If you’re a football fan, please don’t worry. This isn’t a similar situation that England fans found themselves in when they discovered John Barnes was performing a rap with defunct band New Order. Chelsea fans might have sensed an awkward situation with their former Italian striker Gianfranco shunning sport completely and getting creative in the studio as opposed to the penalty area.

Also, before religious types get angry with us, Zola hasn’t decided that he’s a demigod and gone swanning around West London dressed in a flowing robe. Well… not that we know of.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as Zola Jesus isn’t a religious nut job, but simply the stage name of Nika Roza Danilova, a performer with Russian and American roots. She’s lumped in as a “singer/songwriter” but don’t let this bland and patronising tag fool you, this lady will hit you with an array of sounds ranging from classical and electronic to more intense and harsh noises such as industrial and experimental rock.

Zola Jesus is almost like a bag of pick ‘n mix, you don’t what you’re getting until it’s doing things to your mouth in a dark cinema.

Despite being twenty-one, Zola Jesus hasn’t been patiently waiting for opportunities to come her way, instead, she’s been the one creating music and is now on her third album. Released on Monday, her album “Conatus” demonstrates an artist with a wide ranging musical pallet. From power electronics to Kate Bush-esque caterwauling, combined with dark and menacing tones.

Let’s face it, comparisons are boring as it’s difficult to judge directly, instead we want you to listen to a “Seekir” by clicking here and getting yourself on Soundcloud.

Yes it’s electronic, but the production doesn’t emphasise the music over the vocals like bubblegum electro does. This style and vibe often depicts the female singer as someone acting as the mouthpiece for a faceless bedroom musician who needs a pretty lady to flog his stuff. Zola Jesus is the complete package, who writes and records all of her own material.

Zola Jesus has made waves with her output and is set to appear on French electronica star M83′s next record that’s set to be released in October. The future can only spell better things for this curious artist who’ll sooth your ears one moment before blasting them out with the droning sounds usually confined to nightmares.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov has been the President of the Republic of Kalmykia of the Russian Federation from 1993 until present day. He’s a multi-millionaire of his own making, a super-duper chess wiz, and possibly has more business savvy than all of Donald Trump‘s apprentices smooshed together into one. Also, once he was thought linked to a  horrific, politically motivated stabbing murder (as insinuated by Wikipedia), but that’s neither here nor there.

The news of the day is this – he claimed in a TV interview that one night in 1997 a semi-transparent tube showed up on his balcony. It was the device aliens used to get him on their ship – and he claims to have proof of it!

Politicians claiming UFO experience/knowledge seems to be a trend lately. Remember retiring State Representative to New Hampshire Henry W. McElroy, Jr? He went on abut how Eisenhower knew all about the ETs being here. Or that whole former US Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich – remember that one? He was hanging out with the Patridge Family mom when he suddenly saw a freaky UFO floating outside the balcony.

Well add another one to the list. Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov claims he had a balcony encounter too. In an (unprofessionally-translated) excerpt from a TV interview:

“Okay, well, it was a Saturday, I wanted to drive to Kalmüchien and was in my apartment in the Leontief quarter.” [The interviewer asks] “Here in Moskau?” Response: “Exactly. In the evening, I was reading, watched TV and then went to bed. I probably fell asleep and felt that the balcony door being opened and someone called me. I saw a half transparent tube, in which he came. I went through this tube and saw people in yellow spacesuits. I was asked often in which language we speak. Maybe telepathically, because not enough oxygen was there(?) They made me understand: “Just a small touch and everything will be fine.” And then they showed me around the spacecraft and they said, “We need samples from every planet.” Then I asked, “Why don´t you go on TV and say that you are here? Talk to us!” Then they said, that we were not ready for that.”

