And one of those things is Robert Smith's hair:

UPDATE: There used to be a picture of Robert Smith here, but some muppet linked to it from their signature on some The Rasmus forum, thereby thrashing my bandwidth to within an inch of its life. Small photo, but way too many downloads. So until Muppetfeatures gets bored and finds a new sig, I am removing the rather spiffy picture from circulation.

At some point in the early 90s, iirc, people stopped saying things like "Robert Smith from The Cure" and started to just call people by their band name. Yet whilst it feels perfectly normal to say "Richy Manic" or "Neil Divine Comedy" it doesn't feel quite right to say Robert Cure. It's still Robert Smith. And his hair is still wonderful.

The new single, The End Of The World, is a real grower and marks, insofaras I am concerned, a welcome return to form from The Cure. Can't wait to hear the album.

You remember James T Kirk… er, I mean, William Shatner's last foray into musical endeavour? His stunning - and that's 'stunning' in the same way that a sharp blow to the head is stunning - rendition of The Beatles' Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds? Think that's the depths of JT Hooker… er, I mean, Shatner's depravity?

Think again.

Shatner has teamed up with Ben Folds, of Ben Folds Five, to record a slew of new tracks. According to XFM, the new album, ‘Has Been', will be released on the Shout! Factory label this September.

Earlier today I heard Shatner's cover of Pulp's Common People, and I can assure you, it will blow... you... a... way..., featuring as it does Shatner's thespy spoken-word vocals and Joe Jackson, (yes, that Joe Jackson), doing the wail-y impaled art student bits.

You really, really do need to listen to this. You absolutely must. I have scoured the web for a link to a full length version, but all I can find is this (fairly substantial) snippet. (Quicktime. Other formats available.)

You'll get the gist.

I must beg you, though - if anyone gets hold of the full length version, please, for the love of all that's right in this world, send it to me.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who emailed me about this. You can now here this abomination, er, I mean, stroke of genius on the NME site.

UPDATE 2: Thank you to everyone who has, over the last nearly two years, sent me a copy of this song. It's very kind of you. To new visitors - fret not, I now have this song in my collection.

Finally, my article for The Guardian sees the light of day! W00t!! Thanks to everyone who helped me out with it, particularly Jaime, whom I owe a really big drink next time I am in London.

Right, better go out and buy up all the copies from the local newsagent then!

UPDATE: My feature is now #2 on Technorati's Current Events page, and has 20 links from 20 sources in the conversation cosmos. (Stats correct at time of going to press. Rankings may go up as well as down, depending on the popularity of the Krispy Kreme story.)