One hopes that it will actually be a good album, otherwise all this wilful inscrutability will look a bit silly, won't it?

Did anyone else read those Beverly Cleary books about Ralph S. Mouse, the driving mouse, as a kid? He had a little toy motorcycle and a helmet made out of a ping-pong ball, and he made the motorcycle go just by making a "Pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb" noise. In later tales he had a car instead of a motorcycle.

Well, anyway, those stories have actually come to life, after a fashion, across the pond in England, where a hamster was found driving a little car, under his own power, through Cleveleys.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Author blogs now have their very own Weird Al, in the form of Lying Motherfcuker, a blog in which your favorite authors, many of them dead, blog about what they're really thinking.

Consider this from Martin Amis:

"Don't need a Booker. Am successful, well-adjusted, straight-toothed Writer of Renown with valuable contracts and great hair.

Shit. Shit. Shit."

Or Edward Gorey: "Crows and stray cats following me everywhere. Someone has been sneaking offal into my coat pockets. Again."

The most recent entries spoof Neil Gaiman's Sandman characters: "Beset by clouds of amorous pigeons, Dream and Death begin to regret their decision to shill for AquaNet hairspray." (see visual aid)

Much of the humor is of the low variety, but it's an enjoyable guilty pleasure for booklovers all the same.