Three Fat Ladies, All The Eights

If you live in the east, eight being a good number, today is particularly auspicious and it's no surprise that 8.8.8 has been chosen to kick off the Beijing Olympics.

As a musician I like the date a lot. It's everything from a barnyard stomp to a verse/bridge/chorus and it suits me fine. It's one-two-three-four double stable, a good place to put two teams of horses before they bolt. It's a nice, fat number - eight also phonically sounding "ate" and looking like a "fat lady" as the bingo caller so accurately says.

As for the sports, they can take a running jump. I'm mindful of the 1,000 Tibetan monks locked up for the duration, of the Falun Gong followers buried minus harvested body parts, of the brutality of the state in all its forms.

My own Olympics, the Chav Olympics, to be held in four years in London's east end, should we ever get there, will be known as the Drug Olympics, with athletes sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, sporting shamelessly remodelled bodies and competing beyond human limitation. Included (and I've said this before but it's worth repeating) will be Olympic Darts, Olympic Poker, Olympic Penny-Up-The-Wall. The 100 metre sprint will feature professional strippers who begin decked out in sporting fashion paraphernalia and end sweaty and naked; and the triathlon will be Coughing, Spitting and Swearing.

Now I'm going to lie down for a month.

Minipods Of Funk On DeepBlue FM

During August I am producing a daily (Monday to Friday) lunchtime feature on DeepBlue FM, a holiday season Bournemouth-based radio station. Martyn (The Hat) asked me very nicely, so how could I refuse? It means that instead of sixty or so minutes of podcasting once a month, in August I am producing more than double that in daily bite-sized minipod chunks. If you haven't subscribed, this is a good time to do so.



To celebrate Olympic month, I'm also running a competition on behalf of the Free Tibet Campaign. You could win a night out at a Chinese Restaurant! So mosey on over to Funkpod.co.uk and check that out. Did you notice the comments made by the architect of the Olympic stadium? That's what I'm talking about.

Exercise Your Rights

I've just published Pod of Funk number thirty five which contains a competition, and also the promise of twenty podcasts throughout August. The music is the usual groovulous mixture, and the competition focuses on China's human rights record, which extends of course to Darfur, let us not forget, which China supplies with (banned) military aid as they massacre their own people.



Enjoy the tunes - enter the competition - listen to the radio - buy the t-shirt!