Tired of watching classic movies or made for the US Sherlock Holmes TV films where every outdoor scene is swathed in fog and the token American is a psycho-analyst? Then return to post-Christmas earth with a visit to some of the following NBT friendly music video sites.

Launch, now part of the Yahoo! empire, concentrates on mainstream fodder but dig around and you will unearth promo videos by the Hives, Donnas, D4, Cramps, Fleshtones and Los Straitjackets. Registration is not required but each clip is preceded by a 15 or 30 second advert the discomfort of which you can minimise by pressing the mute button. Those of you with broadband connections can enjoy decent viewing quality at 300kbps. One word of warning though, better not watch the video of Lux and Ivy cavorting around while you are in the office!

For those who fancy delving back a bit further, the British Pathe site includes a bundle of goodies that, if nothing else, illustrate what a funny breed the English are (no comments from north of the border, please?). Low resolution (136kbps) clips are available for free, complete with disclaimer across the picture, but such a minor irritation is worth it for historical and informative performances by the Interns, Sandra Barry and her Boyfriends (later the Action), the Snobs, as well as more popular beat combos such as the Rolling Stones and the Searchers.

The downside of the British Pathe site is that you need to register in order to access the clips. For those reluctant to divulge personal details, jump over to Ron's 60s Video Page (actually there are one, two and three) and access the Pathe clips without registering. The trick is to mouse-over the links until you see the British Pathe url. Ron's resource includes a large collection of links from locally archived files (albeit of low quality) and various other external sources including the BBC and Radio Bremen. Incidentally, the latter features 30 seconds clips of bands appearing on Beat Club, much of this material is now available on DVD, and of interest should you wish to catch a glimpse of the Creation or the Smoke in their heyday. That aside, two of my favourites links on Ron's 60s Video Page are to clips of the Bad Seeds performing Taste of the Same on Texan TV and the Zachary Thaks rehearsing My Little Red Book. Check 'em out.

The BBC TOTP2 (Top of the Pops 2) site is well worth a dig around even if the clips are restricted to 30 seconds. But hey, where else are you going to catch a glimpse of the Count Bishops performing "I Want Candy" or Dr Feelgood (with new boy Gypie Mayo on board) blasting "Lights Out"? Archived clips can be searched via the performance database and navigation to the decade/year of choice is a breeze. An additional feature of the TOTP2 site is an artists database that includes both the great and the obscure along with biographies and sound clips.

Finally, remember that you will need the Real Media Player for viewing clips on the BBC and Launch sites while British Pathe utilises Windows Media software. Not surprisingly the clips listed on Ron's 60s Video Page come in all formats including AVI and MOV.

This upcoming documentary looks amazing. Check out the trailer...

Welcome to this thing they call 2005 (in terms of chronology). It's a driech morning and if you have a "sorry heid" today then I hope it passes quickly. Thanks and a good one to everybody that has checked in and also to those who didn't or haven't. I'm not big on heralding these things, preferring to get back to what passes for normality as quickly as possible.



Larry David lookalike with customery New Years deep fried Mars Bar. Photo by Lennart Persson (I think?)

The "free stuff" didn't elicit much of a feeding frenzy but the following folks made a score.

Kjell Magnusson got himself a copy of Show World by Redd Kross

Eric Planck secured the Munster comp.

These will go out to their new homes as soon as the aforementioned reality comes to pass. As for the other stuff, it's still here. Feeling somewhat unwanted right about now. So, onward and well, onward then. I wonder what surprises and fungs up the jacksy this one holds? Only this commodity they call time will tell. Do unto others and don't whiz up anybody's back. Awright?