#obviously i couldnt just work on art while my baby was sick

[pkmcandy]

Last Miku of the challenge: Psychic!

No Future Sight needed here! Here is Psychic Miku, the musical telepath in training! She trains both her powers and voice diligently, aiming to be the best of the best!

Take Heart, young Miku! 🔮

[damianalbarn]

Guns. Vagrancy. Fear of Prawns.

Has Blur's Graham Coxon lost the plot ?

NME : Aren't you a bit old for this skateboarding lark ?

"I'm probably a bit old for a lot of things I do and for lots of ways I feel. I don't think you're ever too old, contrary to what Luke Haines might think. He's far too young to be going on like he does. He said something very boring about me being as charismatic as a sick pet in a car."

What are the best and worst things about fatherhood ?

"The worst things are becoming worried about your child's safety and whether you're being a good parent. Those awful adverts on TV - 'This car is going 35mph, if it was going 30, it would've stopped here'. It's very upsetting because you immediately put your child in the position of this dummy-toddler.

"The best is when they're asleep. And now she holds out her hand so you can help her walk along. I suppose it's the things where you feel needed by them that make you happiest. I can walk down the road with her, holding her hand. She's like a little chimp but with blonde hair."

Are you squeamish ?

"I'm squeamish about seafood. I can't pull the heads off shrimps and things like that ; get me fingers all mucky in their eggs and peel the armour off. I dont like that. And there are some of those skate videos with people dropping from great heights onto their groins. There was a great one where this guy was doing a rail slide and he lands on his eye. They filmed him going to hospital and having this big vacuumy type thing washing it out then this great big syringe needle being stuck in the middle of it."

Which reality game show would you win ?

"Big Brother, easy. I'd have a guitar with me but I wouldn't fucking use it. I couldnt be arsed being on Survivor. If I cant pull the heads off shrimps, I wouldnt last a second on that. It'd be the lack of privacy I couldn't deal with, and no TV."

What would have to happen to make you move out of Camden ?

"If the river (Thames) moved north of it. Nothing against south London at all, but Camden isnt there, is it ? Or I suppose if Luke (Haines) moved there."

Who's the most fun : Sober Graham or Drunk Graham ?

"I think I'm quite fun for a while when I'm a bit drunk but often quite scary because I do get over-excited and gravitate toward speeding cars. I'm only probably more fun when I'm sober because I'm a happier person and not so flacky. I'm really badly flacky when i drink, which i really hate in others. I really love the mornings and i can only enjoy those when i'm not drinking. I get dreadful hangovers. I can't even move my eyeballs so i'm just staring at a section of the ceiling for hours with these inner hallucinations of death and insanity leaping around my pysche. I get obsessed with death and insanity."

Are you pissed off with Gorillaz becoming more popular than Blur ?

"No i'm not, although i'd like to know who's buying Gorillaz. But it's good because it's Damon's. He's doing what he wants to do. I think it's obviously going to be more popular than Blur stuff because it's of a substandard nature to Blur stuff. The music is pretty good but the more popular a thing is in this country, the more rubbish it is. It'd be best if people listened to simpler music, stuff that resonates more soulfully. I've seen the way my baby reacts to pop music, Steps-y type music, but it's an automaton reaction. But Shirley Collins ('60s folk singer) or the odd Steeleye Span record, it makes her smile and lighten up. Pop music now just pushes buttons. It's made of plastic, not wood ; it isn't real music. Good music isn't anything to do with commerce. Bad music is all to do with commerce."

Who or what is the "scum" you'd like "washed from the street" on 'Thank God for the Rain' on your new album, 'Crow sit in blood tree' ?

"I kind of wanted to make a social comment in a kind of protesty type song but l wanted to make the lyrics about things I've experienced around Camden. The scum are the people who are fucking pushing drugs to everybody who walks past them on the street corners, I hate them. And the people who spit on the floor and have such a huge amount of disrespect for everything that it brings general quality of life down. The four year old trying to kick your door down because you didn't give him a quid at Halloween. I'm gonna put turrets up on my house, put some guns up there, loads of trip-wires and a moat might be good, some of those lovely Dobermans. You instantly see so many more scumbags when you have a baby. Millions of them ! You need Robocop !"

Do you have any phobias ?'

"I used to not be able to walk up Parkway (busy Camden thoroughfare). I'd completely avoid it because I thought people would be making comments about me. I suppose that's what comes with being a slightly recognisable figure around here, you wonder what people are gonna be saying. I'm over that, but I'm very phobic about knives and violence. If I'm ever having any sleepless or restless nights it's usually something to do with dreams of violence."

Have you ever killed an animal for fun?

"Yeah, ants. I was a kid and I was watching some ants do their thing. I was about eight and I was fascinated by watching them doing what they were doing. Then suddenly I thought they shouldn't be allowed to do what they were doing because it was far too weird. So i decided i'd get a kettle full of hot water and pour it down their nest and stamp on them. It wasn't a pleasure, it was a duty. It was painful to do it but i had to, otherwise they'd take over the world. And i put a safety pin in a caterpillar once. All its blood was black."

If you were Prime Minister, what would you do ?

"Change the national anthem to nothing. I don't like nationnality. I hate being in cabs with St George crosses everywhere and some gobshite in the front who wants to spout his bigotry all over your face. I'd lock them all up until they grew up. Bigots and pop music fans, i'd lock them all up."

What was the last romantic thing you did ?

"Dressing up in really, really ancient work jeans, a really, really ancient valuable grandad shirt and some really old braces. Then i went to a roadside, covered myself in dirt and tried to hitch a lift. I sort of like the idea of vagrancy ; i think that's kind of romantic. For a second i felt like some itinerant folk hero. It was near Dungeness. It'd been a very long day and i'd been driving and i thought 'There's no way i' driving back to London', so i parked my car up, covered myself in dirt and thought i'd hitch a lift. Dirt is very romantic. No one picked me up. I was very close to a golf club and there were lots of people staring and they went past in their Range Rovers. I looked like i'd just appeared from out of the 1920s."

Are you good in bed ?

"Absolutely. Not. I'm very good at sleeping. I go to sleep very quick. I don't know about shagging. I can be good, i can be awful. I think i'm quite selfless."

Radiohead : art or arse ?

"That's art innit ?"

-Graham Coxon, NME, July 2001