The bloody Klaxons. They’re fucking terrible. Even Amy Crackhouse would have been better. Bloody hell.

So, after many years of plugging away at the old music business thing, it looks like things are finally going Dougie’s way: he handed a copy of his new single to Chris Moyles on monday morning, and got his first play(s) on Radio 1 very shortly afterwards. As a result, he’s made his first music video (here, and featured on the frontpage of YouTube today), attracted loads of media interest, got himself a manager and is apparently talking to a bunch of label types. Good on him; he deserves it.

(background: I used to go to the same church as Doug, and have played with him on a few occasions over the years; he’s a thoroughly lovely bloke and he’s been working dead hard at the music thing for ages now so it’s great that it looks like he’s finally got his big break)

This actually took place before we went away, but I’ve only just got around to writing it down. Anyway. Naomi likes things tidy. This is, in itself, not necessarily a bad thing; however, Naomi’s definition of tidy is simply that if there is a surface, there needs to be nothing on it, and so anything on it will be removed to a location nearby such that she can no longer see it. Thus, I now have to build in an extra 15 minutes into my morning routine to figure out where she’s moved my keys to, me having put them on the kitchen sideboard the previous evening; it led to a brief panic just before our honeymoon because she had moved my Pile Of Incredibly Important Papers That Absolutely Must Not Get Lost from the kitchen sideboard where it’s supposed to live into a range of more-or-less arbitrary drawers in myour bedroom, thus meaning I had absolutely no idea where my travel insurance documents were. It also leads to conversations like this:

Me: Naomi, dearest, love of my life.
She: Yeeeeees?
Me: There is toothpaste in the fridge.
She: Oh, that should probably be in the bathroom.
Me: I know that. Why is there toothpaste in the fridge?
She: Well, it was on the worktop. You know, just kind of… sitting there. It needed to go somewhere.

I can see this marriage thing may take some work.

Hello. I’m not dead. I am, however, married and in Singapore Airport waiting for a transit to Bangkok. I’ll see you when I get back, maybe.

So, I’ve spent today worshipping the devilreading the new, and final, Harry Potter book. Suffice to say, if you loved the others, you will love this, and if you hated the others, this will do nothing to convince you that the series is actually a collection of great literary works of huge import. But anyway, without wanting to give too much away, it does tie up all the important stuff and draws the series to a satisfactory close. It is possible that Rowling could write another book in the Potter universe, but the final chapter does mean that it would be pretty difficult to do so in a way that didn’t break continuity.

And now that’s done, I’m going to settle down with a big rib-eye steak, some home-made chunky chips and a bottle of beer, and try to drive all thoughts of what escapades my darling wife-to-be is going to be engaging in on her hen night tonight…

Congratulations to Ali and Sasha Kocho-Williams, who today became the parents of an as-yet nameless baby boy.

Dear Everyone Apart From One Person On The Slipway From The End Of Deansgate Onto the Roundabout At The Junction Between The A56 And The Mancunian Way At About 4:50pm Today,

I am deeply sorry if the crazy tourettes man on the bicycle used language that you found offensive or inappropriate as he cycled down the road. He did not mean to upset you, or to appear unduly crazy or unbalanced. But the fact is, he had just come within about 20cm of being run over by a smug, braying, coiffed-and-besuited twat in a Range Rover Vogue with a fucking customised numberplate who, upon seeing that he’d nearly killed a cyclist, decided this was the funniest thing in the world and drove off fucking laughing. So I feel quite justified in pulling alongside him at the next set of lights and screaming through his open window that he was, without doubt, of questionable parentage, and resembled a part of the female anatomy in an irredeemable fashion.

I hope your children aren’t going to be too scarred by the experience.

Love, Chris

Dear The Braying Twat Of Questionable Parentage Who Resembled Part Of The Female Anatomy Who Was Driving The Most Hateful Vehicle Known To Mankind,

I hope a massive 18-wheeler fails to see you at a junction, despite the fact that he’s clearly staring straight at you and you are the only, very visible, vehicle approaching him on that particular stretch of road, and ploughs straight into your stupid twatmobile. I hope your stupid hair catches fire and your ridiculous overpriced suit melts and sticks to your skin and you are forced to tell people forever after that you are being punished for being a vapid, hateful human being who exists solely to waste space and serve as a warning to others.

No love, Chris

Right, I need a drink.

This year’s Mercury’s:

• Two nasty scratchy guitar bands (including the fucking Arctic Cockmasters again)
• Four “Nu Rave” bands (someone find whichever unutterable idiot at the NME invented that genre label and force them to eat their own genitalia, please)
• Two token other-genre albums (folk and classical) that won’t win, but have to be there to give the list some air of respectability.
• Amy Winehouse
• Dizzee Rascal (which I suppose deserves some credit for being something a bit different, but that doesn’t stop it from being unpleasant noises made by a talking chav)
• …and two albums by bands that I might not actually be totally ashamed to own (Maps and Bat For Lashes).

But seriously, if that’s the best British music can come up with in an entire year, then we should all just give up now, go home, and leave music to the Canadians, who seem to be making a much, much better job of it right now.

Holy crap, I am getting married in less than four weeks time.

When does someone come along and tell me how to be a proper grown-up? There’s lots of stuff I still don’t know; I assume it must be sometime soon, but they’re cutting it awful fine now. Is there someone I can phone up and ask?

Sony have finally noticed that no-one’s buying their shiny black turd, and have figured out that maybe it’s because it costs a stupid amount of money – and amount for which you could buy an XBox 360 and a decent number of games, or a Wii and a DS and a couple of games for each. Or a new house, or something. So, in response to massive consumer lack-of-demand, they’ve finally cut the price, so all they have to do now is wait for the sales to ramp up and they can all get their christmas bonuses.

Except, they haven’t cut the price at all. Look:

Yeah, because what was really stopping everyone buying a PS3 was the fact that the hard disc wasn’t big enough. Riiight.

Of course, all this means squat in the UK where only the 60GB model is available anyway, costs £425 (over £100 more than the equivalent US price), and for which no price cut has been announced. My bet? They replace the 60GB model with the 80GB, and maybe, if we’re lucky, drop the price to £399. But don’t bank on it.