NOW, THAT'S A SHOCKER: Avon and Somerset police have dropped the porn investigation against [prominent anti-war protester] 3D from Massive Attack. Now, it is possible that they've had his computer searched in the lab, but since we've heard that the forensic porn-seeking labs are under massive strain due to Operation Ore, we'd be very surprised if they'd had a chance to do so. We suggested there was a funny smell when he was arrested; now, we're having to burn incense and hold damp handkerchiefs over our mouths.

WE'VE HAD LOTS OF LETTERS: Most of which are offering us the chance to loose weight, but amongst them was this, from Alan of the The Friday Thing, on the subject of the that Avril cover:
I got distracted by torturing myself with the thought of the editorial meeting where someone said "No, seriously, fellows: let's put Lavigne on the cover!" to a chorus of approval -- "*that* is *genuinely* subversive"; "yeah - put the wind up the indie boys"; "it's so wrong, it's *right!"; "our research indicates this will spendify more units in this important quarter" and so on. Did you ever watch those sketches in The Armando Ianucci Show where suggestible TV execs would dance around their office singing "we're so good at tell-y"? That was more or less how my dispiriting reverie ended.

SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR A SOUTH CAROLINA GIG: We can only assume that was what prompted Evan Dando and his foul mouthed tirade against Bush. What the Dixie Chicks may view as a career screw-up would probably be a froth of welcome attention for Dando. He’s probably thinking “If they want to smash my records on Main Street, USA, at least they’ll have to buy them first…”

OBVIOUSLY NEEDED SPACE FOR THE EGO: Despite being reduced to playing Las Vegas – where, lest we forget, Elvis ate, Chandler’s Dad put the Blur into Burlesque and The Host ended up the enforced guest, Celine Dion is still coming on the Diva. For her stint of keeping people interested between games of craps, she’s insisting on a huge dressing room. Celine, honey, they’ve put you in a stable…

BLUE MAN WANTS GREEN MAN: Apparently, the never-quite-rolling Lee Ryan from Blue is now going round telling all and sundry he wants to have sex with an alien. Good news for those immigrants heading for the UK who aren’t that fussy, then.

WANGLERS: Texas born band claims Texas born president makes them ashamed to be from Texas. So how does South Carolina decide it has a moral right to insist on a free Dixie Chicks gig by way of recompense? Will they also be trying to get Blur along, too? "That Mark Thomas - he's called the president a nitwit; let's make him come down and clean the courthouse windows..."

BONO TAKES A STAND: Mr. Bono makes speech praising George Bush a few hours before his ole' chum starts bombing people. Irish Abroad reports "Bono shied away from mentioning President Bush’s U.S. address announcing the Iraq war, which was broadcast only two hours before. “Instead I’m going to talk about what I know about,” he said, before appealing to the U.S. to launch a war on poverty after the war on terrorism has ended. So, not unlike our own dear Claire Short, then, in adopting the 'if I pretend the dropping of ordinance isn't happening, I can be first on the block to rebuild the nation' self-justification. But lets focus on what Bono claims to know about, and his praise for Bush's part in the war on HIV - yes, Bush did send more funds to AIDS related work overseas, but let'as not forget that his administration blocked attempts to make HIV-fighting drugs cheaper by lifting the patents on them for the developing world, and, by forcing overseas workers to choose between Federal Funding and supporting abortion, managed to scupper a lot of safer sex education work being done on the ground. I think that really deserves our admiration and applause, doesn't it, Mr. Bono?

FRIT-WATCH: A semi-regular column of celebs running away from 'war' - further contributions welcome to FrankieSaysWarHideYourself@bothsidesnow.co.uk.
Obviously, Kelly Osbourne pulled out of the Brat Awards almost before Saddam had risen to power in Iraq. Now, we add Tenacious D, who've lifted their skirts and run away screaming lest the fighting in the Middle East spills over to affect their current tour of, erm, Scandanavia. Meanwhile, Blindside have also disappointed literally two or three fans by cancelling their plane tickets to Europe and descending into a hut made from plastic and gaffer tape for the duration of hostilities. We're no fans of US smart technology, but if they do somehow dismantle the Glasgow Cathouse, Blindside will be pleased they risked ridicule by pulling their tour. Otherwise, yeah, they're just going to be ridiculed.

