The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its Word of the Year for 2005: podcast.

The first and current seasons of Law & Order are now available at iTunes as part of Apple’s new deal with NBC/Universal.

Also of note: the XTC catalogue is now available in the US iTunes Music Store, including an unannounced exclusive in the form of a new single (not to be confused with the two new tracks offered with the Apple Box): “Where Did the Ordinary People Go?”, a Colin Moulding track originally considered for Nonsuch and completed a few weeks ago.

The entire set of Andy’s Fuzzy Warbles demo collections is available from iTunes US as well.

Monty Norman was once made to seem obscure, in spite of his having written “The James Bond Theme” (which he recorded in something approximating its original arrangement on a new CD, Completing the Circle). The Sunday Times was forced to pay damages in 2001 when a correspondent essentially repeated claims that the tune had been written by John Barry as fact, which is symptomatic of the kind of bad journalism and lack of research or attention to detail that plagued writing relating to popular culture in the pre-Internet days. It still surprises and saddens me when I can spot errors in coverage by major news organisations and offline publications. I know the material and I’m not being compensated for anything—why should they be rewarded for being wrong?

David K. Smith of the excellent Avengers Forever site has revealed the contents of the upcoming A&E Emma Peel Collector’s Edition Bonus Disc—all of the extant David Keel footage, including the surviving first act of the very first Avengers story “Hot Snow” will be on it, in addition to the 3-minute version of “The Strange Case of the Missing Corpse”. Excellent!

A recent profile in the Los Angeles Dog Trainer Times on the steady growth of BBC America describes how some programmes or creators affiliated with the BBC become successful enough to attract higher bidders from other newtorks, most notably the Ricky Gervais series Extras, but it doesn’t mention the sacrifice of Spooks to A&E (where it runs under a different name and with about 10 minutes of cuts per episode).

Nor is there any mention of the lack of music programming. Hardly a surprise, considering that America is so hostile to it.