fantastic funnymen

Keshcologists! The new series of "That Mitchell And Webb Sound" begins on Thursday night, beamed out through the skies (and this is the amazing part, quite invisibly) from those boffins at Radio 4. I do more than urge you to listen. I point you towards the nearest radio set and hand you the ear-freshening buds. You don't know how to work these modern machines of metal and microchip? Well come round to mine and have a listen from here. I'll not have anybody going without their weekly quota of Mitchell And Webb, for the next six at least.

From heroes of the future, to hoary old warhorses (of the shed-bound variety). Sunday night. A mediocre Channel 4 programme about pop videos. Aphex Twin secretes himself about halfway down the list, the filthy so-and-so. Suddenly the screen cut to a statement read by his "representative"... Frank Sidebottom. Of all people. How the heart soared, much as if I had inadvertently discovered my old Transformers sticker album (long since gathered to God). Even better, there was no Little Frank in sight. Check out the great man's site. Read his newsletters. Listen to his records. Visit Timperley Aquatics. You'll gush. If you're loose that way. He's trying again, the mojo rediscovered? Has he been waiting for us to catch up, or has he just caught up with his overdraft and suddenly has time on his hands for papier-mache larks? Should I fear he'll be taken up by Hoxton hipsters and leave us behind, the Spec-chums and soggy soldiers who made up his constituency for the best part of the last two decades?

I am spending all my spare hours curled up with felt pens and some homemade animation grids. Intensely satisfying for an otherwise sullen elf... you can see the results very shortly, via the Keshco site. Or maybe I'll keep them to myself. The Mustek DV4000 is very light, but hardly a prestige product. Meanwhile, people with more money make worse things look better on high-end equipment. Hey ho. Let's stick some Pram on, shall we?