*Bob*

I'd like to see a Christopher/James final showdown - with Christopher triumphing. Call it an early Christmas present. From ITV - to me.

Some great points made here. It seems so unfair that roads and pedestrians are not forced to accommodate engine design and performance. Let's set the boffins to work to discover the speeds at which cars are best happy - and use that as a speed limit.

20mph is definitely the 'danger speed' for cars. As you approach 20, the g-forces combine dangerously with resonant frequencies in the engine block, which can all too often lead to a catastrophic explosion. Thank god we live in London, where - because of relatively small number of traffic lights and low levels of congestion, cars don't have to spend long taking their chances between 0 and 20.

Studies have show that the air inside car interiors tends to turn acrid and poisonous at speeds lower than 30mph. Worse still, as cars near 20mph, the sun begins to emit toxic rays which may melt our brain - and for every speeding ticket a motorist receives, a baby panda dies. You can't argue with the facts.

I can't wait to get in / I can't wait to get out Two sides of one boring coin.

It will be interesting to see whether the great british public - who if stopped in the street and the strings pulled in their backs blurt-out 'fat cats! tax avoidance! getting away with it!' - will do anything other than continue to buy their stuff from these so-called 'shamed' companies. I suspect that in the majority of cases, the chance of getting that thing on Amazon for ?1 cheaper then elsewhere will override any indignation.

Sue Wrote: > I have had dealings with liars - luckily in a > different context Tin hats on people - we're going back in for more.

I'm normally snoozing off at this point so last night was a real tonic. I see this as a positive thing.. The show is slowly evolving and distilling itself into its perfect form and essence. By 2017 we will have the show we all deserve: a dozen monkeys forced to dance on a lightly electrified grid, slinging handfuls of shit at each other. (Olly Murs still to guest, naturally).

It's like those poppies innit. Every every year, I see people wearing them. What's that all about then?

... and the rest

I'd rather not have any more though. I unashamedly take the NIMBY position that it would be far better to have more planes servicing London at another airport, ruining someone else's sleep, just out of earshot.

As far as I understand, CDA, the landing system currently favoured which has led to planes being lower further away from Heathrow - has been in operation for approaching a decade. I don't know how long the permitted early morning landing quota has been running - but years also. The point being.. If you only started noticing it a year ago, you just weren't tuned into it before then is all.

One wonders if the people who pooh-poohed and got all outraged when Ben Elton accused Hill's show of encouraging sexual crimes - are the very same people now saying 'the times' were no excuse for any behaviour of this sort.

Woodrot's point is a good one. In 1977, more than 20 million people tuned-in to watch the hilarious exploits of a 55 year-old man goggling and groping teenagers, sometimes receiving a slap for his unwanted attentions, sometimes getting lucky. 20m was nearly 3/4 of the adult population - though of course this was a family show, so.. If this sort of stuff was permissible on-screen, what would have been permissible, or turn-a-blind-eyable - off it? Half the 1970's is now closer to WW2 than it is to the current date - and yet for some reason anything after 1950 seems to be regarded in a modern, present-dayish sort of way.

Most broadcasters are cacking their pants over diminishing advertising revenues and desperate to bring back The Good Times. Beware any new 'innovation' backed by them, like the new 'youview' system.

Assuming the early morning landings have been running for considerably longer than this thread (which they have - many years longer) but you've only just started noticing them recently, the best advice is really to try to stop noticing them again, like you didn't before. Somehow. And hope they don't increase. Which of course, they surely will.

So has the 'inyerface halftime beat' essentially become the unwitting face of dubstep, or is it an essential item? I suppose I only think 'dubstep' when I hear THAT beat. Without that element, there doesn't seem to be anything to define the rest of it as anything in particular, other than a very varied collection of stuff, drawn from a load of different EM influences. Some of it is great, some of it not for me. But as soon as I hear THAT beat.. I think it's that bit which does my 'ead in.

Re 'muso'.. Well, back to the prog rock thing, I suppose. Not to say all prog rock is crap.. But at the shittier end of the prog rock stick, I suppose we're talking extreme, overly-complex, elaborate and attention-seeking songwriting and performance just for the sake of it, rather than for the sake of the music itself. In turn this attracts an audience who are more into the idea of it rather than the music itself. Hence dubstep (though I think I can say now we are talking about the shittier end of the dubstep stick) seems to be extreme, overly-complex, elaborate and attention-seeking production - for the sake of it, which attracts people people for the very same. Musos (musoes?!) are often attracted towards the extreme, so they can wear it like a badge of honour. In the case of prog, extremely boring. In the case of DS, extreme on the ear.

anapau.. listening to some of stuff from the names you mentioned (of the non-recent-mutation-type) there's a lot to like there, but a lot of it I wouldn't have recognised as what I thought was dubstep, apart from occasional tracks with the half-time beat element. I guess the mutators have a lot to answer for.

I don't think the notion of claiming to enjoy a particular band or type of music more than you really do is alien to anyone who's ever been a teenager, if they're honest! We've all made mistakes.. When I said 'prog rock', I wasn't being very clear. I wasn't talking about musical influence in any way - I meant in the types of listeners it attracts - and the reasons they have for listening to it. I think there's (cover your ears, Jeremy and DC!) a muso element to dubstep in the same way there was with prog. It was interesting (to me, anyway) that the festival dubstep audience was much more male-oriented than anywhere else. And for such high-octane sounds pumping out of the system, perversely, the actual energy of the crowd seemed really low. Do you think Skrillex et al will still feature on the holographic ipods of those 40-year-olds-of-the-future?

See also "classic' Eg "Paul got so drunk he left his iPhone in the pub!!!!!. Classic!!!!!!!!!!!" ! !!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!)

It's not so much the speed of it, or the sound of it, or whether it's good or bad (a pointless argument, as mentioned already). I find the sound interesting, from a technical point of view. It's like a giant demo-song of all the very latest virtual synths. I'm just not convinced people (not all, but a lot) actually enjoy it as much as they claim to enjoy it, or want to enjoy it. Recent festival excursion: pass tent playing dubstep which is well attended, but filled with people looking serious, shuffling from one foot to the other in mild confusion, lots of talking amongst themselves. Walk on. Personally I think it has more in common with prog rock than most other EDM types.

It's a scene from the new Richard Curtis film, "House Prices, Actually". A small crowd has gathered because Rowan Atkinson is due to arrive shortly to perform his hilarious trademark cameo.

The solution the (screech) CRIISSSIIIIISS in hand is quite simple. a) Try not to let any more badly researched news stories slip through the net b) Don't let suspected child abusers present Top Of The Pops. I think that covers it. The Savile thing is madness though. We've gone from 'there were rumours or something' to, seemingly, the entire BBC Trust having lined-up in Savile's dressing room to shouting encouragement. I am also massively irked by every Tom, Dick and Janet creeping out of the woodwork NOW to say "oh yes, it was known, we all knew, they all knew, everybody knew".

I definitely has a sound. Cop a few of these, Otta. http://www.beatport.com/genre/dubstep/18/?gclid=CM2r9vy3zrMCFefMtAoduCkAeQ