It's the (second) most glittering event of the year

Although now somewhat eclipsed by Al Gore and his anti-Exxon Communist Music Event, the party being arranged by Princes William and Harry to mark something (25 years since the Falklands, isn't it?) is still going to try and glitter.

The line-up for The Concert For Diana, marking 300 years of the Act of Union, has been announced. It's an odd mix of fox-hunters, lords, faded glories and a couple of contemporary US acts in order to try and get an American network interested ("US acts Diana would have appreciated"):

Take That

Kanye West

Pharrell Williams

Elton John

Bryan Adams

James Blunt

Keane

Orson

Rod Stewart

Meatloaf (sic)

James Morrison

Duran Duran

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Bryan Ferry

Joss Stone

The English National Ballet

Here, then, is the most compelling argument for wearing a seatbelt and not getting into cars with drunk drivers: if you perish in a road accident, look at what will be done in your name.

My mother is my manager, and she's tupping the drummer

How many times did Cathy and Claire have to deal with that one, eh? Joss Stone took decisive action when she found out her mum, Wendy Stone, was in a relationship with drummer Jonathan Joseph:

“At that point, I just had to send my mum home.”

She added she never wanted her mum to be her manager anyway.

Joss said: “It’s ridiculous. I wanted a real manager, someone with 30 years in the business. Not my mum.”

So the drummer-thing was just a pretence, eh? It's lucky that Wendy isn't the sort of person to drag her daughter to an employment tribunal.

Joss, meanwhile, has turned here ire onto, oh, everyone else:

Joss also had a go at R&B singers, saying most are “just highly paid strippers.”

Yeah, R&B singers - flaunting themselves to sell a few records. Here's an example from a recent album review:

So Joss Stone, the 19-year-old British R&B singer, did what any girl who wants respect as an auteur would do. She stripped naked, got slathered with psychedelic body paint and straddled her producer for the liner art to her new CD.

Face to face with the past

Chris Martin has been going through some old school memories, having met someone who bullied him at school:

“I bumped into a guy who used to give me hell at school. He was a bully who always said I wouldn’t make anything of myself.

“I had great pleasure asking what he was up to now. He wasn’t up to much. Then I turned around and said, ‘This is my wife Gwyneth.’ His face dropped and he looked really embarrassed.

“It was a proud moment. I’m not one to get my own back and look for revenge — but that was pretty sweet.”

They reckon revenge is best served cold, but this is so icy you could keep vegetables in it for months. We're not even entirely sure we believe it - what sort of bully goes round telling their victims "you'll never make anything of your life" - either Chris went to a school where the bullies were very mild indeed, or else we're talking about an ineffectual careers master.

We can't help wondering if this "bully" was just a common-or-garden old school friend, and he's had to be recast as a tormentor of some sort because Martin realises that this "look at my Hollywood wife - what are you doing, do you have a Hollywood wife? Have you been in an amusing sketch with Ricky Gervais? Look, I've got Bob Geldof's phone number? What are you doing, is it as important as being in Coldplay, eh? How many times has your music been used for a goal montage on Match of the Day, eh?" business might reflect quite badly on him, making him look shallow and a little bit pathetic?

After all... there can't be many people who don't know Martin is married to Gwyneth Paltrow, so it's pretty unlikely this old school friend would be surprised by that, is it?

Junos: Canadian awards not given out quietly

This weekend, Canada's big music awards, the Junos, were distributed - not without controversy. Like, proper controv, not former-punk-band-turned-car-advertisters throwing water at former-socialists-turned... whatever the hell Prescott is these days.

One winner, Tomi Swick, attacked the organisers for arranging the award shows in a way which effectively excluded underage fans - although, of course, the Brits don't even bother to let the people who actually buy the artists in, except as a grudging few to dress the main TV event. And even then, they're wedged behind professional cheerleaders.

More interestingly, K-Os got the hump. The Canadian rapper had been persuaded to appear - the bait of five nominations helping here - only to discover he was going home empty handed. K-Os responded by changing the lyrics of his performance to call the show "propaganda" - although he didn't actually suggest what sort of propaganda it was.

