Monster raving

They're back! Yes, like the Wispa, Roast Beef flavour Monster Munch have returned to the shop shelves, and not even Iceland's theft of my savings is enough to stop me getting my hands on a packet.*

To my mother, who once famously denounced this particular flavour as "tasting like cardboard", I would say this: never has cardboard tasted so good!

* Say what you like, but The Electric Goose can never be accused of ignoring the big issues.

Form an orderly Cuba

Oh, yeah, so I guess I didn't mention I was going away to Cuba. Sorry, but I didn't want you to discover my flat was going to be empty for two weeks then break in and steal my stuff. Anyway, I'm back in place, having had a most excellent time. An indecent number of photographs will follow. I'm not sure a detailed write-up is on the cards; I ended up forgoing cultural notetaking in favour of blitzing that big pile of lit and drinking mojitos.

Cuba: holiday reading

BOOKS. LOTS OF BOOKS.

Voyage to the End of the Road

Had a lovely time at the End of the Road festival in Dorset at the weekend. Cider, cigs and silliness, plus music in the form of The Young Republic (fantastically raucous cover of Dylan's 'Isis', did THREE sets), Laura Marling (overcame the Big Top's rubbish sound and only being, what, five years old to play a storming set, if you're allowed to call folk "storming", although I guess the heavens had just opened so it sort of works), Jeffrey Lewis (I was standing in a puddle in a ditch behind a very tall man, but still bought his album as soon as I got home), Kimya Dawson (so cutesy, she's capable of making very cute bunny wabbits look, um, very uncute), The Wave Pictures (really fantastic and, wow, David Tattersall's guitar-playing is as clever and inventive as his lyrics, which is to say very clever and inventive indeed), Bon Iver (made me like the album, which I was previously a bit iffy about, so tres Bon, hyuk hyuk), Mercury Rev (epic, camp, hard to understand when you've just swallowed a gallon of cider), Devon Sproule (not quite as interesting as her name would suggest), Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (my feelings about this are to complicated to be explained in parentheses, but I both loved and hated it), Noah and the Whale (the sun was out, they're in the charts, it was fun), A Hawk and A Hacksaw (only caught a couple of songs, but suitably confusing), Richard Hawley (his usual mesmerising self, and started his set, brilliantly, with the line, "Okay, let's ballad."), Calexico (surprisingly danceable Sunday night headline action), and, finally, Zombie Zombie (seemed to play just one song lasting 45 minutes, but with much pizzazz and yelping).

But that's just me. Luke, who fed us some Jagermeister when we were flagging, has penned a nice write-up here.

Visually, this:

Tonight on Virgin1: I Want To Work For Diddy

I Want To Work For Diddy? Er, no, you really don't. Rapper turned business fatcat Sean Combs is looking for a PA for his company Bad Boy Entertainment, you see, and unfortunately the ability to type at 50 wpm won't cut it. Read more...

Lessons learned from... Man on Wire

Tightrope walking gets you chicks.

Tonight on Channel 4: When Women Rule The World

Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic feminist novel of 1915, imagined an idyllic country ruled over by women, in which trouble and strife were non-existent, with an asexual version of womankind reproducing without the need of men and living together in peace and happiness. Right on! CPG would undoubtedly be delighted to hear that the dream has come to Channel 4 – in the form of new reality show When Women Rule The World. Read more...

"Dr King's dream is now a reality"

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As
Step Forward For African Americans

Last night on ITV1: Lost in Austen

I've always quite liked Jemima Rooper. Anyone who decides that their next career move after playing George in The Famous Five should be to portray a smack-addicted child prostitute (in gruelling Melvin Burgess adaptation Junk) is alright in my book. And frankly my Sunday mornings still feel a bit empty without As If. Read more...

The X Figures

If the last series of The Apprentice was remarkable for repeatedly using the mathematically impossible phrase "110 percent", the current run of The X Factor is outdoing its rival reality show by a factor of about, um, 150 percent. Saturday's edition gave us:

Louis, to auditionee Laura White: "One million percent yes."
Cheryl: "Two million percent yes."
Simon: "One billion percent yes."

While we're on the subject, does anyone else find Simon Cowell's new habit of cooing, "Love you" to successful contestants as they leave the room a teensy bit disturbing?

Anyway, my favourites so far: