit, just a little bit,
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
Re re re re re re re re re-spect, just a little bit, just a little bit
Sock it to me (x8), just a little bit (x6),
Re re re re re re re re re-spect, just a little bit, just a little bit” (to fade)

[Fraser, if this breaches copyright, feel free to delete!]

Am I the only one who sings along to the backing? Is this a measure of how good the backing vocals are on a particular track? Anyone else have any favourites?

There's a reference in this month's Best/Worst Love Songs to Adrian Gurvitz's 'Classic'. For those who have not read/heard it, Gurvitz rhymes 'classic' 'attic' and 'addict' in three consecutive lines. Nice going, Mr G!

This led me to ponder other examples of lyrics whose rhymes push the boundaries. Some do it on purpose - Squeeze being a prime example. Songs such as Labelled With Love use half-rhymes throughout (bottle/hovel etc) - carrying on in the tradition of poems like Louis Macneice's Bagpipe Music.

Others should know better (I'm talking to you here, Mr Dylan, with your 'light I never knowed/dark side of the road)*.

I'm particularly fond of Gary Byrd's 'The Crown' where he rhymes 'blink' and 'sphinx'. Huzzah!

Anyone else have any favourites?

* I'm steeled for the response from Zimmophiles telling me that any fule knows that this is a brilliant, if oblique, reference to Jack Kerouac/Blind Lemon Jefferson/Rimbaud, and not just a clumsy rhyme with 'road'