In favour of Nelly Furtado, perhaps - she had also been nominated for five awards; she won them all. Curiously, she was also presenting the programme. If she'd been given a broom, she could have done the entire thing without the need for other people getting involved. (Only 917,000 Canadian viewers tuned in for the event; we're sure they could have been given the night off, too, without much effort.)

The winners in full, then:
Artist Nelly Furtado
Album Loose, Nelly Furtado
Single Promiscuous, Nelly Furtado
Group Billy Talent
New Group Mobile
New Artist Tomi Swick
Songwriter Gordie Sampson
Fan Choice Nelly Furtado
International Album Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks
Country Recording Somebody Wrote Love, George Canyon
Rap Recording Black Magic, Swollen Members
Adult Alternative Album The Light that Guides You Home, Jim Cuddy
Alternative Album Sometimes, City and Colour
Pop Album Loose, Nelly Furtado
Vocal Jazz Album From This Moment On, Diana Krall
Francophone Album Il était une fois dans l'est, Antoine Gratton
Classical Album: Vocal/Choral Mozart: Arie e Duetti, I. Bayrakdarian, M. Schade, R. Braun, Canadian Opera Company
Aboriginal Recording Sedzé, Leela Gilday
Blues Album House of Refuge, Jim Byrnes
World Music Album Kaba Horo, Lubo Alexandrov

Gerard does it Billie's way

Uneasy lays the head which wears the Hot Topic hairdye. Poor old Gerald ("Gerard") Way from My Chemical Romance finds it so hard being a role model. So who does he turn to? Billie Joe, apparently. (Wouldn't he be better off with a girlfriend or boyfriend?) Billie Joe understands:

Way admits he finds it difficult being a role model for youngsters, and is grateful to have found a friend in the AMERICAN IDIOT singer - although he doesn't want to trouble the star with all his problems.

He says, "The problem is, there aren't many people I can ask for advice. From time to time I've talked to Billie Joe from Green Day.

"He's the type of guy I can talk to all day, but he's having downtime at the minute so I don't want to bother him."

That sounds to me like he's trying to dump you, Gerald. Perhaps you could ask Robert Smith for Pete Wentz's number?

Avril Lavigne won't knee anyone any more

Earlier today, we learned that Avril can cope with fame, and take her drink. Now, we discover, she can also hold her tongue, too. Now. Wasn't ever thus, apparently:

"I remember being in Toronto and walking into a CD store, and some guy with spiky hair was all, 'Hey, Avril!' and then started lippin' at me.

"I was like, 'OK, this is embarrassing, I'm just going to leave.' So I'm walking down the street, and the guy comes out of the store, still yelling.

"I turn around, fuckin' grab him and go, 'What?' And I fuckin' knee him in the balls, throw him down, and his fuckin' punk girlfriend comes over and goes, 'What the fuck are you doing?'

"It was like they totally didn't expect me to do anything, because I'm just this girl on TV or whatever. I'm not proud of that. I think it's funny, but I wouldn't do it now.

"I don't fight people anymore, I'm more mature now, and I just don't think fighting is good."

Now, thank God, Avril is mature enough to know that fighting is not "good", but still, apparently, "funny".

She can't sing; he can't dance - it's the perfect pairing

Who knew there were more humiliating ways to earn a living than wanking for coins outside your old school? Robert Smith is working with Ashlee Simpson on a track for her next album.

Yes, there's a next Ashlee Simpson album, apart from anything else. What the hell is Smith doing? Does he need cash that badly?

1090 Club woz robbed

No, really robbed. The band are in the middle of a US tour at the moment, and someone decided that they needed the band's cash more than a struggling indie band does:

a bad turn of events for the 90. We unfortunately had our band fund stolen in Tacoma last nite at hells Kitchen. As suggested by our friends at iamthescene.com, we added a "donate now" button to our myspace.....if you can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone for all the support!!

You can help with cash, or sympathy, or suggestions or advice, at their MySpace page.

