Cross fingers, pray for Avenged Sevenfold

Hooray, it's rock week on the X Factor tomorrow!! Your playsheet is here.

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.

'Up' will make you feel down, but also up. What?

It's hard to tell people about a good film without giving away bits of it, and I'm not a movie reviewer by trade ("NO WAY" - the world) so this is going to be quite rubbish, but I need to tell you to watch Up at the cinema, because it's ace.

It's not just ace in the same way that other Disney Pixar films are ace. Yes, it looks nice: the animation of humans has come on leaps and bounds in just ten years, and the scenery might as well be live-action in parts. But it's the story that's really a cut above, and it's certainly the most mature offering Disney Pixar has given us.

In case you don't know, Up is a film about an elderly man, Carl, who attaches helium balloons to his house and floats away to explore South America. He unintentionally brings a small boy with him, and meets an exotic bird and a talking dog. As I say, it's properly mature (honestly, it is).

The fight scenes and elaborate set-pieces were obviously crowbarred in to keep the kids happy, and they're the weakest points of the film. The rest of it is incredible.

It was clearly made for grown-ups: Up is a film about getting old, about loneliness, love, companionship, death and letting go of the past. It's about "living the dream", but it's also about how life gets in the way of living the dream, and about how that doesn't necessarily matter - you should appreciate the dream you're living, not hanker after the one you missed out on. I know that sounds terribly corny the way I say it, but the film makes quite a subtle point of it, and doesn't drown itself in mawkishness.

Having said that, it's terribly sad. I was welling up from about ten minutes in, and cried on and off throughout the rest of the film. The way Carl is introduced and earns your sympathy is... well, it's done really really well. (This Film 2009 lark is tougher than it looks, okay?)

It's not just the opening scenes though. There are probably three or four desperately affecting moments throughout the rest of the film. I won't go into detail about these scenes because it would give too much away, but let's just say that if I ever get married there is no WAY I'm having a personalised post-box with handprints on it. NO WAY.

Anyway, you should go and see it. It's truly astounding, and you will cry, but you will also laugh a bit, and go "ah bless".

And the professional movie reviewers of the world sleep soundly in their beds yet again.

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.

AA Gill: Baboon boy

AA Gill (Jeremy Clarkson's friend and restaurant reviewer for The Times) has shot a baboon for fun. It's not the kind of thing you expect to hear, but it's true.

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...

YIKES. Yesterday the NME website ran a story about Jarvis Cocker - it's like 1998 all over again (only they probably didn't have a website in 1998).

The upshot of it is that Pulp could be reforming to play next year's Glastonbury - Jarvis has even gone so far as to say "there'll be a band reunion." Mind you, this quote came from The People, so I'm taking it with a pinch of salt.

I hope it's true though. I hope it's true like I hope I'll live past the age of 40, and like I hope Russell Howard will one day move into the flat next door to me. It must happen. IT WILL HAPPEN.

Pulp were always seen as part of the whole (rubbish word alert) Britpop movement of the mid to late 90s, but I saw them as more of a pop act, with an edge. Yes, they had guitars and whatnot, but that wasn't really their sound as such.

The rest of Britpop was full of your Oasises, your Great-Escape-era Blurs, your Casts, your Dodgys - a wall of guitar noise with a rabble-rousing shout over the top of it all. Brilliant in its way, and God knows those bands gave us some classics (well, Oasis did), but Pulp were... well, a different class (sorry).

Britpop was all about being working class and young, for the most part. It was a reaction to 18 years of Tory government, the workers rising up against their oppression, a design for life and all that. Oasis made the most of the image that British working class people are sweary, ignorant, football-obsessed and violent towards their siblings. Blur went for the cheeky cockney angle, perhaps a bit cleverer (they talked about art every now and then) but mainly up-the-apples-and-pears mindless babble (I'm talking The Great Escape here).

But Pulp weren't afraid to tell the world that, yes, they were working class but they were also the most intelligent band around. Jarvis might not have been talking party politics in every interview, but the way he expressed himself in every lyric was poetic. Every song on Different Class is a melodic masterpiece of well-expressed frustration, sexual confusion, and a desire to break through the confines of their class - not to "make it" or become famous, but simply to get away from the ignorant loons.

Jarvis obviously had issues with feeling he was somehow better than his peers, but his fans could relate to him - he didn't sound cocky or over-confident, just frustrated. "Can't you see a giant walks among you, seeing through your petty lives?" (from I Spy) is the kind of line that, delivered by Jarvis, doesn't make you think "what kind of arse would say that?" - it makes you think "wow, the people he's talking about must be scum."

The sound of Pulp was the sound of a geeky, awkward overgrown teenager trapped in his bedroom, reading poetry and thinking about girls. But it was also the sound of me and my schoolfriends bellowing the lyrics to Mis-Shapes after one too many Lambrinis, and it was the sound of a whole subculture of young people trying to tell the world that we weren't all halfwits.

And, judging by the way young British people are viewed now, and how many of those young people must be screaming out for understanding, we need Jarvis and his band more than ever. Please come back, Pulp - we miss you.

Friday minus four

I don't know if you've noticed, but it's Monday. Mondays are bad, but we can save ourselves from the Monday blues with a sweet and cheery little song. Here we go.



There, that's better. Now back to work.

Westdeath

So, Miss Frank have become this year's X Factor sacrificial lambs. They might as well have made Dermot point straight down the camera lens and scream "You didn't vote, did you?! DID YOU?!?!! NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE, YOU ABSOLUTE SET OF BASTARDS. I hope you're pleased with yourselves", and then flounce off as if he's never going to talk to us again.

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).

Calculators out: it's X Factor time

Do you find having to juggle a full-time job, kids, family life, housework etc gets on top of you sometimes? You just try juggling three text conversations, Twitter and a very complicated scoring system, baking a cake and keeping one eye on the TV screen for two hours - then you'll know what REAL hardship is.

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.

"They've stolen ALL our jobs!"

I was just about to have a go at those pesky tabloids again, for having the nerve to complain about the BNP when all they do is legitimise and normalise precisely the same views as Nick Griffin espouses, only in a slightly more underhanded way.

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.

Bonk-eyed future husband

Poor Russell Howard, having to air the first episode of his brand new series - Russell Howard's Good News - at the same time as the most-talked-about episode of Question Time there has ever been. Even I, his biggest fan (*stares into middle distance while toying with a mallet*), had to watch it on the iPlayer late last night.

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

Popjustice have really outdone themselves with this week's X Factor playsheet, which is truly a work of genius. Not only does it demand for some very unflattering crayon drawings of each member of the over-25s category (sorry Olly), the scoresheet's astonishing detail allows for marks out of a possible 990 percent.

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

Nick "I'm not a racist" Griffin

Tonight's Question Time wasn't perfect, and not just because it featured Nick Griffin, as part of his campaign to be seen as "the acceptable face of the BNP" (according to a BBC report). Seriously, if that's an acceptable face then I'm Martin Luther King.

It would have been nice if Jack Straw had given a straight answer to the reasonable question of why people aren't turning out to vote, if only to demonstrate how far removed Labour is from the duplicitous, slippery BNP. Whatever you think of the mainstream parties, it MUST be emphasised that the BNP is a whole different animal, otherwise we're doomed - Straw certainly didn't help to erase the view that "these politicians are all the same, you can't trust any of them". In fact, when asked whether he was trustworthy, Griffin took great pleasure in making this point - if you don't trust him, that makes him just the same as the rest of them, and equally worth voting for.

And it was unfortunate that the only Labour MP who agreed to share a stage with Griffin was Jack Straw, giving Fat Hitler a cheap shot at the invasion of Iraq - it might be old news now, and Griffin was clutching at straws, but it still had an impact.

Generally though, I thought Griffin was asked all the right questions by an articulate and passionate audience, and was handed his own arse on a plate. He came across as ill-informed, out of his depth and desperate. And there were at least two occasions when he made an ultra-despicable statement and David Dimbleby actually did a double-take and made him repeat himself.

He must have broken a record for the number of times one person has ever claimed to have been misquoted. And, when Dimbleby challenged him with "actually you haven't been misquoted - we've seen footage of you saying these things", he left Griffin looking baffled. One thing he didn't deny, though, was that he was a holocaust denier. I hope the people who voted for this man in the European elections listened very carefully to that bit.

His attempts to act the jolly non-racist and nervously laugh along with Bonnie Greer were pitiful and more cringeworthy than an episode of The Office. And, speaking of Greer, I thought she was the star of the show - dignified, well-informed, sharp and unflappable. I loved her remark about the British public having too much common sense to vote for these bastards.

When, five minutes before the end, Dimbleby said he wanted to steer away from talking about the BNP and broached the subject of Jan Moir's Daily Mail article, I was disappointed - I felt that Griffin hadn't been given quite enough rope to hang himself with yet, and it was a shame it all had to end. But then, what's this I hear? "The sight of two men kissing is revolting"; "what they do behind closed doors, blah blah blah"... brilliant, Nick. I imagine a lot of BNP supporters are just in it for the racism - I'm glad you reminded them that you're a homophobic party too. Perhaps next time you can go for the misogynist angle as well. Amazing.

As a final insult, Griffin praised the democratic system that allowed him to share his views on a mainstream BBC programme, as if he wouldn't tear down that very same democracy if he ever got into power himself.

I enjoyed watching Griffin sweat it out over an hour of perfectly justifiable torture. But I have no idea how I'd have viewed that hour if I was a BNP supporter, or a potential one. Would his sweaty, shaky-handed, shifty delivery have convinced me of anything? Would I have been applauding his comments about immigration? I really don't know, but if he was the charismatic leader I was worried he might be, things would have been a lot worse.

Spoiler alert

Inside info coming in from Question Time studio:

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

Last week, Neighbours introduced an OCD storyline by having Zeke (above), completely out of the blue, carefully line up all the biros on his desk. There was no suggestion of any impending mental illness before this, and we were told that something was horribly wrong with the use of a sinister "Zeke is going all OCD" backing track, which has been used a few times since then. Yesterday, he went completely bonkers and suddenly everyone is worried for him.

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

So, today's the day. This evening, Nick Griffin's going to appear on Question Time, the first time a spokesperson from the BNP has been given such a public platform on British TV. I'm quite nervous.

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.