TRIO * OF QUESTION MARK PENITENTS

that was a mean shot against the telegraph the other day wasn't it? i just feel cheap and bad now.

i tell you one thing that is truly random, do you want to know what that is?
it's that, that Taylor Parkes wrote a very entertaining piece on the Football League basement-battle match between Stockport County and Rushden & Diamonds for a recent edition of When Saturday Comes.
left of the field indeed.
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"seconds after Spencer's gaffe, three middle aged men behind me start whistling the theme tune from Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, in perfect unison, as though they've done it before"
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* {technically a quartet}

oh, trio.

A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar and the barman says, 'What is this? A joke?'

[thanks Sandi Toksvig]

eh you can tell that was well worked can't you.

bloody ell.

British experts said last night that the spread of the deadly virus to France could now have "major implications" for the shooting industry.
Simon Clarke, from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, said that up to 50 per cent of pheasants reared for shooting in Britain were bought in France.
The potential spread of the H5N1 virus across the Channel could halt the import of chicks to Britain, forcing estates to rely on limited numbers of locally-reared birds.

The Sunday Telegraph gets to the heart of the matter

there's been enough time elapsed (Cher and all that) but it's still a bit, well, distressing, to hear vocoders on Radio 2

proxies of the Sudanese govt - a regime set to take on presidency of the African Union next year - are causing mayhem over the Chadian border.

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i knew Austria had this bad, bad law, but wz so ignorant about some of the other countries that shackle similar freedoms

Kafka by Warhol

a very dear friend of mine has started up a blog again.
alas i am indeed the person referred to here re. the vodka [though i didn't get a hangover].
the crumpets thing is not me - agreed it's hardcore - although for brunch yesterday i did fry an egg and put it in a sesame bagel that was toasted and spread with cream cheese {light mind you, light!}

Fuck you Milan Baros, fuck you

please do consider going here to read Oliver, wise as ever.

Norm Geras is also right, regarding Tony Blair's disgraceful, stupid, and wrong Terrorism Bill.

LENIN with questions that deserve answers.

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It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled.

there was an advert on the tv earlier for a forthcoming BBC4 programme and it was soundtracked by SAW 85-92's 'Heliosphan' which was, frankly, lovely

working in a school has recently provided two moments of unexpected pleasure.
in an office hangs a watercolour – by a 12 year old pupil – of a large detached house throbbing with life, less mannered than a neighbour, purple stone and framed by a big bank of dark green. there’s a bit of action in the sky, enough to prevent it looking listless, and the moorland palette seems to want to break out of the confines of the house walls. the colours pulse and shimmer just outside the edges of lines that seek to box them in, but the lines don’t quite have it.

in an echoing corridor – blasted cold tiles and a creaky disabled toilet – well used to banter and noise a young girl sang a scrap of a song, some scratchy fragment of an r’n’b effort, or so. she was probably trying to get off along to class, surrounded by mates all screeching, unenthusiastic about that first lesson bell.
for that moment she was a proper pro, a star, and transporting.

here's Oliver Kamm on Neil Clark.

incidentally, two words worth remembering whenever you see an article anywhere by the likes of Mick Hume or Brendan O'Neill are Frank Furedi

we’re staying in the ‘World Cup Hall’ (they do like a good hall, the Germans, maybe they’ll be a few speeches thrown in) by Borussia Dortmund’s ground

Stampede to vote on voodoo isle

article heading in my local paper, yesterday

GRATUITOUS RED DWARF REFERENCE

"the spark of a Clare Grogan"

ah! the connoisseur's Kochanski..

We're Shack and we're from Liverpool

-Shack at Bristol's Anson Rooms, 2000

the USA congress has finally decided to shelve the major cotton export subsidy in a move that is both scandalously overdue and worth recognising (the Step 2 scheme should now end in August).

over, in part, to Peter Mandelson, who - for all his rhetoric - is often almost as parochially protectionist as a Michigan or Lille union leader.
you shouldn't be running policy on the basis of 'yah-boo' tantrums about how you compare with the Americans (who's the most hypocritical and self-serving bunch of rich cunts, that sort of thing), but for some reason Mandy seems to think that's a reasonable way to conduct business.

just luxuriating of late in Jon furiously tearing himself a new one. it's astonishing.
oldskool Astronauts notepad-activity levels rewind in full effect!

particularly enjoyable were the lush Tropicalia visuals on display here [there were a few words jotted down too like].

my tuppence [well, alright, old penny] on Jon positioning the new Soul Jazz comp as the third wave of this in return to hipster favour centres on Jon's second wave: "then the mid 1990s obsession with Os Mutantes spearheaded by Stereolab" [he's damn right though there, isn't he].
do you remember Isle of Wight sunny-pop outfit the Bees?
(a gouty-history-man's Beta Band.)
well they covered 'A Minha Menina' on that debut LP, 2001/2-ish, and in the provinces the amount of newsprint spilled on this alone was a dam's worth.

course i don't suppose that's hipster is it, more snakebite in the Rugeley Red Rose.

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actually last year a Sao Paulo/New York/Chicago show {Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture} was on in the Bronx and Chicago's River North - it's coming to the Barbican later this month actually.
an exhibition of Tropicalia arts it placed the music in its wider context, design, film, etc.
that was a big hipster driver i'm sure [well for a twat like me].
i saw it here.
fwiw, the Barbican show will only spur more interest, perhaps Soul Jazz should flog their cute little record bags outside, guerrilla marketing style, with a copy of their cd. on the pavements.
yeah!
i don't know why i don't work in business innit.

does anyone know, btw, why Hibs players refused to join in the applause for Mercer at last weekend's Edinburgh derby, is there a backstory?
The Sunday Post was quick to condemn.
if you do please mail scottdisco@gmail.com