Westlife: Better than The Beatles?

Westlife: Better than The Beatles?: Hooray for BBC Talking Point, that weathervane for the crucial issues of the day! Hooray for Beatles fans, happy to rise to any bait! Hooray for pop music in all its shabby glory! Westlife can, of course, piss off, but have you seen that Beatles One tracklisting? Who needs to hear any of those damn songs ever again?

Are Novelty Afro Wigs Racist?

Are Novelty Afro Wigs Racist? Are At The Drive-In fools? And other questions. A bad gig experience, via Us Vs Them. Hey though, if Jeffrey wants to wear his afro and 70s shirt with pride, he should head for a 70s nite in Clapham (which has the added bonus of no At The Drive-In music).

Excellent ruminations on Pete Wylie and Bill Drummond

Excellent ruminations on Pete Wylie and Bill Drummond, from Sink. What evil bookshop goblin erases the memory of 45 from my mind every time I go into one, I wonder?

Incidentally, come on Team NYLPM. I’m moving house, dammit, I can’t concern myself with links and singles reviews. Much as I’d like to.

The Etiquette Of Drink Numbers - Lesson One

The Etiquette Of Drink Numbers - Lesson One: went to the pub last night with Frances and her new boyfriend. Four pints were consumed: the first was bought by me, not part of a round, as an atonement for lateness (this is good pub practice). The second was bought by F’s NB, necessarily so for impressions-making and bonding purposes. Now, at this point I was planning to stay for a third and no more, but this was foolish thinking: three pints is an exceptionally difficult number to leave on, even if there are only three of you in a pub. By pint #3 the imperative of the alcohol in your brain is affecting your perception of time, so that extra half hour (which will in fact be an hour as drinking speeds slow) seems neither here nor there. Also, conversation tends to peak at pints #3 and #4. In a three-way drink up, he who suggests pint #4 should buy it, and gamble that his largesse will be returned.

Anyway, had Frances bought the third round, I might have been able to leave after, ungenerously but having invoked upspoken gooseberry rules. (As it turns out F’s NB is a capital fellow so I was happy to stay and risk train horror). But no, I bought it: at this point a fourth pint became as inescapable as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Frances had to buy a round or risk appearing not only stingy, but a kept woman. And so she did.

I’d muddied the waters incidentally by putting money in the jukebox during pint #3. How this affects the dynamics of pub roundbuying is an issue over which there is much scientific disagreement.