GIGS OF THE YEAR

I went to quite a few gigs this year, a lot of them were very good. Here are my top five.

1. Crowded House, Manchester Apollo

I was reviewing this for the MEN, so I took Brother John as my plus one. We had incredible seats, we were on the front row. John and I are big fans of the Crowdies, you can't argue with songs like theirs, and they're such damn nice guys. Admitting a penchant for the House will get you about as many cool points as being a Nazi sympathiser in most quarters, but sod it, they're brilliant (Crowded House, that is, not the Nazis).
Highlights included saying hello to Neil Finn's dad in New Zealand via Skype, the entire crowd holding the final note of Better Be Home Soon for what felt like a full five minutes, and the most middle-aged, middle class middle of the road moshpit you've ever seen for Weather With You.
And this was all before Johnny Marr came on for the encore and they did Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. Everybody left grinning from ear to ear, it was an incredible gig, one of the best I've ever been to.

http://www.citylife.co.uk/news_and_reviews/reviews/10018314_review__crowded_house___manchester_apollo

2. Jonsi - Latitude

Latitude was rubbish this year, make no mistake. It was full of dicks, the line up was rubbish and there was a gang rape on the first night. I'm never going back. However, Jonsi on the final night was all kinds of amazing.
I'm not a Sigur Ros fan and I'd never heard any of his solo stuff before, so I wasn't expecting much. However, me and Bob (who I was there with) just stood there with our mouths open for a full hour and a bit. I remember at the time thinking, “If I was writing a review of this I'd say it was like a rave in a sonic cathedral.”
It was epic post-rock pop on a grand scale, culminating in a brain-exploding brilliant white noise crescendo. And he was wearing a very impressive feathery headpiece.
Needless to say, I bought his album as soon as I got back and it was shit.

3. LCD Soundsystem/Hot Chip – Magna, Rotherham

Two of the best bands at Glastonbury (more of which in a bit) coming together for a joint headline tour was the stuff of geeky electro rock fan's dreams. LCD are a brilliant live band, even if James Murphy is far too cool for school and does tend to shout a bit too much.
Hot Chip made one of the best albums of the year and are absolutely shit hot live, dismantling all of their songs and putting them back together in a different order just for a giggle. They've got properly amazing songs that make you dance and make you cry all at the same time. You just want to hug them all. And then dance some more.
Other highlights of this gig include the longest bar queue I've ever been in, during which I was recognised as a Plague Doctor by a man who tried to start a bar queue sing along of We Killed Everyone at Radio One. He didn't get very far, as no one else knew the song and just thought he was mental, but full marks for trying.

4. Scissor Sisters – Glastonbury

This year's Glastonbury was the best one I've ever been to. And I've been to LOADS, so there. The best non-musical act was the sun, which was so damn hot everyone almost died of heat exhaustion. As mentioned, LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip were pretty damn ace and Pet Shop Boys and the Flaming Lips both played absolute blinders headlining the Other Stage.
Ash were as reliably fun as ever, and have some surprisingly good new songs as well, fully justifying our decision to see them over Stevie Wonder. Judy Collins in the Avalon tent was the biggest namedropper and owner of the loveliest voice on site. Avi Buffalo made me realise that I didn't hate all new guitar music, which was surprising. And where else can you go from Snoop Dogg to Kevin Eldon to Shakira?
But Scissor Sisters were probably best, because it was Saturday night, there was a glorious sunset, we danced like loons and then Kylie turned up. What more do you actually want?

5. Wu Tang Clan – Manchester Academy

Another review for the MEN with Brother John in tow, this was hilarious. They were an absolute shambles, no stage set, just eight mikes, a set of decks and a group of incoherent shouting men. But they were incredible. The whole place stank of weed and the predominantly male, white, middle class audience bellowed back every word. It was weird. But it was brilliant.
They plugged the film they're allegedly making. They brought the motherfucking ruckus. They urged all the ladies to get naked, which one of them did. They ain't nothing to fuck with. They urged us to check out their gravel pit, which we did, and we saw that it was good.

Another Year Of The Plague

The Plague Doctors have had a strange old year. I can't remember everything we did, especially not the stuff we did back in January, so I'll just pick out some of the highlights.

PRESTON
We played at a festival in Preston in the summer to an audience of precisely no one. It was in the upstairs room of a pub at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon some time at the arse end of summer. The crowd consisted of the soundman, the promoter and our entourage of one.
Inspired by the complete lack of interest, I decided to go all out Freddie Mercury at Wembley, leading our entourage to describe it as one of our best ever gigs, despite no one being there.

SOWERBY BRIDGE
We fulfilled a long held dream of mine to play the Puzzle Hall Inn in Sowerby Bridge. It was a Tuesday night in early June, and virtually no one was there. Most of my so-called friends who live in Halifax didn't bother to turn up. THANKS GUYS. However, Party Andrei and his Afghan friend Ravi from the Nestle factory were there, which more than made up for it. They both enjoyed it, as did blog legend Claire Smith and her friend Lora.
We played a storming set, the highlight of which was the angry folded arms people on the table next to the stage getting up and leaving half way through.
Afterwards, we were paid £64 for our efforts, which remains the highest fee we have ever commanded. The last I heard, the Puzzle Hall was due to shut down because the owners couldn't afford to keep it open. I think it is entirely unfair to link these two events.
Other highlights included a decidedly perilous drive home through fog so thick you could top a shepherd's pie with it.

