Shat Day is nearly here!

Oh yes.

Shat Day is nearly upon us.

I thought I'd best explain this perverse fascination I have with William Shatner. I'm not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination - I don't avidly feel the need to watch every episode. But I do enjoy Star Trek, particularly the original season. William Shatner was essential for this. I won't go into the details of th rumours behind the scenes or indeed during episodes, but anyone who's seen "Galaxy Quest" will have a pretty good idea of what Shatner was like. But this isn't the reason why I like him.

I like him for his willingness to send himself up. He's a big pretentious fool, as is shown by his previous "musical" effort, The Transformed Man, with its legendary cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", (which I actually feel has more musical and entertainment value than the original, which I've always found to be a tad plodding, and not one of the Beatles' best efforts). But he is never shy of making a joke at his own expense. He is never afraid to mock his own image. He's also the high prince of cheese, but he KNOWS he's the high prince, and revels in it.

My friend gave me a signed photo of Shatner in his Kirk heyday, which he got off E-bay. This seems to have perversely brough me luck, so it adorns the wall of my office now. People think this is strange - it probably is - but it never ceases to put a smile on people's faces, which is always nice.

"Shat Day" is the name I am using to refer to the day on which Shatner's second album, "Has Been" is released. I am particularly excited about this, because one of my all-time favourite recording artists, Ben Folds, has written, arranged and produced most of this album, as a return favour for when The Shat provided a wonderful contribution to Folds' first solo album, "Fear of Pop vol. 1", playing the role of the spurned lover on "In Love" and "Still in Love". In many ways, I'm viewing it as a Ben Folds solo project on which Shatner guests per track.

It will probably be very strange, and my friends are all thinking I'm a little odd for going with this, but it's something I think will be a musical milestone. The best review I've seen of it finishes with the following lines:

'This CD is beyond good or bad. It is from a world where concepts such as "unique" and "indispensible" live happily alongside "hilariously, brain-tearingly wrong".'

I think that's wonderful.