THAT'S RATHER REASSURING: Following on from the shooting of Dimebag on stage in Ohio, there's been some humming and hawing about quite what form of total over-recation is called for to ensure that this never happens again. But not everyone believes rules and security and so on are called for:

"I'd have to say, the people heavy metal shows are drawing are coming out with a different mind-set about what's fun," says veteran security professional Bart Butler, president of Rock Solid Security. "But when it comes to gun-toting crazies, I wouldn't say metal shows are any different than any other mass gathering."

Good to know you're no more likely to be taken out by a gun-toting crazy at a Man O'War gig than you are, say, at a riot or the next time you sign up for a Human Be-in.

Paul Bassman, manager of Damageplan, is still puzzled about the whole thing:

"How this man got onstage without encountering security is the most puzzling question," Bassman says.

That's right, I'm sure nobody has ever been at a gig before where people have ever got on the stage, run about, hugged the bass player, sung two lines of a song, kissed the singer, trod on the effects pedal, danced about like a pansy-boy or simply dived off the stage back into the crowd. It just never happens, does it?

The Alrosa, where the shooting happened, may or may not have been making the crowd go through metal detectors on the night Dimebag died, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway as it seems the gunman slipped in through the backdoor. Though, generally, if someone wants to shoot someone, they'll find a way in anyway: what stops everyone being shot to pieces in gigs is that generally, there aren't that many people who want to go round shooting everybody. The metal detectors are just for reassurance.

However, even in the face of the obvious, people are still suggesting that Something Must Be Done, although they don't quite know what:

"Underwriters in general take into account that the (metal) shows are of a different nature than the plain-vanilla type of show," says Jeff Insler, CEO of entertainment insurance firm Robertson Taylor North America.

"If anything, underwriters' perception is that promoters need to take more steps to make sure people don't get into venues with weapons," Insler adds.

...which is just a step away from saying "We really think it might be good if clubowners ensured people didn't get shot to death at their premises." Maybe they could put up a sign?

HEY, HO, LET GO: Apparently - according to Tommy at least - it's what he would have wanted: a slightly alarming looking bronze of Johnny Ramone has been put in Hollywood Forever Cemetery so "fans have a place to come and a way to feel in touch with this music."



Of course, the other way of getting in touch with Johnny's music would be to play a Ramones record, which would probably have a more positive effect on you than dragging off to some showbiz death pit, but that could be just us.

ROBBIE WILLIAM'S NARROW ESCAPE: During the trial of Justin McAuliffe, the spectacularly bile-filled letterbomber, it turned out that he had put Robbie Williams on his list of fifty targets. Most of the people on the list, which he wrote in between scrawling 'Death to them all' and 'Hate' on the walls, had somehow slighted him, although not in any way they'd ever realised doing. Williams was spared getting one of the party-popper and lighter fuel devices through the post because McAuliffe couldn't find an address for him (presumably sending it care of EMI wouldn't work?).

AS THE ROCK STAR SAID TO THE BISHOP...: Back in the days of Thatcher (the mother, not the chap who happily provides helicopters to people planning violent overthrows of governments without knowing what they'd use it for, of course) Runrig used to do their bit of Scottish arts by insisting every copy of their singles sold in the South of the UK was marked "Import." And, indeed, all seventeen Runrig records ever sold in England did, indeed, have that stamp upon them. Now, though, their lead singer Donnie Munro is trying to advance the cause of Scottish Arts still further, by battling Richard Holloway, the former Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, for the chair of the Arts Council. It's not a job with very much future - the council might be axed as part of an overhaul of Government arts policy - but it'll keep him busy while he tries to get a slot as an MP.

MAKES THOSE NSYNC FRUITIES SEEM A BIT LESS INSPIRED: This could be the most extraordinary celeb marketing tie-in yet: Willie Nelson is now flogging biodiesel under his own brand. Disappointingly, he's not using the slogan "Put a Willie in your tank."

MORE FUN WITH THE SIMPSONS: Having so badly botched the Saturday Night Live performance, and then blamed it all on her drummer and acid reflux (neither of which would explain why she bolted and left her band to fill on a live network TV show), and then blown her rehabilitation gig by just being plain awful at the Orange Bowl, Ashlee Simpson is now back again with a whole heap of reasons why, you know, that wasn't her fault, either:

"There were no ear monitors when we went on stage."

In other news: "It was the chisel and hammer" claims shoddy workman

"And trying to sing in a stadium where you can't hear yourself is kinda hard."

