No One Really Likes Jazz

NOTstradumus’s 09/10 Premiership Predictions

2009-08-14T05:32:00.000-07:00

With the nail-biting drama that was the Community Sheild still fresh in our minds, a nation of sports (Well... Football) fans prepare, with hearts as light as an Oligarch’s chequebook, to abandon the callow charms of Jensen Button and Andy Murray, stop pretending to know anything about cricket and nestle once again in the warm comforting bosom of the Premiership. Ahhh, bosomy goodness.

And as we hurtle headlong into the 2009/10 season, Britain’s premier football psychic, Notstradamus highlights a few of the coming season’s top stories.

Beware: Spoiler Alert!

Hughes takes the Piss

Mark Hughes buys right-handed pitcher LaTroy Hawkins from the New York Yankees... Just to prove he can!

Bolt-who?

During the height of Champion’s League group stages Bolton win two games by default after first Liverpool, then Arsenal completely forget they exist and fail to turn up for their fixtures.

Steven Gerrard is quoted as saying, ‘Oh yeah, Bolton! How are they?’

Intrigue at Burnley Village FC

Chris Eagles causes a stir amongst the residents of Burnley village when, via a series of amusing misunderstandings, he accidentally agrees to go to the Parish dance with both of the Vicar’s twin daughters.

A full-blown kerfuffle is narrowly avoided when Jay Rodriguez agrees to squire one of the twins to the dance with Chris.

Everyone has tea and Eccles cakes to celebrate...

Nani Actually Achieves Something Impressive

After all the PFA votes have been counted it is unanimously agreed that Nani has indeed assumed Ronaldo’s mantle as biggest twat in the premiership.

Stoke drop the Pretence

Stoke stop even pretending to play football as we know it and simply play a 10 -1 formation with Stephen Merchant from ‘extras’ at Centre Forward. Job Done!

Poor Rafa

Around January, in a none-to-subtle display of belligerence, Rafael Benitez takes to wearing rags at matches and asking journalists for ‘the price of a cup of tea’ at press conferences.

Rooney No More

United’s season is tinged with hilarious tragedy when, during a team building trip to a chocolate factory, Wayne Rooney somehow gets turned into giant blueberry and Dimitar Berbatov is hurled into an incinerator by nut-cracking squirrels.

More Intrigue at Burnley Village FC

Youth team prospect Oliver Devenney learns a valuable life lesson when he is caught stealing toffee from the local corner shop. Owen Coyle makes him do a paper round all week for free to make up for it.

Everyone has tea and Eccles cakes to celebrate...

Portsmouth finally just Say ‘Fuck it!’

Around March time Portsmouth Football Club simply give up. Fratton Park becomes a Vue cinema and everyone’s much, much happier.

Allerdull

Sam Allerdyce’s Blackburn narrowly avoid relegation with 38 points, despite a season-long undefeated run.

Even more Intrigue at Burnley Village FC

On a day off spent walking in the countryside Robbie Blake, Steven Caldwell and Michael Duff get into a series of mildly amusing situations that somehow culminate with them careering down a hill in an out of control tin bath... This happens several times over the course of the season.

Everyone has tea and Eccles cakes to celebrate... And Burnley are relegated with a goal difference of -700.

Brown goes proper Mental

After a disappointing first half at home to Tottenham Phil Brown not only keeps his side on the pitch for their half time team-talk but makes them drop their shorts and line up in descending order of penis girth.

It has a negative effect on team morale.

Dear Jack...

2009-06-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

World’s hardest man, Jack Bauer, solves your workplace dilemmas... Events occur in real time.

Dear Jack,

I work in credit control at a large company. At after work drinks with the rest of my department, I made an off colour remark about one of the managers who routinely takes ninety minute lunch-breaks. The comment was not meant to be hurtful, everyone laughed and I promptly forgot about it until the next week when the manager in question began making remarks to me when he returned from lunch. He now does this every day.

Usually he taps his watch and says something like ‘Dead on time Janet, make a note,’ or ‘Five minutes over, Janet, please forgive me.’

Please help me Jack, this unprofessional behaviour is making me feel victimised and undermining me in front of the rest of the team,

Julie, Hayward’s Heath.

Dear Julie,

You’re right. This is unacceptable.

