If you believed everything we published on April 1, you'd think that there really was an island called San Serriffe, we were printing a rival to Hello (called Ciao!) and that we were going to publish exclusively on Twitter. See what we've made up

Have you ever fancied a visit to the exotic island of San Serriffe? The 1977 hoax. Click image to see more

From television revealing that spaghetti grows in trees to pictures of the Loch Ness monster, the tradition of April Fool's' Day stories in the media has a long and bizarre history.

Newspaper hoaxes first began to appear in the…

Something big is happening. From Tahrir Square to Wall St., from staggeringly brave Avaaz citizen journalists in Syria to millions of citizens winning campaign after campaign online, democracy is stirring. Not the media-circus, corrupt, vote-every-4-years democracy of the past. Something much, much deeper. Deep within ourselves, we are realizing our own power to build the world we all dream of. 

The march of democracy is sweeping the world, and everywhere it's rising, Avaaz is there. Together, we've played a central role in winning massive anti-corruption campaigns from Brazil to India to Italy, halting mogul Rupert Murdoch's march to world domination, winning major environmental victories from saving whales to protecting oceans, breaking the blackouts on Arab…

The new video to the song 'senseless' has at long last been released. After almost a year in the making, with dedicated film-maker Paul Higginson, it has finally been completed. In North Wales, things can indeed, sometimes take a long time to happen. Sometimes it's for a very good reason. This is the story of why the video for this song, took this long. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fhj2pplb3g&feature=youtu.be

The Story of the song:

The song 'senseless' was originally penned by Roger Hughes at around 2am in the morning several years ago, woken up starkly by a bass riff in his head. He picked up his guitar and put to it the words…

(review n pix by neil crud)

Bangor is a funny place when it comes to gigs, regular nights don’t run for long and attendances can never be guaranteed. Many have tried and many have failed – yet there has been many a success.
Let’s face facts; gigs are no longer events – they are two-a-penny – every pub, club, restaurant, newsagent and funeral parlour are putting on live music these days, which is both good and bad for bands. Good cos they get to play regularly to the point they seldom need to rehearse. Bad because people have too much choice (no event, just another gig) –…

North Wales is a beautiful place, but it’s got to be said that in between the university towns of Bangor and Wrexham, stuck at opposite ends of the country like inverted commas, it’s a desert for quality new music. The DIGS Project in Colwyn Bay is a brave attempt by some locals to create a music scene where none existed before. The venue might be an alcohol free church hall, with pop and cakes on sale, and there are serious things like ‘bidding for council funding’ but the heart is there. I was very slightly sceptical, but once inside, the place is impressive as a venue…

Great and good men die every day of the week, so why is John Peel's memory important enough to be resurrected at every opportunity? Why does the knowledge that he would have been 72 today evoke a sense of loss out of proportion with my actual relationship to the man?

Close to seven years after his death, the void he left hasn't been filled. Those of us who are distinctly more ten-a-penny realise his true value as each year passes.

Peel proved you didn't have to be a facile egomaniac to bring people great music. By ensuring he was always in the background, he brought himself to the forefront of our…

'My Notion of Democracy is that under it, the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest... no country in this world today shows any but patronising regard for the weak. Western Democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism...True Democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the centre, it has to be worked from below by the people of the village' Ghandi