1. South Africa vs Korea Republic
2. Nigeria vs France
3. USA vs Germany
4. Ghana vs Slovenia
5. Netherlands vs Paraguay
6. New Zealand vs Cameroon
7. Portugal vs Honduras
8. Spain vs Cote d’Ivoire

Ecstasy: Honduran pop fans party on the streets, Ghana's glee at winning streak

Agony: European champs Switzerland aghast at flopping, sadfaces all round in the Argentina camp

Follow the results on the Pop World Cup site, keep listening and voting in the matches as they appear on Freaky Trigger and we welcome feedback from all spectators.

This will actually become the default style soon but fans of the pink can of course retain this as the option will remain in the sidebar and there may be another style option or two by the end of the year.

Those of you not yet middle-aged, criticise BBC Three while you still can! Really though, the channel’s future seems as safe as their schedules and as a result I don’t think Bennett needs to act quite so irate in her defensive stance. But then as a (not middle-aged) critic of BBC Three in general for some time now I would say that.

So how does the reality match up to Bennett’s insistence that the channel provides a ‘high quality mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent’ to that all-important 16-34 yr olds audience? Tonight we have:

7pm: The Most Annoying TV Moments…We Hate To Love
- Yes, a whole hour dedicated to BAD TELEVISION because they noticed enough people selected Channel 4, Five and Sky’s previous versions of the same premise. Guilty Pleasures culture at it’s worst? I’m sympathetic to the ‘hate to love’ concept to some extent though. The only real problem here is the tired parade of talking heads reading scripted observations all too obvious. ‘Screen Wipe’ for dummies? Brooker’s show itself is hardly highbrow given his penchant for puerile clowning and surely has the same 16-34 reach. Then again it’s much more personalised and focussed whereas the advantage of The Most Annoying… would be that it can draw material from less distinctive personalities (er, at least I THINK that could be a good thing…). But unlike Screen Wipe or TV Burp I’m not convinced this approach is necessary and it seems a mediocre-at-best starter to the evening’s main events.

8pm: Spendaholics
- Is it cynical to entice compulsive splurgers to get into financial shape by offering them TV exposure? On the plus side this show features people not already famous who genuinely need to change their personal-life damaging attitudes and behaviours being given a great opportunity and the support to do just that. The problem is that it’s a formula that can be attached to a plethora of subjects including physical health/diet, sex/romance, phobias and so on. In each case the concept is reasonable enough but because all of these shows actually exist and effectively operate in the same way you’re left with that mediocre feeling once again. Alvin Hall, will you accept the charges?

8.30pm: Eastenders: Max And Stacey
- If you’re a fan of this show (as I used to be until around ten years ago) then this is exactly the sort of thing BBC Three can be good for (in theory) as it makes some sense to produce supporting shows like this to accompany the main event. Except…well, how much of it is just reshown clips? And how much of it is somebody explaining what we just saw in those reshown clips? And is it really worth devoting extra time to combing Soap Opera storylines for valuable insight into human behaviour on screen and the parallels to be drawn in real life? Especially considering that Eastenders itself no longer commanding the same huge audiences it once did (how Corrie still manages to pull them in I don’t know though). And again, a whole HOUR devoted to this!

9.30pm: Celebrity Scissorhands
A tantalising title dashed by the dismal reality. I’m sure we’d all love to see Tamara Beckwith dressed up like a Tim Burton daydream but instead it’s just a group of people, some of whom you may even have heard of (SOME of whom may even deserve a little fame!*) cutting some hair. Somebody somewhere enjoyed The Salon enough to deem it worthy of rehashing here. Still in it’s defence, they’re keeping early 80s synthmantic Goliath Steve Strange around because they know how much he means to that all-important 16-34 yr old bracket. All in all it might as well be Celebrity Beekeeping but, as ever, if they could just get better slebs (not necessarily bigger names even, part of the point of these shows is to break those on the periphery to a marginally wider audience I suppose) to participate it would be quite tolerable, maybe even mildly enjoyable and worthwhile. My these hour long shows really fly by…is it that time already?

