Has a book coming out in March which I would imagine would interest many on here - Apathy For The Devil, A 70s Memoir.

Love the title and it should be a great read.

Anyone else watching this? It's wonderful and well worth catching up with on iPlayer.

Loads of clips on Youtube too, of course.

I've been using the latest model iPod Touch for a couple of months now, and think it's time I upgraded the headphones. I would like a pair of closed back headphones rather than in-ear ones.

Anyway, my question is this: the headphones which came with the iPod have a handy volume control/pause button on the headphone wire itself. If I buy a new pair from someone like Sennheiser, do thay make any which have that facility? Or will I be stuck with having to adjust volume and pause by accessing the iPod itself?

Thanks

was mentioned briefly in the recent Deep Purple discussion, but I think he's worth his own thread.

If people remember him at all these days it's for the short time he spent as Blackmore's replacement in Purple, but you really should check out his two solo albums, Private Eyes (which is on Spotify) and Teaser. They're just full of great songs, he's a fantastic guitarist (electric and acoustic) and I love his voice too.

For starters, try Gettin' Tighter (by Deep Purple), Alexis (by The James Gang), and from the solo albums, Gypsy Soul, Wild Dogs, Savannah Woman, and Sweet Burgundy.

So it looks like Roman Polanski may finally have to face the music for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8277176.stm

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. And yet the reported reaction of various French politicians and others appears to be shock, concern, outrage.

Why? Should the fact that he is a talented film director mean that he shouldn't be sentenced for what he did? Of course it doesn't.

Two things:

Is the credit crunch finally going to hit attendances this season? I ask because of two emails I received last week. The first was from Arsenal telling me that tickets for the home game against Portsmouth are now on general sale (no membership required at all). I can't remember a Saturday afternoon Arsenal league game going on general sale for a long time.

And similarly, an email arrived from Fulham, to tell me that anyone could now buy tickets for the home game against Chelsea. That's a local derby against star-studded Chelsea, and it hasn't sold out. Very unusual.

Second point, ITV1 is showing on Wednesday evening, for two and a half prime time hours, Panathinaikos v Athletico Madrid.

Why??? What bizarre contract has ITV signed with UEFA which says they have to show that on their main channel? ITV4, maybe, but ITV1?

A query for iPod users:

My wife is about to buy an Ipod Touch. I already have a Nano, which I sync in the normal way from iTunes on our only PC.

So, we will now both want to sync from that PC, but we will want different tracks and playlists on each iPod (from the same library of songs).

Is this possible, and if so, how?

Thanks

After reading this amusing piece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8109163.stm

I started wondering what the Massive get up to when they're not at Richard Thompson gigs.

I can frequently be found at motor racing, mainly of the historic variety. I'll be at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next week. And I collect old cameras.

So, any twitchers out there? Civil War re-enactors? Stamp collectors? Plane spotters?

Don't be shy, you're amongst friends!

Prompted by the chat on the podcast about hi-fi, I was reminiscing about the days when I owned a decent separates system. Back in the 80s, I had what was a bit of a classic budget system:

Dual CS505 turntable
NAD 3020 amp
Mission 70 speakers
Audio Technica cartridge (can't remember which one).

It sounded wonderful!

So what's the best setup you've ever had?

So what's everyone reading at the moment?

I'm halfway through Simon Garfield's biography of photographer Bob Carlos Clarke, and Roy Keane's autobiography, ghosted by Eamon Dunphy.

I recommend both of them. Both were/are complicated personalities, to say the least in Clarke's case.

Garfield is certainly a versatile writer. His last book was about stamp collecting - quite a jump from that to Bob Carlos Clarke!

The Keane book is excellent too, although the best footballer's memoir I've read is still Tony Cascarino's (by Paul Kimmage).

Just heard this lead item on Radio 5 Live's news - "There has been widespread condemnation of an undergound nuclear explosion by North Yorkshire".

Honestly, she really said that!

There must be one or two motor racing fans amongst the Word massive, so I just wondered what everyone thought of the BBC's coverage?

I thought they really did very well indeed. Everything that was wrong about ITV's coverage has gone - the very annoying commentator, James Allen, has been replace by the excellent Jonathan Legard, the ads have gone of course, and the terrible theme tune has been replaced by ... joy of joys, The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.

And the best thing about ITV's coverage, Martin Brundle, has been retained.

The red button digital features are terrific too - the ability to watch Friday practice, and highlights of previous GPs in the run up to the race.

So I really enjoyed it, and of course the Beeb must be beside themselves that Button won.

As someone who predicted on this very blog that Michael Jackson would perhaps struggle to sell tickets, I am, needless to say, astonished that he is now playing 50 nights at the O2. That's 1.1 million tickets!

As you couldn't pay me to attend, it's safe to say that I've never felt more out of step with the Great British Public!

According to this morning's Times, the U2 album has only sold in its first week about half as much as Coldplay did.

Now why is that? So-so reviews? Mediocre single? Credit crunch? Well, maybe. Or, perhaps, it could be the public reacting badly to having U2 shoved down their throat by an unrelenting PR campaign which has made Bono and co hard to avoid for the past few weeks.

Looks like CSN and Neil Young will be on tour in the UK at roughly the same time - end of June, beginning of July. For those of us who missed Wembley in 1974 it would be very nice if they shared a stage at some point.