Britains got the pop factor! Or AIDS, it's one or the other.

I don't like modern Britain. I don't like where we, as a nation, are headed. I don't like how all our best young people are crack addicts, and I don't like how all our best crack addicts are Amy Winehouse. What I really don't like is where the music scene is heading and I think everything thats wrong with it can be summed up in two words - The Kooks. I have to confess that when they first came around I quite liked them, I liked that song "Naive" I thought it was quite inoffensive and catchy, even though it was sung in a strained gurning vocal style with an accent that can only be described as Jawthern. I hummed along and thought to myself: "They seem like pleasent young men, I bet they're a bit of fun." Then I saw this:



Maybe they just caught them on a bad day, I thought, but low and behold a few years later- on the same program!- I saw this:



Now, in the above clip the impossible seems to have happend and Alex Zane is in a room with at least four people and is only the third biggest twat there. The two kooks sit there looking like stage school pete dohertys mumbling their way through the interview in their customary humourless style. After watching these clips it slowly dawned on me that Luke Pritchard is a tosspocket of mammoth proportions. Intrigued, I hunted down their album to see if their sparkling personalities translated to their music and lo and behold it was a huge shitcake. The moral of the story- music should not be made by jumped up stage school eductaed little bellends with no sense of their own ridiculousness.

God is a fan of misanthropic T.V critics-proof!

Charlie Brooker is a televisual prophet- I think we can all agree on that. I am in no doubt when machines form a cohesive A.I. and wage war on humans, and they will, that Charlie Brooker will be our leader in the fight against them. Him or Derren Brown anyway. But before then I think everyone should just enjoy the brilliance of the below clip. There's something amazingly subversive of how Charlie's Top Ten Cocks in Advertising appears at just the right time. It's almost as if god himself had a hand in it. That, or the producer thought the presenter was a dick. Either way, it's genius.

Dan in Real Life, is really boring.

I saw Dan in real life on DVD the other day and it astounded me, I would never have guessed how tolerant I was against boredom until I saw this film. It's not a brilliant appraisal when, because the remote control is out of reach, you consider blinding yourself rather than watch the last half an hour of a movie. I decided not to though. I felt that, in hindsight, I would have regretted the permanent loss of my sight no matter how much relief in gave me in the short term, sort of like having a really dangerous asphysixiation wank: no matter how much you may want it, it's best not to go down that road. The film stars Steve Carrell as Dan Burns, doing a passable impression of Charlie Brown, and Dane Cook, surprisingly believable as a human being(which is no mean feat) The film is a fairly contrived play where Dan falls for Mitch's (Cook) girlfriend, Marie, while the Burns family is on a vacation at their parent's beach house. The Burns family is weird. They appear to enjoy each others company and seem to fill their vacations with games and odd group aerobic sessions, when really they should fill them with bitterness, recrimination and drinking like the rest of us. After Dan falls for Marie, nothing happens. Literally. I actually paused the film by mistake and it took me ten minutes before I even noticed. The film is understated to the point where, as opposed to underplaying their roles, the cast just look bored, as if in between takes they were forced to watch rough edits of the finished film. The acting is o.k. and I didn't hate Dane Cook until I remembered he was Dane Cook, which took almost ten minutes, which is a triumph of sorts. It's obvious the film makers wanted to recreate a low key European vibe throughout the film and credit to them for resisting a more over the top approach that countless other American films(meet the parents) would have taken, a move which is especially difficult when you have Dane Cook in the film. It just feels they went too far the other way and, in trying to maintain an understated tone, they sapped the film, and characters, of any life or interest they may have had. It's not helped by a grating Sondre Lerche soundtrack and an interminably slow pace. So while it's not terrible, and it's intentions are good, it's just really, really, dull. Dan in real life? Dud in real life more like.

What they need is a bloody good war.

Kids today eh? They're rubbish aren't they? Well, yes quite frankly. When they're not listening to rap music and stabbing each other, they are trying to avoid working for a living by auditioning for numerous crap reality t.v. shows. What happened to the good old days? You remember Why Don't You and other such diamonds of the T.V schedule? Well I do too; what's missing? I'll tell you - role models. There aren't any any more, that's why we need this man back. Below are some of his numerous pearls of wisdom, with which to live your life. He's a bit like moses, but much, much more awesome - so when world peace is declared after everyone follows this advice, me and my friend Adam will accept your thanks graciously, as it's wrong to be smug.