*Dammit, Brandon Block is an ARTIST, OK?

10.30pm: Actually that’s your lot for tonight’s ‘high quality mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent (e.g. Brandon Block)’ because from hereon it’s an Eastenders omnibus followed by repeats of all of the programmes shown earlier in the evening, some of them with a few added swear words. Budgets constrain of course but are they saying you’re not supposed to watch the same channel for more than three hours of an evening? Would doing so demonstrate you as some kind of shut-in lunatic? Or would that just be if a 00′s digital channel such as this was your choice.

I may be being a bit unfair though as Thursday nights do seem quite sparse compared to other evenings in the BBC Three week. Just my luck! It’s as if they all know the 16-34 yr olds are either out tonight or would rather play Halo 3 with maybe a break to watch Peter Serafinowicz (whaddya mean you don’t think he’s funny? they quite clearly and rather loudly say he is so he must be etc.), who would perhaps be appearing on Three except he was already just about famous enough (although the Mighty Boosh have to make do with their new series premiering on Three still) to bypass the treacherous ritual. In ‘something they should’ve done from the get go’ news though BBC Three HAVE finally got an original music show going. It’s called Sound and it would probably be better than Snub TV if British music was really worth talking about at the moment. I’m looking forward more to the new series of Later With Jools Holland (perhaps I am mentally middle-aged after all) which at least has been consistent and reasonably diverse with it’s international range.

A question critics will continue to ask is whether 2 and a half to 4 hours of ‘original’ programming a night is worth bothering with. On tonight’s evidence the outlook seems bad enough to make me think ‘oh for Wogan’s sake just start running adverts on your lesser channels (maybe not CBeebies)’. Bennett’s talk of ‘embracing the larger mission’ rings hollow because what’s the point just to end with an evening of mediocrity such as this? Whatever, just don’t close down BBC Four first.

That said, the issue is clouded by Allen’s opinions being hardly radical and a whole-lotta-rockist, plus her reputation of being maybe a little TOO obnoxious in the flesh (like father like daughter). ‘Madonna should put it away now she’s had a couple of kids’ and ‘Kylie playing Glastonbury is a betrayal of the festival’s original values’ are stalwarts of boorish curmudgeons thrice Lily’s age and if she is to take a leaf out of Alesha’s book it should be more of the ‘spice up the music more than anything else’ ilk rather than the stifling ‘if you can’t say something nice (bland) don’t say anything at all’ variety. Unfortunately I suspect you’re more likely to hear Alesha heaping praise upon the likes of James Morrison than MIA, because of her own disappointing tendency to tow the line and say what’s best for sales. It is a classic case of getting the balance right that neither have quite nailed yet.

The whole thing does feel irrevocably Burton‘s World though – despite this being a re-adaptation of a text by a visionary with such a legendary style of his own. The parallels between Burton and Dahl in this respect are fun to explore and contrast in theory, but perhaps this ‘meeting of the minds’ didn’t quite live up to expectations purely because in the end the similarities seem too close. As well as the obvious shared affinity for childhood, both are fascinated by ‘the monster who just wants to be loved’. All well and cute, but could there not be something more interesting done with a ‘monster’ like Wonka beyond nudging them to the conclusion ‘families are great and should come first’? Even for a PG? more »

Part of me remains that sanguine 16 year old about the whole thing, the other a jaded tosspot apparently pleased that other people are not necessarily having more fun than I am after all (surely this is not allowed). A conflict that seemingly can never be resolved.

