The relaunched Collings & Herrin Podcast Number 20 is out there. It's very different from the previous 19 podcasts. No, it's not. But it's 40p cheaper than the Daily Express.

I received a card from my publishers yesterday saying, "Happy publication day!" because the book (pictured) is out today. I've been too busy to look for it in any shops, but if you see one, do let me know. I understand it's in some offers, which is good. I'm only really posting this to provide a link to TV Cream's exclusive supplementary minisite, which they kindly created last May to coincide with the first edition. In case you didn't catch it at the time - and are that way inclined - it's the book's "deleted scenes" ie. all the offcuts which didn't make the final draft. (Although it doesn't include Richard Herring's name, as it had yet to be deleted at that stage.)

It's just like the BBC to force us to stay in for five consecutive nights just to watch a drama. (I understand there is such thing as a futuristic device that allows you to watch television programmes at a time quite indistinct from that at which they are broadcast, but where's the fun in that?) Criminal Justice is a "major new drama". You can tell this, because it's been trailed for weeks and because ... it's on for five consecutive nights. Actually, it's a big new-fangled risk for BBC1 to sign the keystone 9pm-10pm slot over to the same thing, Monday to Friday. What if people get bored? The pressure is on for Peter Moffat, the writer, to keep putting up new hurdles for the main protagonist to deal with. (Ratings holding steady from 5.5 million to 4.8 and back up to 5 over Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so all is looking well.)

Since it's ongoing, and I know some of you won't be watching it when it goes out across five consecutive nights, here's what I am allowed to tell you without ruining it: Ben Whishaw (one of the Bob Dylans in I'm Not There) plays a snivelly and slightly daft young asthmatic who gets arrested and put on remand before being tried for a murder he doesn't remember committing, and is pretty sure he didn't commit, despite being out of it when it happened. The drama takes us through the criminal justice system to see what it's like. It's not very nice. Prison is full of mostly scary men and one nice old man who barter with mobile phone usage and fags and get drugs delivered in dead pigeons being thrown over the wall. Barristers are corrupt. The posher they are, the more corrupt and venal. The more crumpled the lawyer, the more chance he'll be one of the good guys. The police are a bit useless and a bit corrupt. Deals are done. Pleas are bargained. The CPS don't prosecute anyone. Targets run the police. Everyone grandstands in court, as if they are on the television. One old-school detective grumbles. And Ben Wishaw has a rubbish time. Really, really rubbish. If it were a book it would be impossible to put down. I'm three episodes in and desperate to find out what happens in the end, even though if the person I think did it actually did it, I'll be a bit disappointed.

Peter Moffat, ex-barrister, wrote the fabulous North Square, a zippy, fast-talking, cynical drama about barristers that was on Channel 4 in 2000 (God, was it that long ago?), a sort of This Life for grown-ups and without the E, and centred around Phil Davis, which can never be a bad thing. It was larger than life, and the dialogue was perfect. Because Criminal Justice is a bit more realistic, or pretends to be, some of the dialogue sounds a tad theatrical. This is OK in court, but less so in the other bits. It's not a deal-breaker, but it does run counter to some of the realism. I'm into it anyway. The performances are all solid, from old dependables like Bill Paterson, Lindsay Duncan and Pete Postlethwaite, to newer faces like David Harewood and Juliet Aubrey. I'm taken with Con O'Neil as the crumpled lawyer with eczema feet. If there's a dramatic flaw, it's that our snivelly and slightly daft ashmatic hero, who might or might not have dunnit, seems to be fighting a one-man war against the criminal justice system, and we've not really seen any evidence (geddit?) that he's the kind of person who'd take that upon himself. It's convenient for the story that he does, but he looks to me like the very person who'd give in and do what he's told.

Nothing more to add, really. Quality drama. Unnecessary scheduling gimmick. Especially when BBC1 are running a new series of Celebrity Masterchef over three consecutive nights. (We're supposed to get on with our lives when exactly?)

Good point made by Chris Burgess below. Now that the dust has settled on Glastonbury and pretty much every white rock critic in the land has declared Jay-Z's once-controversial Saturday night headliner a palpable hit (I'd love to know from someone who was there - and I mean there, having paid for a ticket), I wonder if we might look at the potential dichotomy of the man born Shawn Carter's lyrics at a festival rooted in pacifism, ecology, non-violence and face-painting.

