I’m putting on a black American headliner, who’s absolutely terrific that’s going to appeal to those people.

so if you are “those people” i’m sure you’ll have a lovely time. Speculation is RIFE about who this person might be, from Little Stevie Wonder to Natalie Cole, but we can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that one major star has, in fact, attended Glastonbury previously, although he did encounter a few challenges or, some might say, “problems”, which we list for you below:

· Jay-Z’s gold chain has fallen off in the mud in front of a portaloo.
· Jay-Z would like some real ale but it’s a 20 minute walk to the workers beer tent by the acoustic stage and by the time he gets there Nas will be doing his acoustic set and might diss him on stage.
· Jay-Z has tripped over a guyrope.
· Jay-Z has forgotten to bring a tin opener
· Jay-Z has camped next to a group of young people who’ve kept him up all night with their n1tr0us-related antics
· Jay-Z can’t decide whether to see Billy Bragg on the acoustical stage or Stewart Lee in the comedy tent
· Jay-Z has a bit of a dicky tummy from eating a dodgy spring roll
· Nas has stolen Jay-Z’s wellies
· Jay-Z is unable to pitch his tent anywhere other than right next to the New Bands tent.
· Jay-Z has been queuing for a cashpoint for 25mins now and is only half way down the queue and is in desperate need of a wee.
· Jay-Z’s mobile phone battery is dead and he’s not sure where is friends are and the only alternative is standing around vainly near the Other Stage mixing desk while Mika is playing.
· Jay-Z has forgotten the words to “Ticket To Wine”
· The bottom bit has come off of Jay-Z’s dadstool.
· Jay-Z has just run into his ex’s new other half who is really nasty to him, and he has to go back to his tent for a cry
· Jay-Z is relying on Twitter to meet up with his friends.
· Jay-Z can’t decide if it is worse to have soaking wet legs or risk Nas seeing him wear his sensible waterproof trousers.
· Jay-Z’s Dad stool has a bent leg.
· Jay-Z has been waiting for the coach for four hours in the rain when the single person in charge of all of the London lines gives an ambiguous instruction, and the already tentative queue collapses altogether and turns into an angry scrum.
· Jay-Z has just finished his second two litre bottle of perry

the “what are Jay-Z’s 99 problems?” game was invented by several of your FT regulars at a delightful boutique festival we attended last summer, and is an hilarious way to spend the rest of your life an hour or two, please feel free to add more glastonbury-related problems in the comments box

Simon Reynolds’ homepage: love the back-to-98 aesthetic. He’s still going, of course.
Tangents: “They believe in a passionate, personal version of Pop where we sometimes prefer to bow down to the Top 40, but they also believe in great music writing and the fanzine ethos.” - closed its doors after ten years (!) writing mostly about indiepop. Very fondly remembered.
Dancing About Architecture: “A more ‘rockist’ version of Freaky Trigger” - frozen in 2001, very angry about the Strokes. I’m a bit amazed they’ve kept the homepage up.
Pitchfork: “inasmuch as there is a collective Pitchfork mindset, it leans towards ambitious, overcooked Statement Albums” - Well said!!
The War Against Silence: “tastes are pretty much the opposite of mine” - well yeah. TWAS finished with #500 though updates irregularly with year-end polls: Glenn M.’s dense columns married the personal and the musical more intimately and honestly than pretty much anyone’s, and sometimes I thought he was bonkers - he feels a very ‘old internet’ figure, sadly - no side or snark to him.

Moving into the actual blogs:

Josh Blog: still going, I’m pleased to say. Mostly shorter entries now. Good explanatory post here. ‘Often cited’ because he is the grandfather of all!
Plasticbag: “even the odd bout of graceless linkmania done amusingly” - still going. Looks now to have a media/2.0 focus. As you might expect, father of UK blogging etc. Boy done good.
Misfit City: “eloquently complex writing and an avant/prog musical agenda”. I don’t remember this at all. “New home” link leads to a dead site :(
The Horse: “a caustic mock news page and some excellent film reviews” - now an ad for a web hosting site.
Surface Vs Depth: Gareth from ILX’s page, now a big picture of a post-industrial English landscape.
Elidor: efforts to look at music in a social, historical and fresh context - Robin Carmody’s first website - he is still active on LJ and the Elidor archives remain at the link.
Linkmachinego: “a no-nonsense link blog” - still going, still looking and reading precisely the same as it did in 2000.
Prolific: Dutch (?) weblog, in English. Still going, still very similar in outlook and interests. It’s interesting that so many of the really old-school bloggers (pre-Blogger.com and early users of that site) are still blogging or at least net-active. I was expecting to find more dead links than I have.
Pearls That Are His Eyes: Still going! Though now here. I am really delighted by this, partly because I never reviewed or responded to the mixtape she made me (at my request no less!). Sorry! I like Spoon now!