But Glastonbury’s capricious meteorological issues aside, you cannot fail to have fun there. The only question is how much and whether it will match the probably unrealistic expectations in your head. So as I now imagine how nice it must be to hear ‘Teenage Kicks’ belted out defiantly and honourably by a withering Fergal and gang from the rain-lashed Pyramid stage, the Tor a distant, faded friend heralding you from afar, reminding you of the site’s unrelenting charm. You bastards, I wish I was there, again…

Alvin Lucier ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’
Dru Hill ‘In MY Bed’
Samantha Fox ‘Love House’
Basement Jaxx ‘City People’
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions ‘Lost Weekend’
Shrek ‘Stay Home’
Radiohead ‘Pyramid Song’ (pyramid…misery…DYS?)
Death Cab For Cutie ‘We Laugh Indoors’
Vitalic ‘No Fun’
Underworld ‘Mmmm Skyscraper I Love You’
Joachim ‘Come Into My Kitchen’
St Etienne ‘Side Streets’
O.M.D. ‘Electricity’
The Futureheads ‘Decent Days And Nights (Max Tundra mix)’
The Housemartins ‘Me And The Farmer’ (a great song to turn you off the countryside)
Sean Paul ‘Concrete’
Daft Punk ‘Television Rules The Nation’
Slowdive ‘Beach Song’
Air ‘People In The City’
Yello ft Stina Nordenham ‘To The Sea’

I never believed that hedgehogs were actually as fast as the pixelated wry blue show-off of gamelore but do recall an incident a few years back when staring out at the night sky from my back door one night I heard a rustling in the bushes and a dark blur racing out from the vegetation at an alarming pace, pursued by the neighbour’s cat (not Knuckles). Also impressive is their general noisiness as they forage around your garden (fortunately this does not extend to making a fox-esque cacophony at 3am) and their alleged ‘invulnerability’ when curled up into a ball, pointy bits out – though not quite tough enough for the deadliest predator of them all, SUV MAN. Hedgehog entrails spilled out all over the road in front of your house is not a pretty sight, so if they are to continue trying to cross busy roads at night I would not be adverse to powdering their diet of insects with crushed up steroids, just to boost their chances of making it from one kerb to the other in time. But it’s probably illegal. In the meantime we can only stand back and simultaneously deplore and admire their human-like willingness to dice with death in this way. Erm, hooray?

One of the great things about visiting other countries: lying in bed in the hotel room after midnight (in this instance I was in Stockholm) flicking through the selection of free cable channels on the TV provided. I count three or four music channels, Annie’s ‘Heartbeat’ and Bertine Zetlitz is are played on MTV Europe and the general vibe takes me back to MTV’s pan-continental incarnation that we used to receive in the UK before someone decided to segregate us from the rest of Europe by creating MTV UK & Ireland. This did as much harm as good and we lost as much as we gained if not more (those incessant gabba compilation adverts were annoying at the time but I’ve come to miss them since). Because Britain today would appear to have no place for the likes of Bikstok Røgsystem, a Danish pop-dancehall combo who entertained me greatly by cropping up on Swedish music television with their excellent new single ‘Cigar’. Very little information about them in English on the interweb it would seem but there is this with a link to the fabulous video therein which I urge you all to peruse.

The official website http://www.bikstok.dk is also worth a look for some lovely artwork and much fun to be had attempting to learn and translate ‘Cigar’s lyrics into English. Let the campaign for more of this sort of thing in our stagnant, somewhat lacking British music charts begin…

As in, 45 resolutions per minute. That’s roughly the number of them I seem to come up with every sixty seconds. Now the hangover has worn off it’s time to put one’s money where one’s booze-guzzling mouth is and actually start acting on them.

Diet-related ones tend to be among the more popular and practiced. The scary thing being that age seems to have forced me into thinking about doing the same. I’m not planning on an entirely alcohol-free month though. Resolutions should really be fun and about adding something not taking it away.

