... that was me who posted the O'Toole clip.

*Nearly* got a mention on the Podcast. Must try harder!

I hope it´s still OK to like Phil Spector´s music. If I can still listen to Stalin Sings Gershwin - after what Gershwin did - I can certainly still enjoy Be My Baby and You´ve Lost That Loving Feeling. Altough it feels different, just like it feels different listening to the music of someone who just passed away.

Listening to All Things Must Pass felt different when George Harrison past, but feels the same now - if anyone is wondering.

... but it sounded like Fraser was in another room or possibly another building.

Another belting Clement Freud gag posted last week. Not in front of the children...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/the-late-great-sir-clement-freud

Heptus Davidus

Above - Latin quote for your web motto: What do I not know?

Googled it - so may well be bollux primaris - as we Latin scholars say

But as you point out -

Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur

"whatever has been said in Latin seems deep"

Whenever we have custard with my parents present my father mentions how Clement Freud came up with a recipe for making custard (using Bird's tinned powder) so that you just got the skin because for many the skin is the best bit. He was a bit of an alternative TV chef at one time - Clement Freud that is, not my father.

If I remember correctly the O'Toole entrance was from a week of shows which Letterman recorded in Britain in '95 or '96.

The O'Toole clip is from 1995, but it was only put on YouTube very recently - about a month ago - and I'd searched everywhere else on the web for it before that (http://tinyurl.com/cezftb). Thanks again, Nicodemus!

It is in this interview that he talks about him and Richard Harris and their frolics, he says "It's a very Joycean word, it starts with an F and ends in rolic. Stayed with me all that time.

One of my favourite adverts was a photo of an empty coke can. The tag line was 'do you see litter or the chance to do a Roberto Carlos?'
I think that sums it up nicely.

Mark's casual inclusion of the Dan in the list of youthful offenders was a bit of a jaw dropper. Really or just in song?

when I caught that throw away - but I think the reference was to Walter Becker's girlfriend who died of a drug overdose at his apartment. Around the time of Gaucho. Her mother sued him for causing wrongful death. The case went to court but Becker found innocent. He was run over by a car shortly after. Not a happy time.

Great podcast -as ever.

I find it hard to resist a karaoke machine although I've never "done it" in my home town; it's been mainly on holiday (in France where the choices in English are the Beatles or the Beatles) or when I was on OU summer schools.

My favourite experience at this was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee two years ago today. A group of us were all celebrating our fiftieth birthdays by travelling on a blues and country trip (how very Word) and we pitched up in Pigeon Forge to go to Dollywood (which turned out to be closed that day). We went to a bar/micro brewery and they had a karaoke evening going on. It was the eve of my fiftieth birthday (though as we were around 5 hours behind GMT I like to think of it as being on my birthday) so I had a go and gave what I thought was a reasonable version of Elton John's "Your song".

But I was blown away by just about every other performer there. They were all staggeringly good, both young and old took part and they mainly stuck to the country repertoire.

I think this highlights the difference between karaoke here and my experience abroad. Here it is something you do when drunk, often in groups of lads or lasses, and you do really quite badly - out of tune, out of time and the object is to "have a laugh". While this is very amusing for those taking part, it's excrutiating for people to listen to. In the USA (or at least in that bar) and in France it's an opportunity to show you can sing and to entertain.

I agree with Mark's observation about double standards (Chris Moyles's homophobic remarks).

I was surprised last night during "The Apprentice - You're Fired" when one of the panel in describing the candidate Noorul, said something like "Neurophen or whatever his name is". Now I wasn't shocked or offended but that has to be equivalent to Jane Goody calling Shilpa "Shilpa Poppadom" which ended in an international incident.

... is Mark Ellen still talking about Henry VIII ?

We'd been invited to stay for the weekend. They lived halfway between Birmingham and Manchester, so we headed up from West London on Friday afternoon. After a few drinks and dinner, they said they were having a party the following evening. Great, we said, we like a party.

We pitched in with preparations on Saturday morning, and then this bloke turned up. In a van. He started unloading something. Some big speakers came out first. A live band, eh? Great. Can't beat a bit of live music. Who is it?

"It's a karaoke machine," said Esther, the hostess."And by the way, he wants cash and we haven't got any on us, so can you give him £80? We'll pay you back on Sunday." I was too horrified to protest.

The anticipation during the afternoon was almost too much to bear, and I felt like I imagine a hunted animal feels when it's finally been cornered by the pack of slavering hounds. My wife, Sandra, felt much the same, so at least we had the beginnings of a resistance movement.

Soon the evil system was in place and malevolently operational. It flickered and pulsed like a Dark Star, drawing all towards their fate. Trevor, the host, and Esther used the time to rehearse. Trevor took as long as it takes for everyone else to get a migraine to weigh up his choices, but eventually decided that a studiedly casual rendition of Love on the Rocks would suit. Esther ran through Mustang Sally quite a few times before she was happy with her performance. Which was just about as soon as we began to appreciate the concept of having a real and distinct pain threshold.

Later, Trevor's attempt to import a touch of world-weary American cool into the proceedings soon had Love on the Rocks screaming for mercy and making a doomed break for freedom from the hard and unfamiliar ground of The Potteries. The feedback on Esther's Mustang Sally was quite good, really. Although in hindsight it is unfortunate that this information was fed back to the singer, who took it as an invitation to thrash Mustang Sally to within an inch of her life every half-an-hour or so, until the poor cow begged for mercy and I was considering whether pouring a pint into the back of it might disable this construct of Beelzebub.

A man came round with a book of song titles and a box containing some slips of paper. I waved him away, but Trevor sprang into view and spoke;

"Everyone has to do a song, and if they don't, then they have to pay a forfeit. If you're not doing a song then choose a forfeit."

He pushed the box at me and I took a slip of paper, rolled it into a ball and flicked it away, while offering some advice about where the forfeit box might end up. Providing a karaoke machine hadn't been inserted there first.

And when I thought my toes could curl no more - could only curl up and die with the rest of me - our hostesses new performance consisted of leading the assembly through Roy 'Chubby' Brown's rendition of Living Next Door To Alice. You can imagine, I'm sure.

The real sod of it all was that, having been relieved of all of my folding earlier in the day, we didn't have the money to slope off to the pub. At the buffet, Sandra and I had a brief and ultimately fruitless discussion about whether it was possible to enter into a suicide pact with but a cheese knife to achieve one's end, and as all that was left to drink was the dreadful Boddingtons, we made our excuses and left.

Well, no slight or offence intended, old chap. Sorry if that's how it was taken.

In my defence:

1. I was vague about the location for the same reasons of discretion that I changed the names of those involved. I have a lot of time for the area in question and for the people who live there.

2. I left West London for good some years ago.

3. I don't like Boddingtons, in the same way that I don't like eggs. But I've never been accused of looking down on a chicken.

4. I'm originally from Yorkshire.

5. Going back to Boddingtons. It really is dreadful.

Why don't we get New Order songs performed on our talent shows?
This isn't earth-shattering, but it is quite sweet - it's from the Taiwanese X Factor:

(Link found in the Guardian Guide).