One Two Testing in new technology shock! yes, the magazine that all modern-day Luddites hold dear has at lost ditched its acoustic typewriters, plugged its MIDI lead into its collective ear, and gorn all computerised. This what you are now reading it the first ever bit of OTT produced on our sparkly new IBM Personal Computer so you can put all errors in grammar, factual inaccuracies and libellous remarks down to a glitch in the software...

Talking of glitches in the software, on amusing story come to light recently about a certain Casio product. Apparently the hapless user was continually losing the programmes on the sequencer in question and couldn't work out why. Eventually, it came to light that putting the machine on a convenient speaker cabinet was having the effect of magnetically wiping the memory. New ones, we are informed, are much better shielded...

Next in-vogue bit of equipment? The original orange Roland Cube amp a la Bill Bragg, the Dagenham Dylan himself. Watch out for these cut if somewhat small items turning up on hip stages everywhere...

Rumours of a collaboration between old cohorts Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine are a-growing, although whether this is merely wishful thinking by umpteen fans of the best two-guitar band in the world ever (Television) remains to be seen...

As we've all come to realise over the years, the secret behind 'making it big' in the music world is not the possession of a great sense of rhythm, an ear for a good tune or a Wordsworthian turn of phrase, it is an aptitude for wrecking the most exclusive and expensive mode of transport you can get your destructive little hands on. Noted perpetrators of late include Able Seaman Le Bon, Long John Branson, Andrew 'End Of The Road' Ridgeley, Biggies Numan, and now Steve Strange, who recently made a desperate bid to revive his dwindling infamy by parking his balloon (and probably his breakfast) in the branches of an oak tree near Maidstone in Kent. This month's conveyance - the cable car. Coming soon; Virgin Atlantic Challenge II — the farce that sank a thousand ships?...

Event of May has to be SportAid, the neo-enema of the people. Get your plimsolls on and run for someone else's life... Further to our fabby feature on how to gig yourself into an early grave around London's less salubrious nighteries, news that another one, called The Timebox, has opened on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Bull and Gate, Kentish Town. Their booking policy is basically to give gigs to people young, promising and uninterested in Dire Straits covers, so if you fit that slot, ring the cutely named John Beast on (Contact Details), or the less fearsome-sounding Julie on (Contact Details)...