That sounds pretty far fetched, right? If you don’t think it sounds far fetched you are a weirdo.  Still – Ilyumzhinov claims proof of his temporary vanishing. In his own words from the same interview:

“I wouldn´t have believe this happened myself if I didn’t have 3 witnesses. My driver, the Minister and my assistant. They came in the morning and couldn’t find me. They found the balcony door open in the floor above. They saw that(?) and called (my)friends, but they knew nothing. Then they sat in the kitchen and discussed from where they should call, because the telephone and everything else was locked up in the apartment and they didn’t have there own key. Then they saw me coming into the kitchen from the bedroom. They looked at me and I said, “Make me an Omelet, we need to go to the Airport.” They asked, “Where were you?” And I said very normally, “I was in a flying saucer” They looked annoyed and asked, “No, seriously…” So I sat down and began to think about it logically. This experience/time – was about an hour long-they were in my apartment and I wasn’t there. One of them was in the hallway and it was not possible that I walked past him. I came out of the bedroom where the balcony door was open. They all were pretty shocked by all of this for a few months. It is so clear(to them) that I wasn’t there (in the apartment) and then suddenly was there.”

If we found ourselves in the exact same situation, we’d probably have asked for a bagel with cream cheese instead of an omelet. That’s the only difference. It’s kind of proof that we’d make excellent Russian politicians.

If you’d like to see our source material for this – it’s straight from Youtube. It’s spoken in Russian and the subtitles are German. Very inconvenient, we know. Somebody posted an English translation below it. You’ve got to click on something to make the translation appear, but you know, have at it.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

It’s called the Quacker. Right off the bat you know we’ll either be selling you Aflac, or trying desperately to convert you to Richard Nixon‘s pro-oatmeal religion.

We’ll not be doing either of those, actually. Instead – we’ll be talking about weird, repeating underwater sounds Cold War Russian submariners used to hear every time they’d pass certain spots. Some say it was the sounds of super technology secreted under water. Some say it’s the groanings of an unknown monster. Yet others believe it could have been aliens scooting around a deep sea base.

We think it was probably dolphin farts. But let’s take a look, shall we?

Remember the Bloop? It was that weird sound recorded by one of many microphones in the Arctic or something. Nobody knows what it was – but many agree that it didn’t emanate from any known animal. The Quacker is just like that. It wasn’t actually recorded (that we’ve seen), but it was heard by lot’s of submarine crewmen that Russia used to send into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Please notice the similar location (but totally different sounds) of the Bloop.

First let’s get the name out of the way. It’s not named after a duck’s call. It’s actually a reference to a frog noise. The Russians, apparently, think that frogs go ‘Quack’ instead of ‘Ribbit.’ The quacks would pass the submerged subs – or at least they sounded like they were passing by. Nothing ever showed up on radar.

It should be noted that the noises were heard in the same under water sectors. When the submarines left the vicinity – the noises ceased.

So what was it? There are three guesses, all summed up on Wikipedia:

“There never was much consensus about the nature and origin of these sounds, and the only hard fact about them is that they existed. Official reports of the commission remains classified to the present day, even if it was known that it never reached a conclusion. Several hypotheses were proposed, but none reached full acceptance, as they all failed to account for at least some of the phenomenon properties. The three main theories about the origin of this phenomenon propose some secret new technology developed by the US or NATO, an unknown marine animal or extraterrestrial activity.”

And exactly how did the things emitting the sounds act? Peculiarly, to say the least. According to theFullWiki.org:

These objects exhibited behavior not unlike some living being or manned vessel, showing obvious interest in the passing submarine, circling around it, trying to actively avoid sonar pulses, and so on. The speed of some of these objects (estimated from Doppler shift of their sound frequency) was in the range of 200 km/h, much higher than any then-known man-made vessel. Contact was attempted on several occasions, but, apart from some obvious reactions to these attempts such as changing the pitch of the sounds or movement of the apparent sound source), nothing came of it.

The peak of quacker observations occurred at the end of the 1970s, when the areas where the sounds appeared started to multiply and spread over from the Barents Sea to other areas including the North Sea and the North Atlantic in general. The Soviet Academy of Sciences was invited to create a joint commission with the representatives of the Navy, as this phenomenon was identified as a potential national security risk. This commission worked for about a decade, but despite extensive investigations results remained inconclusive, and it was eventually disbanded. In the 1980s the phenomenon slowly faded, and now quackers may have disappeared completely.

With the sound stopped – we’ll probably never know what it was. Until we maybe develop invisible submarines. You know – like Wonder Woman‘s jet. The sailors aren’t invisible. You can see them walking around – you just can’t see the hull. That way when another weird sound happens, all anybody would have to do is look up. Plus they’d all be wearing only blue-spangled underpants and magic bracelets.

