Beasting The latest press in the UK is preoccupied with a story leaked to the press, of initiation rites in the military. A video leaked, portraying troops forced to batter each other senseless while buck naked and supervised by a NCO dressed in a surgeons outfit has shocked the nation. Every day another new video featuring grown men in transvestite clobber supervising naked wrestling comes out and tuts are heard, air is sucked in through pursed cheeks and a naation is united in disgust. Even military heads are out in anger and disgust, despite that they probably went through it themselves. I don't know if its that they don't want their mums and wives to know that they got naked and rolled about with other men. My question is this; was there really anyone that didn't know soldiers did this? Fuck me, when I started my first job as a painter there was an initiation rite of getting your balls painted with oil based gloss in front of the tradesmen. Humiliation is a rite in almost any trade. People are trying desperately to find a link between the buck wrestling and the Abu Grahib atrocities but apart from dirty hairy arses and cocks, there is none. I say once again, what I said during the prisoner scandals- what do people think soldiers do? I'm not defending anyone here, I think the whole thing is ridiculous, but what the fuck do people expect of soldiers? What do people think goes on in wars? If the sight of grown men rolling about naked and bodies mangled and twisted in fires and bomings makes your guts churn, then don't blindly vote for idiots that start wars. You can't blame the soliders for what goes on once shit kicks off, though - that's totally locking the gate when the horse has bolted. As it said in one article about it - men that can take a fucking hard hiding, whether bollock naked, dressed in a black silk twinset and garters or otherwise, are exactly what you want between you and a supposed foe that "despises your freedom" and wants to kill you.

Steveland Scores It will come as no surprise that Stevie Wonder is one of my dearest heroes, and has been since probably the first moment I hear him sing. I just watched him open tonight's Top Of The Pops and he turned me inside out, man. His latest single, What The Fuss/Positivity is a great slice of message soul too, and I'm a sucker for that at any time of the year. He sang the song, which has his daughter on backing vocals, brought her onstage with him, finished the song then was applauding her, started into Isn't She Lovely, serenading her - the crowd was rapt, and not a one over 25. He just exudes soul, man, his whole body vibrates with it. When a song finishes, he seems sort of lost, you know? Just takes him a few seconds to come back down from that high soul place he goes to. What a Sunday night treat. And right after him was one of my current fave bands too - a squad of little Liverpool scallies called The Dead 60's that pump out some fab ska-influenced guit-pop - try out their single The Return Of The Ghost Faced Killer which plays when you enter their site. Great keyboard work.

Georgie Best There's tons of hooplah over the death of George Best yesterday - the networks have obviously been feverishly editing up a storm in the tribute department for the past few months. A dream for them, then, that he gave plenty of warning that he was on the road out. From the second the news was anounced the soft focus segments started appearing and it was unscheduled documentary footage and lump-throated tributes all the way to midnight. It's a certain irony that the media machine that plagued him all his life and made it a misery many a time, is now suddenly all overcome with emulsion at his sad and tawdry ending. I don't know how I feel about it but I'm pretty sure Bestie would not be on with all this dewy-eyed bullshit. He was just a big fuckin lad wasn't he? Totally unprepared for the bigtime and ill-equipped to deal. I've always preferred the funnier side of him - the side spelled out in the rogueish anecdotes like the one retold in the Guardian G2 article yesterday. Up in court for assaulting an officer of the law and facing bird for certain, there was a brief lull in the procedings before sentencing was to be handed down. In the back room with his legal brief and closest suporters all sitting glum faced on one side of the room, Best on the other side sat looking around him like a kid not fully aware of the consequences about to come down on him. Smiling suddenly at his team he said out loud "I suppose that's the knighthood fucked, then?" Magic! Anyway, though he was a sporting hero to at least two generations and, for a brief period, arguably the best player in the world (Pele told him so), he wasn't a saint or a God in the way we expect all our public figures to be nowadays. He was thoroughly human -- as full of flaws as any of us and not particularly good at covering them up, bless him. None of that tarnishes him any in my esteem, if anything it only casts a dark pall over the way we view celebrity. Best's was one of the first generations of superstars (before we had perfected how to hound a person fully) and his life is nothing if not testament to how our fame machine holds people up as perfection, subsequently chews them up with shame and finally regurgitates them as cautionary tales of what not to do. Ah well now. One important thing to bear in mind is that George Best was not English but a proud Ulsterman. I'm struck by how low key that fact is kept in all this carry on - I think England sort of quietly claims him at times.

