It’s good when C-list celebrities share their political views isn’t it? Like the time Lee Ryan Out Of Blue told America to stop harping on about 9/11 because an elephant had just died somewhere. Or words to that effect.

What’s even better than C-list celebrities sharing their political opinions is Z-list celebrities espousing their theological beliefs.

Recently it was the turn of Speech Debelle to emit some spiritual pellets of wisdom.

If you’ve never heard of Speech Debelle, don’t worry. Her album may have failed to chart previously, but the most important thing now is that you pretend you knew about her ages ago because she’s just won this year’s Mercury prize.

In a pre-Mercury interview, she spectacularly revealed that the Second Coming may already have been and gone, in the form of Michael Jackson. Now, it would be easy for us to make jokes about how he certainly ‘touched’ children, but that would be highly clichéd, not to mention a little insensitive. So we’ll leave it to her:

“Jesus went around preaching the gospel and touching people to make the blind see and making lepers better. Michael Jackson’s gone around the world and done that … apparently, I don’t know if this is true, there were kids around him who had cancer that didn’t have cancer any more.”

It’s a good point.

We’re not sure if the children in question had undergone intensive medical treatment or extensive chemotherapy at any point, but that’s irrelevant. Medical research has shown that if you simply place a pop star in front of a sick child, the cancer will just run on out of them. Especially if the pop star in question has got a funny-looking nose. Fact.

If you’re hoping for a miracle cure from MJ though, you’ll be sorely disappointed. In case you missed it, he’s dead. Which is another way in which Jesus and Jacko are basically the same – they’re both dead.

Apparently Barry Manilow is still available for medical emergencies however, but he’s only really good at curing colds and sniffles, not so much with the cancer. And even then, all he does is give you a few Handy Andies and make you a Lemsip.

But, back to ways in which MJ and Jesus are almost definitely one and the same.

It’s a historical fact that Jesus came back to life as a rabbit on Easter Sunday and since then Christians have celebrated by eating chocolate. So, it looks like Michael’s going to have to do some serious resurrecting, and fast, if we’re to believe he really was the Messiah incarnate.

Well the good news is, he already has. Irrefutable film evidence exists which clearly shows Jacko’s ghost having a stroll around his house. Either that or some shadows. You can judge for yourself with this YouTube vid.

Damning stuff, you’re sure to agree.

This was a guest post by Leah Kayles from Smell My Cheese, which is actually quite wonderful.

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The nominations for this year’s Mercury Music Prize are out, and it looks like it’ll be a bumper year.

Among the Mercury Prize nominees are: A girl who looks a bit like Lily Allen! A ginger girl who barely sells any records! Some people who really want to be Oasis! Another ginger girl who looks like she’s about four years old! Some miserable Scottish people! A genuine hecklerspray reader who we really want to win! And a bunch of other clowns that nobody has heard of!

No doubt you’ll be hearing more from us on the Mercury Prize soon, but until then you could do a lot worse than to watch our pal Eleanor Conway interview the nominees in this spiffy little video…

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.

Hooray! The Mercury Prize is waking from its sleepy hibernation to once again throw up a selection of albums to confuse everyone with.

Typically, there are a few nominees that everyone thinks will win because they’re popular and, of course, there are the albums that no-one has ever heard of before.

But this also means you can boost your own street cred and boast to people “Yeah, I had that album wayyyyyyy before it was swallowed up by the mass music-buying masses.”

Unlike other award ceremonies, you don’t just get a badly moulded statue when you win the Mercury Prize, you also get a £20,000 cheque. What makes it even better is that you don’t have to grit your teeth and donate it to charity. If you’re lucky enough to win, you can spend it on anything you want! From prostitutes to 14,503 Mr Kipling cakes, you get to decide. However, whilst £20,000 may be ace short-term, we have to remind you of the curse that is attached to winning one of the more respected awards in music land.

Previous winners Suede and M People have both split up and faded in to oblivion, Ms Dynamite jacked in music to concentrate on smacking police officers and pretending to be a Formula 1 driver. Portishead took a decade-long break and Talvin Singh/Antony And The Johnsons haven’t done much either.

Last year’s winners Klaxons have dropped off the radar too. Maybe they’re still raving away or are simply reinventing themselves as nu classical to get away from the horrible nu rave image they were tagged with. It’s only been Arctic Monkeys who have continued to be a success after winning.

The ceremony isn’t happening until September, so you’ve still got a chance to run out and buy all the albums to see what they are like. Closer to the time, we may give you some betting odds to help stuff your wallet full of cash. But if Dancing On Ice In The Jungle comes back on our screens, we may just concentrate on that instead. Here’s the list of nominees for the 2008 Mercury Prize:

Adele – 19 – If you don’t live in London, it’s impossible to decode what she’s saying.

British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? – Why yes we do.

Burial – Untrue – Burial should win this, but he probably won’t because he doesn’t whore himself out to NME every week.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid – Giving them an award may actually make them smile.

Estelle – Shine – She got her nomination due to her brilliant wonky dancing.

Laura Marling – Alas I Cannot Swim – Whilst most people would cry for eternity because they can’t swim, she’s gone and done an entire concept album on this personal problem.

Neon Neon – Stainless Style – Belinda Belinda Belinda from Big Brother 9 gave them their band name. Fact.

Portico Quartet – Knee-Deep In The North Sea – This year’s band who no-one seems to know anything about.

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns – Radio 2 friendly band to keep the old folk happy.

Radiohead – In Rainbows – From the band that broke the music industry, the Mercury panel are only getting their hopes up to crush them.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand – It’s him from Led Zeppelin!

The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age Of The Understatement – Alex Turner is officially a girl now. As Chris De Burgh didn’t say, he’s “three times a lady.” It’s his third nomination in a row, so watch out for the transformation.