So rather than become a fully fledged alcoholic I am excited by the idea of trying to watch a lot more films this year. Inspired by many things including Pete’s list of films from 2003, many of which I still haven’t seen. So MY Resolution #1 is to watch at least three films in the cinema every month. The cheapest place I have found to do this is Peckham Multiplex (only ’3!) so expect to find me there a lot more regularly from now on. I also only recently discovered the mysterious Renoir cinema in the equally mysterious Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury which in turn leads me to wonder if there shouldn’t be some sort of Publog-esque review of all French-sounding cinemas in London to accompany my challenge. The answer is, of course, no. But I will away and think of more interesting proposals for this month’s theme while you chatter away about your own resoultions in the comments box (please?)…

This one has it all!*
- Classy Cocktail Kylie but with added good song!
- Smooth and modish production
- Genuinely good lyrics (“I don’t believe I’d fall in love just topass the time”)
- Great whispering bits!
- Middle eight that gets the moves going on the office party dancefloor (as proven last Friday, cheers Ms Minogue)
- A proper ending, and quite an arch one too.

*except a good singer. Oh well. 8 (Tom Ewing)

One of the greatest singles of the year. Unlike a certain other single recently reviewed by the Square Table, this is immediate (without kitsch), fluid (without limpness), and permanent (without obnoxiousness). And the lyrics (“I don’t believe I’d love somebody just to pass the time / but I believe in you”) are great too. 10 + JOKER (Atnevon)

As opposed to her asensual dreams of late, Kylie has slipped back into the lush orgasmic universe with “I Believe In You.” A Moroder-synth-throb produced by Jake Shears and Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters, this is a song dedicated to Pop religion: Kylie and the listener are willing to believe the dream. The endless repetition and the robotic synth beat are enchanting. It all feels remote and alluring at the same time. This is “I feel love” for the 21st century, a coke-filled fantasy you can’t escape. 8 (stevienixed)

So light perfect for day dreaming. Treads the space inbetween “Spinning Around” and “Slow” perfectly and although throughly constant in pace it never bores or drags. Could have been so easily spoilt by over complication but thankfully isn’t. Kylie has left the dancefloor people. 8 (Paul Thomas)

It feels Kylie-by-numbers from the word go, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Scissor Sisters turn in quite a decent string-laden tech-disco production complete with fiddles (so hot right now!) adorning the middle eight and ending nicely. Kylie’s breathy chorus almost operatic were only her voice capable of such grandeur (I’m quite glad it isn’t I think), but it’s well conceived, and concealed. It illustrates the difference between laziness and effortlessness pretty well, as despite the ‘knocked out sharpish’ feeling I can’t help but get from it, there are some sublime moments that strike me as as perfect as anything from the cream of her earlier work. 8 (SteveM)

K is for Kyle and K-hole and that’s just being redundant. This is what the girl in that old “Whipped Cream and Other Delights” album cover must have felt like: oily and beautiful and swimming in soft soft white. Not many songs make me want to turn on the iTunes visualizer to “watch along” but that’s exactly what this one did. Couldn’t be more vapid and dreamy and that’s just fine. But listen, could I just touch you? I mean, to make sure you’re real and stuff? 7 (forksclovetofu)

Like an old pair of shoes, new Kylie singles these days are pretty comfortable and reliable. She may misfire now and then, but we believe in her! The only complaint I have about this collaboration with the Scissor Sisters is that her voice overpowers the shiny synth hook in the chorus, when it should be the other way around. Otherwise, business as usual. 7 (Michael F. Gill)

We take Kylie for granted now, but who thought, nearly twenty years back when she had a hit with ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, that she had any chance of a long and successful music career? Anyway, this is another good single, sweet and pretty, with a slightly mournful almost-’80s electro beat (maybe that’s what made me think back to her ’80s stuff, though obviously she didn’t sound like this then), which doesn’t entirely match the very positive lyric. It’s a nice tune, and the production layering is very attractive. A drawback is that her voice doesn’t really get the expressiveness it reaches for in parts, but I don’t think that turns out to be very costly to the overall success. I dislike the silly noise on the ‘joker’s always smiling’ line (exactly the kind of moment of aural humour that Shadow Morton always got perfectly right), but otherwise I like this. 7 (Martin Skidmore)

The Product has been perfected over many years, but the visible seams and stiches on the music (and body) spoil the effect almost totally. Here, the [half-]track is merely an 80s pastiche that sound uncomfortably similar to New Order played at +16 (tightly sequenced bassline / nervous singing / vague melancholy / crap lyrics written on a napkin). It’s merely a langorous electronic backdrop for another identikit sexy video, the vocals slow and breathy to allow Kylie to sashay leggily around red-mouthed in shot without breaking her couplets. Despite a rather lovely arcing melody in the chorus (they’ve have around ten years to perfect pop kylie of course- a ludicrous amount of time), it’s as ersatz as the photoshopped girls in a glossy men’s mag. Summoning up enthusiasm for it is like trying to arouse yourself staring at the Girls Of FHM 2004. 3 (Derek Walmsley)

For many of you out there, there may be none more seismic a newsflash over the festive season. The prospect of a new Daft Punk album has excited me for some time, but hang on, it’s not been mentioned on The Raft, only NME from what I can tell. And, that title! Those track titles…it’s all rather fishy isn’t it? Risky to speculate either way if you want to avoid getting a plate, getting your words, putting those words on said plate, and eating your words…BUT if it IS true then it did bring to mind an interesting ‘tactic’ for bands as they bid to distinguish their new great work from the last. Supposedly, by denial or retraction they go forwards…almost too keen to convince everyone this one will be different from the previous effort, at least in concept and premise. Not that another Discovery or Homework would probably be a good idea, I think I just adhere to a rather ‘boyish’ (and both appealing yet disturbing) ideal about machines or indeed man-machines being superior to the human, an ethos that’s resulted in some of the most amazing, dynamic electronic pop music of the last 30 years or more. And I hope Thomas and Guy-Man still recognise that and don’t ‘sell their turntables and buy guitars’ (to paraphrase ‘Losing My Edge’) as it were.

So I think I’d prefer ‘We Are Still Zer Robotz’ for the title…

but combined with the new Beastie Boys single ‘Triple Trouble’ it has prompted me to think about the pros and cons of putting on a silly accent in a song for reasons hard to discern. On ‘Radio’ Robbie comes over somewhere between Roger Moore and Neil Hannon – but it doesn’t work for me at all but the song is so weak (I haven’t done my research but this can’t feature any residue of the partnership with Guy Chambers surely?) and perhaps it was felt this sort of gimmick was required as a booster. Then again, you might not even notice it, and it may even make a nice change from his usual jarring Trentian nagging tone. It is a dubious portent for how this proposed ‘Pure Francis’ material will go down though, and a tad irritating that ‘Radio’ will probably knock Alcazar or someone else good off the #1 spot.

‘Triple Trouble’ on the other hand is the sound of washed-up salesmen with the same old schtick coming through the other side, appealing again somehow. Adequate fodder livened up by comedy English accents from the boys themselves, of the more gruff Cockney variety this time if I’m not mistaken. The point? I have no idea, amusing though it is. And the only difference between it as a throwaway gimmick here and what Robbie does in ‘Radio’ may just be that one is funny and the other isn’t. I can think of a few other examples in hip-hop and related areas where it occurs (Ugly Duckling’s ‘Samba’ (“yoo rook marvellous”), The Streets ‘Too Much Brandy’ (“yes you’re paranoid!”) but if others spring to mind then do write in…

to delightful Amsterdam – one of my favourite things about the place possibly being it’s relative proximity to where I am now. An hour in the sky and you’re back on the ground, wham bam. My attitude to flying veers haphazardly from excitement to trepidation and even on these ultra-short haul flights I find I can never really relax fully. I made this exact same trip on the exact same date two years ago and that was the first time I’d flown anywhere in eight years, so everything about the experience felt new once more. How did I forget so much? Of course back then there was a little more tension in the air, and however irrational it would seem then and now I will probably always have it. I recognise that the ‘solution’ may be to fly more often, near and far, to get more used to the experience. This year alone I’ve actually doubled the number of flights I’ve taken in my life from the previous total, which is pathetic really considering that total is now a measly twelve. I want to love it so that I can start seriously entertaining ideas of travelling halfway round the world and back before I’m too old, and the prices get jacked up again. But for now, another chance to visit the Tuschinskitheater and purchase smoked eel from Schipol duty-free will do…

As related here, an extraordinary sequence of events has ensured that Fiorentina will play in Serie A only two years after being stripped of the rights to their old badge and team colours and relegated to Serie C2 after financial irregularities and crippling debts.