Band! Band for sale!

What do you do when your band runs out of... well, everything? You could just give up and move on, but if your band has been manufactured in the first place, why not just sell it on, like you would a TV which you no longer need?

That's what Rednex are doing - they're on the market:

Just when the world's high society is running out of football teams to buy, ideas for extravagant vehicles to build or available seats on space travel, luckily for them the music business comes to the rescue! It sets a bizarre milestone in terms of what its artistry can offer and what hobbies can be provided for the rich and hungry.

Buying a pop band opens up opportunities to make a hayload of money and peek behind the scenes of an exclusive branch. Rednex is touring around the world, making dozens of TV & Radio performances yearly, doing shows at galas, sport arenas and festivals, from city celebrations in front of 1 million people to orphanages, and even for royalty at their private palaces in front of 30 people.

That's a little vague, isn't it? A royal performance at Windsor is somewhat different from, say, doing a turn for ex-King Constantine of Greece.

The sting in the tale? They're flogging them on eBay, and the opening bid they're looking for is one and a half million dollars.

You don't have to be Kirstie and Phil to see that that is terribly overvalued, especially in a world where you can give a few thousand to Pete Wentz and own Fall Out Boy for the afternoon. One and a half million to own Rednex?

Unsurprisingly, there are no bids.

BBC seeks bloggers

If you've Glatonbury tickets and a blog, the BBC are quite keen to hear from you, as they want you to act as a kind of embedded media - they'll give you a smartphone and everything which you can swap for a bag of mushies and two fuel-cans full of scrumpy to upload stuff from the site.

This just in: EMI agree to drop DRM - for a price

The announcement that iTunes is to sell EMI tracks without any DRM has been trailed quite heavily through the morning; it's just been confirmed.

On first glance, the detail is interesting - the DRM versions will still be available at 79p; the unlocked (and superior quality) recordings will cost 99p. In other words, EMI is making some extra cash in return for providing us with a right they shouldn't really have been withholding in the first place.

The other notable thing is that, by creating a two-tier pricing structure, Apple have effectively abandoned the "all one price" model: maybe the carrot for the other labels will be offering additional price levels for, say, 'new releases'?

The announcement, then:

EMI has become the first major record label to ditch digital rights management and start selling music online in CD quality and without copy protection.
In a deal struck with Apple’s iTunes Music Store, announced in London this lunchtime - at a press conference which included a performance from The Good, The Bad & The Queen - EMI said it is making available "superior quality audio" across its entire digital catalogue.
The DRM-free tracks would be available first through iTunes but will subsequently be rolled out across other retail services.
As EMI became the first major label to embrace Jobs’ vision, Jobs today said, "Selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry. EMI has been a great partner for iTunes and is once again leading the industry as the first major music company to offer its entire digital catalogue DRM-free."

EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli said the deal represented "a major step in our quest to provide consumers with the best possible digital music experience".

He added, "Our goal is to give consumers the best possible digital music experience. By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music.

"Apple have been a true pioneer in digital music, and we are delighted that they share our vision of an interoperable market that provides consumers with greater choice, quality, convenience and value for money."

The tracks will be available for 99p in the UK, with tracks at the existing quality available for 79p. Consumers will be able to buy entire superior quality albums at the standard AAC price, and upgrade to superior qualitt tracks for 20p per track.

MIka makes a pukka cuppa

Apparently, when he goes off round the world in a plane, or perhaps a boat, Mika always takes his own tea with him.

I think we're meant to read this as being "quirky and particular" rather than putting him in the same bracket as those people who go abroad for holidays with PG Tips and Heinz Baked Beans in their cases because foreign food is "funny".

Mika, it seems, is a tea pedant:

"When you don't drink coffee, you've got to get your tea right."

Handy skill, making a perfect cup of tea - and one that guarantees Mika will continue to be in demand in the music industry for years to come. Two sugars, please.

Glasto fine? April Fool!