AND WE THOUGHT JAY ASTON'S SKIRT COMING OFF WAS RACY: Tatu have been chosen to represent Russia at this year's Eurovision song contest, which must have made virtually every other nation groan. And, probably, means that Moscow will be left to pick up the tab for the 2004 finals. We're especially looking forward to Terry Wogan having to commentate on the girl's performance which, judging by their career arc to date, is almost certain to include a strap on and the shouting of the word "We're lesbians, us, you know."

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: No cock and roll fun edition
Due to last week’s intermittent internet access, there was no Pop Papers - for those of you who print these out, laminate each and then save them in their wipe-clean glory for all eternity, you might want to record that last week’s NME had Oasis on the cover and wrote about them like they mattered. It also had a report on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs London gig. The audience, it was noted, turned up in smart clothes and ties, which seems to us to be missing the point, or merging the rules, or something. We don’t know for certain, it just feels wrong.

Also last week, Mel C told readers of Now that she’d rather die than endure a Spice Girls reunion, which suggests only the prospect of a massive tax bill will get them back together. And Britney told Glamour the truth about her and Justin, even while Dannii Minogue was telling OK the truth about *her* and Justin. Justin was being feted by the Face, and presumably telling the truth about his life of shamefull masturbation. We’re not sure about The Face leading with Timberlake - nice chap and all, but they reckon he’s the King of Pop. More the haemophiliac prince, we’d suggest.

But there’s a long way between getting it confused and getting it very, very wrong indeed. And so we turn first to Heat - which claims “Geri: i had sex with a woman” as an exclusive (admittedly, it’s the only weekly entertainment magazine with a general listings section to have carried the story that’s been on Howard Stern, every website and everywhere else) - we’ve said elsewhere how sad we feel that she’s still trying to tie herself to any and every bandwagon in town, and it’s funny how her pisspoor temporary Tatu echoes the Guardian review’s sniffy dismissal of Placebo fans as the sort who ‘experimented with bisexuality once at a teenage party.’

Also with lady trouble, though, is the new NME. It’s done - hold still for this - a Women in Rock issue. When Bust do it (although more as a Rock in the women angle), it at least makes sense. When Rolling Stone does it, you know its more an excuse to get some bikinis on the front page (like they need an excuse) under the guise of A feminist Examination. But the nme? It held off doing Women In Rock issues when they were apt, sneered when they were cheesey, and so it goes and blows it by doing an article themed round the ovarian tract. In 2003. Jane Solanas must be spinning in her grave, or wherever she is now. Women In Rock? How is it the ‘me can pretend to celebrate the ladies, when week in, week out, what’s noticeable is how few of the On/Hot New Bands are all male affairs; something in the order of ninety percent of the musicians featured in Bring It On come cock-prepared; that it chooses to applaud women in rock when there are precious few women in the nme. Always a token gesture, the whole project comes off as little more than a half-hearted attempt to redress the balance. And, to top it off, in a world where you have the pick of Peaches, Miss Kittin, Pink, Princess Superstar, Shirley Manson, Eve, Missy; with this choice of covers, they go for...

Avril Lavigne.

If you could stop giggling at the back, we’ll rush through the news - there’s a report on the anti-war gig, a considered interview with Mike D of the Beasties about their new anti-war single; a fair amount of criticism levelled at Noel Gallagher for his dimwitted shruggage at the anti-war protests; two pages on Serj Tankian and Tom Morello’s Axis of Justice anti-war campaign, a consideration of Madonna’s anti-war bid and Peter Whitehead’s championing of an Iraqi boyband. Do you get the sense that building an issue on the claims ‘girls are everywhere’ might have missed a trick to create a genuinely topical and controversial themed edition?

Hot Hot Heat create a cd from bits and pieces - The Beatles, The Push Kings, David Bowie (Five Years)

Interestingly, just seconds before kicking off it’s totally girl editorial, they find space for a lookalike - “look! jo Brand is fat! So is Kelly Osbourne! Teehee!” - which probably shows up the issue for the hollow demographic chasing that it is.

