Swingin' Ryan

Um, ok. Well I agree with you that just because an album is a bands most critically acclaimed in years, it doesn't mean it's good, I'd imagine most people with a brain would agree with that but it's good to clarify However I think Send Away The Tigers is good.

Personally, I think more the people who were friends with the man for about twenty years are a better judge of the most appropriate thing to do with the lyrics than anybody else. I think accusing them of using the lyrics their missing friend wrote to try and 'regain credibility' is more than slightly off. I also can't think who they'd be trying to gain credibility from by using the lyrics. Send Away The Tigers was pretty much their most critically successful album for ten years. The people who think they're shit post-Richey aren't going to suddenly start liking them again because his lyrics are on it, and the people who never liked them anyway aren't going to even bother listening.

It's as if Stonewall never happened...

So is your butchery of the English language, 'told on a daily occasion'?

Jens Lekman - If I Could Cry (It Would Feel Like This).

It's pretty much a lunch menu of around ten main courses that are all just a fiver.

Agreed, it's amazing. I got the smoked haddock the other week and my girlfriend had the shitake mushroom mash thing. They were reeaally good.

Easily my favourite television series, and the UK version is vastly superior to the US one. I've genuinely enjoyed everything Gervais and Merchant have done, I've been listening to them since the XFM days and it's crazy to think those shows went on to be the most successful podcasts of all time. People tend to have a go at Gervais nowadays but I don't think there are many big name entertainers with more integrity than he has. A lot of people don't realise he once turned 2 million pounds to do an American advert as he thought it would belittle the work he'd done (and this is before The Office got syndicated in the US and he made huge money).

Ah right, I do actually remember that comment now, apologies. On the new album front, apparently one of the new tunes is rather fantastically entitled 'Jackie Collin's Existential Question Time'!

Lifeblood remains my least favourite Manics album, although I've grown to rather like it of late. I really think the last think they want to be doing is writing another Lifeblood though. Also, at what point in the Manics 20 year career has Nicky Wire ever been fat?!

I have nothing but faith that the lyrics would be used in the best possible way though, whatever people say about the Manics I don't think anyone can argue that their treatment of Richey's memory has ever been anything other than completely tasteful. Just the idea of a new Manics album that could potentially lyrically rival THB is massively exciting AND they've got Albini producing which I think is a stroke of genius. I wonder if they'll reclaim the 'cut the feet off a ballerina' line, shamelessly used by Bloc Party (who then went on to completely rip off the chorus for 'IfWhiteAmerica...' on Flux, this from a band who claim to have 'never really listened to the Manics').

Manic Street Preachers are currently in the studio with Steve Albini and all the lyrics to the songs they've recorded so far are using lyrics left behind by Richey before he dissapeared. I for one am fucking excited. Manic Street Preachers to release Richey Edwards-written album | News | NME.COM

I had the exact same problem with my ukulele. I just took a small screwdriver to the screws holding in each peg and tightened it right up and that stopped it.

Meaning what makes the Manics the Manics is more than how they're style of music has changed or the clothes they wear. I

That's the one, 'use your bed like a trampoline' etc...catchy filth. I'd second Jens Lekman (cannot believe I forgot him in the first place). Also on the Swedish front I'd reccommend The Concretes, Those Dancing Days, Taken By Trees and Hello Saferide. The Swedes do Pop better than anybody.

I second Nouvelle Vague. I'd also throw in The Grates MySpace.com - The Grates - AU - Indie / Tropical / Showtunes - www.myspace.com/thegrates Fair bit of success in their native Australia but not very well known here. Kind of like a chirpier Yeah, Yeah Yeahs. Their debut Gravity 'Wont Get You High' was easily one of the best Indie Pop albums of '06, I'm yet to buy the newest one but what I've heard has been great.

It would be utterly mental if either of them got sacked for this. It's like when Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant were stopped from doing their segments on Radio 1 years ago after Simon Mayo was given the world record for longest radio broadcast and they said something like 'Thats not working, our fathers went down the mines, we know girls that do lesbian stuff for crack money. I want to see Simon Mayo suspended upside down in an Amsterdam torture garden getting jizzed on by twenty men in gimp suits'. The official reason given to them for the sacking was 'Simon didn't like it...he's a Christian'. Golden.

Bingo, they would have got even more stick if they'd just kept making carbon copies of the early stuff. The first three albums will always remain my favourites but they've released some fantastic stuff since then. Even Lifeblood which I consider my least favourite contains a couple of songs that I'd put up there with the best of their stuff. Also the argument that they 'sold out' on their principles because they didn't split up after their first album is ridiculous, they also said it was going to sell more than Appetite For Destruction, I think there was always a fair amount of tongue in cheek in those statements. I think Simon Price was bang on the money when he said 'they're still the same band, it's a soul thing'.

They're great, it's amazing how big a sound they can get with just two voices, a guitar and a (half) drum kit. Saw them at King Tuts with The Duke Spirit and The Blah, Blah, Blah and they were by far the band of the night. They played to a criminally small audience though. Anyhoo....today I bought Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt Voxtrot - S/T

Ah, threads about spilt tea. Takes one back to the days of 'The Wasteland', 'General Discussion' is far too grand a term for such topics.

I hate Halloween, it is the night of the year that people who consider themselves 'wacky' or 'mental' get to rule. Luckily I will get to avoid most of it as I'm working and because Quantum of Solace will be out, I will be serving popcorn to every single person in Aberdeen who hates Halloween as much as me. I will then be drinking in whichever location features the least amount of people dressed up.

Slow Club - Lets Fall Back In Love EP They've gone all Beirut on 'Come On Youth', it's lovely.

Janeane Garofalo would definitely be my first example, she is and always has been utterly brilliant. I would also add Kristen Schaal and Josie Long.

Actually I think I heard a similar opinion voiced by Mark Kermode to Kirsty Wark on Newsnight Review last week. Actually my mistake, it was being etched in biro on a Kimberley-Clark toilet roll dispenser in a public toilet next to a Greggs Bakers in Exeter by a mentally disturbed cretin who was swallowing his own tongue as he shat.