In response to a formal request from the We The People website where any petition gaining 5,000 or more signatures will be considered, the US Government has stated that they have never had any contact with extra terrestrials. They went so far as to say that “no evidence that any life exists outside our planet”.
But there appears to be no formal denial of the existence of the Men In Black, although to be fair that question wasn’t asked! Personally, given the diversity of life on our little planet, I can’t believe that there is no life elsewhere in the universe. Remember people, ‘The Truth Is out There’ Click here to read about it on the BBC.
By the time you read this it is likely that the largest asteroid to pass close to the Earth since 1976 will have already been closer to us than the Moon. Apparently it doesn’t pose a serious threat, but of course if no one ever gets to read my latest drivel then maybe those threat assessments were wrong! Remember this piece of rock is as big as an Aircraft Carrier.
The closest that Asteroid 2005 YU55 will get to us will be 202,000 miles and the next close encounter with an Asteroid, assuming we survive this one, will be in 17 years. Then in Aril 2029 Asteroid Apophis will pass even closer at a miniscule 18,300 miles. Apophis has been seen as a major threat of collision before but has now been downgraded.
Click here to read about it on the BBC and then enjoy a couple of Asteroid related songs (well more rocks than asteroids really!)
Those of you that are regular readers of this blog will know that I really don’t like UKtabloid newspapers and I hold a particular disdain for The Daily Mail and the Mail On Sunday. However I was watching a review of the papers on TV this morning and a wonderful Mail On Sunday story was referred to.
It concerns the senior German NATO official who had a bit of a fling with Russian spy Katia Zatuliveter. The paper has been banned from revealing his name. All they are able to print is that he is a 56-year-old grandfather and a picture of him dressed as a banana.
Zatuliveter is also alleged to have had an affair with a Liberal DemocratMP; Mike Hancock. Is this not a brilliant story? A German NATO official gets it on with a young blonde Russian spy and he wears a Banana costume. Who would have Geest it! Could it be more fruity? read the Mail coverage by clicking here. As usual let me get back to music, here are three banana related songs to honour this hapless German bloke!
I was reading an interview with Nile Rodgers off of Chic in the latest issue of The Word magazine. He is promoting the publication of his memoirs entitled ‘Le Freak‘. There were two parts in the interview that really sparked my interest. Firstly Nile has documented his recovery from cancer in his blog, ‘Walking On Planet C’ It’s really candid and very well written, click here to read it. I hope that Nile completely kills off the Big C and is able to produce even more great music.
Secondly Nile and his Chic cohort Bernard Edwards once produced an album by uber diva Diana Ross which included some great stuff; “Upside Down”, “My Old Piano” and “I’m Coming Out“. Whilst I don’t consider any of these to be Ms Ross’s career peak they sure as hell knock spots of that dreadfully awful song “Chain Reaction” which sadly made the top of the UK charts. Anyway I would like to focus on Mr Rodgers’ comments about “I’m Coming Out” which when you listen to it is such a very obvious gay song. According to Nile when Diana Ross asked about the sexuality of the song she was informed it wasn’t a gay song. However Nile also confirmed that it most definitely was a gay song when he revealed the inspiration for it. He had been at a transvestite club called the Gilded Grape and the call of nature took him to the urinal. It was here that he spotted three or four Diana Ross styled trannies! As soon as he got home he called Bernard Edwards and that is how “I’m Coming Out” was born!
Whenever Ms Ross meets Lil Kim she feels a right tit............ or is it a left one! Danger, Danger...... wardrobe malfunction!
One of the subscribers to the blog has reminded me of the plight of Babar Ahmad, currently in prison for 7 years without charge or evidence. He needed 100,000 signatures on this petition site to trigger a debate in the Commons, and that might free him, or at last restart the justice system for him. I am pleased to say that I just signed and the total now stands at 100,106 (in the time it has taken me to compose this post it has risen to 101,126. But let’s try and push the total even further. The following text is lifted direct from Ben’s e mail. Please read it and more importantly please sign the petition. However you arrived at this site, if you’re a UK citizen please take the time to sign the petition.
Babar Ahmad’s story, widely covered in the Guardian and elsewhere, is a horrifying account of what the ‘war on terror’ has meant in particular for British Muslims.
Baba Ahmad has been in prison for seven years, pending extradition to the US on charges of terrorism for which no evidence has been given. If this petition gains enough signatures there will be a debate on his case in the House of Commons, which could increase his chances of going on trial prior to extradition. A trial would compel the evidence against him — if there is any — to be produced. Whether convicted or cleared, he would at least have had justice.