Just when we were congratulating ourselves for having made it through poisson d'avril without falling for any made-up news stories, it turns out we fell for the oldest one in the book: Glastonbury's annual claim that its ticketing sale had run smoothly.

This year, though, with a potential market of just 400,000 instead of the millions and millions, it did seem plausible when they cheered how well they'd done:

Michael Eavis, who owns the farm where the festival is based, said: "We had a quarter of a million of people queuing up to get through. It's probably the fastest time we have ever sold out.

"We had coach package tickets as well and people were forced to buy those at the tail end of the sale."

He was also pleased the system of registering and then using a reference number had worked well.

"Its a great system. It's the first time it's ever been done - it's just gone so well it's just unbelievable. The system has worked really, really well and it's a first.

"Unfortunately there will be a lot of people that will be disappointed. Only two in three get through, but such is the demand of the festival - but that is in itself great after 37 years of trying to get it right."

Except... it wasn't really like that.

Dennis emails us from California:

You posted a report today on Glastonbury 2007 that tickets had sold out “without any meltdown of the equipment.” Maybe you didn’t experience any, but in trying to get to www.seetickets.com or the specific Glastonbuy URL there, I tried from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. UK time and never got to the site once. I just got “can’t find this address” or “Service Unavailable” or other problem responses – and I kept testing other URLs, and was able to get to other Web addresses with no problem whatsoever, so it was the seetickets site, not my computer or browser. I’m in California USA right now on a business trip, so my trying was from 1:00 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. local time. Finally I went to bed, took a short nap, got up and tried again – and this time got directly through to www.seetickets.com – only to be told the concert was sold out.


So from my point of view, there was indeed a total meltdown of the equipment.

And Dennis wasn't alone - The BBC's Fiona Pryor managed to get tickets, but the system doesn't sound like one working properly. Although not quite the disasters of previous Glastonburys, it still didn't work as it should, surely?

There were always going to be disappointed people, but making people spend the first lovely Spring Saturday inside for four hours just to be disappointed seems cruel. Ninja-Badger is still reeling:

i can still hear that fuckgin engaged tone from spending 4+ hours trying ang failign to get Tickets for glastonbury on sunday morning. /wrists

The question, of course, is why - when someone held the details of the only 400,000 people who could have bought tickets - there was this system in place at all? Why not take those 400,000 names, put them into some sort of cyberhat, and then email 30,000 at random with an offer to purchase; say, within 48 hours? Then take any tickets unsold, and draw again. The system in place this year was just bemusing - like the Harrods sale giving everyone a ticket with a number on, and then opening the doors and starting the rush anyway.

Something to brighten a Monday

As if having a day off on Friday isn't enough to make the spirits a little brighter on this Monday morning, the lovely Daytrotter people have just posted their latest mp3 sessions, with Tilly and The Wall providing exclusive portions of glorious, back-to-work-defeating music.

3AMelia

Maybe she's holding their grandmas hostage or something? Whatever, 3AM still report every thought that flits through Jamelia's head as if either the thoughts, or Jamelia, are interesting:

SUPERSTAR singer Jamelia wants to follow in Madonna's footsteps - and write children's books.

Although they're likely to be short stories, as the 25-year-old says: "I've got such a short concentration span."

Mind you, it was quite shrewd of her to have recorded a song called "Superstar" rather than, say, "Almost forgotten" - otherwise it would have been "ALMOST FORGOTTEN singer Jamelia..."

Robbie Williams is not able to break wind without faxing a release to Heat

Why did Take That not mention Robbie during the Brit Awards? It seemed odd at the time, what with their old mucker going into rehab the day before. Turns out, says Gary Barlow, the timing made them smell a rat:

"If I was doing rehab, you'd never know. I'd be embarrassed. But a press release giving all the reasons why... What a coincidence!"

But if Robbie's "rehab" was a cynical move, why, wouldn't he have been out in a couple of weeks and headed straight back to the LA party sce... oh.

Kissing boys and girls, trying to decide which she prefers

No, Daily Mirror, Fergie has not "admitted to a series of lesbian flings", as if homosexuality was like shoplifting or kidnapping sailors.

