Harmonix and MTV Games today announced that a four pack of songs from American punk rockers X, three singles, including a free track, from British garage rockers Little Fish, as well as singles from Ace Frehley, Carrie Underwood and OneRepublic will be added next week to the Rock Band Music Store of downloadable content for the Xbox 360ÂÂ@ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStationÂÂ@3 computer entertainment system and Wii™.

These are among the more than 400 artists currently available through the Rock Band platform. With more than 1,100 songs available, Rock Band is, without question, the industry leader in providing the best selection of interactive musical content, songs and artists.

Rock Band DLC Additions for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 System and Wii
Los Angeles-formed punk rockers X make their Rock Band debut next week with ”Blue Spark” and ”The Hungry Wolf” from 1982’s Under the Big Black Sun, ”I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” from 1983’s More Fun in the New World and ”Los Angeles” from the band’s 1980 debut album Los Angeles, which Rolling Stone named one of its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and 100 Greatest Albums of the 80s.

Three singles from British garage rockers Little Fish will also be available, including ”Am I Crazy,” ”Bang Bang” and ”Darling Dear,” all from the band’s debut album, set to be released in July and titled Baffled & Beat. ”Am I Crazy” will be available only on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system and will be a free track. Baffled & Beat was produced by Linda Perry and released on her label, Custard Records. After successful opening slots for acts such as Hole, Alice in Chains and Eagles Of Death Metal, Little Fish is headlining their own UK tour in March in support of Baffled & Beat, when they also open for Them Crooked Vultures at the Royal Albert Hall.

Additional singles from Ace Frehley (”Outer Space”), Carrie Underwood (”All-American Girl”) and OneRepublic (”Stop & Stare”) will also be available in the Rock Band Music Store next week.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (March 23) and PlayStation 3 system (March 25):

· X – ”Blue Spark” +
· X – ”The Hungry Wolf”
· X – ”I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”
· X – ”Los Angeles”
· Little Fish – ”Am I Crazy” +
· Little Fish – ”Bang Bang” *
· Little Fish – ”Darling Dear” *
· Ace Frehley – ”Outer Space”
· Carrie Underwood – ”All-American Girl” +
· OneRepublic – ”Stop & Stare” +

(All tracks are original master recordings)

These tracks will be available for purchase as ”X Pack 01,” as well as individual tracks on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system, and as individual tracks only on Wii. Tracks marked with ”+” are also available for download in the family-friendly LEGOÂÂ@ Rock Band Music Store. ”Am I Crazy” will be available only on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system and will be a free track.

Price: £.99 UK (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track
£3.49 UK (560 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for ”X Pack 01”

Denotes £.59 UK (80 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360)
(200 Wii Points™) per track

UPDATE: Much to my disappointment, and probably yours as well, MTV received a denial straight from Tim Burton's people saying, "There is no truth to the story. Tim has not lined up any of his upcoming projects." We'll keep you posted on any further developments or changes to this as we hear them.

The following was originally posted on 3/18/10 by Christopher Campbell

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ... being reunited on the big screen courtesy of Tim Burton. Yes, for all of us who thought Burton should have made the Addams Family movies instead of Barry Sonnenfeld, he has been given another chance. This one, according to Deadline New York, will be a 3-D stop-motion film unrelated to those prior two movies or the silly old TV series or the upcoming Broadway adaptation starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. Presumably Burton will direct this after his feature-length stop-motion remake of his own Frankenweenie, which is in pre-production now.

Reportedly, and somewhat obviously, Burton will look only to the wittier original Addams Family cartoons by Charles Addams. Anyone who has seen Burton's drawings, especially those in his book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, know how similar they are to the work of Addams (and Edward Gorey). Although, of course, even if you aren't familiar with the filmmaker's artwork (which can currently be seen in an enormously popular exhibit at NYC's Museum of Modern Art), the style of his movies should be enough indication that he's the most perfect person to make a movie about Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Lurch and the rest of the Addams clan.

Despite Burton's ongoing relationship with Disney, The Addams Family is set up at the Universal-based Illumination Entertainment (The Despicable Me) and will be produced by the shingle's head, former Fox Animation exec Christopher Meledandri. The project is currently going out to screenwriters, though Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands; The Nightmare Before Christmas; Corpse Bride) seems the best choice, even if she did also co-script the first Sonnenfeld effort.

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Indie game developer Jason Rohrer (of Passage fame) recently took Brandon Boyer on a tour of his latest project, Sleep is Death. It's a two-player storytelling sandpit with the approachable look and feel of an old-school computer game, and it'll be out in just three weeks. Read Caught Sleeping, a Boing Boing special feature:...

DNA technology proved blood on killer Chrisdian Johnson came from pet Tyson in park attack on Seyi Ogunyemi

The first killer to be convicted using pioneering dog DNA technology was given a life sentence today for the murder of a teenage boy and told he must serve at least 24 years.

Chrisdian Johnson was jailed after using his powerful pitbull-cross dog, Tyson, as a weapon to savage 16-year-old Seyi Ogunyemi.

As his slightly built victim lay helpless on the ground, Johnson stabbed him six times before fleeing the scene covered in blood.

Johnson, 22, was convicted after analysis proved to a billion-to-one likelihood that blood found on him and at the scene came from the animal.

Seyi and his friend Hurui Hiyabu, 17, were set upon by a large group of youths and two dogs in Larkhall Park, Stockwell, south London, last April, the Old Bailey heard.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told jurors the case was unique because pets had been used as weapons.

One witness described the attackers as "vicious" and said they were acting like a "pack of wild animals".

Johnson, of Lambeth, south London, was found guilty by a jury of Seyi's murder and the attempted murder of his friend – said to have been lucky to survive after he was stabbed nine times.

Judge Christopher Moss told him: "You used two fearsome weapons. The first was your pitbull-cross dog, which I have no doubt you had trained to attack and bring down your prey.

"The second was the knife with which you stabbed Seyi Ogunyemi to death."

Relatives of the victim hugged each other after the sentence while friends and family of the killer cried "innocent" from the public gallery.

The judge ordered Tyson to be forfeited to the police. It faces being put down.

The judge told Johnson: "This court has not heard any evidence to explain the enmity which obviously existed between you and your victims, save that you were plainly members of rival gangs which each claimed dominion of the south London streets in which you lived. This is a social problem that blights many urban neighbourhoods in our cities.

"The courts cannot cure the problem. All they can do is react firmly and decisively and impose severe punishment when murderous young men such as you are brought to justice before them."

Seyi, who suffered from Crohn's disease, was brought to the ground and mauled by Tyson – an adult male Staffordshire bull terrier/bull mastiff cross – as he tried to escape over a fence.Johnson was arrested as he fled the scene, bare-chested and covered in blood, some of it human and some of it canine.

He had complied with a court order in late 2007 to have Tyson chipped, tattooed and insured but was also supposed to keep him muzzled and on a lead at all times in public.

New technology proved that the dog blood came from Tyson, who had been knifed during the melee. The rest came from the murder victim.

Police hailed the DNA technique, which had just been developed at the time of the murder, as a "hugely powerful investigative tool".

They said they hoped it would deter others from using dogs as weapons.

Detective Inspector Mick Norman said: "This horrific attack was committed on a very slight teenage boy who stood no chance of defending himself.

"The fact that Chrisdian Johnson also ordered dogs to take part in the attack illustrates his sickening attitude to violence.

"The advances in dog DNA and forensic work now means that anyone who owns a dog and uses it to attack people can be identified and prosecuted."

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Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."

Sixty-Eight Years Later, Associated Press Caption Changed for Famous Photo Linked to Bataan Death March

Today's best bets in our daily racing blog, plus all the latest news on day four of the Cheltenham Festival

Minute-by-minute guide to the Gold Cup by Tony Paley with Barry Glendenning and Greg Wood at Cheltenham

2.57pm: The rain has been falling for over half an hour now and is going to start getting into the ground. The previous race turned into quite a slog and could weather conditions have a major say in the Gold Cup? If this keeps up it is going to be more of a test of stamina than many thought when the day started.

3.00pm: "Both sides of the betting ring are bulging at the seams, as is Channel 4's John McCririck," reports Barry Glendenning from the course. "He's standing alongside his glamourous assistant Tanya in a little cordoned off space beside the narrow gap on the rails. He's a vision in crushed velvet and spends his time between updates toking on a cigar the size of a rolled-up carpet, gladhanding the public and posing for photos. He's a very popular man, for reasons that continue to mystify many."

3.02pm: "It's tipping down with rain now," says Glendenning, "which we could all do without. There are hundreds of people wearing green and gold scarves milling round. They must be Man United fans. The best way to get out of this Festival in profit would be to set up a stall selling umbrellas."

3.05pm: "Denman is first into the paddock," says Greg Wood from paddock-side. "He gets a cheer from the throng watching but looks very clam. Tricky Trickster is next in and looks especially well. My Will and Carruthers, who was supported this morning, have joined them."

"Mon Mome has come in and has a little bit of moistureon his neck but there are no serious negatives. Most have been trained with this race in mind and are in fine fettle."

3.10pm: Barry Glendenning reports: "The Gold Cup is still in the tent. It's tiny, hardly worth running for, but worth about 18 grand if you wanted to nick it. Do you want me to nick it?"