To be honest, love, if you really couldn't hear yourself you should be considering yourself lucky. It's odd that professional singers manage to somehow overcome these difficulties without being quite so terrible. As was demonstrated by the booing. All those boos. But apparently, that wasn't Ashlee's fault, either.

"I was facing the Oklahoma Sooners [which had a bigger crowd on hand], and I was rooting for USC, and they played a clip of it, so maybe it was that those people didn't like me."

Perhaps it was. Or maybe you're just rubbish. As it is, Ashlee did manage to squeeze out a Prince Harry style 'apology' that isn't:

"Maybe they were booing at me, maybe they were booing at the halftime show because the whole thing sucked. If they didn't like the performance, and that's what it was about, then sorry to them."

'Sorry' seems to be the aptest word for this whole tale, really. Some civic minded people are demanding that it's time the whole thing was brought to a natural, loving end by petitioning for her to retire:

We, the undersigned, are disgusted with Ashlee Simpson's horrible singing and hereby ask her to stop. Stop recording, touring, modeling and performing. We do not wish to see her again.

She cannot match the sound of her voice that can be found on her CDs, when she sings live. She simply yells the words (sometimes the wrong ones) into the mic.

We are so sickened by her "performing" that we are taking this opportunity to demand that she stop.

They're just shy of 17,000 takers so far.

KEYS ACCEPTS GIG, PROMISES TO KEEP 'EM COVERED: Pegged to sing America The Beautiful before the Superbowl, Alicia Keys has clearly been chosen as someone you can trust to keep her breasts fully covered at all times. The song is being included the event as a tribute to Ray Charles, the last person to sing the tune (now available as a rather nifty pop-up book, by the way) and as such 150 kids from Ray Charles' old school, the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.

BUCK SAYS HE NEVER, RIGHT: Young Buck - appearing under his slightly less stupid name of David Darnell Brown - has entered a plea of not guilty to charges relating from the violent turmoil at the Vibe magazine awards. Meanwhile, Jimmy James Johnson, the stabee, has pleaded not guilty to punching Dr Dre in the face, the event which sparked the whole lotta trouble in the first place. Dr Dre's face has not been charged in connection with events.

EMINEM: MORE LIKE JEANETTE WINTERSON THAN YOU MIGHT IMAGINE: The ongoing, and now slightly dull, fued between Eminem and The Source magazine almost but didn't turn nasty when Eminem and "approximately" ten stooges turned up outside a radio station where Source publisher Dave Mays was being interviewed.

Words, we're told, were exchanged. Mays claims he'd like to have a proper discussion with Eminem to sort out all the silly bother, which goes back to when The Source publicised the young Eminem's less-than-progressive early raps about black women. It seems that Eminem, on the other hand, is keener to trying to win the debate by turning up and looking menacing.

MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION: Things could be back on the up for Courtney, as the courts have decided that she's once again a fit person to be given custody of Frances Bean. The pair were reunited on Monday.

Courtney's brief statementised himself:

"Frances has been returned to [Love] after a judge indicated satisfaction in Ms. Love's efforts to turn around her life and found it was in the best interests of mother and daughter to be reunited."

We know he's Courtney's solicitor, but we're a little surprised at the claim that the judge may have weighed Courtney's best interests as well as Frances - surely family courts make their decisions solely on the basis of what they believe to be best for the child? It's almost as if the attorney is suggesting that Courtney has been put into Frances care, as much as vice-versa. Which, what with the little girl having to call mommy an ambulance and a stomach pump in the past, could well be the case.

"TWO WOULD BE BETTER THAN NONE": Nobody knows more about coping after the departure of a handsome lead man than Newsround, which has carried on despite John Craven's shock decision to quit a few years back. So, where better to look for how the nation is coping with the Busted than the Newsround reaction report?.

Michaela suggests the band should carry on:

"I think Matt and James should continue with Busted because two would be better than none."

Or, more cruelly: it's not like any of them actually did anything more important than turn up and gurn, is it? We'll bet that Matt and James have considered this course of action, too.

Nicole, from Luton, thinks that she might have wasted her entire life:

"How could busted split? I have stayed with them since the beginning and it is really sad that this is happening now but I wish them all the luck in the world!! Love ya guys !!XXXXXX"

Yes, "stayed with them since the beginning" but Nicole's efforts just weren't enough to keep them together. It's lucky she'd managed to move on before the end of her email.

It falls to Alex to weigh in with the American Pie overstatement:

"Charlie has made a blunder! Real music has died. Busted WERE The Beatles for me."

