2001-09-19 - 8:53 p.m.

A propos of yesterday�s musical nod, I noted with caution the legislated distaste about certain songs being played by DJ�s on the wireless.

I don't know about you, but normally I'd be all for a random ban on the musical atrocities of Mr Philip Collins. Sadly, these days it seemingly takes acts of international terrorism to bring these things about, and "In the Air Tonight" has, just as it did in the Gulf War, joined the ranks of songs deemed inappropriate for radio play. The powers that be obviously assume that we hear the opening lines and think "Christ on a bike! He means he can hear evil suicidal terror planes full of bombs that are coming in the air TONIGHT!" Other artists suddenly finding themselves a banned band include REM "It's the End Of The World As We Know It" and Van Halen "Jump".

A couple of old favourites that I noticed had slipped through the net included breakthrough hit �24 hour Jihad Party (None-Stop Holy War)" by O Summer BinL8Ten, debut single �I�d Rather Flip Burgers (Than Check Your Bags)� by Exploited Workforce and of course that all time classic, �Crashing Planes Into the World Trade Centre (For Kicks)" by Taliban Necrophilia.

More baffling, though, are some of the other apparently incendiary numbers. "Imagine" by John Lennon, that notoriously callous, twisted paean to suffering, and "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens. "Morning has broken like the first morning/Blackbird has spoken like the first bird". Now there's a rallying call to violent separatism. But then you remember that Cat Stevens is now called Yusuf Islam. Never mind that he's the biggest hippy peacenik since Moses - pull the bastard off the air!

As Program Director Larry Sharp of San Francisco-based station 107.7 'The Bone' observed, "I agree there are some songs [that are inappropriate] but I thought a lot of them went too far," he said. "When you pull 'Stairway to Heaven', that's a song people play at funerals. You want to hear a song like that during these times." I agree completely, provided of course he doesn't apply the same logic to Phil Collins.

In equally reassuring news, the contestants in Big Brother in Denmark, Belgium and South Africa HAVE YET TO BE TOLD OF GLOBAL MELTDOWN, which puts an ironically literal, nay, Orwellian twist on the programme title, no?.

(ps. I need someone very nice to offer to make me a nice link to another site that I've set up. It needs to be Detective themed. Older readers will perhaps remember the type of thing. Merci and gracias!)