From Owen: Dearest good natured, kind-hearted folk.

So we’ve taken on a huge challenge. War Child gave us a de-commissioned landmine; we told them we’d give them a million pounds for it. And why not - we’re generous folk. Obviously, without Dark Side Of The Moon in our discography, we couldn’t just stump up the cash and hand it over, so we decided to swap it for something. And then swap that something for something else. And then swap that for… you get the idea.

Instead of breaking out a ‘War and Peace’-style mail-out, have a look at the website. It’s here: www.the-big-swap.com. We’ve currently got a signed copy of Tragedy Rocks to swap (first edition, red cover - the one that’s rarer than a miracle cure for Wayne Rooney’s busted foot and fetches extortionate prices on ebay).

Make us an offer. Go on, you know you want to…

Basically then, a de-commissioned landmine is the starting point, enough money to fund War Child’s two-year programme in Iraq is the end. The Big Swap is aiming to convert evil to good, a potential killer to a potential lifeline. In the process, we hope it’ll be fun, you’ll get something you quite fancy and, ultimately, the children affected by war in Iraq get something they need. Simple as.

As well as taking part in the trades etc., if you can help by linking to the website or mentioning it either on-line or in a blog, we’d be eternally grateful. It’s a massive undertaking and we’re going to need a hand. We promise to fashion some sort of ‘Hall Of Fame’ for everyone who helps us out.

So that’s it for the moment. For those of you who haven’t checked www.thecrimea.net or www.myspace.com/thecrimea our summer dates are listed below. Good things are afoot… [click ‘more’ for those]
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Guess why? I can just image the fun I’m gonna have deleting them, one at a time… If I find a reliable solution to block spam then they may come back, though my host has now twice disabled the blogging software due to problems with it and if anything like this happened again they may not let me use it at all. Soo, anyone know another hosting company that charges ?50 a year for 2 Gigs storage and 75 Gigs bandwidth? I don’t really wanna leave HostFolks (I love them really) but no Greymatter = no site :o(. For the meantime, there’s still the message board. Or maybe you should check out the official board too.

Taking a break from trying to mess up the music industry as much as possible, or just trying to find another media to infect, Sony sponsored the 24th Radio Academy Awards which took place in London on May 8th. Apparently the “UK’s most prestigious radio accolades”, awards were handed out to a wide variety of Radio shows, stations, programmes and presenters. Of note to you lot was the Specialist Music Programme Award, present to the winner (Zane Lowe) by non other than The Crimea’s very own Davey and Owen. I have it on good word that they were sat on a table with Peter Andre and Jordan, though a Crimea version of Mysterious Girl is something I’m sure will only ever exist in my head. Click the pic on the right for the full size shot of them posing with Mr Lowe (copyright Getty Images as I’m sure you’ve guessed) or, even better, visit the Sony Radio Academy Awards website for the official webcast video from the night (sign up, click the on demand bit, choose options, choose the awards part 1 link, scroll right and click on the specialist music award show title link (36m 48.0s))… aannnd breathe…. alternatively, click this to download the right bit. XviD format (it works on my poratable mp3/video player :oD ) and about 8 megs in size. Thanks to those who let me know about this, you know who you are.