... although, of course, Charlie's main problem with Busted was that they weren't actually 'real' music. But we're sure Alex is right - they'll probably shunt Top of the Pops off to BBC TWO now or something, you know.

Maisy from Southampton isn't surprised:

"I suspected it would happen all along. In different interviews and television appearances the boys didn't seem as happy as they were when they first came onto the music scene. I never liked Busted so I will cope fine but I feel sorry for all the fans. "

Maisy doesn't explain why she felt that the split would come back when the band came onto the scene and seemed to be really happy, but she obviously has her own methods. If only she'd been able to warn Nicole before she'd devoted her entire life to them...

WHO KNEW YOU COULD MAKE LIMAHL'S CAREER SEEM LIKE A SUCCESS?: Having kicked the pretty one out once, and then kicked him out again, you might wonder if Nick Beggs wonders if he made the right move now he's flogging paintings of phone boxes in Leighton Buzzard on Ebay to keep the wolf from the door.

YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE TO: ... but it's the last day of voting at the Best of Blog awards, and you could make all the difference between us coming fifth or sixth. Or perhaps you'll vote for the vastly superior 3Hive. Anyway, voting's here.

STEALING CLOTHES: We're not sure if we're more confused by how anyone who would want to steal Gwen Steffani's dress from a museum or by the dress being in a museum to begin with.

Anyway, this is the one which has gone missing:



Apparently in was in a Fullerton, Califronia museum, but isn't now. The museum's curator reckons the dress could be worth £2,500 or so. Which isn't much when you consider that Nell McAndrew's wedding dress is currently at three and a half grand in the Sun's Tsunami Appeal.



... and that's not even all that nice.

DOUGHBIT: Another 70s legend has died, with the news that cancer has claimed the life of James 'Jimmy' Griffin, founding member of Bread.

Born in Memphis, Griffin relocated to Hollywood in the 60s, where he was to meet David Gates and Robb Royer, forming Bread towards the end half of the decade. He was with the band for five years before quitting in 1973; a reunion with them in 1976 quickly descended into bitterness and lawsuits. Griffin's guitar and harmonising vocals is prominent on all the Bread hits, including Make It With You, Baby I'm-a Want You and Everything I Own, many of which have enjoyed a fine afterlife on Gold format stations well into the 21st century.

In 1970, Griffin won an Oscar as co-writer of For All We Know on the Lovers and Other Strangers soundtrack; it was a hit for the Carpenters. He also wrote for Conway Twitty (Who's Gonna Know) and Restless Heart (You Can Depend On Me).

He never quit music - forming Black Tie with Randy Meisner in Meisiner's post-Eagles period, and having made his home in Nashville was popular on the live scene in the 90s with his band The Remingtons.

Griffin, who was 61, is survived by his wife Marti , his daughter and a son.

PSYCHEDELOBIT: The former drummer with Jefferson Airplane, Spencer Dryden, has died. He was 66, and had been fighting colon cancer for some time.

Although his heart was in jazz, he had been working as strip club drummer, providing the beats for the beating off, when approached to replace Skip Spence on the tiny little stool for Jefferson Airplane. Spence had quit to go on a musical journey which would eventually see him form Moby Grape. He was with band from 1966 through to 1970, playing on Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, and was with the Airplane during their Woodstock appearance. The band continued after his departure, morphing into Jefferson Starship and then Starship, before their reign of terror was to stop.

While Airplane did their worst, Dryden drifted from project to project: first the Greatful Dead's hobbyesque New Riders of the Purple Sage and later with a hotch-pot of Country Joe's Fish, Big Brother and Quicksilver Messenger members in Dinosaurs in the 80s.

In 2003, Spencer's home and belongings were wiped out in a house fire, and last year Bob Weir of the Dead and Warren Haynes from Gov't Mule played a benefit gig which raised the money to give him a pair of new hips.

Although Dryden sat out the 1989 Jefferson Airplane reunion, he did meet up with his ex-bandmates for their 1996 Hall of Fame induction and was with them again to mark the release of the Airplane DVD.

Apparently some sort of half-nephew of Charlie Chaplin, Dryden married three times, and is survived by two sons, Jessie and Jackson. (We're not sure if they're old enough for this to have been stunt naming.)

YOU'VE GOT FOETUS ON YOUR RELEASE SCHEDULE: The now totally new-look Pitchfork (less wild west hero, now more some sort of acid-trip take on a government 'surviving terror' leaflet) reports that Jim Thirwell is reactivating the variations-of-band-with-Foetus-in-the-name that were in the first vanguard of don't-call-it-goth, and there's to be a proper album, Love, sometime around the start of spring. First album in five years, of course. That's one hell of a gestation.