Original Vegan Now Worm-Meat

• "Inevitably, I suppose, within the next ten years, one morning I won't wake up. What then? There will be a funeral, there'll be a smattering of people at it and, as Shaw forecast, there'll be the spirits of all the animals I've never eaten. In that case, it will be a big funeral"

The obits in the Scotsman today had word of the demise on Nov 16th of Donald Watson, 1910 - 2005. He was the original Vegan, apparently. You never wonder where terms like that come from really - well, this cat inveted the word, the lifestyle, the lot. I can't help but giggle thinking of maggots and stuff chomping away on his very flesh. I mean, I'm sorry for his family of course - he seems to have a sense of humour himself though and I'm sure he would have thought about it at some stage.

What I'm Missing

Crackerjack! Check out this latest amazing image Elvis has posted - I'd seen it in thumbnail before but doesn't it look amazing? One day, I'm gonna have to pay to see this little cat's work, cos I'm sure he's gonna forget me when the bigtime comes calling! Meantime, I'm good and proud to call him one of my best mates.

The Aftermath Of Fun The morning after at a Haloween party recently, I spotted this shot that really sums up that morning after depression. L to R (formerly); guacamole, cig dowps, salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole. I love these dishes though - they should make a whole alphabet.

John Mulligan I want to read this guy's work. I can't believe I never read it actually.

The Wrayman Rumbles Off One of my heroes has passed away yet again. Do you know about Link Wray? If you've any interest in good rock n' roll music, you owe it to yourself to know him. The sound he made with his cheap-assed guitars and red-hot tubed amps redlining at full volume, quite simply IS the sound of rock n roll. It's a shard of broken glass on a tortured wrist, a quiffed head going through a windshield at top speed on a lonely chicane, the cuban heel of a black boot twisting into a dancefloor. Rough as guts, tortured, beautiful, ugly, primal and lonely, the importance of the sound of Link Wray's guitar is of monumental importance in the history of modern rock music and cannot possibly be overstated. Not for guitarists in those days to kick a pedal and achieve any level of controllable distortion they wanted. No sir, they had to be dedicated to get any kind of ragged glory out of their gear. It took effort, you had to really want it and that can be heard on the early Wray recordings. Sure there's a messy, sloppy, care-less attitude but there's also the sound of something that needed saying, a driven, hair-raising, pulsing fat vein of "teen spirit." I played "King Of The Surf Guitar" one night at a beach party to people too impossibly young to have heard it before and they went mental - twisting and jiving with huge demented smiles on their grills. It's infectious. His image, too, has been cribbed by fucking everyone - the skintight jeans or black pants, leather biker jacket and wrap-around shades -- where do you think that came from? Who had that before Link made the scene? Elvis? hah! If I had the capability, I would be putting up an mp3 of a prime slice of Wray right now for you all to marvel at. But I don't so just go buy a cheap little compilation some time - the next time you're off on a good long road trip preferably, and appreciate a true rock n' roll hero - not the kind the record industry tells you to like - one of the labourers in the boxroom of pop music history that actually made things happen.

Why I Like The Guardian

• "The old boxing saying is that first the legs go, then the arms go and then the friends go. To which might now be added - and then anything goes."

This article yesterday about Tyson and Bruno's speaking tour really made me chuckle

Clap Your Hands, Say YEAH My litle pal, who we'll call Wee G, wrote me last month recommending that I go and see this new band she was hot on, as they were gonna be playing Glasgow next month (November). Now Wee G has impeccable taste in music, okay not impeccable, but fairly solid for a yank living in Morimoto, so I took the recommend seriously. Still, it has taken me till now to get to actually hear them and they are, yes, fucking awesome. I'm really moved by this band, and guitar music doesn't move me much nowadays. This outfit are really a scene apart from all the other scene jumpers around right now, with some really sweet, quietly powerful little tunes. The thing a lot of young bands forget is that, not only is there a set canon of classic tunes, there is also a set canon of fucking classic chord changes and these cats punch their weight in that regard, really. So, get on over to Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah and get in on this one. I listened to the song "Details Of The War" today on the bus, over and over and I got more into it every time, like some new thing was happening to me. Magic songwriting and the lead singer's voice is really a lovely, passion-filled thing that breaks like a beautiful butterfly on a wheelie bin at the right places. I've seen them compared to The Talking Heads twice now and I denounce that as lazy-assed journalism. The cat's voice has a faintly similar timbre to a young David Byrne, perhaps, but there do the similarities end conclusively - they are nothing alike.

