Ever get that thing where you dig out an old CD for the car or whatever, and you get to a track you like so much that you play it again...and then again...and again...and then you realise you've spent an hour, or several consecutive short trips over a few days, listening to the same song? This happens to me all the time, idk maybe I have a high boredom threshold, but the other day I wanted something loud & earthy for the trip to the supermarket, so I grabbed Louder Than Love. When the brutality of Ugly Truth kicked in, I thought that was just great...but I knew what I really wanted to hear, and sure enough, it soon arrived. And so, for the past 4 days now, I've listened solely to Hands All Over, at max volume, screaming along to every single word. Does this seem strange, or do others experience this occasional extreme devotion? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3X2UnEIsc

Inspired by reswati's comments elsewhere re Space Ritual, I wondered what other ZepStoners were listening to when they started out on the road to fiend-dom. When one of my mates summoned me for my indoctrination, he made the perfect choice - Echoes. That was pretty far out - the gradual build, the weird-out in the middle, and the glorious recapitulation and final, gentle release. In fact, I can't think of anything that would've worked better. Naturally, I was hooked.

Former Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne and his delightful ex-wife & top economist Vicky Pryce were both jailed for 8 months this week, for perverting the course of justice. Many years ago, Ms Pryce agreed to take a speeding conviction to save her husband, who had actually been the driver, from losing his licence...although she later claimed that she had been coerced into doing this. All was fine & dandy until recently, when Mr Huhne dumped her for another woman, at which point Ms Pryce unleashed the full fury of a woman scorned, and announced that she had broken the law on her ex-husband's behalf. Her intention was to ruin his career and show the world what a complete and utter bastard he was. Instead, both their careers are now ruined, and they are both in rather unpleasant prisons. It is reported that Ms Pryce is already suffering terribly, and her lawyer is apparently outraged that his client was convicted, rather than being perceived as a poor little victim & thus exonerated. I find this all incredibly amusing, because my ex-wife pulled several attention-seeking stunts like this to try to portray me as an unfit father, and instead ended up being severely chastised by a succession of judges, the end result of which was that I was awarded shared custody of our kids, whereas all I'd originally asked or dared to hope for was a meaningful level of contact. What similar experiences have others had? And for the ladies out there, why do you do things like this?

Lots of things annoy me, too many perhaps, but this one is becoming more commonplace and it really gets to me: unnecessary and racially offensive sub-titling. I was watching a crime programme last night, where they were interviewing a British Asian man (a doctor, in fact), speaking in English. For no apparent reason, they subtitled him. But I could understand everything he was saying perfectly well without looking at the subtitles. To check, I even closed my eyes...and I could still understand him, no problem at all. So then they switched to someone else, a Scottish gentleman. And do you know what, I couldn't understand a single word he said, not one. He could've been speaking in Urdu for all I knew. But here's the point: they didn't sub-title him. I've noticed this phenomenon before, but it's always been in US-made programmes, where for example they sub-title perfectly understandable Australian speakers, but provide no translation for their own southern hicks, some of whom appear to communicate principally via a series of clicks and distorted guttural inflections...so in the past, I've just shaken my head in disbelief and put it down to the usual yank mental laziness, lack of experience of foreign cultures and general crass insensitivity. But this was a Brit-made show, and we really should know better. What do you all think about this, and what other things irk you?