3.15pm:Greg Wood reports: "As Ruby Walsh got on Kauto and took a final turn before leaving there was a cheer that went up which startled Mr Pointment and lots of people paddock-side were calling out 'good luck Ruby'."

3.15pm:Tony Paley reports: They are out on the track now and at this rate they are going to get to post very early. Will Hayler says the Best Mate stand is a sea of pink as those in there have been given plastic macs to keep off the rain. Does it constitute support for Tricky Trickster?
Every time Kauto Star gets a mention on the PA het gets a loud cheer.

They are betting on Betfair: 4-5 Kauto Star, 9-2 Denman, 17-2 Imperial Commander, 13-1 Cooldine, 18-1 Tricky Trickster, 40-1 Carruthers, 89-1 Mon Mome. Everything else 100-1 or more. If you follow good-looking horses Imperial Comander won best turned out.

Barry Glendenning reports: "I just passed seven police officers who were receiving instruction on how to cope with the hell that will break loose if kauto wins. Hit paddies first, ask questions later, presumably."

3.20pm: There is a deathly hush . . . Now a great roar . . . They are off . . . and it is still raining . . . Carruthers leads as expected, with Denman in second just behind . . . Kauto Star is on the inside in fourth, nice and relaxed for Ruby Walsh, and he puts in a terrific leap at the fourth . . . Then he makes a terrible mistake at the eighth and Walsh hangs on for grim death . . . He drops back to fifth as the race goes on at a very steady pace . . . Denman challenges Carruthers as they go out on the second circuit with Cooldine, Imperial Commander and Kauto Star tracking them . . . Kauto Star is niggled to improve and he puts in another great leap as Denman goes into the lead . . . Kauto Star falls . . . Denman and Imperial Commander turn for home neck and neck . . . Imperial Commander takes the lead and goes clear . . . The Guardian nap, courtesy of Will Hayler, triumphs at 7-1.

2.50pm Berties lands Dream win in Albert Bartlett

Tony Paley: Berties Dream won an attritional Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle at 33-1. Najaf (25-1) appeared to be going best of all but was outstayed with Kennel Hill third at 66-1.

2.35pm O'Regan banned for putting on weight!

Tony Paley: Denis O'Regan, who finished second on Arcalis in the County Hurdle, returned to weigh in 3lb heavier than he weighed out. The jockey was given a three-day ban.

2.20pm Geraghty plays it cool after win in Triumph

Greg Wood: Barry Geraghty was coolness personified after his winning ride on Soldatino. "We took the third last and Davy Russell gave Andy Mc[Namara] a shout, that thing in front's won five [lengths], but he went so quick that he had to come back.

"I pushed a bit down the hill, and I knew turning in that I had him all right. He was getting tired [in front] and the writing was on the wall at the last. It's like two lanes on the motorway and there's a lorry that you don't want to stuck behind, and you just time it past it, it's a feeling like that. I never panicked, I was sure he'd come back."

2.10pm Stars lights up Katie Walsh's Festival again

Tony Paley: Katie Walsh has her second winner of the 2010 Cheltenham Festival when steering Thousand Stars to success in the County Hurdle. She is definitely not the most stylish, and may have another whip ban coming her way, but it seems to be effective and she brought her mount with a withering run to take up the running at the last.

The fancied horses never got into this after Marodima went off in an attempt to replicate the run of Barizan in the opener. Old-timer Arclais, who was ready to be pensioned off, was second at 33-1 with colleague Will Hayler's tip Dee Ee Williams (20-1) third and Zaynar (50-1), who travelled superbly well, fourth. Your correspondent's tip Noble Prince (11-1) scraped into fifth for those who went with the bookmakers going a quarter the first quintet home.

The leader slowed it down on the far side, though, and the pace probably wasn't as strong as some would have wanted it. Izita Star suffered a dreadful fall which looked fatal.

1.35pm Soldatino triumphs over brave Barizan

Tony Paley: The well-fancied Soldatino (6-1) won the Triumph Hurdle but it was a heartbreaking result for Barizan backers as the 14-1 shot had opened up a long lead and was so far clear two out he was odds-on on Betfair to win.

A bad mistake at the last may have made the difference between winning and losing for the long-time leader, who still fought back after being headed on the run-in. The jockeys on those trailing the runaway Barizan were probably guilty of giving him too much rope but it's also clear that the ground has quickened up again as they went a ferocious pace.

The win puts victorious jockey Barry Geraghty on three winners for the week along with Ruby Walsh. Soldatino, who had had only the one run previously for his current stable having come from France, is opent to plenty of progress. Barizan is going to Aintree next where he will take some pegging back round those sharp bends if this incredible run has not taken too much out of him.

Alaivan, the 9-2 second favourite, was back in third with 7-2 market leader Carlito Brigante coming home fourth. In reality, there were only ever two horses in it.

Hoofnote: The winner was flagged up at 20-1 ante-post in the Observer after winning on his British debut at Kempton.

1.25pm Don't miss our minute-by-minute report of the Gold Cup

Racing is about to start on the final day at Cheltenham and you won't want to miss our reports and analysis, plus our minute-by-minute account of the Gold Cup with the build-up and the action as it happens in the most anticipated jumps race for many years.

1.03pm Greg Wood confirms no juice in the ground

After a circuit of the New course, the uncontroversial verdict is that, in line with the official description, the going is definitely good all round. There were a few good to soft patches out there on Tuesday, but none at all today.

It took almost as long to walk back from the end of the chute to the press room as it did to go around the track, as a huge crowd is now pouring through all entrances and striding with purpose towards the paddock and the Guinness Village. A scarf count suggests that there is just as much support for Denman as Kauto Star, though just how many of the fans in Denman neckwear really expect him to win is another matter.

The ground will be seen as another negative, given that there was a real expectation of some rain on Thursday and Friday and almost none has arrived. A personal feeling, though, is that tactics will be much more important than the ground.

Carruthers should ensure a much better pace than last year, when John Hales, the owner of Neptune Collonges, a stablemate of Kauto Star and Denman, was less than impressed by the sedate gallop his horse set in front. Tony McCoy may not be as aggressive on Denman as Sam Thomas two years ago, when the horse was sent to the fore passing the stands with a circuit to run, but he will still want to be in front at the top of the hill and try to force Kauto Star to make some ground on the way down, to put his jumping under pressure at maximum speed.

Whether Denman is capable of a performance like that is another matter, but the process of finding out should be enthralling.

12.55pm Greenalls juggled

Chris Cook: Anyone mad enough to contemplate a bet on the Foxhunter's at 4pm might care to note a significant jockey change. The Greenall brothers have been juggled around, presumably as a result of the fall suffered by Tom in the Kim Muir yesterday. He was due to ride the 8-1 shot Trust Fund but has now been replaced by Oliver, who had been due to partner the 2008 winner, Amicelli, a 30-1 shot. Amicelli will now be ridden by Jake Greenall, who is the least experienced of the three by a long way and has not yet ridden a winner over fences, according to the Racing Post.

Both horses are owned by Lord Daresbury, otherwise known as Peter Greenall, father of the three and chairman of Aintree racecourse.

12.45pm Barry Glendenning is among those lucky enough to be there

The "House Full" signs are up for the first time this week and the touts are doing a brisk trade outside the entrance to the racecourse. Greg Wood and I left our teddy-bear themed hotel (don't ask) in Evesham after a hearty breakfast and got a taxi to the course. The traffic was brutal, even at 10.30am.

The betting ring is quiet at the moment, but the concourse and Guinness Village are anything but - there are gangs of lads getting stuck into the pints already and the chances of them being even remotely sober when the tapes go up for the Gold Cup are slim, to say the least.

We spotted Irish jockey Barry Geraghty on our way in, suited and booted with an attractive female companion in tow. He also arrived by taxi, prompting hopeless romantic Greg Wood to start reminiscing fondly about the golden age when he were a lad and superstar footballers used to arrive for matches on the same buses as the fans. I'm not sure how much more of his waffle I can take, to be honest. If he was giving me a few winners it wouldn't be so bad, but the man couldn't tip shit off a shovel.

Actually that's unfair. He's furnished me with two winners this week ... both at Kempton.

Geraghty rides many people's idea of the meeting's each-way banker, Tricky Trickster, in the big race. I'm on at 25-1 and could really do with him hosing home ahead of Kauto Star and Denman.

I saw Tony McCoy, Denman's jockey, leaving the weighing room with Ruby Walsh last night and he looked fine, despite two falls that afternoon. He had a giant band aid on his chin, but was sauntering along with no sign of a limp. He's a hardy fella.

12.37pm Grand Annual preview

Tony Paley: Another race that has the look of a bookies' benefit and as difficult a heat as Cheltenham has served up this week. On the basis that Nicky Henderson will be looking to pull off a win in an event named after his father, the choice is You're The Top (5.15), who looks the pick of the Seven Barrows yard. His defeat of Tazbar earlier this season reads very well and, as a far-from-exposed runner who will appreciate the drying ground, he gets the vote in a tricky contest.

12.35pm County Hurdle preview

Tony Paley: Now this is a proper puzzle. You could name seven or eight and stil not find the winner. Bellvano has been teed up for this and is probably still on the upgrade. He is among those on a very "long" short-list, along with fellow novice Tito Bustillo and Eradicate, who won well alst time after a breathing operation.

