- Someone should give Derren Brown a skeptics award ...Throughout his show he says he has no psychic abilities and explained how charlatans of the past cheated

- I just watched Derren Brown I watched it twice and I can work out how he does 50% of the tricks. It was just a series of incredibly simple tricks which he pads out to make them look complicated... just like the best magic the most complex of tricks are really stupidly simple when you know how they are done ..Brilliant showmanship.

.. Mentioned how the church had disgraced itself in taking the side of European Fascist dictators

... After the war the church suffered a "how could a loving god let this happen" problem so changed to a "we don't have all the answers" attitude ... but has since backtracked to a more hardline

- Surprisingly the parson looking presenter turned out not to be a religion pusher "those skeptics are why can only be a friend of Christianity not a believer"
..... Then he mentioned anyway that he was a gay man
.. He ended by saying the Christianity might surprise us by reinventing himself
.. A priest said the bible doesn't say homosexual relatioships are bad or that a heterosexual relationship is the only way.

- Reports on the famous Abbey Road Studios went on for pages last week, until statements came out of EMI saying it had never put the building up for sale at all...another MUP. One newspaper had made up the story and the rest of the media had blindly followed without checking the facts.

- I notice the Independent printed a stunning retraction of a story based on the story they wrote after the super injunction was exposed to do with company that is supposed to have dumped toxic waste in Africa ... they said "those photos of scarred people we printed had nothing to do with this case", "those people we claimed were suing the company settled 3 years ago"

- He claimed the Chinese invented the wheel barrow and that it was a better design than European ones cos the wheels was in the centre so no lifting was necessary. I checked later Chinese adopted the European style cos it is better as it's low COG makes it stable and good for short distances. What he called a Chinese wheel barrow was not a wheelbarrow, it was a one wheeled rickshaw used for transporting people. It was a great idea a one wheeled vehicle would have been more stable on rough roads etc. A rickshaw is of course just a miniature cart pulled by people instead of horses ..surely carts developed from planks rolling on rollers by the development of an axle ...were the first carts based on a roller turned into one wide wheel ? and 2 wheels came later

- I refuse to listen or watch anything on TV or Radio with David Tennant, or Lenny Henry in, because I'd rather see other actors be given a chance instead of the work being given to people who already have enough money and fame

- the young guy presenter said "This a film about my dad : Michael Jackson and how he wrote The 1978 classic Blame It on The Boogie. My father was born in Yorkshire, but lived most of his life in Germany as his father was with the forces. He and his brother Dave had a band of bearded hippies. They were in the recording studio in Germany when Mick came up with Blame It On The Boogie. Straight away they knew they had a hit and the manager went and got a bottle of champagne. They registered the song with the music publisher and within 2 weeks the manager said Right your on Top of The Pops 0n Monday ... They didn't have any suits or anything..."

- Meanwhile in America The Jacksons were at a low point and performing the Las Vegas cabaret circuit, but they'd been picked up By the well resourced CBS records who of course were determined to relaunch their career. The music publisher was at the Cannes music conference and told the CBS guy about the song, who offered to pay to use it. Someone in Mick Jackson's band said instead of taking the money now the record company should keep the song and build the bands career and make more money in the long run, but the company decided to go with the deal and the band trusted them. So one week after Mick's band were on Top of Pops The Jacksons released a mote polished version with a slick video. So quickly both songs were in the charts Radio 1 would only play The Jacksons version arguing they were a well known name the public wanted. Capital radio went with Mick Jackson's version.

- The Mick Jackson band had 2 months of VIP lifestyle being flown around to promote their song. They had no actual cash, but knew the rights money from the Jackson's would be coming into the bank soon. Cos they were competing neither version made it into the UK top 5. But CBS managed to find another song about a pet rat to be sung by Michael Jackson : Ben. So the Jacksons built their momentum ..meanwhile Mick Jackson's career fizzled out, finding themselves broke they couldn't do much. All their friends thought they were rich from the royalties the Jacksons were paying, but no money came ... After 3 years Mick Jackson sued (the publishers), but since he couldn't pay the lawyers he had to accept a fraction in an out of court settlement and then took up farming in Germany. Now 30 years later he says he's happy.

The prog was called "The Other Michael Jackson"

I have heard about "song stealing" in the 50's and 60's. (Non) Colonel Parker was famous for it didn't he steal Blue Suede shoes from Carl Perkhins. I heard stories of how bands would go into their local recording studio and cut a song and after they'd gone home the studio manager would think "that was a pretty good song" and he'd play it down the phone to some stars manager. A week later the big star would release the song and the small town band's career would never get off the ground.