CHESTER
After a well coordinated but somewhat undignified Facebook campaign, we found ourselves on the bill at one of the heats of the Standon Calling battle of the bands contests. To the winner, a slot on the bill at one of the country's hippest music festivals. We went on second to last, after three bands so bad you actually felt sorry for them. Some of them had come down from Scotland to play in Chester, as it was the only heat that took place outside London.
There was literally no one there (again) in a cavernous trendy food pub bang in the middle of Hollyoaksville. But we had Brother Paul Thompson back on board for one night only and we gave it everything to try and impress the judging panel. We all thought we'd done pretty well, we were clearly the best band there so far and we started allowing ourselves to believe that we might just sneak it.
Then a band called The Feud came on. They were all dressed in white and they sounded slick, like Muse crossed with Editors. They had banter like “This is our new single, it's available on iTunes” and “We've just come off a European tour, it was great.” They had precisely no songs or tunes, just a collection of bits that sounded like they might be songs if you weren't really paying attention. They were the most godawful offensive pile of shite I've ever heard. And yes, I am bitter.
Within three seconds of The Feud starting, we knew the judging panel (a grade A behatted Shoreditch dick) was going to pick them and there was no point in any of us turning up. Sure enough, that happened. We drove back along the M56 in an angry mood, just glad that we we weren't going back to Scotland.

WALES
We played in Wales at the Workhouse Festival in early July. Somehow, some friendly Welsh hippies had got hold of Wasting My Time and decided they liked it, especially the dance routine. We tipped up in the middle of the Welsh Valleys late on a Friday night and set up camp, ready for our festival-slaying set the next day.
We didn't have long to wait, as our set took place at 11am on the Saturday morning. Again, not very many people turned up, but it was the premiere of my white suit jacket and sunglasses combo, and we had a very nice time. Apart from when some children wandered into the tent and John got the fear about playing Snipping Off Your Face in front of them. But it was all fine.
Later we wandered into the town I can't remember the name of and found out Raoul Moat had been cornered in Rothbury. Then we had fish and chips and went back on site, spending the evening discussing the plainly unworkable Freeman on the Land concept with a friendly Welsh hippy who might have been called Barry.
On the way home we visited a lovely waterfall, which was nice.

Other highlights of the year include a storming gig upstairs at Fuel in Withington where we threw flowers all over the stage and were cajoled into doing an encore, so we had to do our Christmas song, as we literally had no other songs to do.

We've not done any gigs for AGES, but normal Plague service will be resumed at some point in the New Year.

Brother Paul's Review of the Year - Albums of the Year

Album of the year by an embarrassingly large distance...

Kanye West- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Totes amazo...

Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

The Divine Comedy - Bang Goes The Knighthood

Bubbling under...

Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo

Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love

Robyn - Body Talk

Janelle Monae - The Archandroid

Ash - A-Z Vol 1

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

Take That - Progress

Best Coast - Crazy For You

Well, it's okay...

The Futureheads - The Chaos

Field Music - Measure

Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From a Young Man

Approach with caution...

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

The Magnetic Fields - Realism

Not bothered listening to yet...

The Walkmen - Lisbon

Jonsi - Go

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

I think it's been a good year, better than most. Well done to everybody involved.

I wrote a massive long thing about how amazing the Kanye West album is, but all you really need to know is that it's amazing. Well done Kanye!

Buying Music

KANYE WEST has got a new album out this week. It's called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and by all accounts it's very good. In fact, the internet has practically wet itself over how good it is, most notably with horribly-po-faced-and-pretentious-but-I-still-read-it-every-day music website www.pitchfork.com giving it a virtually unheard of perfect 10.0. That's not just ten out of ten, that's 100 out of 100. Oooh!

Always one to be swayed by media hype, I decided I'd quite like to own this record, so I set off to buy it. Now, being stuck in an office somewhere off the M60 for most of the week, there aren't many opportunities for buying records. The only shop near the office is a massive Morrisons, so I tootled in on Monday lunchtime, but Kanye's latest opus was nowhere to be seen. Thus followed a week of me visiting various towns and supermarkets to try and get hold of the album.

As well as Morrisons in Chadderton, Kanye's album was nowhere to be found in Tescos in Halifax and Haslingden, Asda in Rawtenstall, the whole of Accrington town centre and the whole of the Rossendale Valley.

Now, I know I didn't visit any actual music shops. But that's because they're not there. Accrington doesn't have a music shop. Rossendale doesn't either. Kanye West is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, so it's fair to assume that some of the biggest supermarket chains in Britain might be stocking his album. But they're not. And when did WHSmith stop stocking music?

I know I could have ordered it off the internet, but I thought buying it from a shop would be easier and quicker. What a ridiculous idea.

And I don't do mp3s or illegal downloading. Sorry.

Having adopted and 'I've started so I'll finish' attitude, it looks like I'm going to have to go into a town centre that isn't dying on its arse to try and find the new Kanye album. It's a bit of a sorry state of affairs, whichever way you slice it.

In the meantime I've been whetting my appetite for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by listening to it on Youtube, specifically the track Monster, and even more specifically, the verse by Nicki Minaj, where she lays waste to everyone else on the track. When 'everyone else on the track' includes Kanye, Jay-Z, Rick Ross AND Bon Iver, that's no mean feat. It's incredible. Go find it NOW. Go Nicki Minaj!

A New Northern Soul?

Northern Soul is pretty much one of my favourite things ever. The music itself is amazing, obviously, but the whole story around it is brilliant too. If you broke the history of Northern Soul down into a timeline, it would look like this:

THE SIXTIES - Some people in America make some brilliant pop songs that for one reason or another get completely ignored on their release and are largely forgotten about.

