MUSIC

If you’re in London go and see nebulous pop swooner Perfume Genius at Islington Assembly Hall, or for something completely different you could withstand the spittle onslaught of Mark E Smith’s grotty post-rock scruffs the Fall at The Garage.

In Aylesbury? Then saunter down to the Waterside Theatre to see Kate Tempest’s verbose hip-poetry.

If you’re in Bristol then beatboxing wizard Beardyman is concocting all kinds of musical juju at Thekla.

If you’re lucky enough to be from Yorkshire in general and Leeds in particular then Heavenly Records golden lads the Wytches will be rocking Brudenell Social Club.

And if you find yourself in Glasgow how about trying to get into Echo And The Bunnymen at O2 ABC for some classic swirly Scouse excellence?

TELLY

If you’re more of the “it’s cold out and I’m already in my onesie” persuasion then fear ye not, there’s plenty on the box to keep you entertained.

On BBC1 at 9PM David Attenborough’s spectacular Life Stories comes to a rousing conclusion with the lengths that the furred and feathered ones of the Kingdom Animal will go to during parenthood.

Over on BBC2 at 9PM The Fall continues it’s crawlingly creepy exploration of what happens when a serial killer happens to be as handsome as Jamie Dornan.

On BBC2 at 8PM Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace hone their skills in communicating exclusively through exaggerated facial expressions in the quarter finals of MasterChef: The Professionals.

And on Channel 4 at 10pm Bain and Armstrong’s Babylon continues apace with PR guru Liz’s idea of a police TV station called “Metwork”.

That’s enough to be going on with, innit?

Yep. Tarra.

It’s not big, or mature, or educational in any way shape or form, but each and every Bad Lip Reading vid makes me chuckle until a tiny bit of wee comes out of me. The latest is from the last Hunger Games movie and like all of them is a work of minor genius.

And if you liked that – OF COURSE YOU DID – check out their Walking Dead

Yes.

The single greatest thing about being a musician is that it offers complete protection from ever having to hear the truth about yourself. Think of all the emotional turmoil this would prevent: that godawful GarageBand abomination with the lyrical depth of a shoe sole that you wheezed out last night is a work of unutterable genius; the person you had fired for making eye contact with you is an incompetent who doesn’t deserve a job because they will never fathom the pressures of being un artiste and you were right to have them sacked; and any outfit you choose to sport is a statement of your spirit, your soul, you, rather than something that looks like it was hastily assembled from the contents of Wizarora’s lingerie drawer, in the dark, in three seconds, at gunpoint.

No garment offers musicians the opportunity to make a greater artistic statement than the hat. No longer merely a means by which the cranium is kept warm or the eyes are shield from the sun, the hat has transcended its humble practical origins to become the truest expression of individuality known to man. Or at least to musicians.

In honour of Critics’ Choice nominee James Bay’s fondness for his Jack White / Zorro / Heisenberg number – which in no way makes him look stupid or tryhard and really sells his credibility as a creative individual – here we present your nominations for the crappest hats in music.

Justin Bieber

This picture represents the truest definition of someone who simply doesn’t hear the word “no” enough. JuBieb has gone for it so hard that there may actually be no way back from this: The colour – infected wound yellow. The studs – spanking paddle chic. The style – fireman helmet fit, a coquettish hint of jaunty angle. The expression – “why is hat?” It all coalesces in one of the finest bonce accoutrements ever seen by man, woman or beast. God bless you, Justin Bieber.

It’s generally accepted that Will He IS is a bit of a fundament. We know it, he knows it, and the world spins away happily in the snug embrace of this equilibrium. But his dress sense sometimes goes beyond mere arsery, suggesting a deeper, pernicious intent: some kind of dadaist playact in which he’s acting the buffoon while actually laughing at us, reflecting our jibes right into the centre of our souls, making us question the very nature of our existence. He does this, generally, through the media of shade and hat. The crowning glory of his glorious crowns is surely this: a Lego construction of a hat that would be terrible even if it were made out of conventional milliner’s materials. He wants you to mock him. He feeds on it.

Jay Kay

A man who’s largely made a career out of questionable hattage, Jay Kay would actually look weird if he wasn’t topped by something idiotic. If he rocked up in a beanie you’d probably ask him to get out of your house and never darken your door again. If he showed up without a hat altogether you’d probably spit right in his face. Jay Kay is essentially imprisoned by his crap hats; imagine all the space in his house taken up by them – room upon room stuffed to the beams with the most awful hats that he wishes he could throw away, but never can. They own him. Harrowing. His hats are really crap.

Gus Robertson – Razorlight

Imagine a craphat so powerful that it makes its wearer look like a bigger fannypack than Johnny Borrell. Imagine owning that hat, and wielding distilled knobbery like a mighty mace. Quite what Gus Robertson is thinking by wearing this is anyone’s guess, but then he thought it would be a good idea to join Razorlight, so he’s probably also a fan of walking into things and defecating into his own hand. Nevertheless, in terms of the crapness of hats, this vast Dickensian scrufflid is verging on miraculous.

Pharrell

The most famous craphat of recent years must surely be Pharrell’s commendably dogged efforts to style out a major sartorial faux pas by repeated wearing – the “I meant to do it” technique. Because the hat itself is a monstrosity, looking like a mixture of a stegosaurus’s bowel movement and something that’s filled with carrots and tied to the end of a horse’s nose. The most voluminous cranium cosy on this list, it does at least have myriad practical purposes besides making its wearer look like they let their mortal enemy choose their outfits. You could use it to catch a passing pigeon mind-flight. You could probably, at a push, live in it. You could use it as a natty way of appearing taller, like Pharrell definitely doesn’t. Or you could do the sensible thing and set fire to it and hurl it down a bottomless well.