So, the justification for the WIR special is that “girls are everywhere” - clearly, this must come as something of a shock to the exclusively Eton-educated boys who write the paper - you can imagine the surprise as someone looked up from the census reports saying “nearly half of the world are ladies” in a mix of surprise and terror. So, here’s their list of women - neatly, all are pigeonholed under a heading, which again isn’t entirely progressive: The heroine - karen o; the pin-up - avril lavigne; the mouth - kelly osbourne; the subversives - tatu (this, of course, would mean Jordan is Che Fucking Guervara); the superstar - pink; the siren - vv; the sex terrorist - peaches; the sweetheart - meg white; the innovator - missy elliot; and the activisit - of course Ms Dynamite, the “non-packaged voice of the streets”, it says here, praising her for not stripping a la christina next to, erm, a picture of her legs akimbo in a ripped-beneath-the-knockers-top.

Presumably Ladytron have been featured this week because they’re called LADYtron, you see? Danny is emphatic they don’t have any robotic bullshit going on onstage.

Lisa Maffia claims she’s married to all forty-five of so solid crew, which marks her out as being different by having a sense of humour, as much as anything else.

The big event, of course, is Avril Lavigne. She’s real, and she’s determined to prove it: “Do you think three adults came up with Sk8r Boi when it was based on my high school experiences?” Erm... frankly, yes. Otherwise why would they get such a huge slice of the royalties? And it’s not like the story is very unusual or unexpected - it’s no more unlikely three blokes wrote it than Joss Weedon creating the high school vampire metaphor of Buffy, or even aaron spelling cooking up Beverley Hills 90210. “All the other rock chicks are all sweet and innocent, but I smash guitars in my videos, I say ‘fuck’ in my interviews, because that’s the attitude I’ve always had.” It’s a pose, Avril. People who really smash and swear aren’t aware they’re doing it. They don’t worry about not singing ‘fuck’ because mummy will hear the song. It’s all a pose.

Charlotte Hatherley’s top female hellraisers don’t include Avril, oddly enough - they are Bjork, Chrissie Hynde, Elastica, Kim Gordon, Kim Deal, PJ Harvey, Courtney and, erm, Kelly Osbourne.

reviews
lp
aphex twin - 26 mixes for cash - “more valuable than ever”, 8
placebo - sleeping with ghosts - “outmoded rock band in an attempt to modernise themselves”, 5
the cardigans - long gone before daylight - “flourishes sparse enough to let the songs bloom”, 8

singles
sotw - hot hot heat - bandages - “you can dance... you’ll be crying too”
harry - under the covers ep - “there should be more pop stars like Harry”
the d4 - ladies man - “a fine racket”

live
the thrills - london ulu - “rejoice”
ac/dc - new york roseland ballroom - “no surprises. that’s the point.”
placebo - london astoria - “Brian is doing us a favour”

and finally, The Works asks Jack osbourne “how did you get into A&R” - the answer he gives isn’t the honest “Duh, Daddy and Mummy.”

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: No cock and roll fun edition
Due to last week’s intermittent internet access, there was no Pop Papers - for those of you who print these out, laminate each and then save them in their wipe-clean glory for all eternity, you might want to record that last week’s NME had Oasis on the cover and wrote about them like they mattered. It also had a report on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs London gig. The audience, it was noted, turned up in smart clothes and ties, which seems to us to be missing the point, or merging the rules, or something. We don’t know for certain, it just feels wrong.

Also last week, Mel C told readers of Now that she’d rather die than endure a Spice Girls reunion, which suggests only the prospect of a massive tax bill will get them back together. And Britney told Glamour the truth about her and Justin, even while Dannii Minogue was telling OK the truth about *her* and Justin. Justin was being feted by the Face, and presumably telling the truth about his life of shamefull masturbation. We’re not sure about The Face leading with Timberlake - nice chap and all, but they reckon he’s the King of Pop. More the haemophiliac prince, we’d suggest.

But there’s a long way between getting it confused and getting it very, very wrong indeed. And so we turn first to Heat - which claims “Geri: i had sex with a woman” as an exclusive (admittedly, it’s the only weekly entertainment magazine with a general listings section to have carried the story that’s been on Howard Stern, every website and everywhere else) - we’ve said elsewhere how sad we feel that she’s still trying to tie herself to any and every bandwagon in town, and it’s funny how her pisspoor temporary Tatu echoes the Guardian review’s sniffy dismissal of Placebo fans as the sort who ‘experimented with bisexuality once at a teenage party.’

