Misc points.

I was round drinking and watching videos with grahamb,eviltwinemma and Dee last night, and there was the issue of Q or Mojo or summat with their 100 favourite album sleeves. One of them is the sleeve of the Bunnymen album Porcupines.

Unfortunately the Bunnymen's website is crap. everything's in MS Windows buggeredupformat. The result of this is that in spite of the fact that they have a medium-size pic of the sleeve, I can't actually link to that bit of their site. How shit is that? Anyway, I happened across it while looking through records a few days ago, and said, "Hmm. That could be Iceland, actually." And it turns out I was right. It was taken at Gullfoss, which I was at three weeks ago yesterday.

Not that I'm obsessed or anything. the other thing I was meaning to mention that I haven't is that offsales in iceland are a govenment monopoly. This is also the case in the Faeroes (pronounced "Furries" if you're Icelandic, apparently), and at least used to be the case in Canada. But in the Faeroes, they won't sell you any unless you're up-to-date with your taxes.

And the world financial system's looking a bit dicky, apparently. I mean, I told them that all this deregulation and laissez-faire capitalism would lead to trouble, but would they listen . . . ?

Otway.

Well, it seems he's got the birthday present he wanted. Bunsen Burner's entered the singles chart at number nine, and Mr Otway is officially no longer a one-hit wonder.

And a pretty daft song it is too.

OFFS.

I don't know what to say. This article in today's Observer reminds me that mutual incomprehensibility is something we're condemned to the moment we're born. And then there's this one, about and featuring a few recent words from Roger (aka "Syd") Barrett. If you'd bought the print edition, you'd have a recent picture. And there are two articles on the current geopolitical imbroglio, this one about Dubya stating that war is inevitable (although other sources say that a compromise is still possible), and this one about the tension over which countries' oil companies will have drilling rights in a postwar Iraq.