Beyonce: Turns out Houston police sirens go waaaah, waaaah, waaaah

So Beyonce played a gig in Houston last night, and protestors turned up.

Did the police take steps to ensure the protest remained peaceful?

Well, not really. It was the police who were protesting:

Members of the Coalition of Police and Sheriffs (Cops) stood a mile away from the NRG Stadium and shone a blue light towards the venue.

They were protesting about Beyonce's Formation video, which they claim is "anti-police".

This is "anti-police" in the sense of "how dare you criticise the behaviour of any police anywhere", of course. There's a lot of that about, and it doesn't really do anyone any good. If COPS (seriously? That's the name of your protest gang?) want to ensure that the police get the respect they deserve, they might want to think about shining their blue light in the other direction.

Ozzy Osbourne apologises for pissing on the Alamo

Perhaps the most creative thing Ozzy has ever done in his career advertising butter substitutes and staggering around a house in perpetual confusion like some sort of highly-drugged performing bear is pissing on the Alamo.

Now, he's said sorry for doing that. Although he's not doing it through contrition, but to help promote a godawful history programme he's doing for The History Channel:

Osbourne told 'The Pulse of Radio' "Anything past World War II, I'm clueless. I'm kind of up on World War II 'cause I was born a couple of years after. So I know quite a lot about World War II and Hitler and the Nazis and all that."

"But anything from before or after I don't know anything about. So we're going to Mount Rushmore, we're going to the abandoned silos where you guys, America used to have their Minutemen missiles and all that. It's quite educational for me, actually."

This is bollocksy stuff - you don't really need to understand the history of a national monument to decide not to piss all over it. Museums and visitor attractions, it's fairly safe to assume, aren't really set up on a dual mission - there's no sign outside Mesa Verde saying "understand the Ancestral Puebloans a little better, or take a dump if you've never heard of them".

More to the point, given how wasted Osbourne was during those years, even if he'd been at an animatronic reconstruction of the Yalta Conference, it's likely he'd still have whizzed all over it, despite remembering when Nazis weren't quite history.

Osbourne has yet to apologise for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

What does SXSW do for Austin?

According to the organisers, this year's SXSW festival brought in USD315 million to the Austin economy - although that figure excludes things that take place outside the official banner of the festival. (I don't think they're just talking about the dealers here.)

It also generates getting on for USD80million worth of positive coverage about Austin:

In addition to injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy, SXSW 2014 also provided Austin with extraordinarily valuable media coverage. Since its inception, SXSW has played a critical role in helping position Austin as a place where creativity and commerce are mutually valued, nurtured, and networked.

In other words, SXSW is pretty much responsible for the "well, except for Austin, I guess" rider people will add when they talk, shuddering, about What Texas Is Like.

Phil Collins surrenders Alamo collection

Back in 2010, you might remember we all discovered that Phil Collins had a massive collection of Alamo memorabilia. The idea of so much American heritage being held in a private collection in Switzerland seemed a little odd to some of us.

It seems like it worried Phil, too. So he's given the whole lot back to the State of Texas.

It's not clear why Phil's decided to hand his stuff over now, although having Ozzy Osborne constantly popping round to piss over your collection is probably off-putting.

The only downside to this is that it gives Texans another chance to be all about how great Texans are. Might have been better if Phil had given the stash to Mexico.

November spawned a monster surprise

Wichita Falls, Texas is a growing place, it's true, but it was still something of a surprise to discover that Morrissey is going to play the city.

To judge by the listings for the Wichita Falls multi-purpose centre, they can't quite believe he's coming, either:

Perhaps more surprising is that Morrissey is so happy to play a venue which makes so much of its income from gun and knife shows and, indeed, a few days earlier is hosting a pig sale. Still, I'm sure he'll make his tokenistic fuss about not serving hotdogs in the venue on the night.

Willie Nelson busted again

Well done, Texas police. Arresting Willie Nelson for possessing a bit of dope. That's some sort of proof of the power of your detective skills right there. It's like pulling Chewbacca over on suspicion of possessing hair.

Given the amount of scary, hard drugs being poured across the borders by scary, hard men, wasting time shaking down Nelson for dope suggests a law enforcement team incapable of prioritising.

Warpaint weekend: Beetles live

Ooh, this is a nice venue - it's Warpaint at the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum:



[Part of the Warpaint weekend]

Piss on the Alamo, piss off Phil Collins

I have a faint suspicion that the entire Dallas Morning News article about Phil Collins and his love for the Alamo is nothing more than a long, elaborate pisstake:

British singer, songwriter and drummer Phil Collins has won seven Grammy Awards and sold nearly 40 million solo albums in the United States.

But perhaps his biggest passion isn't music, it's the Alamo.

Admittedly, the idea that Collins doesn't love music as much as something else is quite credible - indeed, for much of his later career, it wouldn't be a surprise to discover that he was driven by a passionate hate for music and all connected with it.

But the Alamo?

Decades later, Collins has gathered what has been considered "one of the largest private collections of Alamo memorabilia in the world." He's said he has "hundreds of cannonballs, documents and other artifacts from the Alamo at his home in Switzerland."

God, his postman must love him.

"What have you got in this parcel, Mr. Collins? Cannonballs?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact."

I wish I had an interest and fascination so deep with an event that I dedicated my life to removing as much connected with that event as possible to be hidden away in a private collection in a totally different continent.

But while Collins might be stealing the Texan heritage, he is giving something back to Texas:

Collins will speak about his Alamo fascination at 6:30 p.m. May 10 at the Margaret and Al Hill Lecture Hall in the Hall of State at Fair Park, 3939 Grand Ave., Dallas.

If I were in charge of the Alamo Mission, I'd be making sure the doors were bolted and everything screwed firmly down next week. Just in case.

Like shooting whales in teacups

Well done the police who - acting, we're sure, on a hunch - pulled over Snoop Dogg's tourbus and found two guys with some cannabis on board.

The arm of government claiming these scalps?

The Texas Department of Public Safety.

I'm hoping for a detailed explanation of just how the safety of Texan members of the public has been improved here.

Allen tries to salvage American career

Lily Allen is rushing to try and fix the screw-up over telling Americans they're backward. Apparently, you know, she never meant that at all:

“Apparantly I said that all Americans are backwards in some interview. While some Americans probably ARE (every country has a backwards contingent ), that would be a sweeping generalisation and also not true.

“I think there are some very clever Americans . I don't actually remember saying these things , but they were said in Texas which is where the SXSW festival was, therefore I must have been very drunk and showing off. Soz.”

Oh, well, if you were drunk, that makes all the difference. Presumably that also explains the more teeth-grating parts of your album, too.

What Keith Allen's daughter forgets, though, is that she's trying to correct something without checking what she said first. Allen actually said Texans were backward, with Arkansas and Wyoming residents being even more backward than that. Then she said she had nothing in common with Americans at all. Perhaps she better claim she was on drucks, too.