ACTUALLY ROBBIE: You're confusing 'depressed' with 'self-pitying', I think you'll find. And, frankly, people with depression have got enough problems to cope with, without you trying to muscle in on their condition.

DOES BRITNEY COME ROUND TO YOUR HOUSE AND DRESS YOU GIRL UP IN A BOOBTUBE, TOO?: Teachers leader Jim O'Neil has got himself all flustered and angry at what popstars are doing to our kids:

"Someone has to say 'stop' to the dumbing down of standards in our society. Kylie Minogue might be a great singer but in many of these things you can see more of her bottom than you hear of her voice... [Christina Aguilera] is another one who likes to show off her legs. Britney Spears was promoted as being ideal for girls - the virgin thing and everything else. Now that seems to have gone - she's quite raunchy now, when I think back to the fact she was projected as this country girl with flowing skirts and petticoats."

We're not sure who he's thinking of here, but we suspect he might have confused Britney with Billie Jo Spears.

Now, we've mentioned before that we find things like the marketing link-up between Aguilera and Barbie is a bit disturbing, but the general point - that there are raunchy popstars and that is bad is very, very wrongheaded. The problem lays with parents who don't bother to pay any attention or thought into what it is their children are consuming - the ones who will think nothing of letting their eight year old go to see the Stripped Tour, or who dress their preteens up in hotpants because its what Kylie wears. The existence of saucy young popstrels in short skirts isn't a bad thing in itself - we tend to think done well, it can be a very good thing indeed - it's the lack of parental (or guardianial) supervision that causes the problems. Kylie doesn't let your daughter dress like a strumpet. You do.

MATHROCK: Michaela Stephens and the Inquirer have done some interesting maths on the RIAA plans to sue everyone, anyone and everybody which demonstrates another drawback to the PR disaster that is issuing lawsuits like they were Hello Kitty ecards. Working on an assumption that the RIAA can issue seventy five subpoenas a day, and assuming that all the cases are dealt with instantly, it would keep them busy for over two thousand years to work their way through all the sixty million downloaders they claim are active in the US. Since this isn't practical, they reckon the RIAA will only sue enough people to have an effect on everyone - if one in a million users get sued, for example, people might reason the chances of being caught are so slight as to be not worth considering. On the basis that you'd need to catch one out of ten downloaders to register with people, that would be about two hundred year's worth of suing. It's abundantly clear that the RIAA doesn't have the time and - more importantly - the resources to actually pursue filesharers through the courts. If their unpleasant little sneers don't tell you that they're just throwing their weight about like playground bullies, let the proof of the calculator reassure you.

LEMONBALLS: Rockrage has more about the Limp Bizkit trashing. The band were playign as support to Metallica, and even Metallica fans aren't that dumb. They'd been booing the very mention of the name Bizkit during the earlier support, and the boos turned to trash-lobbing as soon as Fred and the boys took the stage. It seems at first Fred thought the catcalls were some sort of badge of honour, and tried to encourage them (although, of course, merely by not fucking off there and then he was doing that), but when he suddenly twigged that the crowd actually did, indeed, hate him and his young teens version of rebellion, he started to rant and, revealing his true colours, decided that calling the town of Chicago 'gay' would be a lacerating insult.

The highlight of all this is that he took a lemon in the place where his bollocks would be. We don't know why someone would have taken a lemon to a Metallica gig; we don't want to know. But we do wish they'd had a coconut, too.

[NB: Hey, kids, it's not cool to throw things at bands onstage. Unless, of course, the band have been encouraging you to do so.]

Fred managed twenty minutes before running off stage to hide. Your way or the highway, Fred? Your way seems to be the highway.

WHERE'S THE ARM?: Actually, Mark Arm is here, in the Tacoma News Tribune talking about how Mudhoney are still going despite the original plan being to last for about a year; and how when the young guys go off to war, the older guys can get plenty. It's also an appreciation of the difference a great venue can make to the musical fortunes of a small town - in this case, Hells Kitchen.

SMALL EXPLOSION: Ms Dynamite has apparently given birth to a baby boy. We've decided to not bother with the bouncing baby/bouncing bomb gag we'd been mulling for the last seven months or so.

AT LEAST SHE'S BEHIND THE CAMERA: Madonna to executive produce movie about a music journalist. Which explains why she can be seen running up and down the street with her hands clapped over her ears singing "lalalala never heard of almost famous lalalalala." We're presuming thy'll try and keep her as far out of the way as possible - because, after all, what actor is going to want a critique from Maddy?

PROGOBIT: Eric Braunn of Iron Butterfly - albeit for two years - has died at the age of fifty-two.

YOU'RE GARBAGE. HERE'S YOUR GARBAGE: Limp Bizkit discover if you fling shit at an audience, they'll start to toss it back.

GOOD NEWS. THAT'S EXCEPT FOR READERS IN AMERICA, WHO WILL HAVE THEIR OWN MISERY: Stereophonics to concentrate all their efforts on America from the start of September - so, that's Kelly Jones, available for odd-jobbing from October.

THIS WEEK, UP FOR EVICTION: IT'S FAME ACADEMY: First episode opens to even less attention than last time; local council threatens to ban the programme from doing the weekly big show in the Academy itself. We don't really imagine that it'd be a major problem for the show if they get nixed - just a bit of a nibbling away at Endemol's bottom line for the series.

TALKING OF OLD GUYS...: We were deeply amused by the breakfast TV over the weekend suggesting that Mick Jagger looks great for being sixty, ignoring the two facts that (i) stood next to Keef, the Pope would look like Natalie Imbruglia and (ii) when he was thirty, he looked like he was sixty. The reason why Mick seems to be so fit is because he has finally started to look as ragged as he should be, rather than way too old for his age. C'mon, he was only forty when he did Undercover. As a child, we assumed he was at least eighty.

HOPE IS GONE

NAZI SCUM FUCK OFF: Having tutted over the Pride boys getting into bed with Clear Channel, it's nice to be able to actually go "ah... genuine music and politics and stuff", with the kicking-off of the love music, hate racism tour. Every date you get the almost-so-wonderful they should be stuffed Miss Black America, Antihero and Cultural Ice Age, plus local support too. The remaining dates are:
Mon 28 July Cardiff
Tues 29 July Exeter
Weds 30 July Brighton
Thu 31 July Stoke-on-Trent
Sat 2 August Scarborough
Sun 3 August Carlisle
Mon 4 August Blackburn
Tue 5 August Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Wed 6 August Dudley
Fri 8 August London - Brixton
Sun 10 August Bury St.Edmunds
Mon 11 August Cambridge
Fri 8 August London - West End (MBA/CIA split LMHR benefit single launch party)

As the last date suggests, there's going to be a split single to raise funds as well as - hey - consciousness. To date, Ford don't seem to be interested in sponsoring the event.

MEN DIE TOUCHING BADLY EARTHED APPLIANCES ANNOUNCE GIGS: Dogs Die In Hot Cars singer Craig Macintosh got an electric shock on stage and had to go to hospital. It's still a really, really shit name for a band.

TAKING LIBERTINES; LIBERTINE'S LIBERTY CURTAILED: What I see we're now calling 'estranged Libertine' Pete has had his collar felt - he's been arrested and charged with burglary, apparently. And when he had such a lucrative career to fall back on...

SHE WAS PROBABLY SCARED IN CASE IT WAS FULL OF IMMIGRANTS: Dannii Minogue - brightest woman alive? She's onstage, and sees a bloke get into trouble on a nearby lake. She tries to point and get the audience to notice to send help to the man. The audience, unsurprisingly, think it's part of a wacky new dance routine and go wild, in a mild, its-not-her-sister sort of way.

Of course, she could have stopped singing and said "Hey, look, there's a guy out there who might drown."

Clearly, she thought it was better to leave the bloke to struggle on his own rather than make it obvious she was miming. Luckily, the bloke managed to save himself, and nobody really cares if ole' ghoul face mimes her songs, since her entire career is little more than her pretending to be her sister anyway.