I had no idea how severe Fiorentina’s descent had been until I read this article. What I find most interesting is how it highlights what seems to be a farcical method of managing not just a football club but an entire national league – at least the lower echelons. By rights we should be expecting a movie, for this story has everything; power, corruption, lies, honour, humour and family ties (to paraphrase; ‘(Gori) briefly handed control (of the club) to his 82-year-old mother Valeria). I’d watch it. And perhaps I’ll try and watch a bit more Serie A this season too.

1) The camera was on the presenter from the start but took about a minute to inch slowly forward enough so we could actually see her face properly, revealing it to be…

2) Quasi-famous star-adultering Rebecca Loos. Perhaps we get what we deserve for watching this tripe but really, what on earth is this woman doing on TV at all let alone presenting a show. I expect these kind of cynical nudge-wink tactics from Channel 4 but not the fine broadcasting network and upholder of all that is pure and wealthy in televisual spirit that is Five. Anyway, of course, she was bad. REALLY bad. But this was to be expected by everyone so it’s OK right? No.

3) Loos introducing her own appearance on the interview she gave to some woman on…Five during the time of the star-adultering. A bit like looking at a mirror opposite another mirror. Except not fun.

4) Gyles Brandreth and Brian Sewell lowering themselves, if that were possible, by joining in the pundit fun. I was relatively impressed by the range of pundits though (Serge Gainsbourg’s biographer!)

5) Okay there were actually some great clips in amongst the ones we’ve seen a gazillion times already (hello Bill Grundy, Shabba Ranks, Myleene Klass) – nice to see Paul Morley looking like the World’s Worst Dressed Man on the ‘guy who would later become the World’s Worst Dressed Man’s show all those years ago (One Hour With Jonathan Ross), David Icke not saying ‘Goodbye Ruby Tuesday…’ and best of all Peter Cook’s fabulous turns on the Clive Anderson show back in the mid 90s. Just about worth all the other dreadful gubbins.

6) David Schneider confusing Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Parridge with something that was actually real.

7) Not being able to figure out what was going to be number one…

8) Remembering this was a ‘public vote’ and that the nation has the collective memory of a lobotomised goldfish…so Hello Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Again.

9) Feeling as if I’d been caught masturbating by my own mother when the credits rolled, such was the shame. Would’ve been better off watching Laid Bare on Bravo or something…for the first time, you understand…

10) No really, this is horrible. Rebecca Loos! She could show Richard Blackwood a thing or two with an autocue but this felt too much like Five punching you in the face then holding up a mirror singing that new Alcazar song in a horrendously off-key falsetto. Stop the planet of the instant nostalgia-obssessed list fetishists, even I want to get off now… Oh but wait, it’s Greatest Soap Moments tonight with Mike Reid. Maybe just one more then…

Funnily enough I had an idea similar to this a while back when people still cared about what should replace RI:SE. If C4 are exposing loopholes regarding broadcasting copyright then hats off, because I can’t imagine other channels are that happy about this. The sweetener is perhaps that they tend to only look at things like UK Gold+1 (so it’s not ‘live’ as it were), Babestation, E! and those terrible channels that get bundled with your Sky box that you never watch. Of course now that I know the latest incarnation of Japanese ‘punishment wins prizes’ show Endurance can be found somewhere in there, I don’t have to watch late night Channel 4 ever again – yay!

Res the magazine provides a DVD every issue featuring short films, music videos, tracks and whatever extras they can muster. On the latest disc I was surprised to find a new video for Michael Andrews ft Gary Jules ‘Mad World’ directed by one Mr M Gondry…
Even before it starts you know it’s going to better than the terrible (tho perhaps appropriate) video that accompanied the song’s release last Christmas…and yes it is.