Also with lady trouble, though, is the new NME. It’s done - hold still for this - a Women in Rock issue. When Bust do it (although more as a Rock in the women angle), it at least makes sense. When Rolling Stone does it, you know its more an excuse to get some bikinis on the front page (like they need an excuse) under the guise of A feminist Examination. But the nme? It held off doing Women In Rock issues when they were apt, sneered when they were cheesey, and so it goes and blows it by doing an article themed round the ovarian tract. In 2003. Jane Solanas must be spinning in her grave, or wherever she is now. Women In Rock? How is it the ‘me can pretend to celebrate the ladies, when week in, week out, what’s noticeable is how few of the On/Hot New Bands are all male affairs; something in the order of ninety percent of the musicians featured in Bring It On come cock-prepared; that it chooses to applaud women in rock when there are precious few women in the nme. Always a token gesture, the whole project comes off as little more than a half-hearted attempt to redress the balance. And, to top it off, in a world where you have the pick of Peaches, Miss Kittin, Pink, Princess Superstar, Shirley Manson, Eve, Missy; with this choice of covers, they go for...

Avril Lavigne.

If you could stop giggling at the back, we’ll rush through the news - there’s a report on the anti-war gig, a considered interview with Mike D of the Beasties about their new anti-war single; a fair amount of criticism levelled at Noel Gallagher for his dimwitted shruggage at the anti-war protests; two pages on Serj Tankian and Tom Morello’s Axis of Justice anti-war campaign, a consideration of Madonna’s anti-war bid and Peter Whitehead’s championing of an Iraqi boyband. Do you get the sense that building an issue on the claims ‘girls are everywhere’ might have missed a trick to create a genuinely topical and controversial themed edition?

Hot Hot Heat create a cd from bits and pieces - The Beatles, The Push Kings, David Bowie (Five Years)

Interestingly, just seconds before kicking off it’s totally girl editorial, they find space for a lookalike - “look! jo Brand is fat! So is Kelly Osbourne! Teehee!” - which probably shows up the issue for the hollow demographic chasing that it is.

So, the justification for the WIR special is that “girls are everywhere” - clearly, this must come as something of a shock to the exclusively Eton-educated boys who write the paper - you can imagine the surprise as someone looked up from the census reports saying “nearly half of the world are ladies” in a mix of surprise and terror. So, here’s their list of women - neatly, all are pigeonholed under a heading, which again isn’t entirely progressive: The heroine - karen o; the pin-up - avril lavigne; the mouth - kelly osbourne; the subversives - tatu (this, of course, would mean Jordan is Che Fucking Guervara); the superstar - pink; the siren - vv; the sex terrorist - peaches; the sweetheart - meg white; the innovator - missy elliot; and the activisit - of course Ms Dynamite, the “non-packaged voice of the streets”, it says here, praising her for not stripping a la christina next to, erm, a picture of her legs akimbo in a ripped-beneath-the-knockers-top.

Presumably Ladytron have been featured this week because they’re called LADYtron, you see? Danny is emphatic they don’t have any robotic bullshit going on onstage.

Lisa Maffia claims she’s married to all forty-five of so solid crew, which marks her out as being different by having a sense of humour, as much as anything else.

The big event, of course, is Avril Lavigne. She’s real, and she’s determined to prove it: “Do you think three adults came up with Sk8r Boi when it was based on my high school experiences?” Erm... frankly, yes. Otherwise why would they get such a huge slice of the royalties? And it’s not like the story is very unusual or unexpected - it’s no more unlikely three blokes wrote it than Joss Weedon creating the high school vampire metaphor of Buffy, or even aaron spelling cooking up Beverley Hills 90210. “All the other rock chicks are all sweet and innocent, but I smash guitars in my videos, I say ‘fuck’ in my interviews, because that’s the attitude I’ve always had.” It’s a pose, Avril. People who really smash and swear aren’t aware they’re doing it. They don’t worry about not singing ‘fuck’ because mummy will hear the song. It’s all a pose.

