Father of two, Island Bay

Well in reality we were a lot closer but this is the only pictorial evidence of our "one row back from the B stage" Rolling Stones experience last (Ruby) Tuesday.

OK we were only this up close and personal for the 4 or 5 songs when the stage moved out onto the pitch, but the concert would still have got the thumbs up. Midnight Rambler in particular was jaw-droppingly good, and I could barely speak the next day after those "whoo whoo's" during Sympathy for the Devil. Not to mention yelling "KEITH" and "RONNIE" at the top of my voice - and for the record only the latter made eye contact.

Full details and fan ravings here
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At 6am on Saturday morning (6pm UK time) I had the honour of being "Critic of the People" on BBC 6 Music's weekly Roundtable programme.
My contribution consisted of three phone-in segments throughout the show, giving marks out of ten and pithy comments about the latest tracks from the likes of Foo Fighters, Cardigans, and the Buzzcocks all-star John Peel tribute.
Panelists in the BBC studio included Jesus Jones mainman Mike Edwards, and former Q editor Andrew Collins.
The show is hosted by ex-NME scribe Steve Lamacq, who is a top bloke. As, it must be said, is Mr Collins, who gave me an unsolicited "10" for my contribution.
This little foray marked my first appearance on any kind of radio since RadioActive's 10th anniversary broadcasts in 1986 or thereabouts.
Great fun, and well worth getting up early for.
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On sign go malevolent
Be out my nauseate!

These are just two of the increasingly-random subject lines which successfully bypassed Xtra's spam filter and made it into our inbox. Look forward to reading more from this e-poet laureate!
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It's the middle of October already in what history will probably show to be a real downer of a year - natural disasters and terrorism by the bucketload, spiralling fuel costs and Crazy Frog. But avoid the newspapers, kick that six o'clock news habit and hey, life ain't so bad in '05.

One of the best things about this year is the amount of wonderful music that's around at the moment. Here's a wee list of some of the great sounds out there ...

Leaders of the Free World - Elbow (they get better every album)
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens (the musical equivalent of a Garrison Keillor novel)
Funeral - Arcade Fire (can't even begin to describe how wonderful these guys are)
Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand (haven't heard the rest of the new album but this has to be the pop single of the year)
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard - Paul McCartney (truly a good album - even I didn't think he had it in him)
Fall Heads Roll - The Fall (a return to the clattering rockabilly of the Rough Trade years)

Should really link those titles to Smoke CDs or whatever, but you know what? It's a beautiful day and I really can't be bothered.
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I don't know (or really care) about its politics, but The Guardian - or at least its online version - is a bloody good read. Loved this article, which puts into words what I've thought for a long time - that the post-punk era really was a golden age.
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Yesterday I took the boys to see the long-awaited movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We went to the first screening at The Embassy, part of a rather small audience which perhaps doesn't bode well for its box office potential.

One student-type was wearing pyjamas and carrying a towel, which reminded me (old codger alert!) of a fancy-dress party we had at Radio Active in, oh god, 1982 - when the first release of the TV series spawned such goings on.

I must confess that since those heady days I haven't had much exposure to the Guide. Yes, I had read all the books, listened to the radio show, watched the (at the time rather disappointing) TV version etc, but apart from playing the text-based computer game in the early 90s I haven't given Douglas Adams' opus much thought in recent years.

So I didn't go into the movie with much of a critical hat on, though I was interested in how the kids would react to it.

And hey, we all had a good time. The dolphin song and Marvin the Paranoid Android went down well with the boys, and I enjoyed being re-acquainted with the mostly intact pythonesque humour of the original.

As a film, it certainly had its flaws. The Brits - Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy along with the voice-over presence of Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry - were perfect. But the other casting decisions seemed a bit strange. Why choose obscure american actors to play Zaphod and Trillian? And who or what exactly is Mos-Def?

The movie also lost a lot of its pace during the Magrathea sequence, with an inconsequential cameo by John Malkovich.

But there were plenty of highlights - like Bill Bailey doing the voice of the improbable sperm whale, and the many Guide excerpts.

Look forward to the DVD.
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It's one of those gormless names that peaked back in the 70s and 80s. But all of a sudden there are Gavins everywhere. There's the singer-songwriter, currently on high rotate on a radio station near you. There's Mr Gwen Stefani, Bush mainman turned wannabe actor. There's the teenage accuser in the Michael Jackson trial. And wouldn't you know it, there's even a blogger - who's Irish to boot!
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