The choice is Noble Prince (2.05), who has excellent Flat form to his name, is fairly treated on his handicap debut and will be okay on the prevailing ground.

12.20pm Martin Pipe Hurdle preview

Tony Paley: Sometimes it can be difficult to spot the plots until the day of the race and the money starts arriving for a particular horse but no one can have failed to notice that Ashkazar has been readied for this one day. David Pipe, whose father this race is named after, will be desperate to win this particular event.

Ashkazar has classy form to his name, having been second in the 2008 Fred Winter and won last season's Kingwell Hurdle. If he is back at that level, he is thrown in and there have certainly been signs of life of late. The price is hardly attractive now, though, so the suggestion is Peveril (4.40), a very promising novice who got the better of a useful prospect last time out.

12.15pm Foxhunter preview

Tony Paley: The youngster Roulez Cool could well outclass the opposition here and has not looked back since coming over to England after a Listed chase success as a four-year-old in France. His form in handicaps last term marks him out as the one to beat, but his jockey, Sam Waley-Cohen, has been having a wretched week and he only just got home in a point-to-point last time.

He doesn't appeal at the odds and Baby Run (4.00), who seems sure to run a big race, is the obvious alternative to the favourite. Trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies is very confident, his charge has shown improved form since finishing third in this last year and the ground will not be a problem.

12.10pm Albert Bartlett preview

Tony Paley: On a day when some of the races outside the Gold Cup look fiendishly difficult this does offer a solid favourite in Tell Massini (2.40). The Tom George-trained runner has winning form at the track, proven stamina at three miles and has the best form in the field.

This being a Cheltenham novice hurdle, though, there are plenty of unexposed types to consider. Quel Esprit was well fancied for the Neptune Novice Hurdle on Wednesday but exited early. If none the worse, he seems sure to put up a good account.

Shinrock Paddy and Enterprise Park have shown decent form and both are going to improve for the longer trip today. Cappa Bleu is an intriguing outsider for those wanting one at juicy odds. His form over fences (including a victory in the Foxhunter last year at this meeting) puts him in the mix and there is probably more improvement to come from him over timber.

12.05pm Where the money's going

Chris Cook: Olofi, Tony's tip for the Triumph, is the best-backed horse in the race, according to George Primarolo of Totesport, who has provided us with today's market movers.

His firm sponsors the Gold Cup, in which they report steady but unspectacular business. Denman is weak with the Tote, as he is elsewhere. They were joint top price about him this morning and have not been knocked over by demand. Interestingly, they have seen each-way money for a couple of huge outsiders, Mon Mome and Calgary Bay.

Tito Bustillo and Secret Dancer have attracted support in the County, while Ashkazar is 5-1 from 6-1 for the Martin Pipe. He is, of course, trained by Pipe's son.

Primarolo says that this week's results "couldn't have been any better" from the firm's point of view. Punters have one final day to get the money back.

12pm Triumph Hurdle preview

Tony Paley: It would be no surprise at all if there was a shock here. All Alaiavan's form over jumps and on the Flat has come on soft ground and Advisor has yet to prove himself, with his price much more a reflection of the fact that he is trained by Paul Nicholls than what he has achieved on the track.

Carlito Brigante, who will be suited by the ground, is the solid one among the market leaders but there are unexposed and interesting types among those at fancier prices.

The fast-jumping, progressive Gilded Age could go well at very big odds but Olofi (1.30) each-way is the suggestion, especially if you bet with Bet365, Hills, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and the Tote, who are going a quarter the odds the first four. Trainer Tom George rates this improving sort highly and, crucially, the ground will be very much in his favour. He's 12-1.

11.56am Brian O'Connell's shot at redemption

Chris Cook: The young Irish jockey Brian O'Connell is known to most punters as the guy who went all round the houses on Dunguib and got the odds-on favourite beaten in the Festival's opening race. I feel a lot of sympathy for him - he's just getting going in his chosen profession. Plus it must be remembered that he was presumably riding to instructions when he steered Dunguib around the outside of the field.

O'Connell went to Down Royal for two rides on the day after his Festival debut, winning on both. One was a 20-1 shot.

Anyway, he's got the leg-up on an interesting outsider in the Martin Pipe at 4.40 today. Trained by Alan Fleming in Surrey, On Borrowed Wings makes its handicap debut and could easily be well treated. It'll be interesting to see if O'Connell can ride a more aggressive race this time.

[Correction - johne5knuckle, below, is of course quite correct and O'Connell has had a total of four rides in Britain before this week, including when he won last year's Champion Bumper on Dunguib.]

11.40am Gold Cup preview

Tony Paley: It is difficult to find the flaws in the armoury of Kauto Star (3.20) these days. He used to clobber the last fence but that seems to be thing of the past and his performance last time at Kemptonn in the King George was magisterial, the best by any chaser for umpteen years.

His stamina, which was severely tested at Haydock in testing ground when only just holding off Imperial Commander in the Betfair Chase in November, is not going to be tested today on good ground. Or rather, his speed, which is his chief asset, is not going to be blunted.

This is a horse who has proved himself as top class at two miles, too, and he can obviously handle the Cheltenham undulations.

Denman blotted his copybook badly last time and I am far from convinced he would have won, even if he had stood up that day. Imperial Commader has each-way claims for those wanting a bet outside the odds-on favourite but it is hard to see him winning in today's conditions.

11.01am Secant Star out of Triumph

Willie Mullins' runner is lame. He had been 8-1 fifth-favourite for today's opener.

11am Twitter discovers the Gold Cup

Half of the topics which are currently trending on Twitter's UK site are related to today's big race. Tricky Trickster, Imperial Commander and Denman are all trending. Kauto Star is not. What does Twitter know that we don't?

10.45am Claims Five

Our regular Friday feature Claims Five is on hold during the Festival and will return next week.

10.42am Denman cleared to run!

Will Hayler: Denman was among the horses required to pass a vet's inspection before being allowed to run this afternoon. I am delighted to report that he has been passed, which is hardly a surprise but is a relief nonetheless.

10.32am Denman on the slide

Punters appear to have lost any faith in Denman since his Newbury disaster. Having opened at 9-2 on Betfair for the Gold Cup, he has drifted out to 11-2 and the slide may not stop there.

Kauto Star is 8-11, Imperial Commander 17-2, Cooldine 11-1, Tricky Trickster 21-1 and the rest are 79-1 and up.

10.25am Past Festival winners falling short

Chris Cook: Course form matters so much at Cheltenham, as any fule kno, but I've been struck by the number of horses who, having won at the Festival over the past couple of years, have been beaten this time. So far, the rollcall reads:

Dunguib (won 2009 Bumper)
Captain Cee Bee (2008 Supreme)
Character Building (2009 Kim Muir)
Zaynar (2009 Triumph)
Punjabi (2009 Champion Hurdle)
Go Native (2009 Supreme)
Garde Champetre (2008, 2009 Cross-country Chase)
Forpadydeplasterer (2009 Arkle)
Master Minded (2008, 2009 Champion Chase)
Oh Crick (2009 Grand Annual)
Naiad Du Misselot (2008 Coral Cup)
Andytown (2009 Martin Pipe)
Silk Affair (2009 Fred Winter)
Kayf Aramis (2009 Pertemps)
Ballyfitz (2008 Pertemps)
Tidal Bay (2008 Arkle)
Mister McGoldrick (2008 Plate)
Chapoturgeon (2009 Jewson)
Our Vic (2008 Ryanair)
Finger Onthe Pulse (2008 Jewson)

Anyone following past Festival heroes has gone skint by now, along with a large number of other punters. You could even throw in Well Chief, Voy Por Ustedes, Katchit, War Of Attrition and Nicanor, though they have obviously had their problems in the years since their Festival successes.

Clearly, there is a great variety of factors behind all these defeats and disappointments, but a significant one, for me, would be the fact that the going has been significantly faster this year than in recent Festivals.

There have been four successes for horses that had won at past Festivals - Quevega, Weapon's Amnesty, Albertas Run and Big Buck's. Which side of the divide will Kauto Star and Denman fall today?

9.30am Tony McCoy fit and ready for action on Denman in Gold Cup

Tony Paley: Tony McCoy, who had bone-crunching falls aboard Jered and Song of Songs yesterday at Cheltenham, declared himself ready this morning to ride second-favourite Denman in the Gold Cup.

Channel 4 pundit John Francome told Morning Line viewers on the station that he had spoken to the multiple champion jockey who reported himself fit and well despite the two tumbles he had suffered. Francome told viewers: "AP said 'I'm absolutley fine - not a bother'. You wouldn't even had known he had had a fall."

There has been some speculation about what tactics McCoy will employ on Denman, on whom the jockey came off when riding the odds-on shot on his first ride on the horse at Newbury last month. The jockey has revealed his game plan in his Daily Telegraph column today: "I've no chance if it becomes a speed contest, so it will be up to me to ensure stamina comes into play. I expect Carruthers to bowl along in front and I will sit just off him, keeping the pressure on and making sure the pace never slackens. Then it will be a case of the best man wins," said McCoy.