HOW CLOSE WE CAME: John Lennon nearly chucked the guitar after two lessons because it was "too hard", says Colin Hanton, who was in The Quarrymen with him. (Yeah, Colin, I was Mollie Sugden's bridesmaid, but I don't go on about it all the time...). Hanton says that it was only seeing Lonnie Donegan that made him give it a second go.

Imagine, for a moment, though, a parallel universe a bit like The Wish episode of Buffy. No Lennon. Yoko wouldn't even be famous enough to count as obscure. Ringo might have got a few more songs there. Noel Gallagher would just have this gnawing feeling that he was missing something. Liverpool airport would be called Professor Redmond Central. On the other hand, without that famous bed-in for peace, the last decades of the 20th century might have been ruined by almost perpetual conflict around the planet. And you're still wondering if I'm going to crowbar in a reference to Alyson Hannigan in a corset, aren't you?

BUSTED FOR GOOD: Pyres are being built all over the country with the news that Busted really, truly have split and aren't ever going to play together again.

The band have statemented:

"Following the departure of Charlie Simpson, Busted announced today (Friday 14th Jan 2005) that they have decided to split up."

Matt Willis, once his future (Celebrity Big Brother - harshly mocked solo album not selling - difficult drug problems - manager of a Mr. Jiffy outlet) had stopped flashing in front of him said:

"It's a really sad day for all of us but we've always said that if one member left then we'd call it a day. The last three years have been unbelievable and I'd like to say a massive thank you to all our fans - you've been amazing."

James Bourne, who had been rocking, clutching his legs and whispering 'but nobody thought Robbie would be a success, did they?' over and over, had this to say:

"I'm devastated that Charlie has chosen to quit Busted, but I have to respect his decision and I fully support him and wish him all the best for the future. I would like to say a personal thank you to all the fans who have made the last three years the best years of my life. I'll remember these years forever."

Charlie, meanwhile, is still really excited and believes that people are just dying to transfer their affection to Fightstar:

"I'm incredibly proud of everything that we've achieved in Busted. We've enjoyed some of the best times in our lives together. I wouldn't change one single bit of it. This has been a really difficult decision and I hope the fans will understand."

... but even as he was speaking, the last groupie was fishing her knickers off and the floor and quietly let herself out the hotel room.

Tony Blair cut short a session ringing Gordon Brown's phone number and pretending he wanted to order a pizza to say "This is a dark day for music; a dark day for Britain. We must now put our faith in McFly to carry forward the name of pretty boys pretending to be stars."

LULU BETTER THAN THE SKIDS - OFFICIAL: So, the results of that Best Scottish Band ever poll are in, and Belle and Sebastian have proved once again just how many email accounts their fans have, romping home. Further down the list, we're surprised to find Big Country pulling a pretty impressive 13th, which makes them more popular than Franz Ferdinand (presumably the good people of the northern Kingdom were taking a 'wait and see' approach with them. Even Spare Snare will be surprised to be on the list, we suspect:

1 Belle & Sebastian
2 Travis
3 Idlewild
4 Wet Wet Wet
5 Sensational Alex Harvey Band
6 Simple Minds
7 Teenage Fanclub
8 Bay City Rollers
9 Primal Scream
10 The Proclaimers
11 Texas
12 Mull Historical Society
13 Big Country
14 Snow Patrol
15 Franz Ferdinand
16 Bis
17 Deacon Blue
18 Fish
19 Jesus and Mary Chain
20 Mogwai
21 Runrig
22 Trash Can Sinatras
23 Del Amitri
24 Orange Juice
25 Nazareth
26 Beta Band
27 Biffy Clyro
28 Altered Images
29 Aztec Camera
30 Eddi Reader
31 Goodbye Mr Mackenzie
32 Fire Engines
33 Delgados
34 Arab Strap
35 Vaselines
36 Associates
37 The Pastels
38 Eurythmics
39 Aereogramme
40 Blue Nile
41 Boards of Canada
42 Rezillos
43 Incredible String Band
44 Cocteau Twins
45 Dogs Die in Hot Cars
46 Spare Snare
47 Average White Band
48 Lulu
49 Skids
50 Shamen

LIAM TO TAKE REVENGE ON GERMANY: The Oasis boys are obviously still angry about the time they got their sorry asses twatted in Munich, and they're now going to try and engineer their last laugh. The poor Germans are going to be 'treated' to the first live run-outs of the new Oasis material at the Hurricane and Southside festivals.

