I was at a loss to decide what would accompany this week’s playlist at first.  I like to throw something out that might be of interest rather than just chucking a list of names whenever I post on here, but this week I was struggling to find inspiration.

Thankfully, you can always rely on Sting.  If in doubt, have a pop at the artist formerly known as Gordon Sumner for his latest buffoon statement or glass-chewingly bad venture into 20 minute lute plucking.  Finding reasons to have a pop a Sting is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel – this is a man, after all, who bashed out the most pretentious album title of all time in the shape of the frankly vomitous Dream of the Blue Turtle, claimed to be “a bit hot” at The Brits as an excuse to take his top off and believes that “cancer is the result of undigested dreams“.  The last few weeks, though, the tantric tosser has excelled himself.  Not only did he announce a tour of his hits, reworked for a full orchestra (which begs the question; who the bloody hell wants to hear that? [answer: Sting does]) but it was also revealed that he happily played a gig of questionable validity, proving himself not only to be an utter dick of the first order, but in addition to this he’s either a mercenary little turd who can be bought for the right price, or else a man so interned in his own cosy little world he can’t recognise a decent counter argument when it’s rammed up his Roxanne.

So, last week newspapers reported that the Wallsend Wazzock was plying his trade at a Festival in Eastern Europe.  On the surface there is nothing immediately salacious in this, except for the fact that this particular event was organised by Gulnara Karimova – the daughter and heir of Uzbekistan’s  despotic leader Islam Karimov.  A quick look on Wikipedia will reveal that Karimov’s regime has regularly been cited by the UN as one that employs “institutionalized, systematic, and rampant” torture, and it is believed that supposed enemies of the state have been quietly subdued by being boiled to death.  The Guardian‘s report also claimed that Karimov is not averse to “slaughtering his poverty-stricken people when they protest, and conscripting armies of children for slave labour.   Not really, then, an appropriate booking for a multi-millionaire member of Amnesty International.  Nor indeed a well-known campaigner for the environment, seen as “the Aral Sea on which his [Karimov] country sits – once the world’s fourth biggest lake – has lost 80% of its volume, partly as a result of Karimov siphoning it off to intensively irrigate his remote desert cotton fields.”  Nice bloke, this Karimov.

However, it’s only fair that we allow Gordon to explain himself.  Firstly, he believed the concert to have been organised in aid of Unicef.  Personally I’d question the morality of a man who pockets a pay cheque believed to be in the region of £2m to play a gig in aid of a charity.  I’m not naive enough to think that famous types don’t get a bit to take home with them whenever they lend their services for worthy causes, but £2m seems a fair old payout for an hour’s work.  Still, I don’t even need to go as questioning the tariff on this occasion, because contrary to Sting’s belief, Unicef  knew precisely kak all about it and would, presumably, steer well clear of a gig organised by someone with direct links to human rights offences.

Fair’s fair, though.  Sting’s additional reasoning has some support from the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray.  The post-Police plonker maintains that he was well aware of Karimov’s reputation, but that he felt that it was important to play in the country in order to bring culture and art to the ordinary Uzbeki masses.  “I have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive,” the bass-bashing bellend said, “where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular.”  Craig Murray agrees with Sting with regards to the futility of boycotts, stating on his website that “cultural isolation does not help. I am often asked about the morality of going to Uzbekistan, and I always answer – go, mix with ordinary people, tell them about other ways of life, avoid state owned establishments and official tours.”  However, the bad news for Sting is that Murray also describes our ludicrous lutenist’s reasoning in terms of his concert as “transparent bollocks” - largely due to the ticket price to see the rainforest rescuing remmy being a meagre 45 times the average Uzbeki salary.  “He did not take a guitar and jam around the parks of Tashkent,” Murray continues, “He got paid over a million pounds to play an event specifically designed to glorify a barbarous regime. Is the man completely mad?”

In the end, madness may be the only defence.

Anyway, here’s them there tracks which have as much to do with Sting as Karimova has to do with Unicef:

Selection Box Show 124
Transmitted 22/2/2010

1.  Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
from: Trans Europe Express

2.  Pocketbooks – Fleeting Moments
from: Flight Paths

3.  Virgle Baker – Disatisfied
from: Stomper Time 7 (various artists)

4.  Interpol – Untitled
from: Turn On The Bright Lights

5.  Lorraine Chandler – I Can’t Hold On
from: The Northern Soul Story Vol 3: Blackpool Mecca (various artists)

6.  Quintessence – Pearl & Bird
from: Blissful Company

7.  Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia
from: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegeta

8.  Tommy Brown – Atlanta Boogie
from: Bands That Boogie Woogie (various artists)

9.  Gil Scott-Heron – Me And The Devil
from: I’m New Here

10.  4 Cheveux Dans Le Vent – Le Bain Didonc
from: Psychegaelic (various artists)

11.  Midlake – Acts Of Man
from: The Courage of Others

12.  Javelin – Tell Me, What Will I Be? (Take 2)
from: Vibrationz

13.  Moon Mullican – I Can’t Love You
from: A Compilation of Cotton Thompson (various artists)

Selection Box Show 125
Transmitted 1/3/10

1.  Johnny Jenkins – Walk On Gilded Splinters
from: Duane Alman Anthology 2

2.  Local Natives – Airplane
from: Gorilla Manor

3.  Pan Ron – I Will Marry You
from: Dengue Fever Present Electric Cambodia (various artists)

4.  The Honeycombs – Can’t Get Through To You
from: That’s The Way 7″ single

5.  Tom Beaulieu – Cat Song
from: The Next Step

6.  Brian Wilson – Heroes & Villans
from: Smile

7.  The Carolina Players – I’ll Get You Back Somehow
from: Sonara 7017

8.  Parenthetical Girls – Everybody Got
from: The Scottish Play EP

9.  Anna King – Mama’s Got A Bag Of Her Own
from: Talcum Soul Vol 3 (various artists)

10.  Portishead – Cowboys
from: Portishead

11.  The Trail Blazers – Saturday Night Twist
from: Stomer Time 7 (various artists)

There’s no Selection Box this week due to it being International Women’s Week and I have the wrong type of genitals.  I do not feel in any way oppressed.  Me and my clanking great knackers will be back on air next Monday at midnight.