Floater left to right- Skinny N. Wriggly, Strawberry Soda, Hentai Si, DJ Snigga

Timothye Shacklewick. Journalist. 1971 - 2001
It is with regret that we inform you of the sudden passing, last Wednesday, of Mr Timothye Shacklewick, the journalist, who was found slumped cold on the floor of his Holloway studio. I'm sure that, eventually, we would all come to miss his competent writing style. He met deadlines with gusto and was forever a garrulous font of irrelevant trivia. Had we gone to the pub with him more often we may have discovered other positive mentionables. Here, we publish the review he was working on at the hour of his death, in accordance with the wishes of his landlady and beneficiary.

ROYAL FLUSH

Floater "Floater For Pope" CD/LP/MD (no stars) (0/5)

It's terribly late and the Nembutal is taking effect. If I waver forgive me, I have another fistful of these foul-tasting pills to coerce down my gullet. Tomorrow I turn thirty. Surely the prime of life. But I don't want to live in this world full of Floater fans. I cannot.

I must be too old for this..pop. I wear fanciful clothes I'd have scoffed at at age eighteen. I use banging phraseology that really isn't me. I've been acting. Trying to cling on. Cling on - to pop. The more then I feel the more now I behave. But, more worrying than this, is the strange desire I have to clean. To take a large wire brush and some Extra Strength Dettol and scrub everything clean .

I told them this was to be my last review. They knew. I asked them for something fitting. My swansong. Not this. Not this. The inexcusably celebrated Floater. White trash gawpfodder peeping out the crack of a Sunderland dole-hole, lighting a fart-shaped flame for the British underclass, oozing their independent way under the nation's training shoes, and currently piped into a million aural cavities with one cynical squeeze of a major label moneybag.

I confess - my hand shook as I tried to slip "Floater For Pope" onto my CD tray. Eventually, after a second Glenfiddich, I managed to hit 'play' and skip through the whole frightful outbreak on 'search' mode. Over badass beats 'n' scratches, I winced my way through the following -

f*ck..shake your lil (necrophilia)..(violence)..up your stupid Aussie..f*ck..schmoozin with a ( pet abuse)..can suck my..(police brutality)..Dutch Oven..one time..sh*t..bitch..(general misanthropy)

"We're just tellin it like it is. That's what's getting people's pants in a tangle." Strawberry Soda leans back on the bar stool and holds up his hands. DJ Snigga sniggers and Hentai Si yawns as he drinks and beer flows over his t-shirt. "We're part of the net generation," Soda continues. "I could name about seven Czech beastie-porn actors but wouldn't know the Prime Minister from Adam."

Earlier this evening. Backstage bar area. The first date of their sell-out UK tour. Trying to forge some meaningful exchange. "So if the net provides bespoke worldviews and transient peer-groups, the implications for social cohesion are profound?" I ask DJ Snigga, who is flicking around a copy of 'Exxtra Juggs'.

..bullsh*t..mincing (unparalleled homophobia)..c*nt..(drug-fuelled violence)..ha ha..(sampled flatulence)

I try something more concise. "One Two Three Four..what comes next in this sequence?" DJ Snigga's troglodyte eyes slowly roam the air for inspiration.

"WHAT COMES NEXT IN THE FUCKING SEQUENCE?" I explode to my feet, accidentally kicking the stool from under Strawberry Soda. "wwhay-aye fooking alright," he yelps, pulling drinks across the floor. Snigga cowers away in panic. The phrase 'national service' rolls about my head and, I believe, out my mouth.

..with a motherf*ing baseball bat..(advocation of street crime)..ya feel me ho..(ejaculatory grunts)..

I envisage boot camps making men out of these stunted clods. Mercifully, te interview is cut shrt when Floater management throw me onto the street. I am free at lastof this unfathomabl bedlam.

"They'r radcal stufff, manThats why radio s scared, gleeful Floter fans queuig outside the venue tel me, "hey couldn't give a damn."

I stalk the streets/it starts to piss down. How appallingly truec.noone does any more.NOONE FUCKING FDOES

slet itall fall to SHit.thats the spirit isn't it run around with your pants on your head na d like fucking apes . wankersTHAt's what we want ISNT IT so late..too late for Timothye shacklewick..no standards ANY MOR rain down..cleansing death..

like the swooping majsty of the tindersticks second album..exper exqusite crafted.come take little Timbo . no thansk...dthe past..wasbetter..not so sweetnow. WHATS NEXT in the fucking sequen, next in fucking sewuence.

End..end more...end better.. .