To start with I meant to put this up over the weekend but I forgot. Still better late than never. Last week Lily Allen got her knickers in a twist over illegal file-sharing. It all started after several successful musicians (I use the term loosely) stated they didn’t mind their work being the victim of copyright infringement by internet Pirates. Sadly it kicked off a few days too later for “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”, which is a shame. Anyway Lily objected to people who have already made a fortune from music having such a slack attitude to people who, according to her, cost session musicians, engineers and others money and jobs. You know people who only get paid once no matter how successful a song is unlike Lily herself. So she started a blog she could whine about it and have all her little fans agree with her. Naturally she claimed it was to encourage discussion and debate on the subject. Funny how once the debate had got into full swing and people on the internet who actually know what they are talking about started to tear her arguments to pieces she closed up the blog and deleted all the content.  Which is pretty much the internet equivalent of taking your ball and going home because you are losing the game of football in the park.

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I thought I would let the dust settle and allow myself time to gain a sense of perspective before I blogged on this. Anyone who has seen my twitter feed has seen my initial reaction. I’d like to say it my opinion has changed but it hasn’t. It may have mellowed and I have however become slightly more rational about it but it hasn’t changed. I should now be able to put my thoughts into readable sentences. In the long run I still think this is a bad thing. In all possibility it might well turn out to be the worst thing that could have happen to Marvel other than bankruptcy. I’ll break it down into the three main areas this will cover and address them in turn.

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Michael Jackson - Dead Person

Michael Jackson is dead and I don’t care.  No really I don’t give a monkey’s that he is dead. Well actually I do as I am fed up to the back teeth with hearing about him. Though I don’t feel any deep sympathy for his friends and family. Nor do I feel that his death is some great loss to the world. Why? I don’t know any of them and I didn’t particularly care for him or his music. Oh, I’m sure he was terribly talented a singer, song writer and dancer but his music never really did anything for me, not enough wailing guitars to get my attention, sorry. Though the press/media might have conveniently forgotten that he was bat-shit insane and in my opinion almost certainly a paedophile I haven’t. How they managed to do this is beyond me as they hounded the guy over both issues for years. But now we have all this hypocritical don’t speak ill of the dead bullshit were we are expected gloss over him being a nutter and not-guilty in the same way as OJ was and remember him when he was still a talented black pop-star. Why should we? Does him being dead make him any less of a horrible car accident of a person? Should we forgive him his oddities and perversions because he could knock out a decent tune? No and No. I will have none of it. As far as I am concerned one of the gods of the vapid cult of celebrity has kicked the bucket and the world is now short one alleged child molester. So I won’t be rushing out to buy any Michael Jackson CD’s, now I’m not at work I won’t have to listen too anymore of is music at an unproductive volume level and I won’t be watching any of the vast number of sycophantic TV programmes that will clog up the airways for the next week.

And yes I probably am a horrible, horrible person lacking anything even resembling empathy for another human being. I do try so thanks for noticing.

Today was the day when (seemingly accidentally) Amazon UK put up numerous MP3 albums up for sale for 29 pence. Rumour has it that Amazon intended to make each track in the albums to be valued at 29p but made a cock up and set the album to that price. UK bargain hunters at hotukdeals.com where directed to the ‘deal’ by Master deal sniffer HedgyHoggy who initially spotted that Lilly Allen’s album was at the bargain price of 29p. The game was afoot! Soon numerous other albums at 29p were uncovered including the likes of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin. People started buying the cheap albums left right and centre. Though I myself stopped at 6 albums many others went on and on until their credit Cards were stopped because of suspicious activity. Some downloading 13, 16 and even 44 albums before the prices returned to normal.

Sadly someone at Amazon UK as almost probably got the sack out of this and Amazon have lost £10,000s. Well the 2nd part isn’t so sad.

Lee as Count Dooku

Christopher Lee has been Knighted by the Queen during her Birthday Honours list. Lee who is one the world’s most proflic actors even at the grand old age of 87. He was unable to comment on his honour because he was busy filming. Lee has played some of the most famous bad guys in cinema history starting with what must be considered the best Dracula. More recently of course he was Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels and Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings films. He even managed to get himself cast as a Bond villian.

Without doubt the ultimate bad guy of cinema.