9.20am Cheltenham call ground good after negligible rain overnight

Tony Paley: Cheltenham clerk of the course Simon Claisse has described the going as good at the track this morning after little rain fell at the track overnight. Claisse said: "I've given the ground as good. There was under 1mm of rain last night, hardly a splash. It has just kept the ground fresh for today. I think it will ride perfect jumping ground."

9.15am Welcome to the best live coverage of the Cheltenham Festival

Good morning! It's day four and the highlight of the Cheltenham Festival with the running of the Gold Cup at 3.20pm. Talking Horses will be the place to be for everyone who wants to follow the greatest race meeting of the year. We will have constantly updating news and views all day and those who enter our tipping competition (see below) have a chance to win a £50 free bet.

Greg Wood and Will Hayler are at the course and will be keeping us up to date with the latest news and information from Prestbury Park. Will has already posted his selections for today and you can find his preview of all the day's action here.

We'll be here for the rest of the Festival with the latest ground conditions, non-runners, market movers and the views of our other experts. Throughout the meeting, we will be offering our post-race analysis, along with the news and reaction for all the key races.

Win a £50 free bet from Totesport

Totesport have very kindly offered a £50 free bet to our champion tipster today. All you have to do is give us your selections for all of today's races at Cheltenham. As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price. Non-runners count as losers.

Please post all your tips in a single posting, using the comment facility below, before the first race at 1.30pm. There are six races at Cheltenham today and you must post a single selection for each race.

Our usual terms and conditions, which you can read here, will apply, except that this will be a strictly one-day thing. If we get a tie after all the races have been run, the winner will be the one who posted their tips earliest out of those with the highest score.

Click here for all the day's racecards, form, stats and results.

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And post your tips and racing-related comments below.

• Horse racing
• Horse racing tips
• Cheltenham festival
• Cheltenham Gold Cup

Tony PaleyChris CookWill HaylerGreg Woodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Palm Inc. warned that revenue for the current quarter would be far below Wall Street's expectations...

Calling the UKs best creative talent.

Get involved in a music first...

As part of a larger event called Unknown Pleasures, celebrating the life of Ian Curtis on the 30th anniversary of his death, Un-Convention has been commissioned to develop a very special version of the event. Un-Convention have teamed up with the creators of iconic indie-rock footwear, Converse, to search for 300 of the UK’s most promising creative minds.

This is your opportunity to attend this spectacular free event –

8 bands
60 music industry professionals
300 people
12 hours to record, produce and release an album.

This is Un-Convention Factory

Get involved...watch the bands record the tracks live, design the sleeve, debate ideas, learn about releasing music, explore new digital platforms and create a unique piece of history.

At Un-convention Factory, a mill space will be transformed to contain all of the elements and processes involved in creating and releasing a record. You’ll be free to explore everything that is going on, interact with music industry professionals and ultimately make all the decisions along the way.

We’ll even provide food, drink, a free pair of trainers and a CD of the finished album by the end of the day for everyone who attends.

And to cap it off, the day will end with a free evening show featuring the bands involved, with a line up including Reverend Soundsystem, The Whip, I Am Kloot, New Education, Young Fathers, Virginmarys and more.

Music industry professionals include Peter Hook (New Order), Graham Massey (808 State), Har Mar Superstar, Andrew Dubber (New Music Strategies) and Karen Piper (Radarmaker).

It’s all taking place on 8th May 2010 at Un-Convention Factory in The Heritage Centre, Macclesfield.

If you’re in a band, make cool videos, design amazing things, run a cutting edge blog or are just keen to get involved then tell us about it and you could be coming to Un-Convention Factory. For the chance for you and a friend to attend this free, once in a lifetime event visit www.unconventionhub.org.

Applications close on 26th April 2010

Enquiries to: steph@fatnortherner.com

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."

Council officials promise to learn lessons from mistakes as they apologise over the unconnected deaths of three 16-year-olds.

The police watchdog is to examine how officers in Greater Manchester dealt with a vulnerable man who was said to have been "tormented to death" by local yobs.

Letter opened to public viewing for the first time shows Clive Bell coming to terms with sister-in-law's suicide

A revealing letter about the disappearance and suicide of Virginia Woolf in 1941 is part of a new archive of letters by the Bloomsbury group that is being opened to public viewing for the first time.

The two collections belonged to the novelist Rosamond Lehmann and the diarist and writer Frances Partridge, once described by fellow group member Clive Bell as having "the best legs in Bloomsbury". Lehmann and Partridge became friends at Cambridge University, later getting to know the group of intellectuals that also included Woolf, EM Forster, Lytton Strachey and JM Keynes.

One of the documents in the archive, which has been acquired by King's College Cambridge, sees Clive Bell writing to Partridge on 3 April 1941, shortly after Woolf's final disappearance. "I'm not sure whether the Times will by now have announced that Virginia is missing. I'm afraid there is not the slightest doubt that she drowned herself about noon last Friday," writes Bell. "She had left letters for Leonard and Vanessa [Woolf and Bell]. Her stick and footprints were found by the edge of the river. For some days, of course, we hoped against hope that she had wandered crazily away and might be discovered in a barn or a village shop. But by now all hope is abandoned; only, as the body has not been found, she cannot be considered dead legally."

Bell wrote that it had become evident some weeks earlier that Woolf "was in for another of those long and agonising breakdowns of which she had had several already". "The prospect of two years' insanity, then to wake up to the sort of world which another two years of war will have made, was such that I can't feel sure that she was unwise," he added.

The archive's thousands of pages of letters, including some from Woolf herself, and 30 albums of photographs featuring key members of the group such as Forster and Strachey, are being opened to the public by King's. The collection also details the Bloomsbury group's reaction to the suicide of the artist Dora Carrington, the first wife of Frances Partridge's husband Ralph Partridge. She shot herself two months after Strachey – with whom she was besotted — died of stomach cancer. She was still alive when Ralph and Frances arrived at the Wiltshire house, hours later.

"For me the final touch of horror seems to be given by the fact that she was still alive and conscious when you arrived," wrote Clive Bell to Frances Partridge in 1932. "What can it have been like – I'm glad I can't clearly imagine it. This world of tragedy in which all my dearest friends are engulfed is only half-real to me because I left England a day or two after Lytton died. Hadn't you and Ralph better get out of it for a bit?"

Lehmann – whose controversial first novel Dusty Answer, partly about her time as a student in Cambridge, catapulted her to fame – provides a lighter note in an August 1932 letter to Partridge about an argument between her husband Wogan Philipps and his father. "It started with an argument about capital punishment (W against, Papa for, of course) and developed at lightning speed into communism, filthy painting, being in a filthy set, rotten intellectuals, intention of making Wogan squirm and beg for every penny, etc etc," she wrote. "Before we knew where we were, Wogan was presented with a document to sign, agreeing to go into Morris's motorworks as an ordinary mechanic and then go to Russia for six months and find any work he could. Meanwhile another letter was composed to Morris asking him if he would take in Wogan and cure him of communist nonsense."

She also gives an insight into her lifestyle, writing about how she had been looking after her son Hugo while his nurse had a holiday. "I've really enjoyed it, tho' it makes one feel rather blank in the head. He really is rather an amusing child," she wrote.

King's archivist Patricia McGuire said the two collections also provide glimpses into what Partridge and Lehmann "were reading or listening to, into what art galleries and exhibitions they were attending and into how they responded to major political events of the day, such as the Spanish civil war".

"In a way, these two women belonged to a generation that could only have existed between the wars," she said. "They had education, training and rights but they also had lots of free time and didn't necessarily have to keep a house. They had well-developed points of view, were articulate about their emotions and at the same time struggled with their bohemian lifestyles and the more conservative, older generation."

• Virginia Woolf

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Switzerland halts special flights to deport asylum seekers after a Nigerian man on hunger strike died at Zurich airport.

Switzerland halts special flights to deport asylum seekers after a Nigerian man on hunger strike died at Zurich airport.

Four years after the Aibo puppy was discontinued, some CAT scans and X-rays have emerged showing two of the models' inner parts. The CT scans don't appear to show any abnormalities, but then I'm no doctor. Or roboticist. More »

Four years after the Aibo puppy was discontinued, some CAT scans and X-rays have emerged showing two of the models' inner parts. The CT scans don't appear to show any abnormalities, but then I'm no doctor. Or roboticist. More »

David Coleman Headley avoids death sentence with guilty plea in US court and pledge to co-operate with police

An American man has admitted helping plan the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai that killed 166 people and plotting a strike on a Danish newspaper because of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

David Coleman Headley, 49, pleaded guilty in a US court yesterday to all 12 counts he faced. Under a deal with prosecutors Headley will not face execution if he continues to co-operate with their terrorism investigation. He could face up to life in prison and a $3m fine when he is sentenced. A date has not been set.

His attorney, Robert Seeder, said after the hearing that Headley's decision to talk was "a manifestation and example of his regret and remorse" and was not based solely on the fact he would avoid a possible death sentence.

"He has provided significant help to the United States and aided other countries," said Seeder. He declined to specify what help Headley had provided.

In his plea agreement Headley admitted he made surveillance videos and conducted other intelligence gathering for the November 2008 attack on Mumbai. Nine of the 10 gunmen were killed in the three-day siege. The US and India say the gunmen were trained and directed by the Pakistani-based terrorist group Lashkar e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure").

