Voting in this match closes at midnight on 25th March

GERMANY: Daisy Door and the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra – “Oh, Oh, Ooh, Ei Ei Ei, Wo Immer Es Auch Sei” The Manager Says: After the scurrilous and incorrect suggestions that my last entry, Heinz, was in some way ‘not German’, I am going here with the much more Germanically-named Daisy Door (n.b. this, not Dor, appears to be the correct spelling despite what Amazon’s MP3 sales say) and the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra. Oh, Oh, Ooh, Ei Ei Ei, Wo Immer Es Auch Sei is from Peter Scores: The Erotic World Of The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, and I am reliably informed that the 85-year-old Herr Thomas is the oldest entrant into the Cup so far.

Length: 2:40 Played: 53

SERBIA: Svetlana – “Nevaljala” The Manager Says: I’m rolling out the big guns now. There was a certain amount of controversy regarding the inclusion of Svetlana Raznatovic in the Serbian squad, what with her being the widow of notorious war criminal Arkan, but such a big name simply can’t be omitted. This is her 1997 hit, Nevaljala (Bad Girl), which was number 1 in Serbia for 17 weeks.

Length: 3:35 Played: 52

Commentary Box Analysis Route one stuff here from Serbia, whereas Germany go for something a bit, um, more unexpected, mixing it up in the midfield just when you think they’ve settled into a pattern. It’s an interesting tactic, but not sure how the crowd will feel about it…

RESULT: Greece 1 Nigeria 2 Despite a strong start the Nigerians couldn’t hold on to their early lead with the Greeks equalizing half way through the second half. It looked like that was it until the fourth official held up his board to show two minutes added on. The Nigerians poured forward, the ball was FIZZED into the mixer, bounced off six bodies, hit the crossbar and bounced right by the line and OH the assistant referee has given it! The greeks go, in their own winsome way, completely wild, surrounding the ref, but the goal stands. “The Greek track reminds me of seeing black and white footage of the great Europop Cup sides of the 50s and 60s – gorgeous, elegant passing, colossal shorts and well-kept hair, a slow trot around the field.” “Nigeria are definitely aiming to please the pop purists here. And when Kefee Obareki is on the mic, there are definitely goals in prospect.” “This is the sort of game you tell your grandkids you were in the stands for.”

Coming Next: Netherlands vs Japan. The Japanese know they have to raise their game against the well drilled Dutch side, who’ll be hoping two wins will be enough to see them escape the group stage.

And welcome back to Group D where the current leaders Ghana take on Australia, who’ll be looking for their first win to help them out of the group. A real contrast of styles here today…

Voting on this match finishes at midnight on the 24th March.

GHANA: Wulomai – “Jalelele” The Manager Says: After a comfortable victory over the Serbs, the Ghanaians know that they can secure qualification for the knockout stages with a win over Australia. But manager Ben Graham is wary of the threat posed by the Aussies, and has turned to the veterans in the squad, Wulomei, to try and keep things tight. Wulomei last represented Ghana in the 1970s, and after the death of founder member Naa Adei in 2007, the group re-recorded some of their biggest hits, including this, Jalelele. The gaffer will be hoping that their vast experience of international pop competition will be able to match whatever the Aussies throw at them.

Length: 3:38 Played: 73

AUSTRALIA: The Birthday Party – “Nick The Stripper” The Manager Says: After failing to return to Sydney with 3 points, the Australian press was not happy with the manager and wanted a change in strategy. Early scouting indicated that Ghana would be a tough opponent (and their lopsided victory over a very, very good Serbia team proves that point). However, we’re confident that some agressive play near the goal from striker Nick Cave and some top-notch defense from the horn section will ultimately be what lifts us past Ghana.

Length: 3:52 Played: 62

Commentary Box Analysis Unbelievable Jeff! Very surprised to see the Australians going for the very veteran striker up front in only their second match, but we also know that familiarity often breeds contempt in the voting public especially against such a smooth, well-drilled Ghanaian side as this (even if their manager has started referring to himself in the third person ;)). It’s a big risk, but will it pay off?

