eBay really is a great environment for the buyer these days; high seller customer service standards are enforced much more rigorously, sellers can no longer leave negative feedback and, best of all, in October this year, eBay introduced seller-paid postage in the “media” categories (books, CDs, vinyl, DVDs etc) in order to compete with sites like Play.com and Amazon.

All of which means that you should be able to understand why I occasionally tear my hair out when I get an e-mail like the one I received at 10.27 last night. Buyer “mrstyles101″ sent me the following message -

“Hi
If you wanna let this go for any cheaper, I’ll take it.
Let me know
Thanks”

The price of the record in question? £4.19.

Already reduced in my pre-Christmas sale by 30%.

With free postage costing me £2.50 plus the cost of packaging materials, not to mention the 15% I pay to eBay and Paypal.

FACKING unbelievable.

- “Granny, what would you like for Christmas?”
- “Hmmm… let me think… well, what I’d really like is an album of incredibly well-known songs, all of which have been already covered more times than Shergar’s mum, each arranged in an identically slow and mawkish manner to suit the astonishingly one-dimensional vocal timbre of a woman who looks like she was a member of the 1984 East German shot-put team.”

Yes, the long-awaited Susan Boyle album is out today. I haven’t yet seen the cover, but I can guarantee you that, by the middle of next summer’s car boot sale season, the artwork will be more familiar to me than the lines on my own time- / age- / Simon-Cowell’s-endless-stream-of-lowest-common-denominator-shite-worn face.

Everybody out there over the age of 30 will be familiar with The Human League’s “Dare!” (and if they aren’t, they bally well should be) - it’s one of the definitive albums of the 1980s, and the template for a million and one pale and uninteresting imitators currently engaged in a synthpop revival - so I’ll spare you a bit of the the usual muso-socio-politico-historico-eco-lefty-liberal-socialist guff that normally goes with a TTOTDOWOHOHCBATCI. But not all of it, obviously.

“Love Action” was the first single from “Dare!”, but not the biggest; that was, of course, “Don’t You Want Me”. But - whisper it soft - in the author’s opinion, “Love Action” is actually the better song. It’s absolutely classic pop, catchy and minimalist, and memorable for three other reasons: 1) the rhythmically tricky intro (it’s in 4/4, the easiest time signature of all, but try counting along and picking exactly when the main drum part comes in - it’s VERY difficult) 2) the impenetrable chorus lyrics - “I love your love action / Love’s just a distraction / No talking, just looking / Watching your love action”. Eh? Is he watching a porno? Watching his partner “enjoy herself”, as it were? (There’s probably an easy answer - those of you who may have spent more time on the Good Ship Venus might want to enlighten me) and 3) Phil Oakey’s portentous baritone. I challenge anyone to try singing this song without artificially deepening the timbre of their voice, dancing robotically, pulling a moody face, growing their hair long, having it militarily straightened and then cutting half of it off by mistake…

(…although sadly not by the Children’s Secretary - “Nutt Sacked by Balls” would be approaching some kind of headline nirvana.)

As you’ll have gathered, pun-friendly Professor David Nutt, the government’s chief adviser on drugs, has been fired after repeatedly and publicly expressing opinions which differ from government policy.

On the one hand, I have a gram (albeit a gram heavily cut with talcum powder, baking soda or similar) of sympathy for the government; Nutt has always appeared to be fond of making, and standing behind,  big brash banner statements which have been open goals for the sections of the press which might want to misinterpret / quote out-of-context / misquote completely anything which could be percieved as a soft line on drugs. E.g. (and, to make my point, these aren’t direct quotes, but they’re what people remember) “cannabis and LSD are less harmful than alcohol or tobacco” / “ecstasy is as dangerous as riding a horse” etc.

On the other hand, sacking an independent scientist who you’ve appointed yourselves because you don’t like what his research is saying smacks of a) a worryingly totalitarian insinct, b) huge government confusion over the issue, and c) a desperate attempt to stay onside with the tabloids’ simplistic “drugs are bad, nnkay?” position. I can picture some Malcolm Tucker spin figure rabidly hectoring the minister concerned - “I don’t care what the fucking nutty professor says, remember the Murdoch mantra; no cannabis, you dopey cunt, and no heroin, you prick!” (or however Armando Ianucci might have written it*).

More seriously, what does it say about UK politics’s relationship with science? If we suffered a US-style lurch to the looney religious right, would a populist government dismiss scientific facts, encourage the teaching of creationism and ban Darwin from schools? OK, that’s a gloomy and faintly ridiculous prognosis - but equally gloomy and ridiculous is successive governments’ feeble attempts to deal with the facts and arrive at a sensible policy when it comes to drugs.

(* - i.e. way, WAY more amusingly.)

To be fair to myself, the fact that the lookey-likey happens to include a mixed-race man alongside a white man doesn’t make it borderline racist; it does, however, contribute significantly to the lookey-likey’s palpable crapness. Just imagine them side by side on piano keyboards, or something.

Red, dwarfish robot warrior Craig Charles…

…. and thunder-thighed track-taming titan Chris Hoy….

