Music

Paul McCartney’s concert in Israel next week could be his last - and not because he’ll soil himself getting to the high note in Hey Jude and retire out of shame.

No, instead, the concert in Israel could be Paul McCartney’s last because a gang of Islamic extremists are running around telling everyone that they’re going to kill him if he follows through with his plan to play there.

However, Paul McCartney has shown admirable strength of character by refusing to bow to these religious fanatics. In fact, if anything this death threat has just strengthened Paul McCartney’s resolve - not only will he play the concert in Israel, but he’s even going to turn it into a live album, entitled Paul McCartney Live Behind Six Inches Of Reinforced Plexiglass Inside A Sealed Lead Box Surrounded By Several Bodyguards And At Least A Couple Of Tanks.

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Over the billions of years that mother Earth has been around, it would be unimaginable to think that the planet’s inhabitants regularly made each other daisy chains and held hands.

Cavemen and other badly dressed warriors have been caught up in thousands of blood curdling wars. Some so ferocious and terrifying that Ross Kemp’s gang programme makes him look soft compared to Roman Emperors and Greek Gods who ate babies for pudding.

When people saw sense, removed their spears from their rivals’ intestines and vowed never to fight again, the world became a better place. But then again, these ancient fighters never had to deal with celebrity folk flinging words at each other today. In the creaking era of Britpop, it was Blur vs Oasis, and today everyone is entitled to have a pop at Kerry Katona. Some people, however, feel that arguments with humans are pointless. Why bicker with someone who could counter your argument when you can do it with a technology that can’t respond? Metallica’s James Hetfield certainly thinks so.

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Fact: every conversation about Eurovision in recent years will have included the phrase “Oh, but it’s so political these days” at least 500 times.

That’s because it’s true. The Eurovision Song Contest has got so political these days. The proof? The UK hasn’t won Eurovision for over a decade, regardless of whether we’ve entered a rubbish holiday camp cabaret act or a hamfisted reality TV show runner-up. It’s a flipping disgrace.

But Eurovision won’t be political for much longer, because Eurovision bigwigs are bringing back national juries in a bid to end the tactical voting that’s destroyed the contest’s credibility in recent years. At last! Now when the UK comes last at next year’s Eurovision we’ll know for certain that it was because our entry was genuinely awful and not because everyone’s quite scared of Vladimir Putin.

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As evidenced by her nanosecond appearance at the MTV VMAs recently, Britney Spears is back to her best, and that can only mean one thing.

Yes, that’s right - Britney Spears has got a new album coming out soon. According to a just-released missive from her record label, Britney Spears’ new album is to be called Circus and will be released on December 2, with a new single entitled Womanizer coming out next week.

It’s exciting stuff, but why has Britney Spears chosen to call her new album Circus? Well it’s easy - Britney Spears wanted to name her album after the best description for the inside of her own head. Other contenders for the album title were Swirling Kaleidoscope Of Terrifying Cackles, The Theme-Tune To Taxi On An Unrelenting Loop and Barely-Pulsating Gloop.

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It’s sad to admit it – but we never really grew out of Lego.

Any excuse to go to Legoland and we are there. Although as only a few of us have kids, we usually have to kidnap them to get in. Of course, we are joking. None of us have kids.

Anyway, to satisfy our sad Lego urges thankfully there are people who have decided to create music videos purely from Lego. Of course, The White Stripes did it, but here are 11 others for your viewing pleasure…

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Well, just be glad you don’t come running to us for advice and guidance on the more trivial matters in life.

If you asked us the best way to meet a girl and maintain it in to a relationship, we may just say something inappropriate like “get her drunk first”. So it may be a good thing our decisions aren’t always right. Last night saw Elbow win the Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid.

While we put £10 on Burial to win, he failed to turn up to the event to perform. This probably didn’t do him any favours but who knows and who cares. But fair play to him really, he wants to remain anonymous and not deal with being stalked by NME journalists. At least the award didn’t go to the Last Shadow Puppets who already have a winning connection to the Arctic Monkeys. Looking slightly pissed on stage, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said “it was the best thing to have ever happened to us”. Aww, they are a cracking band who do deserve some fame. We even harped on about them needing a break in a recent gig review.