RESULT! Argentina 0, South Korea 1. Good victory here for the Koreans over a muscular and not untuneful Argentinian side and a bit of a shock for some pundits who thought this looked destined for the draw, but it’s still all to play for in this very tight group. “Korea [are] playing to their strengths here.” “I’m sure I shouldn’t like the Argentinian track as much as I do. It must be the wurlitzer quietly playing in the background?” “flawless play from the Koreans. “Flawless” doesn’t always win at this level, however, inspiration and dumb luck being crucial as well”

Coming up: Today’s delayed Germany Serbia match sees Serbia fighting to stay in the competition, can they beat the always solid Germans?

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 15 March.

FRANCE:  Françoiz Breut – “Si Tu Disais” The Manager Says: “One of those songs that feels on first listen as though it’s always existed somewhere, such is the ease with which Françoiz Breut – original stage name Françoiz Brrr – taps into a familiar strain of pensive, elegantly (re)strained melancholy. Taken from her (thoroughly excellent) 2000 sophomore album Vingt à trente mille jours.”

Length: 2:26 Played: 170

MEXICO:  Los Dug Dug’s – “Smog” The Manager Says:  ”In our first game we were very much playing to the crowd back home, and failed to ingratiate ourselves with the global audience that had tuned in for the opening salvo of the tournament. Now, with a pressing need to get points on the board, the changes have been rung, the big name players have been dropped, and a group of veterans from the Mexican league with little international experience have been called up. In spite of this, they play a forceful, compelling game, recognised the world over, and the management are confident that they won’t be over-awed by the occasion.”

Length: 3:16 Played: 137

Commentary Box Analysis: “Beguiling chamber pop from the French here, but will it have the skills to get past the muscle and the FLUTE of this pacy Mexico attack? This is the first real decider in PWC10, who will take it?”

Result! Brazil 0 North Korea 4 It’s like Ayresome Park against the Italians all over again Brian, but should we really be that surprised? Lord High Everything Else Mullah Resmat knows how to pick teams to impress the crowd. North Korea is going to go far in the tournament on this form. It’s just like watching Brazil! Except rubbish. Their performance is ridiculously good. They talked the talk, and they’re walking the walk. Acrobatic gracefulness and fluidity that is more than a match for the Brazilians’ somewhat oafish up-the-center tactics.

Coming up: Group B is tighter than a tight pudding, what will Argentina and South Korea have to lift them above the rest of the teams? I hand you over to my co-anchor (i said anchor) TimH…

We start the second round of matches with a scrap for group supremacy between South Africa and Uruguay. A win for either team here would almost guarantee them a place in the last sixteen, so Isabel and Jim will no doubt have been sweating over their seleção…

This match will end at midnight on March 14th* – for now, get voting.

*oops, gave you 8 days originally, will close on sunday night now

SOUTH AFRICA: Mapaputsi – “Izinja” The manager says – “Straight in and no messin’! Attack with men forward and leave “the dog”, our very tough defender, covering at the back.

Length: 4:13 Played: 167

URUGUAY: Opa – “Botija de me Pais” The manager says: With 3 points in the bag we can afford to be a little more experimental this time round, so here’s Opa. The intro is creepy and great – it makes me think of funky little goblins chanting in a cave. The song proper is a gorgeously smooth bit of nu-candombe, with a chorus which has a touch of the Bee Gees about it. But those goblins keep coming back, and the song really takes off when they storm the mountain in the last minute or two – the final 20 seconds are UNDERWORLD TRIUMPHANT! (Um, I’ve no idea what the words are really about, sorry)

Length: 5:25 Played: 142

Commentary Box Analysis: “Well Brian, two rather different tactics here, Uruguay are very laidback caressing the ball around not unlike a South American Steely Dan. But what’s that? Oh, even men with steel hearts love to see a dog on the pitch with the South Africans there.  Could easily go either way this one…”

RESULT: Cote D’Ivoire 3 Portugal 1: Well It looks like the Portuguese tactics didn’t quite pay off here as CIV power past them. This is stunning play from the Ivory Coast though, fast, fluent, powerful and incessant. Ivory Coast continually cut out passes, and after 25 shots in the general direction of the goal finally a couple go in. the sheer loose energy of it is ridiculously good. No contest; Côte d’Ivoire just mop the field with their competition, and this from a man who’d be rooting for Portugal any other day.

Coming up: France and Mexico are both desperate for a win to avoid elimination. Even at this early stage Pop World Cup faces its first decider.

Fabio Capello’s still somewhat limited English vocabulary may not yet incorporate the term “invidious position”

must have been the turning point where Fabio decided that he had to go. Not because of Ms Taylor herself, but, I think, because of the following piece of genius from Freaky Trigger’s very own Patron Saint of Sport, Lord Harry of Bassett:

Dave Bassett endorsed [Glenn] Roeder’s view that a Rubicon has been crossed. “The problem is John Terry’s a wrong-un. He’s masquerading as one of the chaps but he ain’t because this shouldn’t happen,” the former Wimbledon and Sheffield United manager said. “Of course you have players misbehaving when they’re married. But they aren’t doing it to a team-mate’s missus. That’s off bounds.

“It sticks in the throat. There’s an unwritten rule that you don’t start messing with players’ missuses. I’ve had players who have left their missus or had bits and pieces on the side but they’ve not gone off with a team-mate’s bird. That’s crossing a line and where it comes unstuck with Terry. I don’t recollect it in all my years in football.

Gawd Bless yer Harry!

The Trinity is the only pub outside Zone 1* on this list. That’s not to say that we are a bunch of central London fanatics, but it is where we pretty much all work and, therefore, where we’ve spent most evenings in the pub. I’d left the Exmouth by the time this stage in proceedings had been reached so I’m a little short on the main thrust of the arguments that got the Trinity this far up the list, but I can tell you about what I like about it:

It’s the nicest pub in Brixton

And when you’re faced with a three hour gap between the end of work and halfway through the second support at the Academy that’s all you can ask for really. Because it is the location of the Trinity, only a ten minute walk from the Brixton Academy that led it to being visited, never mind nominated. The only time I’ve been here and not gone on to a gig was when The Specials cancelled at half 5. But this is damning with faint praise, they do a cracking pint of Ordinary, the service is good, they serve big portions of decent food and have a nice beer garden out the back if you are some sort of beast of the field. Much like the Pineapple in Kentish Town it does seem to have become the haunt of A Certain Type Of Gig Goer, but then that’s maybe because I’m only going to Certain Types Of Gigs (and I freely admit to fitting the profile of the Certain Type)…

There was one night, just after the smoking ban came in (I’m thinking the night of the Carter gig?), when I arrived quite early (what? I was EXCITED!) to find that they’d replaced the carpet right through the pub and all you could smell was NEW CARPET, it was the weirdest thing, like drinking in Allied…

FancyAPint
Beer In The Evening
Randomness Guide to London

*sorry non-Londoners, but this includes you too. Although apart from the Three Goats Heads and the Turf in Oxford, the Windmill in Stansted Airport and the Brothers Bar at Glastonbury I can’t think of many non-London bouzers where a gang of FT contributors have been there at the same time. Oh, I suppose DBA in New York and the Small Bar in Chicago should get honourable mentions…

The thing that finally got me through the door was horse-racing.

Having lived in Cheltenham for seven years the excitement of the Gold Cup meeting in March had stayed with me, but I’d never found a pub in London that was that bothered about it. I think it must have been 2007 that I realised that the Newton was a racing pub (and with proper RacingUK pictures at that), and had my lunch late on the Tuesday to catch the Champion Hurdle and scope the pub out. What I found was a very friendly and courteous welcome from immaculately dressed barmen (white shirt and tie at all times) and Really Quite A Lot Of Freemasons which, given the area, is hardly surprising (and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a stake in the place to be honest). I resolved to return on the Friday, and have now spent the last three Gold Cup days there.

It really is a cracking afternoon pub though, even when I’ve been sat on my own watching the racing, it doesn’t feel like you’re being looked at as some kind of weirdo. The fact that the last of their lunchtime punters don’t leave ’til about half two and the first of the knocking-off-early ones arrive at three helps I think. The lunchtime food is top notch too, Chris and I shared an awesome plate of bacon and chips (i know this shuold be boiled potatoes, but we fancied chips) and parsley sauce last year and they keep a decent pint of Adnams.

It does seem to be slightly obsessed with high stools and ledges rather than proper tables, but it’s a long way from being a Vertical Drinking Establishment. I know it’s an awful cliché, but you do get a real mix of people in over the course of an (afternoon and) evening (we have spent some evenings there as well!). Anyway, if anyone’s looking for me on Gold Cup afternoon (19th March next year), you know where to find me.

