Things that make you go hmm...

I nearly pissed myself on Wednesday night watching the last few minutes of ‘The One Show’ on BBC1. Jamie Cullum was asked to play a song dedicated to a viewer’s mum, who had had a tough time going through chemo treatment for cancer, and “for all the other brave people in the UK going through this treatment”. A lovely sentiment, I thought, but the choice of song...

Cole Porter’s “I’ve got you under my skin”.

Perfect!

Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough...

I think everyone probably has a “I remember where I was when I heard that ‘such-and-such’ had died” story. For me, it’s John Lennon. Despite being far too young to know anything about him when he died, I remember my teacher telling us that he was the guy who wrote ‘Yellow Submarine’ and for some reason that etched itself onto my infant mind.

Of course, there have been others over the intervening years. The mass hysteria surrounding Princess Diana’s death left me feeling excluded. I didn’t feel a part of the subsequent outpouring of national grief, and, to this day, I still don’t get it. I remember coming into my parents living room and hearing some reporter or other talking about a royal death and just assumed that the Queen Mother had finally snuffed it.

This week Michael Jackson joined the exclusive group of dead personalities and celebrities that give people their ‘I remember where I was’ stories. This small group have surpassed mere celebrity and became ‘Icons’. Along with the likes of JFK, Elvis Presley, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe (amongst others), this group’s fame reached across generations and, with the aid of a tennis player scratching her arse and a guy holding a baby, kept Athena going for years. (Come to think of it, Athena only went bust after MJ became a plastic manfreak – I wonder if it’s related?)

Anyway, I digress...

It’s always rather sad when someone dies young, and despite what you may think about MJ as a human being, he was a talented musician, entertainer and showman. He touched many people (pun intended).

However. while watching the last three days of ‘Michael Jackson still dead’ updates on every news bulletin, interviews with the always relevant Uri Geller and ‘Blanket’ coverage of MJ’s family, I can’t help but wonder if there is anytihng else that could be considered newsworthy happening in the world?. I suppose the loyalist paramilitary decommissioning of weapons is, at heart, simply a local interest story and when you get really into the detail of the situation in Iran, it’s still really far away and they’re all ‘a bit dusky’ over there... !?!

I expect that the editors of the Daily Telegraph are crying their eyes out. Not because ‘the King of Pop’ is dead, but because the run they have had on the expenses scandal has finally been relegated to page five.

For the members of ‘the Icon Club’, it’s not the contributions they made to popular culture that we typically remember, it tends to be the ‘car crash’ (figuratively or literally) that really elevates their status. For every live fast, die young James Dean, there are at least a million live slow, don’t die Chesney Hawkes...

Also, we have lost out on some great and worthy icons purely because they didn’t have the forethought to die before they did something to fuck-up their blossoming iconic status.

For example, Ozzy Osbourne could have been remembered as the Prince of Darkness forever, rather than the shambling, incontinent wreck he is these days, if he’s only thought to die in the early 90’s. Cliff Richard really could have been the British Elvis, if he’d only have crammed-down a couple of pies and shat his way into the Iconosphere – but no! He had to don a purple stripey blazer and sing to the grey-hair brigade at Wimbledon. We’ll always pine for the wasted genius of John Lennon, but Paul McCartney? If you wanted to die a real Icon, you should have thought of that before you hooked-up with the one-legged, mental, gold-digger...

Anyway, goodbye Mr. Jackson. If you see her, give Ms. Fawcett my love. You are not alone...

I dreamed a dream...

I would like to wish Susan Boyle good luck with the TV popularity contest next week.

She has endured her fifteen minutes of fame through a rollercoaster ride of derision and condecension, but she has at least displayed a modicum of the the elusive titular talent that the good Mr. Cowell and his irrelevant stage-dressing companions have futilely tried to assure us that “Britain’s got”.

In case you’ve missed the story arc, I’ll summarise it as succinctly as I can: a fairly unremarkable older woman, who has a fairly unremarkable life and a rather less than comely appearance has a reasonably nice voice. She performed on a TV ‘talent’ show and appeared to catch out the audience and judges by showing that a middle-aged homely fat bird can sing a bit. She then took the media world by storm...

I have been vaguely fascinated by the way various ‘entertainment’ media have propagandised this non-story. I’ll grant you that the woman has a reasonably nice voice, but let’s put this into a bit of perspective here, we’re not talking Kiri Te Kanawa or Montserrat Caballé (or even Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston or a any host of others depending on your musical preferences).

The story that the media are trying to sell us has got little to do with a human interest story, even less to do with newly discovered talent from deepest darkest West Lothian, and, unfortunately, absolutely fuck all to do with Susan Boyle.

The real story is another typical media hypocricy.

Despite the fact that the pretty people are everywhere - on film, TV and magazines, despite the fact that we have makeover shows on 24-hours a day on 500 different channels, despite the fact we are bombarded with features on how to get the perfect body/face/complection in just “5 easy steps” and we are all going to die because of our lifestyle (eating too much, not eating the right things, drinking too much, not doing enough exercise and so on) – you, yes YOU, you can still be a star! Even with the frizzy hair, pockmarked pizza face and the spare tractor tyre around your waist, if you really want it and you live your dream, YOU can still be the Next Big Thing.

Susan Boyle is no longer a real person. She’s an allegory for all of us living normal, unremarkable, unrecognised existences. All she’s there for is to fuel the media beast, to ensure that there is a continuing line of mediocre people ready willing and able to prostrate themselves in front of the great god public scrutiny for our cheap viewing pleasure and for something vacuous to digest along with the makeover shows and “Top 10 skinny celebrities”.

I really do wish her well with the contest and I hope she milks it for every single penny she can get. In real life, she’s most likely not going to be the Next Big Thing, just the last one...

Bring on the spangly green dancer...

Every year I go over to a close friend’s house to enjoy the spectacle that is the Eurovision song contest. Every year follows a similar template. My friend lives out in the countryside, so every year I pick up another friend who lives near me and we then drive over to our mutual friend’s house where we meet with a larger party of friends and we swap pleasantries for an hour or so before the main event.

Every year my friend’s wife puts on a fabulous buffet spread and we enjoy the wonderful food, have a few drinks (non-alcoholic for me of course) and generally enjoy each other’s company before subjecting ourselves to trial by Europop.

Every year my friend’s wife very thoughtfully prints out scoring sheets from the BBC Eurovision website and warns us not to start our scoring too low at the beginning, and we all laugh knowing this to be oh-so true.

We then vaguely watch the show and laugh at the funny Europeans. We discuss how the tactical voting will go and, as expected, groan when all the neighbouring countries give each other “douze points” as we predicted. We laugh at the outfits, we laugh at the songs, we laugh at the dance routines, we laugh at the token fat one (the only one who can actually sing), we laugh at the scary one, we laugh at the Germans, we laugh, we laugh, we laugh...

All very middle-class, all very jolly, all very nice and all very pleasant.

This year followed exactly the same template as every other year and I had a nice time in nice surrounds with nice company and nice food. Nice. Nice. Nice.

However, something new happened this year. This year there was a revelation, a revelation in the unlikeliest form.

Albania.

Don’t get me wrong, the song was still shit like all the rest, the singer was a forgettable Europop singer like the rest, but the act, my god, the act was a revelation!

Now, before you read on you have to see this shit...! Seriously, watch it now...! Don’t worry I’ll wait until you get back...

Did you see what I mean! The guy in the tight green sequined body suit was wonderfully bizarre. He had absolutely nothing to do with anything, he wasn't dancing, he wasn't singing, he wasn't even co-ordinated with the others, in fact, he was just truly fucking weird!. I’m not sure if he thought he was on a green screen and was meant to be moving the set around, or in fact what the fuck he was doing there, but wow! All I could think was that he should be taken on by the rest of the TV channels.

Imagine how much more palatable the evening news would be if he was fannying around behind the newsreaders and they didn’t acknowledge his presence. Who would really care that the politicians were fucking us up the ass by having us pay for them to over-legislate, over bureaucratise, have illegal wars, allow the elderly to live in poverty, under-educate the youth, demolish our economy, and cripple the NHS – all this while still making us pay to clean out their fucking moat like the good little serfs that we are.

That spangly green guy could keep us all happy.

“Look darling, our trusted politicians and public servants have unexpectedly let us down. They have stolen our hard earned cash while systematically destroying our economy, placing all of our jobs at risk and borrowing so much money that our children’s, children’s, children will still be picking up the bill”

“True dear, but that prancing little green fucker has completely distracted me from my despair and my fear for the future with his modern improvisational dance...”

Surely, it's got to be worth a try?