Futtocks

Issue 3 of the DeAgostini jazz series is in my local Sainsbury's and it is Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin. This is the first full price issue, but I have to admit I'm tempted.

Last night, I watched Welcome home, Brother Charles, a thunderingly inept piece of Blaxploitation from 1975. It is all completely generic apart from one thing - HE USES HIS MAGIC PENIS TO STRANGLE A MAN TEN FEET AWAY!

How often go you get to type this? Former Newcastle United striker Faustino Asprilla, dressed as a pink dinosaur while teaching his horse to play Football.

J Dilla - Donuts. Imaginative stuff, although with 31 short tracks, it can leave you a bit bewildered as it shoots off in another direction every couple of minutes.

Depends on the size of the shop. The larger ones have a very good and varied wine section. Not sure about the beer, and the spirits are a mixture of own-brand and major brands. The food (both fresh produce and ready-meals) tends to be of good quality and the packaging will say if its freezable or not.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick is making it very easy to keep up with the very funny John Oliver and his 'Last Week Tonight' show. Not to mention Red Letter Media's occasional 'Wheel of the Worst' episode.

A Challenge Cup draw from Leap Day 1908. Who are Castleford Half-Acre? Are they the Cas we know now, or another club?

That sounds pretty much the same sauce. Great stuff! But when I cook it with the pork, the sauce is all used up in the cooking process, as reduction makes it into a sticky-sweet glaze, so there's none left unless I've done it wrong. I think it's the addition of sugar, which makes the caramelised coating.

Balls! Pointless Celebrities is on, but Jenny Powell (who still looks fab) looks like she's going out at the first round.

How mad could Top of the Pops get? Hazel O'Connor and Gillan, sandwiching Tony Capstick doing his Hovis advert monologue, that's how mad!

Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger are behind this series, so it should be interesting.

Inspired by Rick Stein's most recent BBC2 episode, I made Shanghai-style red braised pork belly. A lot easier than I expected - really easy, in fact - and it tasted fantastic! I served it with cauliflower rice instead of real rice, which turned out to be pretty bland (won't be buying that again), but the rich and sticky pork didn't need much accompaniment, to be honest.

Happy birthday today to a very mixed bag - Dennis Skinner (84), Mary Quant (82), John Surtees (82), Burt Reynolds (80), Sergio Mendes (75)

Shooting continues on the new PG Tips advert...

Comic Relief is bringing back its Pro/Celeb Darts tournament this year. It was a lot of fun the first time.

Gloria Gaynor's I will survive, rewritten as a Shakespearean sonnet.

A sequel to 'Hawk the Slayer'? Ace!

Green without Gold: The Green Vigo story.

Here's an oddity - Russian author Kirill Eskov wrote The Last Ringbearer in 1999. Going by the rule that history is written by the victors, this is his Lord of the Rings sequel, but where the good guys are the bad guys and vice versa. Gandalf & Co. are portrayed as warmongers pushing a 'final solution' to the problem of the progressive and enlightened orcs and trolls whose burgeoning industrial revolution and enlightened civilisation is snuffed out by the forces of mysticism and sword-swinging barbarity. The elves are seen as racial supremacists, who only desire to turn Middle Earth into a leisure park and treat the humans as amusing pets. It's not brilliantly translated (Google will find you a free copy in various formats), or maybe the original text wasn't much cop to begin with, but it is an amusing conceit, written with more thoroughness and detail than you would see in regular fanfic.

Archie Roach - Summer of my Life. I can't find a clip on YouTube, but let's just say that if you've had a couple of drinks and you're feeling maudlin, don't play this song. Tears will occur. It is a song about an old woman who continues to visit the hospital bed of her dead husband and remembers his last words to her.

Or, to quote the sitcom Bottom, a "rhythm publication".

Well, I'm listening to it right now! The 'magazine' is really just an 11 inch square leaflet, but that's okay. If it was a full magazine, I probably wouldn't keep it for long, but this pops into the LP sleeve as extended liner notes. A subtle positive is that the barcode is on the packaging, not the LP sleeve, so you get a nice authentic look to the whole thing. The inner sleeve has an anti-static liner too. As the Fast Show's John Thompson would say, "nice!" A really quiet and clean pressing which, according to the sleeve, is the 2008 Blue Note reissue. I emailed Michael Fremer of the AnalogPlanet website in the USA about it and he was pretty gobsmacked that a partwork magazine was bringing 180g Jazz LPs out and they were selling in British supermarkets and corner shops. So I uploaded a ripped track to DropBox for him, so he can hear and judge for himself, albeit a file created with far inferior hardware than he has at his disposal. The music - well the only track I really knew well before this purchase was 'Blue Train' itself, but the rest of the album is wonderful too! Currently on 'I'm Old Fashioned' and loving it.

It is a real story for the Premier League, seeing a 'little' club bothering the established big names. And playing some good Football in the process too.

My first proper speakers were Wharfedales (Delta 30s). They make very good speakers at competitive prices.

I just went through my collection and realised I don't have that album after all, so I'll be getting it this afternoon.