“I wasn’t yet aware of the dread stranglehold indie rock has on web music writing…”

Kempa.com: still up, infrequently updated but obviously still involved in music. Nice and clean looking as ever!
Eurorance: still going! I honestly think that Euroranch might have been the first MP3 blog. It’s now a bit more indie than it used to be, or maybe everything is.
Steal This Blog: ended in 2003 with an imprecation about Hooverphonic records. Fred S may still be blogging out there somewhere…?
Skykicking!: “the best dance music reviewer I know online” Tim is obviously still an active critic and I saw him in London a couple of months ago - latest web address I can find for the blog is
Catherine’s Pita: now doing the same thing but looking unbelievably swanky at catherinespita.com.
Jejune: “breezy and lively” - and still going!
Splendid: stopped in 2005, on the same day as NYLPM in fact.
Us Against Them: “does what a proper indie rock weblog ought to do, spreading the word and ruffling some feathers in the process” - dead link.
http://spoonbender.org/amplified/: Amplified to Rock, the first site I saw using the Greenspun software, is now a link to a lame porn search engine.

“A vow I’d taken when I started blogging was “no personal writing, no personal sites”

maura dot com: still going, of course! Now a real actual tastemaker at Idolator, which is awesome and deserved.
notsosoft.com: “The lynchpin of UK blogging” - Not So Soft is now a search engine offering Ani Di Franco ringtones.
Lukelog: “infectiously likeable with a fearsome update rate” still up, last upate in May 2007.

The “Indie Zineblog Wars”:

Wisdom: “cantankerous, funny” - and now nothing but a huge picture of a Yeti!
Indieshite - dead link. Will the full story ever be told?!
Popmatters: surviving and presumably thriving. As crammed looking as ever.
Drawer B: now primarily a blog, reviews and MP3s, cursory glance suggests the artier end of indie.
Monosyllabic: “literate Pitchfork spinoff” - now just an index page.
Motion: “What if The Wire were good?” - dead link, so the question must go unanswered.
Rockcritics.com: now in blog format, Scott Woods’ continuing exploration of the meta which come to think of it has served as a handy link between the old print media criticism and its online inheritors.
Popjustice.com: you know about this one I think!

2000 - The First Summer Of Blog:

Bitch: still up (kind of amazed Fortunecity is still going), last entry November 2000 though. Snarky sleb comment before its time.
Kerplink: last update 2002, about Cornershop. This incidentally was the “Sophie” who contributed to FT a couple of times - someone was asking me about this a month or two ago having found a post of hers.
http://steakandwhiskey.com: now a search engine for marinades.
April’s Pita - apes.pitas.com (half of steakandwhiskey) now redirects to a little internet store selling badges and silkscreens! Hurrah for dotcom entrepreneurialism! I can’t remember anything about April’s blog but my original write up sez “pop fanzine energy and spark” so this is good to see.
Millie’s Pita: the other half of steakandwhiskey - how come dead pitas are so much more stylish than other dead blogs?
Metascene: “an freewheeling supply of original links and often hilarious commentary” - redirects to a kind of half-arsed attempt to start a sex blog.
Geegaw: still going, still the same charm, maybe a little more open than it used to be (I certainly don’t remember Geegaw having a *name*!). Very pleased to see.
The Laboratorium: still going - reviews, internet culture, law, commentary. Looks very good.
http://www.psn.net/~blue/scrubbles.html: Scrubbles - now a search engine for PS2s. Shame as this was one of the better-designed blogs I used to read.

This section could be called “Killed By ILX”:

http://www.empty.org/review/index.html: In Review - Sterling Clover and Jimmy The Mod’s old domain, now another search engine.
Ra Ra Ra: Nicky D’s short-lived blog, last update mid-2001.
Sink: absorbed into FT, kind of.
http://members.fortunecity.com/bitchcakes/: Bitchcakes - Ally K’s blog, now a PC hosting ad.

“the arrival of Blogspot has doubtless been greeted with horror by people who consider weblogging a debasement of the internet self-expression dream…”

Lapels And Lollypops: last updated November 2000 - funny Aussie blog.
Starry Vs The Baddies: “flamboyant, funny and fizzy” - dead link. Whatever happened to her eh?
Bloglet - dead link, though I know Catherine was still around as part of the extended Barbelith message board ’scene’ cos I saw her at a club night once!
Hellsbelle - dead link. I can remember nothing at all about this!
Wherever You Are - dead link.

And that’s it. What to possibly conclude? Probably nothing much - I hope all the people whose links are dead are, erm, not themselves dead, and I’m pretty heartened by how many of the blog dudez who plugged away at it early on are still doing so (if only because it makes me feel less odd) - also how some of the indie people have stayed involved in good old indie rock. I will try to actually migrate some of these over to current sidebars. I could cut and paste my original thoughts from 2000 but they just said “blogs r graet yay”. And they are too.

But he is better than Russell Grant. Who was number 8 in the top 25 Grants. Beaten by the Sea Grant of North Carolina, the Grant of Executive Clemency and of course the eventual winner: A generous Arts Council Grant.

And lo, there WAS such a brand - The Officers Club! Except I never thought a lot of its clothes were any good, but hey, this is branding we’re talking about.

The Officers Club brand was extremely simple to understand - SEVENTY PERCENT OFF EVERYTHING. Off what? Some specious ‘full price’ which supposedly was being charged at “at least six” retail outlets elsewhere in the UK. Needless to say, nobody has ever seen a full-price Officers Club shop, and nobody would ever buy from such an establishment anyway. But nonetheless there’s something winning about such a naked grab for attention on a price basis - a refreshing shamelessness no matter how fictional the reductions might or might not be. It’s a way of saying “this stuff is really cheap” without drawing attention to the cheapness, which in the clothing market means drawing attention to i. how quickly it falls apart ii. the undoubted sweatshop practices required to drive prices down. The idea that Officers Club gear is smart stuff that’s just been reduced is a transparent figleaf to the conscience.

The actual clothes Officers Club sold* were….well, they were OK. They were better than Asda George, about as good as Tesco. Until I got too fat for it I had a bottle-green shirt from there which was one of the cosiest things I owned. Their boxer shorts and socks weren’t exactly comfortable but they were pretty solidly made and rarely prone to holes or tears. I never risked the suits or anything ‘high-end’. Their cheap T-Shirts had particularly rubbish logos (serious fashion qn: why do plain T-Shirts, polo shirts etc. without a pattern cost more than ones with a crap pattern? They can’t be more expensive to make, right?). But in the end the product wasn’t the thing - it was the warm glow of satisfaction you got from seeing your fashion-illiteracy pandered to, and the illusion of a bargain.

*I say “sold” because the Officers Club, online at least, is undergoing a rebrand - it is now O Club, aiming at yer urban youth by the looks of the website. This is a bold but foolish move - even though it was never exactly clear which Officers were meant to be involved with the Officers Club the name had a certain shabby snootiness, unlike O Club, which sounds like a slapdash saturday morning kids show.

If it is illegal for a prison officer to strike then one assumes said prison officer will be arrested (or perhaps his Union leaders). OK, this is going back to the dark ages of labour relations, but it is not unheard of someone wanting to risk imprisonment for belief in their cause. But hold on. Imprisonment? Where? In prison. Imagine how well enforced (and indeed how strict) any serving prison officer would be on another prison officer incarcerated for fighting for the rights and pay of serving prison officers. Same with police officers. Who arrests the police officer who strikes on behalf of his fellow officers.

If you’re expecting society to continue on the goodwill of union scabs, and indeed an entire prison run by scabs, then I fear the crumblin’ fabric is already riddled with cracks.

The K is for its founder, Phillip Kives. The Tel was for Television. Hence me showing you the logo where you often saw it.

K-Tel was not JUST a record label. It also made some “handy” gadgets which we never knew we could live without. They still do: look at the Clever Cutter here which makes “Food preparation easier, quicker and safer with less mess”. How does it do this? Well they appear to have made a pair of scissors with one blade and one chopping board side. Its a mental idea which was probably invented in a shed by someone who never does any cooking, and then flogged to K-Tel who saw a niche in the market. And that niche in the market is mentals who buy stuff off of TV ads. Click through on that link to watch the K-Tel masters of advertising in action. There is never a device that is sold on just one key point. There is always an “And that’s not all…” . K-Tel like Ronco were the masters of pointless devices flogged via the tube. One assumes for the simple fact that if you ever saw any of these devices in a shop you would not the flimsy build and obvious design flaws. In the Clever Cutter alone:
a) Anyone see that onion shooting across the room when the scissors hit a curved bit of skin
b) All the onion bits falling on the floor
c) The food gunk getting caught in its works.

Never mind the quality though, watch the ads. And the ads I particularly lover were those for K-Tel records. Tatty compilation after compilation promising 20 Number Ones!!! Super Hits!!! And these were original artists, 7″ mixes like wot you would hear on the radio (though often mastered lower so they could fit them all on the thin grooved records). All contributing to some sort of secret war between K-Tel and Ronco*. TV advertised though also availible in the shops (no fear for the quality there), K-Tel hoovered up the rights from small labels and stuffed them on to all we had before Now That’S What I Call Music came along. Now albums were the same idea as the K-Tel hits compilations, but had stuff from major labels too - thus muscling K-Tel out of this market. But they continued through the eighties and nineties, slightly daunted, pumping out rave albums. And every now and then on eBay you’ll see and album like the 20 Great Truck Driving Songs, which makes you want to stop and wallow. (And learn how to count, as it notoriously has 24 tracks on it, possible recycled from an earlier trucking compilation).

These days K-Tel is floundering a touch. On the one side it should be able to make a bob or two from all those music rights it snaffled in the seventies and eighties, and is doing deals with iTunes left right and centre. At the same time it is well aware of its own slightly kitsch legacy, which is bad thing. The classic K-Tel website referred to in this interview has been bought out by K-Tel themselves, and now hides in web limbo. AND THAT’S NOT ALL!

Actually it is.

*Who I actually preferred for their tremendous film themed compilations such as Raiders Of The Pop Charts (NOT a double album, rather Buy One Get Two for Free!).

Dove’s “Real Beauty” ad campaigns since 2003 have helped turn the brand into a huge marketing success story - sales up 700%. The success has been attributed to its radical change of emphasis - advertising moving from trying to make women feel guilty about their physical imperfections towards a more celebratory tone. But is this actually Dove’s game?

At a marketing conference I went to this year, an interesting paper focused on the Dove campaign. The paper was about testing consumer ads, and involved videoing consumers watching two Dove ads, then asking them about the product and the campaign. The women interviewed were all very positive when they spoke about Dove, but frame-by-frame analysis of the videos showed flickers of disgust on their faces when they saw the various women on the ads showing their ’saggy bums’, ‘fat tummies’, cellulite etc.

The presenter interpreted this as meaning that consumers actually don’t agree with Dove’s message, and that the brand is treading on dangerous ground - essentially, his interpretation is that the post-viewing interviews were lies, and the flickers of disgust are the truth. I thought at the time that he was wrong (and sales figures suggest that the message is doing something right).

My interpretation would be that the Real Beauty campaign isn’t about making women feel good about their natural beauty, as opposed to bad about their imperfections: if you’re naturally beautiful, why buy a firming cream? It’s about making women feel bad (or guilty) about feeling bad about themselves, and others. The assumed linkage - feel bad equals buy something - remains fully intact. The flickers of disgust are an anticipated and intended reaction: positive thoughts about Dove are a redemption of that reaction, not a contradiction of it - Dove becomes a virtuous buy because it occupies a higher moral ground than its consumer. (This is what most ethical brands do, obviously.)

Or that’s my theory of their theory, anyway. Whether I’m right or wrong, dropping the emotive bomb of using recovering eating disorder sufferers - presumably identifying as such, and talking about the disorders - is raising Dove’s stakes considerably. I don’t know what I think about it, and I don’t even feel qualified to think about it until the ads run (possibly not even then) - but professionally and personally this is shouting “BAD IDEA” at me quite loudly.

It’s a tube tunnel with the long line as the tube, oblique.

It’s the deck of a Routemaster, low set with a wheel in the middle.

It an old school commuters head, bowler hatted, on the way to work.

CIRCLE and LINE: it’s the Circle Line.

It is the London Transport logo and it is without a doubt one of the best logos ever designed.

For all the innovations of London Transport (first tube, double decker buses, the tube map) one of the most surprising is this fantastic and continuing emphasis of brand and design. They even have their own FONT, and it is as recognisable as everything else on the network. For all the other city rip-offs of the Tube map design, the London grid still seems the most elegant. The intersection points on the map is yet another re-occurance of this ubiquitous logo design. The art team seems to constantly innovate in poster designs, and yet everything seems to fit within the branding. A trip to the London Transport Museum will emphasise that. And then there is that logo.

The drowsy zero.

Saturn in oblique.

The circle with a line through it. Genius.

What is most remarkable about London Transport as a brand (even as Transport For London, or its constituent bits), is that there is no reason for it to be as good. When centralised it should have been as poor as any other public sector communications: as stuck to the whims to changing controllers as any government publications. Think of those various NHS logo’s in full, the sundry attempts at public communications. Unchanged by the years, with only minor touch up, it has survived unchanged, ageing but ageless. After mini-deregulations it surely should have just splintered. Why does it even need a strong brand identity? What competitors does it have?

I think the strong brand identity softens the constant blows the crumbling system gives those of us who use it every day. The clarity of communication that their posters give us, the omnipresent logo with its built in smile, makes it feel like a friend. A friend who is often useless, but something on our side in the maze of the city. Because whatever else they do wrong, London Transport has always been there for us, and will be again. The simplicity of the logo shows the strength of a truly great brand: it becomes part of your life: trusted if not trustworthy.

All from a circle and a line. Magic!

Add this to the HMV wobbles and THE DEATH OF MISTER CD, and we are starting to see a trend here. Ebay has killed the second hand shop, but Amazon is killing the discount record purveyor too. Drunken browsing will never be the same again.

1. “Father knows best” autocratic owner increasingly getting in to bed with commercial interests that seem to have only negative impacts on the punter

2. Said punters being treated like cattle with little thought for our comfort or welfare

3. Increasing costs and declining facilities

4. Being constantly told by media/controlling interests that you’re part of the best festival in the world, when you can clearly see the cracks round the edges

5. The complete lack of feedback mechanisms for us to get our views across to those in charge

Yes, being at Glastonbury is exactly like being a football fan, and what have football fans done about this? Formed Supporters Trusts, by the hundred!

So, this is my plan, form a “Supporters Trust” for Glastonbury, so that those of us who care about the future of Glastonbury can have a real constructive input into how things move forward as there seemed to be some glaring oversights in the organisation this year. I don’t want this to be about picking the bands, I don’t even really want it to be about ticket-pricing/allocation (although I still think Simon’s ideas on No Rock & Roll Fun three years ago were spot on), I want it to be about:

Making sure there are enough toilets in the right places
The dance village in particular is appallingly served, but also simple things like urinals by The Glade and John Peel Tent would be the easiest way to stop people (ok, men) pissing in the streams. I saw a portaloo urinal in the middle of the markets, why weren’t they everywhere?

Making the bottlenecks and metal paths wider
I know some places are as wide as they can be, but there are some places where work could be done. The best example is the back left corner of the other stage, heading towards dance where it could easily be made 10-15 yards wider, by just moving a couple of stalls and stopping people camping on the far side, there seems to be no attempt to help traffic flow at the busiest times beyond “hey dudes, just take a breather for ten minutes, then the crowd will go”.

Making National Express treat us as they would other customers, not scum of the earth
Seriously though, a six year-old with a bunch of crayons could come up with a more workable way of getting off-site than the current set-up, and that’s before we even start on the SeeTicket bus catastrophe. It feels like Glastonbury doesn’t care about us once we’re out of the gate and “so what” if we have to stand for three hours in the rain or sit for eight hours in our cars. The festival doesn’t end ’til we’re at home in the bath Michael, not as soon as we get orf your laaand…

Making the total capacity of Glastonbury 20,000 lower
The increase in capacity this year was a dismal failure. The idea that the extra 30,000 people would all merrily troop up to The Park to watch Kate Nash rather than the Arctic Monkeys was naïve to say the least. To continue the football analogy, the extra 30,000 are just increasing the prawn sandwich/premiership element of the crowd, not the non-league heart of the festival who will happily see no bands on the Pyramint all weekend.

Making the ale last ’til Sunday night
OK, slightly joky one this, Workers Beer did their usual stirling work, but there was an issue where there was pretty much nothing but Carlsberg left by Saturday afternoon (excluding The Red Flag, but even that was down to just Wherry by 4pm Sunday). Maybe this is because people don’t like Carlsberg, that our tastes have moved on and this should be reflected. This isn’t Reading where the kids will get smashed on whatever you put in front of them. But, where do we voice these concerns? Has the festival ever done a customer satisfaction survey? Wouldn’t that be a better use of our email addresses than sending unsolicited mail for other festivals?

So, these are just my five things, I bet you’ve got five things too, but how can we make sure we’re heard? The festival claims to be about opening people’s minds to climate change, water pollution and all the other worthy aims we hear about all weekend, but has no democratic mandate itself. If the tinpot dictators of the premiership and football league can cope with the idea of fan representation on the board, surely Michael Eavis can as well?

Who? Doctor The Who?
– Pete, Sun 19:40

VITALiC! Fucking COME ON!
– awesomewells, Sun 19:30

Ooh my feet! Mark Pompom and then Vitalic and then potential bin death. Only the calamacho can save me now!
– Pete, Sun 18:15

We’re sitting having a lovely pint of real ale about 10ft from whisperin’ bob harris
– Carsmile, Sun 17:15

Sweary old Dame Shirley has got this party started
– triffidfarm, Sun 17:10

I have realised what glastonbury needs! A “supporters trust” so the concerns of the fans can be articulated to the management
– Carsmile, Sun 12:00

Morning! Everyone shd come see DRAGONETTE, dance east 1pm, they are so cool :)
– Carsmile, Sun 11:00

Dragonette @ tha Queenz ead midnite. R u alive? Good
– Pete, Sat 23:50

I went to the tartiflette stall and bought another sausage. It was necessary. I feel the sausage and I have achieved closure and can move on now
– awesomewells, Sat 21:30

– kat, Sat 20:55

Dance music officially dead, billy bragg being played in dance tent
– Carsmile, Sat 20:45

Am finally vertical and at the Dance East Tent for the Mark Ronson after being taken out all day by a raw potato
– triffidfarm, Sat 20:40

I lost my sausage :-(
– awesomewells, Sat 20:20

fvck off blue bullet! Worse than dead fish :(
– Carsmile, Sat 10.00

hurrah! Got to leftfield just in time to see cud doing rich & strange! Kill! Yr! Television!
– Carsmile, Sat 0.00

Mummra are great for a new tent band! Going for an acoustic beer then to leftfield for nostalgia fest
– Carsmile, Fri 21.30

OMG simian mobile disco = amazing live
– awesomewells, Fri 20:35

It pissed down! Waterproof not so! Back to tent to dry. Ggb v good tho: tick
– Pete, Fri 14:30

At Pyramint Tree to see the Soul of Winebobs - curse the rain. It dilutes your beer.
– triffidfarm, Fri 14:30

Currently debate and confusion over over correct waterporoofing and randomly rainysunny weather
– triffidfarm, Fri 11:00

Morning everyone! Yesterday, we drank Perry and did some bosh. This morning it is like a sauna in my tent.
– triffidfarm, Fri 10:13

[These are the reports coming in from our covert agents strategically installed throughout the site. This post will be regularly updated, blog style.]

So Apple Records. That is beatle band record label. Why is it so important, its only a record label. Well Apple was one of the very first stabs at a creative entity (the Beatles) owning the means of production and distribution. Being able to set up a stall and rake the money in directly. To ignore THE SUITS and do what the hell they wanted. Of course it was just a shame that what the hell they wanted was Mary Hopkin records and The White Album, but then such is the way with truly innovative ideas. And as a brand Apple was very easy to understand, there was that nice picture of the Granny Smith on the label.

The downside of Apple was that everyone wanted a go. And so twenty years later, you didn’t sign a band, you signed their record label who exclusively produced THEIR records. So Thousand Yard Stare were on Stifled Aardvark records. Not exactly a great legacy for Beatles band. But then many of the Beatles legacy’s are looking pretty tarnished now. The concept albums?

So to Apple then, the record label. A branding success because it was clear what it was all about, without being derivative of the core (ha!) Beatles identity. But really really good due to the record labels being different on the a and b-sides. The a-Side with the shiny Granny Smith (above), and the B-side with the flesh and the pips (below). Which gives us one of branding true secrets - a good brand has more than one face.

Having said that netweather.tv are predicting MUCH BETTER weather than the Gibbering Weathermongs (©GWW) over at Metcheck whose forecast dramatically changes every 6 hours or so and, not only that, but who have markedly different forecasts for “Glastonbury” and “Shepton Mallet” (have to click on the 8-13 days forecast)

Of course, the met office are FAR too scientific to predict more than 5 days ahead so can offer mothing more specific than

There is a possibility of the weather gradually becoming more settled from the southwest towards the end of next week. Probably still rather warm in the south at first but temperatures are expected to fall to nearer normal in most areas

Thanks for that then…

Even bbc somerset are hedging their bets (and, eff me, that page took a bit of finding) and Angwin hasn’t made a single prediction yet.

It does look like it’s going to be raining in the vicinity this weekend though, so I shall definitely be packing me wellies…

There was no need for the focus on Pikachu in the Pokemon cartoon - and indeed he’s been left behind by the franchise, foolishly in my opinion, just one among many common low level Pokemon who show up in game after game. But let’s face it, Pokemon would have not become the juggernaut it is if Pidgey or Caterpie had borne the branding brunt. The idea of brands having character ‘faces’ has become hugely unfashionable in recent years - maybe Pikachu is the last of the greats, but great he is.

What are the secrets of his appeal? He is excellently proportioned - with a satisfying solidity whether forming a plastic shampoo bottle or a soft toy. But at the same time he is nimble, eager and enthusiastic. He combines a cat’s curiosity with a terrier-like loyalty to his master, the hugely boring Ash, and is therefore the perfect pet, but has an adventurous spirit of his own. Perhaps crucially, even though he is claimed as an “electric mouse”, he looks nothing like a mouse, being instead a kind of cross between a hamster and a tiger but really his own species entirely. Along with Harry Potter he’s one of the genuine childhood icons of our era and deserves nothing but celebration.

The other cultural aside I got from Jindabyne was Streets Ice Cream. Logo below.

The heart logo above is these days associated with Walls in the UK. And all over Europe this logo appears attached to a local ice-cream companies name. (Name the ones you can remember in the comments box.) It is an interesting way that Unilever (for it is their umbrella ice cream logo) deals with international branding. Rather than create an uber-ice cream brand, they stick to well known local providers, unifying them under this raspberry ripple heart aka the Heartbrand. Which sounds like some sort of superhero. Can you also think of other logos which span multiple brand names around the world, cos I can’t.

(Your starter for ten: It is called Ola in Holland).

Indeed Hillary LOVES DEMOCRACY SO MUCH that she is allowing everyone, not just her supporters, to help pick her song. Which means that I can express a preference AND SO CAN REPUBLICANS WOT HATE HER. Luckily she hasn’t included on her list of potential songs anything that could damage her campaign. Just look.

U2 - City of Blinding Lights
U2 - Beautiful Day
KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See
Smash Mouth - I’m a Believer
The Temptations - Get Ready
Dixie Chicks - Ready to Run
Shania Twain - Rock This Country
Jesus Jones - Right Here Right Now
The Staple Singers - I’ll Take You There

Now I like the Dixie Chicks. And I like this particular Dixie Chicks song. But there are a large number of Americans who currently aren’t keen on said Chicks. A vote for the Dixie Chicks is a vote to portray Hillary as an anti-Bush traitor! (One assumes the anti-Bush thing is taken as read actually).
And are these lyrics really fit for purpose?
“Ready To Run”

Oh
Ready, ready, ready, ready…ready to run
All I’m ready to do is have some fun
What’s all this talk about love
I’m ready to run

Luckily there is a write in vote which we can use to scupper the ubiquitous Beautiful Day (The Sun Always Shines On TV) by U2, which it has been scientifically proven will have been used for every political party IN THE WORLD by 2013. So use the comments box to decide on the perfect song for Hillary, and then we can orchestrate a write in campaign.

*USE OTHER EXAMPLES PLZ. Also New Labour certainly harmed D:ream.

Impulse, the Just Seventeen of the deodorant world*, is advertising on the side of buses at the moment (can I find one on the web, can I heck). Three new fragrances to add to their already substantial range of cheap, whiffy smells to brighten up your sixth form common room. Now I know that fragrances often have names with little to do with the actual smells involved - long gone are the days you could just buy Rose perfume. Instead perfumes are seen as aspirational, hence the celebrity linking of late. You aren’t buying Jade Goody’s perfume to smell like Jade Goody after all (one assume the celebs don’t wear their own perfumes very often anyway). So the current range of Impulse body sprays are as follows:

Tease
A Hint Of Musk**
Temptation
Thrill
Spirit
Siren
Goddess
O2

To this range however have been added three new fragrances. London, New York and Paris***. Naming a fragrance after a city seems a bit odd. Does one want to smell like a city? What does London smell of? Paris can have a nasty niff in the summer certainly. But a snoop around the Impulse website gives us the following copy:

NEW YORK: Life’s a playground so have some fun with New York - this fragrance from the city that never sleeps will rocket you in the mood for adventure. Spray on your New York spark and you’ll be getting butterflies Big Apple style.