THE SEVENTIES - Some people in Wigan discover said brilliant pop songs and start playing them in nightclubs in Wigan. Everybody in the north becomes obsessed with obscure long-lost American pop music.

How amazing is that? You literally couldn't make it up. Men used to sprinkle the dancefloor with talcum powder and then go and do ridiculously complicated dance routines. DJs would go over to America to find 'new' tracks, bring them back and then to stop their rival DJs from seeing what they were called and stealing them, they would cover up the names of the songs on the records when they were playing them. Amazing.

My favourite Northern Soul song is either Out On The Floor by Dobie Gray or The Snake by Al Wilson. Or Sweet Talkin' Guy by The Chiffons. Or the original version of Tainted Love by Gloria Jones.

Anyway, it got me thinking, it would be incredible if something similar happened these days. I would love it if all there was a club playing all the best overlooked pop gems from the last few years. I'd be there with a whole bloody vat of talcum powder.

Here are some songs that would be playing.

Scooch - More Than I Needed To Know

Annie - Chewing Gum

Aly and AJ - The Potential Break-Up Song

Robbie Williams - Rudebox

All Saints - Chick Fit

Girls Aloud - Graffiti My Soul

Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)

Natasha Bedingfield - I Wanna Have Your Babies

Paris Hilton - Stars Are Blind

Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Today The Sun's On Us (This would have to be the last song of the night, during which everyone would cry themselves to death)

Ok, so not all of these songs are desperately obscure, and some of them were even actual hit singles, but I have never heard any of them in a club and I'm never likely to and that makes me a bit sad. I might even have to start it myself. I'll look into it.

I'm sorry i haven't a glue.

Apropos of nothing, we're talking about glue. Not the drugs kind. Just glue for sticking stuff together. It turns out that the Plague Doctors have had some pretty harrowing glue incidents over the years. Here's some glue nostalgia.

BROTHER PAUL
On my first day of primary school, when I was three, I ate some white PVA glue. I don't remember why. I don't remember what the effects were, but I imagine I was sick.

The best thing about white PVA glue was the weird little spatulas you used to spread it on stuff. It was also fun to put it on your fingers and hands and play with it so it went tacky and you could peel it off and roll it into balls. Very satisfying.

When I was in Mrs Hickson's class we had moved on to using the glue gun. I loved the glue gun, especially the weird burning smell and the sense of danger. I managed to glue gun my hand once and ruined my best orange jogging bottoms in the process. I had to run my hand under the cold tap for about an hour and it was well boring.

In the second year at secondary school, I was playing football in the tennis courts in my brand new shoes and the stitching came off, leaving the front section flapping about and my foot getting wet. Not wanting to admit to my mum I had broken my new shoes, I bought some Bostik and glued them back together. This didn't work very well, so I had to buy a lot of Bostik. My mum then found all the tubes in my bedroom, arousing her suspicion.

Mum: Are you sniffing glue?

Me: No.

Amazingly this answer sufficed, as she didn't seem to care what I was actually using the glue for.

That was my last major glue incident. Over to John.

BROTHER JOHN
At the age of nine I was a pupil at a very nice little countryside school in Cumbria.

One day during some sort of crafts lesson one of my little friends was using the much revered glue gun to create a peg-gun (a gun that fires pegs). While waiting patiently to use the glue gun myself I noticed that my shoe lace was untied, bending down to tie it I put my head into the line of fire, resulting in a large unsightly white blob in my hair. Mother cut it out for me on return to the Kastle Inkredible.

My dad would occasionally refer to “The Knackers Yard” throughout my childhood. He would tell me with a big smile on his face how if next door’s horse didn’t get better soon then it would end up being made into the glue that I use to make airfix models. Thanks to wikipedia I can reliably tell you that horse glue is only used for pipe organs, antiques and stringed instruments nowadays. So you can get glueing those model planes without images of melting horses spoiling your enthusiasm.

We're still alive – promise.

First blog update since the beginning of the summer. I kept on starting to write things and then not finishing them. Sorry.

Anyway, here's what's happened this summer:

- The World Cup was rubbish.

- Glastonbury was amazing.

- The Plague Doctors went on holiday to the Yorkshire Dales and Brother John gashed his head open on a toilet door and had to have it glued back together.

- The Plague Doctors played at a festival in Wales at 11 o'clock in the morning and scared some children and learned about alternative culture from a nice man called Phil.

- Latitude was rubbish.

- The Plague Doctors played at a festival in Preston to a crowd of precisely no one, then declared it to have been their best ever gig. Mind you, they do that after every gig.

- Brother Paul went camping for four weekends in a row and started to think he was Ray Mears.

- The Plague Doctors played their last gigs for a bit.

With regards to this last one, fear not! We haven't split up, all that's happening is that one of the Plague Doctors is moving somewhere else. We're contractually obliged to keep quiet about the ins and outs of everything, but what it means for YOU, Plague fans, is that we'll be playing around town a bit less.

However, hopefully the new situation means we'll be able to write some more songs and finally update the set that we've been peddling to general indifference for the last 18 months, and then when we do play some shows they'll be super incredible, because we'll be all hungry, like.

If you're still in need of some unsettling musical entertainment the Cabinet of Curiosity will be rearing its mangled head at some point soon, so you can always go and see that.

Also, Brother Paul is rumoured to be finally starting work on dentist-pop side project the Plaque Doctors.

TTFN!