Having "answered" Noel Gallagher - who opined from on high, "I'm not havin' hip hop at Glastonbury" - with a karaoke version of Wonderwall (was Jay-Z deliberately singing out of tune?), he and his band powered into the actual opener, one of his biggest crossover numbers, 99 Problems. Now this is a magnificent-sounding track, and, certainly from where I was sitting on the sofa, it sounded massive. Advantage, Carter! (And, hey, he had a band.)

But as if to open up the chasm between "traditional" Glastonbury and this brave new Emily-Eavis era, the song's repeated refrain, "If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you, son/I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one" sounded suitably jarring as it bounced off the Pyramid Stage. To allow this to pass without comment, it seems, is political correctness gone mad, but I speak as neither a nay-saying disciple of Gallagher, nor as someone sent from the PC Brigade. I only really know a couple of Jay-Z's albums, but they're pretty powerful, not least The Black Album, from whence 99 Problems comes. Like all white, non-American apologists for the abidingly raw lyrical content of rap music, I too have 99 problems, and the casual use of the term "bitch" is one.

But as I'm always arguing: first of all, we're dealing with culture that was forged in bits of cities where most of us would fear to tread, regardless of race or nationality. Carter was raised in those there "projects" you always hear about. He ran with drug dealers, etc. Rap was his salvation. I get more irritated by the raps about how much money the big stars have made than when they deal with the nastier aspects of their upbringing. This doesn't excuse a pre-enlightenment attitude to women, but when you watch The Wire, it doesn't do to get upset by the language, or the attitudes. It doesn't mean you approve of them not to kick the TV in.

I personally enjoy rap in the same way as I enjoy The Wire, or gangster movies. I don't want to see films about life in Northampton, nor do I always want to hear pop music about the universal themes of boy-meets-girl. So, check out the whole lyric. I can't even claim to understand a lot of it, but it paints a vivid picture, like all the best poetry. [My footnotes are in italics.]

[Verse One]
I got the rap patrol on the gat patrol
Foes that wanna make sure my casket's closed
Rap critics that say he's "Money Cash Hoes"
I'm from the hood, stupid, what type of facts are those?
If you grew up with holes in your Zapitos

I know that a Gat's a gun - thanks, Ice-T, who never cruises LA without "a Gat in my lap" - but are Zapitos some kind of training shoe?

You'd celebrate the minute you was having dough
I'm like, fuck critics, you can kiss my whole asshole
If you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forward
Got beef with radio if I don't play they show
They don't play my hits well I don't give a shit SO ...

I understand Jay-Z has a problem with the lack of radio play for his records. While it's true that most traditional guitar bands don't write songs about this, The Clash made Capital Radio, which was explicitly about the airplay policy of Capital Radio in London, SO ...

Rap mags try and use my black ass
So advertisers can give em more cash for ads ... fuckers

Yeah, yeah, the multi-million-dollar entrepreneur with the clothing empire and property portfolio is having a go at the capitalists! Advantage, nay-sayers!

I don't know what you take me as
or understand the intelligence that Jay-Z has
I'm from rags to ritches, nigga, I ain't dumb
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one
Hit me

This is a recurring theme of Jay-Z's work, not exactly uncommon in rap, since "escape" from poverty doesn't come with the guilt it might do to traditional guitar-based rock music - hey, I didn't make this a rap-versus-rock music battle, that was Noel Gallagher! I really love this next verse by the way ... perhaps because I have been hassled by the pigs, or at least had my bags looked into under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act at two overground stations in South London

[Verse Two]
The year is '94 and in my trunk is raw
In my rear view mirror is the motherfucking law
I got two choices: y'all pull over the car or
bounce on the double, put the pedal to the floor
Now I ain't trying to see no highway chase with Jake

This may have been transcribed badly - but who is Jake?

Plus I got a few dollars I can fight the case
So I ... pull over to the side of the road
And I heard "Son do you know why I'm stopping you for?"
Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low
Do I look like a mind reader sir, I don't know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo'?
"Well you was doing fifty five in a fifty four ...
License and registration and step out of the car.
Are you carrying a weapon on you, I know a lot of you are"

The sin of generalisation!

I ain't stepping out of shit, all my papers legit
"Do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back
And I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack, are some type of lawyer or something?
Or somebody important or something?"
Nah I ain't pass the bar but I know a little bit
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit
"Well see how smart you are when the canines come"
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one

This time, the term "bitch" might refer to a police dog?

[Verse Three]
Now once upon a time not too long ago
A nigga like myself had to strong arm a hoe

Here's a problematic verse. It's actually about mistreatment of a lady. He says "a nigga like myself," but is he actually talking about himself, in an unfortunate incident from his own past?

