While my iPod gently weeps

HELP! Just when you think there can't possibly be any more legal mileage in bunging the entire Beatles repertoire up on the wibbly wobbly web, there, err, is.

Apple (the music company, prop. N. Aspinall) has denied reports that after a mere 200 years, the Fab's back catalogue is to be made available on the Web.

UK download site Wippit announced late last week that it would be first to flog the tunes in a press release that came in through the bathroom window but has now mysteriously vanished. The most boring and prolonged legal spat that has ever crossed the universe shows no sign of flying away and Neil Aspinall, Apple's rubber soul remaining employee, is left to carry that weight and appears to be prolonging the agony even more. When asked to clarify the situation, it is possible he may have replied: "Your mother should know."

EMI was thought to be about to release the band's work as downloads, but Wippit is looking increasingly like a fool on a hill for jumping the warm gun.

When Apple and Apple finally kissed and made up over the use of the name Apple, ex-roadie Aspinall said the Beatles looked forward to "many years of peaceful co-operation" with Apple, the manufacturer of attractively-packaged, overpriced ephemera. Sadly it appears that love isn't all you need after all.

So it appears that until someone can cast some inner light on what's going on, the only place you can get Beatles music remains from a geezer called Desmond, who apparently still has a barrow in the market place.

Quite frankly, the truth is that most people interested in the Quarrymen's work already own the full set. Everyone else is bored to death with the whole sorry will they, won't they affair. Anyone who really wants to download Beatles music can already choose from a wide selection of tunes by Oasis.

The end. µ