World Cup Poem

There's a World Cup on, don't know if you've noticed. Lots of bands have decided to mark the occasion by recording their own World Cup song. The Plague Doctors are not like other bands though. We've gone all Carol Ann Duffy on your bum and we're marking the occasion with an actual POEM.

Also, most World Cup songs contain at least some sense of optimism about England's chances of winning the tournament. Our poem is a bit more realistic. Here it is people.

We're Going Out On Penalties (A Sonnet)

Take the flags all back indoors

We don't need them anymore

Take that novelty St George's wig from off your head

Rip the shirts from off your back

Tear them up or paint them black

Tell the bars with all their big screens to put the cricket on instead

Text everybody in your phone book

Football isn't coming home, look

There'll be no parade round London on an open top bus

There'll be no dancing in the streets

We might as well admit defeat

We should all have stayed at home this year and saved ourselves the fuss

Abandon all your idle daydreams, they have no chance of coming true

Because we're going out on penalties, just like we always always do.


Soz and that.

Manic Street Preachers

The Plague Doctors have an unashamed love of the Manic Street Preachers. The first gig John and I attended together was the Manics at the Manchester Apollo on the Know Your Enemy tour in 2001.

They were royally pissed off, making for an incredible gig. My main memory is of Nicky Wire in a pink tutu intoning “Brain dead mother fuckers” at the end of Miss Europa Disco Dancer. It was pretty amazing. He's a brilliant pop star, much greater than the sum of his parts, exactly how it should be.

I even quite like Know Your Enemy, but it's not classic Manics. They really lost their way after that, with a greatest hits and the so-rubbish-I -haven't-even-bothered-listening-to-it Lifeblood.

Everyone thought they were dead, but Your Love Alone Is Not Enough was a cracking single and they got half decent reviews for the album too. I've never bothered listening to that either, but John assures me it's quite good in places.

Then came Journal For Plague Lovers, a stonking great return to form as they used up the last of Richey's lyrics. It was hailed as The Holy Bible part 2, but it's a great record in its own right. However, the album's general amazingness was tempered by a niggling thought that here at last was absolute proof that Richey was the talented one.

Perhaps James Dean Bradfield only writes amazing songs when presented with amazing lyrics. And amazing lyrics have been few and far between since Richey disappeared.

So now there's a tour and a new album (Postcards From A Young Man) and James Dean Bradfield has said this: "We're going for big radio hits on this one. It isn't a follow-up to Journal For Plague Lovers. It's one last shot at mass communication."

Hmmm. Everything Must Go part 2 anyone? If they must put out a pop record, there's a few rules we'll have to put in place.

1. Shorter songs. Do not even THINK about starting the album with a ponderous 6 minute epic eg The Ever-bloody-lasting. Short songs work best, Journal for Plague Lovers if full of gnarled and twisty melodic nuggets and it's all the better for it. Verse chorus verse repeat ad infinitum will not wash here.

2. Better lyrics. That means no lyrics about being tired, Mr Wire. Nothing about doing the housework. And for God's sake nothing about Hillsborough. S.Y.M.M wasn't even about Hillsborough, it was about an ITV drama about Hillsborough! ARGH!

3. Get Steve Albini in again. The drums on Journal for Plague Lovers sound great, and I don't usually give a crap about that kind of thing. Get Albini in again, if only to keep military-obsessed mouse-man Sean Moore happy. Either that or give him some Dairylea, he'd probably be happy either way.

4. Bad Romance. I would LOVE to hear the Manics cover Bad Romance. They have a history of covers and this would be perfect for them. Imagine Nicky on the Ro ma, ro ma ma's and then James coming in with an anguished "Whoah whoah whooaaa!!" AMAZING.

Any more suggestions on what Postcards From A Young Man should sound like would be greatly appreciated.

Sex and the City 2

I can't have been the only one a little perturbed by the absolute mauling that the new Sex and the City film has come in for. It seems everywhere you turn people are cackling about how terrible it is.

From the posters that have been photoshopped into oblivion, to the plot that seems to be so threadbare as to not actually exist, via an accusation that even the clothes are a bit rubbish, no one has a good word to say about this film.

Fans of the original series feel betrayed that the films could have taken everything they liked about its TV incarnation and made it into an empty-headed, vacuous mess. This seems fair enough.

Fans of misogyny are braying at the tops of their lungs about the whole shebang being an empty-headed, vacuous mess all along. This seems a bit off.

I've never watched any of it properly, the TV series or the films. What's troubling is that I suspect many of the people currently slagging it off haven't watched it properly either, they've just spotted an easy target and kicked it while it's down. Unbridled nastiness, that's what it is, and it's pretty unpleasant.

Here's Tanya Gold slagging it off in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/7746119/Sorry-sisters-but-I-hate-Sex-and-the-City.html

Here's a review that says it's "blatantly anti-Muslim"

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/sex-and-the-city-2-film-review-1004093261.story

TV series fan Hadley Freeman had a go at in the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1281157/Sex-And-The-City-2-How-Carrie--Co-man-obsessed-morons.html

And it got a kicking in the Evening Standard too

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/review-23839220-sex-and-the-city-2-is-ugly-on-the-inside.do

All a bit depressing, no? I'm not saying the film's any good, I've not seen it, and it does look dreadful. I'm just saying leave it alone, move on, forget about it.

It's just a bad film. There's a lot of them about. No need to be so nasty.

Culture Vultures

Like some other people, Plague Doctors enjoy popular culture in all its forms. Here are some bits of culture we have been imbibing over the last few months

Robin Hood
Apparently, Robin Hood didn't wear green and live in a wood and rob the rich to give to the poor. He wore brown and saved England from the French and was deeply politically conscious. Drab and baffling.

