It's Zhou Enlai who is most often credited with the comment about it being too early to tell about the impact of the French Revolution, though of course it's very possible that neither he nor Mao said it.

And of course you know that John Cage, not John Cale, wrote 4 minutes 33 seconds.

Regarding Orwell, I'm currently enjoying his diaries, published as a daily blog here: http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/
Here's yesterday's entry, in its entirety, from 1938:
"One egg."
(He's going through a rare quiet patch).

As a retired podiatrist, somewhat on his uppers, I think the idea that you could have me walking in to introduce my self (not as one of the youngest players to have featured in the final stages of a world cup ) as you enjoy your prawn sandwich, is great . I bet Norman gets to use better equipment at Old Trafford than I did in the NHS.

Ignore Hep's snide remarks, Matt - I'd rather have a wedge of Stilton than a bottle of champagne any day!

Laughing out loud all the way to work, thanks to Rob Fitzpatrick.

http://www.redflag77.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Hunter_(footballer)

"Hunter turned to the after-dinner circuit recounting his anecdotes, and since 1993 has worked for local station BBC Radio Leeds and Yorkshire Radio as a summariser at Leeds games. In 1998, the Football League, as part of its centenary season celebrations, included Hunter on its list of 100 League Legends. Hunter released his autobiography, Biting Talk, in 2004. He married Sue on 11 June 1968. They had a son and daughter and two grandchildren."

And I thought I knew nothing about football ...

Facebook will not allow me to sully your digital wall with my comments, so I'm doing it here. At least Myspace supplies you with a ready-made figure of hate (the ubiquitous Tom) upon whom frustrated users can project their gratuitously bloody torture fantasies when the site doesn’t work properly.

My choice of music to soundtrack the hypothetical Obama loss would be Joy Division's anguished Day of the Lords. In fact why not just play Unknown Pleasures in its entirety. They could have projected pre-recorded footage of Manchester on a wet Tuesday afternoon onto the big screens, and the defeated Democrats could have all had a thoroughly miserable time together.

Speaking personally, the only downside to the US election so far, is that I have been forced to mothball the most caustic protest song of recent years - Bright Eyes - When the President talks to God. It's a great song but one whose bitter sentiments were rendered obsolete the moment Obama was named President Elect.

The numerically ordered run down of band names was brilliant. When Top of the Pops makes its inevitable return to our screens the charts should be read out like the football scores. Also, there should be post-performance interviews with the band's managers.