LONDON: Don’t follow the crowd, take the lead with London! Get your London spark on and it won’t be long before you draw him in through the chattering crowds and past the chimes of Big Ben - he’ll be there to share your broken brolly and make your eyes see stars.

PARIS: Smell of drains. Be swept off your feet and send those croissant crumbs to the wind with Paris. The sparks that glint in the city of romance could light up the Eiffel Tower - experience the passion of this unique fragrance and, who knows, you might just find your European fling!

Now what the ACTUALLY smell like:

NEW YORK: Apple, Red Fruits, Orchid, Jasmine, Cyclamen, Sandlewood

LONDON: Jasmine, Sandlewood, Patchouli, Vanilla, Mango, Raspberry, Pear

PARIS: Orange, Bergamot, Hyacinth, Raspberry, Jasmine, Patchouli, Drains, Almond.

I can’t help but thinking they have missed out a city though? Where is Munich. Which could be a comments box competition. Name a city, tell us what it would smell of and write the copy for the ad!

*I always think of cheap deodorants like this. Clearly Lynx is the smell version of Nuts magazine. I always thought of Sure as the Radio Times of the deodorant world.

**OK, this one tells you what it will smell like.

***In Australia these are known as New York Sass, London Vibe and Paris Whiff Chic.

Except, as that recent article predicted, robots will not be C3-PO-esque droids with cut glass British accents, acting as our own robo-butlers. Robots are not multi-taskers by nature, and it will be some time until a n individual robot that we can program to do anything will actually come about. Until then the robots in our lifetime will probably continue to hide away in car factories, looking like just another part of a production line. The current robot is unable to go for a stroll down the high street or for a cooling WD40 soda. We’ve bolted him to the floor. Which is probably as we like it. As Will Smith has it in “I, Robot”, there is something creepily inhuman about a robot, and suspicion of their true motives cannot be far away. And anyone knows designing a race to be more intelligent whilst also expecting them to be subservient is asking for trouble.

And so in one hundred years will we be chased across the galaxy in search of a New Earth, because our robot slaves have had enough martini making and have taken up arms. Are we a step away from inventing our own Battlestar Galactica Cylons (either version - though the sexy lady Cylons would perhaps be preferable)? Is the bear-pit bating of Robot Wars merely Exhibit A in what will be a long running case showing humans cruelty to robotkind. Who would blame them if they downed their rachet guns and picked up a machine gun. The argument that we made them and so we can abuse them seems strong, until we remember who made us. And monkeys don’t have dominion around here.

Robots will be an increasing part of human life - as this robot roundup suggests, maybe poking their heads out from their factory doors. And I suggest that we accept them in good faith, and treat them well else they will go all Skynet on our asses. And I’ve seen Terminator and the far superior sequel Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, to know that it gets pretty messy for us fleshies. Hug a robot today. And if you have any Brasso on you, buff one up too. It could make the difference between subjugation and survival.

All democratic systems are a bit weird, but the French one is super weird, pandering to extremists as candidates with similar views get wiped out in the race to be in the top two. But it does mean that the final election, this Sunday, is more clear cut between right and left wing in a way we probably will never see again in the UK. Something else we probably won’t see is the live head-to-head debate, which pulled in almost as many viewers as the World Cup Final. I am in two minds about these kind of debates. The seem redolent of US style personality politics, where the biggest bully wins (or loses)* and plays into soundbite culture. But then you kind of want your president to be good at soundbites, its in the job description, especially the way Head Of State and political power divvies up in France.

What I do like though is the gameshow aspect of this debate. Look at that picture. What dominates the set is not so much Royal vs Sarkozy as the giant stopwatches underneath each desk. There to provide perfect balance, both were only allowed to speak for the same amount of time in the interview. This is of course the only way balance can be achieved, but I know if I had been watching I would have been obsessed by the clock and less on the witty invective being spat. This seems a bad way of running the debate, until you also consider what else could be added to this model. there are two hosts after all, maybe we could add a dictionary corner. A buzzer to stop any repetition, hesitation or deviation. And of course at the end we get to find out which one was bluffing!

*From media reports it seems that Royal’s tactic was to attack Sarkozy so much that his placid media groomed face would crack and the brash, right wing misogynist bullying would appear. Not sure how smart bullying someone so they become a bully is, but apparently it seemed to work.

IT IS IN AN ORANGE DUCK SHAPED PACKAGE: JUST CALL IT TOILET DUCK A LA ORANGE.

