The most tragic irony of the review is that, as Gina and David throw Sgt. Pepper off its pedestal, they uncritically replace it with modern critical fave Pet Sounds.

Pet Sounds blows goats. I have listened to it on several separate occasions and have found it insipid every time. Sure it's an emotional album -- if you enjoy entering the emotional world of a paranoid schizophrenic with a mental age of fifteen. Also, Brian Wilson's "genius" arrangements become monotonous about halfway through, while Sgt. Pepper's Lennon/McCartney/Harrison alternation works wonderfully.

Sgt. Pepper is the slyest of the Beatles' albums. If you listen to it expecting emo lyrics, you're going to miss the point. Many of its most poignant moments are apparent throwaways: "I used to be cruel to my woman...", "Meeting a man from the motor trade.", "Then you decide to take a walk by the old school. Nothing has changed it's still the same" -- not to mention all of the seemingly mundane bits of "Day in the Life".

Also, as others have noted, it was primarily the Beatles' studio technique that was radical. There's a very good argument that in order to make that technique acceptable to listeners, they had to rely on extremely traditional song forms (yes, even Paul's maudlin music-hall styles). Even though they were the Beatles, if they had gone straight from Revolver to the White Album, it would have been seen as a colossal misfire.

David really phoned the column in this week.

When you have an apparently good idea which works out this badly in practice, scrap it and write another.

for London becoming outrageously expensive. That increase is primarily driven by demand within central London, and increasing supply in the periphery isn't going to do much.

Blame the fact that central London's population has increased by 20% (50% in the City of London!) over the last ten years. I don't believe any other central city in the developed world has seen such large increases, certainly not Manhattan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4122731.stm

Relatedly, you can blame London's becoming the financial capital of Europe, and possibly the world...and twenty years of steady increase in jobs in central London, while jobs in other world cities migrated to the suburbs.

Looking at the numbers, it's surprising that housing costs haven't increased more.

"I'm totally against homosexuality being considered a gene or natural"

Wow, where to start? She's taking a courageous stance against facts! Facts are haram!

Lady, homosexuality's natural. It might depend on a gene or it may not, but in either case, the facts scoff at your sermonizing.

Like Bush and Rove, she appears to believe that facts are just opinions and can be changed if your whims or your religion demand it.

What's her opinion on contraception?

Seems like an important question, since the birthrate in the Muslim world is unsustainably high; the oil-poor states are starving, and the oil-rich states have no jobs to offer the young.

Encouraging women to be educated and to be active partners in sexual decision-making is a start, but it's not going to bring down the birthrate by itself. For that, you need contraception.

since the Acer Ferrari line of red plastic cases around mediocre consumer devices.

I wonder if they'll also get a fluffing from "technology analyst" Rob Enderle.

(Funniest review ever):

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1523503,00.asp