Are you sitting comfortably?

As a member of Kyuss and, more recently and famously, Queens Of The Stone Age, Josh Homme is used to having an audience nodding back at him. Now it's been confirmed that he'll be trying to get his audience to nod off, with the news that he's joining the likes of Sir Patrick Stewart, Simon Pegg, Tom Hardy, Sally Phillips and Stephen Graham as someone who's read the CBeebies bedtime story.

It's hard to believe that the ringleader of the band that released Rated R (and 'Feel Good Hit Of The Summer' in particular) and for many years included Nick Oliveri in their ranks - a man booted out of punk outfit Dwarves (who released such gems as Blood, Guts & Pussy and Thank God For Little Girls) for being too nuts - has been invited to address the nation's pre-schoolers.

On the subject of QOTSA, I've been distinctly underwhelmed by what I've heard of new LP Villains. Its predecessor ... Like Clockwork left me completely cold too - but, given their back catalogue (Songs For The Deaf, in particular) and a magnificent Other Stage-headlining set at Glastonbury in 2011, I feel like I owe it to them to give it a try.