It’s been a while since I’ve done a lookey-likey, so you can all endure / enjoy this. Some of the inspiration for this may or may not have come from last night’s episode of “Buzzcocks”.

Feared international terrorist Row-LAND from Grange Hill -

Miracle-voiced Texan lost legend of rock Carlos the Jackal -

… and tubby East Lahndon “just say no” school misfit Roy Orbison.

Pointless, I mean. The following are two good examples -

# 1) “Limited Edition” perishable foodstuffs. WHY? I can understand Records / CDs / DVD box sets which may contain special features and gain extra value with the passage of time if issued in restricted quantities, but Morrison’s “limited edition” Manchego and okra sandwiches? What are you supposed to do with it, for fuck’s sake: ensure it remains undamaged, retain the original packaging and then whack it on eBay in 10 years’ time in an advanced state of putrefaction?

# 2) Crap-tastic dub-and-bass updates of perfectly good BBC sports prog themes. The darts and snooker originals were brilliant; the remodelled versions are soulless and utterly shit. And recently - the ultimate disgrace - the Beeb has eviscerated “Soul Limbo” by Booker T and the MGs (the cricket theme) in a similar manner. Why? WHY??? I suppose I should be grateful that at least they haven’t employed MC Snoopy Danger Diddy Puff to shout “ONE TIME!”, “CHECK IT OUT!” or “AHH YEAH!” at the end of every line of melody.

Feel free to bejewel the site with your own gripes about pointlessness…

They say that public interest determines the news agenda (or at least I said it, just now) - which must be why, after a vintage news year (top quality coverage of the Big Brother “race” “row”, TONNES of incisive journalism on the McCanns, plus a welcome return for Lady Die), the story of teacher Gillian Gibbons, who faces 40 lashes and 6 months in prison in Sudan for allowing her class to name a teddy-bear “Mohammed”, is getting top billing everywhere.

Technical Monkey has kindly reminded me of the wider context; the western world has sat around for years now doing essentially nothing whilst the loony Sudanese government has gone on a genocidal rampage in Darfur. To be fair, this has been extensively reported by the BBC and the broadsheets, but most tabloid readers would be unlikely to be able tell you which continent Darfur’s in, let alone know what’s going on there. But all of a sudden, Sudan dares to enforce its own laws on blasphemy, and the regime is front page news (apart from the McCann story, obviously). People on chatboards are calling for the SAS to be sent in, Islam in general is once again being routinely slandered by closet (and not-so-closet) racists, and the government is muttering about “exploring its options”. God only knows what the reaction would be if the teddy-bear itself were threatened.

Of course it’s a shocking story on many levels, but the woman is evidently being used as a pawn by the Sudanese government (in much the same way as the sailors captured by Iran were earlier this year). There’ll no doubt be a profuse apology, a behind-the-scenes promise of aid, and a last-minute reprieve.

On the other hand, there’s no sign of any let-up from the ignorance and utter fucking stupidity of so many denizens of the UK, fed by the tide of irresponsible shit-sludge emanating endlessly from its media. If you want a distillation of what’s wrong with this country, here you have it more or less in a nutshell.

(For further evidence, check out the front pages of the Mail and the Sun - is it me, or is ONE IN EVERY TWO STORIES about fake breasts?)

It’s not often I dispense with my own prattle and simply big up another blog, but for this one, I will. My thanks - and a pint of cider, if she’s not fed up of that “gag” already - go to Rosie for sending me the link.

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

I simply had no IDEA that there were so many sarcastic signwriters out there…

Dunno what got me thinking of teachers’ nicknames this morning; the received wisdom is that kids are cruel but amazingly accurate in picking on the weak spots of teachers (and their peers, of course) when it comes to inventing nicknames. But thinking back to my childhood - we were CRAP, as the following piss-poor efforts attest:

Mr Warnes (History) - “Slug”. OK, he wasn’t the most attractive man in the history of the world, but he never ate MY lettuces.
Mr Nicholson (Maths) - “Nich”. Positively Wildean in its invention and wit, eh?
Dr Downes (Biology) - “Dosser Downes”. “Dosser” back at school was a mot de rigeur, but it didn’t mean a tramp, it meant someone cool / laid back. Downes was neither, particularly. But “dosser” does sound a bit like “doctor”.
Dr Blatchley (Headmaster / Chemistry) - “Doc Block”. Again, no discerbible reason for this lame-arsed soubriquet - he in no way resembled a “block”.
Dr Chapman (Chemistry) - “Psycho”. Again, no idea about this one; he was, by chemistry teacher standards, fairly laid back, and in no way resembled Anthony Perkins.
Mr Hamilton (Maths, I think..) - “Paddy”. He was Irish. Touche!
Mr Tucker (English) - “Boo” Tucker. I just haven’t got a scooby on this one; his manner was slightly timid, but that’s the best guess I can muster.

