Blogwatch: hate (and a little bit of love) is all you need

Hard to decide just who's this week's Figure Of Hate in Blogworld. Is it Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, whose embarrassingly awful rap poem commemorating Prince William's 21st birthday has attracted all manner of criticism and mockery from the likes of Popjustice, No Rock 'N' Roll Fun and Wherever You Are.

Or maybe he's just this week's Figure Of Fun. I'd be more inclined to back Invisible Stranger up with his intimation that the true Figure Of Hate is either Harry fucking Potter - or J fucking K fucking Rowling, if you'd prefer. "What I will NOT be doing, and especially today, the Stranger writes, "is reading even one insipid, uninspiring, fifth-rate, derivative, manipulative, over-hyped, word-processed and manufactured sentence by That Woman. Hogwarts? Hogwash, more like." Hurrah!

Elsewhere you can find: Vaughan's considered views on managing and expressing anger; Simon's tragic tales of disasters befalling record collections - fire, theft but sadly no inadvertently amusing reference to (third) parties; and Kevin's gripe about bands who claim the impossible ie that they sound like My Bloody Valentine.

Amidst all the negative emotion, though, you can always rely on Anna to buck the trend and spread the love with her heartwarming Aged And Ace series, encompassing tales of cheeky old men and Eminem-loving grannies. And not a reference to Werther's Originals in sight.

Thanks to Nigel for - via a fascinating post about the continuing importance of place in music - finally encouraging me to read Simon Reynolds's Blissblog. Simon's thoughts on the subject can be read here.

And finally ... What song(s) do you want played at your funeral? That's the question being asked by Birdman. My suggestion: 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' by Wham!.