Headley said he met a Pakistan-based terrorist leader, Ilyas Kashmiri, in a tribal area of western Pakistan in May 2009 and that Kashmiri told him he had a European contact who could provide Headley with money, weapons and manpower for an attack on Denmark's Jyllands Posten newspaper. That attack never happened.

He said men he knew as "elders" whom he understood to be leaders of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network urged swift action in attacking the newspaper, which offended many Muslims in 2005 by publishing a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

He said Kashmiri wanted newspaper staff beheaded and the heads thrown from the building to send a message to the Danish authorities. Kashmiri wanted a suicide attack and said the attackers should prepare martyrdom videos.

According to the indictment, Kashmiri has been in regular communication with al-Qaida's third in command, Sheikh Mustafa Abu al-Yazid.

Attorney general Eric Holder said in a statement from Washington: "Not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities.

"As this case demonstrates, we must continue to use every tool available to defeat terrorism both at home and abroad."

Headley could have been sentenced to death if convicted of the most serious charges – conspiracy to bomb public places in India and six counts of murdering US nationals in India – but Seeder said the death sentence was "off the table" if Headley continued to co-operate.

That could include testifying against his co-defendant, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, if he goes to trial. Rana, a 49-year-old Canadian who also lived in Chicago, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in Denmark and India, as well as to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Retired Pakistani military man Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed and Kashmiri are also accused in the newspaper plot against the Danish newspaper. Their exact whereabouts are unknown.

• Mumbai terror attacks
• Global terrorism
• United States
• al-Qaida
• Denmark

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Rock Radio conducted an interview with vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway of British grindcore pioneers NAPALM DEATH at the Hammerfest II festival, which was held March 11-13, 2010 at Pontins, Prestatyn Sands, North Wales, United Kingdom.

Six staff dismissed for not meeting standards at council which was criticised over death from starvation of Khyra Ishaq

Six social workers at Birmingham city council criticised over the death from starvation of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq have been sacked, it emerged today.

The staff were dismissed over the past year for not doing their jobs properly at the council, which is taking part in a serious case review of the death.

The dismissals are not thought to be directly linked to Khyra's case, but they follow other child deaths in recent years.

Khyra died in May 2008 from starvation, and her mother and stepfather were jailed last week for her manslaughter.

Colin Tucker, the director of children's social care at the council, said the sacked staff showed "no sign whatsoever" of meeting expected standards.

In an interview with the BBC, he said: "We are not appointing some staff, as well as that we have dismissed six staff in the last year.

"There is a clear indication we are serious about our standards. They did not adhere to standards and expectations that we laid down. They showed no sign whatsoever that they were keen to do so, so we dismissed them."

Khyra died when her body succumbed to an infection after months of starvation at her home in Handsworth, Birmingham.

She was removed from school in December 2007 and social workers made several attempts to visit her home.

Khyra's mother, Angela Gordon, was jailed for 15 years over her death, while her former partner Junaid Abuhamza was jailed indefinitely, with a minimum term of seven-and-a-half years.

During the trial the judge, Mrs Justice King, said that "in all probability" Khyra would not have died had there been "an adequate initial assessment and proper adherence by the educational welfare services to its guidance".

Tucker was brought in last year after Ofsted inspectors branded aspects of the council's children's department as "inadequate".

He said there were about 120 vacant posts were filled with agency staff but he wanted to cut the number of agency staff to between 40 and 50.

• Social care
• Children
• Local government

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A US citizen of Pakistani origin pleaded guilty yesterday to 12 charges including helping a 2008 militant attack on Mumbai and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or allow extradition.

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and the family of killer whale trainer Dawn Brancheau are fighting to keep videos and photos related to her death out of the public eye.

In the article on icons, that I referred to previously from the Catholic weekly OSV, there was an interview with a Catholic iconographer named Marek Czarnecki. Czarnecki has been writing icons for fifteen years. For him, this is more than a simple job, it is his personal calling. He sometimes devotes whole periods of time to prayer and fasting before writing. The Connecticut-based artist studied iconography for ten years with a Russian Orthodox iconographer before he began his work. Here, to give you an idea of what such a writer of icons does, is a small part of that interview:

***************

OSV: How does iconography relate to art, to theology, to prayer?

Czarnecki: People think that iconography is a style of religious art, and it’s not. It’s a whole vision of reality, but we use art as a tool to scribe that reality. . . .We say icon writing instead of icon painting because what we are making isn’t just a picture but a theological text. That theological text can in no way disagree with what is the written text or what stands in holy tradition. It’s not my job to figure those things out. The church has already decided those things. My job is just to articulate them.

OSV: When you get ready to write an icon, do you have to prepare in a spiritual way?

Czarnecki: I’ve been doing this for so long it’s just an integral part of my life. I teach, and as a group we start with a prayer of consecration and a mission statement about our work. Then, while we work, we pray. That’s just as important as the preparation you do before you start working. It’s that way with the very simple Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” [I pray the Jesus Prayer every day, all day, and into my sleep at nights.] You just repeat it over and over, and it’s like a wheel that turns in your head. What it does while you’re working is that it forces you to focus on what you’re doing. It’s a real prayer, so while you’re praying it, you’re connecting yourself with God. It acts like a metronome while you’re working, too. It gives your mind something to hold on to, and it paces you while you work so that you don’t rush through your work, you connect it with your breathing, you connect it with every brush strike. Eventually it just doesn’t stop. It’s like your heartbeat.

OSV: With icons, there are certain images that would be considered classic, but you’ve also done images of St. Maria Goretti and Faustine Kowalska and others. Is iconography something that can be both classical and contemporary?

Czarnecki: It has to be both. I think one of the classic functions of the church is to work as a treasurer keeper, and the treasures of the church are the lives of the saints. The prototypes that were created for the lives of the saints, even ancient ones, have some historical truth to them, and that’s why we don’t have permission to change them. . . . These old prototypes, some of them go back to the catacombs. The icon of the nursing Virgin is the oldest image we have of the Virgin Mary historically, and we still make an icon almost exactly like that fresco. There’s a deepness to those prototypes that we can’t even begin to approach. . . . Even if you’re going to write “new” icons you have to have a grounding and a foundation in that traditional language. There’s no way you can create new icons without immersing yourself in all of that.

***************

I particularly note several things in this interview that intrigue me as an evangelical Protestant. While I do not invoke the saints merit on my behalf I have come to believe the saints, thus all of those who have died in the Lord, are praying and worshiping as they stand before Jesus at this very moment. They are most active in prayer and I cannot help but believe they pray for you and me. I also believe it is right we remember them in our worship and prayer given a passage like Hebrews 11. They are not dead! They are very much alive, more alive than we are really. It was D. L. Moody himself who reproached people at his death bed who felt that he was about to enter the land of the dying by saying, “No, I am about to enter the land of he living, it is you who will remain in the land of the dying.” How true. There is a great deal that we simply do not know about life after death but it seems apparent that those who die in the Lord reign with him on high right now and are as active in his kingdom as ever, more so than we on earth in one way at least. Yes, their activity is different but there are no passive bystanders in heaven. I have come to believe that it is right for us to celebrate the victorious completion of their earthly journey and to remember them in more ways than scrap-booking and biography.

Note that Czarnecki also says the church “is to work as a treasure keeper.” It seems to me that when evangelicals were pushed away from the Roman Catholic communion during the 16th century they forgot this point. We ceased being “treasure keepers” seeing this work as Roman and unbiblical. It seems that we have often forgotten much more than we can afford to forget. We despise tradition and have no collective memory of the past. So far as I can tell multitudes of evangelical Protestants will not even go back to what happened last Sunday, much less what happened in a previous century before the sixteenth. But even when we do go back we know next to nothing about any treasures of the past except those that came to us from Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards and Spurgeon. Now don’t get me wrong. I love these men, always have and always will. I have photographs of each of them around me in my library. But these are not the only great men in the treasured history of the Christian church. And this doesn’t even touch on the question of great women. Evangelical Protestants have forgotten the great women of faith even more than their Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.

Finally, we note that in this interview Czarnecki speaks about his “not having permission” to change the old prototypes. There is a respect here for that which is ancient. Few people in my evangelical Protestant background understand this at all. It is this very kind of thinking that has deeply penetrated my own mind and heart because of my growing love for the Great Tradition of the one, holy, catholic church. May God open your minds and hearts to all of his truth, even the truth found in places you may never have expected to find it.

posted by Neil Aching, tired and really happy: leaving Manila after two days, having signed books for hundreds of people (and, the way of this place, having not signed books for thousands of people). I was there for the third Philippine Graphic/Fiction award. I started the award back in 2005, with Jaime Daez from Fully Booked (they do all the hard work and heavy lifting. I just put up the prize money). I'm just thrilled to see the quality of SF/horror/fantastic fiction coming out of the Philippines.

Two boxes of gifts are being sent home. In my luggage, just one box of chocnut, a package of dried mangoes, a book and a bottle of local rum (because posting alcohol is sometimes problematic).

Now in an airport lounge. I fly to Amsterdam, where I change planes and go to Warsaw. Tomorrow (Saturday) I accompany Amanda to Wroclaw, where she's playing a festival. Then she comes with me to Warsaw, where I'm doing interviews and a signing.