Charlotte Hatherley’s top female hellraisers don’t include Avril, oddly enough - they are Bjork, Chrissie Hynde, Elastica, Kim Gordon, Kim Deal, PJ Harvey, Courtney and, erm, Kelly Osbourne.

reviews
lp
aphex twin - 26 mixes for cash - “more valuable than ever”, 8
placebo - sleeping with ghosts - “outmoded rock band in an attempt to modernise themselves”, 5
the cardigans - long gone before daylight - “flourishes sparse enough to let the songs bloom”, 8

singles
sotw - hot hot heat - bandages - “you can dance... you’ll be crying too”
harry - under the covers ep - “there should be more pop stars like Harry”
the d4 - ladies man - “a fine racket”

live
the thrills - london ulu - “rejoice”
ac/dc - new york roseland ballroom - “no surprises. that’s the point.”
placebo - london astoria - “Brian is doing us a favour”

and finally, The Works asks Jack osbourne “how did you get into A&R” - the answer he gives isn’t the honest “Duh, Daddy and Mummy.”

COUPLES WHO LOVE TOO MUCH: We're sorry to bring this up at lunchtime, but we're alarmed by Catherine Zeta-Jones paying a small fortune to praise Celine Dion in a full-page Variety Ad. It was bad enough last week when Michael Douglas used the paper to trumpet his love for Zeta-Jones, but now it's just getting ridiculous. Firstly, if you or I took out an advert in a paper saying "Oooh, Britney [let's say] we love you and can't wait to see you in the flesh", we'd be arrested as a stalker and - quite rightly - detained under various pieces of legislation. More importantly - are Zeta-Zones and Douglas now going to have adverts about everything they love, like some sort of hugely resourced Year Three work book? Will I open The Guardian tomorrow to see "Cheese sandwiches with prawn cocktail crisps inside them - absolutely brilliant - Michael", or half way through Corrie will Catherine appear, gesturing outside the window and saying "Isn't it a lovely day, today?" Or, worse yet, will Variety readers have to turn over quickly lest Douglas lists all the things Catherine did last night that made him feel like a man half his age (and, by extension, merely a man twice as old as his wife)?
And then: Celine Dion? If I had taste like that, I wouldn't be keen to let all of Hollywood know. I'd be trying to take out an injuction stopping it from leaking out.

"VINDALOO... VINDALOO. YES, THAT SONG REALLY SPEAKS TO MY SOUL": Can it really be true that Ceefax, rushing to report the death of Alan Keith, 94 year old presenter of Radio 2's Your Hundred Best Tunes, got muddled up and raised everyone's hopes by reporting the death of Keith Allen, the 'force' behind Fat Les instead?

SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST OF HEARING WORD: The shit-eating damage limitation effort launched into by the Dixie Chicks seems to be having little or no effect, to judge by Google News' listing of DixChix related coverage in the world's media. In the last few hours, loads more stories have been run about reaction to the outrage - and, indeed, stories about the original anti-bush comments are still appearing; it's been four days since a story appeared built around their desperate attempt to salvage the situation. Really, the best the band can hope for is a sudden, messy start to the war so that everyone forgets them.
We just hope nobody attacks The Cranberries in all the confusion.

RIAA THROWS WEIGHT AROUND. AGAIN: Hey, CEO - what are you doing? Fretting over how to keep your company going while shares tank? Planning for what to do if a huge dirty bomb knocks out your head office? Ensuring your staff are happy and enthusiastic? Forget that shit, man - the RIAA wants you to ensure your workers aren't - yes - stealing music. The latest threatening letter from Rosen and her buddys has been sent out to companies with computers, and has resulted in a lot of big businesses getting a bit pissed with the tactics. The Information Technology Association of America has slammed the idea that businesses should be piddling about "chasing half a dozen employees who like to trade old Rolling Stones songs." Oddly, the Association reckons that copyright owners can "collect up to USD150,000 per song copied" - really? They're really claiming they'd charge, say, a healthcare company a million dollars or so if they found four Beatles songs and a full ELO ep on a machine in their offices? Why don't the RIAA just go the whole hog and send fat men in suits to smash stuff in offices grunting a warning "if we find so much as a men without hats MP3 here next time, we won't be so careful with what we destory... capiche?" Bullies.

ROCK RATING: MINUS TWO, AND FALLING: We thought the very idea of Kelly Osbourne flogging Doritos was bad enough, but... really - have you seen the spots? Poorly scripted, ill-concieved and woodenly acted. She just looks bored by the whole concept. It's one thing to be a dancing bear, but to be a bear dancing to the tune of pub rock act is shame indeed.

