Good lord, man, to paraphrase <Scotty from Star Trek>:

"You're a writer, not a sanitary napkin!"

I saw the entire <Father Ted> series and I regard it to be a masterpiece.

Here's my foray into writing ad copy:

I've done standup as well, and will again. I think you're correct about the half hour format--I meant that it's easier to make that format funny precisely because you get a unitary ongoing premise to work within, and more time to craft something worth viewing. I've gotten more laughs in my "entertainment" career/hobby with set pieces I read from the stage (in the vein of <Spalding Grey> (RIP) than I have with my stand up pieces.

Re <Bob>:

<The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory> is such a brilliant construction that I think it can stand by itself-- It doesn't need the song to back it up, though I'm sure the song is great. Can I find these songs on <Limewire>? I'm going to have a look. Do you know a site that offers the actual music if I can't find them?

I'll have to run it through the engines first, of course.> So I gather you're at a crucial crossroads now with your narrative (anyway, don't give away more words in advance!).

<During the rational, optimistic periods you plan out elaborate sentences and delicately slot them into place -- a bit like playing correspondence chess. You don't mind having to write 'if' on Monday and 'the' on Tuesday, because you know there's plenty of time...

Then come the darker periods. Bending the rules with huge compound verb-nouns, fantastic polysemes struggling to contain themselves. "Let's make meaning!" you cry as you crack up, poluphloisboiotatotically.

Then the really dark period. The Work continues, but you write '@#$%' 245 times in succession before you pull out of the trough...> I hope those darker periods would come soon, they sound more interesting...

In the 1980s, when I lived mostly in Dublin - well, I suppose you could *call* it living - there were two magazines, In Dublin and Hot Press (London equivalents, loosely: Time Out and NME). One year each of them had an Xmas competition. I won both (as a student, and not having written for either of them yet).

The InDub comp was based on our old chum, alphabetical wordplay. They wanted a 52-word mini-story with a seasonal theme, words starting with A, B, C... up to Z, back down to A. My entry began "'Ah, begorrah, Christmas doesn't even fool God', he intoned, Jesus-kissing..." and included ..."Wilberforce vaulted up the stairs" ... and ended "Christ. Booze. Alcohol." Ho hum. I think they gave me a tenner. They had another comp as well, for a four-line poem, and that might've won another fiver. They paid, anyhow. I was a pro.

The Hot Press comp wanted alternate titles for the Derek and Clive album that apeeared in a sick bag. I gave them 13 suggestions... including In Vino Vomitas, Lure of the Liquid Laugh, Music From Big Spit, Two Dry Retches, Heave 2, You Vomit and I'll Sing It... and I never got my prize. The bleeders blamed a postal strike, or summat.

This implanted a tiny bias in my mind between the two zines, which meant that five years later I became film critic for In Dublin. Hot Press had to make do with Graham Linehan. So we spent a few years on the film circuit, nipping back and forth to London to ask Mel Gibson silly questions. We both interviewed Cleese once, but Graham must have been paying more attention.

A snippet from this era. When the 2nd Naked Gun movie came out in 1991, the film company flew in the producer, director, various stars like Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, et al, et al's wife and kids. One of the few press conferences I've seen with more people on the celeb end of the microphones. They brought in everyone, in fact, *except* OJ Simpson -- reasoning that, as a star of some unknown American sport, he'd mean nothing to the folks in Yurp. Which was true, at the time.

I can't even say, btw, that my initial impression re which of the two zines was a better bet cash-wise was accurate. HP is still surviving, still run by its founder, still doling out pittances to young folk wanting a leg up (and over) in the media world. InDub, by contrast, went serially bankrupt every year or two, owing me a few thousand quid each time. Then the new owner would lure me back, without paying. Eventually I got seduced away by Rupert, guessing that NewsInt probably won't go bust over the amount it takes to feed a critic and his habits. It's much less fun, though.

30 seconds for a song? I'm used to 20 minute Biosphere epics! :-)

Reminds me slightly though of They Might Be Giants (early stuff).

'Godhead' by Nitzer Ebb still rates quite highly in the lyric content for me.

Ahem, sorry <Dom>. This is your pad and I'll play by your rules. It's all relevant, though: just to make matters even more confusing, the person who first introduced me to GBV was... that's right, Graham Linehan.

Your wicked web of coincidence is really quite startling. 'You Vomit & I'll Sing It' is a must-use title is ever I saw one. I was going to ask you about Mssrs. Derek & Clive actually, seeing how you're au fait with the finer parts of British comedy. Never lend any of the albums to an American is a lesson I've learnt, unless you want to them suddenly lose all respect for you and cut off all contact. Which I suppose you might want to do with Americans.

Pynchon seems to be actually, well, crap at titles. He wanted to call Gravity's Rainbow 'Mindless Pleasures'.

Scott Walker partly dispensed with song titles on Climate of Hunter, using 'track 3' and 'track 7' etc instead. Odd.

Some people think that William Burroughs invented the term 'heavy metal'. In fact it was used much earlier by Nimzowitsch.

John Cale sometimes uses titles from movies -- Cable Hogue, Things (to do in Denver when you're Dead) -- for songs that have no other connection with the movie.

Mark Leyner (My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist; I Smell Esther Williams) gives good title.

As does Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica, Ice Cream for Crow, Doc at the Radar Station, Bat Chain Puller.

Long titles? Musical ones include 'Ten Man Mop, or Mister Reservoir Butler Rides Again'.

Short titles? Most years from 1984 (Orwell), 1985 (Burgess) ... 1999 (Prince) ... 2001 (Kubrick) to ... 2010 (Clarke) have been used. Some gaps, though.

Christine Brooke-Rose (Out; Such; Between; Thru) deserves a mention. And another one for Xorandor, Amalgamemnon, and Verbivore.

Has every letter of the alphabet been used as a title? Warhol used 'a'; 'V' has been used at least twice, by Pynchon and the lizard guy. Berger used 'G', Perec 'W'. I'm sure X and Q and Z are gone, too. And K. Maybe not 'L'.

'slick idiot' I always thought was a good band name. Narcoleptic Goldfish would be my idea of a good pub band name.

The long track name I have come across is Type O Negatives :- The Glorious Liberation Of The People's Technocratic Republic Of Vinnland By The Combined Forces Of The United Territories Of Europa

Its track 12 on October Rust.

Unusual track names that are hard to speak...probably anything from Autechre. Windowlicker is an unusual name and an unusual video by Richard D James (aka Aphex Twin).

Bands that should have spaces in their names :

lovesliescrushing
(a gothic chillout band on the projekt label)