We don't imagine for a moment that they're trying to soft-launch the new songs after the big, fanfare debut of the now-scrapped sixth album blew up into their slightly unusual faces.

KILEY EYES: Presumably, you'd already be going to see Bright Eyes as Conor parades his way round the country, but if you needed more persuasion - the mighty Rilo Kiley have been named for support on the tour. Here are the dates again:

9th March Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
10th Leeds Metropolitan University
11th Glasgow QMU
12th Manchester Academy 2
13th Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall
14th London Astoria

Conor shifted his position slightly in bed, his left leg extending from under the duvet far enough to give him a pleasant chill to balance the warm glow from the sticky load he'd just sprayed over his thigh... 'This,' he thought, 'will be quite a tour...'"

BILLY, DON'T BE A PAEDO: If only the Criminal Records Agency worked properly, we'd be suggesting that bands seeking to recruit members for long post-success slogs round the Butlins circuit ought to be getting background checks on the people they're getting to knock out the hits. There's been a few cases where the shady ringers brought into these touring concerns have turned out to be a bit murky, and the latest is the conviction of John Chambers for possessing kiddie porn. Chambers has been a member of Paper Lace and The Tornadoes, although he wasn't in either band for their glory years - he didn't pick up the Lace bass until some nine years after Billy Don't Be A Hero made number one.

MARLEY'S GHOST: After all the excitement of the news of Bob Marley being moved off to maunder in Ethiopia comes the denial: The Marley Foundation says Rita's words have been "twisted":

Desta Meghoo-Peddie told BBC 1Xtra: "She does express honestly and candidly the fact that Bob, as a Rasta man, loved Ethiopia and she would love to see the day where he is laid to rest in his father's land, and she has never been secretive about that.

"But we have never ever put out anything saying Bob is going to be exhumed, and returned home, and it is very painful to see something so wonderful is being twisted."

No reburial then; no new funeral. I've been baking seed cakes for nothing.

A ROW OVER THE WAVE: There's great upsetment - and not a little surprise - that tickets for the sell-out Welsh Tsunami benefit have appeared on eBay. Some of the sellers say that they intend to give their mark-up to the appeal - although one of the organisers was on the news last night saying "but there's no way of knowing if they really will" - well, no; but then again, there's no way of knowing if people who pledge cash to Children In Need really will go down the post office the next day to make good. In fact, it appears that in most disaster appeals, you're lucky if the world governments make good on three-quarters of the cash they've promised - quite often it's a lot less than that.

While the sellers aren't doing anything wrong, it does seem a bit creepy to be scalping on this particular charity gig - it's such a callous error of judgement we wonder if Prince Harry has got a couple of lots on the go right now.

But [The Millennium Stadium manager] Mr Sergeant told the BBC Wales News website that he found it "unpalatable" that some people would want to profit from a good cause.

Oddly enough, as he was saying that, The Stereophonics [New album to promote] were added to a bill also featuring the Manics [New album to promote], Aled Jones [trying to cross over from religious boradcasting ghetto], Charlotte Church [hoping to try and launch some sort of pop career]...

Which reminds us: After a week, still no word from First Great Western on if they intend to donate their bumper pay-day from the concert goers to the good cause.

NAPSTER LOOKS INTO THE ABYSS - AGAIN: You thought everyone was happy with the new, all-compliant Napster, didn't you? Only it turns out that isn't so. Sight Sound Technologies is trying to get them shut down: they're unhappy that Napster is infringing one of their patents. Napster had been negotiating its way out of trouble, only to piss SightSound off by asking to be allowed to distribute videos for free. Now, SightSound have asked the District Court of Western District, Pennsylvania, to force Napster to close. Again.

We're not sure we'd be taking out any long-period subscriptions with the service until this one's been settled.

CLAY NOT GAY: The hair-products and teeth American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken apparently refuses to do interviews with gay publications. Next magazine writer Matt Bell says it's not for want of trying:

"We tried to get an interview with the sexually ambiguous pop star... but his publicist told us he'd 'never talk to a gay magazine!' Well, why pray tell, is that?"