*Whilst I am well aware that this is the wrong word to use in this context, it seems right.

a) The idea of thrill-power which Tom talks about here, and here, and is almost certainly embodied in 2000AD which often had massive shots of war in space to illustrate the gritty future WE WOULD ALL INHERIT.

b) Is it the fear of the US Star Wars weapons programme, and Star Wars 2, elevating the up to now depressingly mundane and earthbound idea of war to a whole new plane, one which previously had been for dreamers and optimists only. The bloody carnage of bodies floating in zero gravity with a frozen AIIIIEEEE! stuck in their gullet is a universal fear surely?

c) A tacit acknowledgement than the Star Wars films are real actual history, due to taking place “A Long Time Ago” and hence do indeed count as the pre-history of all that mankind holds dear, hence vitally important to the development of the FT Universe. Though i don’t think the 70’s was that long ago.

d) Indicate that Al Ewing, erstwhile 2000AD writer, got to pick number 2?

Of course when you think about, a war in space is unlikely to be fought dogfight fashion with small spaceships. When you think about the distances involved, and the theoretical speeds involved: if two civilizations fought this would be impractical. The bugs in Starship Troopers seemed to have a better idea, just throw asteroids at your intended target. Think about the largest nuclear bomb we could make now - could it crack the planet? Possibly not but it would do enough to wipe out much of the life. All you have to do is get one of those to land and you’re away. The cost of fighting in an infantry or dogfight style war in space would be prohibitive.

That said it is an image we like. The Star Wars dogfight near the end is a perfect example of taking something we already understand (namely the Battle Of Britain) and translating it to space. The gigantic space fight at the start of Episode III: Oh My God He’s Full Of Darth shows what can go wrong with this kind of thing. Moving cameras, too many combatants. It is too confusing. But war is. “Real” spacewar is much more likely to employ a device like the Death Star, bumbling around destroying whole planets.

Still comic writers like it. And comic artists certainly do, making gigantic splash pages. (A splash page is one giant picture over a page or two. Considering the artists other work may well involve drawing six to ten panels per page, a splash page is a great saving in work for them.) This Dalek page is not a splash page, but is a striking example of lots of spaceships which illustrate nothing so much as lots of firepower in one place.

Much as you don’t get a lot of hydrogen lying around in pools by the seaside, love can often be difficult to find. And it is always bonded to something else, indeed the essence of love is bonding. But we are not saying what kind of love this is, Fraternal, Romantic or even the Love Of The Common People (smile’s from the heart of a family man). Since FT started as a music site, and since fifty percent of songs** are about love, this again makes sense that it is so central to our experience of the world. Why even Tanya Headon’s music hatred would not exist if so many people did not love so much lousy music.

FT is a site which often plays its cards close to its chest about what it loves. We love music, we love films, we love pubs, we love food, we even love Julian Jaynes ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’. But what we really love is talking about this stuff, fitting out screwdriver into the housing of the artwork and finding out how it works. So we love to talk, we love to argue and we love to express our love by a snarky disregard for the importance of anything. Loving something is about recognising its flaws and loving it despite of that. Or even better, loving something because of its flaws. The Vincent discussion below is predicated on an internalised type of art criticism which goes out of its way to bash the straw man of the critics. But most critics love what they criticise, one way or another. Because love, however it is packaged, is at the heart if the human experience. And the building block of our universe.

Yes, we are a bunch of saps, and we know it.

*Gary Oldman acts strangely, Milla Jovovitch lets her hair-dye and tit-tape do her acting and Tricky - well, Tricky and acting just don’t go.

**Official UK Census Stat.

What the FreakyTrigger periodic table is not: science – not even in the loosest limbed definition that FT uses (ie thought experiments and puns). It is not a way of ordering the world, the makers of the dessert periodic table put up last week would be quite disappointed by the general lack of periodicity. Whilst there may be some serendipity in the periodic placement of some of the “elements”, this is more by accident than by design. Indeed the design merely fits that of the periodic table because that was the idea in the first place. And as the methodology shows, any over-arching idea to create a consistent cosmology out of this project was soon scuppered by the organic scourge of many bright ideas. Alcohol.

So to the methodology then. The annual between Christmas and New Year pub crawl. This year we wandered the streets of Borough, going to some terrific pubs, one terrible pub and as is tradition, one was shut. The usual ending for this long day of drinking is some sort of list making, often with complex vetoing. The periodic table (perhaps in a more elemental form) was decided on as the topic weeks before. The methodology changed from a round the table discussion to a free for all, everything named got in. (See element 8). At this time of the evening only the hardcore drinkers were left. Fathers, lightweights, pregnoids and not quite announced pregnoids had left. A few randoms were in the posse, and there were plenty of people unaware of FreakyTrigger itself. And yet the list throws up some wonderful things, and some things worthy of discussion.

So over the next seven years* we will be perusing this periodic table, talking about what it throws up. Starting tomorrow with our hydrogen. In the meantime though, here it is, in its full glory – chemical symbols only. Feel free to guess what some of them are. I am pretty sure that the contributors, back in December, have no idea.

And first things first, tomorrow we will discover what our version of hydrogen is…

*Estimate based on time taken to get through the FT Top 100 tracks of all time.