Arsenal have had a good start to the season, with Russian Andrei Arshavin playing particularly well. Apparently, Arshavin has a lesser-known cousin who’s a Brazilian: Fannyshavin…

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:

“Don’t be evil“, Google’s founders told us - and I’m guessing that, whatever your political or religious orientation, you probably consider “evil” to be, by and large, not a particularly good thing.

Witness a highly amusing combination of evil on display here, in an article railing against “killer heels” - fake Christian Louboutin shoes from Chinese triad sweatshops which are being advertised at massive discounts through dodgy facsimile-url websites. Perceptive readers will be asking at this point; OK, apart from the fact that it’s on the Daily Mail’s website, what’s so evil about that? It’s an important story - children are being exploited and these gangsters should be exposed and stopped!

Take a moment to check out the Google ads at the bottom of the page…

Siena vs. AC Milan this evening featured Brazilian Ronaldinho lining up for the away side, with compatriot Regginaldo playing in defence for the home team. Some kind of samba soccer tribute to London’s gangland heyday?

(Jack “The Hat” Mcvitinho was apparently an unused substitute…)

An extremely harsh lookie-likey requiring a Beamon-esque leap-of-imagination which, to be honest, I’m only posting in the hopes of shifting a bad case of writer’s block.

Formerly-underachieving-now-deadly Uruguayan hitman Diego Forlan…

… and cockney nutjob The Hitcher (from the Mighty Boosh).

Crikey! What a hullabaloo over the NHS we’ve seen over the last few days; it started when right-wingers in the USA campaigning against Barack Obama’s health reforms described it as an “Orwellian” example of what they want to avoid. Sarah “How about you quit making stuff up?” Palin then jumped on the bandwagon by, erm, making a load of stuff up about our health service and labelling it “evil” (largely, I suspect, because she isn’t really sure what “Orwellian” means).

Then a gratifying backlash; a huge Twitter campaign from the UK leapt the the NHS’s defence, politicians on all sides have got mushy about our unwieldy bureaucra-tastic health monster, and nearly everyone in the UK, no matter how crap they might think the NHS actually is, has quite rightly rallied round to defend it from the ludicrous criticism by ignorant racist scaremongering hate-filled God-bothering former colonial fucktards.

But what REALLY matters is what YOU, my ever-dwindling loyal(ish) readership, want from YOUR healthcare provision. And with that in mind, plus the fact that the poll desperately needed changing and that this was the only thing I could come up with, I’ll put it to a public vote…

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.

A classic “silly season” summer Monday’s news; firstly, it’s been widely reported that a Florida man has blamed his cat for the download of over 1000 images of underage children. Kitty porn, maybe? Certainly takes blaming your dog for eating your homework to a whole new level…

And here in the UK, theme park Alton Towers has banned men from wearing Speedo-style shorts at their venue. The Guardian suggests that this is a “barely concealed grope for publicity”; however, I think the park’s managers have every right to be worried about Speedophiles…

A quick brickbat for something which has pissed me off recently; electricity companies have been sending lots of door-to-door salesman round our street recently (six or seven in the last couple of months), but each time, rather than wearing the traditional spivvy Burton suit, they’ve been kitted out with the full logo company uniform and carrying an electronic box of inexplicable gizmoidery which makes you think initially that they’ve come to read the meter. You’ll make to invite them in, and given the moment of confusion they gain via this strategem, they’ll quickly launch into impenetrable and unverifiable “tarriff optimization” bullshit.

If you’re a sharp-witted physically-intimidating colossus of a 36-year-old man*, such doorstepping presents few problems; a quick “Not today, thankyou! Off you fuck!” soon sends these shysters on their way - however, old biddies and the like will almost certainly be taken in by the ruse on a regular basis.

Old biddies and the like need protection from this sort of thing; negotiating the minefield of electricity / gas provision is difficult enough with the internet; I daresay it’s nigh-on impossible if you’ve never used a computer in your life. And dodgy salesmen attempting to gain your trust through character-based dissimulation / visual aids doesn’t help in the slightest.

Now, shall I write a well-thought-out letter of complaint to the ombudsman, or just pen a whiney blog post on the subject? Hmmmm….

(* or even a slightly fey, easily-cowed one like myself)

Quite astonishingly, the Daily Mail’s website appears to have done away with pre-moderation in its comment sections. I’ve often submitted stuff in response to Mail articles (admittedly often with the aim of winding up the resident idiots rather than contributing to the debate), but have only ever managed to get one or two comments published - to the point where I suspected the Mail of possessing a McCarthy-ite database on which I was listed as “Vegetarian leftie. Fails to display flag of St George on a regular basis. Immigrant. Probably gay. Delete all comments.” - or similar.

It always made me laugh that the Mail’s acolytes regularly accuse the left of being against freedom of expression, and yet the Guardian allows unmoderated comment whilst the Mail doesn’t - or at least didn’t. And although I suspect that this change of policy is motivated by a desire to cut back on staff costs rather than to strike a blow for free speech, it’s an interesting development nonetheless.

Right! I’m off to dailymail.co.uk to campaign for better Gypsy access rights to village green camping sites and call Jeremy Clarkson a c**t.