Fixed

Oh, that was just a spur of the moment thing. What I meant is that if you're after a really good voice then you can't go far wrong with Tom, compared to Chris Martin for example, or Gary Lightbody, who are both usually average or piss poor. Obviously though the quality of the voice isn't always 'essential', it's more about the music and the whole atmosphere with some bands. Anyway, I still maintain that it's a good DVD.

I hope he remembers what the setlist was cos I can't!

It is actually a very good performance. Tom's voice blows a lot of other big band's singers out of the proverbial water. Great energy, good mix of slow and fast songs, and executed pretty much perfectly. All in all an excellent DVD.

Mmm.

What's really cool is if you open the song in Audacity and copy the part where the drums start properly with the crash cymbals and paste it to near the end, so that the riff starts again in a loop. Just makes it last a little longer.

Wow that was amazing! They played Sing, Friends, Side and Song To Self. I got my album signed and shook their hands and I know this has been said a million times before but they are such nice guys! Fran talked about the choir singing in Latin in J. Smith - Carbo in culo in aeternitatem... Coal in your arse FOREVER! I'm back home now to get some food, off to the gig in an hour and a bit. Thank you so much Fran, Dougie, Andy and Neil, incredible guys, I'm so happy right now.

Tegan and Sara Elbow Patrick Wolf Travis Seth Lakeman

What time have the support band and Travis been coming on at?

But even when they're not at their best, there's still something about them that I like a lot.

I actually agree with some of StandardE's points.

I think it's the 3rd single. At least that's the impression I get. Digital EP will mean no CD, no-one knows what the b-sides will be.

This article sums it up rather well. I have never really liked Little Britain that much - unlike other catchphrase-oriented sketch comedy like The Fast Show, its menagerie of characters are practically zero-dimensional, while neither Matt Lucas nor David Walliams possess the acting ability nor the wit to make any sketch anything more than hammed-up pedestrian predictability. Virtually every comic element in the series is borrowed from another (vomiting old lady - Mr Creosote from The Meaning of Life; Marjorie Dawes - Pauline from The League of Gentlemen; people in fat suits - Russ Abbot was doing that fifteen years ago, for fuck’s sake). Add that to the simplistic crassness and toilet humour and you end up with something that’s not very funny, the odd surreal sketch from the first series notwithstanding. Now, not being funny is no crime, but LB is much worse than that. There’s the sheer inevitability of what will you’ll hear from anyone trying to defend the show’s crassness - that it’s postmodern-faux-ironic, knowingly self-aware in its offensiveness, that it’s satiring homophobia/misogyny/racism, and if anyone’s offended by the poor taste, the joke is on them. If you’re thinking of adding a “come on, lighten up, see the funny side” comment along these lines - don’t bother. That kind of excuse has been knocking about for ten years, if not more, to justify any form of culture which is offensive to some particular group, from Marilyn Manson to South Park. Of course, for this argument to work, then the offensiveness has to be nuanced in some way; there has to be some sort of subtext or different level of alternate meaning conveyed. Problem is, Little Britain has none of this, although that doesn’t stop it from trying to hide its true ugly nature. In fact, it desperately tries to wear its right-on attitude on its sleeve as much as possible, such as the attempt to paint Marjorie Dawes as a bigot, with her thinly-veiled patronising racism aimed at the Asian member of her slimming group. However, the moment Ting Tong, the mail-order Thai bride played by Matt Lucas, appears on the screen, the pretence to sophistication vanishes. Ting Tong is nothing more than the pathetic flogging of another crass racist stereotype - yellow makeup, dodgy buck teeth and an inability to pronounce one’s “r”s and you have a winning formula. It’s interesting to note that while Spike Milligan’s browning-up in Curry and Chips and The Black and White Minstrel Show have now been consigned forever to TV Hell (accompanied by lots of self-congratulatory back-slapping), Little Britain gets away with away with the exact same kind of thing. If you think I’m over-reacting, then consider this - is it any way likely that Matt Lucas would have instead dressed up as a Pakistani, put on a “goodness gracious me” accent, and done a sketch about arranged marriages? However, I don’t want to go down the line that it’s the viewing public’s fault for willingly taking it. Although it’s interesting to question why, generally, racism against South East or East Asians is less controversial than that against South Asians or blacks, overdwelling on “the mob knows best” reasoning leads to an easy excuse for any kind of behaviour; it’s intellectually lazy and panders to apathy and conformism as the final arbiter of quality or taste, and is just as invalid when someone tries to justify the commissioning of all those awful 1970s sitcoms. Matt Lucas and David Walliams didn’t have to create that character, if they didn’t want to. They clearly did want to, and this makes them as much casual, ignorant racists as the characters they lamely try to send up.

Yes. A woman throwing up after she finds out that a cookie she just ate was baked by an Asian girl is hilarious. Give them an award for groundbreakingly original and not at all racist comedy.

I'll technically support you. You can put whatever you want on it; singles, album tracks, anything. It's not a guessing game as such, where you have to put well known tracks on so people have a good chance of guessing what the songs are - the no tracklist thing is simply, I think, to eradicate any prejudice etc. eg. If I saw a song by a certain band that I know for sure I don't like, I'd probably skip it, and miss out on hearing what was actually a very good song. For me, it's all about finding out about new bands, so I guess the more obscure the better!

The 'outdated' bullshit doesn't wash with me. All this 'partner' business is rubbish - get married, have kids. Easy. What's so outdated about having a family and children who know who their actual parents are instead of wondering which Dad they're going to see this week.

Is Black Monday racist? They should call it Technicolor Monday.

So, Joe Kinnear. What do people think?

I'm in too thanks :)

For a DVD it's great but for an official promo music video it's cack.

It's called Big Band Syndrome.

I just Googled "Shakespeare relevant today" and found these: http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/arts/contemporary.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1291250.stm http://tapestry.cappelen.no/1/1/kildeoppgaver/kildeoppgave.html?id=13 http://www.mercersburg.edu/campus_life_blog/campus_life_01110801.asp http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=479

Thanks Sarah. I checked the message board but forgot to check the main site, doh. No wristbands means it's going to be really mad and busy and horrible doesn't it - I'll have to start queuing mega early.

Any news on how to get into the Liverpool HMV shindig?

They played the new album AND another 19 songs?! That's effing excellent.

I just Googled this too but I can't find a definite answer. Apparently she used to go out with Matthew Perry... Before that, I Googled the Guggenheim Museum because there was a question about it on a TV quiz.