FancyAPint Link
BeerInTheEvening Link

Jay-Z Meets a Big Issue Seller outside Camden Town Tube

Of course (much like his famous glastonbury visit before he played), this isn’t the first time he’s been to NW1, and his last visit was a bit, how you say, problematical:

Jay-Z has spent too much time in the Good Mixer with Menswe@r and consquently bought some tacky weed paraphernalia, a tie-dye shirt and a big floppy hat from Camden Market.
Jay-Z thought he was getting a ticket to David Byrne’s Playing The Building, when actually he foolish agreed to actually Play The Building.
Jay-Z can’t walk up the flipping High Street as there are too many GOTHS in the way!
Jay-Z told Nas to text him when they’d agreed on a pub to meet in but he hasn’t.
Jay-Z forgot that the tube was exit-only on Sundays
Jay-Z is finding the drug-dealers outside Camden Town Tube a tad intimidating.
Jay-Z is disappointed that there are seemingly no Agatha Christie books in the charity shops along Mornington Crescent and thinks that Ma$e is five minutes ahead of him and snapping them up before he can get the chance.
Jay-Z has ended up in the World’s End and he’s having to stand up next to a really small table and he can’t hear what Nas and Kanye are talking about and he’s having to drink Stella.
The incense that Jay-Z bought from the Lock market is making him feel a bit… funny.
Jay-Z is trying to sell a promo copy of Blueprint 3 in the Music And Video Exchange and he hasn’t got any ID with his address on.
Jay-Z is concerned about the funny smell in the Dublin Castle.
Jay-Z is drinking by himself because the bouncers wouldn’t let Lil Wayne into the Underworld.
Jay-Z is flicking through the live bootleg tapes on the table infront of him, but can’t remember if he already has the one he wants on CD somewhere.
Jay-Z has lost Beyonce somewhere in the Lock Market and now he’s very confused and a bit teary and seems to have ended up in the stables
Jay-Z doesn’t want to eat in Wagamama AGAIN but that burger stall looks well dodgy.
Jay-Z has fallen in the canal.
Jay-Z is in a proper funk because he can’t decide which two flavours will go best together in the “two-scoop deal” at Marine Ices.
Jay-Z thought he was walking up to Camden Road overground station but has somehow gone round in a circle and is back at the World’s End AGAIN
Jay-Z is in the Spread Eagle and thinks Coxon ought to have got a round in by now.
Jay-Z is pouring out a 40 by the Camden Falcon
Jay-Z has arranged to meet Beyonce for a quiet pint, but the Enterprise is full of braying idiots going to see an old indie band at the Roundhouse and his phone battery has just died.
Jay-Z is disturbed by the noise levels in the Enterprise.
Jay-Z is sure the Wetherspoons was up here somewhere – he’ll just keep walking until he finds it.
Jay-Z can’t believe he has to walk all the way round the back of the market to get to the Morrisons.

A. very much in favour of the pub

B. quite partial to a festival every now and then

So, hey, what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG with Pub In The Park? I, I don’t really know where to start…

I know we’ve had our issues with the GBBF over the years, but at least you know where you are with it. It’s a very big room full of people drinking good, mainly UK produce and getting (nicely, socially, happily) drunk, and CAMRA, quite rightly, does little to hide this. PITP seems to be doing everything it can to get away from the idea that pubs are places of drinking, but rather places where karaoke, pool, darts and battle of the bands competitions are the most important thing, not welcoming places where Unorganised Fun is the key to a cracking night.

Given that there’s more space given over on the website to cocktail making than what beers they’ll have on (there is no link here for a reason), I’m a little confused by what they mean by “pub” anyway, and this list of Pub Cos and brewers and their endorsements doesn’t really help (not to mention that all bar two of the spokes are middle-age, white males. Good representation of the community, there, chaps). I mean, I know they’re speaking to the trade not to punters but really:

This initiative gives every operator the chance to engage with Pub in the Park and at the same time drive custom through the business.

really? It’s a bad state of affairs when the bloke from Mitchell & Butler sounds the most normal…

I understand why a trade event, where suppliers and publicans can meet and do business is a good idea, but I don’t understand why you’d want to open this up to the public, and, even worse charge EIGHTEEN POUNDS SEVENTY FIVE PENCE (or twice the cost of GBBF) and then make people buy tokens for food and drink rather than just letting them spend normal money. That seems to be really not what what The Pub is like at all…

So, I saw a (repeated) bbc four documentary about Jake maybe six months ago and then kept on entirely failing to search for his stuff, but then a friend linked to the above and I found an treasure trove of stuff on spotify (sorry Americans), and he is all kinds of awesome, jazzy and silly and slightly rude, but very british (and a bit 70s to be honest, as the above example shows). I’m not sure why he’s disappeared into obscurity, given that the doco showed him on many TV shows, and he seemed to have a fanbase of slightly alt comedians (i’m pretty certain the programme was made by Associated Rediffusion, ie Victor Lewis-Smith).