WORSE THAN PARENT'S NIGHT: Being a parent can be great - when you get old and nuts, you have people obliged to look after you; plus, you can perform bizarre psychological experiments on your offspring; even sell them to Michael Jackson for a tidy profit. But there is a downside - you find yourself constantly having to attend Football matches of no consequence, parent's evenings, even nativity plays. Still, at least most parents don't have to put up with the horror that some Sheffield Parents are having to endure - whereas most get off with twenty minutes of Year Five doing a truncated performance of Grease, they're having to endure an Eric Clapton set for school funds. I'll bet there's parents wishing they'd double-bagged the condoms tonight...

SARAH NIXEY. PVC TROUSERS. NICE: Justin Fun tripped off down to the Mean Fiddler to see Black Box Recorder. He reported back. It makes us jealous, but we're trying to be brave:

It was the first time I'd been to the Mean Fiddler venue, and despite my natural prejudice against all things mean fiddlery it's a nice place - fairly plush (£3.10 for a warm can of Grolsch though). The surprise (to me, anyway) and welcome support act was Clang - Donna Elastica's new band. Once I'd stopped wondering "is that really her? but she looks so young..." and started listening to the music I really enjoyed it. The sound is somewhere between PJ Harvey and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which admittedly may just be another way of saying that they sound like Elastica - Pink Flag still clearly spends a lot of time on Donna's turntable. Fun stuff nonetheless - spiky guitar and an debate-inducingly androgynous (girl, we think) bass player. Isn't it nice when you go to a gig and the support band alone justifies the trainfare?

Black Box Recorder took to the stage to Sham 69's 'Hersham Boys' (you know that bit in the Simpsons where a slacker student is asked 'are you being ironic, man?' and replies 'I don't even know anymore'? - I think much of Luke Haines' life must be like that).Haines & Moore were in white suits & ties, while Sarah Nixey wore red pvc trousers and a T-Shirt which superimposed Winston Churchill over a Union Jack with the subtitle: 'Life is unfair' - BBR to the point of self parody, which is probably the point. The set covered the whole of their career - surprisingly heavy on songs from 'England Made Me' given their recent disco leanings, although there was plenty of room for more danceable numbers ('School Song, 'Being Number One' and 'Andrew Ridgely' livened things up nicely). Luke Haines doesn't say much, except to call for a minutes silence for Adam Faith (unobserved), and to steal the show by keeping all the best lines for his backing vocals (his "OK, Hello" in 'The New Diana' is the funniest thing all night). The evening ends with a downbeat 'Girl Singing In the Wreckage', an odd choice for an encore, but it winds things down nicely enough. After all, where other bands strive for honesty and passion, BBR make a virtue of irony and detachment - they wouldn't want to send us home over-excited, would they?

SENSITIVITY TRAINING: While we like nothing better than having a giggle at the expense of Micahel Jackson, we thought it was odd that Comic Relief thought it appropriate to include a joke in the Rowan Atkinson/Lenny Henry Bashir/Jacko spoof sketch along the lines of "It's okay my Dad hit me, that's how i learned to go 'Owwww'", especially since, erm, it was followed immediately by a short film about how shit domestic violence is. Whoops.

MIRROR, MIRROR, MON DIEU...: Who on earth would care enough about Dollar being voted out of Reborn In The USA to be motivated to send death threats to Sonia? [For historical reasons alone, we should point out that 'our' Sonia came back after her original flouncing out of the contest, and went on to beat Dollar in the viewer's vote.] We can only think of one person who'd really be that bothered...
Still, David - you've always got the chip shop to fall back on... maybe Masterchef beckons?

CALLED TO ACCOUNT: The BPI is getting really pissed off with BT, not because you have to pay for directory enquiries from a phone box (wasn't that meant to be free in return for their not having to put phone books in them?) but because BT haven't sat down to talk about illegal filesharing with them. But, erm, why should they? The BPI might enjoy driving around with the police on raids and pretending that they're a law enforcement agency, but they're not. They're a glorified Chamber of Commerce; they don't have any constitutional role to play; the BPI should not presume to charge around calling people to account. There's police and courts to do that. Perhaps BT might want to talk to them about their problems, but they're certainly not obliged to do so.

