Michael MacLennan

Thanks. I'd love to have been at the gig tonight, but in the Highlands I have to be for Sunday's Loch Ness marathon. Oh, the joy...

Hey there, I have had the pleasure of recording The Herald's first-ever podcast, an interview with Teenage Fanclub ahead of their sold-out show at the Barrowlands tonight.

As some of you probably know, they're playing 1991's Bandwagonesque in its entirely, which was voted Spin magazine's album of the year in 1991, ahead of Nirvana's Nevermind, REM's Out of Time and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. I caught up with Brendan O'Hare and Norman Blake from the band at Mono to talk about the upcoming show, their memories of the recording and the reaction afterwards. The interview also includes their recollections of a recent near-death experience caused by a flying twiglet, and dressing up in dodgy Elvis costumes for a BBC session back in the day...

The podcast

And the associated article

Anyway, the more people than download this the better, as it will show those in charge at The Herald that there's an appetite for more coverage of Scottish music in the paper and on the website. (Obviously my concerns are completely altruistic...) So I hope a few of you are able to have a listen and tell any fans of the band about it, and if you want to give some feedback (the e-mail address is michael.maclennan@theherald.co.uk) it would be very much appreciated, in case I get the chance to do more of the same in the future. Thanks!

anyone obtained this prematurely yet?

i'm listening to it just now' date=' seems okay so far. though the drums sound a bit crap, particularly in the first song.[/quote']

Okay? OKAY? Jesus, what a disappointment it's going to be if I find it to be merely okay... did you download MP3s, or is it the actual CD you have?

BAN THIS SICKO TOO!!!!111!!!!

Ban him for wanting to ban people!

i did not read it in the daily star you cunt of the highest order. you are the typical aberdeen-music twat who thinks he has a superior intellect and therefore talks in the most patronising manner you can. the woman in question was raped in russel brands flat he was renting in edinburgh and police are wanting to question his involvement in the alleged incident. no doubt you will make some remark about my grammar before trying to prove i really am an idiot. by the way i intentionally set out to achieve a reaction from this thread' date=' hence the use of the phrase "crying rape" and so forth. i love aberdeen-music.[/quote']

Thanks for the insult, always lovely. I never 'thought I had superior intellect', but your headline is spurious, because she didn't accuse him of rape, which makes your post ridiculous. Look at it this way:

I'm in a flat, at a party. I find out the next day my wallet was stolen. I contact the police, and they question those at the party to get details. In no way does this mean that I have accused the flat-owner, or the person who rented the flat, or personally stealing my wallet. It simply means that there is a legimate line of enquiry by the authorities that involves them questioning that person.

To put it another way, an accusation is the act of accusing someone of having done something wrong; nobody has done that to Russell Brand. (Yet.)

Or to put it one final way: You + This thread = A moron talking nonsense. And no-one needs superior intellect to figure out that equation.

PS The fact that you also make a baseless allegation about 'too many women crying rape these days looking for some easy cash from the sun'; well, I'm pretty sure that I'm not the biggest cunt in this thread, let's just put it that way.

Nobody's accused Russell Brand of rape, if anyone had read the actual story, instead of looking at a deliberately misleading Daily Star headline and then jumping to conclusions... whoever started this thread is an idiot, though I can't for the life of me even be bothered to go back and find out his/her name.

PS I like Russell Brand too, he was very funny at his fringe show.

A good malt should have nothing in it' date=' unless it's a strong smokey one like Laphroaig, which can have a couple of drops of tepid water in it. Certainly never ice.[/quote']

Don't know, I have to disagree there, though I know I'm not quite in agreement with the professionals - I think the agreed position is to have water in (ideally from the same area as the distillery), at about a 50/50 mix. Myself, I like to have ice in nowadays, I just prefer having it a bit colder and not quite as strong. Back in the old days I'd drink it straight. Those were bad old days. And wonderful old days as well, strangely.

I've decided to stop drinking cider; I only started a couple of years ago to have a 'sociable' drink that I can have in tandem with beer drinkers, but I can't stand how much it makes me piss. I swear, I was in Bill Hicks:Slight Return on Friday and never needed to pee so much in my life. I'd actually resigned myself to the inevitability of wetting myself, and had started making contingency plans as to how I'd deal with the disaster (and this was still 15 min from the end of the show). The fact that I managed to contain myself is the best reason I've ever found to prove the existence of god.

so do you defy dedication as breaking the law to get your music about?

Why would you class that as being more dedicated than a band that travels around the country in the back of an old busted up van sleeping very little and getting paid very little for their efforts?

What silly questions to ask, you're obviously just trying to start a 'controversial' debate by wilfully misinterpreting what he said. It doesn't really add anything to the thread, just a way of having a go at an easy target.

God knows, I'll probably be working Sept 1, but a preview may be in order...

i used to work with Stephen Lovatt who plays max hoyland' date=' he was me waiter when i cooked breakfasts at the ceilidh place in ullapool, mind u i've probably mentioned this rather pathetic claim to fame elsewhere on this thread!!! decent chap an all.[/quote']

When was that? I used to live in Ullapool; if Max ever served me... well, it'd be something to tell the grandkids, that's for sure.

So why not a "not proven" verdict? Or is that not valid in this case?

Not in a civil action, no.

I thought the News of the Screws only had to prove that it was "substantially true" or summat?

No' date=' that's not the case for defamation, though that is what they said about the article. The problem is that, even if 'substantially' true, those parts that aren't true - if they lower him in the eyes of the public - would be defamatory.

It appears that he probably didn't do what he was accused of and there is little or no evidence to say he did.

It doesn't appear that way; it appears that some parts can't be relied upon, but to believe that 18 independent witnesses would perjure themselves in court... well, I wouldn't be surprised if the appeal reverses the verdict (or at least substantially reduces the damages). I don't think it would have been the same result if it wasn't in front of a jury, though I think the News of the World were very unwise to advance the argument in court that what they said was 'substantially true'; not least because it already implies that they're not telling the truth about some parts.

You sure can. A criminal investigation into the people who gave evidence against Sheridan is going to start soon. I don't think we've heard the last of this affair yet.

No way they'll get convicted though, the fact that 18 people are saying the same sort of thing will be enough to have reasonable doubt. I'll be interested to see the reasoning behind the verdict; whether the jury thought that all 18 people who testified against him are liars, or (as I'd find more likely) that they found aspects of the story exaggerated, and therefore defamatory, but not that the main details of the story were untrue.

Feast your eyes on this...

as usual I can't remember where i heard this but i'm pretty sure it's not just speculation:

Eddie Brock/venom in the new spiderman movie is set to be played by the guy who plays eric in "that 70's show"...

and the joker for the new batman movie (currently going under the name of "the dark knight") is set to be played by...

Heath "I'm an ass loving cowboy" Ledger!

slightly suspect casting choices if you ask me...

There's already a promo picture of Topher Grace as Venom which looks absolutely amazing, so I've been won over by that (will try and get picture). As for Heath Ledger, he's a damned fine actor, so I'm sure Nolan knows what he's doing. And much as I would approve of Crispin Glover, every time he appeared on screen I'd probably think of him sniffing Drew Barrymore's hair in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and looking all 'scary', which has ruined my perception of him forever.

The three that spring to mind:

The Knife - Silent Shout

Tool - 10,000 days

The Presets - Beams

I wouldn't blame Cowie, don't think he did such a bad job in retrospective compared to the prime suspect... Andi Peters. Even the name gives me nightmares.

Michael Subsistence... well. I'll be damned

I know, you might have thought the binge-drinking and hardcore pizza-eating would have finished me off by now, but no! Never!

For those who remember me from my good old days in Aberdeen (when I was either known as Uncle Mikey, Subsisty or that gimp in the rubbish band no-one cares about), then come join me in the Granite City as I return for the first time in AGES and probably last time EVER while I destroy my liver over the course of a single evening. If you don't know my number, send me a PM.

Not sure where we'll be going, someone mentioned the Basement (sp?), I'm so out of touch that all the images in my head are in black and white. I'll probably go to Moshulu later on for nostalgia's sake, so if you don't see me before I'll probably be there at some point in the morning, crying uncontrollably and vomiting over all my former friends, all while trying to sing La Vida Loca. Can you afford NOT to miss this?

well' date=' what did everyone think of that? i thought it was great, best series since the first one.[/quote']

My thoughts as well; it also benefitted from having one of the best final episodes of all the series, with a great cliffhanger. Those damned Commies!

What the fuck is PC about supporting his statement?! Surely one doesn't need to be holier than thou to agree that rape / sexual assault IN ANY FUCKING CIRCUMSTANCES is WRONG....there are no fingers to point in this case' date=' no ifs, no buts....as for the suing the website, hey thats the American way...the fact that people are trying to say "stupid bitch for meeting someone"....please fuck off to 'Perfect Island' as you supreme intellect beings are wasted in this town I'm afriad...[/quote']

I can understand what's being said, I don't think that means that project:venhell is accusing anyone of being PC in respects to it being a bad thing, Just that it may be the popular attitude to have, but it's still right.

are you the paedo that 'raped' this young girl? if not' date=' you know fuck all about it either, so I am no more of a 'fool' than you. the difference being, I appear to have looked into the possibility of there being two sides to this story and you haven't. therefore i denounce you the paedophile.[/quote']

Actually, the difference is that I haven't actually commented on the case, I commented on the people commenting on it.

Look at my post, it's talking about people putting the blame on females who get sexually assaulted as though they deserve it for certain choices they make, it doesn't mention the specific case. Look at this comment to see what I was talking about:

teh girl is stupid as fuck to meet up with him anyway... her own fault IMHO

But thanks, calling me a paedophile really shows how wrong I was.

Despite how 'stupid' everyone thinks this 14-year-old is (and for Christ's sake, she is still a child), anyone insinuating that a girl making a few bad choices means getting sexually assaulted is 'her own fault' is a fucking cretin. And everyone else immediately making assumptions about a case they know little to nothing about, congratulations: you're also acting like morons. I'd say that assumption makes an ass out of u and me. But in this case, it's just you.

I'd forgotten what a great song Hedonism is' date=' and it's totally going round my head now!! Heart and Soul by T'Pau still gets a wee shiver going, as does Hello Again by Neil Diamond:O[/quote']

Hedonism was balls, that one with the groovy bassline was great though, I can't remember the name though dammit... you know: 'da da, dada da, dada da, dadada da da/da da, dada da, dada da, dadada da da!' Um...

Anyway, talking about songs from when I was young, one of my previews in The Herald today is about one of those that I loved (*cheap plug, cough cough*), here it is...

http://www.theherald.co.uk/goingout/64511.html

Follow the steps at the end' date='

1) New York City has 11 letters

2) Afghanistan has 11 letters.

3) Ramsin Yuseb (The terrorist who threatened to destroy the Twin

Towers in 1993) has 11 letters.

4) George W Bush as 11 letters. This could be a mere coincidence,

but this gets more interesting:

1) New York is the 11th state.

2) The first plane crashing against the Twin Towers was flight number 11.

3) Flight 11 was carrying 92 passengers. 9 + 2 = 11

4) Flight 77 which also hit Twin Towers, was carrying 65

passengers. 6+5 = 11

5) The tragedy was on September 11, or 9/11 as it is now known. 9 + 1+ 1 = 11

6) The date is equal to the US emergency

services telephone number 911. 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

Sheer coincidence..?! Read on and make up your own mind:

1) The total number of victims inside all the hi- jacked planes was 254. >2 + 5 + 4 = 11.

2) September 11 is day number 254 of the calendaryear. Again 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.

3) The Madrid bombing took place on 3/11/2004. 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 11.

4) The tragedy of Madrid happened 911 days after the Twin Towers incident.

Now this is where things get totally eerie:

The most recognised symbol for the US, after the Stars & Stripes, is the Eagle. The following verse is taken from the Quran, the Islamic holy book:

"For it is written

that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome

Eagle. he wrath of the Eagle would be felt

throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some

of the people trembled in despair still more

rejoiced: for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the

lands of Allah and there was peace."

That verse is number 9.11 of the Quran.

[/quote']

Thanks for the vital info update; turns out my niece is 11 years old, so I just put some cyanide in her milkshake and cut off her dog's head, better safe than sorry. I e-mailed these startling statistics you posted to the police as an alibi, and they've given me a gold medal and a signed photo of David Icke. I'll send you half the money I make flogging it off on eBay.

PS Even more eerie, if you take Iraq, that has four letters, and Britain, which has seven, add them together, it makes eleven: is this the final proof that God hates us all?