Don't forget the joker

I still haven't written that review of Pinball 1973; but I'm relieved to note that Ian Hocking has been similarly slack with his Murakami-related duties. I have however, gone a bit OTT on Roxy Music 1974 at Tangents. And of course, the FA Cup Final and the Test Match (England fielders: What ball? Oh, that ball. Sorry.) have intervened. On the subject of the latter, serious question time; can anyone tell me why Sri Lankans have so many first names? In this match alone we had Denagamage Proboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene, Kulasekara Mudiyanselage Dinesh Nuwan Kulasekara and the magnificent Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas (but his mum just calls him Chaminda). Was Herath Mudiyanselage Rangana Keerthi Bandara Herath on drinks duty, perhaps? A little Googling also unearthed this guy. Pity his poor mum when the time came to sew in his nametags for school.

Damn, I really need to do some work. Got a major business writing slog to complete in the next month, before I go back to England, and after that it's full steam ahead with the top secret indie rock book project. But there may be a bit less action at this site than you're used to. I'm sure you'll cope.

However, couldn't resist this one: Metallica frontman James Hetfield spoke about his battle with booze and drugs at a fundraiser for addiction charity MusiCares MAP in Hollywood last week. A tearful Hetfield described the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll ideal as "a horrible myth". Also in attendance and sipping alcohol-free beverages were a number of celebrities who have joined Hetfield in repudiating a lifestyle of excess and hedonism. These included members of Alice In Chains and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who have lost bandmates to drugs, substance-damaged wildman Ozzy Osbourne and, uh... Lemmy. The man who only resorts to "Just Say No" when someone asks if he's sober.

And also, while I'm here: Marina Hyde (is she still intercoursing Piers Morgan, by the way?) analyses NuLab NuSpeak, with the help of TS Eliot; the ever droll David Freedman identifies the a priori of humour; the French PM turns into Louis XIV (although XVI might be more amusing); a Danish band plays the music from Commodore 64 games; Andrew Marr imagines a pub for ponces; from 3am, a pretty definitive soundtrack to depression from the guy who made Rose Royce samples cool; in Tokyo's restaurants, the Duran Duran years are back; and the president of Universities UK, we learn from an otherwise pretty uninteresting press release tarted up by a bored hack at Reuters to look like a real news story, is called Drummond Bone.

Now, obviously, nobody's really called Drummond Bone. That would just be too silly. So is this in fact a new piece of Cockney rhyming slang? (Drummond Bone = congestion zone, maybe?) Or is it a new dance music genre that people in Hoxton are pretending to like until July? Or what? Suggestions, please.