This is not a hoe in the sense of having a pussy

Wait! Here's a twist!

But a pussy having no Goddamn sense, try and push me

You won't wriggle out of this that easily, young man! You state that a "ho" isn't necessarily a lady, but that a ladypart means a lack of sense, which is just as demeaning. Did Ben Elton teach you nothing?

I tried to ignore him and talk to the Lord
Pray for him, cause some fools just love to perform
You know the type loud as a motor bike
But wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight
The only thing that's gonna happen is I'mma get to clapping
He and his boys gon' be yapping to the captain
And there I go trapped in the kit kat again
Back through the system with the riff raff again
Fiends on the floor scratching again
Paparrazzis with they cameras snapping them
D.A. tred to give the nigga the shaft again
Half-a-mil for bail cause I'm African
All because this fool was harrassin' them
Trying to play the boy like he's saccarine
But ain't nothing sweet 'bout how I hold my gun
I got 99 problems but being a bitch ain't one
Hit me

Redemption? It turns out the man strong-arming the "ho" wasn't Jay-Z, and that Jay-Z had to sort him out, possibly by waving a gun at him - praying to God having failed to alleviate the situation. Despite his money and fame, Jay-Z has been involved in rough stuff in the past couple of years. I'm not sure if this is an incident from his past however, as mention of photographers suggests it's a post-fame spat. I'm hoping someone will enlighten me on this.

There's a lot going on in these lyrics. Unlike Wonderwall, which is brilliant but essentially meaningless, a rap lyric is rammed with narrative content and not all of it immediately obvious. Also, you have to get through the patois. I print these lyrics not to make an unequivocal case for or against Jay-Z's booking at Glastonbury. It looked like a dramatic performance, just not the kind the kids are used to. (I'd certainly rather see him than The Verve.) At least he wasn't bottled off, as 50 Cent shamefully was at Reading, and, apparently, our own Lethal Bizzle at Download. Shawn Carter was treated with peace, love and all the other things. If he'd censored his own lyrics, as Kanye West was happy to do with Gold Digger at the Brits, what would we have made of him then?

So many questions, and so few hard answers from me. But I'm a liberal goody two shoes.

If you've listened to Podcast Number 19, you'll know that a Diagnosis Murder-style mystery arose "live" on-air. If not, here's the plot: this Thursday, the new, smaller, more affordable "white" paperback edition of That's Me In The Corner is published. It is exactly the same, except I have added a new bonus chapter about sitcom writing to bring my story up to date, and I have added to the acknowledgments section at the front, where the book is dedicated "to my mentors." In the text, I list all of my mentors in chronological order, including Richard Herring. Because a certain amount of time has passed between the two versions, I have added a few names to the end of the list. Now the mystery:

This is how the acknowledgments page appears in the original, larger, less affordable "neon" edition:


And this is how the acknowledgments page appears in the new, smaller, more affordable "white" paperback edition:

Now, I have checked the document I sent to my publishers, and Richard Herring's name is indeed missed off the list. In adding to the list, I seem to have cut and pasted, and in the process Richard Herring's name got lost. I didn't spot this at the time, nor on the number of occasions I checked the copy before delivering it. What seems to have happened is that I missed his name off, and didn't spot it because of the name Richard Grocock (producer of Banter). This is not a satisfactory excuse, but it's the only one I've got. On paper, it means that Richard Herring used to be a mentor, but in the intervening 15 months has stopped being one. I am embarrassed by this implication, and have instructed my publishers to have all affordable paperback editions recalled from the shops and to pulp them. (This, they tell me, has not taken long.) So, if you have trouble finding my book in the shops, you'll know why. Equally, if you see one that slipped out early before the Great Pulping, snap it up, as it's now extremely valuable - a limited edition.*

* This is all lies.

I notice from this morning's Media Guardian that, after a pathetic start, viewing figures for Euro 2008 picked up. (They started with something like 3 million for the opening match this year, compared to, hmmmmmm, 17.6 million for England's opening match of Euro 2004 - an Arthur C Clarke-style mystery if ever there was one.) I'm still amazed, as an every-two-years, non-club football fan how many committed followers of the game have petulantly not bothered with Euro 2008 at all. (One bloke I asked said, simply, "I"m in mourning.") This is why I am an alien landing on someone else's planet. I've been free to enjoy the sporting prowess and the thrills/spills without any mental block. I watch the sport for a month every two years, and I'm used to England being in with a quarter of a chance. The fact that they didn't make it this time was never going to be a barrier: I like the spectacle and the self-contained drama. And Euro 2008 did not disappoint.

