Me bad. Me no do lollies last week. Me sorry. Me sorry excuse for Director-General.

Lee (Some Velvet Morning) Hazlewood ain’t a well man. Stephen sends this interview, full of great musical anecdotes, from the Observer. Chris is on the music beat as well, with Tom Waits going over his sozzled past, his new songs and the shame of piano-abuse. It’s all a far cry from life as a barfly, and now our Muse is releasing an album of Waits covers.

Also from Chris, via Arts & Letters Daily, Alexander M.C. Halavais spent days trying to stuff up Wikipedia by deliberately inserting errors to test whether they’d be spotted. He knew they’d be corrected eventually but he was to be surprised by just how fast.

Michael Crowley examines the plight of gay Republicans who populate the highest ranks of their party in TNR. “They must survive the slings of social conservatives and the gay left,” he says. Clive James says his website is “halfway between a space station and a university campus”. No wonder he reckons it’s going to bankrupt him.

Finally from Chris, former newsreader John Humphrys laments the death of formality. We feel his pain.

NZBC cub reporter Joe, offers this on why an article in Nature almost had some cancer researches being sued by the US subsidiary of Nintendo for misappropriating the name Pokemon.

Back to Stephen, who likes this post from Kiwiblog on why NZ has dropped a space or seven in the press freedom rankings. apparently the reason hasn’t been reported by the media.

Mark sends more on a health story followed closely by all in the NZBC office. Could be related to drinking ... Could be. And this on how to live really long and have no fun at all. He also sends 20 tips to succeed at work.

It’s just over a week to the US mid-term elections. There’s been no “October surprise”, well, none that favours the GOP anyway and you’d have to say the writing is on the wall. Well, you would if it wasn’t for the Diebold voting machines, the gerrymander and the Republican machine’s ability to get voters out to vote. Anyway, here’s Maureen Dowd on what the midterm elections really mean.

Ciao.