So I was thinking...

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

According to today's news reports, doctors want film censors to be more rigorous with their certificates if actors are smoking.

Experts believe that seeing someone such as Brad Pitt or Uma Thurman smoking, for example, is likely to encourage young, impressionable kids to start smoking.

Oh cobblers! There are many reasons why kids take up smoking and probably bottom of the list is seeing Uma Thurman puff away on a cigarette in Pulp Fiction. Get real!

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

BT (otherwise known as British Telecommunications) decided that Dragon's Den entrepreneur and millionaire Peter Jones was a genius fit when they replaced Gordon Ramsay with him in their current Gremlins ad campaign.

The idea, of course, is that if Jones used BT, he'd never have a problem with his IT ever again.

All well and good, but Jones is a multi-miilionaire who flies around in private jets and helicopters. He's not going to call up a helpline himself - he'd have a flunkey to do it for him.

Equally, I can't believe he sits an office such as the one above, allowing someone to say "Don't work too late," to him as they leave.

As much as he tries to pretend otherwise, Peter Jones is a social tier and financial class above the average business user. Sorry, BT, own goal!

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

Recently came across a great set of podcasts called Coverville.

Hosted up to 3 times a week by a guy called Brian Ibbott and he puts together a really great show.

He has a great laidback delivery and it's just a great way to hear new artists.

As the name suggests, every song he plays is a cover version. Some podcasts are themed to tie in with artists' birthdays, many are just listener requests.

If I have one minor criticism it's that there are possibly too many American rock covers, but that's minor. Give it a listen!

And in honour of the podcasts, here's Candi Staton's beautiful version of Elvis' In The Ghetto.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

Recently came across a great set of podcasts called Coverville.

Hosted up to 3 times a week by a guy called Brian Ibbott and he puts together a really great show.

He has a great laidback delivery and it's just a great way to hear new artists.

As the name suggests, every song he plays is a cover version. Some podcasts are themed to tie in with artists' birthdays, many are just listener requests.

If I have one minor criticism it's that there are possibly too many American rock covers, but that's minor. Give it a listen!

And in honour of the podcasts, here's Candi Staton's beautiful version of Elvis' In The Ghetto.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

We all tell lies. That's an absolute - no matter how saintly you think you are, you don't tell the truth all the time.

We might tell someone, 'I'm fine,' when actually we're feeling a bit shit. We may not be entirely truthful when our partner asks how something looks when they're trying it on in a shop.

The things is, though, most of us actually want to tell the truth more than we do, but our own ethics get in the way of things.

Often, we don't want to alienate a work colleague, upset a friend or cause a family argument, so we bite our tongue or phrase things in such a way that we don't cause offence.

Clearly, I'm not as blunt as Larry 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' David, but as I get older, I've become less and less 'face-saving' and am happy to say what I think more and more often. I've given up, most of the time, trying to steer clear of arguments and am happy to tell people what I think.

However, there are still some things I don't pipe up about and, for the life of me, I don't know why.

Maybe it's because I can't be bothered to fight with the person once I've told the truth, maybe I'm genuinely concerned about the consequences of my not lying.

Whatever, I guess I'll never be able to be totally truthful with people...

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

The Daily Mail is giving away free Michael Caine DVDs this week. Oooh, good-o, you might think. Now I can get hold of The Italian Job or Zulu without having to buy it. Sadly, you'd be mistaken.

A quick shufti at Michael Caine's IMDB entry shows that he's credited with more than 130 film roles - an astonishingly large body of work.

Sadly, however, a repertoire this big means that there are more than a few clunkers in there. For every Hannah And Her Sisters there are at least 10 ropey roles.

And to prove it, let me rattle off some of the DVDs that the Daily Mail is so generously giving away to readers this week: The Whistle Blower, Half Moon Street, Shiner, Without A Clue, A Shock To The System, The Statement, Shadow Run, Bullet To Beijing... the list goes on and, let me tell you, even the most hardened film buffs would be hard pushed to claim to have seen more than a couple of them.

Fortunately, Caine will always be remembered fondly for the roles that were successful, but I still wonder why he's made so many crap films in between.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

One of my guilty pleasures is listening to Smooth Radio in the morning - one of the benefits is that you hear a wide variety of music...

As a commercial station Smooth does, of course, have adverts and one of the recent ones caught my ear the other week.

It advertised an upcoming gig playing at Croydon's Fairfield Halls and the O2 Arena on the Thames at Greenwich.

The event is being put on by none other than David Gest and is called David Gest - My Life! A Musical Extravaganza.

The former Mr Liza Minnelli is giving us the opportunity to see 'live on the show... nine legendary acts'.

Wow, I thought. Who are these legendary acts? Shalamar, Freda 'Band Of Gold' Payne, Russell Thompkins from the Stylistics, Coolio - yup, I'll just about go with them.

But then right at the end of the list was a slightly odd name - one to whom I would never ascribe the term legend. The name was Peter Andre!

Yes, Mr Katie Price is apparently some sort of living god, according to David Gest. Shurely shome mishtake?

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

I've been a big fan of last.fm for over two years now - a brilliant way of keeping track of the music you listen to and an ability to find people who share your listening tastes.

Well, it's nearly time for the next stage in their development. They're currently allowing users to test out their open beta site.

It looks very different - much more white space and more than a couple of echoes of other well-known social media sites.

Genius new functionality is the library - a fantastic searchable online archive of all the music you've ever listened to.

There are lots of doubters among users, but you'll never please all of the people all of the time.

Personally, I like it a lot. It feels fresher and more modern and there's far more space. I'll be sad to see the old site go, but am looking forward to the new beta site becoming more permanent.

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

A very entertaining webumentary about 80s boyband Toyboize has been launched recently.

Very funny and definitely worth a look - and you may even recognise a couple of the band.