Now I saw this show Popworld K-punk writes about here for the very first time when I was in London a few weeks ago. Watched it in a jetlag morning haze before going down to the Hay Festival. It's a Saturday morning pop show presented by "smugonauts" Alexa Chung and Alex Zane. Its whole vibe did seem both offputting and just off. Not exactly kids-y.

For instance, there's a segment called Big Ones where Alexa asks pop stars a bunch of Smash Hits-type whimsical questions. That week it was Erasure in the chairs, looking quite haggard after 20-plus years on the popmusik treadmill, Vince Clarke especially seeming totally uncomfortable with the rigmarole.

Alexa asks: "if you were an ointment, what ailment would you alleviate?"

Clarke mutters tentatively: "Acne".

Alexa says: "Not syphilis?"

Now this is 10 in the morning, flipping heck, kids could be watching etc!

Apparently they're not watching, though, not in the numbers they used to be. The audience for UK pop programmes, (I'm told by an old friend who works in television music booking) skews increasingly twentysomething/thirtysomething. Hence perhaps this off-colour "quip" more suitable for the Friday Night Project.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Talking of venereal disease, the marvellously evocative phrase "suppurating and syphilitic funk" appears in this right ripe read over at the Impostume.