Babar Ahmad was originally arrested in 2003, assaulted at midnight in his home by several officers from the ‘territorial support group’ (the riot police), and then immediately released. A year later — 5 August 2004 — he was rearrested on an extradition warrant from the US and has been in prison since.
In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights suspended his extradition pending presentation of evidence. Under the Extradition Act 2003, the US does not have to provide evidence when seeking extradition from the UK, including for British citizens (which Ahmad is); there are stirrings of dissatisfaction about this within the current parliament.
In 2009 the Metropolitan Police admitted liability for assault during Ahmad’s first arrest and paid him £60,000 damages. This year, in a separate trial, the officers were found not guilty of assault. Evidence of the officers’ histories of racist assaults was not shared with the jury (see BBC story here, including CCTV footage of Ahmad being brought, injured, into police custody; see also this Guardian account, and this Guardian story; be warned that the accounts of the behaviour of police officers Roderick James-Bowen, Mark Jones, Nigel Cowley, and John Donohue are unpleasant).
Maybe you won’t will take much persuading about this, but anyway I urge you to sign the petition, and to circulate it to anyone who might also support it. The deal with the Number 10 ‘e-petitions’ site is that any petition that gets over 100,000 signatures must be debated in the Commons. The petition currently has 50,000 signatures, and the deadline is 10th November.
If extradited to the US, Baba Ahmad faces life in solitary confinement. He is not the only UK citizen still held in the UK without trial or evidence; he is just the longest-serving.
This is not just about justice for Baba Ahmad; it concerns the moral character of the entire UK legal and political system, and so concerns each of us personally: if it can happen to him, it can happen to me and you.
As I have said many times before, this is a music blog, so here are some appropriate(ish) songs;
This is probably bigger than my own little world view and maybe there’s a lot of it that I don’t understand. But what is it with the Euro bail-out for Greece? The great and good (well not much greatness or goodness really is there?) leaders of Europe held a series of summits to resolve the Euro crisis. Focussing in particular on the parlous state of the Greek economy. In simple terms the solution was that major banks would write off 50% of Greek debt and the rest would be funded through stringent austerity measures to be introduced by the Greek government.
Well it looks like they can't produce can they? A T Shirt slogan on a bag........that is so FAIL!
So just a few days ago everyone was patting themselves on the back on what a spiffing job they had done; crisis over….. for now. Then comes the news that before they accept these actions the Greek government will ask their voting population what they think in the form of a referendum. Now I may be a little simple at times but on this occasion I suspect that the there will be an overwhelming no vote? What do you think?
I think that our erstwhile leaders should have taken a look at the car washing scene in Pulp Fiction before any back slapping took place.Well, in particular the line ‘let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet’. So what happens next? I presume that Greece will default on their loans. After that who knows, do the banks send in the bailiffs to repossess Greek property. Unlikely really; all their crockery is broken and they lost their marbles ages ago.
But at least the forecast looks good....... actually so does the forecaster don't you think?
Just a couple of questions from me to close this post;
If Greece doesn’t want the bailout money can I have it?
So then, let’s get back to music as this is really a music blog, but there is often the odd rant from me. Here are a few songs that I feel are appropriate. Especially the last one of the three from Jarvis Cocker
Musicradar.com readers have voted Muse’s “Hysteria” as the greatest bass line of all time. The full list including song, band/ artist and bass player is;
01. “Hysteria” – Muse (Chris Wolstenholme)
02. “YYZ” – Rush (Geddy Lee)
03. “Another One Bites The Dust” – Queen (John Deacon)
04. “Under Pressure” – Queen & David Bowie (John Deacon)
05. “Money” – Pink Floyd (Roger Waters)
06. “Orion” – Metallica (Cliff Burton)
07. “Billie Jean” – Michael Jackson (Louis Johnson)
08. “Roundabout” – Yes (Chris Squire)
09. “My Generation” – The Who (John Entwistle)
10. “Schism” – Tool (Justin Chancellor)
11. “Give It Away” – Red Hot Chili Peppers (Flea)
12. “The Lemon Song” – Led Zeppelin (John Paul Jones)
13. “Taxman” – The Beatles (Paul McCartney)
14. “Good Times” – Chic (Bernard Edwards)
15. “The Chicken” – Jaco Pastorius
16. “Walk On The Wild Side” – Lou Reed (Herbie Flowers)
17. What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye (James Jamerson)
18. “Stand By Me” – Ben E King (Wendell Marshall)
19. “The Guns Of Brixton” – The Clash (Paul Simonon)
20. “Sweet Emotion” – Aerosmith (Tom Hamilton)
21. “Super Freak” – Rick James (Oscar Alston)
22. “Pusherman” – Curtis Mayfield (Joseph “Lucky” Scott)
23. “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'” – Nancy Sinatra (Carol Kaye/Chuck Berghofer)
24. “In The Midnight Hour” – Wilson Pickett (Donald “Duck” Dunn)
25. “Make It Funky” – James Brown (Fred Thomas)
Click here to check it out on the musicradar site. I was really pleased to see that my three favourite bass players are in there; James Jamerson, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Bernard Edwards. Who is your favourite bass player and what songs do you think are missing from this list? While you’re thinking about it enjoy the top 5 below;
desperate to keep his testicles high up, JB uses the two hand clutch approach.....