We had open goals galore; e.g. other teachers named B.A. Andrews (at the height of the A-Team’s ascendancy) and Mr Waters (Muddy?), but the only bit of genius was at the expense of Mr Wellbourne (Geography) who became Mr Well-Boring…

Apologies if I’ve dredged up any soul-destroying memories for the pedagogues concerned. Somehow I doubt it.

On a vaguely-related note, I’ve inexplicably been sucked into watching 3 consecutive episodes of “Waterloo Road”, a tame middle-of-the-road school-based show on the BBC; the more cynical might mutter something about attractive 18-year-old girls in short skirts, but it’s not that - honest. So why AM I watching it? God knows - the plotlines are as clunky as Gordon Brown’s fabled fist (the latest concerns a pantomime evil LEA woman enacting all of Tony Blair’s nasty corporatisation plans for the school), and as for the acting: never mind wooden, it’s Amazonian. There was a promising development where one attractive 18-year-old-girl in a short skirt ran away from home and fell in with some bad people; but far from becoming a crack whore (as would happen in reality), she merely had to do a bit of shoplifting and then kiss a man (no tongues) for £20 before being rescued by the police. Bah. Grange Hill was a gritty, realistic slice of urban decay by comparison.

So the government has, in the shape of the ENTIRE child benefit database, lost records of half the country’s names, addresses, national insurance numbers, bank account details, passwords, mother’s maiden names and favourite Spice Girl, by dint of chucking some top secret data CDs in’t second-class post - TWICE. Why? Because, despite Labour’s own data protection regulations stating that the it had to be sent securely and encrypted, the employee responsible “was on my lunch break and the Post Office is next to Gregg’s the Bakers”. Or something.

But how are the papers likely to treat this tomorrow? Perhaps like this:

Daily Mail: STINKING IMMIGRANTS (probably not in any way) LINKED WITH CHILD BENEFIT DATA FRAUD SCAM!
The Sun: Child Benefit Data Loss: “I don’t really fink it’ll affect me; I ain’t not ‘ad kids yet. Did you see my tits last night?”, says Gemma from “I’m a Celebrity”.
The Times: Child Benefit Data Loss: Labour on the rack, and did you see Gemma’s in “I’m a Celebrity”? (Not that we have the same content as “The Sun” with longer words, or anything…)
The Guardian: Lower-class terror as child benefit details revealed: impact on residents of Finsbury and Islington neglible.
The Independent: Reticulated greater-crested water-gibbon “possibly extinct within thirty-five years”, say experts! (Oh, and some data went missing or something.)
The Express: “Maddie (story) NOT DEAD!!! DIANA DIANA DIANA!!!”

Or perhaps not. Not to worry; in any case, within a few years each of us will have all of our info safely stored by the government on ID cards. Phew!

I’m very proud of the fact that I run a broad comedy church; there isn’t much funny stuff shown on British terrestrial telly which I won’t watch and derive some enjoyment from(*). I’ve regularly championed stuff like Stressed Eric, The Glam Metal Detectives and Monkey Trousers which everyone else thought was appalling. But last night something completely unprecedented happened; I had to stop watching a programme starring a comedian I quite like before the end. The effort in question was Lead Balloon, starring Jack Dee.

It’s an absolutely rancid cack-hole of a programme and I can’t for the life of me see how it got recommissioned, other than thanks to the profile of its star / co-writer (Dee). The first episode of series 2 was attempting to derive humour from the fact that Dee and his atrocious plummy wife can’t cope at home without their stereotypically surly Eastern European maid / home help / whatever they’re called, who has quit her employment for some reason. The couple do very little all episode but sit on their Heal’s sofa sipping Chablis braying about the fridge being empty, or the washing-up not being done. Is that funny? Surely the kind of moneyed Islington twattish couple Dee’s asking us to identify with are in fact the sort of people whose faces you’d never tire of pummelling?

Dee’s stand-up is excellent; like Jo Brand, he’s made a career out of fairly mild observational humour coated in a veneer of “nasty” (in Dee’s case, the miserable “pit-bull” persona, in Brand’s case, the man-hating bulldyke - which she’s not, obviously). But writing sitcom is FAR, FAR harder than stand-up, and in “Lead Balloon”, Dee’s creative limitations are laid horribly bare for everyone to see.

I’ve already pointed out that the show’s premise is a lame copy of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” - but at least the American show has some originality / humour in plot-lines and character development. Lead Balloon, on the other hand, is about as funny as a used prophylactic. In your half-eaten veggie-burger. With a split in the end.

(* - apologies to LZ for preposition position) (**)
(** - apologies to Pal for after-post asterisk / brackets combo. Oh, and again.)

ITV’s annual shitefest “reality” show “I’m a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!” (*) started last week, with considerably less hoo-ha than is normally the case. And a quick look at the cast list explains why:

Christopher Biggins, Rodney Marsh, Gemma Atkinson, Janice Dickinson, Jason “J” Brown, Lynne Franks, Anna Ryder Richardson, Cerys Matthews, John Burton Race and Marc Bannerman.

I mean, who the fuck ARE these people? Really, who are they? Genuinely, the only ones I’m aware of are Christopher Biggins (who I assumed was banged up for kiddy-fiddling or tax-evasion), Rodney Marsh (who I thought was dead) and Cerys Matthews (vocalist for mid ’90s crap Welsh Windbags Catatonia). I’m vaguely conscious that Gemma Atkinson is a low-grade titty-model or something, but only ‘cos she’s going out with Cristiano Ronaldo. But Lynne Franks? Didn’t she write a diary about Nazis or something?

I’ve seen more stars in the cast for Folkestone’s panto (starring bloke standing next to lamp-post for three seconds without saying anything in EastEnders). And I was thinking it couldn’t get any more celeb-free after last year…

(* - For those who have astonishingly avoided this crowning turd in the midden of modern (see what I did there?) television, it consists of “celebrities” being subjected to all kinds of indignities in the Australian outback, worst of all, the dreaded “Bush Tucker Trial”. Although I freely admit, I’m a reluctant cunnilinguist myself.)

Being an impressionist is a piece of piss - probably - it’s mostly about distracting the audience from the quality of the impersonation. Alistair MacGowan does so by bulking up ridiculously, and employing Ronni Ancona to appear in various states of undress, whilst (as previously alluded to on this very site) Jon Culshaw and Rory Bremner do such a convincing impression of each other that you’re never quite sure which one you’re watching.

Truth is, anyone can do impressions, as long as they’re imressions of one of the following people saying certain things. Follow these instructions and you’ll be the toast of your next bijou dinner-party-ette…

1) Sean Connery - just deepen your voice a touch and make every “s” an “sh” - “Ahh, Pussy…”
2) Richard Wilson - just say “I don’t believe it” in a squeaky voice.
3) Bruce Forsyth - scrunch your nose up and say “D-D-D-dice to see you” very fast
4) A Scandinavian (or Dutch) porn star - see 1)
5) Michael Crawford playing Frank Spencer: just say “Ooh Betty” in a squeaky voice. (Anyone who can actually DO Frank Spencer can, by default, also do Russell Brand.)
6) - possibly the easiest of all - Elvis Presley. ANYONE - from new-born babes to geriatrics wheezing their last breaths - can go “uh…thangyewverymuch…”

Any more suggestions?

Many professions are, rightly or wrongly, held up to regular ridicule on the basis that “I could do better than that!” In many cases (e.g. football manager), the plaintiff is almost certainly wrong, and it’s tougher than it looks. However, in the case of music journalism, the “professionals” don’t have a leg to stand on.

I’ve recently been delving into my large collection of back issues of “Q” magazine dating from 1987, and the thing that has struck me most (apart from the ASTRONOMICAL cost of hi-fi equipment in the late 1980s: £300+ for handheld stereos which Tesco now give away with a packet of cornflakes…) is the turncoat nature of the editorial standpoint. In 1987, it was all about how great Tears for Fears / Simply Red / Simple Minds were; then came baggy / rave etc… suddenly the aforementioned were crap beyond belief, and no-hopers like Ride were flavour of the month; journos who were previously lauding bands like The Christians and Level 42 all of a sudden were treating them like lepers.

Music magazine reviews are hardly ever based on any kind of independent standpoint, especially when it comes to big artists; witness the fawning 5-star tonguing which Q gave to Oasis’s “Be Here Now”, now universally recognised as a coke-fuelled dog of an album. Similarly, if Q perceived that an act was “untrendy”, they’d always pan the band’s latest record. Go onto Amazon and look up any album you like; you’ll find a FAR superior review from a member of the public.

It strikes me that all you need to do to be a music journalist is a) string a few GSCE-level sentences together, and b) have an ability to kiss the right arses at the right time. There’s no point in caring about long-term trends in music at all; having a defined taste of your own is a positive disadvantage. All you need to do is be an oily twat like Stuart Maconie capable of massaging the ego of whoever you happen to be interviewing. Of course, there are honourable exceptions like Nick Kent and… erm … I can’t think of any more, but by-and-large, it’s a job which any berk with a basic talent for sycophancy could manage.

(Although to be fair to “Q”, they always stuck by REM, despite the fact that they’re shit.)