Those are the nominations. Who will be the winner of the Crap Hat Awards 2014? YOU DECIDE.

The Hounslow maestro otherwise known as Thomas Timothy Vernon-Kell (cheers Wiki) has stuck his mucky paws deep into Lana’s Del Rey’s Brooklyn Baby and kneaded a tiresome, overwrought dollop of echoey dough it into an urgent percussionary chunk of steaming tiger bread. We approve

Not actually pop culture this, but I reckon this has to be some kind of performance art piece. These two aren’t the befuddled idiots they appear to be. They’re actually geniuses.

Yes, following years of speculation it’s finally been confirmed that a sequel to 1996’s big, daft, boisterous alien invasion blockbuster will begin shooting in May, with Roland Emmerich, director of the original and world destruction specialist, once again on board. No sign of Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum yet, but both could probably do with a hit. Whether this is it remains to be seen though, as hiatus-sequelitis may once again rear its ugly bonce.

You know, the phenomenon of belated sequels generally being pretty guff. See:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The gap: 19 years

The problem: Crystal Skull did away with everything that made the original trilogy so good - the Nazis, the wisecracking, the practical action sequences, the fact that Indy kills about a billion people – and replaced them with aliens. Shut up. Get out. Die.

How bad was it: like standing on a Lego brick, only the Lego brick is stupid aliens, an over-reliance on CGI and Shia LaBeouf, and your foot is everything you held dear in your childhood.

The Godfather Part III

The gap: 16 years

The problem: following probably the best sequel ever made was always going to be a bit of a stretch, but the Godfather Part III actually managed to weaponise boredom to the extent that it could feasibly be used as a soporific alternative to chloroform or being hit across the head with a halfbrick.

How bad was it: like having Sofia Coppola do wooden acting at you until you almost died. In fact it was exactly like that.

Terminator III: Rise of the Machines

The gap: 12 years

The problem: James Cameron had moved on to his post-Titanic period of prolonged douchebaggery so he wasn’t involved. The studio wanted PG13 so all the violence and swearing was gone. The baddie was called the Terminatrix and was a sultry blonde model for pete’s sake. Die more.

How bad was it: like eating soiled doilies. And this. So many times this:

Blues Brothers 2000

The gap: 18 years

The problem: among a billion others issues, the great John Belushi had passed on. It was... Just, no. No no no no no no no.

How bad was it: no no no no no no no no no no no.

But is does throw up a rare opportunity to put this up on a site generally devoted to cutting-edge pop culture. Nice.

Independence Day II might end up being good, you never know. And with the trailer for the new Star Wars film – one that’ll be release 32 years after the previous instalment (the prequels obviously don’t count), I’m hoping hiatus-sequelitis isn’t actually a thing – which, technically, it isn’t – and is merely something I just made up. Which, technically, it is.

In case you missed it, the interactive video for Hudson’s Chimes RMX is pretty special. In it you can squidge, stretch and distort the faces of Hudson, Pusha T and Future in a manner that for some reason is extremely satisfying. It’s like the beginning of Super Mario 64, which by default makes it amazing.

Check it out here.

Of course it doesn’t. This year’s noms have been announced and it’s pretty predictable stuff: behatted MoR pluckerry from James Bay, Ronseal-monikered, socially responsible verb-hurlage from George The Poet, and adolescent electropop route one-isms from Years & Years. Consider our socks still firmly wrapped around our rank trotters, totally un-blown off.

Let’s have a closer look at these three anyway, shall we?

James Bay

Pros: nice set of pipes, appears to have all his own teeth, he knows a lot of difficult chords including Bm add 4, probably very nice to his nan

Cons: inexplicable allegiance to truly appalling hats, new de facto provider of every X Factor montage soundtrack for the rest of time, is rubbish

George The Poet

Pros: possesses a shred of credibility, only act on an unashamedly “Radio 1’s Big Weekend” shortlist who’s rhymed “fingers” with “cunnilingus”, probably very nice to his nan

Cons: has worked with both Paolo Nutini and Emeli Sandé, bit of a pottymouth, that video above is properly, riotously rubbish

Years & Years

Pros: not actually truly awful, sound a bit like Another Level and the Artful Dodger, gateway drug to decent EDM, probably very nice to all their, and everyone else’s, nans

Cons: essential Disclosure-lite boyband, also sound a bit like Maroon 5, popular among awful people

So there you have it. Who should win? Who will lose? For me, I don’t care so much that it actually hurts my duodenum.

A Better Tomorrow is its name, and plaintive, reflective, grown-up hip-hoppery is its game. Ahead of the release of the album of the same name on December 2, and following an appearance on Letterman, they’ve put the Wake Up Everybody-sampling title track online, and it’s refreshingly if predictably retro, harking back to the supposed “golden age” of mid-nineties hip-hop. Have a listen:

And what better way to kick off the turkey-scoffing celebrations than with Larry David’s thoughts on Thanksgiving as a concept:

In fact, Funny Or Die have pretty much owned Thanksgiving this year. Here’s their treatise on the thorny issue of dietary requirements:

On the all-round brilliance of gravy:

And the famous parade. Marvellous: