Blink 182′s (pronounced ‘blink one hundred and eighty-two, or, if you prefer ‘oh god, it’s that dreadful puke mongers again!’) Travis Barker has decided to let the world know that he’s considering undergoing hypnotherapy to overcome his fear of flying.

Why does he have a fear of flying? Is it because he thinks that, if God intended man to fly, he would have given us wings or at the very least, put grass in the clouds?

Nope. It’s because a plane crash nearly killed him in 2008. You have to assume that the plane has heard Blink 182′s terrible take on punk rock and decided that enough was enough, aiming to either kill Barker or, at the least, maim him.

Now, Barker is brilliantly hindered, professionally speaking.

Talking at a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, he said:

”Unfortunately I can’t do as much touring as I would like because I don’t fly. It’s an obstacle. I’m working on it though. I’m trying to get hypnotised, trying to talk to a doctor who retrains your brain. Maybe he’ll help me fly again one day”

Sadly, you can’t retrain something that isn’t really there. It’s very much like trying to train gravel. However, all is not lost.

“I run every day now. I never ran before. In the hospital, I promised myself that if I ever walked again, that I would eat well and swim every day.”

“I’ve been vegan since I got out of the hospital… and before the plane crash, I was battling a painkiller addiction. For years.

“I can proudly say I didn’t even take any pain medication after I got out of the hospital. They told me I’d be on some of the medicine for the rest of my life, but I got off all of them. They made me a completely different person.”

You know what this all sounds like? It sounds like someone has the perfect sob story for a reality TV show. Maybe Travis should do the right thing and fulfil his musical promise and enter X Factor USA 2012?

With that aspirationally bleak back-story, he’s guaranteed a fourth place finish at least!

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Summer just isn’t summer without a few establishing factors. Good weather. The inevitable Katie Price autobiography/perfume.

People drinking cider with no apparent shame. Beloved icons of our childhoods dying in tawdry and depressing ways (although that’s been autumn, winter and spring too).

But everyone knows summer can’t really start until two black holes of musical ability release a stompy, braying, call-and-response cover of a song that wasn’t very good in the first place.

Well, spritz yourself with Katie Price’s Stunning and start scrumping for apples, because Jedward are HERE TO SAVE SUMMER with their cover of Blink-182‘s All the Small Things!

We told you. We told you. We told you that John Edward Grimes and his brother, Edward John Grimes, were geniuses the moment they and their hair appeared on X Factor. You laughed. You mocked us. You made disparaging remarks about the size of our genitalia. Sometimes, and this is what hurt the most, you said nothing at all.

But that’s all in the past because we were RIGHT: John and Edward are brilliant. Not only have they just completed a 27-date sell-out tour of Ireland, they’re also releasing a debut single, redefining the word ‘debut’.

In the bad old days of pre-Jedward entertainment terminology, ‘debut single’ meant ‘first single’. But now and forevermore, ‘debut single’ will mean ‘second single; the one released after that one we did with Vanilla Ice, even though he comes across as a creepy blind paedophile now’.

THAT’S HOW BRILLIANT JOHN AND EDWARD ARE.

Even the press are now deferring to Jedward’s might with questions that could otherwise be answered with a quick Google or a trip down memory lane:

“Jedward have confirmed that their new single ‘All The Small Things’ is a cover of the Blink-182 hit.”

Imagine the carnage and confusion that might have ensued had Jedward not cleared that up. You mark our words, it won’t be long before they are brought in to consult on the economy.

Anyway, back to the single. Edward out of John and Edward announced its release on Twitter:

“In the studio and #allthesmallthings is such a rock pop song! we were recording and we were rocking out and john punched me in the face”

Rocking out! Punched in the face! See? Genius!

For those of you who don’t actually remember All The Small Things when it was released in 2000 because you weren’t born, or because you have ears, here’s some exclusive footage publicly available on YouTube of Jedward performing the song live in Galway:

Wow. That’s quite powerful stuff right there. “When I go ‘na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na’ you go ‘na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na’, okay? Okay, ‘na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na’….”

All The Small Things comes out on 19th July. We can’t wait.

God, why do you hate us so?