Why have Universal chosen to commission a new video for this song? Perhaps the popularity of the track lingers in some quarters of the world previously unexposed to the dreariest Christmas number one ever? And why choose Gondry? I can only assume they share the view that the original video was dire and it would be nice to have something a bit more stylish to go with one of the best selling songs of the decade so far (at least in the UK).

We are in a city, on a building roof. By we I mean the camera, looking down onto the street where a collection of children are starting to form shapes. They form a face…it’s all a bit British Airways isn’t it? Reminiscent of his classic clip for Massive Attack’s ‘Protection’ too. The kids assume other forms together, a car, a dove, a dog with disturbingly thin legs…occasionally the camera (us) pans slowly (in Gondry’s typical haunting ‘uncertain/mesmerised’ style) to the left where we see Mr Jules himself, still wearing that darned flat cap, looking down on the kids just as we are. Cars trundle by on the road, the skies are a cool grey with a low yellowish hue in the distance – hard to tell if it’s morning or evening. It looks cold but it probably isn’t. Eventually the camera shifts right and around and we see Mr Andrews (presumably) at the piano, his back turned to us, with the Empire State Building perfectly poised and majestic as ever in the distance. Ah…

A chaste affair but ordinary by his standards perhaps. Still what’s admirable here is the obedience in applying an organic theme to an organically rendered song – the use of people, rather than computer effects, to pull off the usual Gondry hallmarks of transformation, mirrors without smoke, the clockwork behind the clockwork, or just a really neat idea so simple anyone could conceive it, especially for something as supposedly trivial and throwaway as a music video. But still nobody conceives of it quite like Gondry does. It doesn’t quite save a poor cover from poverty but it does provide it with a much more comfortable bed to sleep in.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage with growing up in a surburban satellite such as the towns within the Zone 5/6 boundary is that while you feel comfort in being able to experience both urban thrills and rural bliss quicker than most, you can unfortunately end up knowing not as much about either as may be desired. Metroland et al = limbo. The people there don’t tend to grow up yearning to escape to the big city, because the big city is only 45 minutes away on the Tube anyway. Likewise there’s no craving for the idealised simplicity of country life, because once you’re into Zone 5 the woodland/office block ratio really starts to tip towards the former’s favour. Growing up with cattle-filled farmland AND multiple Tube routes within equal reach I always felt re-assured by having these ‘options’ – nurturing – if not a key influence in – my blatant general dilletantism in life.

Only, now I live in Zone 3, with an urge to get even closer to the centre, and I find myself constantly struggling when it comes to knowing and recommending places to go and things to do. It’s a complacency perhaps not recognised by the abundance of people I know who live in Zone 3 but originally hail from other places in the UK, more often than not THE NORTH. Because of course when people move to London after college or whatever, they’re not going to take it for granted, they’re going to want to live reasonably close to some ‘action’ and seek out the places to go and the things to do in them. This could mean anything from just knowing a little place on a side street that does great tapas, to having been to all the big clubs at least once out of curiosity AND convenience. Anglophiles from overseas who’ve settled in the centre only in the last few years or visit London several times a year can also have this edge over a suburbanite like myself, who bitches about the place all too often thinking they know it so well.

So lately, because I have been living in an area that was previously alien to me (Harringay), and working in an area that previously felt so hostile or just plain indifferent (Old Street/Hoxton), having got to know them a bit more in that time, I realise more and more how little I did and still do know – and I almost envy the people who did feel the compulsion to escape their hometowns to come here, to experience London fully and freshly as an adult. Then again, the wide-eyed fascination I felt for the city as a child what with being able to encounter it relatively easily still counts for an awful lot. Perhaps people growing up in the outskirts of NY’s outer boroughs, or the edge of any large thiriving city feel or have felt these things too. All of which makes me personally feel that there is a little catching up to do, and what better time than now?

