Rate 08: This year just gone: March 2008

With a massive overdraft to support, "our headliners aren't that big" explained Michael Eavis, in the face of low Glastonbury registrations. Ticketmaster disappointed dozens by screwing up tickets for Westlife's Liverpool gig and Ashlee Simpson didn't turn up drunk for a morning radio show.

Andy Abraham had the UK's Eurovision hopes pinned on his shoulders, what with Morrissey and Radiohead having let us down again. Holy Fuck managed to catch the eye of Rachel Ray. Simon Cowell was punting a movie about Paul Potts that, to date, remains unmade. Perhaps he could do one about Shayne Ward instead; he's apparently huge overseas.

The Evening Standard was angry about Norman Baker MP slipping Shed Seven song references into parliamentary speeches; The Daily Mail confidently predicted Paul McCartney was funding the divorce of Heather Mills by putting The Beatles on iTunes. Let's hope Heather's not waiting on that cash. Madonna, it turned out, wasn't buying a pub and certainly wasn't endorsing Ken Linvingstone.

There were rumours that Channel 4 was cooling on the idea of launching radio stations. As GCap and Global merged, XFM dumped its disastrous no DJ daytime policy while Cadbury decided Joss Stone was the perfect person to push Flakes. Gordon Smart worried that Robbie Williams was wasting his life looking for aliens - more fulfillingly, Keith Richards had turned to The Bible

Mike Read really had taken to making models of Brighton out of sweeties. An attempted stunt to launch a web company, claiming to swap festival tickets for sperm, was too transparent to succeed - although it could have made a good subplot for How I Met Your Mother, which invited Britney for a guest appearance.

The Daed 60s got round to confirming their split and the Dead Kennedys lost their latest singer. Queen haven't had their singer around for years, but decided to make a new record anyway. 50 Cent desperately tried to come up with a reason for why his record did so badly.

Gary Numan wasn't about to resurrect his old stuff, he insisted in the week Tubeway Army records got a re-release, although with Free Kitten making a new album and Toni Halliday back, who cared?

"Actually, I never really liked John Kerry" revealed Dave Grohl, while Suzanne Shaw was asked if she was backing Obama or Clinton: she came on like Sarah Palin. Courtney Love gave her blessing to a pair of pumps in tribute to Kurt while Puma made do with Paolo Nutini.

Mother Jones created an Imeem playlist featuring the tracks US troops used to torture their prisoners. Not, of course, that the risks of casual acceptance of torture could ever be as bad for a society as some rude words on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.