I think we can all agree the advice given by Rammy is not only the best advice ever given to children, but a lesson we can all take something from as well.

Shakira's hips don't lie.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I were a girl- I wouldn't write whiney songs about boys!

Beyonce has a new song out. Yay! The bootylicious one has taken time off from gyrating in hotpants to tell us menfolk exactly where we have been going wrong, and just why we shouldnt treat women as sex objects. Give us hell B!



Apparantly, there was a controversy when it turned out the song had been written by every hormonal schoolgirl, who discovered the boy they fancied had been making out with their best friend at the school disco, ever. But, thanks to some strongarming from good old Martin Knoweles (allegedly), that particular hurdle has been passed. The song is o.k and actually quite hummable, it just all seems a bit flat, and this kind of angsty pop rock has been done a lot better by pink, but Beyonce's popularity and the sellable lyrics mean this will be a huge hit and will no doubt be played endlessly at the aforementioned discos that started the whole thing. That's subversion, and you can take that to the bank.

Skinny Genius.

I have spent the past week in the capital of Great Britain, and between riding the tube and spending vastly inflated prices on drinks, discovered, to my horror, that London is absolutely nothing like the Monopoly board. Another cherished childhood institution is exposed as a dirty lie. I was expecting, nay hoping, for a London full of talking dogs, road ships and walking top hats, but there were none. I spent hours trying to find Go! and collect my £200 but, after wandering around for the best part of my weekend, the best I'd been offered was fellatio from an emancipated street whore(I gave him 50p and sent him on his way). Strangely, unlike I had been led to believe, London is not a perfect square, where every street is neatly lined up next to each other in an easily negotiable fashion, but a jumbled mess of tubes, intersects and skinny jeans. It was walking around Camden, with my childhood dreams already in tatters, when I realised: London is infested with skinny jeans- they're everywhere! I honestly don’t know how this current trend of silly emo hair, t-shirts large enough to live in, and painted on jeans has crept it's way into the upper echelons of society, like some form of fashionista chlamydia, but it has. If we should be lambasting Russell Brand for anything, and let's face it we should, it should be for skinny jeans. I am personally more offended by the silly fashion sense of impressionable, unimaginative, teens, trying to craft a unique identity by aping the first person they see on T.V, than the harassment of an old man over his sexually delinquent granddaughter, although, admittedly, this may be more my problem. Take a look at this:



This man is clearly a bellend. Yet he is, inexplicably, everywhere. Why? What has become of society when, in London, I can find thousands of despondant, imaginatively-retarded teens, willing to trade any semblance of their own personality to imitate him, a cynically manufactured XFM/E4 hair monkey, yet not one walking top hat? Unbelievably, it goes even further: Take a look at this shifty character:



He is exactly as annoying and talentless as the above moron, but with the added bonus of a silly voice, sort of like Windows XP compared to regular windows or TWAT 2.0. It's as if T.V and radio bosses sit around a jeans shop in Camden and give every tenth customer their own radio show. It has to stop. It's getting out of hand. Nobody wants another Terry Christian but that's where we're headed. Both of these presenters are famed for their irreverent wit, but, between them, they have managed to make me laugh as much as a cat with aids has(once, if you're asking, but again, this may be more my problem.)I think all T.V and radio presenters should be completely anonymous, then rather than picking people who are trendy or "speak to their audience", we could have presenters who just speak clearly. We could have a whole T.V schedule of anonymous, masked T.V presenters, who speak with wit and candour, but then the whole schedule might begin to resemble an Al-Queada recruitment video. Actually, I haven't thought this through. It doesn't change the fact that Alex Zane is a twat though.