Avril: No sympathy for Britney

Avril Lavigne - who was vageuly famous a few years ago - thinks Britney Spears' character is lacking:

“What’s happened to Britney is all down to who she is as a person. If you want a piece of this business you have to be able to deal with it.

“You can’t complain about the pressures, the paparazzi, the madness because that’s the job.”

Let's hope Avril never reaches Britney's level of fame, shall we? So, Avril's able to cope and takes the paparazzi as part of "the job" - although since when was "going to glitzy showbiz nightclubs" central to the job description of "musician" - or is Avril dropping the pretending-to-be-musican stance and admitting she's a celebrity now?

Still, she can take the "madness". So presumably that whole spitting-at-cameramen thing was a coping mechanism, was it?

Avril also has a go at Brit for not being able to hold her drink, too:

But Avril says while she too likes boozing, she can handle it and “no one really gets to know”.

Well, nobody "gets to know" unless you tell Arena:

"I had the most fun in the studio
making this record - we were getting drunk, scootering around, ordering junk
food and I think that comes across on the record."

I used to have a few drinks and yell, 'Woooo!' and take my top
off! But I haven't done that in a few years.

"I drink and have a good time, jump up on tables and wreck things but only
once in a while. To put things into perspective, I've only drunk twice in
the last three weeks. But when I do I AM the party!"

But, erm, nobody really gets to know.

Secrets, secrets

Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster are, apparently, planning to get married - it's all a big secret. In fact, says Victoria Newton:

are such a closely guarded secret, even family members don’t know where the ceremony will be.

Newton, of course, has no truck with surprises:

I can put them all out of their misery — it is going to be on an Italian island in mid-June and the smart money is on Capri.

Of course, people will note that she's semi-guessing, and we know Newton's track record with intuition.

We've got a million things for you to listen to...

Back, briefly, when we were foolishly given a radio show by a station which came to regret their decision sometime around the second Bivouac track, and only let us carry on because they were going to go off the air after a month, we used Dalek Beach Party's The Sound of Music as our theme tune. (And, you know, we would again, were anyone to make the same mistake.) We've not heard the track for ages, because our vinyl is still in a box and our promised new turntable hasn't arrived, and we never really expected to find the obscure anti-racist album it came from online.

That was before the essential Indie Mp3 blog alerted us to Bubbyworld's Waah page, offering downloads of everything Waaah and Bring On Bull records made. From that Screaming Custard/Dead Famous People flexi up to the Sound of Music. Enjoy.

How labels care for their artists: Thursday

Thursday - recent providers of support to the My Chemical Romance tour - have just split from Island Records. Talking to In It For The Money magazine, Geoff from the band explained why:

They weren’t the same label that we signed to. Everybody that signed us moved to Warner Brothers, and there was just like six months during War All The Time when we just didn’t have anybody working there. Then they brought in the new staff and it took us a long time to get used to them. I actually like all the new people, but they were much more focused on bands like Fall Out Boy, The Killers... more of like a real pop thing and so bands like us and Thrice they just kind of were like you know, didn’t know what to do. So right away when our record came out and we saw that like we weren’t gonna be a priority anymore, we were just kind of like ‘well let us go’ you know ‘just let us go’, cos we have so many labels that like us and would like to put out a record, just let us go and we’ll go and put out another record somewhere. And they were all like ‘no waaaaaaaay, we love you guys, and you sell a lot of records for us’ and stuff and you know we just kept meeting with them and eventually they were just like well if you really don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be here. So we just got all the paper work drawn up...

Noel Gallagher puts the light out

Noel covers The Smiths. That's "covers" as in "mother I can feel the soil falling over my head". There Is A Light which has just gone out.

Let's go round again: Ringo's house

It's probably lucky I'm just a bloke doing a music website and not, say, someone with a serious council tax problem, as it seems Liverpool City Council has tremendous trouble with its outgoing email.

