Friday, 30 October 2009
Cross fingers, pray for Avenged Sevenfold
Yes, it's going to be a whole evening of what ITV1 calls "ROCK" (or sometimes "rawk"): a bit of Queen, perhaps? (Well actually yes, we know there's going to be a bit of Queen). Maybe one or two Bon Jovis and, er... Razorlight? This week is either going to be incredible (if Olly does 'God Gave Rock and Roll to You' I'll be on cloud nine) or as dull as Danyl.
My main X Factor-related annoyance of this week has been the sheer number of intelligent people (including my own bonk-eyed future husband Russell Howard) who've said something along the lines of "I hope everyone votes for Jedward, just to annoy Simon Cowell! Haha, I bet he's fuming! LOL!"
He owns the damn production company, you fools. More controversy = more votes = more money for the Cowell. He wouldn't give a flying monkey if Jedward turned out to be the new Hitler Youth and won the series with a stirring rendition of The Fight Song by Marilyn Manson - it's all money for him, and it doesn't mean Jedward will suddenly take over the charts. After the Christmas single, they'll disappear quicker than you can say "identical twin Steve Brooksteins".
If you want to annoy Cowell, just don't vote for anyone. Simple as that.
Of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't all keep watching it, completing our playsheets and dialling in our make-believe "votes" with a series of elaborate mimes. Down with capitalism, etc. Until the final couple of weeks, obviously. Ahem.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
'Up' will make you feel down, but also up. What?
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Poor reasoning, brilliant songs
1. Groove Armada, I Won't Kneel
If David Bowie and Annie Lennox had a baby together, and that baby was a song, that song/baby would look and sound exactly like this.
Update: You can completely ruin the meaning of this song in your head if you imagine she's singing "I won't, Neil."
2. Marina and the Diamonds, Mowgli's Road
If Marina formed a band with some diamonds, that band recorded a song called Mowgli's Road, and a completely mad person was allowed to direct the video, that song/video would look and sound exactly like this.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
AA Gill: Baboon boy
When I first heard about this (through Twitter of course), I'm proud to say that my reaction was one of perspective and good humour. People shoot other humans for fun sometimes, or because they've been told to by a vengeful or greedy government, or they shoot elephants for ivory, or drop cats from multi-storey carparks. Unless it's a large-scale tragedy or something that affects your own day-to-day life, if you get upset about all these little things you'll end up mad.
It's the kind of thing that provokes a series of jokes rather than proper outrage, as it probably should do if you just hear the sentence "AA Gill has shot a baboon for fun." Baboon is a funny word, for starters - how can you not ridicule a story that contains the word 'baboon'? It sounds like balloon.
But if you read the offending article, where AA himself (Christ knows what it stands for and I'm not going to look it up) tells us all about his baboon-shooting experience, it's impossible to stay calm for long.
It's his attitude that bothers me the most, like he did the whole thing for an amusing anecdote, thinking he's oh-so-clever and terribly rebellious and everyone will love him for it. He blames his bloodlust on the fact that he was wearing a hat (not quite as funny as Jedward's "our suits were too red" excuse, but twice as deadly), and describes the whole thing as "naughty fun". Sigh...
Of course, anyone who complains about this will sound like a "tiresome and predictable animal lover" (quoting one of the comments on the Times website), but ho-hum. Ending a life because you think it makes you funny, or it gives you a sense of power, is pretty tiresome and predictable too.
We'll use the one thing we've got more of...
Monday, 26 October 2009
Friday minus four
There, that's better. Now back to work.
Westdeath
Surprisingly, the part of last night's results show that's likely to give me the most nightmares over the coming weeks and months, and will appear in the crayon drawings I do for my therapist when I've finally managed to block it out of my conscious mind, was Rave Westlife.
Observe:
I can't decide whether it's a visual imagining of what an epileptic fit feels like, or Westlife's artistic interpretation of death. Either way, by the end of it I was wishing I had a glowstick and whistle to hand, if only to drown out the terrifying sights and sounds. No offence.