I think it’s pretty clear that your department’s been compromised. You need to remedy the situation quickly before he harms the operational readiness of credit control or even the whole accounts department.

Say something else defamatory about your manager and then monitor the traffic from the workstations of your main suspects. Once you have the mole, lure them to a secure location and interrogate them until you know exactly how high up this thing goes.

Also, your manager seems to be unable to fulfil his duties as head of such an important department. You may have to circumvent his authority and ‘go dark’ for the good of your creditors.

Remember, trust no one. The situation is probably much, much more complicated than it seems.

***End of Communication***

How to make a Fuckload of Money out of Music (It's a lot easier than you think)

2009-03-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Viva la Vida... Loca?

So, another Comic relief has come and gone. Of course it was awful*, but that’s another post for another time, what I want to talk about is one of the silently unacknowledged purposes of Comic Relief that few people know about.

As we all know, Comic relief exists for three reasons.

1. For Lenny Henry to give African children hope by proving to them that it is possible to be black and overweight

2. To remove any remaining gravitas from newsreaders by making them sing 70s hits – this is part of a secret government initiative to soften the blow when they inevitably have to break the news of the global nuclear holocaust**

3. To raise money... What? There’s no joke here. Comic relief raises a fuck of a lot of money. What kind of a monster do you think I am?... Pricks

What you might not know however, is that Comic relief also serves as a handy barometer of the recording artists set to make a shitload of money through in the coming year through their songs being used in adverts and corporate films.

The standard logic amongst the advertising & TV industry is that if it works over dying Africans, it’ll work over anything. That’s why whatever you hear on the comic relief soundtrack of misery is almost guaranteed to show up over training videos and Hollyoaks montages for the next few years.

Basically, you can bet your bottom dollar that several despicable little shits 'in advertising' were sat there on Friday taking notes.

Sceptical? Well, just think of the Comic Relief big hitters, Keane, Coldplay, U2, Sigur Ros, Snow Patrol, Leona Lewis, (slow) Greenday. All of these bands make much, if not most of their money from usage of their songs by big brands.*** A Coincidence? I think not.

If you’re in a band, the chances are you’re thinking about how you can get on this list. Don’t worry, from what I can gather it’s not hard, you just have to obey a few simple rules. Rules that I have of course helpfully outlined...

The No One Really likes Jazz Guide to making an Ass-Load of Money from Corporate Usage Royalties...

1. Instruments

There are only a few acceptable lead instruments for a song if it’s going to be adopted by Proctor & Gamble or BP. They are, piano (Leona Lewis/Coldplay), wishy-washy guitars (Snow Patrol/U2), or a combination of the two (Sigur Ros). Combine that with a shitload of strings and you should be sound as a pound.

Remember, keep the chords inspirational, but with a hint of sadness - that’s the sort of thing that can really make a corporate training day ‘pop’.

2. Lyrics

The main rule is stay away from anything specific, if the song’s clearly about something then you completely limit ‘brand utility’**** which is of course the last thing that any serious artist wants to do. Much better to stick to vaguely uplifting (yet sad, remember) statements like, ‘Hold on,’ ‘I’ll be there,’ or ‘You elevate my soul, baaaybaay.’*****

Sigur Ros have mastered this with the genius idea of singing all their songs in a made up language. Unfortunately, that trick probably won’t work twice.

You also need to remember not to look too desperate, don’t seem like you’re begging these companies to use your track. U2 fell into this trap on their last album with the little know song, ‘I love you more than facilitating client-facing best practice.’******

3. Big Finish

You need at least 45 instrumental seconds at the end over which a voice-over artist can flog whatever the company’s trying to sell. This bit needs to be big but not so big that you can’t concentrate on the pitch. If all else fails you can just turn everything up a bit.

If you’re not sure whether your big finish works, just try saying some generic phrases over the top. Stuff like this.

• ‘We’ve been working tirelessly for more than fifty years to bring you advanced...’
• ‘Just 5 pounds a month can buy mosquito nets for...’
• ‘Our globally tested networking systems help your business to...’

If these work, you’re onto a winner.

It’s okay, you don’t have to thank me.