Justin Bieber‘s balls have dropped according to his manager Scooter Braun (is that a made up name? Surely it is, isn’t it?) Yes the Bieber voice has broken, but I guess that it had to happen sometime didn’t it? Can we hope that this will spell the end of his career? Well sure we can hope, but somehow I think he’ll be around a bit longer. Even if his voice disappears there is so much you can do with crap in the studio. Just look at Boylife and Westzone for evidence. Yes I know I have mixed the names up, but frankly they are just identikit boy bands.
......clearly the two handed approach has failed and one of Bieber's monster cojones hits the deck
Incidentally the broken voice discovery was made while he recorded a duet with Maria Carey, a cover of her hit “All I Want For Christmas“. Yes the Biebertron has a Christmas album coming out this week. A Christmas album released in December? That’s not a cynical marketing ploy at all is it?
Justin confirms to waiting fans that indeed both of the Bieber bollocks have dropped
As for the Bieber balls I wonder whether the action figure of the little dude will now include a drop and retract testicles feature, maybe a bit like the Action Man Eagle Eye feature? What do you folks think?
Finally the realisation sets in that his career may be heading in the same direction as his testicles
UPDATE/ EDIT – OK I had forgotten that I posted this after the death of that vile bastard Saville, but I wrote this before any of his evil nonce activities came to public light. I despise people like him and when the news did come out I gave my views, click here to read them. I am not one for removing the past so, at least for now I will leave this post here with a link to the follow up. In fact I had long forgotten that I had made this post until someone made a comment on it a few weeks back. I have removed all pictures and videos.
You have probably already read about the death of Jimmy Saville this weekend. He passed away at his home in Leeds aged 84. Whilst he wasn’t a musician the late, great Jimmy Saville has played a prominent role in the music world. He was a dance hall disc jockey in the 40s and 50s and he also claimed to have been the first person to put two turntables and a microphone together. He came to prominence as a DJ when he worked at Radio Luxembourg and was among the first DJs on Radio 1. On 1st January 1964 (coincidentally my 5th birthday) he presented the first ever Top Of The Pops from the BBC’s Manchester Studios. He was also one of the presenters of the last ever Top Of The Pops in 2006.
His TV show ‘Jim’ll Fix It‘ made him a true household name as it ran for 20 years on UK TV. the concept was that you wrote to Jim to see if he could ‘fix it’ for you to do something you’ve always wanted to do. At its peak the show received around 20,000 letters per week. I remember that one of my young cousins thought that Jimmy’s first name was in fact Jim’ll.
He also raised vast amounts of money for charity. His accountant apparently said that he stopped counting how much had been raised when it hit £40 million. He ran more than 200 marathons in his tireless effort to raise money. I saw him when I ran my one and only marathon in 1986. I am proud to say that Jimmy Saville finished before me in the London Marathon, obviously he was wearing his trademark gold tracksuit too!
As strange headlines go ‘Saddam’s Buttock Fails To Sell At Auction’ is surely among the best isn’t it? But what makes it even better is that it isn’t one of those ridiculous Sunday Sport “Elvis Is Alive And Lives In A London Bus On The Moon” type headlines; it’s actually true!
The cheek of it!
A former SAS man managed to retrieve part of Saddam’s posterior for posterity. (Two words I don’t think I’ve ever used in the same sentence before!) when the infamous statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in central Baghdad back in 2003. He put it up for sale at an auction in Derbyshire in the UK.
The cheeky new owner was hoping to raise £250k for soldiers charities. When he was given the bums rush by potential purchasers with a maximum offer of some £21k he realised that he had just been going through the motions and he was gutted. But the idea has a nice ring to it so I believe that he should push hard to do it again and not just go home and sit on his stool. It certainly doesn’t stand up to much anal isys and maybe hard to digest, but perhaps he doesn’t have fart to go before a new owner plops some money into his back pocket to clench (sic) a deal on a number 2 auction.
With all the bottom references and it being nearly Halloween, how could I resist including this?
Read the story on the BBC by clicking here. I would love to hear your thoughts on this bit of news, but in the meantime here are a few hopefully related songs;
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 