If you have arrived here by searching for Peter McDougall's Just Another Saturday (23 yesterday as well as another 79 of you so far today), you'll find my original post here.
Happy to help!
Eleven years. Eleven freakin' years!!! And by this time tomorrow, the wait will be (officially) over.
The last "proper" Portishead album was released in Autumn 1997. At the time, the three years between 1994's Dummy and its follow-up, Portishead, seemed like an absolute age. Oh how that pails in comparison with the wait us fans have just had to endure.
When Portishead came out, many felt that it did not really reflect the musical changes which had taken place in those three years - most notably drum and bass. It seemed as though many commentators were disappointed that the album was not jam-packed with Roni Size-style beats. This is not a view I shared. Portishead was somehow the same as its predecessor, yet different(!). It was certainly darker - and that little bit harsher - than Dummy, and all the better for it.
And so onto Third , Portishead's (ahem) third album. It has been available on the internet for some time now, but tomorrow sees its official release. Fingers crossed, my copy will be landing on the doormat tomorrow morning. The album's lead single, Machine Gun, is as stark, brutal and far removed from Glory Box or Roads as it's possible to get. And it is absolutely amazing - a real grow(l)er. I've been a good boy and haven't downloaded the album; I have a real nervous anticipation about tomorrow's release - I can't wait.
From what I've read, this next track is considered one of the album's stand-out moments. Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for Portishead. We Carry On....
I'm really not the world's biggest Queen fan.
That said, it cannot be denied, the band had a top class frontman, in Freddie Mercury. When he died, the rest of the band really should have called it a day. That way they could have ended with their integrity intact. Where at least, bassist, John Deacon, had the good sense to retire from the band, Brian May and Roger Taylor have just been ploughing on for years and years and years, milking the cash cow.
The "great" news is that Taylor and May are now planning a follow-up to the Ben Elton-penned (Ben Elton??? jeez) musical, We Will Rock You. Oh well, isn't that that's just the best news any of us could have wished for, eh? And now, Cadbury's have followed up their Gorilla/Phil Collins advert with one featuring assorted airport vehicles racing along a runway to the strains of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now - a song I dislike intensely. Will this torture never end?
For me, Don't Stop Me Now will be forever filed alongside Cat Steven's (Remember The Days Of) The Old School Yard, The Monkees' Daydream Believer and Wings' Live and Let Die, in the drawer marked, "Songs Featured On BBC2 Testcards During Afternoon Closedowns".
Please, please, please make it stop. It gives me such a headache.
The holiday was great, the whole family had a brilliant time and I feel supremely chilled out (which is probably why I haven't really posted for a while). That said, there are a few (admittedly trivial) things currently getting on my wick which are threatening to break down that calm exterior...
That braying buffoon and his equally disagreeable "partner" on the Travel Supermarket advert. This one's being doing the rounds for some time, but it never fails to get my goat. In equally irritating tones, he says, "Cool - we need to fly to Barcelona," and then she chips in with, "As soon as possible." Why, though? What are they fleeing the country for? What have they done? Leather jacketed imbeciles. I hope your plane crashes into the sea. Idiots. 