It's at Empik Junior Marszalkowska Str, where I do a Q&A at 5 pm and a signing at 6 on Monday the 22nd.

And from Poland I go to Moscow, where I talk and sign on the 24th and 25th. (Details over at Where's Neil - http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/.) Come and say hello, and spread the word on Russian blogs and LJs - I've never been to Russia before and have no idea what to expect, or if anyone will turn up or not...

Before I fly away I want to say thank you to the people here in Manila. I've never felt so loved. And never been so hugged. Thank you all, so much. (Lots of coverage of the Award and photos of the Award Ceremony at http://azraelsmerryland.blogspot.com/search/label/neil gaiman in manila 2010) Labels:  Poland, I am really going to Russia, dried mangoes

Not so long ago, calling something “Web 2.0″ increased its value. It meant fresh, new, interactive, responsive. Now, if someone uses that term you know they’re woefully out of touch.

For me, it’s been a trip to re-adopt my former web beat on GigaOM after spending a few years writing for our sister site NewTeeVee. I made the leap to the world of web video in the fall of 2006, when YouTube had just been bought, Facebook had just opened to the general public, and only a few people cared about a little service called Twittr.

Since then, one thing that’s gone by the wayside is the term “Web 2.0,” which got its start as a marketing phrase to build a conference around, and spawned both a new class of companies and sites dedicated to writing about them, such as TechCrunch and Mashable. TechCrunch, whose original tagline was “tracking Web 2.0,” itself declared the death of the term in February 2009, citing a perceived drop in the number of pitches mentioning it. Indeed, while the AJAX-y web services and user-generated content at the core of Web 2.0 haven’t gone anywhere, now the preferred term seems to be “social media.” Google Trends says that search volume for “social media” surpassed “Web 2.0″ right in the middle of January this year, though the new hotness has yet to reach the heights of “Web 2.0″ circa 2007.

Feel free to chalk it up to a matter of trendy semantics, but here are the material differences I see between these two mini-eras:

Building for the Mainstream

These days, starry-eyed entrepreneurs are building for the mainstream, not just for themselves. One of the reasons I was happy to leave the GigaOM Web 2.0 beat the first time around was that I didn’t want to write about yet another social bookmarking service trying to copy the innovative but narrowly used Delicious (then spelled del.icio.us, which kind of says it all). Sure, one of the best ways to come up with something truly useful is to build something you yourself want, like a repository for saving all the web sites you visit — and as Twitter has proven, niche products can evolve to satisfy the needs of those beyond just early adopters. But some of the most exciting new services online today are aimed at serving broader interests, such as the search for deals (Groupon, Gilt Groupe), and procuring real physical products and human services (Alice.com, Sears’ ServiceLive).

I think MySpace and Facebook deserve a lot of credit for bringing the Web 2.0 era to the mainstream, helped along by major portal offerings like Gmail. Those services and products continue to provide value to a broad audience. On the flip side, startups like Foursquare and the many folks who pitch us on, say, tweaks to Google Reader aren’t building with Middle America in mind. They may get there eventually, but not just yet.

All the World’s a Platform

The rise of platforms, app stores and mobile makes web applications better, more accessible and more useful. Facebook, with its platform launch in 2007, showed the value (and eventually, the dangers) of building on top of someone else’s pre-existing audience, making use of inherent viral channels and the continuity of experience provided by a popular platform. The distribution power of the platform was huge.

Then the iPhone App Store came along, offering far more functionality and exposure to developers (if they could get through its approval process). On the user side, just about every web app is better when it rides along in your pocket, ready when you need it. The iPhone and all the knock-offs and competitive one-ups it has inspired are tremendously popular. And as a corollary, the benefits of the mobile app platform model is now so obvious that the number of them grew to 38 from eight in the span of 2009 alone, according to new research.

The Most Obvious Answer

Of course, the one thing that affected every business, web or otherwise, was the economic downturn. However, Web 2.0 startups — until of course their funding ran out and/or they had to layoff employees — seemed woefully out of touch with the rest of the world.

Valleywag, which never missed a chance to declare something dead, might have actually been right when in it ran with the headline “It’s the end of Web 2.0 as we know it” in reference to a carefree music video released by Web 2.0 entrepreneurs cavorting in Cyprus to the tune of Journey. It was October 2009. Their timing was pretty bad.

Meanwhile, one of the sectors hit hardest by the downturn was the media, which was already being brought to its knees by its failure to adapt to the web. Now, your Facebook newsfeed really is your hometown paper (though its investigative reporting skills may be limited to relationship status changes), and Twitter really is your personal real-time newswire. And accordingly, social media referrals from sites like Digg and Twitter are increasingly important to media business models — and sites like Facebook and YouTube are among the most-trafficked, and therefore most powerful, on the web.

Maybe “social media” just sounds less like a buzzword or a brand name than “Web 2.0,” while at the same time pointing to a sort of social facelift for all content — a feature that can be included or integrated into everything on the web, rather than being segmented in its own category. Or perhaps it was the futile attempts to brand disparate things “Web 3.0” that made people realize how silly the naming convention was. But “social media” has its issues, too. As Aliza argued earlier this month on WebWorkerDaily, many new web tools are just useful, not necessarily social. Perhaps what was wrong with “Web 2.0″ was that the term implied a fixed version — while it’s cute, the metaphor of a software upgrade doesn’t carry over very well in reference to something that changes every day. Innovation on the web is fluid and builds on itself, and that naming convention just got stale.

Middle photo and post thumbnail courtesy of Flickr user chegs.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my bio.

With this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco complete, organizers have been collecting the event's substantial volume of visual documentation.

This volume chronicles many of the speakers who highlighted the main conference tracks during GDC, part of the UBM Techweb Game Network (also this website's parent company), from inspiring creative manifestos to in-depth discipline-specific talks.

These include notables such as Blizzard's Rob Pardo and keynote speaker Sid Meier of Civilization fame, as well as last-minute secret speaker addition Will Wright (The Sims), and many more from the over 450 GDC speakers this year. An earlier roundup collected images from the Independent Games Festival Summit, Pavilion, and Awards.

Game Developers Conference 2010 Sessions

These pictures capture moments from a wide variety of talks, drawn from the considerable official GDC photo archive.

Firaxis design legend Sid Meier (Civilization, Pirates!) headlined this year's conference with his keynote "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)."

...and fellow design legend Will Wright (The Sims, Spore) closed out the show with his sprawling and fascinating "The Metaphysics of Game Design," initally presented under the pseudonym Phaedrus.

Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Epic Mickey) waxed curmudgeonly about the dangerous of obsessing over progress during this year's incarnation of the annual invitation-only "Lunch With Luminaries" event.

These game developers just can't wait to confer at the Game Developers Conference! Soon, they will get their chance.

How does Blizzard make so much money? It's the game design! Rob Pardo (World of Warcraft, StarCraft II) "explains it all" in a practical development lecture.

"You'll love our new game this much," gestures Peter Molyneux (Fable II, Fable III) in a detailed talk explaining the Fable series genre metamorphosis.

Much like the children, connectivity is our future. A panel of esteemed game developers consisting of, from left to right, Jason Holtman (Valve), Brian Reynolds (Zynga), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Min Kim (Nexon America), and Rob Pardo (Blizzard) discuss what it all means.

Much like connectivity, free games are our future. Kristian Segerstrale, founder of social game developer Playfish (Pet Society, Who Has the Biggest Brain?), argues that the game industry shouldn't fear the concept of "free."

Moscone Center's North Hall is overrun by game developers at the Game Developers Conference!

Noted game designers Jenova Chen (Thatgamecompany), Kim Swift (Airtight Games), Heather Kelley (Kokoromi), and Erin Robinson (Wadjet Eye Games) battle to the death novelty prize with game designs based on "real-world permadeath" during this year's Game Design Challenge. (Spoiler alert: Chen wins.)

Denki's Gary Penn was just one of numerous presenters at this year's Microtalks session, three of whom are highlighted in Gamasutra's coverage of the event.

Veteran game designer Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry series, Train) explains how board games led her to dump electricity and learn to love design.

"We're all doomed," Chris Hecker doesn't actually really claim as he reflects on the potential dangers of gaming's nightmare scenario in his talk "Achievements Considered Harmful?"

"Now that was some mighty fine conferring," these people are probably thinking as they decompress during this year's evening Speaker Party.

[More pictures of the Game Developers Conference as a whole, taken by Vincent Diamante, are available on the Official GDC Flickr stream.]

When we were driving out of town I said, "I hate the corpses of empires, they stink as nothing else. They stink so badly that I cannot believe that even in life they were healthy." "I do not think you can convince mankind," said my husband, "that there is not a certain magnificence about a great empire in being." "Of course there is," I admitted, "but the hideousness outweighs the beauty. You are not, I hope, going to tell me that they impose law on lawless people. Empires live by the violation of law." (Rebecca West, from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)

Strange week this week. All Marvel and Vertigo. And lots of sex. Weird. And yes, I'm aware the fourth issue of Daytripper came out last week. I didn't get it, for some reason. I should have it this weekend. Dang. Let's move on!