AH-OO AH-OO AH-OO

We’ve even got a trailer this year:

As a special treat, Freaky Trigger viewers can get 2 for 1 at any show by using the sekrit password: TRICERATOPS

You could get around easily, there was very little rowdiness, and very few bloody part-time tourist lager-drinkers in stupid hats people unused to the joys of ale. There was also a much closer gender balance than I’ve ever seen (we’re not talking 50/50 here, inevitably, but I’d guess 70/30 male to female? maybe 65/35?) and, yes, definitely more couples, rather than just groups of people (and a fair number of the groups were left over from the early afternoon trade session I think).

Also good to see that the Champion Beer of Britain is a Mild, although at 4.4%, it’s pushing it a bit (but then i like my milds subtle to the point of tastelessness). I don’t think any of the group got to try it, but I did have some pretty good (if randomly selected) bouze, nothing made my palate explode* with excitement/difference/wtf (i’ve gone off stunt beers a bit) although the Spire Dark Side Of The Moon (Peak District** bar) and the Holden Black Country Mild (W Midlands bar, obv) were both good chocolately, dense milds, just the sort of thing I like. I rounded the evening off with a personal favourite, a WHOLE PINT of lovely lovely St Austell Proper Job, which i know is a stinking kernow beer, but they do make a decent drop of ale down there, eh? Really hoppy and very dry aftertaste, I’d only had it in bottles from uttobeer/the rake, but it’s just as good on draft.

And we had a pretty good dirty crossword too, well done us!

*OK, nothing i drank made my palate explode, the pickled chili garlic from the Olives and Things stall did a pretty good job though (also, marvellous conversation starter with other people sat at our table).

**although why there are separate Peak District and North West bars, i’m not quite sure, as most of the PD beers were manc/cheshire/merseyside…)

Perronelle’s Blush, eh? Now look, we know it’s Cider & Black, you know it’s Cider & Black, CALL IT CIDER & BLACK!!!

Here at FT Towers we are now awaiting the launch of “Serpent’s Kiss”, and Le Petit Tatou…

I’m sure you can think of a few others in the comments box?

*who was also not taken in by this subtle bit of re-branding, to her credit.

Graun journalist spends all day reading nme.com and fails to really read the glastowatch story she links to which shows a screencap from metcheck when it said that SEVERAL MILES of rain would fall per day, temperatures would top 2000°C and the wind would be over 1000mph….

Also Science dude in the original Times story is relatively reserved, basically there’s this weather pattern that happens kind of at the end of June, but really isn’t that predictable and it’s not really a real monsoon, really…

The accuweather.com forecast will DO ME FINE to be honest (it currently says no rain after monday night, overcast but reasonably warm all weekend)

Oh dere lord, but I want to move to Akron, Ohio RIGHT NOW. I can feel my arteries hardening just reading that review:

I could eat that crispy coating and chicken skin all day for the rest of my life. Adding sickeningly sweet syrup contrasts with the savory salty taste of the chicken, which is what was awesome. Flavor explosion!

is my favourite bit i think.

also, looking at the second pic I couldn’t work out why there was some ice cream on the plate as well, until i read further down and realised it was BUTTER…

Also it’s good to see that Dan Quayle is now gainfully employed…

Poptimism is back! Back! BACK! This Friday, upstairs at The Horse Bar on Westminster Bridge Road, just across from Lambeth North tube. FREE entry, 7 ’til Midnight, hopefully the first of many.

If you don’t want to miss out on future Poptimism excitement, join the facebook group, innit.

So you get 20 minutes of him off the IT crowd and her off of teachers doing pretty standard “embarrassment and swearing” comedy set in a thinly-veiled Xfm clone and it kind of works cos chris o’dowd is good at that sort of thing, and the script is a bit obvious but has some decent set-ups and one-liners and visually it’s pretty decent, not unlike Nathan Barley but without the vicious, crippling evil that made NB so wonderful.

