Radio watch

Interesting timing... Juliana Hatfield plays on Gideon Coe's 6 Music show, 10a Monday - and Monday is Victoria day... British Sea Power on the Evening Sequence from 7p Mo-Th... Julianne Regan from All About Eve is with Andrew Collins from 4p Weds... Notes From A Small Island on BBC7 at 9a, 6:30p and 00:30 from Monday.

The main news is on Radio 1, where Sara Cox has been replaced by Scott Mills on the Driveltime show. Sadly, this is only for six months or so, while the unlistenable Boltonite has her child. From July, though, Dave Pearce will no longer be the block of crap at 6pm. He's been in that slot since arriving in 1998, and his departure is only about six years overdue. The mid-afternoon duo of Bowman and Murray gain an hour, Driveltime runs through to 7, when "Zane" "Lowe" hits the airwaves for two hours of incomprehensible talk and great music. Punk show The Lock Up moves to 9pm Tuesday, Bobby and Nihal's asian show to 9pm Wednesday, and debutant Annie MacManus hosts dance from 9 on Thursday. We assume that Lurpack Live continues on Monday nights; we know that Peel shifts to 11pm. Should we be keeping our pensioners up past midnight?

Yes, I'm still unhappy

Surely the final word on why Russia lost the 2003 (yep, last year's) Eurovision song contest. From something I've posted to the UKGS mailing list.

How quickly we forget. Not so much the song, but Richard Madeley's campaign against Tatu. Early last year, scarcely a week passed without Richard launching another attack against the Russian poppets. His publicity encouraged the tabloid newspapers to report on the act as a lesbian freak show, and to file those reports in the British tabloid's usual anti-gay manner. The real story of the group - as a stupendous publicity stunt by manager Ivan Sharpalov - was completely ignored.

That bad press continued right up to the contest. Russia missed a point from the UK by less than 800 votes in 24,000, and I do reckon the persistant campaign could account for much of this.

To completely argue against myself, the band was the architect of its own misfortune. Had the band (as a whole, performers and managers) put their image aside, acted like professionals, and bothered to turn up to rehearsals, the director would have known what their routine was likely to be, who was going to be where, and who sung which bits. The poor direction of the performance had to damage the entry, and that was all the Tatu-machine's fault. The phrase "their own worst enemies" springs to mind.

The automatic email .sig picker gave this highly appropriate .sig: "Green cheese rolls offered by Russian teenage lezzers are bloody good. Pink ham sandwiches from gay French waiters most certainly aren't."

By-election watch

No by-election watch last week, as there were no by-elections. No BEW for the next couple of weeks, for a similar reason. Two by-elections yesterday, and quite the news they were.

In Bristol, the Lib Dems cling on to a ward, but suffer a small swing against them to both other parties. That's only happened once in the last four months. In Torbay, the Lib Dems are soundly beaten by the Conservatives, and record 5% and 6% swings against them. This hasn't happened all year.

Averaging out over the past eight by-election weeks (back to March 18), we get C-Lab of +6.19%, Lab-LD of -6.16%, and C-LD of +0.02%. It's the first time all year we've had a swing from the Liberals to the Tories. It's not the +0.03% swing required to tip Cheadle (majority: 33) to the Tories, but it is a positive swing.

Also: Anthony Wells' Excel swingometer is yours for download. Putting in the current swings (C +6.2, LD +6.1, Lab -12.3), I got C 284, Lab 273, LD 58, SNP/PC 12, NI 18, Ind 1; C minority by 39. Applying the swings directly to the seats, I got C 236, Lab 320, LD 59, minor parties as above, Lab minority by 3. Not entirely sure about this one, sir...

Never mind the facts...

Yet another atrocity from the occupying forces: 41 killed in wedding party bloodbath "Men weep and cling to the bodies of their loved ones before they are buried. There are dozens of bundles wrapped in flower-patterned blankets. Some of these images were shown on Western television news yesterday, but not the most disturbing: the bodies themselves." - Indytab. "I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men" - James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division.

Australia risks failing East Timor. "The former Indonesian province regards the offshore fields as the key to its economic salvation. But Australia has been dragging its feet in talks that could give it billions of dollars from exploration of the fields."

"Emily, get out of the way. Bring back the camera please." Coelin Powell, last Sunday, live on global television talkshow Meet The Press, perhaps the only member of the US junta prepared to admit he might, possibly, be wrong.

Good cricket

A bit of a day at Lords, where swashbuckling Kiwi batsman Chris Cairns smashes the 83rd to 86th sixes of his career, taking him past Viv Richards in the most test sixes category. In response, England's debutant Andrew Strauss hits a majestic 112 on his debut, only the fourth deb century at the home of the game.

Paint the whole world with a rainbow!

Over the years, people have thrown many things at senior politicians of the day. Tony Blair's had tomatoes (red and green) and carrots (orange) thrown at him, wannabe PM Neil Kinnock was famously assaulted by the sea (blue), and eggs (yellow) have been a favourite missile since time immemorial. So, to complete the spectrum of colours, demonstrators to-day threw purple powdered poster paint at the PM, causing newsreaders the world over chance to give quiet thanks that the UK leader isn't called Peter. Two men were dragged away, the incident was claimed by a militant fathers' group, and Llin Golding (Upper chamber, Lab) - who had invited the two in - offered a fulsome apology. The government will use this as a further excuse to erect a literal glass screen between itself and the public, and democracy itself has been further set back. Shame on everyone.

While this little local drama was unfolding, at least eight died as Israeli forces fired tank shells, helicopter missiles and machine-guns today on a large crowd of Palestinians demonstrating against an Israeli invasion of a neighboring refugee camp. The civilians were marching from the town of Rafah toward the neighbouring refugee camp when tanks and helicopters fired at least four shells and four missiles. Israeli forces invaded the Tel Sultan neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp early on Tuesday. Twenty-four Palestinians have been killed over the last two days during the army's "Operation Rainbow" aimed at hunting down militants and destroying arms-smuggling tunnels.

Better news...

from Zimbabwe, where the cricket board has refused to meet the ICC's representative. Australia's second XI is in the racist country, amid threats by the Aussie television giants to not cover the series, because it'll be even more one-sided than the 'Roos series against Bangladesh. When ICC rep Peter Speed dropped into Harare, the ZCU board skipped town. The official response - "Unfortunate" - is diplomatic, but the ICC will now hold a telephone conference to vote on Zimbabwe's exclusion from the family of cricket. The Aussies will surely return home, and England's scheduled tour in October looks like being cancelled in a decent, face-saving way.

Media news

Martin Bashir will take his pisspoor brand of cheap character assassinations off British television screens and move to the Dismal Corp's ABSuck network; heading in the opposite direction is political correspondent Jerry Springboard, hosting on the little-heard Crapital Bronze notwork over the Bank Holiday week. BBC soap East Enders had its worst outing ever last night, picking up approximately 6.4 viewers.

Vote Kerry

So says the useful guide politicalbetting.com, the site that - quite literally - puts its money where its mouth is. "What has persuaded us is the view that Kerry will not win the election; Bush will lose it. The lacklustre performance of Kerry to date owes, we think, to his realisation that the election is first and last a referendum on Bush."

Two million in speeding fines?

Sir,
While local motorists paid two million in fines from speed cameras last year, it's clear that the Association of British Drivers didn't spend two minutes thinking through their arguments. (£2m in speeding fines, Evening Mail, 18 May.)

Mark McArthur-Christie said, "If the partnerships are correct then we should see the numbers of accidents fall as the number of cameras increase but that's simply not the case."

He's absolutely right that's not the case - the article refers simply to the number of motorists caught speeding, and doesn't mention accidents at all!

Nor does it say how many new cameras were installed last year, and without that vital information, we haven't a hope of making a sensible comparison. Or ever hearing anything sensible from the Association of British Drivers.

Yours faithfully,
Iain Weaver, Birmingham.

From tonight's The World

United Stations are finding that the sky doesn't fall in after gay marriage ... the dictator of Belarus clowning around with a cuddly toy ... "Talking of sanctions simply does not help at all. At all. It simply does not help" ... Spitting Image plans a comeback, reports A Demi Grauniad ... we need a dose of television satire, and we've needed it for about five years ... the US claims that a shell fired at their troops in occupied Iraq contained traces of nerve gas sarin - it's not immediately clear who imported the agent there, or if the traces could have arisen naturally.

Lying liars

Congrats to Eamon Doyle, and the promotions team at All Around The World records. They've managed to get two unknowns (Eamon, whose Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) has been the biggest seller for the past month; and Frankee, whose Fuck You Right Back outsold it this week) to record two halves of the one song, and flog it to the gullible public on the ludicrous notion that the pair were once at it, but now aren't. It's a similar tactic to the Human League's 1981 classic Don't You Want Me, only it's now split over two disks rather than one, so twice the sales! Shame that the song is a pile of pants, no matter who sings it.

All this mess overshadows a historic achievement: Morrisey's biggest ever hit single. His 1988 debut Suedehead made the top 5, the three followups (famed Identik-hit Quiz answer Every Day Is Like Sunday, Last Of The Famous International Playboys and Interesting Drug) made the top ten, as did 1994's The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get. Moz has spent just one week in the top twenty since, until today. His first single in six and a bit years, Irish Blood English Heart lands at 3.

Also: fresh from her moderate success at last night's Eurovision, Avril Lavigne lands at 5 with Don't Tell Me, Anastacia moves back up one to 6, the Rasmus slip to 10, Joss Stone's Super Duper Love bows at 18, two ahead of the re-release of Goldfrapp's Strict Machine - it made 25 first time out last July. Alanis Morissette puts Everything in at 22, the same peak You Oughta Know had nine years ago; she's only had four more successful singles. Pete Doherty's Babyshambles lands at 32, Gomez are back with Silence at 41, the Raveonette's That Great Love Sound re-enters at 52 (it made 34 last August.)

Interesting stuff on the albums list: Keane's Hopes And Fears shifts 150,000 to enter at the top; The Streets' second album A Grand Don't Come For Free comes in at number two, 100,000 sales later. Joss Stone has a great week, she's up to a new peak at 4. Damien Rice also reaches a new high at 14, and the Streets' old album moves back up to 17. Radiohead's Japanese album is in at 20, Killswitch Engage put death metal in at 21. Goldfrapp's back up at 29, and albums by Coldplay and Kelis return to the 40.

older writing...