52 minutes of black and white edited footage shot at the Europa-Sonor studio in Paris in December 1971. The four members of Pink Floyd eat oysters and drink beer that a roadie has just bought at a local brasserie. They laugh, joke, smoke and offer elusive answers to the questions asked by director Adrian Maben, alternating work (David Gilmour and Rick Wright are busy overdubbing their voices on the master of "Echoes" that had been recorded at Pompeii two months earlier) with play (Roger Waters' eyes almost pop out as he blows smoke rings). This is the essence of "Chit Chat with the Oysters", which received its Italian premiere at Borgaro Torinese (near Turin, in northern Italy) on Sunday March 30th, along with a partially restored version of Maben's classic film, "Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii". This was part of a two-day event organised by a group of fanatical Italian Floydiana collectors, "The Lunatics", who are also the authors of the book, "Pink Floyd – Stories and Secrets."

Maben, who was the event's guest of honour, says: "For me, those two films travel together as a couple and they complement each other. In some respects 'Chit Chat' is the opposite of Pompeii, but I'd love it if they could be shown together, one after the other. Chit-Chat has something that is completely missing from Pompeii. The group’s four members talk freely, they argue, they tease each other and make fun of everyone else including myself. I don't know of any other film in which they are so relaxed, spontaneous and amusing. Live at Pompeii was of course the exact opposite.”

The Borders Book Festival takes place between 12th-15th June 2014, in Melrose (close to Edinburgh), Scotland. As part of the festival, Nick Mason will be in conversation with comedian and impressionist, Rory Bremner. This takes place in the Born in the Borders Marquee, on Thursday 12th June at 6:15pm.

Tickets for this appearance are now on sale priced at £10 (£8 for concessions), and can be purchased online from BBFBoxOffice.co.uk. Our thanks to Bob Follen and Dave Rogers for tipping us off about this event.

As many of you are already aware, later this year, Roger Waters and long term collaborator, Pink Floyd's sound engineer, James Guthrie, revisit Waters last solo album, Amused To Death. In pursuit of reimagining the music with brand new stereo and 5.1 mixes, James Guthrie captures Roger's original sonic intentions in 21st century definition for this important new release.

The music questions the omnipresent media culture which we now live in, which works to seduce us into apathetic oblivion in front of our flat screens, whilst the horrors of the world rumble on. This extraordinary album challenges our relationship to mass media and conjures an image of today's population amusing themselves to death.

The new mixes, along with additional never before released content and brand new graphics, will be included in the 2014 reissue release from Columbia/Legacy Recordings and Acoustic Sounds.

Pigs were flying around Princeton University and in the Garden State Thursday night (April 10th) as organizers of the University's interdisciplinary Pink Floyd conference launched the multiday event with an open jam session ("If We All Pull Together: Pink Floyd Open Jam") at Small World Coffee. The café sits adjacent to the University campus, in the downtown Princeton, New Jersey area, about an hour southwest of New York City.

As previously reported by Brain Damage, a number of events, including a screening of "The Wall" and academic presentations analyzing the music and history of Pink Floyd will follow on the campus itself through this weekend. Pink Floyd producer and engineer James Guthrie will also host a "special world-premiere of his just-finished 5.1 mix of Roger Water's Amused to Death on state-of-the-art ATC speakers". Guthrie will deliver the keynote speech.