But then, because he’s an indie DJ at an indie radio station you get five minutes of the guillemots or the wombats playing a song “in session” in the studio whilst the characters occasionally talk over the top of it. It’s really weird. Really really weird. It’s not like in, eg The Young Ones where a band would suddenly appear for no reason, clearly the production company has thought about this and sold these slots (and it appears future bands include Ladyhawke and The Subways) as a way of increasing their income stream. And, they’ve even monetarised the playlists of the music in the show, with handy click-throughs to 7digital so you can buy what you’ve heard…

So I was in borders with a gift voucher, unsure of what to spend it on, when I remembered and picked it up, not quite out of duty, but frankly without any great expectation (not unlike when i got the new girls aloud alBUM).

It is ASTONISHING. I can’t remember the last time a book, a BOOK, has hit me like this, it might have been shampoo planet (yes, i read it before generation x, because waterstones in cheltenham didn’t have gen x) or My Idea of Fun, fifteen years ago. You might think “ah fanboy, bound to like it” but it’s so far away from his theatrical writing, and yet contains hints of all his beautiful little linguistic ticks that made me cheer inside when I spotted one.

Anyway, it may be the best novel yet written about blogging, the argot is so spot-on, the way the unnamed narrator, like all bloggers, moves away from the Proper Subject At Hand (a walkthrough of mindbogglingly complex computer game) to talk about himself, his friends (who are all referred to by their internet names throughout), his crappy job making Cooked Circular Food (a beautiful neologism that i intend to use at Every Appropriate Point) and everything else in his real life. There’s clearly a deep love for the subject matter, alienation and distance has always a key driver in forced ents work, but an embrace of distance, that it’s a good thing, and this links so strongly with how people immerse themselves in MMORPGs that it was kind of inevitable that Tim would see the potential in them.

Really, I can’t recommend it highly enough, and am worried that i’m doing a shocking job of describing how great this book is, but I HAD to tell you about it.

Neil Morrissey’s Risky Business, the everyday tale of celeb beer brewing (and how peed off must Richard Fox be that he’s not in the title?) might be exactly the sort of programme you’d expect us here at FT to be interested in, and we are, but mainly due to our EXCITING CAMEO in said programme! In programme two about 35 minutes in, a focus group is used and there, holding forth on the palatability of their brew is Pete, with me sitting silently (in the clip anyway) behind him.

The important thing to note about the Morrissey-Fox Blonde is that it may be the most tasteless ale I’ve ever had. It makes Discovery taste like Westmalle Triple, it’s about half a step above tap water in the complexity stakes. Before arriving at the focus group (which we knew was being filmed but not why) I had two theories, either it was going to be some sort of celeb beer or that it was ALCOHOL-FREE ALE and for about the first five minutes I honestly thought it was the latter, it has that slight bready taste you get from kaliber.

And Morrissey thinks this blandness is a good thing because like Dan Brown, Indiana Jones and Monty Python before him he is searching for THE HOLY GRAIL, a bitter that lager drinkers will buy. It is an entirely fruitless* task, it’s like trying to get football obsessives into rugby, or indie kids into heavy metal (Oi isn’t heavy metal) because although to the outsider they appear to share similar characteristics and though there may be a few outliers who cross over, they are entirely different beasts and, when you have a microbrewery that can only make three barrels a week, why would you even want to go for that market where Fullers,Youngs and other brewers with hundreds of years of experience have failed? Why not try and make something interesting? OK, the boys down the road who brew their first batch call them bastards for getting a decent recipe on their first attempt, but they also damn it with their “oh, very drinkable” praise, which is clearly brewerese for “this tastes of nothing”.

The other guys in the focus group, none of whom seemed to be primarily ale drinkers, reacted the way i think Morrissey was expecting, even suggesting, after some quite heavy prompting, that (holy grail pt 2!!!) their girlfriends would drink it (imagine that, WIMMIN drinking ale! now some of my best friends are both wimmin and ale drinkers (even CAMRA members) and i’m pretty sure they would find this as unpalatable as I did)!

He actually says here:

If Kronenbourg is the Coldplay of the beer world, then my own beer is like John Lennon and Julie Christie driving through London in a silver Jaguar E-Type circa 1967 with The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset blasting out of the speakers.

no it isn’t mate, it’s James Blunt at best.

