Weekly Photography Spot Thanks to Elvis at Photosushi, here is the week's photographer of choice. His name is Joel Sartore and I agree with Elvis - his work is awesome. Elvis tells me this documentary about him is pretty engrossing stuff. Nice work.

Hot Pot Alert Under the above headline today, the Scottish Daily Record runs a two page article in extremely parochial and naive tones, exposing the fact that pot growers are using hot bulbs to grow the devil weed - causing an unacceptably great risk of housefires!! The thing was funny enough to read but the last paragraph took the cake:

Crimestoppers Scotland said: "We will do all we can to assist the police to root out these factories as cultivation is an increasing problem and must be nipped in the bud" I honestly don't think for one second there was any hint of humorous intent.

Jokes They gave groups that are usually the butt of jokes (there was this Scotsman Englishman and Irishman etc..) a chance to tell some jokes of their own in the paper last weekend; The Irishman: A woman stopped me in the street the other day and said "can you spare a cople of minutes for cancer research" and I goes "well alright but we won't get much done". The Scotsman: Two Scots in London enjoying an Indian meal when a car crashes through the window and mows them both over. Thankfully neither was killed though one has a dodgy Tikka and the other is in a Korma!! The Priest: Budweiser company approaches the Vatican about a lucrative sponsorship deal which the Vatican is interested but sceptical about due to the weight of the product placement clause; The lord's prayer is to change from 'give us this day our daily bread....' to '...give us this day our daily Bud..' - How much? says the Pope - We're prepared to go to $50m, says the Bud man. - These are sacred texts, ancient, they simply cannot be changed. - We can stretch to $70m, says the Bud man cooly. - There'll be riots in the streets, it's blasphemy, quoth the pontiff - Okay then, we'll give you $1bn, and that's as high as it can go, if it's not enough we'll have to make do with the Superbowl, says Bud -I need to discuss this matter with my secretary of state, says the pope, taking a cardinal to one side "Remind me, Luigi,' he says 'when does the Hovis contract run out again?'

Booker T & The MGs This band playing this song is responsible for my ever having taken up bass guitar. I'm a lover of soul music anyway, naturally, but the first time I saw this clip of an incendiary performance by Booker and the lads, I was absolutely smitten by the very idea of being in a rhythmn section. I had no way of knowing at the time that I was watching one of the best ever - certainly the finest beat drummer. The devillish pace they rattle off the song at, the sheer enjoyment they're getting out of it, Booker T's glee at fooling with the metallic effects on his Hammond, Duck Dunn's concentration leading to sheer abandon, hammering the ones and latern-jaw Cropper's meat-cleaver strikes on the Telecaster - man o Christ - it only just now put the same hairs (a litle older but no less willing) on my neck on edge and had me filled to overflowing. But that's not the best part - my man Al Jackson in the back there - what he's doing might look simple but nobody had meter like that guy had meter. Have you ever seen a man more absolutely in CHARGE of a kit? He looks so terribly at home, just so fuckin.......capable! This is what music is all about - it's soul on a plate and there isn't even a word sung. Look at the Crowd - I think if I remember right, they're German or Dutch - they're not jumping around - they're stunned into their fucking seats by the weight of what they're seeing, in my opinion. It's heavy, there's a lot of soul in that room - the kind of soul you don't listen to, you just feel it, it just happens to you, all over you. Sorry. Rambling. Memphis Soul, readers, I hope you appreciate it even a tenth as much as I do.

Back In The Mix Allow me to brag a little here; I used to be a known mix maker. People I knew thought of my mix tapes as 'of a quality' to say the least. I lovingly poured care and passion onto every millimeter of a C90 cassette. Even with the advent of CD, I was an early starter among those I knew in the jump to making mix CDs and nice covers for them. I used to get regular orders for the end of year Gaijinworld (my former blog) mix But I lost my mojo, friends. I let my gift slip through my fingers for one reason or another and thought it was gone for good. Recently, however, although I've not been making huge strides, there have been short spells of a few songs on the odd mix that have suggested my magic might be coming back. I just made a Valentine's mix for The Special One and am listening back to it at full volume on my ipod - it has some hot spells, people, and it's the strongest sign yet that things may be on the up and up. Some choice cuts from it:

• Aretha Franklin - Daydreamin' (From my top album of all time)
• Guillemots- Trains To Brazil (new band, promising, their best track yet IMHO)
• Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good (The most agreeable of the new talent in the last year with a sweet pairing of the old sound and new lyrical topics)
• The Fratellis- Whistle For The Choir (young Scots band, gone within the year no doubt but this is one good song)
• Eddie Holman - I Surrender (Northern Soul Classic)
• The Organ - Stephen Smith (classic Moz-ode by now sadly defunct Vancouver girl pop group)
• Nightmares On Wax - Flip Ya Lid - Top dub-lick remanufactured by one of the top 'chop' crews out there from their 'In a Space Outta Sound' album
• Cut Chemist - The Garden - nice little lick with something approaching Bebel Gilberto's voice chanting 'em portugues' over the top - lovely.
• The Coup Feat. Silk E. - Baby Let's Have A Baby - New soul classic pleader - gorgeous soul voice invites partner to impregnate her 'before Bush Do Somethin' Crazy' - awesome modern message-soul too, when it comes to that.