If we made a human body out of all the music ever written, then Beethoven, Mozart and that lot would be the brain. The strong right arm would be made out of bits of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. The speedy legs would be stitched together from pieces of Napalm Death, Slayer and Crazy Frog.

We’d probably use U2 and Coldplay for the testicles.

And Blink-182? We’re seeing them as the long, black hair sticking out of that suspicious mole on our back, that keeps annoying us by getting snagged when we put our shirt on.

You remember Blink-182, right? They’re that band from a few years ago with the genuine, in yer face punk mentality three tits with tats.

On the scale of punk attitude – a scientific measure, which goes from the Sex Pistols and Ramones, through Green Day and right out to Ronan Keating – Blink-182  come in just below “Ambient Chillout Volume 14: Kittens Purring As They Are Stroked By A Little Girl“.

Back in 2005, anyone not being ravaged by the hormonal storm of adolescence was overjoyed by the news that Blink-182 had split up. There were street parties, free cake for all, and an international Day of Celebration was announced.

The last four years have been a beautiful time for music lovers, living free from the threat of sub-bubblegum-punk-pop-wank-rock with videos showing the craaazy Blink boys running naked through a city full of actors looking surprised. Though their naughty bits were blurred out: they may be wild punk anarcho-rockers but, y’know, their mums were going to see that.

Well, all good things must end. And apparently, shit things never do, they just keep going on and on despite literally the entire world begging them to stop. On Friday night, Blink-182 played live, and loved it so much they’ve decided to go on tour. With Weezer and Fall Out Boy as support.

We cannot conceive of a less appealing combination. If forced to choose, we would rather go see a show called ‘Yoko Ono Sings Ancient Polynesian Folksongs Accompanied By One Thousand Dental Drills And A Small Dog Being Kicked Around The Stage’.

Mark Hoppus, one of the hateful people responsible for making Blink-182′s music, released a heartfelt message of gratitude:

“Thanks to everyone who was there. Thanks to T-Mobile. And most of all, thanks to Travis and Tom.”

So there you go, Blink-182 fans. In the band’s mental listing of people who matter it’s THEM first obviously, then their corporate sponsors, then probably their sponsors’ employees, the employee’s families, the employees’ cats, a fella called Bob or Bill or Marcus they met once in a healthfood store he seemed like he’d be fun to have a drink with, then you lot.

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Did you know that Shanna Moakler and Travis Barker had got back together? No? Do you know who Shanna Moakler is? No?

Well shame on you. This is big news. How big? Former drummer of annoying pop-punk band splitting up with the wife he’d already divorced once a year ago big. That’s as big as it gets. Probably.

Anyway, Shanna Moakler has split up with Travis Barker for possibly the billionth time. Usually at this point we’d say it was the kids who we felt most sorry for, but it’s not. It’s us who we feel most sorry for. Us.

Travis Barker, it’s fair to say, has had a rubbish time of it lately. No, we’re not talking about last September’s plane crash that killed four of his friends and left him with severe near-fatal burns. We’re talking about the fact that he’s decided to reform Blink-182 which, by any quantifiable definition, is obviously far worse.

Oh, and also there’s the fact that Travis Barker seems to have swapped love lives with a spotty, timid 15-year-old boy. You may remember, if you enjoy watching bad things about idiots, that Travis Barker was once the star of an MTV reality show with his then-wife Shanna Moakler. If you didn’t see it, relax – it was woeful. However, the show came to an abrupt end a few years ago when Shanna Moakler and Travis Barker split up.

If you missed Shanna Moakler and Travis Barker splitting up, relax – they got back together again about 30 seconds afterwards. Missed that? Relax – they split up again about 30 seconds after that. And that was final – Travis and Shanna got divorced and everything. After everything they had been through, Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler had reached total closure.

Except they obviously hadn’t, because about 30 seconds after Travis Barker’s plane crash, Shanna Moakler started running around telling everyone that they’d got back together – something that Travis Barker denied about 30 seconds after that in a blog.

Since then, it appears that Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler had got back together – something that we missed due to a combination of laziness and an impulse to beat ourselves unconscious any time we think that somebody’s going to start talking about either of them. But it’s OK that we missed it because guess what? Yep – Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler have split up again. And this time, it’s Shanna who’s been blogging about it:

“I came across numerous romantic emails with MANY other women, some famous, some I personally knew, all heart breaking. You know who you are and you should be ashamed of yourself… A woman can only turn her cheek so many times… I am a human being and the bashing has taken its toll.”

