Since I acquired my beloved iRiver (about 10 months ago), I’ve somewhat built up a collection of headphones suitably defined by size, design and sound output. In six months, I’m onto my fourth set – consider that as fifth if you count the crappy, generic pair the iRiver came with (incidentally by Sennheiser, who are supposedly at the forefront of listening devices). Come to think of it, I’m sure I could have bought one pair of expensive headphones for all the sets I’ve accumulated…any way, I digress.

I’ve got two sets that I am fond of – one is a comfortable pair of headphones that are nicely padded and fold easily, and the other are the usual in-ear headphone type thingies, which to be honest, I only bought so I could wear a hat at the same time. Can’t do that with the big headphones, you see.  So, I got me these in-ear headphones with clips that slide over the ears and ouch, they really hurt – the earphone bit, not the clips. Depending on whether I was having a good day or not, the pain would subside or worsen.

Then last week one of the rubber ear cover bits (you are keeping up with me, aren’t you?) fell off and I lost the damn thing. It didn’t help that it probably fell on the grey coloured carpet in the office (the rubber cover was of a grey colour too) and then the foil piece bit that sits over the actual hearing piece came apart too! I mean, what is this?! A Blue Peter job? And so I had to buy a replacement pair at twice the price today but it's “surround sound” and it really works like that! It’s just tricky to stick in my ears and they’re white. Great – now I’ll look like I’ve got an iPod.

Well, I had a pretty productive weekend. I went to the hairdresser’s for some extra streaks, had the pleasure of eyeing up the manager who was next to me (and eavesdropping on his conversation with his male client – he was dishing out advice on ‘relationships’ – ahem!) and then I parked myself on the sofa and watched one film, two editions of The X-Factor and Ant & Dec’s Gameshow Marathon consecutively. I never watched The X-Factor last year (which makes me ask myself exactly what I was doing with my time then) but rather than root for the one that was least likely to annoy me, I was more excited that the venue for the next round of auditions for one of  the categories was situated near to where I live. Did anyone watch it? I’m talking about Louis Walsh at the Arts Depot in North Finchley, North London! Blimey, I knew I recognised that dodgy looking pub in the background…so yes, that is all I want to say on the matter. Apart from how ugly the boy bands are in Simon Cowell’s category. Urgh! I’m talking specifically about the bunch of 5 white guys who look undernourished and in need of a good hair-cut. Two of them started blubbing like girls. *cringe*

Oh yeah, I was flicking through the trashy mags in the salon and one of them was Sneak – the equivalent of Heat but for the teen market. Amongst its features were a number of ‘pin-up’ posters including one of Hard-Fi. Erm, excuse me?! I wonder what this lot from Staines make of that? Am quite miffed I didn’t have the previous issue on hand, mind – am curious as to what this poster of Simon Jones looked like. Why the sudden interest in the Welsh boy? (He plays cricket, in case you didn’t know.) I saw him warming up on the pitch about three years ago, took photos but nobody seemed impressed back then.

By the way, I bought the Hard-Fi album at lunch time today as well as the Kanyaaah West single ‘Gold Digger’ and Robbie’s ‘Tripping’ video on DVD. God, yes! I really like it. “Robbie could release anything and you'd love it”, whines Hungo. This is from a man who has Madonna’s True Blue album on his mini iPod and highly rates Girls Aloud. For a bloke, that is quite a tragic fact to own up to. Any way, Hungo, forget your protestations of the album belonging to your sister – we don’t care! If you’re going to ridicule your sibling, you could come up with something better than pinning the blame for your choice of music.

Speaking of come-back singles, I heard the new one from The Darkness today. I think it’s called ‘One-Way Ticket To Hell And Back’. How can you have a one-way ticket there and back? That would make it a return, surely! Have you heard it? It’s very Status Quo. I told Justin Hawkins they were going down the Quo route two years ago (and no you won’t find this bit on the online edition of the interview), and I think he took it as a compliment.

I’m going to leave you with news of the newest interview to the site – one with 3 Colours Red who recently announced they were jacking it in for some better day jobs. Please do read the interview because it really is quite special in more ways than one. They may be men of few words (and even fewer words now they’ve split up) but remember that Jonathan ‘Hungo’ Hungin had a part to play and no matter how small his contribution is, it very much counts for something so well done, Hungo. And Shiny Sonia, I'm learning something new about you every time, young lady...

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2005
2004