Next week is 'Rock Week' - how exciting! Any ideas what Jedward might do? I'm hoping for Creep by Radiohead. I can already picture the dance moves.
John: (Pointing to self, smiling) "Cos I'm a creep!"
Edward: (Pointing to self, smiling) "I'm a weirdo!"
John: (Doing massive comedy shrug, hands by ears) "What the hell am I doing here?"
Edward: (Shaking head) "I don't belong here!"
(They both do jazz hands while swapping over to other side of stage).
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Calculators out: it's X Factor time
This is what I was doing last night, watching the increasingly brilliant X Factor accompanied by a clipboard and calculator. It's perhaps more of an administration duty than a light entertainment programme these days.
Olly: A great start to the show, but why do they keep putting him on at the beginning? It's almost like they want him to leave - has he done something to upset Simon? Encroached on his "turf" with the ladies or something? Anyway, 582 percent and the runaway winner again.
Lloyd: This child is out of his depth and he needs to leave, for his own sake as well as mine. Cheryl's obviously worrying that none of her acts have a 'signature move' like the Ollydance, hence the backflip - he should do it every week now, and in slow motion during ballads.
Miss Frank: Hooray for Miss Frank, and for Graziella coming onstage with her nan's walking stick and doing a rap about life. Was this two-weeks-of-jeopardy-followed-by-massive-comeback thing planned by Louis from the outset? Is he really an evil genius? Hmmmm...
Rachel: A better dress this week, sensible hair (I think I preferred it when it was all mad), a good song, and she's adopted Stacey's personality for the Dermot interview. She still won't get any votes.
Jamie: ABSENCE OF TEATOWEL ALERT. But perhaps the teatowel contained all his superpowers, for this week Jamie is bottom of the league with minus 174 percent. I don't think his performance was as bad as, say, Lloyd's, but Jamie loses points for hair and disingenuousness (I told you it was a complicated scoring system).
Stacey Fromdagenham: Please don't keep crying in your video introductions, Stacey - the stiff-upper-lipped British public won't stand for it and you'll be out on your ear.
Danyl: I hate this man more and more each week. Dull dull dull dull dull. "I'm a massive Michael Buble fan", he says - OH REALLY, WHAT AN INTERESTING SURPRISE.
Joe: I didn't like the idea of Joe being "sexed up" for this song. Thank heavens it didn't work or we'd all be arrested. Should have done a backflip.
Lucie: I keep forgetting this girl's name, which probably isn't a good sign, but she was quite good this week. I still wouldn't buy one of her albums in a million years.
Jedward: What can I say about Jedward? Their excuses for last week's performance range from "he touched my microphone" to "our suits were too red", but it was still essential viewing. This week, surrounded by all the out-of-work dancers in London and relying on a backing track that basically did all their singing for them, Jedward were brilliant yet again, in an entirely untalented way. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the day they stay in the competition at Olly's, Stacey's or Miss Frank's expense, I will hunt them down and shoot them in the face, but until that day comes they are more than welcome to stick around and entertain me.
So, again this week's "vote" goes to Olly Murs, although Lucie, Miss Frank and Stacey were all brilliant as well. Lloyd simply HAS to be in the bottom two or I will cry. And I wouldn't be surprised if Rachel was there again too - I'd be much happier if not a single person in the UK voted for Jamie or Danyl, but I can't see this happening.
Results show tonight at 8pm and I'm going to be out, so can someone please text me and tell me what's going on? Cheers.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
"They've stolen ALL our jobs!"
But the enemies of reason blog got there first (it's my fault really, for doing a day's work yesterday - this will not be happening again) and expressed it in such a way that there's really no point in me doing it too. I'd just read that if I were you - it's brilliant.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Bonk-eyed future husband
But I'd definitely recommend it for next week: it's like a cross between the best bits of Mock The Week (the Russell Howard bits) and Harry Hill's TV Burp. It's mainly new material, as far as I can work out, but with a definite air of Russell's stand-up stuff, where he tells us that the world doesn't have to be made up of bigots and stupidity, and that there is always good news if you look for it.