So that’s definitely that. Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler have definitely split up for good, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing at all. They’re finished. Finito. It’s over. Do you understand? It’s the end. The definitive end of Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler’s relationship forever.

See you in 30 seconds, then.

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You might think that creating a TV programme off the back of a song by a guitar-based pop group was a bad idea, and you’d be right, mostly.

All the Small Things won us over quite early on with a choral rendition of Bond theme Nobody Does It Better. It is a shame that the rest of ATST didn’t quite live up to the high bar they’d set themselves.

If we’re honest, we’re getting bored just dragging the show to the forefront of our minds, so we’ll keep this brief.

It revolves around the plight of a choir who are led by Neil Pearson of Drop the Dead Donkey and Bridget Jones. He is in a seemingly blissful marriage with Sarah Lancashire who used to be in Coronation Street, much happier times. But what do we know about contentment and happiness, TV fans? You got it in one, it never lasts.

Sarah Alexander is responsible for smashing the status quo in this series. If you’ve never heard of her, she’s the one who looks strangely like an alien yet still very attractive and used to be in Smack the Pony, Coupling and Green Wing.

Richard Fleeshman is the son of Neil and Sarah’s characters; he likes Blink 182 a lot, excessively so. It is really very funny/alarming just how much his character worships Tom DeLonge until you realise that he has a mental illness, possibly autism, we’re not psychiatrists.

Richard is also from the Cornonation Street melting pot as the kid who suddenly turned into a fancy dress shop goth. He still looks like that, and throughout the programme he incessantly hums or sings that ominous Blink 182 song to the point where we want to pull each of his eyelashes out. That or ask him politely to stop, we’re easy.

It might be worth seeing how this family separation-cum-choirgeddon-cum-guitar drama develops, but we’re not holding out much hope.

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Remember Blink 182?

Despite only disbanding as recently as 2005 (apparently), this trio of punk-pop muppets were really big in the year 1999, which led many to believe that a global technogical meltdown at the turn of the century would have been preferable to hearing All The Small Things one more time. Alas, it wasn't to be, and album Enema Of The State (do you see what they did there? Do you?) went on to sell approximately sixty million billion trillion copies the world over.

You'd think, then, that the Blinksters would be a relatively chilled-out bunch these days, happy to kick back and watch the odd royalty cheque pop through the letterbox. Unfortunately, you'd be quite massively wrong – because the band's former drummer Travis Barker is mightily pissed off about something and he wants the whole wide world to know it. 

Barker's anger lies with energy drink Rockstar, who he claims wrongfully used his picture by publishing an image of him on their website "holding a can of one of Rockstar's beverages, and identifying him and his endorsement by name".

While Barker naturally seems like quite a bizarre, relatively low-key figure for a company to use as a figurehead – kind of like 'hey, I'm Crispin Mills from Kula Shaker, and I can't get enough of Findus Crispy Pancakes', or 'hi, I'm Brad Renfro and I just love Axa life insurance'* – a big old lawsuit is all set to go ahead.

Barker's lawyers are frothing that:

'… the company unjustly used his photo and image to endorse their product,
alleging invasion of privacy, unfair competition and misappropriating
his likeness to promote the product.'

Fair enough, but they also make the claim that Barker is "a prominent figure in the rock music world" - a statement that was either a) written eight years ago or b) pushed out there by the ballsiest legal attorney in the world.

Probably a bit similar to that Lionel Hutz character from The Simpsons, except with a love of rubbish Walmart 'punk' and a bright orange Californian skin-glow in place of that yellow Groening tinge.

Hecklerspray, on the other hand, would like it put on record that we would never endorse an energy drink such as Rockstar. Except to say that – should Blink 182 be announcing a comeback gig in your local area – you'd probably be able to run away faster if you downed five cans of the stuff.

Or possibly a bottle of delicious, delicious Lucozade (available from all good supermarkets, and some bad ones too) instead. 

Read More:

Blink 182 Man Files Suit Against Beverage Company – NME

* Too soon?