Just a few noteworthy moments from an altogether significant little mixie, though I say it meself. It also features Magnetic Fields, Mohammed Rafi and some other little curveballs. Stand by, my meagre mix talent may be on its way back.

Chinese State Circus News An early candidate for dog-on-bicycle-ship?

World Press Photo Winners Thanks to Elvis for the link to this gallery of World Press pictures and photo stories. I was particularly moved by this collection from a psychiatric ward in Burundi.

A Fit Of The Giggles The set up: a man is being interviewed on dutch television after having had his testicles torn off in an accident. The interviewer starts off really sympathetic but has trouble with his bedside matter once the guy opens his mouth. Watch it here

Workin For A Wave Sometimes, dedication manifests itself in seemingly desperate acts. Take this, for example. Who knew surfing even existed in Denmark. In the middle of a city.

Poor Wee Lamb
The funniest thing I've read in ages is the following quote about Thom Yorke out of Radiohead but first let me set it up. The band have released The Bends (their last album with tunes on it, basically) and are touring the world. They are hugely successful, the album and the one before it are selling by the barrowload and Yorke, increasingly vocal in his complaints about fame and fortune not being what it was cracked up to be, is at HMV in Toronto doing a signing session. An eyewitness has it thus;

"Thom was led to the autograph table. He wouldn't look or speak to the fans. He just sat there softly sobbing while signing his name."

It's the words "led" and "softly" that make the mental image for me.

Rejects On Parade A rather ignominious outing for a group of rejected contestants on the Nederlands version of Pop Idol here. The wee fella with the skinny heed looks like he doesn't even know he was rejected - he's cutting a large rug there and giving it his all. That knee-drop must have RUINED his keks, though.

September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959 - Rest In Peace The king of the rhythm guitar solo and one of about three primary reasons for my love of music. I'd already heard his songs on family records, the wireless etc. Then I watched 'The Buddy Holly Story" on TV at a tender age, saw him take the two neighbour kids in and show them "Peggy Sue Got Married" on guitar in his living room - explaining that all you need is three chords. That was it for me. Guitar lessons as soon as I was making money. Remember at a party years later, in my honour, watching some really old mates on stage, and another good friend got up, strapped on a guitar (he didn't know the other guys) and play "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (and I know it's a Chuck Berry tune but it was in Buddy's up-tempo version, with the rhumba-time break in the middle)- let me tell you, I've never seen a more percfect encapsulation of the musician's sense of sheer glee (there truly is no other word for it) when a song is really coming together, than at that moment. How a life can impact others - that measure of immortality, being responsible for that amount of memories - that's a life lived in service, truly. Some lives, I honestly think, are destined to burn bright and go out early - no mere human can't keep up that level of giving for a whole lifetime.

Racism Alive and Well in J-Pan This magazine is making big waves just now. Poor, hapless, backward Japan. Can't buy a fuckin break, can she? I'm posting this, but I'm not surprised even remotely by this. I'm long past the point where Japan could surprise me in its attitude towards foreign nations either abroad or at home.

I Predict A Tartan Riot I'm cheered this morning by the news that Burberry, in rude financial health and doing better than ever at home and abroad, are in the throes of a labour dispute. They had planned, unbelievably, to move their production center to China like everyone else these days. Now for them it's not as much of a stretch as for many companies - half the 'Blur-berry'- The Chav's Favourite product in the world is already made there anyway, Burberry themselves just don't make any cash off it.

They probably thought it would just happen, the small Welsh town where they currently produce would roll over and die, a few hundred Chinese people would get ten quid a month, and that would be that. But the Welsh know a thing or two about indignation! They know how to run a good fuckin strike, they do, boyo! Thus, Burberry has been forced to withdraw as a sponsor for the BAFTA awards ceremony, after the strikers announced they'd be outside, letting people know that their smart overcoats weren't as British as they'd like to think. They've already got their protesting down to a science too.

I think perhaps the only reason they might not get away with this is that they're selling something that takes Britain and Britishness as more than 50% of its brand. To produce that in an exploitative labour situation in a country with a human rights record that makes Saddam Hussein look like Mahatma Ghandi is just not on, is it? I'm cheered to note that a parade of celebrities including Tom Jones, Rhys Ifans and Emma Thompson have got behind the strikers and that the royals might even play their part!

The strikers may lose this fight, globalisation is a stanch foe. But, by the Christ, they'll go down swinging and that, in this day and age, is becoming a rarity. I applaud their efforts and stand thoroughly behind them. Not that there was ever much likelihood I'd ever wear half the hideous shit Burberry produces anyway, you understand,though I did have a tie once - gifted - that I was only half sorry to lose in a drunken farrago. There's a point being made here though, and I'm in agreement with it.

Bonnie Heilan Beastie I was trying to get a good headshot of some traditional scottish cows last sunday. I managed to get pretty close to them but they looked so damn sad, as they often do. Sad, wet, muddy, miserable. They just look like they would rather be somewhere else - like Scotland is not their natural environment. Where exactly would suit a beast like this is a question only God could answer.