I'm not going to review the final other than to say, the 1-0 scoreline does not go any way towards describing the action. It was a fitting finale to three weeks of football that has fixed me to the sofa throughout.

Some closing statements:

1) I think the laminates that the managers wear around their necks should be bigger.
2) I proved myself to be an impostor football fan during the opening minutes of the final when I observed that Torres must have had his hair cut since the semi-finals, and he didn't need his Alice band to hold it back out of his face.
3) I gather it's unfashionable to like John Motson. However, I rather enjoy his style, as I daringly revealed during the last World Cup. It's eccentric, often howlingly pre-scripted ("the senors have become seniors"?), and he overuses the phrases "by the way" and "I fancy", but I'll be sad not to hear him in two years' time.
4) Praise the Lord for Danny Baker, and all who sail in him. (See: entry below.)
5) I'm already missing that weird Eurodisco tune they played after each goal. What was it?
6) One commentator - that's media commentator, rather than football commentator - mused that it may have been the presence of big English league names such as Torres and Ballack in the foreign teams that eventually drew English audiences around the TV. What an upside down world. (We're only interested in foreign players if they play for us.)
7) I wonder if the fact that all the players had the word RESPECT on their shirtsleeves actually made them more respectful. (Apart from Silva's headbutt, obviously.)
8) How to spot a foreign player who plays for an English side: he uses the phrase "creating chances".
9) How to spot Alan Shearer: he uses the phrase "creating chances."
10) Metzelder, the German defender who almost started the final with an own goal, seems to model himself on DH Lawrence, which is sweet.
11) Forcing the losing team in the final to collect their losers' medals (Motson: "I think those'll be going in a drawer somewhere") by first walking through a tunnel made of Spain seems, to me, to be "adding I to I". (Haven't listened to last night's 606 yet, so apologies if this point has already been made.)
12) That closing montage by the BBC - which I think was supposed to have been the interior monologue of a bee? - pretentious toss. Did they think they'd get away with it because nobody was watching?

See you in two years. Come on, England etc.

Haven't written much about music of late. Well, I have been doing the usual, downloading and buying albums and finding that most of them have one or two good tracks and little else to recommend them. I haven't heard Partie Traumatic, the debut album by Jacksonville's Black Kids, yet (it's out on July 7, and I don't get sent pre-releases as much as I did when I mattered), but I can't get enough of their single I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You (especially the Twelves Remix), which I saw being performed by this lumpy looking bunch on Later. It has since been a "hit", I understand, but I take almost no notice of the charts any more. Perhaps the album will disappoint me as much as the albums by Futureheads, Foals, the Ting Tings and MGMT, all of whom have supplied excellent singles but don't seem to have what it takes to go the distance.

The Ting Tings, in particular, are not looking down the barrel of a long and lasting career. (Of that batch, Futureheads stand out; their third album This Is Not The World sounds encouragingly like the Skids to my old ears, and at least it has a congruity and a thumping sound to recommend it, it's just that the single Beginning Of The Twist outclasses much of that which follows it. I'll give it another go, which is more than I can say for the others in my list.)

I have listened to Paul Weller's 22 Dreams many times, and it improves like a wine. Now that's what I call an album: it demands to be listened to as a whole. (And I thought Weller hated David Bowie - this record has Aladdin Sane running right through it, right down to the tumbling piano.) I was initially underwhelmed by The Enemy, despite coming from the Midlands, but their single This Song Is About You, as well as conjuring the unfashionable spirit of The Farm, is hard to ignore.

I wasn't expecting Midnight Boom by The Kills to be so good, but it is. Overlook any tiresome romantic connections of either of the members of the band, this is surprisingly tuneful lo-fi garage pop. I feel quite sad that the Long Blondes album, Couples, has been a resounding miss in the charts, as it's their first good album - the music has caught up with their eyecatching cool. (I understand one of their number, Dorian, is seriously unwell. Our thoughts go out etc.) As salivated over in the NME, Santogold by Santogold is full of life, and it's not just the single L.E.S. Artistes, there's more treasure here that doesn't really fit into any handy box.