If nothing else, he's living proof that you can have a wonky eye without being all bitter and racist about it.
More exciting than anything
HOW CAN YOU RESIST?! (You can't).
Download here, print it off, complete it, and keep it forever in your X Factor scrapbook alongside a lock of Dermot's hair and your psychiatrist's report.
Charisma my arse
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Spoiler alert
When Nick Griffin and Bonnie Greer first met this afternoon, they shook hands and Griffin's palms ACTUALLY DISINTEGRATED like when Harry Potter touches Professor Quirrell at the end of Philosopher's Stone. When you watch it tonight, you'll notice that he's wearing the hands of one of his lackeys, who sacrificed them for the cause (all BNP members are contractually obliged to do this in such an emergency).
This is all 100% true.
Mental
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't storylines like this be a bit more sensitively handled?
Unfortunately, I suffer from a mental illness myself. It's quite rare, but it's called Neighbours Storyline Delusion Disorder and it prevents me from complaining about Neighbours in any meaningful way. It's impossible - I start saying "good heavens, that was an implausible storyline" but choke mid-sentence and end up making some kind of garbled reference to irony or something.
So if someone else could watch it this week and complain loudly on my behalf, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.
Fat Hitler goes to London
Unfortunately, I am exactly the kind of bleeding-heart liberal that believes Griffin and his ilk should be allowed to speak their so-called "minds". As long as they don't stir up a riot while they're doing it, they should have the same rights to free speech as the rest of us. And hopefully, tonight's debate will show Griffin up as the deranged idiot he clearly is. But... what if it doesn't?
I've never heard Nick Griffin speak at length about his despicable views, but presumably he's pretty convincing when he wants to be. He's the leader of a political party, he's used to public speaking (although he normally preaches to the converted), and he's confident that his views are the right views to have, and that the rest of us are deluded. A person can have the most revolting opinions, and the most ridiculous manifesto for "improving" the way we live, but if they're a charismatic enough leader, people will follow. Now, who does that remind me of...? Begins with an H? Vegetarian, leader of the Third Reich? Oh yeah, him.
Supporters of the BBC in the past few weeks have been saying that, as soon as Griffin is given the chance to humiliate himself in public, he'll lose support, and that could be true if he's as stupid as he looks. But I can't help worrying that it's easier to talk a vulnerable person into supporting the BNP than it is to talk a current supporter out of it. I hope I'm wrong.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Will you stop, or will you just keep going?
Record company 'exec': "No, hang on - that can go to the Sugababes, they're looking for a new single."
S: "Oh no, it's not nearly good enough for them. I mean, I don't know much about the Sugababes but, in their original incarnation, didn't they co-write and sing 'Overload', one of the most sophisticated pop songs of its era? I mean, weren't they talented singers and songwriters who wanted to show the world what they could do without resorting to half-baked Lady Gaga knock-offs?"
RCE: "Well yes, I suppose."
S: "And, where other girlgroups generally fail, weren't their ballads actually quite good as well? I mean, it was the Sugababes who did 'Stronger', wasn't it? That was incredible."
RCE: "Yes true, but they've gone off the boil a bit recently."
S: "So we're not talking about the same Sugababes who recorded 'About you now' in 2007 then? And 'Get sexy' was pretty interesting for a pop song, wasn't it?"
RCE: "Sigh... no one's interested in the music any more - they're just talking about which Sugababe will be the next to leave the group. Do you want the money for this pile of crap or not?"
S: "Of course I do. I was just saying."
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Nothing to do with Derren Brown
Rihanna seems like a nice enough girl, but there is something horrifyingly wrong about her new single, premiered today on http://www.rihannanow.com/. The song is a story about a girlfriend playing Russian roulette at the request of her bloke, as a test of her loyalty to him. "I know that I must pass this test", she sings; "it's too late to think of the value of my life."