Solving these types of things seems all to easy, doesn’t it?

We should be a government.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Back in the sixties the USSR did a pretty good job of shrouding their space program in secrecy. In fact – as we understand it they even made their cosmonauts mop their way up the flight ramp so the press would just think they were janitors. That’s very subversive.

Really though – they did keep it pretty well hidden. And when a bunch of orbiting, thick accented human beings died in at least 3 separate incidents the world at large didn’t even know about it.

Something seems kind of cool about your body floating through space forever. If you were alive there’d be a lot of panic at first – and hunger. But once you accepted your inevitable death all that endless nothing you’d see out of your windows might seem calming.

You know, some say a cosmonaut who’s feet last touched the ground in the sixties is still floating out there – way out there. This is how the Fortean Times puts it:

“There are those who believe that somewhere in the vast blackness of space, about nine billion miles from the Sun, the first human is about to cross the boundary of our Solar System into interstellar space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at –270 degrees C (–454ºF); his tiny capsule has been silently sailing away from the Earth at 18,000 mph (29,000km/h) for the last 45 years. He is the original lost cosmonaut, whose rocket went up and, instead of coming back down, just kept on going.”

That’s something, isn’t it? The phrase ‘into interstellar space’ really gets us. It’s hard to think of a human being so very far away from us. It’s also weird to think that he’s not alone up there in the big black. Allegedly.

Well that’s according to a couple of Italian brothers anyway. They made themselves a pretty powerful radio back in the day. They used it to intercept space transmissions from both sides of the Paific – even the secret ones.

This from The Straight Dope:

“Back to the Italian brothers. According to Reader’s Digest, Achille and Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia and their team of 15 space enthusiasts heard three signs of distress from Russian rocketeers. On November 28, 1960, a spacecraft supposedly radioed three times, in Morse code and in English, “SOS to the entire world.” A few days later the Russians admitted a failed launch on December 1 but said nothing about anyone on board. This was months before the flight of Yury Gagarin, who supposedly became the first human in orbit on April 12, 1961. In early February 1961 the brothers picked up the sound of a wildly beating heart and labored breathing–a dying cosmonaut? Finally, on May 17, 1961, two men and a woman were overheard saying, in Russian, “Conditions growing worse; why don’t you answer? . . . we are going slower . . . the world will never know about us.”"

‘SOS to the entire world’ could certainly be interpreted in many ways. What it probably meant though was ‘we won’t be picky about which country’s flag is painted on the side of a rescue ship.’

But rescue ships never came. Even today nobody would be able to launch in time to save them. That’s why we think if a country wants to have a space program they should be obligated by law to also have a really long pole with a hook at the end of it. If somebody gets stuck up there – we fish them out.

NASA – you should probably put that on your 2011 Op Plan. You too Russian NASA.

Is Russia a third world country? Perhaps – but lets review the indicators before we rush to judgment.

The first is that we’ve recently seen three television ads suggesting we send only 75¢ a day to what looks like a science-farm full of little bald Gorbachev clones. This doesn’t sound like much until you know an apparently overweight Sally Struthers was their spokesperson, and the children had flies crawling across their head-spots.

A second indicator to consider could be that their non-cloned population growth is so high they’ve begun to outsource for sperm donors.

Mel Gibson, apparently, was quick to oblige.

Mel Gibson’s longtime wife filed for divorce on April 13. At first everyone probably thought it was because she’d converted to Judaism and Gibson just couldn’t stomach the way she kept working the word dradle into all their conversations. He was probably like:

Seriously – how do you get from the rich moving plot points and the spot-on cinematography of Apocalypto to dradles again? She better not disrespect Mad Max like that.

Recently, however, a new cause for the Gibson-divvy has emerged – a cause far less racist. You see, Gibson’s new Russian girlfriend is currently growing 18 years of child support deep in the caverns of her belly. As TMZ puts it:

“We’ve learned Mel Gibson’s girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant with his child. Our sources say Gibson has already told his estranged wife, Robyn, and their children about the news. We’re told Oksana is in her second trimester.”

