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Well, I kind of new it was a bad idea to take those pills when my boss offered them to me, but I took them anyway.

Now I'm really mashed, and I've only just realised it. My eyes are all red, and feel like they're swelling. I'm finding it quite hard to read, or keep still in fact. In fact I really feel like dancing, and am quite hyperactive, which isn't helped by the fact that I'm blasting out Jimmy Cliff, Aretha Franklin and Stereolab. In the library.

Yeah, we be jammin'.

Oooh, I'm actually quite woozy now.

Yeah I agree, but I don't have a problem with pop music, as long as the people producing it have got something to say. I mean, I think it's important that the music that they make is something that they themselves would actually want to listen to. Unfortunately, this is a relative rarity in todays music charts. A lot of this came about when the rules on what could and couldn't appear in the charts were revised in the ninties, resulting in all EP's and anything longer than three tracks and or twenty-three minutes could not be considered for the charts. We are increasingly moving to a position like the Americans, where the chart is based on radioplay (and thus no indication of the publics actual interest in any give song) and the singles chart is little more than a giant advert for whatever album the single is released from.

There is still some great pop around: it's important to remember that when bands like The Beatles and The Who started out, they considered themselves pop bands. There's still good stuff out there if you look hard enough - most of it is now producer driven (the ubiquitous Neptunes) combined with a particular stars own 'gravitational wake' of celebrity. Pop music is generally considered to now be the province of the fifteen and under. The problem now is that the boundaries between pop and other genre music has now become too blurred. 'Pop' is now purely a mixture of elemnts from hip hop/house/garage/rock, but made to the 'by the numbers' pop style of old, creating a schism which, perhaps, explains both the increasing lack of sales facing the charts, as well as the increase in interest in minority musical groups.

However, Cheryl Tweedy is still a manky old hound.

Wills, you're a lovely guy and have done extremely well in getting all these interviews, reviews and articles together, but please listen to something with some taste!

Girls Aloud and Rachel Stevens are rubbish. I know that sounds elitist and snobby, but that's wehat I am goddmamnit! But even as POP it's rubbish.

Rachel Stevens lives on my road, and while I can't say I hate her, I find her increasingly annoying, both in her musical presence and in all the parties and barbecues that she seems to be having. If there's one thing worse than not having fun, it's the awareness of other people having at your exclusion. If I'm not having a good time, I don't see why anyone else should.

Gah, Bah Humbug!

Well said, that man!

425

No, bollocks, that's wrong, isn't it.

The Guvnor:http://www.bookpalace.com/acatalog/Cushing.jpg">

Sounds good. I enjoyed the old site, so I look forward to the new one. I might drop you a line about the British comics thing - obviously, exciting things are afoot, what with the DC deal with IPC, and Titan republishing Dan Dare, Charley's War and Modesty Blaise, as well as the James Bond newspaper strip. I just hope they get around to reprinting Garth, the newspaper strip drawn by Frank Bellamy...

This is this Womans Weekly thing, or whatever it was?

Damn, if only I'd thought of that!

Well, I suppose Max wins, as his suggestion certainly was the best idea (and most believable)

No, that can't be scanned, it's to big, Crappy digital photography is all that gets (or probably deserves). Not unconnected, though...

Do you think that it might have been more acceptible to a comics audience if she'd given it a title like, oh I don't know, 'Snailmonkey Adventures', or 'The Colonel' or something?

Well, I'm still working at this godawful hour of the night, on my day off no less, and with nothing by a ten hour shift to look forward to.

My life is great!

Anyhow, to keep my mind active during these dull, arse numbing hours, I thought I'd offer up a little challenge:

Suggest why I am still up working this late at night, and what it is that I'm doing, and the most accurate/original/funniest entry recieved by the time I get on a computer at work tomorrow morning will win some sort of prize.

Have a go, and save me from attempting to commit sepuku with nothing but my tie and some hard cheese.

"I've got them. I'm just not scratching."

The Master and The Blaster.

As in Master Blaster.

Anyway, I say let your children run wild and free. If mini-Bolt's old enough to draw a picture of Judge Dredd then he's old enough to wander round the Oxford branch of Smiths by himself (actuallym he could buy some art supplies whilst he was there).

The final fate of nasty old Claw Carver...

"Gary Wilkinsons stunning B&B"

The H.P. Lovecraft strip was bloody excellent!

I've been knocking round a few ideas for some three page strips, and now I've bought my art supplies I might well get on and do some...