GERI HALLIWELL RUNS AFTER THE BUS SHOUTING 'LET ME ON': Not only did dannii Minogue make a ham-fisted attempt to clamber onto the Tatu slipstream - vague lesbionic gestures to keep the men frothy during her appearance on the Pops last week - but now, unsurprisingly, here's Geri Halliwell doing pretty much the same thing. We shouldn't be surprised - she did after all last week try to claim that she was an all American girl, erm, only from Britain. The best part of her Miss Selfridge Sapphism was her description of the girl she had her drunken fumble with: "I don't think the girl was a real lesbian." Honey, we don't think she was a real girl, do we? "I don't think she was a real lesbian - she had a penis and was called Derek."

HE COULD SILENCE THREE SETS OF PARENTS FOR THAT: More money woes for Michael Jackson, as the court finds against him in the Millennium Eve cancellation case, suggesting he lobs three million dollars by way of recompense. We suspect that if half of the chatter about jacko's financial problems is true, Marcel Avram is going to have whistle for the cash - or, at the very least, send a couple of heavies in to stand outside and go "yooo-hooo."

FAN CLUB FAN CLUB: Phil Scowen caught up with Teenage Fanclub when their not-quite-a-comeback tour made it to Japan...

Teenage Fanclub came to Tokyo earlier this month and sold out two nights at the Liquid Rooms in Shinjuku (this makes them a bigger draw than Suede and Badly Drawn Boy here, but not as popular as Lavigne, Beck or the Stones) so they kindly agreed to add a date at the Blitz in Akasaka, a larger venue, at the end of the tour, a result for me as I finish early on Saturdays and could go.

Who could resist these guys, ageing gracefully as they are and slipping into their warm, cosy songs? Norman smiled all night, chatting to the crowd, giving love. Raymond to his right looked more serious, maybe nervous even and Gerry, on bass, on Norm's left, was, I would venture, the coolest, the slimmest, wandering back to stand next to his amp sometimes. The guys are on about their third drummer now, I think this one is called Francis. The keyboardist, too, is one I haven't seen before. The three mainmen guys each sang a selection of a few of their lovelorn and in-love songs, pretty much taking turns all night.

They were in form that night the Fanclub, playing for about 80 minutes, roaming backward and forward through their back catalogue as they are supporting their compilation album at the moment. Their songs are so short to the point, and all are full of love. The sound in the Blitz was crystal as the guys' harmonies, when they got going, seemed to go on for miles and stretch away into the fug and smog of Tokyo, cutting through the haze. "Ain't That Enough" had magic in its bones on Saturday night and "Don't Look Back" did too. There were endearing little mistakes when their sampler machine chugged out the intro to "I Don't Want Control Of You" too early. Nobody grumbled. Song after song after song after song chimed out sweetly - "Mellow Doubt", "About You", "Metal Baby", "Planets", "Radio", all quality pop - and the almost sold-out Blitz loved it. The encore was about five songs long and finished with "Everything Flows". Happy night, glorious songs, top band.

QUITE POSSIBLY THE GREATEST RECORD IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD - BOTH PAST AND FUTURE: Thanks to Martin W for pointing us in the direction of the Amazon reviews of David Hasselhoff's best of. "I am ready for another snatch, an aural glimpse of the larynx of the Lord"; "David, you have slain this goliath with your extraoridinary musical talent." The public have spoken. They have annointed a new God.

THE FIRST RETREAT OF THE WAR: Just when we were starting to warm to the Dixie Chicks, they went and spoiled it - and not only withdrew their remarks about Bush, but issued a gooey, 'please like us' apology of a "As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect. We are currently in Europe and witnessing a huge anti-American sentiment as a result of the perceived rush to war. While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children and American soldiers' lives are lost. I love my country. I am a proud American" nature. Obviously the words of a band desperately worried about their sales. Just for a moment, we thought we'd seen a spine.

CATCH THE 'HEAD. OH, TOO LATE: Radiohead announce first UK tour in six years, sell out tour. Never mind, better luck in 2009...