Living and travelling around and through London is easy on the Tube, despite all it’s flaws. But take it away and the nightmarish urban journey takes on a new dimension. Around six years ago now I decided I really couldn’t face travelling underground anymore – more for fear of irrational panic attacks and subsequent humiliation rather than a feeling I was actually in genuine danger. Quite what brought this on other than an over-active imagination I’m not sure. Delays between stations were always tense. Perhaps some see no difference whether it’s underground or overground – the simple fact that you are unable to womble free is an inconvenience irrespective of where and on what level it takes place. But something about the tunnels got to me in the end. Where once I adored passing through them, taking regular carefree trips around the city exploring everywhere and anywhere, somehow despite having grown up and having learned how to apply rational thought to situations far better than I had been able to as a child and adolescent, a fear took hold – merely the fear of being trapped, unable to move, unable to escape – and never knowing exactly when you would be able to again… (actual answer: couple of minutes, nine times out of a hundred).

Ridiculous? Of course. Irrational phobias tend to be ridiculous by default, though they can be quite reasonable at the same time. It might make more sense if some traumatising incident had happened to me on the Tube in the past, but thankfully no. I was not on that late night Northern Line service that ended up hurtling backwards past three stations one night because the driver fell asleep on his Dead Man’s Handle. Nor was I on the Victoria Line morning service when one train broke down at Highbury & Islington causing the two just behind it to stop in their tracks for the best part of an hour. Weirdly however, I’ve recently used the subterranean Metro in Bilbao and the subways in New York and Chicago and I enjoyed them. You can feel a strange sense of indomitability far from home though, as if nothing can really hurt or flummox you, because half the time you don’t feel like you are really there.

Friends remain confused and bemused. But absteining had some advantages. I saved money and I got to see parts of London I had not before via the bus or the invaluable Metrolink. Confidence was gained in having a better grasp of bearings and alternative travel routes around town. Moving closer to the centre of the city also helped. Prior to that I had travelled underground maybe just six times in as many years, the most recent time confirming my fears somewhat – our Northern Line tube screeching to a half abruptly just before Warren Street, the engines going eerily quiet (the darkness through the windows, the silence – broken only by the occasional sighing and tutting from passengers, or the giggling from my American friends as I nervously played with my phone, all very unsettling). Of course about three minutes later we were on the move again, and I had not freaked out. Yet the reluctance persists. It’s habit now. Often I find myself hovering around the station entrances just wondering what the hell my problem is. Sometimes that torrent of warm air rises up from the escalators, followed by the throngs of addled gasping passengers. At that point I hop on the bus…

What to do? Hypnosis? Perhaps take part in those organised emergency drills LU invite the public to participate in as volunteers? Or stay as I am, confident at least that I’ll get from Angel to Brixton eventually… only not as a sardine. I do miss it though, the art works at Gloucester Road, never experiencing the sci-fi sophistication of the Jubilee Line extension first hand, the extraordinary way the passage from White City to Shepherds Bush seems to take three times longer than it should do given the distance on foot…In the meantime, submit your own tube-related horror anecdotes in the comments box if you wish. I’m off now to prepare another blog post, this time concerning what I have come to term as BUS RAGE…

On the I Love Music board I am running a poll to determine ILM’s Top 100 albums and tracks of the decade so far, what with being pretty much halfway through it as we are (unless you’re one of those anti-Carterian date rockists). A lot has happened in the last five years in the world of popular music – some genres ‘dying’, some being ‘reborn’, some continuing to mutate and spawn demonic offspring, but of course this is a poll for individual works (albums and tracks – not JUST singles mind) and not genres, although it will be interesting to see which styles prove the most popular when all the votes are counted. Right now I see no clear winner for either the albums list or the tracks list, but it’s early days yet. Please check out the voting form here and submit your choices based on the list provided, nominations provided by the ILM contributors on a ‘Pick One Only’ basis, leading to some shocking/hilarious omissions I’m sure you’ll agree – and that’s before the final chart has been calculated. The deadline for submissions is Monday 16th August, 12pm BST. Happy voting!