CITY
Manchester City. Manchester fucking City. That wasn't supposed to happen.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY...
So here we are. NME time again. Don't the weeks go fast?
It's Nirvana week at the NME, which means they have stuff on nme.com and a special issue of the paper. Kurt looks all moody in black and white. Which, ya know, makes a change.
First page of news isn't actually news, it's just sort of an introduction to the Nirvana stuff. There's a little biography thing written by Kurt, or "Kurdt". Does Kurdt rhyme with turd? Apparently, Nirvana have never jammed on "Louie Louie". Which is a shame. I'd love to hear Kurt doing the "WOOOAAAHHHH" bit.
Next page has news. And it's all about the Oxfam gig, where Coldplay duetted with Ms Dynamite (which looked rubbish when they showed it on CD:UK) and Noel Gallagher. Noelly G did "Married With Children" in his solo set, which is a nice change.
More on the Missy Elliot vs The Queen business with the jewellers, with a picture of the offending advert. Why isn't it "in the greatest of taste"?? I fucking hate the royal family. Death In Vegas are releasing the song they did with Liam, which I heard on Mark and Lard the other day and quite liked. Police have issued a description of the man they think shot Jam Master Jay. Foo Fighters dressed up as The Hives on Halloween and did "Hate To Say I Told You So". Robbie Williams has had another dig at Nicole Appleton (boooooring). Scary picture of Liam in lingerie; Victoria's Secret are using "Hung In A Bad Place" in American adverts. News/tribute to Jam Master Jay, which is handled well. KLF's Bill Drummond is protesting against the war by not saying anything for a day and using little cards with things written on, which I'd quite like to try actually, and one of the NME's "yacks" does (I think they must mean "hack", cos he doesn't look like one of those sheep things). Pete and Carl from The Libertines are gonna be the people who choose the band name from that competition a couple weeks back, which doesn't sound like a safe bet to me. The Music are starting work on their new album, except they won't finish it yet cos they're going on tour, which makes it a pointless story. You can win a tape of some songs Graham Coxon did on the radio, and he's doodled the artwork himself, although if you already taped it you might as well do a scribble on a piece of paper and write "Coxon" then stick that on the front. Someone's gonna make a movie about Ozzy apparently, and the mocked up picture of Kelly O being played by Winona Ryder manages to slightly ruin my crushes on both of them. The Streets takes the piss out of Damon Albarn a bit, which makes me warm to him. Johnny Knoxville is to star in a film about Gram Parsons. The Hives played backing band for Iggy Pop and they did some Stooges songs, which sounds alright (although that's probably a wet dream for someone I know). Josh Homme is gonna be on the new UNKLE album. Jarvis is pictured onstage with The Polyphonic Spree, which is good, but not as cool as the sight of Queens Of The Stone Age wearing robes would have been. Thom Yorke played a solo gig at a Neil Young benefit show thing. Linkin Park are releasing their new album next year. And I don't care.
Brendan Benson does Burn It! Elvis Costello, Swervedriver (who surely, with all this recent publicity, will get their own Nirvana style special in the next few weeks) and one of my personal fave songs, "Stand And Deliver" by Adam And The Ants are all chosen.
In the gossip bit, someone saw Pete Libertine stumbling out of a gig "dressed in only his leather jacket and boxer shorts". Lucky bastard. I mean, if that's your thing and stuff. Let's move on...
The Thrills carry on the proud On tradition of only featuring bands wearing Converse All Stars. And Liam Lynch is the bloke who does that "United States Of Whatever" song. You know, the one that goes "I went to the shops and bought some cheese and the lady at the till asked for some money and I was like....whatever DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR". Yeah, that one.
And here's the NME Nirvana Special bit. Dave Grohl talks a little bit. He's a nice lad, isn't he? Bless him.