Solway Sunset The sky over the Solway Firth in southern Dumfriesshire is one of only two places in my life I've seen consistently beautiful sunsets (the other one is Thailand). This evening I was coming back through that area from a training session in Gretna that marks the beginning of a new career, sort of thing, and I happened to have a camera in the car. I didn't, however, have time to stop so they are technically as shit as you have come to expect here at New Soup. Still, isn't that scene heavenly? I half expected God to just finish the job and reveal himself to me or to see a gigantic finger pointing at me or something

Gaijin Chagrinned By Garbage Technician A foreigner in Japan has a lot of leeway - people expect him to fuck around some, break a few rules. Usually the consequences are admittedly light but, evidently, occasionally they are hefty. As this clown found out. Give it time to load - its worth it. The things that struck me were just how pathetically bad the Japanese language ability of the average big city dweller is (this is in Osaka) and how soft the guy is - his mates are even pathetic - one of them is fimling the whole thing for one! Hahaha, I was totally rooting for the little garbage ojisan, man - had I been there I reckon I'd have slapped the fool pink myself. That bike he was throwing about was an electric-powered bike almost always belonging to an elderly person and costing quite a lot of money. Fuckin twat. (If you've a dial up connection don't even think about it)

Photosushi A veritable flurry of activity over at Photosushi these days - three new posts! I'm thinking about contacting someone in Kanazawa to just get them to nip round and make sure Elvis hasn't popped his clogs in the wake of such a busy spell. I'm tired just thinking about him working that hard.

Funny Video Check out this for a giggle.

Forwarded Laughs I'm not in the habit of laughing out loud (or even tittering quietly) at forwarded email atttachments but today was an exception. My old mate RobbieJobbbie gave me a cackle as soon as I got up. It's so simple too.

Wild West Scotland a recent article in the Herald about the lovely hamlet of Muirkirk. Ten miles from here as the crow flies and not a million as the cookie crumbles. It could be any one of these former coal towns.

(グラズゴシェルチク（Gurasugo Sheru-Chiku） There has been a huge connection between my homeland and my former country of residence, Japan. Glasgow celtic have signed Japanese midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura and he is HUGE news both here and in Japan. In Japan, they go mental for any team anywhere in any sport that signs a Japanese national. News reporters are decamped to the country in question fulltime to hound the star and report on his underwear, his performance, what he's eating, how the people like him and a myriad other irrelevant factors. The press here are almost as bad - suddenly there is an interest in all things Japanese and samurai sword sales are up a hundredfold. They are more interested in how he's handling haggis suppers and Irn Bru, mind you. But celtic fans aaree suddenly running about with T-shhirts with Glasgow Celtic written in Katakana and with the huge kanji character for "Shun" emblazoned on them - it's amazing. There was even a cultural learning incident recently in which Celtic fans on the terraces, to make Shun feel at home, were waving Japanese flags. Only they were waving the armed forces flag from WWII and not the Hinomaru that is currently fluttering over Nihon. This was causing a right kerfuffle in the Chinese market share of the televised 'Tic games. A big chunk of the club's change comes from overseas telly rights and some cynics say that's why Shun and Chinese player Du Wei have been signed in the first place). The Japanese embassy was called, the correct flag ascertained and a national plea to Celtic fans was issued via the press saying that some might find the old flag offensive for historical reasons and please to fly only the hinomaru from now on.It's kind of nice, I suppose, that people are learning about Japan through its sportsmen being acepted abroad. I met a young Japanese guy in the center of Buchanan Street in Glasgow about three weeks ago, intently studying a guide book with "Glasgow" written in it in Katakana. As I was passing, in a hurry to get my car out of a dear parking space, i thought, should I leave him to it or help him out? So I asked him in Japanese if he needed any help. He nearly shat himself. After some stammering he said he was looking for central Station which was where my car was at. I started to tell him then I asked him if he wanted to just come with me, he was a little nervous. I told him, laughing, I wasn't a pervert, that I was just going to get my car there but I was in a hurry. He came along and we chatted a little on the way. He was fulfilling a lifelong dream to watch Celtic play by adding a flying visit to Glasgow onto his European trip (they had a game with Hearts that afternoon). I asked if he was a Nakamura Shun fan, thinking "johnnycomelately" but he said no, he had been a Celtic fan for years and the only thing he cared about them signing Shun, (who wasn't that great in his opinion) was that now the games were all televised in Japan! He was a nice kid, well able to speak his mind, at least on footie. When we got to the station, I advised him not to go to the Parkhead area wearing his backpack and showed him the left luggage place. He then wanted a picture of himself with the Japanese speaking scotsman and stopped a passer by to take it. I wished him well and walked back to my car feeling about a foot taller. It was nice to be on the other end of that equation - a lot of people have helped me out selflessly in Japan and elsewhere.