Lots of stuff in the current Eye...

... but I'm not going to put it up here because it's such a good issue I think you should go out and buy it.

(and I don't want to get lots of hate mail from nutters, which you'll understand after you read page 5).

So instead, here's another PIL column from The Big Issue, dating from August 2 1999.

Rebranding Britain's Institutions no.24: The Silly Season

It was hard to decide what to write about this week. Whether to squeeze another week's coverage out of Posh and Beck's wedding (I think there's some blurred shots of the hen night where you can tell it's Sporty even though you can't see her head), or knock up a quick tribute to the Queen Mum (99 years young and still not dead, gawd bless 'er). And Catherine Zeta Jones is bound to do something, with someone, somewhere this week. If we can get a photographer there, we're laughing.

Yes, August is here, and there is officially nothing happening. The cabinet reshuffle marks the end of real news for summer, and the papers have strung that one out for as long as possible. Soon, however, they will be supplying their journalists with Kendal mint cake and sending them out into the countryside on a mission to MAKE SOME NEWS. You thought it was animal rights activists who released all those mink last summer? Not likely. A crack team from the Daily Mail newsdesk was sent out with wirecutters in order to provide some decent headlines. That followed the success fo their mission to spring a couple of pigs from the bacon wagon. Incidentally, if anyone's wondering what happened to Butch and Sundance, the Mail got bored of them after Christmas and dumped them on the motorway.

So what's on the cards for this summer? It's not looking good. The papers have already exhausted their supply of Nicola Horlick stories, and they're revisiting old grounds. In 1995 it was Blur versus Oasis (soft southern modernists release record in same week as badly-behaved northern rock'n'rollers; papers get excited), in 1999 it's been Blair versus Prescott (soft southern moderniser makes speech about public services in same week as badly-behaved northern roly-poly; papers get excited). But the injuries suffered by Tim Westwood, a DJ who has made it to the top of his profession despite a really bizarre speech impediment can mean only one thing to desparate newspapers: drive-by shootings are the new Air Rage. If you see a Daily Mail journo on a motorbike, start running.