Soupy Twist

If you only buy one thing this weekend, make it the "A Bit Of Fry And Laurie" DVD. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will inspire you to try new things and taste the exotic fruit of infinite opportunity, unhindered by the constraints of time or money which so often clip our metaphorical wings in the relentless pursuit of progress.

Or, you know, it might give you something to do for a couple of hours on Sunday when Songs of Praise is on.

As a taster, here's a video of Hugh Laurie singing Mystery, the best comedy somg ever written by someone who wasn't in Monty Python.

Buy the DVD from Amazon

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Thought for the weekend

What if the hokey cokey really is what it's all about?

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Hello, Tom Baker here...

Has Dr Who sent you a text message yet? No, not that weird modern one who hangs around with Chris Evans's ex-wife. The real Dr Who.

You see, if you live in the UK you can currently send an SMS to a landline and special BT computer wizadry will turn it into a voice-call from Tom Baker: the voice of Little Britain and erstwhile companion of K9.

It's a totally spiffing wheeze, and must have increased BT's profits by literally pounds. But, as with all good things, it's coming to an end (April 30th is the last day, I think).

Equally true, however, is that the internet will preserve every tiny blip on the universe's cutural radar for posterity. Accordingly, some bright young genius has set up a website called "Tom Baker says" to record tons of Tom's top texts.

Yes, even the swears.

Go to www.tombakersays.com, for the full experience.

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Video of the week: Supa Dupa Fly

I'm getting a bit bored of all these videos with fancy timeloop gimmicks, ingengious use of puppetry, and amazing MC Escher-inspired perspective tricks, aren't you?

This week, Missy Elliot is squeezed into a massive rubber balloon, which is then inflated, and filmed through a fish-eye lens.

It's a classic.

Buy Missy's sadly incomplete video collection on DVD

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Plank spanking

Like a tortoise who's discovered roller skates, I've finally caught up with the live folk music scene. Last night, for example, I attended an open-mic night in London's gloomy Gunnersbury, a mere 40 years after Bob Dylan became a household name.

I can't say it defied expectations. There was a sullen teenager singing about "back in the day" when he "walked the highway". In reality, his main activity 'back in the day' would have been crying because he wasn't allowed a Wagon Wheel.

Another set featured two men playing a woefully inept series of blues covers to a wildly appreciative audience of their girlfriends.

Oh, and there was a middle-aged couple who did a song about Mexican painter Frida Kahlo that went "you painted roads and things / and little children / throwing stones at / a baby goat" (I may have made that last bit up, but the chorus really did go "Oooh, she was good").

Anyway, what really struck me was the atmosphere. All the acts were incredibly supportive of their 'rivals', and there was plenty of advice and praise going round. Some of the songsters were even worth listening to beyond the first couple of bars.

In particular, featured artist Ellie Myles, who sounded a bit like Natalie Imbruglia wrestling Jerry Hall; and the wistful tunesmithery of the enigmatically-monikered 'Dogboy' (although I have to admit a little bias here - he's a mate, and under any other circumstance I'd have mercilessly ripped the piss out of his not-at-all-based-on-kinky-sex stage name).

As is the way these days, they both have some songs up on myspace, and you should have a listen. Support live music, man. Etc.

Ellie Myles

Dogboy

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Ha ha splurt

Right now, I'm wiping up a messy combination of snot and cappuccino off my desk.

It's all George Saunders fault. He wrote an article, which The New Yorker published, which I read, which made me laugh so hard that coffee came out of my nose. It's all about nostalgia, and here is a sample:

"I used to love music, back when it had melody and chords and lyrics. But now it has no melody and no chords, just thwack-thwacking, and they even seem to be cutting back on the thwack-thwacking, so now it's sometimes just thwa, and, as far as lyrics, do you consider these lyrics?

Hump my hump,
My stumpy lumpy hump!
Hump my dump, you lumpy slumpy dump!
I'll dump your hump, and then just hump your dump,
You lumpy frumply clump."

I’m sorry. To me? Those are not lyrics. In my day, lyrics were used to express real emotion, like the emotion of being totally stoned and trying to talk this totally stoned chick into sleeping with you in the name of love, which lasted forever, if only you held on to your dreams.

When you've cleaned up that mess, you can read the whole thing by clicking here.

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