THE COLD, HARD SLAP AS THE REAL WORLD TAKES ITS REVENGE: Jon Lee (ex-S Club) finds being in a musical 'a challenge' because he actually has to sing - every night...

QUICK! CORRUPT THEM FAST: The NME is starting vote-taking for its meaningless list of most voted-for records ("exciting new interactive chart") that it's sharing the revenue stream from ("presenting in association with") MTV2. We're a little amused by current NME editor Conor McNicholas*' quote: NME invented the original music charts so it's totally appropriate that we should take them back in 2003 by introducing the definitive chart for fans of great music. Over many beers with our new friends at MTV2 we discovered we share a passion for brilliant bands and brilliant tunes now we want to get music fans involved. Well, actually, NME invented the singles chart rather than "the original music charts" - there were lists of best-selling sheet music around when the Musical Express was still merged with the Accordian Times. And ios it perhaps a little disappointing that he doesn't see anything slightly shaming about his little "lots of beers" scenario, in that it basically implies that reading the nme, you wouldn't guess that the paper had a passion for bands and tunes? It's like the editor of Cage and Aviary Bird saying "it wasn't until I went to dinner with the team from Trill that they realised our magazine had any interest in budgies at all..."

* - Conor McNicholas is a brilliant name, because it's not easy to say - you've got that double 'c' thing going on which makes it the name equivalent of extreme sports.

DUCK Andi Peters, the former human half of a double act with Edd the Duck, is seizing control of Top of the Pops by rejoining the BBC to become Executive Producer (Popular Music), parachuting him into the chair at the top of Ver Pop's table. Chris Cowey, meanwhile, the man credited with "saving" the show by constantly fiddling with the format and diluting it with every new trick, has decided strangely simultaneously to leave the BBC. Lets hope he takes the Star Bar with him.

Peters' remit at the BBC seems to be to be in charge of "tunes the young people might like" and at least he hassome links with TOTP - he presented it a few times when the show was being harried along the route of "if it's for children, let's have children's presenters on it." And Peters' T4 has shown a commitment to music beyond the bleeding obvious. But we're concerned that 'popular music' (covering Glastonbury and Later with Jools as well) is being seen as synomous with teenagers, and we're also a little bit dubious how the Executive Producer of TOTP is going to be allowed to continue co-presenting the Hit Music Sunday Show on Capital, a show that's based on a totally different chart to the one used by the BBC. Is it possible for a man to believe that The Only Chart That Counts varies depending on which day of the week it is?

Edd The Duck is currently head of New Media for Carlton.

THIS GOT A SEAL?: Apparently, Joe Strummer gave his seal of approval to Honeypunk's cover of Should I Stay Or Should I Go? shortly before his death. Having heard it, we're wondering exactly how shortly before he died this would have been. Or maybe he said "You can release that thing over my dead body" and they took his keeling over to be a sign? In a way, though, we're quite taken by the thing - it's everything that Tatu was meant to be, we think. Of course, if they ever come near us we'll be firing at them with a gun, but...

FAME ACADEMY: We happened to see this on Saturday, and we think we spotted why the last series was rubbish. Poked amongst the boys and girls who could have been shaken from a packet of Hear'Say flakes, there were two interesting and engaging personalities - a bloke with overtones of a Danny Ladytron/Jarivs Cocker nature - whose name we didn't catch - and a belter called Ladonna from Birmingham. Obviously, both were kicked out, leaving the Sneddonesque. If this happens every time they're loading up the Academy, aren't they going to end up with the blandest of the bland? (NB: Look at last year if you don't get the hint). Really, in everyone's interests, there should be some sort of way of ensuring a mix in the show (You know - some people who aren't conventionally attractive, some people who can sing) - maybe by not leaving the casting up to people with mobile phones?