Avengers vs. Atlas #3 (of 4) ("Hulk Smash!"/"Hey, Venus!") by Jeff Parker (writer, "Hulk"), Paul Cornell (writer, "Venus"), Gabriel Hardman (artist, "Hulk"), Leonard Kirk (artist, "Venus"), Elizabeth Breitweiser (colorist, "Hulk"), Brad Anderson (colorist, "Venus"), Tom Orzechowski (letterer, "Hulk"), and Joe Sabino (letterer, "Venus"). $3.99, 30 pgs, FC, Marvel.

Everyone reading this should know what I'm going to rant about. When Thor transports the Avengers and the agents of Atlas to Norway, he says, "But I know of one place on Midgard I can bring us all to!" Sorry, Thor - it's TAKE!!!!! Seriously, poor "take." No one loves it. So sad.

I love how Parker casually makes Hank Pym a dick even when he's not really trying. When the old-school Avengers find out that Bruce Banner is the Hulk (because Venus sang to him and calmed him down, turning him back to Banner), Pym says, "That's Dr. Bruce Banner! He's maybe the top physicist in the world -- well, besides me ..." Ha! And Parker makes Tony Stark a bit of a wuss, too - Marvel Boy telepathically informs Pym about what's happening, and Stark says, "He could have put the knowledge in me ... I would have gotten it." If that's not enough, in the next panel, Stark looks down at himself and says to no one in particular, "I built this suit ..." Whenever a writer is clever enough to drop stuff like that into his fairly standard superhero team-up (which this is), I appreciate it, because it just humanizes them and makes it easier to deal with the wackiness of a team from the 1960s (or a decade ago, according to Pym) joining up with a team from the present thanks to some time anomaly. They all fight the Hulk, Bob figures out what's up, and everything is set up for the final showdown. It's good, clean fun!

In the back-up story, Cornell and Kirk bring us Venus, love advice columnist. It's pretty hilarious (see the panel of awesome below), as she answers questions from Hercules, Deadpool (which is particularly hilarious), I assume Jocasta, the Hulk, Norman Osborn (more hilarity!), Kitty Pryde, and Clint Barton. It's very dependent on knowing Marvel continuity (unsurprisingly), and the only one I didn't get was the letter from Miss Dean. Help me out, more knowledgeable readers! It's a fun little tale.

Sex in this comic? Hoo-boy, you bet. It stars Venus in both stories, for crying out loud! In the first, Venus has to sing to calm Bruce down, and two superheroes get caught in the sound wave. Macking commences! And in the second, well, Deadpool's letter is the highlight, and I won't spoil it.

One panel of awesome:

Oh, Hulk, no one understands you!

Fables #93 ("The Little Murder Part Two of Two") by Bill Willingham (writer), David Lapham (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

It's been two months since the last issue of Fables. Strange. Anyway, I always dig the short stories of this series because they seem to contain standalone stories, but Willingham always makes sure that things get tied into the main story later. In other words, I doubt we've seen the last of the some of these characters. The story itself is not great but not bad, as Ambrose needs to figure out a way to deal with the serious transgression from last issue in a way that doesn't rip his kingdom apart. He does it, of course, but there's still some restlessness among the subjects, and that can't be good. I do like the only witness for the defense - at first, I thought it was absolutely idiotic, but once John started expanding on his story, it made better sense. And hey - those people who wish to read political intent into writers' books can kind of have a field day here, as Willingham tackles the death penalty and the idea of culture leading to what some would call crime. I honestly don't care when writers inject their political beliefs into comics (if, indeed, that's what Willingham is doing here), because this issue, while not superb, does show how much difficulty Ambrose is going to have moving forward. That's what makes this such a neat series.

Sex in this comic? Definitely. Off-panel and after the issue ends, but oh yeah, someone's getting lucky!

One panel of awesome:

Won't someone think of the ... squirrel children!

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1 (of 2) (Hercules main story/"Greek Tragedy") by Greg Pak (writer, "Hercules"), Fred van Lente (writer, "Hercules"), Paul Tobin (writer, "Tragedy"), Ariel Olivetti (artist, "Hercules"), Reilly Brown (penciler, "Tragedy"), Jason Paz (inker, "Tragedy"), Wil Quintana (colorist, "Tragedy"), Simon Bowland (letterer, "Hercules"), and Joe Sabino (letterer, "Tragedy"). $3.99, 30 pgs, FC, Marvel.

There are a few writers that I simply will not read. I've read their stuff, disliked it enough to know it's kind of a pattern with them and not an anomaly, and won't try it again. There are some writers who I dislike so much that even if they hook up with a fantastic artist, it's not enough to get me to buy it. However, if I like the writer, usually I can take lousy art, because I'm much more interested in the writing in comics than the art. If the art doesn't make my eyes bleed and tells the story serviceably, I can deal with it. Very rarely will the art on a book I want to read by a writer I like keep me from buying it. Let me tell you, I had one of those moments on Wednesday, when I looked at this book and Ariel Olivetti's art.

I can't really put my finger on why I don't like Olivetti's art. I didn't always dislike it. A decade ago, when he was still drawing using heavy lines rather than whatever the hell he's doing now, it wasn't great art but it had a kind of mad energy to it. Then he started doing more and more delicate line work, it appears he's given up on inking, and I don't know what's going on with the coloring (an Irene Y. Lee is credited with "production" on this book; does she do the coloring or does Olivetti?). It's that faux-"realistic" look that, to me, is ridiculously static and, at times, downright creepy. It's kind of the same thing that Salvador Larocca has done in the past five years or so, with color washes that drains everything heavy from the page but makes the art far too ephemeral. It's not a good look. Olivetti is fine telling a story, but the art just repels me. But I bought this anyway, because I knew that Pak and Van Lente wouldn't let me down. And, heck, they didn't. Well, except for one brief exchange. I'll 'splain.

The premise of the book is that Amadues Cho and a bunch of heroes congregate at the Parthenon to honor Hercules. Amadeus is peeved at Athena and wants her to show up, but instead the heroes do. So they all tell stories about how groovy Hercules was. Thor talks about the time he and Herc had to outdrink a bunch of giants, while Namor tells them of the time Herc beat on him to get him out of a funk. (I wonder why Namor is wearing his new, "I'm so cool" outfit in his flashback when he's wearing his old-school, "I'm so cool I can look UNcool" underpants in the original comic. I mean, will people reading this comic be that confused that he ... changed his clothes?!?!?!?) These are not bad stories, and Thor's is quite funny. Then the babes show up, talking about how hot Herc was (it's true - they all say it!). Snowbird says that they all "lay" with him, then continues: "I know there are others in the crowd who should join us ... don't be shy." At which Northstar says, "Is that the time? Gotta go!" while Namor looks on, a question mark above his head. Ha ha, Jean-Paul had sex with Herc and he's embarrassed about it! Now, this bugged me. First of all, Herc is a god. And he's, you know, Greek. I always assumed he was kind of pansexual, so the idea of him having sex with men isn't that strange. Second, Northstar is (wait for it) gay. And everyone knows he's gay! Who cares if he had sex with Herc? It felt, to me, that Van Lente and Pak were saying that a gay man would be embarrassed that he had sex with a man, while the women aren't. This would have, actually, been a perfect opportunity for another Marvel hero to come out of the closet - the joke would have been funnier if Snowbird had said that and someone like Warren or Logan had shrugged and said, "Hey, it weren't no big thing." But it's weird that Northstar is embarrassed about it. This weird feeling continues on the next page, when Alflyse starts talking about her time with Herc (see the panel of awesome below). Wolverine and Fandral looked shocked. After she's done talking, Namor too looks shocked (and Thor looks like he's fondly remembering his own experiences with the Elven Tickler, which isn't too surprising, given that he's, you know, Thor). Logan is older than a century, and he knows how to get with the ladies. Fandral is a freakin' god. Namor, I suppose, is the most stuck-up of them, so him I can forgive. But the idea in mainstream comics, it seems, is that men like the sex as long as it's not too weird, while the women kind of tolerate the sex but certainly don't do anything wacky. Pak and Van Lente are subverting the second assumption, but reinforcing the first. Are you telling me Logan never got really weird with any of the seriously crazy women he hooked up with? Are you saying Fandral never did anything bizarre to mix things up after a thousand years of the missionary position? I've seen this attitude before in Marvel and DC comics, and it's a bit strange. If someone who looks like Alflyse starts talking about how much she enjoyed Herc's mastery of the Elven Tickler, I wouldn't looked shocked, I'd be breaking out the instruction manual to figure it out!

And then Athena shows up and tells Amadeus that he's the new leader of the Olympus group, which leads into next issue. And the back-up story has Venus and Namora going around telling people that Herc is dead. It's a clever idea by Tobin - apparently Herc invested money in stuff and then forgot about it, so he has all sorts of weird holdings all over the world, some of which have done very well for him (he was an early investor in Stark Industries, for instance). It's a nice little story that features a hydra. Which is never a bad thing to see.

Sex in this comic? See above. Plus, Venus get naked in a totally non-sexual situation (one of Herc's holdings was a nudist colony), and all the people who lived in homes that Herc owned happened to be women. I wonder why?

One panel of awesome:

I love Wolverine's expression!

