They come over here, playing our songs…

My friends the Nightingales returned from their European tour last night, playing what was meant to be a triumphant gig at the 100 Club before finishing in Manchester tonight and Wolverhampton (Little Civic) tomorrow. However, they didn't all make it back: rather than turning away all sorts of dubious individuals, UK Immigration decided to deport two women found in possession of a guitar and a bassoon. Despite the fact that they were playing 3 gigs for NO MONEY before going back to the US, the rozzers decided that they were planning to work illegally. Now, if you've ever heard the 'Gales, or know anything about 30-year old bands, you'll know that they only ever play for the love of the music.

Even worse, the band was forced to perform without these essential members in front of Trev and Simon, and Stuart Lee. The shame! Come to support them tomorrow.

Licence fee - whinge, whinge, whinge.

People sometimes whinge to me about the licence fee being a rip-off, or an unfair, compulsory tax. Never mind that it pays for 100+ radio stations, several TV channels - at least one of which will appeal to you - the World Service and the whole transmission system AND doesn't carry adverts.

Last night's BBC2 vindicated the licence fee for me (despite the Orwellian ads about paying up or being hunted down). Heroes, followed by some variable quality Mitchell and Webb, then Stuart Lee (he won't be appearing on commercial TV anytime soon), then a stunning Cancer Special Newsnight which didn't mention God or 'alternative' (i.e. evil, made-up preying on the vulnerable) medicine, followed by The Wire. Two of these are American shows - fine. They're good quality and cost millions of pounds per episode, and we get them for £140 per year.

Thanks, readers

Interesting suggestions (keep them coming). I'd forgotten about The Master and the Margarita but agree - it's stunning. I'd also forgotten to list Jane Austen, whose works I go back to several times a year. I'm not so keen on On The Road, though I used to be many years ago. There's just something so self-involved about hippies and proto-hippies. The same goes for Coelho and that whole band of self-styled spiritual gits. They're a result of the 1960s radicals failing to get anywhere. Faced with political defeat, they decided to look inside themselves rather than take the serious choices required to save the world. They couldn't accept the external authority of organised religion, so they made up a load of old cobblers - from Scientology to self-help - and made pots of dosh on the way. I hate it. The only books I'd happily burn are those under 'Mind, Body, Spirit'. Savonarola was right.

Let's be clear, the only rules you need for a happier life in the West are:

1. Eat less.

2. Walk more.

3. Try to be more kind to people. Even students. Not Tories - they deserve a spade through the face.

4. Buy fewer things.

5. Read more.

Did anyone watch Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle last night? The man is a genius because he's intelligent, has a sense of the absurd, and is right about the gaping cultural void in our lives which we seem only to be able to fill through the purchase of pointless, empty objets. We've exchanged our messy, tasteless, jumbly, interesting lives for houses, clothes and activities designed to make ourselves indistinguishable from the 'lifestyles' of show-homes and the fake nuclear families featured in adverts. Resist! Swap your plasma TV for a ferret, or a book, or a train-set - whatever makes you happy in your own odd way - and stop worrying about what other people think of your lifestyle.

(Easy for me to say, of course - I'm used to the condescension or pity evinced by students, friends, family when my 'career' comes up).