CHARTWATCH: Beyonce finally loses it at the top of the singles chart, being replaced by Daniel Beddingfield (Never Gonna Leave Your Side) ; he must be the first New Zealander to have a UK number one since… well, since we were born, at least. This doesn't, unfortunately, manage to make him any more interesting. Daniel's always seemed to us to be The Bloke Who Couldn't Be Arsed to Queue For Pop Idol; we suspect that the record buying public constantly get him confused with Darius and buy his records on that basis. Both artists shaved at about the same time, too. Luckily, Beyonce sells enough to force The Stereophonics into a debut at number three with Maybe Tomorrow, but that's still a depressing indication of just how many people can be bothered to go out and swap cash for a slightly-new Stereophonics single. Other Top Ten newbies are Deepest Blue, with Deepest Blue at seven, and Tripe Eight who, unsatisfyingly, enter at nine with Give Me A Reason. Triple 8 are almost so background-noise that all we can think to mention is they share their name with the page Ceefax uses for subtitles; we suspect selecting this feature when they appear on Top of the Pops might be the best way to enjoy them.

All-American Rejects' Swing Swing mystifyingly is in at thirteen and it's likely that Goldfrapp only making 25 with Strict Machine will be a bit of a blow to the label, what with all the effort they've been putting in. In her Catatonia days, Cerys Matthews' record label would have held a crisis meeting if she'd entered at 43 with Caught In The Middle; nowadays, with her new countryish direction and downsized lifestyle, that'll probably be seen as a good result. The Tindersticks will be gloomy with a number 60 placing for Sometimes It Hurts, but that's just them, isn't it? And both Melanie C and One True Voice benefit from the summer radio station promo circuit, as On The Horizon and Shakespeares Way With Words manage to return to the lower reaches of the 75. Still underperforming, perhaps, but a little less shamefully.

In Albums, Beyonce holds firm, although there a single-aided rally for Daniel Beddingfield sees him snapping at her heels with Gotta Get Through This (up from 13 to two); Super Furries' Phantom Power comes in at a satisfying number four. Kym Marsh's Standing Tall enters at number nine; not as bad as it could have been, but hardly an earth-shattering start considering the hoofing round the chatshow circuit she's been doing. If she doesn't improve next week, she'll need to start sending her CV to Bolloms. Janes Addiction's Strays makes a disappointing 14 - did they come back for this? - but we'd imagine they're expecting a long haul for the title anyway; Lollopalooza headlines are all well and good but they don't shift records in Daventry. Dolly Parton's heavily-supported (oh, stop, would you?) Ultimate makes a tidy number 17. Dizzee Rascal proves that getting stabbed has no sales uplift unless you actually get killed in the event (Boy In Da Corner, 40).

The extent to which you can milk a stone has now been scientifically proven - The diehard fans obviously bought the Manics Bsides compilation in the first week; this week, it languishes at 48, awaiting such time as it might be a more attractive "three for twenty quid" proposition.

PRIDE IN THE NAME OF CASH: So, as the British summer grinds onwards, this weekend it was the turn of Gay Pride to push its way to the front of the festival calendar. Johann Hari wrote a confusing piece in the Independent [subscription required; although, confusingly, we picked it up for free in a Toby Carvery] - he tut-tutted over complaints about the lavish corporate sponsorship of the event; in a nutshell, Hari couldn't understand the demands of the politico-gays that it should be a march - "why should we all share a political platform just because we're gay?" he asked. Which isn't unreasonable, except in the context of an article saying how great Pride is - because, why should we all share a music festival just because we're gay? And if the aim is to state Pride, isn't that a political stance in itself? (Although if Ford are happy to bankroll the event, and the Royal Parks are happy to host it, why the need to make a statement of Pride? We're here and we're heavy consumers?)

And there is a slightly stinking smell at the heart of this year's politics. Gay Pride was brought to you by, ahem, Clear Channel. Talking to the Guardian, the event defended the hook-up: "Jason Pollock, the festival director since 1999, said: "The question is, do we worry about radio stations in the States or do we want to put on the pride event in Hyde Park?"

So, that's the face of Gay Politics in 2003: It boils down to the question "What's more important - freedom of speech for all, or being able to get an easy tube ride to see Liberty X play a set?" We know where we'd have hoped the answer would be, but Gay Pride seems to have gone off in a different direction. So maybe it's left to us to "worry about Radio Stations in the States", shall we?