Now, that’s 2008 out of the way. Who will be up for the 2009 award? With upcoming releases from Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Keane and Snow Patrol, it could be a bland indie-filled ceremony next year. Though we’ll see if our recordings of smashed cups, sawed logs and imitations of badgers will pick up a nomination. Against frontmen who make twigs look fat and poor moonfaced posh boys, we should do OK. Well, in our minds anyway.

Everyone’s relied on Pot Noodles at one point or another in their lives, either for sustinence or because they really make dogs fart a lot and it’s funny to make dogs fart.

But do you like Pot Noodles enough to invite a musical based entirely on Pot Noodles to your town? What’s that? You do? It’s been your lifelong dream for as long as you can remember? Well this is your lucky day, then.

Pot Noodle: The Musical - which inexplicably does exist - has just finished a bewilderingly successful run at the Edinburgh festival, and now it’s time to take the show on the road. According to an email we just got, Pot Noodle: The Musical is planning 10-15 dates around the country, but it’s up to Pot Noodle fans to nominate exactly where.

If you’ve watched the above video and come to the conclusion that you want Pot Noodle: The Musical to come to your town, you need to get to the Pot Noodle contact page right now and start nominating. You don’t want to miss out - this is almost certainly the best musical based on self-contained dehydrated snacks since that oprea about Cup-A-Soups all those years ago.

Bam! Biff! Boosh! Kablam!

These are some of the sounds that all boxers experience when they are in the ring and go through the procedure of splattering someone’s brain across the ring. Or, if you’re Mike Tyson, an opponent’s ear. On Saturday Amir Khan went down in an impressive 54 seconds thanks to Breidis Prescott and lost his unbeaten record. While he had a sore head, the people who paid £14.99 for the match will have probably been a bit annoyed. They could have literally been on the crapper and missed it.

Now, Noel Gallagher from Oasis isn’t someone we’d think indulge in boxing. Maybe in the past, but not now he’s turned into a grandad of rock n roll. Famously blaming video games for messing up the minds of the nation’s youth, we think he’d be more inclined for a steaming mug of tea and a pair of furry slippers. Even a couple of rich tea biscuits may push him over the edge.

Something that literally did push him over was a crazed fan when Oasis played a recent gig in Toronto. Why the fan showed his love by knocking him over rather than tattooing Noel Gallagher’s initials into his own testicles is beyond us. Anyway, for some comedy falling over by the Oasis bloke, watch the clip below. He gets shoved over around the 1:30 mark.

Ooh, can you feel the nerves building yet? The Mercury Music Prize takes place tonight - the nation’s foremost music prize where the judges will pick a winner based on how cool it’ll make them look rather than actual quality of music.

Yesterday, we looked at the first half of nominees, including the wonky-dancing Estelle and the brilliantly bonkers British Sea Power. With another six albums to pick from, we’re glad that the job hasn’t been given to us to pick a winner. We’d just get in a flap and end up throwing a dart at the various records. That is how the Pope is picked isn’t it? Anyways, here are the rest of the nominations for this year’s prize…

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Britney Spears sealed her comeback at the MTV VMAs last night, opening the show by powering out a breathtakingly choreographed medley of her biggest hits.

Which is obviously a massive lie. Everyone knew that Britney Spears was opening the MTV VMAs last night - the press release, endless media coverage, MTV VMA promo spots and commemorative ‘Hey, Did Anyone Mention That Britney Spears Is Opening The MTV VMAs This Year?’ noddyheads made sure about that - but nobody knew how she’d do it.

And the answer was simple - by walking onstage, reading about three sentences mentioning that she was opening the MTV VMAs and then walking offstage again. And best of all, Britney Spears only messed up one word of it. Welcome back, Britney. You’re so much nicer when you’re robotically dull.

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