I don't know about you, but I decided that I would not watch this particular series of The X Factor, because I thought, I'll get worked up, and possibly along the way very sad, depressed and paranoid. I won't watch it, because if I do I'll end up taking it more seriously than perhaps I should, even down to closely monitoring The Xtra Factor on ITV2 directly after the live show, just to look for clues to something – I'm not sure what – in those moments when the extremely impatient professional judging panel, the obedient and dumbfounded amateur contestants and the extremely patient presenter Dermot O'Leary have to hang around after the main show has finished while the fiendishly frivolous Holly Willoughby does her job, which cannot really be described.

The Scottish star's manager has criticised MySpace and Warner Music for not allowing the singer to stream A Girl Like You, claiming he didn't own the copyright

The report is called Music Product Manifesto: The Product Features That Will Save Recorded Music. (I know – I hate titles like that too.) This time around researcher Mark Mulligan focus on music product innovation. “In 2009, the album celebrates it’s 100th birthday and yet remains the centerpiece of the recorded music product portfolio,” Mulligan writes. “The time has come for a radical overhaul of the recorded music product range.”

Recently, I was sent an analysis of Radiohead's In Rainbows pay-what-you-like venture and Nine Inch Nails' digital giveaway of their album The Slip – including an account of how they fared against Torrent websites such as Pirate Bay. It was written by Will Page, chief economist for MCPS-PRS, with the help of Eric Garland who runs BigChampagne – a company that measures legal and illegal downloading – so it was quite heavy reading.

The world through the half-closed eyes of a guy who writes stuff. And maybe through Sophie’s eyes too…