Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Valentine's Day

Letters Have No Arms marks February 14th by considering Mix tapes sent to people who are now exes:

What matters most is what you were listening to when you met this person (see above), when you were thinking about them (ditto), but most importantly of all, the songs you included on that cursed mixtape. The one they didn’t even listen to/like/understand/appreciate (or, and this is the worst: they said "oh yeah, i kind of liked that one song, I don't remember what it was called, but it was nice, and a girl was singing it"). 'Nice'!!! These are your favourite songs we're talking about!
And, as anyone who has ever made a successful mixtape can attest: making one is not just a matter of collecting a few random songs and pushing record/burn.
The truth is that, unless you shuffled it, you’ve put some thought into it. And chances are, if you were successful and achieved what you set out to do, you probably put (at least some of) your favourite songs on it…
So you’re fucked right?

Lover's Union

The splendid Bella Union label is throwing a Valentine special on - naturally = February 14th. They've taken the Union Chapel in London; lined up are Dustin O'Halloran, Our Broken Garden and Peter Broderick. There's also special guests being lined up. Twelve fifty and you're in.

NME plays hotornot

It's Valentine's Day. Oh, you'd heard?

The NME is marking the day by inviting readers to rate pop stars on sexual attractiveness. Well, they're actually asking you to rate people on a 1 to 10 scale on how much you'd like to spend Valentine's Day night with, which we guess you might interpret as anything from 'sitting in a pub bemoaning the whole Hallmark-induced fantasy of romantic love' to 'dangling from the ceiling dressed in a rubber bitch-suit as they prod you in every orifice with pneumatic sex toys'. So it's not clear exactly what the voters have in mind when they're voting, but there's some early results, anyway.

Apparently, NME readers would like to spend Valentines Evening with either Kate Nash or Nicky Wire.

Mind you, the choice of men to rate could send a bisexual bloke straight - click! D'you fancy Liam Gallagher? click! How about Serge Pizzorno? click! Pete Doherty...?

Microsoft discover Valentines Day not a movable feast

What a lovely idea it must have been: a special edition Valentine's Day Zune. Trouble is, Microsoft have managed to screw up the plans and now some people aren't going to have the music players in time for the most romantic day of the year.

Okay, that's a little unfair. Valentine's day isn't especially romantic in the first place, because if you need to be pushed by Hallmark to tell someone you love them, you might have a romance deficiency.

Still, Redmond have offered to give purchasers of the late Zunes their money back; and, if you do manage to forget the 14th, you can always tell your fuming beloved that you'd ordered a Microsoft Zune and it's Steve Ballmer's fault you've turned up empty-handed.

Assuming, of course, your date won't be more annoyed you'd have tried to palm them off with a Zune in the first place.