Clear Channel's Champ 101.3 and The Zone 96.7 stations happily take money from , and carries advertising for, American Renewal's political campaigns. AR is the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council. Amongst their 'good works' is an exhaustive campaign against rights for same-sex couples, peppered with spurious nonsense linking gays and child sex abuse and listing the negative health effects of being homosexual.

But this, of course, is about US radio, so why should the organisers of Gay Pride be bothered?

Why should they worry about Jan Mickelson? Mickelson is on American Radio. He broadcasts a show on WHO Radio out of Des Moines, and took the opportunity of the Rooselvelt High School's day of silence to launch a week-long rant against the Straight and Gay Alliance, homosexual perverts and so on. That's a weeks-worth, mind - not a single outburst that got reigned in; a week of bile. Not that anti-gay programming is unusual on his show. But why should this bother Gay Pride, who have managed to persuade Jimmy Sommerville to sing some songs on a stage owned by the same company who smile benignly on Mickelson's shows?

When Michael Savage was dumped by MSNBC for a - heh - savage on-air attack on a gay caller - sorry, a sodomite pig who he hoped would get Aids and die - (his supposed apology seems to have consisted of saying that he thought he wasn't on air - which presumably would have made the Nuremburg Rallies palatable, had they not had the radio coverage they got), Clear Channel's KNEW-AM not only signed him up on the spot, but put him into the heart of their station. But this is about US Radio, and why should the people who have managed to book Soft Cell for a PA fret about that?

But then, maybe I'm just a bitter old bi-boy.

YES, YOU CAN - BUT WHY?: We suppose Roxio must think its worth relaunching the Napster brand for its not-very-detailed-new-download-service, but we're not so sure. "97 per cent of online music users recognise the Napster brand" they say hopefully, as if that would be justification enough, but is it going to work merely slapping it onto any old music-related service? Never mind the fact that 'napster 2.0' won't even be launching until Christmas (they hope) and so it'll be a cyber age since anyone used the service, the Napster brand had the values of slightly dodgy, edge-of-legality behaviour attached firmly to it. How would that connect itself to a legal, dull download service? And if the brand is so strong, why are Roxio having to try and stoke interest five months before going live?

EVE OF DESTRUCTION: Something or other to do with a falling out between Eve and some bunch of showbiz lawyery-types. Nothing to see here, move it along.

NOW, THAT DESERVES A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: We can only imagine the months of tortuous negotiations it's taken, but Sheila E has managed to put together a bill uniting musicians from right across the career of Prince. Except for Prince, of course.

The other staggering piece of information from this article is that Sheila E has her own brand of Drums for Children. We should at this juncture make it clear that No Rock always has an open door for products endorsed or marketed by rock stars, the more obscure the better.

NOT VERY: According to Ananova, More than 30,000 pop fans have been left disappointed after Gareth Gates cancelled an appearance at a music festival due to illness. Other acts appearing at Hebs Live and Loud in Glasgow's Hampden Park include Blue, Liberty X, Sugababes, Mis-Teeq, Busted, Girls Aloud, Dannii Minogue, Blazin Squad, Kym Marsh and Lisa Scott-Lee. We'd like evidence that the entire crowd would have been disappointed by Gareth failing to turn up. We're betting that more than a few would have been relieved.

WILLIAMS. SADLY, NOT KEN OR SHIRLEY: Robbie Williams, poor little lamb, got himself in danger:

"In an interview with Sara Cox being broadcast on her Breakfast Show, he said he has been regularly inviting members of the crowd on stage. He said: "I got one out one night and she'd not washed and she smelt, quite frankly."

Hmmm. Apart from being really ungallant - oh, how we laugh when your name is mooted as being a potential Bond - you think there might be something about being right at the front of a stadium rock gig that might make someone a little bit smelly, you knob?

But picking out Sabine he thought: "I'm going to have a good time here so I picked a good looking one.

"She gets up on stage and she puts her hands down my pants, her tongue down my mouth and she was trying to rip my vest off and I'm singing, trying to maintain the fact that these people think I'm a bit cool.

