Utter tosh from the pen of Matt K

As the UK swoons in a 30-plus degree heatwave, I can't help but marvel at some of the outfits I've seen over the last couple of days around Welwyn Garden City. As I gasped at the heat in the car the other day I drove past a guy with shoulder length hair (not tied back), a black t-shirt, leather trousers, New Rock boots, and a full-length leather coat. Which I wholely support, but good god man! In this heat I would have thought that was suicide. The next day I spotted a couple of guys sporting the full urban kit, including the cap with the hoodie pulled up over it! Are you insane, I wondered??

Ah well, good luck to em. Their resilience to this heat obviously far outstrips mine...

I blush to repeat the one joke I've heard, but I will if you want to hear it.

Anyone else heard any yet?

...I dunno, but the music of the Noughties has left me pretty cold. And no, it isn't my age, cos I know plenty of people in their 20s who have said the same!

I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in about 2002 in a tiny club in London when they first came over from the States, and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to. I went and saw them again, twice. I got really excited that there was a new band that I actually liked. Sadly they went right off the boil after the first EP and album, leaving me bereft. The YYYs are still the only band I've really gone for in the Noughties.

Rock/metal is my core musical orientation, and the early Noughties didn't seem too bad on that score at the time: System Of A Down were quite funny (good festival band too), Linkin Park I actually don't mind. But overall it's been pretty blah I would say. I can't bring myself to get excited about Devildriver, or Lamb Of God, let alone these godawful metal boy bands like Bullet For My Valentine and so on.

I think part of the problem is that we still think in terms of musical decades, because the Sixties had such a distinctive personality. So did the Seventies (sometimes), and so did the Eighties (albeit a crap one, mostly). The Nineties was where it all started to change, with the genres blurring into each other and the musical past being strip-mined for inspiration. The result was that the Nineties didn't really have a distinct musical personality of it's own. If someone says to you "I like Sixties music" you instantly get some kind of picture in your mind. If someone said to you "I like Nineties music" you'd probably go a bit blank and wonder what they were referring to, exactly.

The Noughties have been kind of like the Nineties only blander, and with far more shameless strip-mining of the past. People seem to think that they can form virtual tribute bands without being rumbled, somehow - Editors are the new Joy Division, Black Kids are the new Cure, etc.

As this musical decade creaks to a close (only 6 months left of the Noughties, can you believe it??) I am feeling sadly underwhelmed. What do you people reckon?

No, not emission!

In my previous blog on this subject I omitted to mention the lovely (and possibly deadly) PANDORA, whose adventures can be followed in the UK's longstanding rock/metal rag, KERRANG. You can check her out on myspace here:

http://www.myspace.com/pandorabitch

Sorry Pand!

Pedantic though it almost certainly is, can I just point out how much it annoys me when people misuse the word 'literally'? 'I was literally bored to tears', or 'I was literally sickened'. What, you were so bored that you actually cried? Or you were actually made to vomit? No. You're just being a drama queen, and bunging the word 'literally' in there for emphasis. Gah!

The worst example I've heard recently was this sentence, used on BBC News: '...at that point in time, I was dead, literally dead'. Well...no you weren't, mate, were you?? Because you're still bloody alive to tell the tale. You mean you were figuratively dead. If you were literally dead, you'd still be literally dead now.

Is it just me?

I'm tempted to just write the single word "discuss", but I spose I'd better at least put my opinion down first! So here it is:

I am just sick of the sight of the ghastly spoiled little madam. One decent song (OK, two then) and she's bloody everywhere, with her stupid hair and crappy clothes. I sincerely hope she looks back on all this in a couple of years and cringes with embarrassment at her pathetic attention-seeking antics - as I do now.

Well, it finally happened:

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/blog/article/178500/

I must admit I've watched BB as a guilty pleasure fairly often, but whatever saddo appeal it once had has long since worn paper-thin. Even Davina has tried to jump ship several times only to grudgingly come back to pretend enthusiasm after yet another pay rise. Rubbish. The glory days of the dream team of Davina on BB, Dermot on BBLB and Russell Brand on BBBM seem like a long long time ago.

Plus, the fact that the contestants come out of it expecting a media career waiting for them on a plate gets more and more sick-making every year.

Anyone else care to confess to a sad past addiction to BB??

Our son Logan is 5 and a half months now, unbelievably. I thought you might like to have a look at these photos from the bank holiday weekend just gone...

http://mattk.myphotoalbum.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album01&id=new_022

http://mattk.myphotoalbum.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album01&id=new_024

http://mattk.myphotoalbum.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album01&id=new_031

[Incidentally, just ignore any pictures of Pink's bum you may come across, so to speak - they relate to a much earlier blog!]

Me and two friends recently had what you could call an interesting discussion, about cartoon characters that we find sexy. Being as we're all blokes, the following cartoon females were mentioned:

Jessica Rabbit (bit obvious, but fair point)
Daphne from Scooby Doo (see above)
Leela from Futurama ("definitely the sexiest cartoon cyclops on tv" Chris observed)
Lois from Family Guy
Marge Simpson
Nemi (Nordic Goth goddess)

Did we miss anyone?

My office diary has marked out some decidedly strange historical occurrences that I should apparently be aware of. Take tomorrow, for instance - did you know that on that day in 1945 Hitler and his mistress committed suicide? Or that on this very day in 1922, the first weightlifting championships took place in Estonia? And only last week, on the 22nd, it was the anniversary of the first known cheque, which was written for £10 in the year 1659. No, really. This is the sort of random stuff in my office diary. I'll do one more - hang on, let me open it at random...good grief. OK, did you know that on August 29th 1896, chop suey was invented in New York??

OK, one more and I'll stop. Did you know that on March the 6th in 1971, British postal workers returned to work after 7 weeks on strike? I know, fascinating isn't it...