This is Tim's record of growing up in a small town in Lincolnshire with the action mostly set in the late 70s and early 80s when he was aged 13-18. I thought this would be of interest to Word readers as Tim suddenly discovers popular music, subscribes to the NME and starts several bands (none of them famous). There are other teenage experiences of course but quite a lot is about the music.

I found it very readable and enjoyable, plus I'm of a similar age. To add to the nostalgia there are a few photos, illustrations and short lists of popular tunes on the radio at the time.

Has anyone listened to this one, "The Richest Man In Britain" ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nlx7p/The_Richest_Man_In_Britain...

It has an all star cast including Mark Williams (Fast Show, Harry Potter) and Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave and many others).

I wasn't laughing out loud, but I'll try another episode or 2 to see if it develops.

This article introduces Last.fm's "Most Unwanted Scrobbles" list (the tracks that users most frequently delete from their listening history on Last.fm).

The author does further dicing and slicing to try and uncover coolness or rather uncoolness:

http://musicmachinery.com/2009/07/01/the-coolness-index/

In his Bad Science Guardian column this week, Ben analyses recent press reports on the billions that illegal downloads are supposedly robbing the economy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/05/ben-goldacre-bad-sci...

I'm not sure if it's the rock influenced hairstyles or the similarity to that bad album cover site:

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Thanks to the Guardian for featuring it today (online).

I was listening to one of my tech podcasts today ("Cranky Geeks") and was alerted to the existence of various iPhone "cigarette lighter" apps. No one smokes these days, so you run this app and wave your iPhone around at concerts. Taking America by storm apparently. Anyone seen one at a gig?

http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/2007/08/20/iphone-rock-lighter/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/26/what-is-the-deal-with-this-stupid-l...

Other iPhone cigarette lighter apps available.

Having recently covered off podcasts (thanks for the Skeptics Guide recommendation - I've been enjoying that one), which other blogs do you read? How do you read them?

I use Google Reader from my iGoogle home page.

Here's some to get the ball rolling:
http://failblog.org - things that went wrong
http://www.lovelylisting.com - features actual photos that are supposed to promote properties for sale - amazing!
http://icanhascheezburger.com - "lolcats"
http://rolcats.com - cold war era lolcats
http://xkcd.com - cartoons for geeks
http://www.idiottoys.com - just discovered this one, which has a bizarre range of postings but some of them are sublime

David Hepworth and Andrew Collins also have nice blogs: lots of photos and not too much text which is how I like them!

Press a key for a Daft Punk soundbite:

http://www.najle.com/idaft/

Songs illustrated as graphs:

http://www.just-whatever.com/2009/02/18/musical-statistics/