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
Too concerned with being cool, not concerned enough with being good. Like some hipster mash-up of The Knife, Hot Chip and The Fall. But not as good as any of them. It'll probably sound amazing live though.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Lots of people have reservations about Gorillaz, but Albarn haters be damned – this is great. Just a really fun album, probably a bit long, but if you can't find something to like here you're in danger of not actually liking music.

Crowded House – Manchester Apollo – Wed May 26
John and I went for an evening of singalong fun with the world's most singalong band. It was already amazing, but then Johnny Marr turned up in the encore and did a couple of Smiths songs and it became super amazing.

Mark Knopfler – MEN Arena – Tue May 25
I saw Nigel Havers looking harrassed in the foyer beforehand. This was as exciting as the evening got. A deeply dull few hours with a man who doesn't appear to care anymore. Still, Romeo and Juliet was quite good.

Jenny Holzer – The Baltic – Gateshead
I'd not really heard of her before I went, but this was incredible. She does these flashing LED sign installations that are just absolutely amazing. Utterly inspirational and mesmerising.

Hot Chip – One Life Stand
The first track sounds like The Knife (note to self: get wider frame of reference) and they end up sounding like The Beautiful South halfway through, but it's all good. The title track is particularly excellent.

STOP CAMERON

David Cameron must be stopped.

Obviously, you can stop him by not voting Tory. That's easy.

However, some people might still want to vote Tory. We need to stop these people from voting. Is this electoral fraud? Probably. I'd have thought being a smug lying twat was electoral fraud, but apparently not.

THE PLAN

If you see any Tories going out to cast their vote, stop them.

Here's a few methods you might like to try:

- Tell them Margaret Thatcher just died and we're having a national month of mourning instead of an election.

- Tell them you've got a load of poor people in your house they can point and laugh at. Bundle them into your cellar. Repeat until cellar is full.

- Tell them that the Big Society will also include people who aren't middle class and white. (It won't.)

- Tell them not to vote Tory because you just can't cope with the idea of that vile posh idiot running the country and none of his policies make any sense and you want to punch him in the head even though you've never punched anyone in your life and they'll set the country back thirty years because while Tories aren't all scare-mongering Daily Mail reading bigots quite a lot of them are actually and it frightens the bejesus out of you and OH GOD I CAN'T BEAR HIS FUCKING FACE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

Actually that's unhelpful and unfriendly, all that swearing and violence. It's all a bit Danny Dyer.

My view is this: I hate Tories. Not the people who vote for them. But the people they vote for.

I didn't write that myself though, it's the intro to a piece on the Guardian website by Gary Younge. You might want to read the rest of his article, because it's really good and says everything I want to say about Tories and more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/04/why-i-hate-tories-david-cameron

DON'T VOTE TORY

DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORYDON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY DON'T VOTE TORY

Cheers,

The Plague Doctors

Another Video Exclusive!

Yet another video exclusive from The Plague Doctors! Wowzers!

We're throwing them down like thunderbolts from the sky!

NO holds barred! Full-length! Unexpurgated! You asked for it!

OH CANDY BABY!

EXCLUSIVE NEWS

Been wondering what the Plague Doctors are up to? Wonder no longer!

We've been hard at work learning to play all our songs on actual instruments. The plan is to go and play at open mic nights around Manchester. We thought it might be fun.

John and I got together and had a bit of a practise last week. I played John's old guitar and John played his drum machine. It's quite lo-fi. It's virtually no-fi.

We had such an entertaining evening we recorded it for posterity. There's a few more videos to put up.

The songs we have been learning for our open mic gigs are:

Oh Candy Baby

Wasting My Time

What A Fucking Lovely Day

I'm In Love With A Witch

Work Is Shit (I'd Rather Be A Pop Star)

Spell It Out

There was another one but I've forgotten what it was. Look at that list though! Who wouldn't want to hear those songs?

Most people, actually. Hey ho.

Here's a video, this is a new one called What A Fucking Lovely Day.

Let us know what you think, but only if you like it. We don't take criticism very well.

Joanna Newsom/Rachel Stevens Album Deathmatch

Last week I bought the new Joanna Newsom album, Have One On Me. I also bought Rachel Stevens' 2005 album Come And Get It.

But which is better? Let's find out, with the first of what might (but probably won't) turn into an ongoing series.

JOANNA NEWSOM/RACHEL STEVENS ALBUM DEATHMATCH

THE CONTENDERS

Joanna Newsom is an American woman who plays very long songs on the harp.

Rachel Stevens is a British woman who used to be in a pop band.

MUSIC

Joanna Newsom - It's a triple album, with 18 songs over 3 CDs. She does lots of long songs, which she wrote herself. Musically, it's all harps, strings, bells and whistles. Songs meander all over the place. Only two songs are less than four minutes in length. Requires patience.

Rachel Stevens - It's not a triple album. 11 tracks, plus two bonus ones. Every song could be a single. It's a straight up electro-pop album, which she got ace people like Richard X and Xenomania to write for her. It sounds like what Goldfrapp would sound like if they were as good as everybody says they are. It also sounds a lot like criminally ignored Norwegian popstar Annie. This is a Very Good Thing.

One of the songs on Rachel's album is called Je M'appelle. The Plague Doctors also have a song called Je M'appelle. Our song is better, but Rachel's song is good too.

WINNER - Rachel Stevens

LYRICS

Joanna Newsom - No Provenance

"And you, with your

'arrangement' with Fate,

nodded sadly at her lame assault

on that steady old gate,

her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face:

the muzzle of a ghost."

I have no idea what this song is about.

Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)

"Now it's two weeks later

I feel such a traitor

Oh, I let you in my back door

You're the one who's creeping
Rough love's so deceiving

I said never again but here we are."

This song is about doing it up the bum.

WINNER - Rachel Stevens

ARTWORK

Joanna Newsom - On the cover, Joanna is lying on a sofa surrounded by all kinds of fancy things. She appears to be dressed as a flapper.

Inside, there are four very similar pictures of Joanna putting her hair up. Perhaps it's some kind of photo essay. She is wearing a dungaree/playsuit type affair and is showing off her legs.

Nice font.

Anyway, good effort.

Rachel Stevens - Look, Rachel is naked on the inside cover of her album. She's wearing some kind of necklace that draws attention to her bottom.

This is a reminder of Rachel's status as an FHM favourite.

She may be naked on the actual cover too, there's no way of knowing. It's just a shot of her face looking nice.

Bad font.

Again, good effort, but not as good as Joanna.

WINNER - Joanna Newsom

SINGLES

Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom has never had a UK hit single.

Rachel Stevens - Come and Get It spawned four UK hit singles, Some Girls (2), Negotiate With Love (10), So Good (10) and I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)(12).

Some Girls was the official Sport Relief charity single in 2004, which was a surprising choice considering it's about blow jobs.

WINNER - Rachel Stevens

DANCEABILITY

Joanna Newsom - Unless you like expressive interpretative modern dance, this is not a good album for dancing to.

Rachel Stevens - You can dance to all of this album.

WINNER - Rachel Stevens

DRIVEABILITY

Joanna Newsom - If you tried driving to this, you would crash.

Rachel Stevens - Very good driving music, just the length of the trip from Halifax to Manchester.

WINNER - Rachel Stevens

NICE SPRING DAY LISTENABILITY

Joanna Newsom - This album sounds very listenable on a nice spring day.

Rachel Stevens - This album does not particularly benefit from being listened to on a nice spring day.

WINNER - Joanna Newsom

OVERALL RESULT - Rachel Stevens 5 Joanna Newsom 2.

Well done Rachel Stevens!

Sicko Olympics

While listening to the new Chris Evans breakfast show this morning, I got a 'real nasty surprise'. What was so surprising? That Chris Evans is actually funnier than Terry Wogan? No, he isn't, though he's not as arrogant as he used to be, and rock radio has been driving me nuts with its guitar nazi regime*.

Focus man!

Ahem.

The reason I got a 'real nasty surpise' this morning while listening to Chris Evans wasn't when he was talking arse inbetween the bland playlist, and it wasn't when he was playing the music that forms the bland playlist, it was during a news report about the winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The 'real nasty surprise' wasn't that a man died on the luge this week, though that was undeniably horrible, that would be a 'horrible' surprise.

It wasn't related to the fact that I went to primary school with one of the figure skaters, David King, who i'd like to congratulate on his first Olympics. The 'real nasty surprise' made me throw up into the canal as I was having a relaxing stroll.

This is the truth. There is a sick new event in the winter Olympics called 'Bob Skeleton Slaying'. This morning there was an interview with one of the Slayers! I can only imagine its something like that scene in Jason and the Argonauts with all the skeletons, except with more snow and the skeletons are all called Bob for no other reason than to humiliate them and make it fun for kids and old ladies.

What the old ladies don't realise is that they are quite close to taking part in this orgy of madness themselves. The Canadian government have spent the last four years shipping in hapless old people from all over the world, upon death they join the Canadian army of the undead in Calgary**.

What do you think about 'Bob Skeleton Slaying'? Leave us your thoughts below.

Brother John


* With the exception of 'The Final Countdown' by Rainbow, and 'Jump' by Van Halen
** Allegedly

THE BRITS

Paul - So, it's the Brit's tonight. Here's my guide to who should win, but won't because Florence and her infernal Machine are going to clean up. BOO.

John - I feel more detached from the mainstream charts than I ever have, I will try to pick some favourites but please forgive my unreasonably bitter nature.

British Male Solo Artist
Calvin Harris
Dizzee Rascal
Mika
Paolo Nutini
Robbie Williams

Paul's Pick: Dizzee Rascal
John's Pick: Dizzee Rascal

British Female Solo Artist
Bat for Lashes
Florence & the Machine
Leona Lewis
Lily Allen
Pixie Lott

Paul's Pick: Lily Allen
John's Pick: My mum can sing better than them all, she has been a member of the Rosley parish choir since the seventies, what was Florence doing then? Thats right she was dead (unborn).

British Breakthrough Act
Florence & the Machine
Friendly Fires
JLS
La Roux
Pixie Lott

Paul's Pick:JLS
John's Pick: La Roux, though I don't like her CGI hair, needs better special FX, a bit Phantom Menace for my tastes.