Then there's an article about the band. "There's so much more to Nirvana than the morbid death cult surrounding their singer" says the sub-heading. Which is why you put such a cheery cover on the paper this week, right? Not dwelling on the "morbid death cult" at all, oh no. Actually, to be fair, the article's very good. Well done John Mulvey. There's a nice picture of the band, with Kurt wearing Converse and eye liner and looking absolutely ace.
Some music people talk about Nirvana. The Queens Of The Stone Age lads have a pop at Courtney, while BRMC are nice about her.
Steve Sutherland starts his Kurt's Journals piece by talking about Mike Tyson, for some reason. Still, it's another good article. Good work NME, you're doing well here. There's some pictures of various diary pages, including the band's top 50 fave albums.
Posters of the hand written lyrics for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and the NME cover from after Kurt killed himself, which I already have on my wall and features my birthday. Remember that. You can buy me a present.
There's a sort of reference thing with loads of bands and people and stuff who get mentioned in the journals. I'd be interested to see the context in which Sam Fox and Leo Sayer appear.
The Nirvana Special ends with John Robinson telling us about the other people somehow involved in Kurt's life. It serves it's purpose.
Here's the album reviews. Craig David gets an 8. Pearl Jam also get an 8. I'm not interested in either of these albums. Ah, The Stone Roses. That's more like it. 10 outta 10. Spot on. Roni Size (remember him?) gets 9. Rubbish Groove Armada get 3. Gordon Raphael (he's The Stroke's producer) has done a compilation album, but the Casablancas magic obviously hasn't rubbed off and he only earns a 5. Johnny Cash seemingly keeps making ace music, his new one's an 8. Romeo out of So Solid Crew gets 5.
Single of the Week is The Thrills. Haven't actually heard them yet, but I'll make a bit of an effort. Kylie's new single sounds like all her other "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" songs, which isn't a bad thing. Might buy that Bright Eyes single, or the album. That funky little Nu song gets a good write up, and rightfully so. Christina Aguilera's rubbish song gets a half decent review. And, as much as I hate to admit it, that Tenacious D song is actually quite amusing to me.
Live reviews. The Vines on the NME tour. They're ace. We know. Ryan Adams seems to be trying to steal the word "shambolic" from Badly Drawn Boy. Hundred Reasons are dull, so are Longwave. I already know this cos I saw the former at Leeds Festival and the later supporting The Strokes.
Still no bands I wanna see much in the gig adverts.
Gordon Raphael talks about producing The Strokes in the bit I never read, what with me being quite lacking in musical skill. Ooooh, and don't you just love Holly Hernandez? She's too sexy to be squeezed in that little space in the bottom of the boring bit.
Thrills is here again. Who knows how long it'll stay.
NMEmail. Someone actually agreed with the cool list. Another pro-Libertines letter too. Not really interested in the others.
Next week's issue has the 100 greatest singles of all time. Which means that'll be three weeks in a row the NME has had no cover story/interview. It really is a bit of a slow period, isn't it?
Good issue this week. Well done NME. See, you can be quite good when you put your mind to it!

DOHERTY AND TV
Did you see Jools Holland? Sandwiched in between the scarily old Peter Gabriel, the boring Groove Armada and James Dean Bradfield was everyone's favourite chunks of leather clad drug using puppy fat, The Libertines! They had them mad girls from the Up The Bracket video dancing about in the background, and charged through the Peter led title track, and Carl's sleazy but charming Boys In The Band. It was ace. Jools had a chat with Mick Jones (ex-Clash and The Libertines' producer) too. Some pictures from backstage at the show can be found here.
In a related point, the site those pictures of from, The Modern Age, is absolutely great. Lots of wholesome Strokes related goodness. We *heart* Kat! Oh, I just checked. She's going on holiday tomorrow, so the ace news section will be a bit slow. But go look anyway. Have a nice flight Kat! And enjoy The Vines!

GOOD VIBRATIONS
We all love flip flop flyin. Have a look. It's pretty. I think you'll like it.