AuroraXIII

Seems to be the topic of the day. Me and a bloke in work were just going through lists of bands we'd seen and he said he'd seen Be Bop Deluxe, and I regretted I hadn't. Just before my gig going started unfortunately.

Did you think so? Apart from a couple of performances I thought it was a bit clunky. Although most of the reviews this morning were positive so I could be out of step!

Dawes - just cottoned on to them.

Prince - Mountains Parade Tour If anyone can embed the video, please do. http://youtu.be/W2CKCstA8nQ

lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Easy Pieces. Not heard it in years, dug it out yesterday. Rich should have been a single ahead of Cut Me Down.

Echo & the Bunnymen Crystal Days 1979-1999 boxset Disc Two

Outfit - Two Islands

After Widnes Batley - always like going there, starting from when I watched Runcorn in the 80s. Catalans - of the expansion clubs NZ Warriors - NRL Pittsburgh Vipers - AMNRL

It was interesting to see Sale get their Friday night game in last Saturday's Mail when the reason for not covering Friday night Super League games is that they are too late for the edition. Sale presumably play in a different time zone to Saints, Wigan and Warrington. If you could show a sports editor last weekend's Wigan v Leeds game, and said that the final was likely to attract 65-70,000, and that the average attendance across the top level of the sport was above 10,000, and there were no pre-conceived ideas or prejudices involved, they would be falling over themselves to cover it. Rugby League is tailor made for a mass audience. The games are exciting more often than not. They provide any number of talking points, almost non-stop action and are played by incredible all round athletes - 99% of who are ignored by the vast majority of the media for the vast majority of the time. I've often thought the sport's relentless nature sometimes works against it. There are no long pauses when commentators can waffle on about the superlative nature of what we've just seen and replay it over and over. Rugby Union, tennis, cricket and golf are all apparently played by near magicians capable of the most incredible feats of skill. Our players...well you wouldn't know would you? How many big profile pieces have there been on Adrian Morley for instance? Outstanding in a very good Warrington team, back to back Wembley wins, a success in the hardest rugby competition in the world. A character in every sense of the word. When Warrington retained the cup, the rugby teaser on the front of the Sunday Times sports section was that Tom Rees was fit again. Newspapers have all but given up providing any analysis, you certainly won't get much on Sky and while the BBC's studio team do a decent job, the magazine programme is hidden in the schedules and of limited value. I think we're almost too far down the road to work our way back to fair national newspaper coverage and that the 2013 World Cup could be a make or break competition. Win it, or come very close, and we can try to build on what should be an increased profile in the short term. Perform like we did at the last one and our media future would be even bleaker than at present

Good piece and video from the reliably positive Paul Fletcher http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/20..._pain_game.html

Waterfall - Wendy & Lisa Brilliant with Prince and apart. Just appeared on a random playlist and reminded me how good they were. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY4-_VdmjdI...feature=related

Cornershop - Handcream for a Generation