British Group
Doves
Friendly Fires
JLS
Kasabian
Muse

Paul's Pick:JLS (NB This is the worst British Group lineup there has EVER BEEN.)
John's Pick: Kingfishers Catch Fire

MasterCard British Album
Dizzee Rascal - Tongue n’Cheek
Florence & the Machine - Lungs
Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Lily Allen - It’s Not Me, It’s You
Paolo Nutini - Sunny Side Up

Paul's Pick: Lily Allen - It’s Not Me, It’s You
John's Pick: I like the name of Kasabian's album

British Single
Alesha Dixon - Breathe Slow
Alexandra Burke Ft Flo Rida - Bad Boys
Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love
Joe McElderry - The Climb
JLS - Beat Again
La Roux - In For The Kill
Lily Allen - The Fear
Pixie Lott - Mama Do
Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart
Tinchy Stryder Ft N-Dubz - Number 1

Paul's Pick:Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers (Seriously, why is this not on the list?)
John's Pick: My niece is a big fan of Mama Do by Pixie Lott

Critics' Choice
Ellie Goulding
Delphic
Marina & The Diamonds

Paul's Pick: Don't much care as long as it's not Delphic
John's Pick: NULL (Fuck off Delphic)

BRITs Album of 30 Years
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Dido - No Angel
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Duffy - Rockferry
Keane - Hopes & Fears
Oasis - (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
Phil Collins - No Jacket Required
Sade - Diamond Life
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Travis - The Man Who

Paul's Pick: Travis - The Man Who (Travis are ace. Or at least they were for this album and this album only.)
John's Pick: What on earth does this award even mean?

The BRITs Hits 30
Bee Gees - Stayin’ Alive/How Deep is Your Love
Bros. - I Owe you Nothing
Coldplay - Clocks
Eurythmics & Stevie Wonder - Angel
Girls Aloud - The Promise
Kanye West - Gold Digger
Kylie Minogue - Can’t Get You Out of my Head
Michael Jackson - Earth Song
Paul McCartney - Live & Let Die
Pet Shop Boys - Go West
Robbie Williams & Tom Jones - The Full Monty Medley
Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama
Spice Girls - Wannabe/Who Do You Think You Are
Take That - Beatles Medley
The Who - Who Are You

Paul's Pick: Pet Shop Boys - Go West (If you haven't seen it, do. There's 150 Welsh miners singing with lamps on their heads and Tenno descends from the ceiling in a cherry picker. Also, Tenno and Chris are both wearing pristine white miner's jackets, which isn't very practical for people who work in a dirty hole underground, but looks amazing if you're a pop star.)

John's Pick: Is this actually an award for the best song of the last 30 years? Where is Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas?

International Female Solo Artist
Lady Gaga
Ladyhawke
Norah Jones
Rihanna
Shakira

Paul's Pick:Lady Gaga
John's Pick: Lady Gaga

International Male Solo Artist
Bruce Springsteen
Eminem
Jay-Z
Michael Buble
Seasick Steve

Paul's Pick:Jay-Z
John's Pick: Can anybody find me! Somebody to love!

International Album
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Black Eyed Peas - The End
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
Lady Gaga - The Fame

Paul's Pick:Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
John's Pick: Reluctantly voting for Lady Gaga again, I do think she's the best listed here but she needs to sort out her crappy rave keyboard presets

International Breakthrough Act
Animal Collective
Daniel Merriweather
Empire of the Sun
Lady Gaga
Taylor Swift

Paul's Pick:Lady Gaga

John's Pick: Did you know that Manchester Evening News is no longer property of the Guardian Media Group? GMG has sold its regional media business to Trinity Mirror for just £7.4m in cash, a deal that severs its 200-year relationship with Manchester, the city where The Guardian was founded.

Outstanding Contribution Award
Robbie Williams

Paul's Pick: Scott Walker
John's Pick: Scotty Engel

Keep keep eating, they keep keep eating corn.

Leona Lewis is outraged that they were going to serve foie gras at the Brit Awards.

But now, thanks to some Twitter whining from the horse-faced warbler, it's off the menu.

"I was outraged 2 hear that the Brit Awards were planning 2 serve foie-gras at the ceremony”, blasted the 2008 X Factor winner.

"In case u didn't no, Foie-gras is duck that is forced fed in a sickening cruel process and is banned in the uk."

Like the sickening, cruel process by which your music is force-fed to us lot, Leona? Not to mention the sickening, cruel way in which Leona tortures the English language. And basic facts (foie gras isn't banned in the UK).

Anyway, foie gras tastes amazing. If you've not had it, it tastes like really rich butter. You can't eat too much of it, or you get gout.

Leona should stop whining on about the poor ickle ducky-wuckies and concentrate on making something as good as Bleeding Love again.

That Happy song was rubbish and Simon Cowell is going to get rid of her if she doesn't have another hit soon.

I'd imagine she'll be less bothered about the mistreatment of cute little animals when she's playing cruise ships with Steve Brookstein.

Plague Doctors in the Studio

We did some recording on Monday night. We convened at Kraak just in time to catch the end of Politburo's rehearsal. They were sounding good, like a panda in a bakery. Nick said he'd almost passed out through overheating, probably because he was wearing a woolly jumper under a thick leopard skin coat. He may have nearly died, but he looked great, which is the main thing.

Pleasantries exchanged, us Doctors got down to business recording vocals for We Killed Everyone At Radio 1 and Snipping Off Your Face. It went well, which was unusual. Plague Doctors recording sessions tend to descend into agonising torture, with John telling me I'm singing out of tune and me not being able to hear my out-of-tuneness due to my bad ears and having to do the same bit again and again until everyone goes a bit mad. But not this one. We were done and dusted in under an hour.

To celebrate, John and I ate Crème Eggs in the street and drank beer in Trof. Then we tried to buy some Guinness Foreign Extra (it's from Nigeria) but the bar was shut, so we went and drank some horrible whisky and felt ill the next day.

Our new recordings are being mixed by Dom off of Politburo, who runs Kraak, and they will be available on the Cabinet of Curiosity album that's coming out at some point. Eyes peeled etc.

