Reap What You Saud

How could one make a change of regime in the richest country in the Middle East, a potentially lethal mixture of money and fanaticism, really boring? Replace aging, slightly liberal, but often very reactionary King Fahd, with aging, reputedly liberal but really quite reactionary Crown Prince Abdullah.

Kremlinology has nothing on this gang. No-one really has much of a clue how much money the new regime will be giving to terrorists in the coming months, and even the most optimistic of foreign policy experts has given up getting much in the way of openness from the Saudis. Our prediction? Expect more being forced to take at face value whatever half-truths and platitudes spill out of Turki's mouth because there is no other civilised reaction.

We'll also point you in the direction of this intriguing article in Sunday's Times about the rebranding of the Mets as a natural home for hispanic supporters. There seem to be two problems with this strategy, the first of which the article acknowledges. Hispanic fans seem to have much more loyalty to particular players from their home country or region than the clubs they play for. And the Mets are heavily dependent at the moment on players from the Dominican Republic. Since the Dominican Republic has roughly the population of Greater New York, we can't see the strategy catapulting the Mets into the stratosphere. That said, we must stress that loosening the Mets' dependence on loud orange people from Long Island is VERY GOOD BASEBALL.

Finally, our article for Sugarzine about the events that took place in Coney Island a few weeks back is finally up. What's good: they seem to have rendered our preferred pseudonym properly. What's bad: they've gone back to tucking our stuff away behind articles about iPods and record collections. Oh, and whoever they've decided to put in the picture accompanying Morningwood, it sure as hell isn't the Chantal the singer from Morningwood.

Of course, if we were proper respectful rock critics, we'd point out to the editors direct that Google images requires a certain amount of interpretation. But we did this for free, we've been relegated again, and our ego DEMANDS that we mock them on the internet.

You'll never scene indie in this town again? Nyuh-huh. We got a ticket to see Ted at CBs Gallery ce soir. Toodles.