Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

I try to avoid posting evidence of most of the stuff I'm really bad at. Don't you?

Ouch. By which I mean no. Possibly because I tend to think I'm really bad at everything, so editing to my standards would leave nothing (which is not acceptable either). I don't think he was intending it to be cruel (going by his blog, which admittedly is a tad self-selected, he does scathing frequently but very rarely cruelty), but that's simply how I initially interpreted it. And all because I wanted to play snap with some graffiti.

I'm not sure how one goes about presenting the best possible image. Or rather I think I know, but rarely follow my own guidelines, thereby allowing others to latch onto the bits that wouldn't have made it through the filter and proclaim them good, thus confusing me greatly. The popular stuff is not what I would choose. Which either means I'm an idiot or everyone else is, neither conclusion being one I want to believe in.

So while I'm pondering that I'd better stop as I have little else to tell (read: an awful lot, just much of it benthic to the high tide mark of these new-found standards) except that I'm trying to work out if I've just been ceded veto rights on who gets to be an usher (not that I known what they do, other than be told that it should be perfectly obvious the questioned is neither, although I've no idea what I'm meant to be doing either). I'm off to find a ping-pong ball and a vat of Indian ink.

La vie est bewildering.

Anyhoo,

You know, I think I've found the flaw in Last.fm; I know it's there. Choosing music while aware that it may be used against me is odd. It doesn't help that very early on I left the entire Radiohead back-catalogue on shuffle while I wasn't around and so have been anti-Radioheading ever since. Hence trying to listen to music I don't normally listen to and worryingly slightly that it might claim that my top three artists are Abba, the Pet Shop Boys and Madonna (not because it's bad music, although some is played because it's so Camembert, but simply because it's so much of a cliché, and I like my clichés deliberate). So last week's result is headed by a band whose CD I lost for years, hence very rarely listen to.

[position|(previous)|name|plays]
1 Cast 13
1 (9) Rootjoose 13
3 The Hoosiers 12
3 (3) Rufus Wainwright 12
5 British Sea Power 11
5 Savage Garden 11
5 Hard-Fi 11
8 Röyksopp 10
9 Supergrass 8
10 Counting Crows 7

This completely misses the Daft Punk fest that was shortly topped of with Moloko. So now this week's stats are going to look all... unguitarry.

Last.fm also falls down on recording the number of tracks played, without indicating total duration, so 'an album' can create very different results. Hence the universal popularity of Moby.

But then my listening methods probably aren't typical for Last.fm. I have albums and a misc folder, the latter with whatever isn't any other folder (usually). So one-hit-wonders sit in misc, and the decent stuff gets played album by album, rather than skipping to the singles. So the recurring tracks tend to be OHWs or other oddities (having the same name for different tracks helps - see Roy Budd - Dialogue), rather than my favouritestever song. It doesn't help I'm too lazy to set up a highlights playlist and too puritan to skip through and album for the good bits (with the exception of the best of Morcheeba which I may as well delete; hitting 6 frequently is not a good sign).

Better be it for now. One day one of these posts won't be about last.fm.

Anyhoo,

Edit: Ok, bored now. The following is not true. But you'd probably have assumed that from the outset with any post today, right?

I'm beginning to wonder what I've let myself in for. I've had someone lurking around making subtle inquiries. Asked if me I might be, er, you know, interested in alternative experiences with perhaps someone like a Brito-Flemish firm by the name of Scallop (can you tell who it is yet?). Sent me a form to fill in, purely on a non-committal basis. Replied that they're very interested, when can I come in for 'chat' and when would I be free generally? A few rounds of "we're not saying this but" later and it seems they want me. Only after a brief introductory period they don't want me here but somewhere over there. Way over there. Ok, so there and a few other places. Apparently they need someone to make sure assorted other-enders get the whole Beyond Petroleum (er, sorry wrong comp) thing and they think I'm ideal for the corporate navel-gazing involved to check this. So how's that for a coinkydink? Given that the Redacted (um, it doesn't count as insulting if it's the result of dyslexia [edit: er, that unpicked enough, or do you need more?]) is already shellacked in situ.

Except I'm not sure what to do. I tend to be a bit illegal round there. And they tend to be a bit shooty (when did I turn into Penelope Wilton?). And I know I found GA's grandmother's tales over gravlax of picking bullets from the bookshelves in most southern Mediterranean cities to be amusing, but I'm not sure I could stand knowingly endangering books. I'm fully aware I ticked the galaxy-far-far-away box, but I was rather expecting the suggested outcome to be in the same universe. One that doesn't have men hopping with vengeful fury as they wave an Adisdas flip-flop in the air whenever something displeases them (the arrogance of the American state of Denmark, someone mentioning Agent Smith's previous roles, a ill-considered t-shirt proclaiming "Yo, get with the Enlightenment", a man wearing a colour that doesn't look like mouldy plaster, that type of thing).

Yes, I am basing this on whatever one sees in the news, but whenever a place is not in the news one sort of assumes that the inhabitants must be sane after all, only for them to spring up in livid protests with banners demanding The Patsy Stone Will Be Madings For To Glorious Burn In Hull Verily (what does Mr Pbuh say about the use of Babelfish and that of copy editors or lack thereof? How much of that was machine translation and how much local goldplating by people keen to show off the words they saw once in The Gallant Motorist's Guide the Punjab?), except for when they're happy, when they declare war on God and bounce round cloudseeding ineffectually from the back of indestructible Toyotas. Either that or they think they can hit an American plane. Have they any idea how dangerous that is? Have they never heard of seatbelts?

Er, maybe more research is needed. So what do you say? Should I stay or should I go the way of the shellfish?

Answers on a postcard, inside an envelope lest the postcard be damned for the thoughts of those seeing it, to... the usual place.

Anyhoo,

PS. In next week's show we'll be examining the inherent confirmation of prejudices demonstrated by a black man touring America to beg for change.

PPS. In a fortnight: Is Kylie overrated?

Well, that's everyone annoyed now.

PPPS. I've just worked out how to solve the tendency for riots to spontaneously combust across a great swathe of the world: shoe laces.