An open letter to Simon Cowell

Dear Simon,

With all that Rage Against The Machine nonsense that happened over Christmas, you've probably noticed that some people are sick of X Factor. Also, it's been going a while, so it needs a bit of a rejig to keep it fresh. I think the main problem is the songs people are singing.

Mariah week? Big Band week? Wham week? Movie songs week? These were all very dull weeks. You need better weeks. I've come up with a few ideas to get you started.

• Holy Bible week. Contestants sing songs taken from the Manic Street Preachers' harrowing 1994 bleakfest, The Holy Bible.
  
  
• TV week. Contestants sing the themes to popular TV shows and adverts. This can range from doing the full Only Fools and Horses, to just going “doo doo doo doo” to the theme from Animal Hospital. Anyone doing an advert has to repeat the jingle enough times for it to fill the two minute slot eg Autoglass repair, Autoglass replace x 23.
  
  
• Electropop week. Contestants sing songs by one of three artists: Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and The Human League. At a push, they might be allowed to do Only You by Yazoo.
  
  
• Northern Soul week. Contestants sing hopelessly obscure but entirely uplifting Northern Soul songs. They also have to do that mental fast dancing where they sprinkle talcum powder on the dancefloor first.
  
  
• Paul Simon and Ice T week. Contestants sing one song by tiny harmonic Jew Paul Simon and one song by big shouting cop killer Ice T.
  

Let me know what you think Si.
Love Paul

PS I've heard you're ill and Louis Walsh has had to take your place on Britain's Got Talent. Get well soon.

Cheryl Cole made out of cheese

Here is a picture of Cheryl Cole made out of cheese.

Here are some other pop-related people made out of cheese.

• Edamski
• Paris Stilton
• Brie-an McFadden
• Babybel & Sebastian
• Mozzer-ella
• Le Roulé
• Simon The Laughing Cow-ell
• Wensleydale Winton
• Pecorino Bailey Rae
• Ched(dar)ward
• Blue

Can you think of anymore? Why not let us know?

England's Brave John Terry

So England's Brave John Terry had an affair with Wayne Bridge's girlfriend. What a brave boy! And he got her pregnant! And paid for an abortion! Brave little soldier.

Actually, I'm not sure anyone's worried about the morals of the whole piece; it's far too removed from reality for any normal person to care about. A rich man had an affair with an attractive woman? French underwear models, childhood sweethearts, cuckolded team-mates? Heard it all before, really. It's all a bit Footballer's Wives. What people are upset about is the fact that he tried to cover it up. Not so brave on that count, were we John?

Going to court to get a super-injunction to stop the papers printing details of the affair was his biggest mistake. You don't tell the tabloid press they can't do something: they don't like it. And he also gave all the papers plenty of time to get their stories together; his affair was an open secret. So when the super-injunction got overturned, the whole of Fleet Street simply printed the stories they'd had for weeks and John Terry ended up on the front page of every tabloid newspaper on Saturday and Sunday. They saved the bit about the abortion for the Sunday papers, just to upset him even more.

It was incredible. He even kept Tony Blair giving evidence at the Chilcot inquiry off the front page. A rich man having an affair with an attractive woman was bigger news than a former Prime Minister explaining why he took the country to war.

If he'd just admitted it at the time, he'd have still made a few front pages, but nothing like what happened at the weekend. That's what happens when you upset the newspapers, John. They get you.

We Love Jimmy Glass

So, Ghost Hunting got rearranged, it's now on Friday 26 February. Same rules apply.

Right formalities over, it's Friday afternoon and everyone's very bored in the office (Yes, The Plague Doctors have office jobs).

I'm so bored I can't think of anything to write about. I'm so bored I can't find anything on the entire internet to amuse me for more than ten minutes. I'm so bored I just drank a can of Apple Tango, just for something to do. And there's still two hours to go. It's the 2 o'clock lull. Nobody can beat the 2 o'clock lull.

Nothing's happening. We've just spent half an hour discussing which is better: Bolton or Huddersfield. There isn't a winner. I've just spent the last ten minutes watching videos of Jimmy Glass scoring the goal that kept Carlisle United in the football league. It's extremely moving, and at this vulnerable time of the day, I found myself close to tears. Someone should make a film out of it. Actually, scrap that, nothing could come close to capturing the glory of Glass; what they should do is show it on big screens in city centres to cheer up commuters. Actually, scrap that too, everyone would just get bored of it really quickly, and that would be a shame.

Brother Paul

Ghost Hunting with The Plague Doctors

Like most people, us Plague Doctors enjoy scaring the bejesus out of ourselves from time to time. And you, yes you, can join us. We're going on the Foxdenton Hall Ghost Hunt and Aura Reading Event. It's in Oldham on Friday 22 January from 8pm til 3am, more details at http://tinyurl.com/y98xrru

NB: This isn't Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud or anything, there won't be any TV cameras. Neither will Yvette Fielding or Derek Acorah be there. We're not running it either, we're just going along. Basically, if you want to go ghost hunting, we'll be there too.

Also, if you do decide to come along, we'd rather you didn't try and talk to us. We prefer not to mix business and pleasure.

Kind regards,
John and Paul

Kingfishers Catch Fire & The Plague Doctors Live in Glossop

Happy New Year! To celebrate 2010 we'll be performing with our Cabinet of Curiosity friends Kingfishers Catch Fire at The Globe, Glossop on Sat 16 Jan.

Expect all the old hits like Wasting My Time, Diana Two Point Zero, Je m'appelle as well as our newest abomination Scorpion Birthday.

If you're on Facebook then you can RSVP here