In celebration of James Medd’s stupendous piece in Word 108 on the secret world of the bass guitarist, Medd and Mark Ellen present a podcast with session wizard and bon viveur Guy Pratt – who tells tales of working with Pink Floyd, The Smiths, Jimmy Page, the dictatorial Madonna and David Coverdale (who he impersonates immaculately). And explains the correct pronunciation of “Whitesnake” and how he did a Sophie Ellis-Bextor hit in 17 minutes. He also peels off the world’s greatest bottom lines on the office bass guitar. Our story starts on an aeroplane piloted by Floyd drummer Nick Mason experiencing strange and artificial turbulence...

On Monday, February 27th, Word In Your Ear productions present Eliza Carthy playing at the pub across the road from the Word office.

This unique meeting of artist and venue, re-scheduled from January, is the latest in a string of special shows which have set new standards for comfort, intimacy and amusement.

We pride ourselves in giving our readers and subscribers the opportunity to experience legendary performers in small venues, thereby lessening at a stroke the distance between artist and audience. We've already put The Divine Comedy and Wilco Johnson in this special frame and on February 27th we proudly present Eliza Carthy, the crown princess of the English folk revival, accompanied by her award-winning live ensemble, in the upstairs concert room of the Lexington on London's swinging Pentonville Road, a short walk from King's Cross.

We equally pride ourselves on offering unique entertainment experiences at affordable prices. Tickets are £24, which is a fraction of the price of tickets for Eliza's last appearance in the capital.

There is also a full supporting cast including recent podcast guests Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo plus magisterial chamber-pop quintet Left With Pictures, who recently triumphed at Islington's Union Chapel. We also have a top-class team of hosts and hostesses including Mark Ellen, Kate Mossman and David Hepworth to fill any gaps between the acts with tests of skill, prize competitions and top pop platters.

Furthermore and most clinchingly we offer you the assurance of spending the evening with like-minded people who are not so busy texting, gossiping and running back and forwards to the bar that they spoil your enjoyment.

Book your tickets now and you won't be kicking yourself in a few weeks time for not having done it sooner. You can get a further idea of what you would be missing below:

Tickets available now from http://www.wegottickets.com/sct/mEGgdHbmJn

Neil Cowley dropped by the office the other day to talk about the Neil Cowley Trio, their new album The Face Of Mount Molehill, his time as a sideman with everyone from The Pasadenas to the Brand New Heavies, his part in the musical career of Sue Perkins and how the best place to learn to play jazz is in your local garden centre.

We liked him so much we’ve put it out as a short podcast on its own.

Nige Tassell's writing a piece for the next issue about Cassette Culture and we'd like to illustrate it with some atmospheric pictures of the old tapes that we've all got kicking about in our attics. Haven't we?

We're looking for pre-recorded ones as well as home-made tapes compiled as love tokens. We're looking for historic ones given away with magazines, old, much-abused ones with scratched cases, cassettes that bear the marks of ownership, tapes made in the course of work, tapes that house your unlistenable early bootlegs, tapes that  say "Do Not Erase!" on the outside, anything which is evocative to look at. You can snap them any way you think looks attractive: singly or in piles, in the place where you keep them or dragged into the light. Bit like these which Mrs Tassell shot last night.

And add a few notes telling us anything worth passing on about them. We'll try to include the best of them in Nige's feature. Just pick your favourite and send an uncompressed, high resolution image to cassetteculture@wordmagazine.co.uk. If you'd like to share your image it in this thread, please compress it before posting.

Last night we celebrated the 200th edition of the Word Podcast in the historic surroundings of the room upstairs in The King and Queen in Foley Street, W1. It was here that Bob Dylan made his first ever appearance on these shores in November 1962. It was here that Mark Ellen eventually struggled his way through a live rendition of the distinctive intro to the podcast. There then ensued an hour of semi-organised chaos featuring special appearances from Kate Mossman, Mike "Seventies" Johnson, Rob Fitzpatrick and Fraser Lewry.

Official photograph by Lenny Law.

Subjects covered included: the on and off wedding arrangements of Sinead O'Connor; Mossman being pursued the house Benny Hill-style by Kevin Ayers and Fraser's legendary misdirection of the Princess Of Wales. The audience who packed the upstairs room competed in the legendary Rock and Roll Spelling test, lined up to play thirty seconds of a rock classic on an unusual instrument and, in the words of Just A Minute's Nicholas Parsons, "cheered us on our way". Apologies if it sounds a bit chaotic but you should have been there.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, next Wednesday's "Word In Your Ear" show with Eliza Carthy has been cancelled. The show will be rescheduled - details will follow in the next few days - and original tickets will be valid for the rescheduled date. Ticket holders will be contacted directly to explain the refund procedure for those unable to attend the rescheduled show.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The Word helicopter takes off from just the battlements of Graeme Thomson’s castle in Edinburgh, hugs the coastline on its way south, dropping off at the massive Victorian folly occupied by Mark Hodkinson on the borders or Yorkshire and Lancashire and then makes a detour into Berkshire where it lands on the vast rolling lawns of John Naughton’s massive country seat. Finally it hovers over Cast Iron Studios in Caledonian Road to record two tunes and some chat with The Miserable Rich.

In a seasonal departure from our usual routine we bring you at this special time the voices of some of our valued contributors from all over the country, picking the books, DVDs and records that they have found most interesting this year. In this first instalment David Hepworth talks to Jim Irvin, Andrew Collins and Jude Rogers. In addition we've got The Rifles in the Word Wardrobe, performing songs from and talking about their new album Freedom Run.

Back for a record-breaking fourth year, The Word's version of the Festive Fifty franchise is now open for business. As usual we're compiling a list of the best album tracks, singles and b-sides of the year. And, as usual, the final list will be entirely comprised of your choices, after we crunch the numbers into some kind of vast spreadsheet, with pie charts and Venn diagrams and colourful animations and the like.

All that we ask is that, for ease of compiling the list, you enter your five choices - in no particular order - in this format:

TITLE OF TRACK IN CAPS - Name of Band

The closing date is Monday 12 December, and the results will be published in the February issue (out 12 January).

In this boundary-smashing one-hour-plus podcast Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Fraser Lewry range across: a star-studded carol service, what Verdi could do that Dylan couldn't, rock and roll's magic age of 24, the association between mix tapes and love letters, the cassettes we miss and the ones we don't and the story of "Wally!"

In addition Kate Mossman joins us to talk to folkie Jackie Oates who also plays a couple of songs from her excellent, Folk Award-nominated new album Saturnine.

If you're a subscriber and you'd like to buy a gift sub for a friend, family member or business associate for Christmas then follow this link to make sure you get your order in and they receive a special card confirming their good fortune.

This week we welcome to the pod Renaissance Man, art rock avatar, club pioneer, movie actor and very tall man Richard Strange. As Kid Strange he fronted the 70s rock band the Doctors of Madness (above, middle), who were supported by everyone from the Sex Pistols to Joy Division, went on to start Cabaret Futura, which had huge stars to be like Depeche Mode on the stage and huge stars to be like Boy George in the audience, branched out into movies via Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves, Mona Lisa and Batman (with Jack Nicholson, above right), became a face in the art world and now advises young musicians on what they should do in the unlikely event of their first album not going platinum.

Unsurprisingly, he's got a tale or two to tell: including, the one about Clive Davis's chair, the one about £12 and the Sex Pistols and the one about Richard Branson and choice of cars. These and many more are gathered in his memoirs, Punks and Drunks and Flicks and Kicks, which you can order here.

… at last night's industry hoopla the Record Of The Day Awards. Fine decorated porcelain was extended to Eamonn Forde who ran off with the Business Writer Of The Year trophy for his piece in Word 103 about the chaos of EMI Records, and Jude Rogers of this parish, and collaborator Ian "Wadey" Wade, were gonged for their cracking My Band T-Shirt blog. Word correspondents Nick Kent and Simon Price were onstage too at the Hoxton booze parlour, and Mark Ellen won Editor Of The Year.

Among the subjects covered in this podcast: the legit release of the Rolling Stones’ “Brussels Affair”, Mark Ellen’s collection of Beatles bootlegs, the things that Jimmy Savile did and did not do, the bizarre experience of guesting on “Jim’ll Fix It” with a school refuser and a smack addict, Paul Du Noyer remembering Jackie Leven, your misinterpreted songs thread, Fraser explaining why he features on a Guns N’Roses b-side, the Black Sabbath reunion(s) and a couple of songs from Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo.

Show Notes
The Rolling Stones Brussels Affair.

The show that became Little Feat’s Electrif Lycanthrope.

The story of how Jim “fixed it” for Miranda Jardine.

Have Black Sabbath been hitting the bottle?

Your misinterpreted wedding songs.

Fraser joins Guns N' Roses for a moment.

Nile Rodgers' book Le Freak: An Upside Down Story Of Family, Disco and Destiny is the extraordinary story of the man who created the only triple platinum single in the history of Atlantic Records and led Chic through the ups and downs of disco.

He came into the pod to talk about it all, and how he went on to produce Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran and Madonna, while, as the old saying goes, not so much burning the candle at both ends as applying a blowtorch to the middle.

Also covered in a breathless 45 minutes: a novel way to learn the guitar, why the Black Panther movement was a lot like the cub scouts, what it's like to spend much of your childhood in an oxygen tent, and why cults are cool.

Word Podcast 194 - with Nile Rodgers by The Word Magazine

Show notes:
Chic doing Le Freak in 1978
Diana Ross and Coming Out (featuring the God-like genius of the late Tony Thompson on the drums).
David Bowie's Let's Dance with the chorus at the beginning.
Madonna, the Thompson Twins and Nile Rodgers doing Revolution at Live Aid.

For our editor Mark Ellen won the top national gong at last night's British Society Of Magazine Editors' awards at the Hilton in Hyde Park. Here's photographic evidence - a tired and emotional Ellen clutching the silverware and flanked by the evening's host Lauren Laverne and (right) BSME chair Lisa Smosarski. He declared himself "overjoyed" with his his 'Editors' Editor Of The Year' trophy. Got third prize in the raffle too. Top night all round.