Andy McCluskey is being interviewed for a new TV series being produced by the BBC.

The theme of the programmes follows on from a series shown earlier this year which focussed on the music, crazes and culture of the 1970's. The theme of the new series will concentrate on the 1980's. Andy is being interviewed on OMD's contribution to 80's music. The Human League's Phil Oakey is also being interviewed for the series.

Stuart Kershaw, meanwhile, is taking time out from writing for Atomic Kitten by writing material for a Country & Western band. Now, there's a change of direction ;-)

Fans travelling to the One Mad Day Event are in for a treat. The Messerschmitt Twins performed a dress rehearsal for a select audience recently at their studio, The Crunchy Armchair.

The band have come a long way since their debut at the 1997 OMD Convention and they sound a lot more confident and professional. Both Jimmy and Junior Messerschmitt have been experimenting with drum and bass loops on some of the OMD classics, which includes some new OMD songs previously never performed by The Messerschmitt Twins. There's also more than a few jokes and sketches that hardcore OMD fans are bound to appreciate ;-)

The band want to keep a tight lid on the exact details of the songs they're performing at this stage, but fans of Boyzone and New Order are in for a real treat ;-)

Pat Fetty has conducted an interview with Andy McCluskey following on from an earlier interview with Paul Humphreys. An interesting chat which covers a lot of topics both current and past. The interview is posted up on on Pat's World Of OMD site. Follow the links at www.omdweb.com.

Just to clarify matters for any fans confused by entries in the OMD Forum: There is no OMD tour currently planned ;-)

As events in the past have proved, both the OMD Guestbook and Forum are there purely for fans to chat, discuss and debate the topics of their choice. Any news or details on OMD projects will appear here on the News page first.

A posting on the Hyper Telegraph OMD mailing list reveals a review of Paul Humphrey's October 7th concert (at the Double Door, Chicago) has turned up at this link: http://eggplant.simplenet.com/2000/oct/100800.html

Bob Hanley writes to say that the Invisible College website has now moved to: www.invisible-college.net. Bob also comments:

The site is still under reconstruction but we plan to have some previews of OMD material that are in the works. Also, I am currently in the process of obtaining the rights to record Messages, along with 2nd Thought. These songs, once finished will be featured as "b-sides" to upcoming Invisible College CD singles. The versions of these two songs will be quite different from the versions on the free "Orchestral Manipulations" CD (of which there will be limited pressings).

"The next IC Online Radio broadcast, will be this Saturday the 7th at 9:00pm both UK time and EST. Due to the number of responses to an email sent out asking for requests, we decided on a rebroadcast "

More OMD cover versions: A band called Syrian have produced a cracking version of Electricity which was intended for the Lexicon OMD covers album. To hear the track, go to: www.peperoncino.it/syrian_-_electricity.mp3

Syrian also have a website at www.syrian.cjb.net if you want more details on the band.

Congratulations to Mike Whelan who managed to get all the correct answers in our recent OMD Competition. Mike was drawn at random from all the correct entries we received. A signed copy of the OMD Singles album is on its way to him. Consolation prizes of OMD Website stickers are on their way to runners-up Dean O'Connor and Martin Korndoerfer.

CORRECT ANSWERS:

• Q: Name the venue where OMD made their debut live performance
• A: Eric's Club, Liverpool

• Q: Which artist influenced the sleeve design of Crush?
• A: Edward Hopper

• Q: What was the title of the book that influenced the title of Architecture And Morality?
• A: Morality And Architecture

• Q: The album Junk Culture was issued with a bonus 1-sided single. What was the name of the track?
• A: (The Angels Keep Turning) The Wheels of the Universe

• Q: Neon Lights was covered by OMD on the album Sugar Tax. Who originally performed the song?
• A: Kraftwerk

The OMD B-Sides album has officially been given the green light by Virgin and is scheduled to be released in Spring 2001.

After lots of talk and discussion, and in light of the success of the Peel Sessions album, Virgin are confident on the viability of another OMD release. They will be sourcing the chosen tracks from the archives and they're also enthusiastic at the prospect of at least one previously unreleased song appearing on the album. We hope to get a track listing for the album very soon and will keep posting updates on the News page as we get them.

Good news for Atomic Kitten: their debut album Right Now has been given 5 stars out of 5 by Top Of The Pops magazine.

We've had quite a few queries asking to confirm rumours of an OMD tour in South America. Just to clarify the matter: OMD will *not* be touring South America and there are no plans for the band to play any live performances anywhere else.

Paul Humphreys, along with Claudia Brücken, is currently embarked on a tour of the US and he might well be planning to play some dates in South America. However, we have no further information at this point in time.

Kevin Pretlove writes in with an update on the One Mad Day event. The hotel (and venue for the gathering) is now fully booked. The good news is that a nearby hotel is still available and so people still wishing to attend have the opportunity to do so.

The Messerschmitt Twins have been rehearsing for their Saturday night performance and the event will boast a lot of give-aways including signed OMD and Atomic Kitten items.

If you still want to attend, or would just like more details, then visit the Compiled website at: www.compiled.fsnet.co.uk or drop an email to aggy@compiled.fsnet.co.uk

Pat Fetty has posted up reviews and pictures from two of Paul Humphreys' concerts on his website at www.omdweb.com/tour.htm. Pat has also conducted an interview with Paul which makes interesting reading.

Mal Holmes writes in with updates on Fin Music, including good music press reviews for Dean Johnson's album Loser Friendly (FINCD010) (on which Mal plays).

Both Loser Friendly, along with The Listening Pool album Still Life, are available as CD quality downloads in Liquid Audio format by following these links:

www.finmusic.com/tlp.html

www.finmusic.com/dean.html

Dean Johnson and Mal have also been writing new material alongside the guys from Wet Wet Wet. One of these songs, No Love And Lies, will be available via the Fin site soon.

More news and details are available direct from www.finmusic.com

Wendy O'Sullivan, a long-time OMD fan, has started developing her new website. For those who wouldn't be aware, Wendy has a large collection of great OMD tour pics. Although the site is still in early development, drop by at www.teslagirl.co.uk for the work in progress.

Now for some bad news: During the overnight update of the website, the original OMD Forum page was accidentally deleted. Although we still have copies of the individual postings, it proved a little too complicated to rebuild the Forum pages.

We will continue to look at other options for putting the original postings back online if this is possible.

In the meantime, the OMD Forum will start on a clean slate.

The OMD Forum has suffered a few problems during the monthly update of the website. We're working on a solution and hope to have the Forum back online as soon as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to post in the Guestbook.

Thanks to all those people who entered our recent competition. We had a lot of entries which we're currently sorting through. We'll be announcing the winners, as well as the answers, on the News page shortly.

The OMD Survey was also very popular, although the choice of Architecture And Morality as favourite OMD album was perhaps predictable ;-)

A new survey looking at OMD Tours is now available on the OMD Survey page.