What’s that? Second trimester? And his wife only filed for divorce on April 13? Now we’re not mathematicians – but it’s beginning to look like Gibson had been sewing his royal oats a little before society’s current decrepit moral code allows. In fact – an Internet fetus-calculator just confirmed it. Gibson was getting busy on Russian girls (or girl) prior to the filing.

It’s his wife’s fault though, if you think about it. If she’d kept her ovaries lush and fertile the way he’d always told her she needed to then maybe he wouldn’t have had to drop sperm elsewhere. Now let that be a lesson to all of Mel’s future wives – keep those ovums young and springy.

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It’s a wonder Angelina Jolie still has time for movies these days, what with her off saving the world, donating to charity and stealing all the kids from Africa.

But apparently she of the lips fame does have time – not only time, but she also has the inclination to take roles that were initially meant for one Tom Cruise. Not content with stealing all the babies from the birthplace of humanity, it would seem that Angelina Jolie also wants to steal roles from Scientologists.

At least, that’s what it looks like on current evidence.

The long-touted but never actually made Edwin A. Salt is reportedly the film that Jolie will be taking the lead role in, with the title receiving a change as we would all expect. Edwina A. Salt doesn’t sound that good, mind, so hopefully they’ll put more thought into it than we have.

Not only will the title change, but the script itself is being redrafted to accommodate Angelina and her style. Which probably just means there will be more in the way of revealing thigh/cleavage shots than was originally intended – not many more though, as we’re sure the Cruiser wanted to show his rack off just as much as Jolie, but more nonetheless.

There may also be some re-writing for other reasons that we can’t even guess at, but the general story is likely to remain the same: CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy, has to elude capture long enough to establish his/her innocence. Sounds… formulaic. Oh well.

It does seem that Angie keeps on getting everything handed to her these days – from the $14 million for pictures of her tiny fleshbags, through the obviously necessary help and advice of everyone’s favourite knobend Bono and onto the fact that she’ll probably end up getting handed the Catwoman role, should the part ever get cast – the girl seemingly gets everything handed to her on a particularly sexy platter. Now put Tom Cruise‘s job on that list.

The poor tiny man – his wife’s gone and done a runner, for a bit at least, he’s all alone and now he doesn’t even get to be a spy in a film he was supposed to be in for ages. It’s probably affected his thetan levels too, bless his little face. But hecklerspray can’t see Tom Cruise doing anything but a great big smile when he finally gets to show the world how great he is as a one-eyed Nazi.

As for Angelina Jolie, well – she would seem content with popping out sprogs, stealing sprogs from other countries, getting it on with Brad Pitt, forcing our stand-in editor to go on Sky News and talk about them in a thoroughly stupid, ill-informed and embarrassing fashion and taking roles off of possibly mental Scientologists.

Oh, and let’s not forget she’s taking part in an adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, too. But we’re not really qualified to comment on that one in our usual hilarious fashion, as the book is really big and full of words that we can’t be bothered trying to understand. Bloody Objectivism.

We’ve never spent a week getting drunk in the arms of a Russian waitress who’s a third of our age, but it sounds awful.

So no wonder Ronnie Wood has decided to check into rehab. After flying back to apologise for his exploits to his long-suffering wife, Ronnie has checked into a clinic to beat his drinking problem once and for all.

It sounds like a great idea, except that Ronnie Wood went to rehab to beat his drinking problem once and for all last month too, and that just made him run off to Ireland to get drunk with an unusually young Russian girl that he met in a sex club. So rehab is a brave move, because if the pattern holds he’ll be mainlining heroin with a three-year-old Serbian toddler by the end of the month.

The 12-step alcohol recovery process is a long and complex procedure that requires dedication and mental strength. This is something that Ronnie Wood knows only too well, because he’s just checked in for what’s believed to be his eleventh stint in rehab.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out why – for a week newspapers have been full of stories about Ronnie Wood’s boozy jaunt to Ireland with 20-year-old Russian cocktail waitress Ekaterina Ivanova, much to the alarm of his wife and kids.

Apparently Ronnie Wood was knocking back two bottles of vodka a day during this time, which sounds like a dangerous quantity but is actually just the right amount to calm Ronnie’s nerves after he catches a glimpse of his own terrifyingly gaunt vulture face poking out from under his godawful haircut in the mirror.

Anyway, Ronnie’s son Jesse recently flew out to Ireland to persuade his dad to see sense, and it seems like it’s worked – not only has Ronnie Wood vowed to save his marriage but he’s also checked into rehab for good, as The Independent reports:

In a statement, Wood’s spokeswoman said the rocker was being helped by those closest to him in an attempt to end his alcoholism once and for all. She added: “Following Ronnie’s continued battle with alcohol, he has entered a period of rehab. His close family and friends say he is seeking help and look forward to his recovery.”

While Ronnie Wood is in rehab he’ll also be treated for his addiction to Russian sex club waitresses young enough to be his granddaughter. It’s unknown what form this treatment will take, although it’s assumed that it’ll partially involves being strapped to a chair Clockwork Orange-style while library footage of the 1984 Soviet Olympic female track and field squad’s warm-up routine is beamed into his eyes in horrifying slow motion.

There’s a good chance that, finally, this shot at rehab will stick for Ronnie Wood and he’ll manage to live the rest of his life in a perfectly sober state. It’s unlikely, though, isn’t it? They say that you have to hit rock bottom before you have any hope of recovering, and spending a week in bed with a pretty Russian girl who’s probably good at sex to a professional degree hardly sounds like rock bottom.

Fingers crossed that next time Ronnie Wood runs off to spend a week in bed with someone it’s Jodie Marsh. That’d be rock bottom enough for anyone. It might be Ronnie’s only hope, in fact.

We’ve often found that things slip your mind when you’re repeatedly having it off with a 20-year-old Russian cocktail waitress.

Things like, ooh, let’s say, the fact that you’ve been married to a non-Russian who isn’t a cocktail waitress for longer than your new conquest has been alive. It’s perfectly natural, so it’s perfectly understandable that that’s exactly what Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood seems to have been doing lately.

But no more. According to reports, Ronnie Wood has decided to return to the UK and plead for forgiveness with his wife Jo. It’ll be an important moment for both of them, but if Jo can find it in her heart to forgive Ronnie Wood then at least he’ll know she’ll probably forgive him the next time he picks up a skanky-looking Russian girl in a prostitute club too. Like we said, important.

We’ve never really given too much time to Ronnie Wood. That’s partly because he looks exactly like one of the Skeskis out of The Dark Crystal in a Chuckle Brothers wig and it freaks us out, and partly because he hadn’t ever done anything interesting, like, say, run off to Ireland on a booze-soaked sex holiday with a hollow-faced Russian 20-year-old he met at a notorious Soho sex club.

Luckily, though, that’s exactly what Ronnie Wood has been doing lately. Welcome aboard Ronnie. Welcome aboard.

According to all reports everywhere, Ronnie Wood has been drunkenly holed up in Ireland with Ekaterina Ivanova, a young Russian girl who’s a waitress or an escort or something, causing his wife Jo to inform him that their marriage is over.

Yeah, OK old lady. Nice one on deciding that you’re leaving your husband about a week after he’s starting having it away with a girl who a) is 33 years younger than you, b) has an exotic accent and c) is so good at sex that she quite possibly gets paid to do it. Way to empower yourself, sister.

However, the ploy might have worked, because now The Sun is claiming that Ronnie Wood has flown home from Ireland to try and patch things up with his wife:

The Rolling Stone, 61, caught a private plane out of Ireland after a heart-to-heart with son Jesse, 30. The guitarist, wearing his wedding ring and visible through a porthole, cannot accept his life with wife Jo, 53, is over and will plead with her to take him back.

Will Ronnie be able to win Jo round? Nobody can be sure, but at least Ronnie has one thing on his side – the new range of Hallmark ‘Sorry I had a giant alcoholic relapse and ran off to a different country to embark on an ill-advised love affair with a Russian girl who’s three times younger than me and possibly involved in the sex trade, wife of 23 years’. They almost seem tailor-made for Ronnie Wood’s predicament.

But let’s be positive here, and hope that Jo Wood takes pity on Ronnie and forgives him. She probably will, because any woman who can put up with her husband having a haircut like that for two decades can’t have all that many standards, can she?