Also, [SPOILERS FOR PART THREE] I’ve just found this press release from Tesco, which makes me weep into my pint of Nero/Deuchars/Landlord/insert your favourite ale here

Mind you, with my track record on success or failure of Guinness Red (spotted in the wild in Watford O’Neills on Saturday), it’ll probably go on to be a roaring success…

*although, somehow, the cidermakers (fruitless? cidermakers? oh please yourselves) have managed it…

Following Newcastle United chairman Mike Ashley’s Ashburton Grove appearance in the Toon end with pint in hand, the Football Supporters’ Federation is looking for any fans ejected and/or prosecuted for drinking in sight of the pitch this past weekend to come forward.

Why should the law abiding majority of football fans be singled out? If you’ve been ejected, banned or prosecuted for drinking in sight of the pitch, particularly this past weekend, get in touch with the FSF NOW at: info @ fsf.org.uk or on 08702 777777 (Mon-Fri office hours).

It’s good to see that some people are still keeping this great event alive though:

*two of these were in the intercalated games of 1906 which kind of don’t count, BUT ANYWAY…

In actually two hours time I set off for EDINBURGH where myself and Mr Hibbett will be showing, for your delectation and delight, My Exciting Life In ROCK!

think that just about covers everything, Medina is here, right off Bristo Square (it’s the downstairs bit). If you’re in Edinburgh please come along, mention the “Freaky Trigger Special Offer” to get two for one all week, cos I’m generous like that.

The first time I saw Earl Brutus was at Glastonbury in 1998. MyPete had been raving about them for months having seen them in Amsterdam. After four days of torrential rain, spirits were low and, to be honest with you, I didn’t get it. Lots of shouting, sampled glam drums and a funny Japanese bloke who didn’t really seem to do anything. Everyone else was buzzing but I was just a bit confused. It was only when I saw them a second time, at the Attic in Cheltenham a few months later (and then every three or four months after that, well, MyPete booked the bands you see), that it clicked into place. There was lots of shouting, sampled glam drums, and a Japanese bloke who didn’t seem to do anything and it was ASTONISHING. A bunch of grizzled, rather scary-looking blokes making an almighty racket and central to it all, Nick screaming lyrics about army boys, suicides with stars in their eyes and asking us to show him our minds. The one thing that brutus gigs never were was boring, shambolic often yes, but visceral and communal. Watching non-believers faces as we punched the air, joining in with the terrace chant choruses, trying to keep up with Sun-Yu’s drinking speed (the main thing he did, i soon realised, was drink lager). Given that the post-britpop landscape was such a graveyard of plodding sub-travises and ska-punk it was only Earl Brutus and Arab Strap (more grizzled old men getting pissed) that seemed to do anything for me.

The last time i saw Earl Brutus was the weekend of the jubilee in 2002, at the ICA. As we sat in the bar we saw the huge crowds of people being marshalled away from the palace as a fire alert or bomb threat or something had caused the whole area to be evacuated. Safe inside the 10 foot thick walls, we were left alone to continue with the gig. I never quite worked out why they’d been booked for this gig, they were supporting the Parkinsons and hardly anyone else seemed that botherd about them, but, down the front, the hardcore had come out of the woodwork and the band didn’t disappoint they were the same drunken, shouty, visceral, idiot genius they always were.

I missed the “re-elect ken” gig they did in 2004, but always had half an eye out for them when looking through the guardian gig guide. Surely, i thought, one day they’ll be back, nearly every other chancer from the era has reformed, but now, I guess not.

Here are some shamefully underwatch youtube clips. Thank you Nick.

Come Taste My Mind Video

Navyhead Video

Short clip of the ICA gig mentioned above

Earl Brutus wreck the Austrian Embassy, 2001 (SAS and the Glam that Goes With It and Navyhead)

News reaches us from blackleg our intrepid reporter, MattDC, that scenes like the above are no longer permissable at Glastonbury as THE MAN has BANNED brothers from selling plastic 2 litre bottles of their yellow nectar. We are not yet sure if this is due to the plastic making a right old mess or the fact that each bottle contains approximately 14 units of alcohol.

If you have joined our Pilton Boycott this year (and thank you all 850,000 of you* that have) but are still hankering after peary goodness, brothers is now available quite widely. Use their excellent ciderfinder to find yr nearest stockist!

UPDATE: This just in “Theres a dude selling rockingdadchairs! ACTUAL ROCKING DADCHAIRS! Omg”

*based on reports in previous years of a million people trying to get tickets on the first day

what’s next? steak plates? lamb chop pans? or just HOVER BACON?