"At one point she was locked like a vice grip and she's writhing with me. I've tried to pull her off and sit her next to me but she straddles the top of me and starts grinding - now normally this wouldn't be a problem, but there's 60,000 other people there so I try to pull her hair to make it look sexy but I'm actually trying to pull her off of me."

Apart from the clanging, clanging self-aggrandisment in this story - like any bore in a pub with a 'she couldn't keep her hands off me' tale - and the grist to amateur psychologist's mill that robbie finds an aggressively sexual woman a threat - why does he think it's okay for him to "pick a good looking one" to "have a good time" but as soon as she reciprocates, he's having to pull her hair and squeal for his mother to come rescue him?

It gets worse, though:

Williams also said he realises he has now reached the Madonna and Michael Jackson proportions in terms of the audiences he can attract.

"When you're in the middle of a storm you don't actually know how big it is. And every now and again I ask myself who else plays stadiums? The Jacksons, Madonna, U2 and I go, 'bloody hell, I must be that big'.

"You can't get a perspective of what it is or who you are or what your fame's like because you're not looking at it from the outside. I'm just a bit giddy with my own success at the minute. I mean that in a very humble way."

Do you reckon the people at EMI have attempted to introduce him to the concept of 'humble'? And, more to the point, do you think he'll ever grasp it?

Robbie, fyi, some other acts that play in Stadiums:
Brighton and Hove Albion
The S Club 8
Atomic Kitten
The Dave Matthews Band.

There are stadium acts, and then there are stadium acts - in the same way there are theme parks, like Alton Towers, and there are Theme Parks, like JCB World.

CHIN CHIN, TIN TIN: Karl writes to us, with experiences of seeing the bloke who we still think of as the One True Duran Singer at his local Borders:

I've just got back home from seeing Stephen Duffy at Borders on Oxford Street so, in lieu of anyone else to wax lyrical to, I figured it may be of (possibly limited) interest...

The last time I went to an in-store appearance at Borders was at the very least surreal, with Michael J Sheehy singing songs about threesomes and Catholic guilt in the childrens' books section while indignant parents shook their collective heads. This time at least the event had moved upstairs to the music department.

The first thing that struck me about the man himself was how incredibly young he looked; and that he was somewhat amusingly, and no doubt purposefully, wearing a lilac coloured t-shirt. After a ten-minute delay due to 'technical problems' (because one man and an acoustic guitar can apparently have technical problems) Duffy was introduced as a 'folk-rock singer'. After saying hello and setting the scene by saying he'd sing us something, he asked if we wanted an old song or a new one. Unsurprisingly, the gathered throng of 40 or so people opted for an oldie, and 'The Girl Who Waved At Trains' was played, slowed down and turned into something much more beautiful than the jangly-indie style of the original.

He was obviously very nervous to begin with, but soon relaxed. He talked to the crowd, and asked why we were all 'gathered here tonight'. Answering thequestion himself, it was for some 'point-of-sale entertainment'. The new songs sounded as heart-breakingly wonderful as anything I've heard him do,and although I haven't listened to the new album yet, I guess it's got to be on the ever increasing 'must-buy' list. I just hope the beauty of the songs is captured with a full-band backing.

Forgetting the words to 'Family Coach', it was replaced in the set by 'Mayfly', the closest Duffy got to a proper rock song. He ended with 'She Freak' and then had an encore of 'Forest Brown.' Quite why he or Borders thought an encore was necessary is irrelevant, it prolonged the set by three minutes or so, and that's good enough for me!

All in all, it was a good mixture of the old and the new, he played to an appreciative audience for 50 minutes and, despite an empty threat, didn't play anything from his Nigel Kennedy collaboration. What more can you ask for?

We loved this. It's also interesting how Borders is slowly becoming almost the 6Music to Virgin and HMV's instore Radio One - and it's a lot nicer seeing an instore in a well designed, airy store like Borders than the horribly cluttered Mobile Phone and PS2 besmirched megastores. Plus you can get coffee in there, too, which is nice. Just so long as there's no criticism of the US President's legs, and everything will be fine.