A few weeks on from England’s cricketers gloriously regaining the Ashes from our Australian colonial underlings, normal sporting service has been resumed; England are now 2-0 down in the One Day Series to a scratch team of unemployed sheep farmers and former prisoners from an ex-penal colony somewhere in the South Pacific.

However, despite the see-saw excitement on the pitch, the state of the game as measured by the all-important amusing nickname remains dire - at least it does if the current crop is anything to go by. Gone are the creative days of “Dizzy” (Jason Gillespie), “Dickie” (Harold Bird), Graham “Picca” Dilley and “Fat Ting” (Mike Gatting. Actually, I made that one up); instead, here’s a few examples from the current squads:

England -

Andrew Strauss - “Strauss-y”
Ian Bell - “Bell-y”
Graeme Swann - “Swann-y”
Andrew Flintoff - “Freddie” (it alliterates. Coo!)
Rob Key - “Key-y” (probably)

Australia -

Stuart Clark - “Clark-o”
Michael Clarke - “Clarke-o” (subtle difference in pronunciation)
Mitchell Johnson - “John-o”
Mike Hussey - “Huss-o”
Ben Hilfenhaus - “Hilfenhaus-o”

Commentators -

Jonathan Agnew - “Aggers”
Henry Bloefeld - “Blowers”
Phil Tufnell - “Tuffers”

… you get the picture. There’s about as much creation, intelligence and design as there would be in a book about the history and development of planet Earth by Richard Dawkins. So here’s a few lame ideas for improvements; maybe you too could pitch in with a) your own suggestions, b) transatlantically-ignorant-yet-actually-fairly-pertinent questions along the lines of “what the fuck is cricket and why the fuck do you play it?” or c) withering, contemptuous silence.

Strauss - “The Waltzer”
Bell - “End”
Swann - “Owned-by-the-Queen-y”
Hilfenhaus - “Home Help”
Agnew - “s-Dei” (VP points for knowing what I’m on about here)
Rob Key - “The Florida Thief”
Mike Hussey - “The Amplified Slag” (Mike / Mic? No? Bloody sod you then…)

A brilliant story from that bastion of ground-breaking journalism, the East Anglian Daily Times (tagline - “ALL the local news, not just crop reports!”). It concerns a certain Sharnie-May Allwright who has just been stripped of the title of Colchester’s Carnival Queen over allegations of ill behaviour; to wit, “swearing in front of the young carnival princes and princesses at a photoshoot”.

Looking closer, you suspect that the photoshoot in question may well have been organised BY the East Anglian Daily Times, because they don’t exactly go out of their way portray Miss Allwright in a very sympathetic light. For a start, it’s written by a bloke called James Hore (although I’m sure that’s coincidental). Then there’s the pictures; a couple of Shaneecia (or whatever her name is) her looking frankly frumpy compared to her replacement Carnival Queen. Also - compare and contrast the fairly damning quote about her alleged bad behaviour (”it was just terrible - very loud, very angry and very hostile. There was swearing going on and a lot of bad feeling.”)… and the incredibly lame defence provided by her mother (“It is just ridiculous. She is just a 16-year-old girl and she has had something like this taken away from her.”)

But the real sting is saved for the last line of the piece - “Sharnie-May was the only girl to turn up to the judging about a month ago.”

Ouch…

An early, and possibly premature, tribute to Oasis, who split definitively (maybe) last night when songwriter / guitarist Noel Gallagher walked out of the band. Noel and brother Liam’s legandary mutual loathing has been a factor more or less since their career started in the mid ’90s (as this highly amusing interview proves), and, according to my industry sources, Liam hasn’t mellowed with age, is increasingly paranoid, and would start an argument in an empty room these days. After weeks of increasingly frustrated statements from Noel and last week’s V Festival cancellation due to “laryngitis”, this news hasn’t come as a massive surprise.

Musically, Oasis were alright; however, since the egomaniac coke-fuelled blow out of the third album, it’s been ever-decreasing returns, and the nagging suspicion that they were an indie Status Quo never really went away (e.g. “Roll With It” IS essentially “Rockin’ All Over the World”). Nonetheless, they did remarkably well overall; the early stuff was explosive and refreshing, they were (by all accounts) spectacular live performers, and undoubtedly presented themselves well in terms of album art and the “rock star” attitude. They outlasted all their Britpop contemporaries including quite a few bands with considerably more musical ability, helped guided rock through the horrible lean late ’90s / early ’00s years of trip-hop, R’n'B, dub ‘n’ bass and all that shite, and they’re the nearest thing we have to a proper 1970s-style supergroup. I’d imagine they’ll get back together in the not-too-distant (what else are they going to do?), but if this is really it, then they’ll be much missed.

I’d like to end with a pictorial tribute to the spirit of the great Manchester indie-rock frontman:

A long-overdue change for TTOTDOWOHOHCBATCI; the latest incumbent is the riff-tastic “Queen Bitch” by David Bowie, from his 1971 album “Hunky Dory”. It’s classic early(ish) Bowie; he’s still ostensibly a guitar-based singer-songwriter, but has by this stage assembled a tight-as-fuck band, including brilliant guitarist Mick Ronson; you can see the feelings and ideas for Bowie’s next project, the legendary Ziggy and the Spiders, already germinating in live performances at the time. The song itself, with its semi-spoken lyrics about a fearsome-possibly-transvestite-female-vamp-type, is fairly Lou Reed-y, but rocks like a mofo nonetheless.

Bowie, like Bob Dylan, could do no wrong up to a certain point in his career; thereafter, despite the slavish aspirations of a sycophantic music press transferred through encouraging reviews, he did nothing right. The shark-jump in Bowie’s case was 1983’s “Tonight” album, universally hailed as being “Too-shite” (see what I did there?) All of Bowie’s previous albums had some merit; none of the subsequent ones had any, really - least of all “Earthling”, which was purportedly heavily influenced by drum ‘n’ bass, a concept roughly analogous to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” being covered by Val Doonican. Similarly, everything Bowie did in public before 1983 (the odd Hitler salute aside) was cool; after 1983 came the appearance as Jareth the Cockney Goblin in “Labyrinth”, the appalling chest-thrust-fest which was “Dancing in the Street” with Mick Jagger, the ultra-appalling “Absolute Beginners”, and the unspeakably appalling cheeks-ruddy-with-embarrasment recitation of the Lord’s Prayer at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert.

Anyway, never mind Bowie’s Diamond / Dog career, enjoy this stonker. (It’s a track which, incidentally, scores high in the “best starts to a song ever” reckoning, a topic about which I’ll no doubt bang on interminably at a later stage.)

* - 10 VP points to anyone coming up with a valid criticism of this rather lame post title, including reference to the subject’s offspring.

Thank GOD for Gordon Brown. Praise the little baby Jesus for David Cameron . Get on your knees in abject grateful supplication to whichever celestial spooky imaginary friend takes your fancy for British politics generally; yes, British politics in all its sleazy, spinny, expense-fiddling, nanny-stating, milk-snatching, WMD-inventing glory. This is at least, I have no doubt whatsoever, what any UK resident would be saying were they exposed, even for a week or two, to Italy under the governance of Silvio Berlusconi.

As some of you may know, I’ve just returned from the land of my forefathers, and whenever I’m there, I can’t help but contemplate its less-than-glorious leader; how his sleazy South American-style junta is rapidly transforming Italy into a banana republic, and (if I might speak plainly), how much of a little dickbag he is.

“Little” is the first thing you notice about him; a classic example of the megalomania of stunted rulers, he’ll regularly stride around political summits in 4-inch heeled boots (which Italian newspapers are strictly forbidden to photograph), yet still only come up to Barack Obama’s chest. Then there’s the hair - not only was he prepared to suffer the indignity of a Waxl Rose-style bandana for a few weeks in 2004, he subsequently emerged with a bizarre greased-back hair weave which looks like it was designed by a 3-year-old using fuzzy-felt and pritt-stick.

As is well known, he’s a one-man gaffe machine; the creators of “Fawlty Towers” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” regularly weep with envy at his natural talent for the faux-pas. He’s compared himself to Jesus, complimented Barack Obama on his “suntan”, compared a German MEP to a concentration camp guard, suggested to people made homeless and living in a temporary shelter after the L’Aquila earthquake that they “enjoy it like a camping trip” - and much, much more.

Then, of course, there’s the seemingly endless sex scandal, which is still being drip-fed to an incredulous audience worldwide. In any other country, he’d have been removed long ago; after all, he’s lied to his wife and the public, and used taxpayer’s money to fly hordes of girls fifty years younger than him out to his villa in Sardinia (some of whom go on to be ministers in his government) - but this is Italy, and the public love him for it. Women on the peninsula appear to have a “boys will be boys” attitude, whilst men are undoubtedly thinking “get in, my son!”. Even the upright, moral bastion* that is the Roman Catholic church, so set against the idea of non-procreative sex that they recently discouraged the use of condoms in AIDS-riven Africa, is strangely silent on Berlusconi’s conquests.

“So what?” - you might ask; all of these are ultimately venial sins. But let’s not forget that this is a man who openly admires Mussolini; a man who, when in any kind of political hole, will liberally and enthusiastically play the race card to an increasingly inflamed and dangerous country. A man who sees no conflict of interest in being Prime Minister and simultaneously owning most of the media*.  A man mired in decades of bribery and corruption who changed Italian law to render himself immune from prosecution.

In short, he’s not just a dickbag, he’s practically a dictator. 35-40% of Italians absolutely loathe him, but whilst there are so many idiots prepared to vote for him, they have no choice but to get out of the country if they can (as my family has done), or just wring their hands, watch their country becoming ever more the laughing stock of the world, and wait for him to die. Which I hope is VERY soon.

(* - hundreds of thousands of children in the care of Catholic priests down the years have unfortunately experienced their “upright bastions” very intimately.)

(** - Berlusconi’s Fininvest and Mediaset operations own several newspapers and TV stations; most other newspaper owners are friends of his, and the only other significant TV channels are state-run. Amusingly, Berlusconi recently gave up running AC Milan because he felt that it represented a “conflict of interests” with his premiership…)