The X factor (again)

I'm addicted to the X factor, I know I shouldn't be but I just can't help myself. I mean, it really is everything that is wrong with, not just television, but society at large and I should, technically, rip out my eyeballs and eat them rather than watch it, but I just can't bring myself to do that because a.)I'm trying out atkins four years after everyone else and don't want to introduce carbs into my diet, and b.) It would mean I would miss the X factor. Its like T.V heroin and I just cant help myself.
This series is brilliant, and by brilliant I mean shit, but irresistible shit. Dermot O'leary introduces us to the show and I am the only one who has noticed how unbelievably bad he is at presenting: his dull monotone delivery, dead eyed stare at the camera and fat patronising head leave me wishing for Kate Thornton, which can never be a good thing. Dermot has simply become background irritation to Simon's preening and the whole thing might as well be presented by a fridge, quite frankly. This week was one of those pointless big band weeks where everyone pretends to like swing music even though they really don't. No one like swing music; it's shit, and besides, no one on these shows has ever been able to sing it properly. Swing music should be sung by an old misogynist, dripping of whiskey, who will go home after his performance and slap his wife around, not one of Jamie Oliver's sperm that, somehow, has taken on a life of it's own. The Judges take their seats and this week Simon will be playing the part of particularly sleazy David Hasselhoff. The show is kicked off by Laura White who despite looking and sounding like a burly transvestite is told her performance was brilliant and unique. Dannii has said she has a unique style, but thats not true just go to Bangkok there are thousands like her. The whole show is going along swimmingly until Alexandra performs candyman dressed in a sailors outfit. This is hands down the gayest performance in the history of reality T.V and Louie, unsurprisingly, is almost giddy. All of the acts seem to meld in to one as they boringly sing boring songs to judges who look, quite frankly, bored. Thats unfair to Diana, however, who is quite cool and unique and should really win the show at a canter, but will probably be voted off next week in a head to head with fetus boy. The show is unfathomably long these days, and the mixture of boring cabaret acts and stilted banter bring up uncomfortable meories of Children In Need. In part two the 12 finalists(minus Ruth and Daniel) sing hero, why doesn't Simon just call it American Idol and be done with it. On the subject of Ruth, how annoying is Simon's insistence she sing everything in Spanish? It's obvious he only does it because it gives him an erection; I know he's getting on a bit, and it's probably quite a rare occurance, but the poor girl doesn't need that. Anyway, after about three weeks Dermot announces that former Pontins blue coat Scott is on his way, and, despite the fact he was shit, everyone is shocked, Louie even cries, and so does Dannii, but it's hard to tell. It's okay Simon says the standard was high this year, plus he can always go back to Pontins (That might not be true, however, as I've been to Pontins this year and the standard is high there too.)So there we are, the X factor is over for another week, Diana really should win and Simon really need to buy a shirt with a top button. Despite my grievances I will be tuning in next week, just to see how much more like American Idol it can become before Simon Fuller tries to sue them again. O'leary out.

X Factor

I fancy Diane Vickers



That is all

I can see you dancing with Irish eyes.

I don't need to tell you that this:



is fantastic.

This got me thinking, however: Is there anything on earth that can't be improved by an Irish cover version? and the answer is no. Think about it - everything is better when you add fiddles and penny whistles. Take the Corrs (not like that): They managed to transcend bland pop/rock music, naff videos, and an ugly brother, which is some doing, as he really wasn't a looker. They rode the crest of a harmonic Irish wave into pop superstardom (sort of). If you need any further proof that Irish music improves everything look at this:




See Shane McGowen agrees that Irish music improves everything, he used it, and actually managed to improve Christmas. So suck on that Catholics.

T.V. dinner for the soul.