*Charity is no excuse for dumping material too piss-weak to make it into your already ropey TV show – Walliams, I’m talking to you.
**The other part involves getting Jeremy from ‘airport’ (the plan was written around the turn of the century) to demonstrate the procedure for euthanizing your radiation-sick relatives in a comedy cabin crew style... So that’s something to look forward too.
***From the five minutes I watched this week it appears Adele, Kings of Leon and Elbow have joined their ranks – if the bastards end up ruining ‘Home Town’ for me I’ll be really angry.
****This is a marketing phrase, if you don’t know what it means for God’s sake don’t look it up. Anyone who knows the meaning of this phrase is immediately condemned to hell. It’s too late for me, but a few of you could still be saved.
*****Liberal use of ‘Baby’ is a necessary evil. Otherwise, with this sort of music, people might think you’re talking about God as opposed to nothing. God doesn’t sell, remember that

Walking with Tories

2008-12-03T05:48:00.001-08:00

Ere, guv. Ow about we save ourselves some time and I just give you my CV now?

Tories are one of this country’s most fascinating indigenous species, their ruddy faces and pinstripe coats have become synonymous with England to the point where it’s hard to think of our sceptred isle without picturing the lovable creatures playfully vomiting outside wine bars or refusing you a bank loan.

Few people however, know much about this uniquely British species, a situation I’ve decided to remedy thus...

Walking with Tories: A ‘no one really likes Jazz’ Guide to your betters

Natural Habitat: Tories are found across the south of England though degrees of concentration are variable. To be sure of seeing Tories its best to go to one of England’s designated Tory reserves like Clapham, where, on a Saturday afternoon, you can expect to see herds of them sweeping majestically along Lendal Terrace.

Breeding: Like Pandas, Tories are very fussy breeders. Female Tories, for instance, cannot become impregnated unless they are situated within a house worth GBP £800,000 or above. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Male Tories tend to be fairly confused about the whole process of procreation with their wives, often believing sex to be something traditionally practiced with salaried employees or Eastern European teenagers.

Mercifully, once the conditions for spawning are perfectly balanced, actual coitus tends to be fairly straightforward... And brief.

Communication: Male Tories communicate via a system of nicknames, attempted puns and homosexual innuendos, known as ‘banter’. Be warned, approaching a Tory in mid banter is not advisable. A ‘banter’ conversation is likely to be highly tedious for a human being to endure since unlike ‘conversations’ they contain literally no information, often consisting of little more than empty bravado. Any human who enters into one is likely to leave with a piercing migraine and drastically revised views on the morality of genocide.

Female Tories, on the other hand, communicate in a highly sophisticated manner. Their interaction with each other consists of an intricate web of false compliments, conditional praise and air kisses. The only direct speech is delivered tacitly through intermediaries in a process known as ‘bitching.’

Although female Tories’ opinions of each other are uniformly negative, they are at pains to appear the best of friends at all times.

Watching a group of female Tories (or a ‘tosspuddle’ to use the correct term) communicate is one of the most baffling sights in nature. To date, no anthropologist has managed to fully comprehend or explain this impenetrable system of communication, though many have gone mad trying.

Tory stages of life

left to right
Top row: Toby, Camilla, Josh
Bottom Row: Flick, Henry, Suzannah

Infancy: In their youth Tories can be identified by expensive, arduously prepared plumage that somehow still ends up looking like backcombed straw. During this phase, male Tories can often be found wearing heavy gauge horizontally striped coats to make them look like big hard rugby playing boys, an effect spectacularly undermined by the designer logo on the left breast. ‘Jack Wills’ isn’t a rugby team, lads.

You know what, I'm not even going to make a joke.
This photo is too damn good.

Youth: Proper Tories attend either Oxford of Cambridge, though it is acceptable to go to St. Andrews, Durham, the London School of Economics and, if you absolutely must, York. However, attendees of these lesser four are required to remain bitter about the fact for the rest of their lives.

Whilst at university Tories, in spite of any prevailing fashion at the time, dress like they are acting out an Evelyn Waugh novel – see picture.

The purpose of university is to give Tories something to talk to each other about every single day until they die.

How fucking badass is the middle one?
You can just tell she's thinking, "I am going to fuck you bitches up at the bridge table later"

Middle age: Tories get married almost immediately upon leaving university and commence the aforementioned complex process of spawning. On their 35th birthdays, male Tories automatically lose all their hair and gain three stone, females instantly become their mothers and develop drinking habits that would be designated as ‘problems’ were they in a park drinking Special Brew instead of at home drinking 1995 Chateaux Margot.

I bet this is what David Cameron looks like pre make-up!

Old Age: By now most Tories have made the horrible realisation that their entire career in law, finance, politics, the civil service or ‘management consultancy*,’ achieved precisely nothing. They are therefore, fairly bitter. They grow ever more so as they reflect on a life of greed, self interest, xenophobia and passive aggression, whilst writing bilious letters to the Daily Telegraph.

* The modern equivalent of selling 'snake oil.'

Eastenders – The Serious Soap

2008-11-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

"Hmm, a subtle pallette, fruity notes, with just a hint of desperation."

Eastenders, East-fucking-enders, the very name strikes fear into my heart, the bastard show increases my blood pressure to the sort of level where I could prick my finger and jet wash graffiti off a brick wall*. For over 23 years, this glum little show has delighted us by systematically crushing the hopes dreams, and sometimes legs, of Walford residents in a Technicolor whirl of misery.

It’s awful, truly awful, and not just in terms of subject matter. There’s so much wrong with this show that I could, and may, write ten bile-spurtingly angry blogs on the subject, but for now I’m just going to focus on the main offender, realism.

We’re constantly told by our creepy aunt Beeb that ‘Enders is the serious soap, the one that confronts issues and strives for authenticity - “We don't make life, we reflect it... Above all, we want realism,” Julia Smith, Creator. This is why we’re not allowed even vaguely attractive actors and why no one - except that comedy gay guy - ever smiles, it’s all justified in the name of realism, which is fine, very noble, very worthy, very BBC.

Except, of course, that it’s a complete crock of shit!

Eastenders is not only unrealistic, it’s the least realistic of the soaps: Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Holby City, Hollyoaks, even fucking Skins can all claim to be more representative and true to life than this middle class fantasy and here’s why...

Walford doesn’t exist! Yeah, yeah, obvious I know, of course it doesn’t dumbass, neither does Wetherfield or Sun Hill. The point I’m trying to make is that at least these fictional towns exist in a world recognisable to people who’ve actually been to the areas they dramatise, ie. Manchester for Corrie, or Bristol for Skins.

This annoys me so much only because I know the East end of London pretty well, I go there at least once a week, I’ve worked there, I even lived there for six months of my life (that I’ll never get back) and let me tell you, Walford REALLY doesn’t exist.

In reality East London is a hotch-potch of migrant workers, well-to-do city types, drug addicts and rich white kids who’ve devoted their lives to pretending to be artists**.

What it certainly is not, is the sixties-style den of gangsters, cockneys and ‘Joanna’ pubs represented in Eastenders – I am yet, for example, to hear anyone unironically using rhyming slang anywhere in East London - for that, you want to head to Essex or Kent. Old Eastenders do exist in London but they’re few - usually they’re about a thousand years old and sat alone nursing a pint in Wetherspoons. Hardly a demographic large or interesting enough to warrant a prime time TV show.

Wake up BBC, your flagship TV show is a lie!

But don’t worry, it’s okay, there’s a way out. Here’s what you have to do to...

Characters: Kill off the Mitchells, the Fowlers and the Slaters, bring in the Patels, the Khawajas and the Zawadzki’s. The drizzle in a few token white Brits, might I suggest Troy and his life partner David: a ‘Freelance’ Web Designing couple, Toby: a Financial Analyst and Suzannah: a Rodean educated performance artist who pretends the monthly cheque from her Dad is an Arts Council Grant.

There might however be a slight problem, in that these characters won’t all have English as a first language (or even as a second), they’ll also never, EVER speak to each other.

The Vic: Proper East End boozers still just about exist (I know of two) but they are squarely in the minority and filled with people enjoying them ironically. To be properly representational the Vic should change its name to something like ‘Junk’ or ‘Spunk’ or ‘Ailment bar.’ It should also have two-year-old-standard stencil-art for sale on the walls and a small television showing a video loop of a fountain, on a white plinth in the corner***. Oh, and if you want to keep Sharon behind the bar, she’s going to need to lose about eight stone and get an unflattering hundred-quid bowl haircut.

Gangsters: I, like 99.999876% of the population, have no direct experience with gangsters, East End or otherwise****. However, I’m pretty sure that their work revolves more around selling drugs to people than it does donning sheepskin coats and plotting to ‘knock off’ banks or armoured cars with sawn-off shotguns. And, while we’re on the subject, I’m also fairly sure that for the most part they’re not white and middle aged – again, I’d point you in the direction of Essex for that.

As far as I can tell, London gangsters actually lead fairly boring lives. They sell their drugs with impunity and only really risk getting arrested at the end of the quarter (if the Met’s stats are down). VERY occasionally someone gets shot, though not nearly as often as in Birmingham. Maybe ‘Midlanders’ would be a better soap for that sort of thing.

In summary, Eastenders is about as authentic as the Cambridge University Hip Hop Society*****. Keep showing it if you insist, BBC, but please don’t try to feed us this authenticity shit. The truth is that for all the resemblance it bears to London, Eastenders might as well be set on a space-station orbiting Klargon 7... Actually, that I might watch!

*Before dying of blood loss and creating a gritty urban tableaux far more upsetting than whatever was written on the wall in the first place.
**and so, enjoy hanging out in the ‘arty’ part of London, apparently not realising that the area is waaay too expensive for any actual artists to live there. Try Camberwell, luvs - actually don’t, I still like it there.
***I’ve actually seen this is in an East End ‘pub.’
****So maybe, just maybe, they’re not the best subject for a populist soap to tackle.
*****I Googled this and it actually exists! Doesn’t seem to be a lot going on though...

NORLJ EXCLUSIVE!

2008-09-08T09:10:00.001-07:00

Eeeeeeeew!!!
(What makes it worse is there's no real reason for this picture to be here)

Yes, yes, I know it’s been a while, I know you’re angry. However, I also know that, much like a recalcitrant father, you’ll forgive me, even whilst secretly knowing I’ll let you down again.

Consider this week’s blog my attempt to overcompensate with extravagant gifts.

The Private Diary of Richard Madely

To be published posthumously with foreword by Richard Bacon.

The 8^th of September 2008, Anno Dominus

This morning I awoke in a cold sweat. I dreamed that my worst fears had been realised, that I, Richard Madely, had died before the world had time to fully appreciate my genius. I thought of my place in history. How will future generations remember me? For my age defying looks? My glittering journalistic career? For giving people an excuse to drink in the afternoon?

It simply isn’t enough, I thought. My time is fleeting and there are still so many problems left unsolved in the world. I mused throughout the night and finally fell into a fitful sleep.

I must redouble my efforts. I will book Ricky Gervais for next week’s Friday show.

Tune in next week for another dramatic instalment.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my giddy incontinent Aunt it’s only the fucking exclusive of the year right here on No One Really Likes Jazz.

I’ve managed to get hold of a list of new programmes to be broadcast this winter on the BBC!

Please remember. This list is entirely genuine! Any attempt to imply otherwise will be taken as a slight against my good name and I will, of course, demand satisfaction. In the ensuing duel you shall surely perish! So think on!

Internal Memo outlining the new Programmes to be broadcast this year on the BBC (published unabridged and unedited)

Holby Pink

An entirely necessary extension to the much loved series of Casualty spin offs. Holby Pink takes us into the fascinating world of Holby City’s Gynaecological ward. Passions run high as yeast infections are diagnosed, smear tests are performed and a generation of up and coming British actresses make the quintessential ‘before they were famous’ faux pas by getting their muff out on tea time television.

Episode one. ‘Wizard’s Sleeve Crisis,’ 58 mins, BBC2: Dishy Dr Haversham scrutinises the wiffle of guest star Angelica Houston, Kelly battles her addiction to bread and comic foil medical student, Dean gets caught in the stirrups.

Celebrity Ombudsman

Ever wondered what happens when c-list celebrities attempt to settle high-level financial disputes? Well, you’re about to find out either way.

Marvel as Peaches Geldof liquidates a corporate pension fund and Richard Blackwood bankrupts Marks and Spencers.

I’d Do Anyone

Glossy pre-recorded Saturday Night Fayre where 10 wannabe escorts and 10 gigolos compete for a contract with a top madam. Week by week they’re set various challenges including sustaining an erection in the presence of Vanessa Feltz and looking their mums in the eye without crying.

In the final week six remaining finalists are unleashed on the Tory party conference (the money they made is financing the next three seasons of Dr Who.

The show is fronted by Jeremy Kyle in a pimp’s outfit. The judging panel is made up of Jamie Theakston, Angus Deayton and Snoop Dogg.

Spooks: HR Squad

A look into the tense, dangerous world of MI5’s Human Resources department. Contract negotiations take place left right and centre, disciplinary letters are sent and efficiency is reviewed quarterly.

Racist Britain?

Are we a Racist country? Are all our institutions irrevocably prejudiced and out of touch? A blacked-up Jeremy Paxman goes to Brixton to find out.

Olympic Celebration

A sixteen hour celebration of our Olympic team’s ridiculously successful games. Team GB are paraded around the M.E.N arena for six hours to commentary from Sue Barker before Boris Johnson and Gordon Brown take part in a Greco-Roman Wrestling match to decide who gets to take credit. Other highlights include a skit were Christine Ohuruogu plays the bagpipes and Gabby Logan personally fellating the men’s cycling team.

Teenagers Today don’t know they’re Born

2008-07-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

See This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dzM77PS8H8&feature=related

And This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he1rYR_8T4s

Reviewgasm (With Apologies to Laura Barton)

The Chatham County Line: IV

This is the sort of album that quite simply makes you need a cup of tea. You imagine being chased through a post apocalyptic world by a carpet monster with harmonica eyes, you try to scream but all that comes out is an episode of ‘Woman’s Hour,’ from 1995. Your cat will love it!

Thanks to Pete and Robbie for their ‘Reviewgasms’ last time out. Read them on the comments board & leave your own one if you want.

Main Event: Teenagers Today don’t know they’re Born

Do you remember how shit youth TV used to be?

When I was a teenager the choice was stark. You had overly earnest American crap or painfully moral home grown teachings. Obviously you had to watch something while you weren’t outside playing sports, so you were left with a modern day Sophie’s Choice.

The American stuff was awful - unfailingly po-faced and serious with zero sense of humour about itself. Plus, to vent a personal grievance, I had a tiny bit of trouble relating to Dawson: a teenage boy that spent three series refusing to have sex with Katie Holmes. Every time some ‘Lifehouse’ track kicked in and the little prick wandered down to the creek to think ‘Deep thoughts and stuff, y’know,’ I would scream at the TV.

“Sod your parents’ divorce mate! Think about what else you could be doing now. Borrow a pair of balls from Pacey* and go do your duty! Muppet!”

I hope I never meet James Van Der Beak because I might just slap him involuntarily.**

Bad as it was, it was a million times better than the home grown stuff. If you’ve blocked it out let me refresh your memory, there was Grange Hill - a government sponsored alternative universe where kids called each other toerags and one drag on a cigarette or being within a mile of someone taking ‘the drugs’ would instantly render you a wall clawing addict; Byker Grove – more of the same but somehow less tolerable due to the Geordie accents; As if - which appealed exclusively to turn of the century coffee shop ‘Justins’ who owned a ‘DJ Shadow’ CD and therefore viewed themselves as only slightly less important than God; and of course the immortal Hollyoaks, which was, and remains, nothing more than a daily half hour Topshop advert. The former two felt like they were written by your dad, the latter two by a ‘cool drama teacher’ called Nathan, none were any good at all.***

And so it remained until a couple of years ago and the debut of ‘Skins.’

For those of you still hardwired by your childhood into thinking that anything featuring teenagers and misadventures is intrinsically bad, allow me to blow your mind. Skins is fucking fantastic!

Shut up, it is!

If you’re sceptical I understand, when I saw the trailer for the first series (which is basically an advert for drugs) my twat sensors started flaring up too, I may have shouted something like ‘get a job, hippie!’ at the screen.

Then, begrudgingly, I found myself watching it. The first few episodes of series one are pretty fun, entertaining fare, the only difference between it and a normal teen drama being the quality of the jokes, the budget and the sheer amount of (consequence free) drug taking. I was mildly entertained but not instantly hooked. However, like all good series, Skins doesn’t blow its wad early on, it has the confidence in its characters and stories to hold something back, to not properly reveal itself.

Then something funny happens. About three episodes in you start to realise that you actually care about these characters, it suddenly dawns on you that they’re not just variations on the traditional slut, jock, freak, nerd, cheerleader archetypes, they’re proper people. My favourites are Chris and Cassie but an argument could be made for all of them, there’s simply no weak link.

Then, when you’re good and hooked, Skins starts to fuck with you a bit; weird little stylistic devices start creeping in, odd things happen that aren’t properly explained by the end of the episode and your opinion of one character - who’s probably been your favourite up till now - is slowly and subtly turned on its head until you fucking hate him. Then the show kicks you in the balls good and proper with a final three episodes that would be more at home in a series of ‘Twin Peaks,’ one of which was easily my TV highlight of 2007.

The second series is even better, it filters out some of the naff aspects of series 1 (there are a fair few) and concentrates on delivering a story that’s dark, strange and emotionally affecting in a way that all the Dawson and Joey bullshit could only dream of. It’s undoubtedly the best teen drama ever made****.

If you haven’t seen it, take your face out of the guardian for five minutes and give it a go. It’ll make you wish you were a teenager again (even more than you already do) whilst simultaneously making you jealous of a generation of kids who actually have something worth watching.

Take note BBC, the bar has been raised. When the laziest development department in TV inevitably pitches ‘Holby High’ you should tread carefully, you’re not going to get away with another ‘Grange Hill’.

*It’s a sad indictment of a town’s gene pool when Joshua Jackson is the Alpha Male.

** The one oasis of occasional quality was Heartbreak High but it couldn’t hold its own against the deluge of shit.

***And give him a poke in the eye for ‘Rules of Attraction.’

****I say teen drama, but if viewing figures are to be believed most of the audience are over 25.

JUMPING THE SHARK

2008-06-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Is that a surprised face or a yawn? I can't decide...

I don’t know why people complain that politicians are arrogant and out of touch.

I’m not saying they’re not. I’m just saying it’s obvious, like moaning that the grass is too green. These are people that presume, not only that they should be running the country, but also that thousands upon thousands of people will agree with them. In a sane world they would be called delusional and put in an institution but no, we give them nuclear launch codes.

For the same reason, it’s completely futile to point out that Big Brother housemates are dull, attention seeking, twats. Of course they are! They’ve volunteered, actually volunteered, to be locked in a house with no books, no television, no music and only other mentalists to talk to.

We know they aren’t interesting and we know that nothing of any consequence at all is going to happen but every year we (myself included) keep watching. It’s just another one of those staggeringly illogical things that human beings do like washing cars, barbequing and buying bottled water.

This year’s siphoning of human slurry is a new low. It’s not that they’re particularly repulsive, or offensive, or deformed. It’s that they’re hauntingly familiar. During the introductory show I watched housemate after housemate prance into the house thinking ‘don’t I know you?’ each time.

After a while I became paranoid that I actually did know all of them. Was I the twist? Were they filling the house with casual acquaintances of mine, only to install me against my will in week three forcing me to make protracted stultifying awkward small-talk for two and a half gruelling months?

I had to find a place to lay low for a while a place where Davina couldn’t catch me. Just as I was booking my ticket to Afghanistan I stopped, suddenly realising where I knew them all from. Where? Why, previous series’ of Big Brother of course! I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I realised that almost every one of them is simply doing an impression of their favourite housemate past, it’s like watching a really eerie tribute band.

Of course, for several years now the show has happily trundled along like a bilge spewing tanker on an ocean of hackneyed clichés and stock characters* - Even the casual observer will recognise the hilarious annual conversation about the sparkling media career each housemate is planning or the daily discussion about who does or doesn’t have a game plan – but never so obviously as this year. I don’t want to get my hopes up but I think the country is finally waking up to the fact that everything, absolutely everything they are seeing has happened before. In a year or two we may even be free entirely.

That’s right Big brother has finally jumped the shark**.

*The stock characters/strategies employed by BB housemates are listed below...

Shouty Cow: Turning yourself into a pantomime villain can be very effective. Simply bellow at the top of your voice and constantly belittle everyone in your path. Note: no witty put downs, keep it simple - root one unpleasantness. Oh, and remember to single out the nice middle class girl for particular venom.