'OFTEN GRUMPY AND LOOKS LIKE A STRANGE GIRL': Thats how Q TV are describing the impness of pervo that is Brian Molko at the moment. You can ask him if he minds, or anything else, when Placebo do a live webchat tonight for Radio One. And because it's the BBC, you can go down and gawk at them typing through the windows of Bush House. If you're in London. Of course. Don't you just love new technology?

STOP CRYING YOUR HEART OUT: Noel Gallagher has rubbished anti-war protests as pointless, and in a wonderful example of shrugging off the horrors of the world conceded that Blair is following a half-wit into war but reckons “politics is like football” and you don’t change your team just because you “don’t like the striker.” Even if the analogy of politics and football worked, dimwit, you’ll find that when their team behaves in a way they think is wrong, true fans reluctantly turn their backs on the team. Think Wimbledon’s botched move to Milton Keynes; Maxwell’s attempt to merge Reading and Oxford; the disaster wrought at Brighton during the final Goldstone years. Sure, you support your team, but only a sheep follows without question.

WHY FLIER WHEN YOU CAN GET THE NME TO DO YOUR JOB?: NME asks What are the best indie clubs in the UK?; every provincial promoter opens at least three YahooMail accounts under false names. These two events could be connected.

NOT SO SOON AFTER THORA, SURELY: Bad news that Johnny Cash is back in hospital, with pneumonia - not, we hope, that scary new pneu that Fox News is wetting itself about in between briefings from the Pentagon.

COMMUNICATIONS (BILL) BREAKDOWN: Simon Tyers - think Andy Marr, but less frightening to behold unexpectedly - has been waiting at our front door with a report on the communications bill, and in particular the whole vexed question of music piracy:

The Communications Bill had its final discussion in Parliament on the 4th - it's much longer than previous discussions, but most of it is about broadband availability and the structure of Ofcom, but some time was taken up with piracy discussion. First question, arising from a Chris Smith quote : "A recent poll in the United States found that 62 per cent. of the 18-to-29 age group... had copied or downloaded music or movies across the internet, and three quarters of those knew that it was illegal when they did so." 25% didn't know it was illegal despite all the Napster press coverage?
This is in relation to Ofcom's potential future development of new anti-piracy technology : "the new clause (does not) seek to enable Ofcom to impose anything on any parts of the industry: the telecoms companies, the content providers or any of the service providers. What it enables Ofcom to do is to draw all those parties together into a discussion, and, I hope, into a voluntary agreement to examine what technological standards can be introduced to try to make piracy more difficult." However, this looks like a mass of nothing, as Smith later admits that there is very little he can do towards companies who both manufacture the source discs and the copying equipment, and that it's a double edged sword, trying to bring about a Net piracy decline while discussing a bill promoting broadband rollout. You've probably heard all the arguments before, but an interesting side comment from John Whittingdale (Conservative), who was in what is now the culture department and considered some sort of action on blank tapes at the height of Home Taping Is Killing Music until "the industry accepted that the practice could not be stopped and a second-best solution was offered - a levy on tapes that would be redistributed to the music industry as compensation for lost sales." Whittingdale later refers to a case in Norway where a 15 year old developed and made available software for cracking DVD copy protection for Linux systems, the copyright owner took him to court, and the judgement was that he could do what he wanted with it - the problem many bring up is the requirement for international co-operation to ward off sites based in China or wherever. The clause was withdrawn from the bill to aid its immediate progress as there was some dispute over who would be in charge of policing online piracy, but it's likely to later return.

The only other part of the transcript of note was sparked off by Chris Bryant (Labour) : "Probably 95% of the people with whom I was at school at the age of 18 copied Top of the Pops on to a cassette on a Sunday evening so that they could listen to it at various times during the week. I see hon. Members around the Chamber nodding, including Conservative Members and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Richard Allan (Lib Dem)), who as I can remember his constituency will get into Hansard for having engaged in that illegal activity." To which Allan later adds, "Yes, I freely confess that I was a Top of the Pops taper in my youth. [Interruption] I am asked whether I drank R. White's lemonade. I was not such a slave to advertising." He later has a discussion with the MP for Rhondda about whether there is a local shop called A Fish Called Rhondda (there is, a chip shop).

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCK AND ROLL?: Sorry for the quiet period - we had a spot of trouble plugging into the global thougty-phone matrix, hence no word from No Rock for a few days. But now, baby, we're back. Hopefully.