I watch a lot of T.V. And I mean a lot, if you think you watch a lot of T.V. you are wrong, I watch T.V. in a similar manner to how Muslim fundamentalists watch the sky, or how John McCain watches his heart rate, in a perpetual state of waiting- waiting for something to happen. It never does of course, but the thrill is in the chase. The reason I'm telling you this is because I'm not happy, and I think T.V. could be the reason why. I feel bad for bad-mouthing T.V. as its been the source of much of my education, pleasure and personality for much of my life - I feel like a foal rejecting it's mothers teet, as I no longer want milk but feel like tasting champagne instead.
But nothing on T.V. makes me happy I am just constantly dejected and sad, which is why I've decided there is no such thing as feel good T.V. Any show that claims to be feel good is ultimately quite dark, as if all of T.V has been made by Frank Capra. Think about Neighbours- you're supposed to think wow, look at those people: all loving and getting on together. What a wonderful neighbourhood; but what you're really thinking is look at all those beautiful fuckers, and all their sunshine I just wish Harold's extra chin would turn around and devour the lot of them. The Pride of Britain awards, you're meant to revel at the remarkable resilience and courage shown by children in the face of extreme misfortune, but really you're left feeling sick to the stomach as celebrity after celebrity manages to turn their triumph into advertising space for their own self publicity, all the while realising just how little in comparison you've achieved in your own life. The fact that in the current climate of Britain the poor children are likely to be the victim of knife crime on top of what they've all ready suffered is a sobering and depressing thought. The very fact that people like Chantelle and Chanelle are on T.V., and that I know their names (as you do too, don't lie to yourself) and am able to differentiate between them, is enough to make you despair at what Britain currently deems as worthy as a reward. T.V. used to be my friend, but now it's just an annoying presence in the corner of my living room, constantly reminding me of how dreary and depressing real life is, while showing me stories of how nonentities that have appeared on Big Brother are enjoying the endless highs of being a Z- list celebrity. It's probably not true, but it still feels like a kick in the bollocks. The fact is that trash T.V. exists for a purpose- it allows us to hold public figures up to whatever barometer we deem appropriate, we can either laugh and smile in a superior way at Jordan when she whores the last vestiges of her private life for money, or when Kerry Katona announces that she will give birth on T.V, or we can feel anguish and jealousy because we weren't afforded the same privilege and worship them as modern day chav monarchs and sit in wonderment at their burberry blooded privilege. T.V can either be our window looking in at the world of celebrity, where we shiver in the cold waiting to be fed the left over scraps from their table, or it can be our window looking out; Where we laugh haughtily at those who sacrifice any shred of dignity and respect just so they can appear outside our window, as we hold them up to be figures of ridicule and dinner party anecdotes we use to amuse ourselves, the choice is ours. T.V is a democracy, and in the current climate of Britain thats actually quite a comforting thing.

Batman.

Sorry for the lack of updates; that will be rectified soon. In the mean time, we've all seen The Dark Knight and Christian Bale was excellent, but could he deal with this cliffhanger?



I think not.

Eyeliner is better than Buddhism. Fact.

I have spent much of the past week locked in a mausoleum of my own inadequacy. This is becuase I have spent most of my new found free time watching shows such as ten years younger and extreme makeover. I now realise that any unfullfilled aspirations or ambitions I have remain unfulfilled and not fully realised, tangable elements of my life because of how I look. And only Trinny and Susannah can help me.
The problem with these kind of lifestyle makeover shows is precisely that, they are not lifestyle shows, but makeover shows and are as shallow and superficial as that entails. They are dressed up as psychologically healing, when all they really do is give members of the public a nice shirt and a new hat. It's a symptom of our heat magazine obsessed, celebrity culture that we now believe that any problems you hve can be solved simply by the edradication of cellulite, well they cant. But these shows will make a damn good effort to make you believe that.
The most grating aspect about this is not the fact they are makeover shows, as no one can deny that by improving a persons percieved physical inadequacy you can help improve their quality of life- it's the voyeuristic way in which they go about it. They take an almost sadisdic pleasure in pointing out the contestants flaws, while people at home look on smugly, commenting how awful they all look- you thought you had bingo wings grandma well take a look at this fatty. The contestants, while getting a complete physical makeover, will probably remain the simmering ball of resentment and self loathing they were before, while theres no telling what the trauma of having their greatest physical imperfections pointed out on a beach of chuckling holiday makers on national T.V will have done to their all ready fragile psyche. The likes of Gillian Mckeeth and Trinny and Susannah have turned British day time T.V into a hellish carnival of perpetual resentment and are applauded for it. Really, they should be made pariahs and treated with the same moral outrage we reserve for rapists, peadophiles an the elderly, but instead they are treated like samaritans. We should string their carcasses up and spit on them like Mussolini, but even if their popularity did take an alarming nose dive to the level of a fascist dictator all they would have to do is appear on ITV's next celebrity sing a along and all would be forgiven. And they would make the cover of heat magazine.

Why are footballers so bad at life?

Following the news that Liverpool have signed Robbie Keane to partner Fernando Torres for what no doubt will be an electrifying start to the season; seeing Liverpool hammer Stoke or someone 6 - 0 and proclaiming Torres and Keane the greatest partnership since God met Moses, then inevitably tapering off around Christmas time when everyone gets injured before finishing 4th and bemoaning the lack of funds that meant they couldn't compete with Manchester Utd, Chelsea, and erm, Arsenal, I found some interesting facts about Mr Keane from the Liverpool website, the most interesting being:

According to his page on Bebo.com Robbie loves listening to music and picks out Blink 182, Robbie Williams, Ronan Keating and Eminem as some of his favourite artists.

and

When he's not leading the line on the football pitch Keane likes to relax with a good film and picks out Braveheart, The Shawshank Redemption, Shrek, Saw 2 and Liar Liar as some of his favourites.

Of course I use the term interesting tenuously as, much like Mr Keane himself, these facts are not remotely interesting, but they do bring up one salient point: outside of football, footballers are no good at anything. Given the freedom to choose from all the music artists in the history of music he chose Ronan Keating, having Ronan Keating as your favourite at anything is like having a favourite type of door handle or a fondness for a cardboard box- he is teeth gindingly bad, he is, simply put, the musical equivelant of Alan Titchmarsch. But lets not stop there, Mr Keane's choice of films is equally as mundane, the shawshank redemption aside he has chosen Braveheart - which has and always will be shit, Saw 2 - which isn't even the best film in the Saw franchise, let alone anything else and Liar Liar. Liar Liar! Quite how a bog standard Jim Carey comedy in which even Jim Carey looks bored can be any ones favourite film is, quite frankly, baffling. One can only assume he finds the premise of someone being forced to tell the truth as incredulous as, for a footballer, that would be impossible ("you're right your honour I can only describe our relationship as statutory rape.") It is obvious that outside football footballer's are simply incapable of operating in a normal capacity, from Rio Ferdinand's continued and indelible belief that he is the saviour of hip hop to Joey Barton's indescribable hatred for anything other than himself, it is apparant that footballers cannot operate anywhere other than on a football pitch. Which is why, after they retire, rather than watching them set up hundreds of record labels or become pundits and demonstrate of breathtaking lack of understanding on a game they have just spent the best part of three decades playing or believing themselves to be the second comming of christ and the first comming of Bono, we should just shoot them, you know, they shoot horses don't they and I like horses, it doesn't seem fair. It worked in Logans Run it can work for us, it's the 21st century- the future is now people!

The hip-hop-a happening

I've been thinking lately about what sort of content I should have in my blog, as at the moment its merely a hotchpot of drunk ramblings and delirious conspiracy theories. I was thinking there should be some kind of theme or I could use the power of the internet to help right personal injustices, use my corner of cyberspace to, in some small way, help defeat age old prejudices and inequalities. I could use this blog to offer a message of peace and understanding and that, hopefully, others will read it and join in on my quest and realize that we as human beings are a shared consciousness and that the internet is the embodiment of that and, by utilizing its full potential we can grow as a species; cast aside of notions of identity that have caused countless wars and atrocities and move forward into a higher state of being. Then I thought fuck it, I wanna talk about films.

I saw the happening the other day and it is hands down the worst film I have seen in years, it's actually the worst film I've seen since Dreamcatcher(Although that still remains the worst film I have ever seen, it's so monumental in it's shiteness that it should be preserved and held in museums so future generations can compare it to other failures such as the Titanic when thinking about the follys of man) Everything about the film is wrong, it's poorly acted, poorly written and left me feeling quite poorly. The basic plot is that flowers are turning against humans due to our constant growth and economic development and as we are encroaching upon them they are releasing a chemical into the air that makes us kill ourselves. It's a bit like day of the triffids but shit. And stupid. M Night Shymalan's films have got progressively worse, and while I thought he could never, ever top the big steaming pile of cackhandidness that was the village, he has managed it. If he keeps going at his current rate in another three or four years he will create a film of such truly magnificent awfulness, so terribly, unfathomably bad that we as a human race will stop. Then the plants really will take over as Mr Shymalan would have managed to turn everyone who watched it into a vegetable. Which would be fitting as its a twist ending so contrived and stupid, it's worthy of one of his films.

Knocking off a crafty one.

I was asked yesterday why my blog never updated, and it got me thinking. Yes, I am lazy and, yes, I'm not terribly interesting, but that's not it, not it at all. The reason my blog is hardly updated is because of an abusive father; the father abuses us all- time. I'm not aging in a horrifically rapid sense like Robin Williams in Jack, or, indeed, Amy Winehouse in real life, I just simply dont have the time becuase of work. I work 8 hours a day and when I get home I simply can't be arsed, not becuase my job is particularly hard or fulfilling, but because I've wiled away my hours indulging in one natures great pleasures- the solo high five. Knocking one out at work is great! Not least becuase it fills in five or so minutes of your day but becuase you are literally spunking over the man. You feel like a rebel, like your jizz is a white hot blast of defiance right over the hand that feeds. Try it. The other day I even managed to knock out a mind boggling and hand numbing three hand shandies before lunch, causing my boss to enquire whether I was feeling okay- little did he know I was literally spanking away the company doller all over imagined trysts with Cheryl Tweedy( not cole) and Kelly Brook, the spunk nuggett. So there, I suggest trying knocking one out at work, Steve McQueen would do it if he was you. I would go on, but I'm sure you can appreciate it's difficult typing with one hand.

Half Term Blues.

Half Term Blues.
If you live in Britain then sometime this month you may have experienced the unsettling natural phenomenon known as half term, where the bleak pessimism of Britain's future generation is no longer something you read in the newspaper but something you bump in to on the street- chewing in your face, trying to bum a fag, and speaking in an indecipherable pseudo-text dialect known as slang. These unfortunate beings lurch towards you, looking like a particularly gruesome extra from Dawn of the Dead, asking if you can buy them a bottle of white lightning. It's worrying to think that they were once the apples of their mothers’ eyes. In hindsight, these particular apples were the type that were rotten in the middle and had hundreds of wasps hidden inside them. I have nothing against teenagers, I was one myself recently, but it just seems that this generation of teenagers has no level of self awareness- It now appears that being a bit emo and gothy is quite cool, which is terrible oversight that never should have been allowed, but I digress, what I’m trying to tell you is that I saw an advert recently that stated traffic was the single biggest killer of 12 - 16 year olds in Britain, but as half term has proved, there are still loads of them. Clearly, we need a more effective method. Rather than write them off completely though, I decided to help them by thinking up the following ways to improve their impact on society:

1. Fit all lonsdale or reebok trainers with computer chips that make them jog at least six miles a day.

2. Get all teenagers to select their favourite cast member from skins, all of those who pick Tony will be shot, survival of the fittest and what not.

3. Ban them from watching Hollyoaks - it's completely unrealistic and raises their expectations of the type of bird they are likely to pull to inordinate levels; also, it's meant to be a drama about teenagers yet at no point are any of them at home wanking over Hollyoaks, which is terribly unrealistic.

4. Ban text speech. Text messaging has had the most adverse effect on the way trendy types speak since snoop doggy dog.

5. Make all streets and towns completely spherical; if we no longer have street corners there will be no where for them to form gangs and harass pensioners for their pensions.

I'll start at the beginning.....

.......Because it's silly to start elsewhere, unless your Quentin Tarrintino, then it's o.k, in a nebbish, post-cool kind of way. I was watching t.v the other day (yes kids it does still exist - you should try watching it sometime, it provides regularly scheduled programming that's beamed, legally, into your living room, not streamed off some dogy Irannian website with all manner of bizarre subtitles and links, all stuffed onto screen so small you need glasses the size of Joe 90's just to make out exactly whose nipple david walliams is licking) and discovered that the planet is fucked, unless we do something about the O-zone layer, or something. So in an effort to ease congestion and reduce traffic, I am riding the information superhighway on a bandwagon- and starting a web blog! In my blog I'll be doing the same thing that every other webblog in the known universe does, namely, boring your tits off with pointless diatribes about my life, all the while contributing to the ongoing decimation of written english, and making the odd witty comment that I think is so clever it drove me to starting a web blog in the first place, So if you're still reading this - enjoy.