Perhaps it's because he's afraid that if he talks to gay magazines, people might think he enjoys doing it with boys. Hard to believe, of course, but there you go. But before we run away with that idea, let's not forget what happened when Alonso Duralde of The Advocate Online asked him right out "A lot of your fan base thinks you’re gay. Any comment on that?":

He looked right at me. Then, without a word, he looked at another reporter and called on him. Mind you,up to this point almost no reporters had been called on—it was one of those yell-out-your-question-or-forget-it situations. But Clay was definitely not going to answer my question, not even to give me some “I love all my fans” or “It doesn’t matter what people think, as long as they buy my album” bromides. I got nothing from him. I got the brush-off. I got a freeze-out worthy of Joan Crawford.

MAKES HALF A MILL FOR A DATE WITH GERI SEEM CHEAP: We're looking forward to the forthcoming BBC Two look at Kabbalah, as it seems set to underline just how astonishing the whole set-up of Madonna's new belief system is. A BBC guy paid £1,500 to have a dinner with Madonna and camera-pointy-husband Guy, during the course of which they decided to clean up Chernobyl by doing a spot of chanting:

"...chanting that culminated in everyone turning to the east, pushing the air with their hands, and crying out 'Cher-er-er-er-nobyl' at the top of their voices. They thought they were curing Chernobyl of radiation, using the power of Kabbalah to drive away the evil."

It might sound crazy, but it's not unprecedented. Two years ago, a group of British cinema managers gathered at a secret location in Knightsbridge and chanted "Swep..taway.. swep... taway" over and over. The lord heard their chanting, and the evil of Swept Away was banished from their cinemas' schedules.

A SONGWRITER'S WAY WITH WORDS: Darius is just starting to comeback - although, really, it's more shifting to different form of semi-obscurity - following his Dad's remission from cancer, and as part of the process, he's done a chinwag with Sky News. In the course of it, he describes Seal as "a total legend of mine", which seems to imply that he thinks he made him up.

Asked if Pop Idol meant he had a stinky, smelly stigma attached to him, Darius is thoughtful:

Maybe it has been harder in some ways. But then, I supported Shakira once in Paris in front of 40,000 people, which was a dream. None of them knew me at the beginning, but by the end 40,000 people were cheering along to my music.

Perhaps, Darius. Or perhaps they were just cheering because you'd come to the end of your set?

In places like India it's the same. They have no pre-conceived ideas of me on a telly show because they didn't get Pop Idol over there. When they like my music that's enormously gratifying.

And yet, despite these success the world over, Darius isn't going to be setting his cap at US success:

Europe yes, America no. I am going to really go for it in Europe, but if Robbie (Williams) can't do it in America then I'm not going to try. It just seems too much.

This is more than a little sad - the belief that somehow Robbie's rebuff from the States is an indication that the country is somehow impenetrable is just crazy. Actually, Darius - who is quite happy to do small gigs, sing live, go all over the place, even do horrible jobs like holding Geri Halliwell's hand on a kind of date - probably had much more chance of finding success in the US than Robbie 'After you've fetched me the world on a plate, I'll have the moon on a stick' Williams ever could. Plus, wouldn't you love to see Robbie watching Darius have a Billboard Number One? Wouldn't you just?

WHO SAYS THERE'S NO POINT TO THE ORANGE PLAYLIST Besides ensuring Lauren Laverne isn't forced to take dates from aging billionaires to pay for her catfood and eyeliner, it also has great "exclusive" stories. This week, for example, Bob Mortimer "reveals" his role in securing Javis Cocker's freedom after The Brits stage invasion.

"Reveals" in the sense of "tells a story that was in all the papers at the time". However, it is a pretty good story:

I became aware that Jarvis was being held under a kind of false imprisonment.

"His friend came and found me and asked me to help, presumably because I used to be a solicitor.

"We went to Jarvis's room and blocking the door was all Michael Jackson's security, these huge beasts that wouldn't let us in.

"The police came and asked them to move away and they wouldn't. So I said 'I'm his solicitor, I'm representing Jarvis Cocker you have to allow me access to my client or I'll sue you and your boss, blah blah blah...'

"So they let me in and I was like 'Jarvis what the f*** have you done?' - and he said - 'I showed me bum to Michael Jackson and they've locked me in here'.

"I went to the Brits people and said you have to let him leave, they too tried to shift Michael Jackson's security and they couldn't.

"Eventually the police had to pretend to arrest Jarvis so that they could get him out, when we got back to the police station they let us go. So that's where the 'Free Jarvis' campaign started."

Oddly, this week's photo shows Lauren and Bob actually making the programme rather than in the traditional, slightly uneasy posed shot. Maybe this is the first programme where Lauren didn't look as if she would rather be doing some ironing while the guests ramble on: