Piers Morgan. Two words that deserve to be erased from history, from time, from existence. The guy is the stereotypical celeb-phoney. And it's really see-through; the guy proves he's "in touch" (that strange status we all want our politicians to have... do we really want the prime minister to be a Special Brew-swilling pielord?) by writing a column in the Daily Mail, the most hatefilled sack o' crap of them all. Of course the Star and the Sport are complete bollocks too, but they don't lie about it - they advertise porn in the banner and soap-news in the headline.
Anyway, he is the worst excuse for a journalist I've ever seen. When it comes to the lying-papers like The Sun or The Mail, one can't become too furious because it takes a fair amount of skill to tell the truth selectively than tell the whole truth - it's not easy to make a falsity seem credible. But in his recent interview with Katie Price, and the adverts showing him on TV as the next Michael Parkinson - he showed us how useless he really is. In the former - he completely kowtowed to Queen Bitch, asking ridiculously tame questions and even at one point admiring her breasts. It was like some sick self-gratification excercise for both of them, showing his absolute lack of a spine and her lack of dignity. One of the questions vaguely attacked Jordan's shameless carousel-ride through the tabloid media, with divorcee Peter who has (not surprisingly) come out top on the PR war. In response, she just lifted up her top to show her bra, surprising Piers with this sort of fix-all solution to any problem - who then gave a sort of "common sense, I guess" shrug.
This is all part of ITV's constant, mind-draining self-promotion, and I'm bored of it. I shall now go and watch Newsnight (a current affairs programme with backbone!) on my new television, which makes my house look small.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Monday, 21 September 2009
Libellious
Right, this sounds unfathomably sad and nerdy, but I'm really looking forward to the return of Question Time this week. It has the biting political comment of Newsnight but with often more exciting debates, plus the fact that, since they aren't scared off by the presence of newshound bruiser Jeremy Paxman, it attracts better political heavyweights. The highlight will undoubtably be the episode in which Nick Griffin, diabolical leader of neo-fascist thuggery the British National Party, wets his pants on live television from pure excitement. If he doesen't encounter a case of incontinence on the tellybox, at the least, he'll shout some very entertaining lies that resemble the script from a certain Little Britain sketch.
On the subject of idiots, I noticed in the in the Manchester Derby on Sunday that Craig Bellamy seems to be aiming for the recently-paroled look with tattoos all the way up his arm. Classic style, there. Later, true to form, he punched a fan. What a lovely man! What a brilliant role model! Of course, this incident graced the front page of the red tops this morning - glancing through the headlines whilst looking for chocolate I was bemused to find Diana gracing the third Express cover since last week. Is there any wonder for the decline in Fleet Street? The woman's been gone for ten years, and they're still going on about conspiracy theories: "She was abducted by Icelandic accountants!". It's not like there isn't any other news, and I don't really believe that anyone is interested or even whipped into the puritanical righteous fury the tabloids adore to trigger.
My paper of choice, The Guardian, refuses to try much harder. It doesen't publish barside speculation about Why All The Foreigners Take Our Jobs (maybe it's because they're at work, and not in the pub?), but it still doesen't do enough proper news. Polly Toynbee does constistently excellent political analysis, partly because she's the only voice shouting on Labour's side - and everything is served with a side order of black humour. But you do get the impression that they're just sitting back, watching everything go to hell with a knowing glint in their eyes. Maybe they're right. Anyway, the Mail was flaunting some bilge about councils welcoming illegal immigrants who eat children's souls (but only WHITE children, mind). What's the point? Why bother, when they're only providing ammunition for ultra-nationalist idiots like the EDL or the BNP? I understand the reasoning behind there being an agenda, I just don't understand the point in continuing the agenda.
It's not even as though racial scaremongering is part of current Conservative ideology, which is something most of the right-wing presshounds have a vested interest in. I guess moaning about it won't do a jot of difference though. There comes a point when you accept that most of the people in Britain are essentially right-wing in the sense that they are scared of change and want traditionality. In thirty years I expect I'll be clinging to my own outdated dogmas and resisting the emancipation of llamas or whatever obscure dystopian leglisation they'll be pushing in 2039. Until then, fingers crossed that Andrew Brons' cousin firebombs The Sun's offices or mangles his legs in an ironic fashion, so that the two paradoxical institutions implode simultaneously.
As a parting shot; I'm getting increasingly envious of writers superior to myself. I understand the words they use, and store them in the mental vernacular bank - but I don't access the database in order to use it in my writing. David Mitchell can be funny with a different word every second whilst I still use "like" too many times in a sentence. Maybe one day I'll be the vocabulary warlock and he'll be drowning in senility, mumbling that I spelt "oroborous" wrong.
On the subject of idiots, I noticed in the in the Manchester Derby on Sunday that Craig Bellamy seems to be aiming for the recently-paroled look with tattoos all the way up his arm. Classic style, there. Later, true to form, he punched a fan. What a lovely man! What a brilliant role model! Of course, this incident graced the front page of the red tops this morning - glancing through the headlines whilst looking for chocolate I was bemused to find Diana gracing the third Express cover since last week. Is there any wonder for the decline in Fleet Street? The woman's been gone for ten years, and they're still going on about conspiracy theories: "She was abducted by Icelandic accountants!". It's not like there isn't any other news, and I don't really believe that anyone is interested or even whipped into the puritanical righteous fury the tabloids adore to trigger.
My paper of choice, The Guardian, refuses to try much harder. It doesen't publish barside speculation about Why All The Foreigners Take Our Jobs (maybe it's because they're at work, and not in the pub?), but it still doesen't do enough proper news. Polly Toynbee does constistently excellent political analysis, partly because she's the only voice shouting on Labour's side - and everything is served with a side order of black humour. But you do get the impression that they're just sitting back, watching everything go to hell with a knowing glint in their eyes. Maybe they're right. Anyway, the Mail was flaunting some bilge about councils welcoming illegal immigrants who eat children's souls (but only WHITE children, mind). What's the point? Why bother, when they're only providing ammunition for ultra-nationalist idiots like the EDL or the BNP? I understand the reasoning behind there being an agenda, I just don't understand the point in continuing the agenda.
It's not even as though racial scaremongering is part of current Conservative ideology, which is something most of the right-wing presshounds have a vested interest in. I guess moaning about it won't do a jot of difference though. There comes a point when you accept that most of the people in Britain are essentially right-wing in the sense that they are scared of change and want traditionality. In thirty years I expect I'll be clinging to my own outdated dogmas and resisting the emancipation of llamas or whatever obscure dystopian leglisation they'll be pushing in 2039. Until then, fingers crossed that Andrew Brons' cousin firebombs The Sun's offices or mangles his legs in an ironic fashion, so that the two paradoxical institutions implode simultaneously.
As a parting shot; I'm getting increasingly envious of writers superior to myself. I understand the words they use, and store them in the mental vernacular bank - but I don't access the database in order to use it in my writing. David Mitchell can be funny with a different word every second whilst I still use "like" too many times in a sentence. Maybe one day I'll be the vocabulary warlock and he'll be drowning in senility, mumbling that I spelt "oroborous" wrong.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
A Day In The Life
So this week was my first two days back at college. It would have been more enjoyable if I had had money to garnish the wearisome experience of icebreakers and writing in too-small boxes, incredibly concise answers to questions on the importance of the checks and balances on the US bicameralised federal system or something WHATEVER!
My world consists of thus: catch bus, find seat among elderly persons. Try not to get run over crossing A6, try not to be late to class. Explain to teacher why I'm late to class, find seat amongst young people. Take equipment out of bag, explain to teacher why I don't have the nessecary equipment. Explain to teacher why I haven't done the homework. Escape glares and feeble sarcasmic quips as break comes; navigate way through painfully eager lower-sixth students; most of whom look like they were dragged at breakneck speed through Topman. Fall through door into form too early - it's still a films studies class. Apologise, wait for tutor to come - he forgets and I give up. Walk in canteen; walk out in shame when I find nobody in the canteen. Avoid creepy maths-metalheads (the ultimate recluse's combination), claim a table with friends. Scurry off to class, repeat previous example. Laugh nervously at new teachers awful jokes. Politics is the one subject that shouldn't ever be funny unless the opposition just got ceremoniously executed and you voted for the government. Wait around for twenty minutes for girlfriend; set up camp on a table close to the water fountain in canteen. Say goodbye - promise to text/call/(insert communication preference here) later. Keep head low while walking past Funky Monkey's - with my current cash flow I wouldn't be welcome in there. Asking to open a tab not wise. Wait at bus stop a comfortable distance from phlegm-spewing ruffians. Get on bus, make best efforts to appear unwelcoming so nobody sits next to me. Leap off bus, walk home in rain. Fin.
