ep 1 http://tr.im/sfyo
ep 2 http://tr.im/sfyr
ep 3 http://tr.im/sfyD
ep 4 http://tr.im/sfyL
ep 5 http://tr.im/sfC0
ep 6 http://tr.im/sfCe
ep 7 http://tr.im/sfCy
ep 8 http://tr.im/sfDS
ep 9 http://tr.im/sfD0
ep 10 http://tr.im/sfEf
ep 11 http://tr.im/sfEv
ep 12 http://tr.im/sfEE
ep 13 http://tr.im/sfEO

TWITTER: in case you haven't figured how to make the jump, these are the right people to start with.

I was never a fan of Mr Jackson. As a child, The Jackson Five just weren't my cup of tea. Later, when he released his best album - Off The Wall - I thought it was a very nicely made disco/pop album but certainly didn't buy it or listen to it. I was a rock 'n' roller, through and through. As a kid I was listening to crap like KISS ALIVE II. By the time Thriller went to #1, I just kind of wanted him to go away (not even EVH's solo on Beat It could move me to like it). I thought his singing was (frankly) kind of humorous and whilst I realised that he was a good dancer, it just didn't do much for me (in much the same way that ballet doesn't turn my crank). I preferred, as I said at the time, to watch and listen to that other eccentric American icon - James Brown. I *still do*.

Things went downhill quickly when my mother, ever the type who 'doesn't get it' (her favourite artist to this very day is Neil Diamond), mysteriously bought me a ridiculous red leather jacket with shit all over the shoulders. She was kind of crushed when I didn't like it (it must have cost a fortune). I could never really bring myself to wear it, and eventually gave it away to my flamboyant neighbour in college, who dyed it and dragged it behind a car in an attempt to make it cool somehow. He eventually cut it into little pieces or made an art project out of it (can't remember). Said neighbour has now passed into the darkness as well.

Then, he started to behave very, very strangely indeed (child abuse and self-hatred do bad things to a man) and quickly morphed into an international punch-line.

The music went downhill just as quickly as his face. It became a parody of itself, a way of telling the world how wonderful he still was. Just look at the album titles. By the time Bad came out, I actively hated and avoided his stuff the way people used to try and avoid the Black Death. The worst bit, to me, was the way he began to represent the excesses of America itself. Self-obsessed, endlessly tinkering with appearance, and increasingly dead, artistically. He was the poster child for a nation that had started to look pretty bizarre indeed, like a kid on a bad LSD trip, staring into the mirror for so long that a Tinkerbell nose started to seem like the right idea. His money problems also provide a sad parallel. A personal zoo is an expensive enterprise. He'd have been better off with his own space shuttle.

It is sad when anyone dies at 50, for whatever reason, leaving children without a parent. But, I don't relish the next few days/weeks/months of media hype and grieving pop widows, blogging and tweeting their grief over a man they never met and could never have understood properly (he couldn't even pull that off, himself). He was a sad person, made all the sadder by unprecedented success. Thrust into the uncomfortable world of mega stardom at an age when most people are sheltered in the happy routine of school, friends, bicycles and sunshine... instead he had tour buses, TV appearances, rehearsals, hotel rooms, limited educational opportunities and a bizarre family life that probably included some real abuse from his father Joseph: "I whipped him with a switch and a belt. I never beat him. You beat someone with a stick."

People always lose the plot when a celebrity dies, especially one as famous (and infamous) as Michael Jackson. It's the way our culture works now, and the media has homed in on this weakness in our collective armour: we will lap up every detail, and they happily supply more than we need. Celebrities are the new Roman Gods. It's a bit like Pan has passed away.

I plan to keep talking about the real tragedy of June 2009, the events in Iran, in the hopes that this 'wake' will pass quickly.

OK, people I am going to pontificate a little. Facebook, or the CONCEPT of Facebook, is fine. (a little light-hearted 24/7 and thin, but fine)

What is not fine are the fucking quizzes. Jesus wept, the quizzes. They make my spleen explode with sadness.

So, anyway I run greasemonkey and facebook purity to get rid of them. It's the nuclear option, and it works... like the bomb.

BOOM. No more quizzy.

The far-right, whites-only British National Party (BNP) has won two seats (Andrew Brons, Nick Griffin) in the European Parliament. According to its constitution, the BNP is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948." The BNP also proposes "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home."

Any site that has won the love of men like Stephen Fry and Graham Linehan can't be all bad.