Joe the Barbarian #3 (of ВосемБ) ("The Dying Boy") by Grant "Yes, this is just propaganda to get you to keep rats as pets, why do you ask?" Morrison (writer), Sean Murphy (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

Morrison unveils a few more secrets in this issue, as Joe is shown something that makes his journey through the strange world of more import than it already was, and a new adventurer joins the team. And of course, because it's a Grant Morrison comic, the very odd bad guys (well, I'm just going to assume they're bad guys; they could be kindly monks for all I know) are revealed at the end. There are typical Morrisonisms sprinkled throughout the dialogue, and it all moves along at a nice clip. Murphy remains the absolutely stunning star of the comic, though. The chase at the beginning of the issue is terrifically exciting, and when Joe and Jack arrive in Draka's town, Murphy gives us a full-page drawing that is simply gorgeous. When Joe collapses near the end of the issue, Murphy looks downward through his house, almost giving us vertigo. The book itself continues to get better, writing-wise, but Murphy's art is so staggering you almost don't need to read the text. That's so rare with a Morrison comic that it's almost unbelievable. But there it is!

Sex in this comic? It's about a boy in a fantasy land. Let's hope not!

One panel of awesome:

So portentous!!!!!

Marvel Boy: The Uranian #3 (of 3) ("Man of Two Worlds") by Jeff Parker (writer), Felix Ruiz (artist/letterer), and Val Staples (colorist). $3.99, 22 pgs + 18 pgs of 3 back-up stories, FC, Marvel.

This isn't a bad comic, and it looks great, but it does feel more like Parker is filling in the gaps of the characters from Agents of Atlas (or, I guess, Atlas) than telling a standalone story. He fleshed out some crucial points about Bob's past, namely his connection to Uranus and what his overlords really want (and if I call them "overlords," they can't be too benign, can they?), but this feels a bit trifling, as if it could have been told in a flashback in the regular series over the course of an issue or possibly two. Three issues is a bit much. I mean, we get to see a giant 1950s Marvel monster (see below), some nice parts about Bob's life, and a groovy mad scientist, but it still feels a bit too slight. Oh well. The art is fantastic, Parker's writing is fine as ever (even if the book itself is slight), and we get to see a bunch of reprints drawn by Bill Everett. If you're a fan of Jimmy Woo's team or Parker's writing, it's a fun book. For four bucks a pop, though, it's a bit steep.

Sex in this comic? Bob gets busy in a rocket with Violet. There's nothing better than zero-gravity sex! (Or, you know, so I'm told. By my astronaut friends. Of which I have many.)

One panel of awesome:

Jeff Parker + Felix Ruiz = awesome!

Spider-Woman #7 by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Alex Maleev (artist), and Cory Petit (letterer). $3.99, 35 pgs, FC, Marvel.

Bendis writes at the end of this book that it's over, because it's way too much work for Maleev to do it, motion-comic style. Why they specifically had to do it motion-comic style isn't addressed, but apparently putting together a motion comic takes a lot more time and effort by the artist, and it was killing Maleev. KILLING HIM!!!!!! So they pulled the plug. Oh well.

I'm not that put out by it, because I was probably going to drop the book anyway after the first arc. I will defend the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil to anyone who tries to put it down (which, to be honest, isn't many people), but this just never got good. It had a nifty hook but Bendis simply didn't do anything with it, and in the end, he had to bring in the Avengers to bail Jessica out. This issue is just a big ol' dumb superhero fight with a few clever Bendisisms, but mostly, it's dumb. And Jessica is a total bitch. She's not a bitch in a charming, fucked-up way that Jessica Jones was in Alias, she's a bitch in a "Gosh, I really hope that Skrull kills her" way. She keeps calling the Asian girl "dumb" because she claims that her Skrull boyfriend is Spider-Man. Now, the way Maleev draws her, it seems like she's blind. Second, the Skrull is, you know, a shape-shifter, so even if she's not blind, he could look like Spider-Man. Jessica points out that Spider-Man "famously" lives in New York, but she's only been dating him three weeks, meaning he could be on vacation or something. So, um, Jessica? Shut the fuck up. As Abigail points out, your track record so far in this comic isn't great in the intelligence department, so if the girl from Madripoor believes she was dating Spider-Man, you're the last person in the world to call her dumb. And then, later, the Skrull tells her that the queen chose her form because "of all the people in the world ... we discovered that no one on this entire planet cares enough about you to notice you at all." Really, Skrull? Okay, from the way Jessica behaves in this comic, I see Skrull dude's point, but that's a bit extreme, isn't it? I mean, she has plenty of friends, after all. It's one of those things that sounds cool the first time you read it but then, once you think about it for more than a second, makes absolutely no sense. And then Wolverine tries to stab a shape-shifter to death. You'd think he'd know better.

So I would have ditched the book anyway, but now I don't have to. If you've been thinking about getting the trade, I'd skip it. Spend it on something, you know, good.

Sex in this comic? Not a bit. Jessica finds the Skrull in a strip club, though.

One panel of "awesome":

Really?

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6 ("Shock and Awe Chapter 6") by Gregg Hurwitz (writer), Jerome Opeña (penciler), Jay Leisten (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 23 pgs, FC, Marvel.

And now, Moon Knight And Me: A Love Story.

I have never made my love of Moon Knight a secret. I dig him. I love the whole multiple personalities thing, I love the whole weird network of operatives, I love the Doug Moench/Bill Sienkiewicz run with a love that is probably a little unhealthy, I love the Doug Moench/Kevin Nowlan run that followed it, I love the "Fist of Khonshu" series that followed that only lasted six issues and wasn't very good, I liked the 1990s series that also wasn't very good but lasted longer than any Moon Knight series ever, I loved the James Fry issues in the latter part of that run that were really bizarre eye candy, I loved the Stephen Platt issues that ended the run ... okay, that's a lie. I hated those issues. They're AWFUL. I loved the late 1990s mini-series that brought the character back from limbo, with Mark Texeira and then Tommy Lee Edwards on art. I loved the new series that launched a few years ago, which made our hero truly insane for, really, the first time (as much as Moench explored the idea of multiple personalities, you never got the sense that Moonie was all that crazy). And I loved the first few issues of this series, which returned Moon Knight to New York and brought back Bushman (okay, that wasn't too great an idea) and featured out of this world art by Opeña. I bought the first Moon Knight Essential volume because I didn't have the early appearances of the character. I'm going to buy the new hardcover of the Moench/Sienkiewicz collaborations before the first series launched even though I own some of them, because I love the character so much. I think that the first series is wildly underrated, as it was one of the first (if not the first) series to be released through the Direct Market, bypassing newstands and therefore allowing Moench and Sienkiewicz to tell more mature stories than mainstream comics before it. I think the character has a ton of potential that has been tapped a bit, but not enough. But that's just me.

So why am I explaining this? Well, as much as I dug what Hurwitz did in these first few issues (even though I didn't agree with bringing Bushman back and turning him into Bane), I thought this was a terrible way to end this arc and it makes me wonder if I will even buy the next arc. It makes me sad, but that's the way it is. In the first issue, it seemed as if Hurwitz was poking fun at the silliness of superheroes, but doing it subtly. I can deal with Moon Knight as satire, because it's an interesting take, especially as he's a bit, you know, out there. But as we got further into the arc, Hurwitz stopped doing that and this became much more of a straight-forward superhero comic. And I'm just not that interested in that anymore. I mean, Hurwitz brought Bushman back. So what? What happens to him? He ends up in an insane asylum. So what? Bushman's death was interesting because it pushed Moon Knight even further over the brink and set the stage for the previous series, which was excellent. Now he's back, and he's just another boring villain. Even in the mediocre 1990s series, he ruled a country, which added a bit of tension to his dealings with our hero. Now, he's dull. And we get another joke about Crawley getting hit on the head and changing his personality, back to what it was. This wasn't funny when it happened to Guy Gardner twenty years ago, and it's still not funny. I realize that I'm too close to the situation and I should be able to laugh at head injuries just like those uptight [insert ethnic group here] should be able to laugh at jokes at their expense, but it's not the fact that Crawley sustained a head injury and it changed his personality. It's that this book isn't a comedy, so tonally it was all wrong, and it's also that nobody seems to care. That's what bugged me when it happened to Guy - wouldn't someone think, "Hey, maybe we should check him out?" even if they liked his new personality more? Shouldn't Moon Knight have suggested that Crawley ought to get an MRI? It's too fraught with potential pitfalls to make it really funny, and Hurwitz didn't do(...)

Today we focus on mephedrone, the drug Lincolnshire police have linked with the tragic deaths earlier this week of two teenage boys in Scunthorpe. Reporter Robert Booth recounts what happened to Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19.

We also hear from an (anonymous) man who's used mephedrone. He describes its effects.

Joining our studio panel is Martin Barnes, chief executive of Drugscope, and a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which meets on 29 March to discuss a recommendation that mephedrone be banned.

Niamh Eastwood, deputy director of Release, says the sacking of Professor David Nutt from the council led to a delay in the assessment of mephedrone's dangers.

Alan Travis, the Guardian's home affairs editor, explains how the drug is made and the dangers that if it's banned it will simply be replaced by a similar compound.

Reporter Adam Gabbatt looks at how internet users are discussing the drug and its possible prohibition.

Jon DennisAndy DuckworthAdam GabbattAlan TravisRobert BoothPhil Maynard