I'm not saying that songs, by women, about being abused by men and how glamorous it all is, haven't been warbled since the beginning of pop ('He hit me and it felt like a kiss', anyone?) but this might be just a bit too close for comfort. Listen to it and you'll get what I mean.
I don't think this is Rihanna's fault, mind you. I think anyone who has recently come out of an abusive relationship could be forgiven for taking a while to get over it, and for perhaps being a bit easily-led and easily talked into making the wrong decisions. It's Rihanna's managers and record company people I blame: at the very least, she's being marketed as "the girl that got beat up", almost as though, soon after the Chris Brown incident, they had a meeting about how to make the best of a bad situation and ended it rubbing their hands with glee. I can't imagine how Rihanna feels inside when she sings this song - if it was me, I wouldn't be able to get through the first chorus.
Unfortunately, musically it's quite good. It's no Umberella-ella-ella, but it's melodic, sinister and dramatic, and keeps you listening until the chilling climax. But it should never have been written, and certainly not for a woman whose boyfriend was smacking her in the face with a pistol nine months ago.
This is not how you spell dominoes
Here's something I've always wondered about. When you get adverts like the one above, where the backing is a brilliant but previously-unheard-of song by a previously-unheard-of band (well, I'd previously not heard of them, but then I get most of my new music from Popjustice and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross), who pays whom?
I mean, I'm sure loads of people have downloaded that song who'd never otherwise have heard of it, so should their record label be paying XBox and Sky for the publicity? Or is it a simple "we want to use your song so we're paying you for its use" transaction? Or do these cancel each other out so much that you've basically got one company saying to the other, "actually we're both going to come out of this ad campaign looking pretty damn cool so shall we just call it even?"
Anyway, the song is Dominos by The Big Pink (the mis-spelling is their fault, not mine), and it's on iTunes if you want it. The verses aren't as good as the chorus, but it sits very nicely on my iPod between 'Do ya' by McFly and 'Don't you want me baby' by the Human League.
Fat Hitler
Yes, the BNP wants to be taken seriously as a political party and they cannot be allowed to do this with such a cloak-and-dagger approach to membership. If they feel they are doing nothing wrong, their membership list should be in the public domain. Anyone who's in the police force as well as the BNP should be held to account.
But I can't help thinking that the list has been leaked with the intention of a strangely left-wing vigilante campaign (or at least an impolite phonecall or two), and as soon as this happens we lose the moral high ground. This happened last week with Jan Moir's Daily Mail article too: no sooner had Twitter been flooded with complaints, it had also been flooded with Moir's home address. Did your mothers never tell you that this makes you as bad as them, eh?
Of course, there's also something depressing about the fact that the BNP membership list contains thousands of names. Thousands. *Puke*.
When Nick Griffin appears on Question Time this week, there will be extra security at the BBC, to protect him from the wrath of protesters. I'd love it if they all just stood perfectly still, cross-armed, frowning and tutting loudly, rather than reinforcing Griffin's view that we're all the same angry bastards underneath it all.
Guardian article: Twenty questions for the BNP.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Fewer "woah woah woah"s, more "oo-oooo"s
So, away from the subject of a particular TV talent show that I'm not going to mention again this week, and on to other spectacular music-related things.
Above, you'll find my absolute favourite live music performance ever. I've been watching it a lot recently, and making other people watch it too. And now it's your turn. HA.
When Take That originally recorded their cover of Could It Be Magic, back in 1991 I think, it was a pretty nasty disco mix, soulless and unimaginative but fun enough to get them on Saturday morning kids' TV and Radio 1. But in 2007, they cut things right down to the original Barry Manilow arrangement when they performed it live, and it was theatrical, creative and gorgeous in the most astounding way.
The stage show for this performance is perfect. I love how it starts off with just Barlow at the piano, then he's joined by some kind of magician character who metaphorically brings with him Pandora's box (only with some dancers and the rest of Take That inside it, rather than all the evils of the universe) and a hat. A few extras start to languidly wander about the stage, and then, as the music builds, so does the production.
It happens so gradually you barely notice, but partway through the song the drums come in and suddenly you've got confetti and feathery women standing on the rings of Saturn, and the whole thing is going properly mental. Mark Owen starts doing some astonishing shouty ad-libs and all is right with the world.
And it's not just the performance that really gets me - musically, it's all kinds of incredible too. I love the start of the second chorus, as the outer platform raises up, and the strings really add quite a sinister element to the song in places (I think I might be talking about minor chords here, but I'm probably wrong), giving me goosebumps every time I watch it. And Barlow's piano-work is flawless.
And then, almost as gradually as it built up, it slowly goes all quiet again, the extras leave the stage and we're left with four men around a piano, harmonising like their lives depend on it.
I saw them performing this live, and it took my breath away. And it was during this song that I took this photo of Jason (below), which is my favourite photo I've ever taken at a concert.
So, there you have it - my review of an amazing Take That performance, two years ago, of a song they recorded 16 years previously. Piggerish: Always first with the breaking news.
You know you love him, you can't understand...
I couldn't give you Cheryl's performance without also showing you Olly Murs and his awesome Tina Turner rendition (just in case you didn't see it, or you somehow missed the dance move - in this clip at around the 1:37 mark). If nothing else, it will make you smile.
I swear that's the last time I'll mention the X Factor this week. Honest.
Cheryl 1, Whitney 0
My dad: "She was wearing a hat?"
Sunday, 18 October 2009
It's not right, but it's okay
Yes, I completed my Popjustice X Factor playsheet, and bloody good fun it was too. Want to know what I think of all the acts on this week's show? No? Go away then.
Lucie: I’m sorry but this girl is just boring. She seems like a nice enough person and everything, but if being nice was the way to win X Factor we’d all be winners. Apart from… well, you know who you are.
Olly: This gentleman is going to get top marks every week (he gave it 358 percent tonight) until that dance move starts to bore me. I LOVE that Tina Turner song, and his attitude. His performance generally was TOP NOTCH.
Miss Frank: Boring, and I never thought I’d say that about these girls. This is Louis’s influence, even from beyond Stephen Gately’s grave.
Rachel: This girl is always falling arse over tit, and I love her for it. And she was borrowing Dannii’s hairpiece at the same time as Dannii was wearing it. Derren Brown's split-screen technique is to blame for this.
Joe: I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but last week Joe was wearing a massive hoodie-and-coat combo, and this week he’s wearing a duffel coat. He won’t feel the benefit, you know. Good performance though – well done Joe.
Danyl: This man has the charisma of a flannel, and I don’t know why the camera people assume I want to look down his throat so much – I’m not his GP, ffs.
Lloyd: I can’t repeat here what I texted to Sarah while this performance was happening. Suffice to say, I didn’t enjoy it. Minus 64 points from me, and bottom of the league: if he won’t do high notes, he’s never going to be a decent singer. In my professional opinion (ahem).
John and Edward (henceforth "Jedward"): I think the tide is turning on these pillocks – I refer, of course, to the "get Jedward off the X Factor" tide, which has turned into the "harhar, Jedward are actually quite funny and a lot more interesting than SOME OF THEM (Danyl)" tide.
Rikki: This chap still baffles me, and I still don’t approve of his eyebrow. Quote from Danni: “I see a bit of Will Young in you.” Homophobe.
Jamie: If the definition of “talented singer” is “odd little man with a creepy face, who takes himself very seriously, and has an invisible gospel choir and an unexplained teatowel hanging out of his trousers” then Jamie is a talented singer.
Stacey Fromdagenham: Second place with 248 points, Stacey would have benefited from a better song but is otherwise brilliant. Am I the only one who wants to see her as Doctor Who’s next companion?
So, according to my scoresheet Rikki and Lloyd should be the bottom two this week, but I have a bad feeling about Miss Frank and Rachel. I really enjoyed Jedward but could never bring myself to vote for them, so this week's vote* goes to Olly Murs, bless him and his double-jointed ankles. Who agrees with me?
* Not an actual vote.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
"You are paying to get that snake dry cleaned"
I know why - it's because series 6 hasn't finished on the telly yet, but seriously I am almost as angry about this as I have been about Gatelygate and various other things that have happened this week.
That is all I have to say on the matter.
Peep Show series 6 'new sofa' clip. Brilliant.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Things to make and do
Click the link here, download it, print it and send me a photo of your completed masterwork, and/or "tweet" it (see, I'm down with the kids) to @Popjustice. Or just do it for your own amusement. Good luck and God speed.
Gatelygate, Daily Mail-style
Headed "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death", it is essentially a very long, very libellous insinuation that Stephen Gately died because of his "dark appetites" and "private vice".
AND I QUOTE (somewhat angrily):
"The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath."
"And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy."
The circumstances of his death are (as far as we, a bunch of people who didn't know him, are aware): he went out drinking, might have smoked a joint (according to the article this has "just been revealved", as if it were the most shocking thing since Hitler), and they brought another man back to their flat. If a straight couple had gone out for a drink and wound up taking a friend home (to lend them a copy of Top Gun or whatever) no one would bat an eyelid, least of all the Daily Mail.
Possibly the most horrific part of this article (although it's a close call) is this: "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships." WHY does it? Seriously, WHY?!??!? And I haven't just whipped that quotation out of the article and refused to contextualise it - if you read the whole thing through, you'll see how baffling it is and how this statement goes entirely unexplained.
There's nothing new about Britain's right-wing press being homophobic (shock horror, Daily Mail doesn't like the gays). But this is stooping to new lows: it accuses a dead man of leading a seedy lifestyle, but it also expresses and legitimises everything the Daily Mail's readers were probably already thinking about gay people: if they can't lead a 'natural' life, they certainly can't have a 'natural' death.
It's this kind of thing that reinforces my belief that there is no God. If there were, it would be people like Jan Moir who ended up choking on their own bile, not Stephen Gately.
- - - - - - - - -
Update: Following the inevitable and amazing uproar this article has created, the Daily Mail has changed the headline and removed all the advertising that surrounded it.
In other news, the Daily Quail has done a fantastic and hilarious parody, Charlie Brooker has added his own beautifully sane voice to the throng (and made the same bile reference as I did - great minds and all that), and the Press Complaints Commission website has been flooded. This makes me proud to be human.
Tabloid journalism: easiest job in the world
"Wow. What a twat."
There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start. Actually it's not that hard.
1. I'll start by pointing out that The Mirror is a national newspaper which had a circulation of 1.5 million in 2008 (yes I looked it up on Google - this makes my research skills officially 1 million times better than those of the Mirror, but I'll write more about that some other day). A newspaper with such influence, and the website associated with it, have a duty to employ better writers than this, and to make sure they're doing a better job of it than you or I could.
2. Anyone who punches anyone in the face without provocation is, by definition, a twat. We don't need to be told this. If the newspaper in question thinks we need to be told, it clearly has a very low opinion of its readership.
3. That final line makes it obvious that whoever wrote it got to the end of his or her report and thought "I don't think I've expressed my opinion well enough - how do I make it clear that I believe this man is a twat? Oh hang on, I've thought of something..." If anyone has so little confidence in their ability to get a point across that they need to resort to ending any article with "What a twat", they should not be paid to write.
4. Swearing?! Where poor little kiddies could be exposed to it, with their delicate ears? If Russell Brand did that, The Mirror would be calling for his penis on a stick.
I'm not saying I could do much better, but I'm a blogger and some-time writer/editor of web copy and whatnot, not a professional journalist writing for a national newspaper.