Now there may be some inaccuracies there; I always do my homework. But the rest of it is true. And the first-years are all taller than me, so I feel like the newcomer. My bus stop is now populated by a group of lads who all look like the proud owners of an ASBO and are well on their way to buying a Renault Clio simply to wrap it around a tree a week later. The old people smell worse than last year, and the Stagecoach drivers have redoubled their contemptual "scum-stare" now I've got a Unirider and therefore don't need cash. "You bastard, how dare you not pay!" their eyes say.
Moving on from the hordes of teenagers who have both stolen my college and are better-looking than me, I was watching the X Factor before, and thinking. Now I always thought that a). It's a crock of shit and b). It's beneath me - but with the addition of the live audience, the auditions are no longer funny unless you're a loyalist. Before, you could hear the ultrastardom-hopefuls' hearts audibly breaking when Simon Cowell told them to commit suicide before he did it for them. Before, Cheryl Cole didn't have to go and touch the plebeian bawlers - now her PR man texts her under the table to go and give the cute ones a hug. The judges used to really let loose on them - no-holds barred insults. But with a cacophany of musically-challenged devotees behind them, as well as the contestants familes waiting in the wings to accost Cowell when he brings their daughter to the point of nervous breakdown ("But it's MY DREAM" weeps Chantelle, 16 from Essex), the judges are pre-empted or shouted down.
The additional fact that the X Factor never had any, or produced any talent whatsoever, that the judges and fans never seem to notice that the winners stay in the charts for a week leading up to christmas and then go back to working in the laundrette - is a given. Reality TV's time in the spotlight is waning. The whole thing has turned from being a bluntly obvious scheme for ITV to monopolise the music world with Mariah Carey lookalikes, to being one massive popularity festival for Kylie's sister, a footballer's wife, and two ageing music producers. Louis' achingly vomit-inducing niceguy act is particularily desperate.
It's all like that scene from Gladiator where Proximo examines his new "stock". Cowell's eyes gleam and his ears pick out some glimmer of a tuneful note. Yes, she has potential. Get me Heat magzine.
My world consists of thus: catch bus, find seat among elderly persons. Try not to get run over crossing A6, try not to be late to class. Explain to teacher why I'm late to class, find seat amongst young people. Take equipment out of bag, explain to teacher why I don't have the nessecary equipment. Explain to teacher why I haven't done the homework. Escape glares and feeble sarcasmic quips as break comes; navigate way through painfully eager lower-sixth students; most of whom look like they were dragged at breakneck speed through Topman. Fall through door into form too early - it's still a films studies class. Apologise, wait for tutor to come - he forgets and I give up. Walk in canteen; walk out in shame when I find nobody in the canteen. Avoid creepy maths-metalheads (the ultimate recluse's combination), claim a table with friends. Scurry off to class, repeat previous example. Laugh nervously at new teachers awful jokes. Politics is the one subject that shouldn't ever be funny unless the opposition just got ceremoniously executed and you voted for the government. Wait around for twenty minutes for girlfriend; set up camp on a table close to the water fountain in canteen. Say goodbye - promise to text/call/(insert communication preference here) later. Keep head low while walking past Funky Monkey's - with my current cash flow I wouldn't be welcome in there. Asking to open a tab not wise. Wait at bus stop a comfortable distance from phlegm-spewing ruffians. Get on bus, make best efforts to appear unwelcoming so nobody sits next to me. Leap off bus, walk home in rain. Fin.
Now there may be some inaccuracies there; I always do my homework. But the rest of it is true. And the first-years are all taller than me, so I feel like the newcomer. My bus stop is now populated by a group of lads who all look like the proud owners of an ASBO and are well on their way to buying a Renault Clio simply to wrap it around a tree a week later. The old people smell worse than last year, and the Stagecoach drivers have redoubled their contemptual "scum-stare" now I've got a Unirider and therefore don't need cash. "You bastard, how dare you not pay!" their eyes say.
Moving on from the hordes of teenagers who have both stolen my college and are better-looking than me, I was watching the X Factor before, and thinking. Now I always thought that a). It's a crock of shit and b). It's beneath me - but with the addition of the live audience, the auditions are no longer funny unless you're a loyalist. Before, you could hear the ultrastardom-hopefuls' hearts audibly breaking when Simon Cowell told them to commit suicide before he did it for them. Before, Cheryl Cole didn't have to go and touch the plebeian bawlers - now her PR man texts her under the table to go and give the cute ones a hug. The judges used to really let loose on them - no-holds barred insults. But with a cacophany of musically-challenged devotees behind them, as well as the contestants familes waiting in the wings to accost Cowell when he brings their daughter to the point of nervous breakdown ("But it's MY DREAM" weeps Chantelle, 16 from Essex), the judges are pre-empted or shouted down.
The additional fact that the X Factor never had any, or produced any talent whatsoever, that the judges and fans never seem to notice that the winners stay in the charts for a week leading up to christmas and then go back to working in the laundrette - is a given. Reality TV's time in the spotlight is waning. The whole thing has turned from being a bluntly obvious scheme for ITV to monopolise the music world with Mariah Carey lookalikes, to being one massive popularity festival for Kylie's sister, a footballer's wife, and two ageing music producers. Louis' achingly vomit-inducing niceguy act is particularily desperate.
It's all like that scene from Gladiator where Proximo examines his new "stock". Cowell's eyes gleam and his ears pick out some glimmer of a tuneful note. Yes, she has potential. Get me Heat magzine.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
On The Subject of Amateur Detectives, Musical Genres, Film and Tins
I find Miss Marple somewhat intimidating. Other fictional detectives; Morse, Holmes and Poirot - are professional types, who have private agencies and are asked specifically to solve a case. But Miss Marple just invites herself to suspiciously empty houses, or turns up at a dinner party and pokes her nose into everyone's business. She fulfills the nosy-old lady stereotype of the spinster and looks a little bit like a Victorian-era witch. I've got a theory that she actually uses voodoo spells to cause the deaths - it surprises me that the characters don't react to her in the same way that Denethor reacts to Gandalf - "The old conjuror is a bearer of bad news" et cetera. Considering that 90% of the characters (excluding the Vicar and the Inspector - whose respective territories cover wherever Ms Marple visits) are young and voluptuous, it's a wonder they allow this strange wizened crow to sit in at their "wild" dinner parties. Maybe they tell her all the clues because she reminds them of their grandma, or maybe it's her gyspy charms. One will never know.
Moving on from my fear of Queen Victoria (post-Alfred mourning)-esque visitors, I've been thinking hard about music genres. iTunes, for example, just bangs "alternative" onto anything it can't classify, "hiphop/soul" onto anything with a non-white person and "indie" onto all songs with non-metal guitar riffs. But of course music is infinitely diverse and constantly morphs from form to form by nature - labels mean nothing. Alternative music, really applies only to rock music that leaps off the beaten track, that defines a non-mainstream scene; pre-success Nirvana and the Seattle circuit of the early nineties is the best representation of this definition. Indie, in parrallel, can apply to anything un-commercial and outside of the influence of popular opinion - it shouldn't mean any old band that uses clean guitars and unconventional lyrics.
It is less a genre and more a state of being; the Arctic Monkeys are only "indie" in the sense that they still use the musical style they had when they were writing their first album in Sheffield. It needn't apply to an artist without a record company behind them either; Elbow have produced three albums before they truly hit the mainstream, as did Kings of Leon before they truly stormed the charts. And, did anyone notice how NME adopted them after this phenomenal chart success? Magazines and the media seek to control the idea of independant music in the same way that they control the flow of exposure for other artists; as soon as an artist is featured in such an outlet, their days in the shadowy world of creative nebulae are finished.
Indie music is essentially anti rock-establishment - so I was pleased to see a similar movement evolving within other genre-trees too. Until now, I had my Regina Spektor/Laura Marling/Emmy the Great collection labelled as simply "alternative/folk" for lack of a better word. I was searching for more albums by the aforementioned Regina on Wikipedia when I got linked to "anti-folk". I had no idea about this, being "musically challenged" as my lovely girlfriend put it earlier this week - but this revolution within folk music basically takes the bare bones - the rejection of mainstream music, the politically charged lyrics and the classical influences - and subverts them into fun, happy-go-lucky, senseless songs that sound fantastic. It describes music that celebrates the sunny side of life, and I like it.
But that's enough of me being pretentious about music - I'm not very good at it. I've started to really enjoy black and white films; I don't mean Schindler's List or those post-modern films that use the monochrome to add effect, I mean proper film noir. I went to watch Some Like It Hot at the Cornerhouse on sunday morning and it was genuinely funny. Hilarity did ensue. Plus, I now see what the big deal about Marilyn Monroe was about - she was hot! I watched one this morning about a boxer who dies before his time and goes into a millionaire's body and probably caused the Wall Street Stock Crash single-handedly. I like the pure frivolity of the script - the way that the characters were completely absorbed in their own private dramas - in this way, it retained the exclusivity and interaction that exists in theatre-plays. I'll confess that I have no idea what the film was called because I missed the start and got hungry before the end; I'd make a terrible movie critic. It had a sort of magical watchability about it; that same element of storytelling which enables you to sit down with an old film and just pick up the storyline from any point (they tend to repeat the key themes a lot, so it's made for simple minds). A final note here - go see (500) Days Of Summer. It's out now and is brilliant. My new second-favourite film, it's got Zooey Deschanel and a killer soundtrack (admittedly, my music collection). What more could you want?
I'm going off now to make my last bag of green tea before I start on the real green tea - that is, the tin of loose-leaf stuff that came from Whittards. I like things that come in tins because I can re-use them and keep nice little cluttery things inside them - before I go and buy more nice little cluttery things to put in even more tins. Plus, they always have cool vintage designs on them. I've got a lunchbox with an old Charlie Chaplin film poster on it, and another with an french white absynthe advert. If you want to buy me presents, put it in a tin. It'll make me happy.
Moving on from my fear of Queen Victoria (post-Alfred mourning)-esque visitors, I've been thinking hard about music genres. iTunes, for example, just bangs "alternative" onto anything it can't classify, "hiphop/soul" onto anything with a non-white person and "indie" onto all songs with non-metal guitar riffs. But of course music is infinitely diverse and constantly morphs from form to form by nature - labels mean nothing. Alternative music, really applies only to rock music that leaps off the beaten track, that defines a non-mainstream scene; pre-success Nirvana and the Seattle circuit of the early nineties is the best representation of this definition. Indie, in parrallel, can apply to anything un-commercial and outside of the influence of popular opinion - it shouldn't mean any old band that uses clean guitars and unconventional lyrics.
It is less a genre and more a state of being; the Arctic Monkeys are only "indie" in the sense that they still use the musical style they had when they were writing their first album in Sheffield. It needn't apply to an artist without a record company behind them either; Elbow have produced three albums before they truly hit the mainstream, as did Kings of Leon before they truly stormed the charts. And, did anyone notice how NME adopted them after this phenomenal chart success? Magazines and the media seek to control the idea of independant music in the same way that they control the flow of exposure for other artists; as soon as an artist is featured in such an outlet, their days in the shadowy world of creative nebulae are finished.
Indie music is essentially anti rock-establishment - so I was pleased to see a similar movement evolving within other genre-trees too. Until now, I had my Regina Spektor/Laura Marling/Emmy the Great collection labelled as simply "alternative/folk" for lack of a better word. I was searching for more albums by the aforementioned Regina on Wikipedia when I got linked to "anti-folk". I had no idea about this, being "musically challenged" as my lovely girlfriend put it earlier this week - but this revolution within folk music basically takes the bare bones - the rejection of mainstream music, the politically charged lyrics and the classical influences - and subverts them into fun, happy-go-lucky, senseless songs that sound fantastic. It describes music that celebrates the sunny side of life, and I like it.
But that's enough of me being pretentious about music - I'm not very good at it. I've started to really enjoy black and white films; I don't mean Schindler's List or those post-modern films that use the monochrome to add effect, I mean proper film noir. I went to watch Some Like It Hot at the Cornerhouse on sunday morning and it was genuinely funny. Hilarity did ensue. Plus, I now see what the big deal about Marilyn Monroe was about - she was hot! I watched one this morning about a boxer who dies before his time and goes into a millionaire's body and probably caused the Wall Street Stock Crash single-handedly. I like the pure frivolity of the script - the way that the characters were completely absorbed in their own private dramas - in this way, it retained the exclusivity and interaction that exists in theatre-plays. I'll confess that I have no idea what the film was called because I missed the start and got hungry before the end; I'd make a terrible movie critic. It had a sort of magical watchability about it; that same element of storytelling which enables you to sit down with an old film and just pick up the storyline from any point (they tend to repeat the key themes a lot, so it's made for simple minds). A final note here - go see (500) Days Of Summer. It's out now and is brilliant. My new second-favourite film, it's got Zooey Deschanel and a killer soundtrack (admittedly, my music collection). What more could you want?
I'm going off now to make my last bag of green tea before I start on the real green tea - that is, the tin of loose-leaf stuff that came from Whittards. I like things that come in tins because I can re-use them and keep nice little cluttery things inside them - before I go and buy more nice little cluttery things to put in even more tins. Plus, they always have cool vintage designs on them. I've got a lunchbox with an old Charlie Chaplin film poster on it, and another with an french white absynthe advert. If you want to buy me presents, put it in a tin. It'll make me happy.
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