You may find this predictable of me, but I also have plenty of houseroom for two old troopers: David Gedge, whose latest Wedding Present album, El Rey, is muscular and heart-tugging and more than tinged with American ambience; and Mark E Smith, whose 156th Fall album Imperial Wax Solvent is fortified by one of his greatest ever tracks, 50 Year Old Man. I'm also sticking by my upbeat Word reviews of Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark, and Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs (have a listen to opening track Bixby Canyon Bridge). Sigur Ros's fifth, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (apologies if the correct Icelandic characters haven't come out) won't make any converts, but it does what it does with enormous glacial majesty. I never used to bother about them, but I have recently discovered that you have to lose yourself in their music, preferably on your own, and with it piped directly into your earholes.

Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow is perhaps this year's only unassailable instant modern classic, in my considered opinion, not least the saddest song ever written, Friend Of Ours. Meanwhile, I'd say that neither Portishead nor Spiritualized let us down. Last Shadow Puppets I've enthused about already, and hats in the air for the return of Paul Heaton with Cross-Eyed Rambler, and the clips I've watched on YouTube of Liam Finn, son of Neil, nephew of Tim, whose debut album I'll Be Lightning doesn't quite crystallise the spirits of his nutsoid live performances.

Oh, and Adele, sssshhhhhhhhhh!

This is not news. In fact, all I'm doing, before Euro 2008 is over in an explosion of German/Spanish tickertape and balloons, is confirming what you already know: that Danny Baker should be on BBC radio every night, all year round, doing whatever the hell he wishes. His 606 phone-in show on Five Live - one programme left! Sunday, 10pm - has been a must-download podcast for me. Eloquent, fast-paced, avuncular, self-mythologising, quicksilver, obtuse, it's particularly entertaining for an every-two-years football fan (not something I'd like to admit to Danny in person, as it takes some explaining to a dyed-in -the-wool proper fan), as it spins off at wild tangents, such as how David Bowie is connected to Euro 2008 (German manager called Low, German player called "V2" Schneider, BBC lost sound and vision during the Germany-Turkey semi-final etc.), stories about people missing televised matches due to unusual circumstances, who the managers resemble (Raymond Domenech = Freddie Garrity), and onwards, ever onwards. Danny always has been a radio natural, and certainly football is his metier, but it's not about trainspotting, it's about passion and it's about people, and that's so inclusive. I really must get into his BBC London afternoon show on the iPlayer. I feel bad for taking him for granted, he's truly one of a kind.

I used to work under Danny Kelly at Q, as I'm sure you know, and Baker loomed large over our office without even entering it, so pervasive was his influence on our Danny in terms of language and attitude. We all called the Internet "CB radio for the 90s" because that's what Baker called it - wrongly as it turned out, but he's that persuasive! We also adopted his trick of reducing well known phrase to their initial letters, such as "adding I to I" for "adding insult to injury", a phrase he used on 606 on Wednesday. The "GLW" was also lodged in the vernacular for "good lady wife" and for all I know, still is at Q. I'm sure there's something bad to say about him for BBC-style balance (he called the BBC "the old girl" the other night), but I don't know what it is*. We're running up the black flag, spitting on our hands ... I don't know what that means, but he just said it on BBC London. I'm expecting someone to tell me I should download his podcasts too. Hats in the air - another bit of antique doggerel he popularised in the mid-90s - for The Bakertollah, as our dear leader called him.

*Actually, I know what it is: he's exhausting.

Collings & Herrin Podcast Number 19 is in the can. In it, we unequivocally discount the possibility of making a Vernon Troyer-style sex tape in order to promote our "hardly annoying at all" podcasts. We also wish Gordon Brown's premiership a happy first birthday, offer some useful marketing advice to one of the political parties that beat Labour in the Henley by-election and react in surprised horror to the sexist nature of The Sun's tennis coverage. Also, live on-air, we discover that in the new version of That's Me In The Corner, Richard's name has mysteriously disappeared from the list of "mentors" in the acknowledgments section. This was actually news to me. I had no idea! His is the only name that's in the original version of the book and not in the new version. It's an X-Files-style mystery.

Note the spectral presence of Stewart Lee in our photo. He looms large in all our lives.

It is with great pleasure that I announce my second appearance at the Worthing Artists & Makers Festival, which runs from July 4 (next Friday) to July 20, and takes in all sorts of performance and art across Worthing and Horsham. Last year, I did a talk at Waterstone's, which attracted an even smaller audience than last night's School For Gifted Children, but I really enjoyed it, as it was just like sitting around and having a chat with some nice people. This year I'm at Methvens bookshop in South Street, from 7.30, if you're in the area. I'll be talking about this (which is published, apparently, on July 3, in the more affordable "small paperback" form, with a much more friendly cover and a quote from Simon Pegg on the front):


And it will be a bit like this: