Blogwatch

No doubting the two major televisual events of the past week: the Eurovision Song Contest and the beginning of 'Big Brother 4'. Judging by the efforts of others, celebrating the former by watching with a load of friends, playing related drinking games and wearing a Viking helmet - as I did - is utterly and pathetically inadequate. Mike once again proves himself Daddy Of All He Surveys not only by attending the event itself in Riga, but also by writing a thoroughly enjoyable and personal blog guide to the happiness / cameraderie / dangerously unhealthy obsession that Eurovision seems to inspire. In terms of effort, then, Turkey to my Jemini.

I also fear I may once again be becoming susceptible to the wiles of 'Big Brother' - it's more 'I-hate-myself-for-watching-this' TV, the sort that causes genuine self-esteem issues, and yet... My excuse? Well, today's is that the club football season properly comes to a close tonight with the European Cup Final, and, hey, I need some kind of structure to get me through life - structure that can be provided by televisual ritual in the absence of football. Tomorrow, of course, the excuse will be different - probably something about needing approximately half an hour of mental sedation every day to get me through life, doctor's orders. Anyway, Dead Kenny has posted a brief guide to the housemates based on first impressions. The thoughts of Ian Penman? "There's maybe sometimes a LITTLE more to a fully lived life than designer fucking T-shirts you bunch of empty headed shiny happy twats you..."

Much of interest written on music and film over the past few days: opinions of the new Spiritualised album Amazing Grace on Fighting Against Making The Pie Higher; of an assortment of new albums on Parallax View (thumbs up for Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Zwan, thumbs down / in ears for Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks); of The Dandy Warhols on Close Your Eyes (Alex is hearing the ghosts of Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker); of Broadcast live in Glasgow on Alex McChesney Dot Com; of 'The Matrix Reloaded' on Fluxblog (not, it's safe to say, Matt's favourite movie); and of 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' on Second Order Approximation.

And amidst all these opinions, The Yes / No Interlude asks: what makes one album or song "better" than another? It's a pertinent question: review ratings naturally lead to comparisons between records, and the whole notion of lists with which NME seems consumed is predicated upon the belief that these aesthetic artefacts can be ranked in order of "greatness". How can such judgements be made? I don't know. Rest assured I'll keep on making 'em, though.

And finally... a propos of nothing in particular, Olav has had a vision of a cult magazine about extreme weather called The Front. I can spot a potential teething problem for this fledgling project - the publishers of Front magazine might have a word or two to say about the title.