97 podcasts in and there have only been 15 minutes and 10 seconds that were dull. Sadly they were all at the beginning of this week's podcast. Thank Dr Strangely Strange for the arrival of Mark E at the end to do some old music.

'fraid I paused it before the 15th minute-first time I ever wanted to do that.

However, looking forward to the celebratory bring and buy sale to mark the 100th edn-Mark with a copy of Band (mint on side 2), Jude with some cold lino, Paul du Noyer with a road map to Spike Milligan's house ...

Stamford Bridge - "rather like a paddy field".

...and I love the fact that the magazine started out as more of an intelligently written series of musings on popular culture rather than simply a music magazine.

But, and I'm trying to figure out the most polite way of putting this...

If you were to stop talking about football, you would get no complaints from me. Just saying.

on the youtube front.

I dont mean to be unkind, and as one who resembles a particularly unpleasant traffic accident on the B5027 just outside Uttoxeter I'm in no position to make comment, but am I the only one who has noticed an increasing resemblance between the Hep and a much loved institution?

I'm far too inept to do the fancy picture embedding thing, but have a look here and tell me I'm wrong:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3720773.stm

but then again, I would - I like The Word and I like football. Simple, really.

Small point though; I feel you were a bit harsh on the Guardian Football podcast saying it was very chin-stroky and all about formations. A couple of weeks ago there was a conversation on it about how in-depth tactical/formation talk was dull. It is a bit "big four"-centric (but frankly, what in football isn't these days?) but it's a great podcast and doesn't take itself too seriously. In fact, I thought Mr Hepworth mentioned on a recent Word podcast that he listened to the Guardian Football podcast?

All the self-referential cross-podcast talk is making me dizzy...

Fun podcast as ever, though I'd have to take issue with David H's suggestion that TV programmes tend to feature either an enormous amount of swearing or none whatsoever; comedies such as Spaced and The IT Crowd feature very occasional uses of the f-word, and often save the little outbursts for the moments when it'll have most effect.

Mind you, I did see a programme late at night on BBC2 the other week which featured a startling amount of profanity in one scene, as two police officers went about investigating a kitchen-based crime scene; shocking, it was!

And as for people who resemble Mr H, I'd respectfully suggest a kinder alternative to the link posted upthread...
http://johnsoanes.blogspot.com/2009/05/and-he-looked-from-musician-to-mu...

Dunno, with hindsight I thought that when you listen to it as counterfactual history applied to football it worked quite well ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_history

"Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a recent[citation needed] form of historiography which attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. It seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur."

Next week, Niall Ferguson on the offside rule ...

It's not showing up with the rss feed or on itunes.

Any help?

Taking up David Hepworth's point about Tim Lovejoy being better on TV, I'd like to resurrect an argument I started on another thread - namely, that there are actually extremely - extremely - few presenters who are great on TV AND great on radio. There are plenty who are ok on TV and crap on radio (Eamonn Holmes, Dermot O'Leary), and several who are fantastic on radio but who can't cut it on TV (Danny Baker, Nicky Campbell). But I can only think of two or three who have managed to be a big name for their radio work and a big name, separately, for their TV work - Terry Wogan, obviously, and Chris Evans, although he's given up the TV now.

I think this is because TV and radio demand two different skills - in radio, you need to have a big enough personality and enough opinions to keep dead air at bay, but that kind of personality usually comes across as overbearing on TV. Likewise, a successful TV face is often precisely that - a reassuring, slightly reactive presence that sits nicely in the box - on radio, this comes across as bland.

I thought I had the wrong podcast for 15 long minutes...

I'm so glad it's not just me who was distressed yesterday by wanting to be able to fast-forward the podcast for the first time ever. Normally I wish I was about to start listening instead of just having finished.

I've been listening to the podcast on the train tonight. The shopcast section is very difficult to follow because it's in s - t - e - r - e - o. Can we get it in mono next week?

but does anyone have an mp3 of Jim Diamond's Hi Ho Silver Lining referred to by Andrew?