OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Into The Mystic.....

Have I just experienced the next great leap forwards in the way we access and listen to music? Whilst thumbing through the latest edition of The Word skimming the eulogies to John Martyn I came across a reference to Spotify. My interest piqued I signed up and sixty seconds later I am listening to whatever I can find that I fancy listening to. I can make up playlists for myself and even share them with like-minded acquaintances who can add their own suggestions. The free service is great with small adverts rearing their ugly heads every fifteen minutes to half an hour or so. Even then it appears that most of them are public service announcements. At the moment I'm listening to Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album (and a fine thing it is too) for free. Furthermore I can listen to it again and again – for free. Now apart from the fact that I haven't got any 'product' in my hands, no CD or LP cover, no CD, LP, cassette, mini disc or whatever, essentially I 'own' the music. The only thing I can't do with it is download it to play in the car or whatever. Mind you I could feed the output into my mini disc recorder and grab it in real time but that would smack too much of taping the Top Twenty when I was a kid.

I guess I could set up my mobile to use it as I get free unlimited Internet access on it, but I've never really adapted to listening to music through headphones whilst working and I probably won't be in the near future. It does make we wonder what the future holds for HMV on the high street though never mind the independents – if there are any left.

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It's amazing what a good PR person can do for a reputation in steep decline and no one can deny that Jade Goody's was in a steeper decline than most in the immediate aftermath of the Shilpa Shetty Celebrity Big Brother controversy. We saw the reality of shallow, ill-educated, sleb-obsessed wannabes resorting to type and the nation didn't like it. We even had questions in the House and the show's sponsors pulled the plug.

Goody knew she had killed the Golden Goose and a frantic rearguard action consisting of tearful, snotty interviews in which she apologised again and again and insisted she wasn't a 'racialist' time and time again was soon being broadcast every time you turned the TV or radio on. At the time it didn't seem to be doing the trick until Max Clifford stepped up to the plate. From then on the remorseless return of Jade Goody was on track. Would it be nasty to suggest that the cancer was turned into an opportunity to re-entrench the Goody brand even more and, who knows maybe attract new, pitying supporters? Would it? It's not much of an opportunity now though is it? Not now it's terminal. Still, at least Ms Goody has the nation on her side again.

Unhappily though that is not the end of the Goody media frenzy. We are now to be spectators at her very public death. Not only that, the tabloids are full of photographs of 'brave' Jade, her vacuous boyfriend and her horrific mother. The fact that she only has months to live was headline news on BBC Radio Five on Saturday morning. God knows what Lord Reith's doing in his grave but I'll wager he won't be giving the thumbs up.

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I was directed to a blog written by Boo Hewerdine in which he talks about a game he likes to play when he's on the road. You take a group's name (or an artist I suppose) and you drop one vowel from the name to make a new – better and funnier – name. The examples he comes up with are Chin Crisis, White Tripes, Tin Turner, Codplay, Airport Convention, Little Fat, The Lying Burrito Brothers, Take Hat and the truly exquisite Grateful Dad!

C'mon, can you improve on that?


Towards Manchester


Scout Moor


Trees and snow


Scout Moor triple exposure.

That's all folks!