While I'm sure Stuart will have been grateful to Word for the plug for his new book, he won't thank you for the terribly unflattering photograph of him on page 77. He looks like he has just been caught by his wife/mother watching a porn video.

Good point about the pairs of "opposite" synonyms. NB English also has words such as "cleave" which can mean two opposite things: "to split" or "to adhere" (and also has 3 different past participles). Ah, language: my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl.

Smartly observed piece by Andrew Collins, with whom - and I'm either warmed or worried by the fact, I haven't yet decided - I used to disagree all the time, but now we seem to be not only singing from the same hymn sheet but holding hands in the vicarage. However, point one (thinking up the title on the way to the airport) could so easily be applied to the pirate radio piece, couldn't it? The Boat That Rocked? Oh dear. It's not even in the same league as The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Banged Some Students But It All Ended Up On Facebook How Very Embarrassing, is it?

sounds like she is in my living rooom ... would that she was!

but Mark and David ,as usual and as usual especially David, sound like they're outside shouting in.

I know its old ground, and I am fine with the folksy sound quality of the podcasts so long as I can actually hear it, but it does show that the sound can have high presence

So Fraser - what did you do to Kate that you didn't do to Mark and David

Tony

by this month's issue ? I know that the trend is for fewer articles of length/substance but the new issue features at least 9 articles which are simply lists/collections such as boring album sleeves, bastardise the classics, Oedipus wrecks, win at words, sorry I was miles away etc, in addition to the usual best/worst and 99% true. This sort of thing is quite fun on the website but doesn't really make a magazine (or at least, not all in the same magazine !).

Then there's an extract from Stuart Maconie's new book which I will buying anyway - wasn't he available to actually comment on the new book - that would have been a more interesting read ? I'm left thinking noone really wanted to talk to you last month, other than the Pet Shop Boys !

Be careful what you wish for Vince McHugh (Letters, April) -I think you just got your 'reduced quality' issue !

Sorry - I love you really, but you can't be perfect all the time...

Seems to have gone missing from both embedded link, and You Tube itself. Or is it just me ?

And it's back now !

But there is a bit of a resemblance, isn't there?

Mother Knows Best isn't about Richard Thompson's old dear, it's about Thatch. Hence;

"She got a zombie army to serve her well
She got a thousand bloodhounds from the gates of hell
She got a hundred black horses with sulphur and coal on their breath
And she rides the unbelievers down, mother knows best"

And yes, I'm sure he's aware that 'breath' and 'best' don't rhyme. And I'm pretty sure it should be "She's" rather than "She" too. Shoddy workmanship, frankly. I blame the parents.

During the last week i've found myself food shopping in a Sainsbury's and two CO-Ops,and thought,"i'll get "the Word" both have quite large magazine racks ,but neither had your mag.
Who are the regular stockists? Maybe i was just between publishing dates,and they had sold out? "Q",and "Mojo" were there (spits)

Thanks to Kate for her article on the Decemberists. They were a band I'd not heard before but follwing her article I had a quick trip to Spotify and was much impressed and am looking forward to the new album. Just a small point, though, they're "Child" ballads, not "child" ballads. The name is given to the songs collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. Although many of them are about children meeting a sticky end.

I'm with the comments of being a little disappointed with the current fanzine.

Great to see Bonamassa interviewed by the mighty Charles Shaar Murray. CSM even got through the interview without mentioning Hendrix.

Pet Shop Boys as entertaining as ever but............

I'm not sure if it's me being cranky or the fact that I miss Jude, but I find myself more and more irritated by Rob Fitzpatrick as every issue whizzes by.

He comes across as the sixth former spending a work experience with the big boys.

May just be me, may be a bad day, but I doubt it.

As a general comment, there seems to be a proliferation of list-type articles these days. I'm sure they're great fun to compile in the office, however it does seem a tad lazy.

Still a good read of course, however I am unsettled by references in articles by both Mr Hepworth and Mr Ellen to the notion of eating nuts at the end of a meal. I have never heard of this phenomenon before. Is it a recent thing? Surely the proper place for nuts is for guests to nibble over a glass of wine, prior to sitting down to eat?

the new issue, especially the 'Best Of Now' feature. Just one thing though, is the subscribers cover letter a thing of the past? I know it wasn't with the JM issue, but I haven't received it for a while!

...of the new Loney, Dear album – Dear John struck a pleasant chord. A very good piece of writing.

From Smash Hits onward I’m a product of the UK music press. My record collection strains at the seams with albums, singles and EPs that I first read about in some magazine or other; a sentence or a paragraph in a review that kindled a spark of interest and made me want to seek out the music that was being described.

The choice of in-car listening in the Medd household really is top-notch. I'm glad I'm not the only one to reject child-centric material when I'm driving.

Of course (old clip alert), this may be going too far: