Odds and sods

  • David Peace really is the British James Ellroy. Tokyo Year Zero is amazing and thoroughly disturbing.
  • Check your Facebook privacy settings if you don’t want your stuff to end up on Google.
  • Girls Aloud’s new single is, of course, ace. The production team are pop geniuses. Nadine looks more and more like a scary robot in each video.
  • I didn’t realise such a compilation existed, but I’m now the owner of a CD best-of of The Big Dish – one of my favourite bands, ever. Worth tracking down if you like low-key acoustic-y pop. As is the Prefab Sprout best-of. Is there a best-of for The Bible? Haven’t heard them in years, loved them to bits.
  • Facebook’s getting annoying. Who cares what the top books, movies and ancient URLs are in X network and why are they cluttering up my home page? MySpace-style spam can’t be far behind.
  • The comments on Scottish newspaper websites are even more annoying than the ones on Comment is Free.
  • Garageband is great, but I want more MUSIC POWER! What would be the best move for home recording (live instruments and the odd software instrument) – doubling the RAM to 2Gb, upgrading to Logic Express or going sideways and embracing Ableton? Or should I wait until next year and just buy a stupidly big laptop?