The Sir Charles Blues Lab is a non-profit making organisation collaborating with schools and community centers across the nation to provide young people with opportunities to learn and master the Blues as an enriching after school activity. On Tuesday this week, his birthday, Ray Charles took the occasion to announce his own gift to the world, a national songwriting contest for kids to be sponsored by The Blues Lab and Comcast, which kicks off September 30th.

Zagat, who publish restaurant guides, this week published its Music Guide, which rates and reviews the 1,000 top albums of all time based on the tastes of 10,656 participating listeners, spanning eight decades of recorded music from rock to classical, and with 80 indexes embracing categories like platinum sellers, chill-out and Grammy winners.

After a long time of "coming soon" notes, and more recently, a completely blank page, the official Gerald Scarfe website finally went live yesterday. A nicely designed, simple site, it covers Gerald's artwork from past and present - including his work for Disney, The Sunday Times, exhibitions, and most importantly (!) Pink Floyd. In his piece about the band, he talks of his experiences going backstage at the Nassau Coliseum, and boldly states that "it's no wonder that Rock Stars went slightly mad with self-importance"! You can also buy some of his artworks via the site, and even send him an email! Visit it at www.geraldscarfe.com.

An interesting article appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday (September 21st). They report that, in July 2002, the manager of String Cheese Incident bought Floyd's 40-foot inflatable pig to use at one of the Incident's concerts, but the pig, from the 1988 tour, was found to be torn into five sections with chunks missing too!