No one knows for sure where that expression came from exactly, it’s a bit like the stones at Stonehenge.

Strange thing is, I’ve met one or two possible candidates for she agents of sorcery, practitioners of the dark arts in my time, and many of them had average to above average bapsidasicals. Hmmm….

The point is, it’s flat as. There’s not been a wave for several days now, almost a week, and that looks set to continue for some time. It’s been the longest flatspell of 2009 in south west france anyway.

Luckily there’s has been no surf, because if there had been you would have been out of the water and might have missed some of the Michael Jackson is dead coverage. I didnt go out last night because I wanted to follow the news updates live. BBC World Service did a brilliant broadcast from outside his house, followed by a phone-in from grieving Jacko fans. There was a couple from New Zealand on air outside the gates of his mansion. They spoke with Kiwi accents (love that accent) and said stuff like, ‘I just cant believe he’s gone.’ ‘He’s a li-jind. We jist got bick from a trup to the grend canyon, and thin we heard the news, and couldn’t believe it…’

I mean fair enough, the BBC could probably say this website/blog/magazine is shit, and have a point, but I would like to think if I was in charge of the world’s biggest and most respected non-commercial, public funded news agency, I could have a better stab at the ‘Jacko is dead – the public’s reaction’ story. For example, if I was going to interview some Kiwis about how they just cant believe it, I’d probably get the Kiwi rapper from OMC on there. Or at least Crowded House.

Different people do different things to stave off flatspell boredom. Michael had a heart attack, in Australia some wallabies have been eating pharmaceutical grade opium (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8118257.stm) getting incredibly high and making crop circles, whilst in south west London, the Scottish community have taken up tennis to keep busy.