Still, after mentioning here that we were still waiting for a response from Flo Clucas about the mystery of Ringo's house, we had a response within a few hours:

The essence of the response was:
Both responses are correct. A new home has been found for the house, NML is delighted to have the prosepect of utilising it as indeedd they wrote to me some 15 months ago.
However we are currently in a legal process as far as a CPO is concerned and until that process is complete, no decision is made.
Best wishes
Flo
PS I have not had the Housing Portfolio for more than a year, so will not be in a position to respond to questions related to Housing.

So, that does sort of square the circle: when I was told back in January 2006 that "this has been done", it was "done" in the sense of "it hasn't been done yet". This is our response:

Flo,

Thanks for your reply - we really don't seem to have much luck with our email communication, do we? When I wrote to you in 2006, I seem to remember it was only the third time I contacted you that your response to me made it through the system.

Anyway, cheers for your clarification - I'm still not sure "this has been done" in 2006 and "no decision has been made" in 2007 can simultaneously be accurate, but I suspect that might just be me over-reading too much into the earlier phrase.

My apologies for tugging on your coat-tails with a housing matter - I'd assumed since you had been quoted in the Daily Mirror and the Liverpool Echo on the matter of Ringo's house at the start of this year it was still in your remit. Who should I now address my enquiries towards on this issue? I'm still very interested to get a response to the question about the cost of this project, and who will be funding it.

Thanks again for the reply,

Simon

As ever, we'll let you know when we get a response.

Apparently, heroin screws you up: Why weren't we warned?

The Sunday People shows why it's doing so very very well in the modern world by reproducing online a story from the paper. It's about a photo it's got of Pete Doherty showing the way his drug habit has ruined his looks. Trouble is, the paper doesn't bother to scan the photo onto the website, so it's kind of like reading a transcript of a radio programme. Try and picture this in your mind's eye:

A HORRIFIC new close-up of crack head Pete Doherty proves how years of drug abuse have taken their toll.

His teeth are now little more than ROTTEN pegs and his nose is ravaged by unsightly SORES.

It's the teeth that seems to bother the paper the most - they even called in an expert:

A Harley Street cosmetic dentist yesterday explained how hard drugs including heroin ruined Pete's teeth.

Dr Anthony Zybutz said: "One of the biggest problems with heroin addicts is not looking after themselves. Their focus is on the drug rather than looking after their teeth."

There's one for the next government campaign: "Taking heroin may make you forget to floss." The risk of dying in a pool of your own shit is one thing; but imagine a drug which leaves you sometimes skipping the second brushing of the day. Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

And the X-Factor winner is...

So, after that glittering list of judges waved around to replace Louis Walsh, who will it really be? Chris Moyles? David Gest? Mel B?

Erm... no, it's Sinitta. Apparently, and somewhat ickily, her former boyfriend Cowell has been preparing her to take the reins:

"I do feel bad because Louis is a close friend, but he is not on the show any more and that's not my fault.

"I'm the rightful new judge because I've been groomed for the job."

And, presumably, the Reynolds Girls were too busy.

Small distubance at McCartney home; nobody injured

According to this morning's News of the World, there was a minor security scare at Paul McCartney's Sussex house this week when a person suffering from a mental illness attempted to drive his car into the grounds.

Well, we say "a person suffering from mental illness" - the NOTW reckons it was a "RAGING madman" or, on more sober reflection, a "middle-aged Beatle nut." McCartney wasn't apparently in any danger - he wasn't at the house at the time, and security staff and police stopped the man getting in. Indeed, with the cops charging through country lanes chasing the guy, it sounds like Paul McCartney was actually in less danger than the rest of us.

The intruder has been detained under the mental health act.

Apparently, there's been an increase in the number of people turning up at the house looking odd recently - not, we're sure, in any way attached to the number of times the papers talk about the house. Helpfully, today's NOTW publishes a handy aerial shot of the house to illustrate its tale of "attempted assassination", alongside the handy nugget that you can get to the house by cutting through the trees. It's almost as if they're hoping for a state funeral.

Marie Osmond back on the market

We're pretty certain this one isn't an April Fool hoax, too: Marie Osmond is divorcing her husband Brian Blosil. The pair are so positive and upbeat about each other that it's a miracle they're bothering divorcing at all:

In a statement released by Osmond's publicist, the couple said: "Though our marriage is ending, we continue to have a very amicable relationship.

"Our marriage has always been a faithful one and neither of us is assigning fault for the divorce."

The couple married in 1986. It was Marie's second marriage, and you just know that somewhere an aunt is sniffing and saying "I knew it wouldn't last."

Nursery Klass

Of course, the day being what it is, it might not be true, but the statement announcing Myleene Klass' pregnancy seems to be genuine:

"Graham and I are ecstatically happy. We've always wanted a family of our own.

"I am truly delighted and know Graham will make a fantastic father."

Klass is currently co-presenting that half-assed attempt to merge a quiz and the X-Factor on BBC One on Saturdays, sat next to an increasingly uncomfortable-looking William G Stewart.

Glasto sells out

The ticket sale for Glastonbury hasn't run as smoothly since the days when people used to turn up and buy their tickets the day before - the lot sold out in two hours without any meltdown of the equipment. Of course, having thinned out the market to just the 400,000 registrants did help a great deal. (Presumably, the credit cards were checked as the tickets were sold, rather than being put to one side to check later as Reading Festival claimed happened with theirs.)

And has the heavy-handed security hoops frustrated the Glastonbury Ebay ticket sell-off? Almost, but not quite. You can still buy a ticket for Glasto on Ebay right now, but...

... we're not sure it's entirely genuine. After all - where are the sponsor's logos?

This week just gone: Vote Saxon

Seven days on No Rock and Roll Fun...

The ten most read articles this week:

1. Sarah Harding in her pants is sexy; Angelica Bell in her bra is wrong, says the Mail
2. Heather Mills nude in the present
3. Macca dates Guiness heir
4. Heather Mills nude in the past
5. Gay McFly naked performance
6. R Kelly's sex video to be shown in court
7. Is KT Tunstall a lesbian? Is she interesting?
8. Lily Allen changes on trains
9. Kerry Katona denies appearing in sex tape
10. Video of Britney Spears fooling with strippers?

More interestingly this week, REM announced they'd try their new stuff out in Bono's manor; Puff Daddy flew into a panic because a bloke asked him for a kiss; the Pet Shop Boys cheated death by being asleep; the Sony Radio award shortlist was announced and Brett Anderson released his solo debut.

You can read the whole week on one page or skim the week before in a single post.

Five years ago, arty types were invited to design a Belle & Sebastian cover; calling Bono as a character witness helped Peter Buck of REM get off his air rage charge; copy protection madness led to Celine Dion CDs breaking computers; Megadeath and Deacon Blue split; the great Jennifer Lopez sex video case was dropped following a confidential settlement; Earworm records called it a day and Branson sold half of V2 to a bank. Probably the wrong half.

You don't have to buy these, but you could:


Gorgeous box o'Gedge: Wedding Present Peel Sessions


Brett Anderson goes solo; finally gets to write about love and poison


We've not heard this Hilary Duff album ourselves, but if it's half as interesting at the Guardian suggests ("the best cuts here hold their own against Kylie, though the more apt comparison is Rachel Stevens' fantastic but underperforming solo album") it's worth a listen


We make this the fourth Stiff Little Fingers collection, but none the worse for that


Aptly named Crazy Mixed-Up Kid captures Joe Brown's work at Pye straddling music hall covers and the birth of rock and roll


June Tabor's Apples rewards the investment on the first track, The Dancing, which grew out of a project developing folk songs from the memories of care home residents


A "sexual history" of Michael Jackson - not, we're sure, a work full of half-formed guesses and idle speculation


Brian Eno revisits his 1995 diary. "June 23rd - decided to write my diary as if I was re-editing it ten years hence. Had some toast. Recorded sound of lift doors."


Peter Falk spins anecdotage out into an autobiography


Just in time for Captain jack's return to the motherseries - the last bits of Torchwood hit DVD