In the first REAL test for the candidates aiming to be the next President of the Free World, I’d like your opinions on who’s the best man (or woman, or strategically-shaved ape in the case of Dick Cheney) for the job. Feel free to nominate any other oil / Jewish / pro-life / global-warming-denying / scientology / gun lobby mouthpiece types who appeal to you.

CD marketeers are threatening to bust right through the bottom of the barrel in their last frantic attempts to wring something out of the physical format before downloads (and copies) take over. Every re-released album now comes with hundreds of extra tracks - b-sides, sessions etc - and whilst some are interesting, many more are atrocious. The CD re-release of Yes’s “Drama” contains a “demo version” in which the lead singer intones “doo-doo-doo-doo”, out of tune, over a skeleton of one of the tracks for 5 minutes. Does anybody really need to hear that? It’s the equivalent of listening to a stand-up comedian sitting on the toilet musing “Hmm… Jade Goody’s a bit of a twat….EEEEUUUUUURGH!! Ahhhh…. Maybe I’ll do some material on her”.

Likewise, in a complete volte-face from the much-trumpeted technological breakthroughs of the 80s and 90s, they’re even trying to flog us “unremastered” versions of old albums! What next - CDs which replicate the scratchy sound of overplayed vinyl on a crappy record deck? Actually, that may well be a marketable idea…

Old news, this one, but worth another mention nonetheless. Barack Hussein Obama is in the running to become America’s next - and first black - president. But obviously his name will stop his campaign dead in its tracks; “Barack” sounds a bit like “Borat”, or alternatively like an invitation to lambast him - and as for “Hussein” and “Obama”, say no more (apart from the whole “A Bummer” / “Oh, bummer!” angle which hasn’t been explored as much as the obvious “Osama” one).

He could barely have it worse even if he was called “Fidel Bin Repealthesecondamendment”, or, as a good UK analogy (provided by Frankie Boyle on “Mock the Week”), “Fisty McPaedophile”.

Mind you, in his favour, he IS up against Hilary Clinton…

From the BBC website -

“The encryption on high-definition DVDs has been bypassed, the consortium backing the copy protection system on discs has confirmed. At the end of last year a hacker claimed he had defeated the protection on a number of HD-DVD titles, leading to fears the entire system was broken.

But the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) Licensing Authority has said the breech is limited.”

So even if the AACS are shitting themselves, at least there won’t be much trouser to clean, eh?

Ahhh, Maria Sharapova and Paris Hilton. Two lovely young ladies who are to be admired for their successes: Paris is a world champion in being born rich and then accidentally-on-purpose circulating bongo vids of herself in order to flog us a bunch of shit bearing her name; whilst Maria is an expert in winning tennis matches by shouting during rallies to distract her opponent.

But they have something else in common - both, when interviewed, affect a lazy drawl which makes them sound as if they’ve been force-fed a box of Ritalin and then given a red wine enema. Why do they do it? To sound cool, or just to piss me off? I suspect the latter.

I have it on good authority from my contacts in the music business (i.e. my sister, whose best friend once dated someone who used to live in the same street as the drummer from Jive Bunny) that “America” by Razorlight was penned and titled SPECIFICALLY to appeal to the US college market. This, as we know, consists of hundreds of thousands of genetically modified frat boys called Brad who have sex with apple pies, and skinny blonde cheerleaders with braces on their teeth who talk loudly whilst clogging up the rail system in Europe. But that’s beside the point.

Razorshite’s cynicism got me thinking about other songs which namecheck the land of the brave - of course, there’s Bernstein’s piece of magnificence from West Side Story, Simon and Garfunkel’s slightly feyer paean to lost hippiedom, and even Spinal Tap’s “didn’t make it to the final edit of the film” rock monsterpiece. iTunes in fact shows over 150 song results for “America” (although some will be duplicates / live versions etc). And this is without taking into account “(Blank) in America” / “AmericaN (blank)” and anything with “USA” - American Woman / Kids in America / America the Beautiful / America - Fuck Yeah / Living in America / Breakfast in America / Born in the USA / Surfin’ USA etc etc etc.

OK, it’s the country which gave us most of our popular culture, but isn’t this all a bit disproportionate / self-aggrandizing on the part of the Seppos? Whither the 1960s teen anthem “Surfing Cornwall”? The passionate anti-war rock rant “Born in San Marino”? Or even just a late ’60s folk duo singing about “The Low Countries”? Hmm… you’re right - “And we’ve all gone / to look for the Netherlands…” doesn’t have quite the same ring…

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But who wants to be flattered by a BNP bozo? In honour of my unwanted house-guest, I want to know which is worse - a plagiarist or a Nazi?

As the BBC might say, other brands of bad person are also available - feel free to nominate them.

Crap poll, you say? Playing for time? Moi? OK, you’ve got me… I’m rather overworked and VERY overtired having got back from Italy a matter of hours ago. Normal service will be resumed in a day or two…

Underachieving right-wing Jade Goody-loving BNP “charleton” (sic) blogger The Bournemouth Nationalist was caught today shamelessly plagiarising my previous post. I’m frankly lost for words - because he stole them. Sieg heil, brother.

Another Johnson, obviously…

Underachieving Chelsea reject Glen Johnson was caught and given an £80 on-the-spot fine for trying (unsuccessfully) to steal a toilet seat and some taps from B&Q. This is a man who earns £30,000 per week. I’m frankly lost for words.

Perhaps he was inspired by the guy who stole the urinal from the pub? In any case, as the spasmodically excellent Urban Dictionary shows, “Johnson” is all too apt a surname…

I’m taking the opportunity of my Italian visit to get some cooking lessons from my Aunt, who’s an expert in the local cuisine. This morning, we were talking about the best carbohydrate base to go with tomato sauces - obviously pizza and pasta are fine, but I wasn’t sure whether tomato traditionally went with polenta, so I asked her. She said that it wasn’t usually done in restaurants, but her kids enjoyed it, so she used her polental discretion to allow it…