I will continue unleashing my tabloid-aimed vitriol at a later date. In the meantime, I will seek out the writer of this article (no byline, although the video clip is credited to Zoe Griffin) and punch them square in the face. Call me a twat, I don't care.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
"Is it bleeding, love?"
As shocking and awful as this is, DigitalSpy's reportage of the incident did give me a giggle. After carefully explaining what had happened, together with quotes from "an eye witness" (literally), the article goes on to say:
"The singer was to appear on The One Show on Wednesday night. However, her rep confirmed that she has now been replaced by BBC sports host Gabby Logan."
I can't wait to hear Gabby Logan's version of 'Footprints in the Sand'.
- - - - - - -
PS 'Bleeding Love' joke courtesy of Jason Manford.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Neighbours-style cock-up
While some of our comments are overwhelmingly kind and loving ("I quite like him actually"), most of them are unfairly critical, sweary and written in capitals. I enjoy this very much.
Anyway, this is all just backstory so that you'll understand the following text message I sent yesterday afternoon:
"I've just been to see the remake of Fame at the cinema. The first 20 minutes are so like the X Factor, I very nearly forgot where I was and texted you a BELLEND ALERT."
I hope you can appreciate how strange that message would sound out of context. It was only much later that evening that I realised I'd accidentally sent this message to the person I'd been at the cinema with. She hasn't replied.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
McFly me to the moon
Anyway, it's just been announced that one of the best ever McFly songs to feature a brass section, Star Girl, is going to be played in space! How exciting is that?! It's really really exciting, believe me.
The song will be played to the crew of the International Space Station on October 21st, the result of a long Twitter campaign by some of the band's more vociferous fans (Twitter has a lot to answer for today).
If you're not familiar with the song (it's a MODERN CLASSIC, people), here it is.
And yes, he did say "when I fell in love with Uranus." Kids these days.
PS If any journalist steals my "McFly me to the moon" headline idea, I will be LIVID. Same goes for Gatelygate.
Word of the day: Trafigura
The style of the article is deliberately confusing (let's hope so, anyway - otherwise someone's going mad, and it's not me), and cleverly encourages the rest of us to find out more. My favourite bit:
"The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found."
Amazing.
Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the powers that be, this is 2009 and rumours of the subject the Guardian isn't allowed to report on are spreading like... well, toxic waste. At my last check, #Trafigura was the top trending topic on Twitter, with celebrities and journalists bumping it up at every turn.
What is Trafigura? It's an oil company, accused of dumping toxic waste off the Ivory Coast. And the British press is apparently not allowed to tell us. For more details, go here.
So, the tabloids can get away with any intrusive but inconsequential rubbish if they say it's "in the public interest", but this disgrace is out of bounds? Way to draw attention to yourselves, Trafigura.
- - - - - - - -
Update: Now #Trafigura is no longer the top trending topic, but the top ten includes Trafigura, Guardian, Carter-Ruck (Trafigura's lawyers), and BBC (conspicuously not reporting this story - similarly gagged, I assume). And everyone on Twitter who's not discussing this seems hopelessly out of touch. I love the internet.
- - - - - - - -
Update 2: Victory! Hoorah. Today has been a bad day, and then a good day, for free speech. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/13/guardian-gagged-parliamentary-question
Monday, 12 October 2009
Viva La Fiesta
Anyway, so I thought I'd give a highly technical and po-faced car review here, complete with photographs. The kind that could easily be mistaken for the work of someone who knows things about cars. Then next time someone says "how's the car going?" I can direct them towards this blog. And hear no more from them ever again. Here goes.
"It's great to be back!" (mad-eyed stare to camera)
Unfortunately, watching his X Factor performance this weekend was like watching someone having a nervous breakdown on stage, with comedy ad-libs. Poor Robbie.
- - - - - -
Update: YouTube link for anyone who didn't see it. His post-performance conversation with Dermot is arguably the most worrying bit.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Massive tragedy
What?
(Mainly nothing).