This only works if you’re a woman because, as we all know, when men shout it’s intimidating and unacceptable. When women shout it’s great telly!

Eg. Charlie, Alexandra...

Gay Man: Only pantomime stereotypes need apply. This ridiculous country’s latent homophobia can only be allayed by viewing the gay community as hyper-real, entertainers. Be warned, as soon as your facade cracks and you turn out to be a real human being just like them you will probably be voted off.

Eg. Brian, Marco, Dennis, that Greek guy from last year...

Disabled Person: This one’s hard to fake but if you happen to be disabled you’re in with a serious shout of winning the thing purely because people will be terrified of nominating you. ‘That Dave is so lazy, always wheeling himself round in his chair, God, talk about a primadona!’ Can’t quite see that sentence happening can you? Seriously, this housemate could take his/her morning piss in the cornflakes every day and still not get voted out.

Eg. Pete (tourettes), Mikey (blind), Nadia (Penis)

Pretty Girl: If you happen to be ridiculously fit you could do worse than going on the show and simply lazing around in the sun, rubbing sun tan lotion on your thighs for a couple of months.

Some bint tries this every year. You won’t win but that’s not the point, when you eventually leave you’ll walk onto the cover of Nuts, Zoo, FHM, etc. Immediately setting the porn for cowards brigade into their traditional dead-eyed masturbatory stance for a couple of weeks.

There’s only one rule, don’t open your mouth. Unless of course it’s to talk about how you’ve always wondered what sex with a woman would be like – the readers of Zoo wonder that too.

Eg. Chanelle, Shell, Michelle (do you see a theme here) and of course Imogen.

Really Stupid: We love idiots, they make us feel good. That’s why no stand-up comedian will ever go broke as long as he/she has plenty of jokes about Americans. Just being thick isn’t enough though, you need to be thick in comparison to the rest of the house. This requires monumental levels of stupidity but if you can make it work you can win.

Eg. Brian, Jade

Filth: Getting grotty on TV is a pretty shameless way to get attention but it works. Just beware the law of diminishing returns.

Eg. Kinga, Michelle...

Genuinely Nice Person: These guys do exist in the show. One generally turns up about every two years though because they haven’t done anything particularly horrific you generally don’t notice them until the final few weeks.

Eg. Craig, Pete, Shell... Um, I think that might be it.

** By the way, for those who dont know, ‘Jumping the Shark,’ is a reference to the exact moment when Happy Days became shit.

Perfect Family?

2008-06-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

BT’s ‘perfect family’ campaign is one of the most sinister things on television...

On the face of it it’s a cosy image - Attractive thirty-odd brunette with two kids meets bumbling, lovely Kris Marshall. One thing leads to another and they all move into a stainless steel/magenta box somewhere non-specific in London. How idyllic. It’s the modern Bisto family. Of course there are problems along the way but it’s okay because they can all be solved by BT products, allowing everyone to continue in high brightness, low contrast bliss*.

Or do they? If you look closely enough you see that these ‘wholesome’ adverts actually show the harrowing tale of the slow steady erosion of a relationship as it descends into a mess of power games, stony silences and, eventually, adultery.

Don't believe me? Well, think back to the couple’s heady early days - Kris sits at the kitchen table stressing out about the fact that he’s now officially trapped in a relationship. With his ready-made family already bonding with him he has no way out except to behave like a complete cunt and flee, adding yet another betrayal to the children’s already long list. Of course he can’t do that he’s Kris Marshall.

Meanwhile, to seal the deal and allay her crippling doubts about his love for her, Thirty-Odd Brunette forces him to get a joint account (online obviously), a symbolic but highly potent representation of their union but it only serves to underline his absolute fuckedness.

From then on something dies in Marshall, he’s forced to get a trendy haircut and wears a constant callow frown. He becomes distant towards Thirty-Odd Brunette and when looking around houses, is reduced to making impotent, snarky remarks to the estate agent, “Costafortunum?” Whenever the kids wander in he appears bemused and avoids interaction by simply plonking them in front of BT Vision digital TV (Available from £30 a month) and when their real Dad turns up Kris’s expression seems to say ‘Teach me your ways, how can I get away from this, how can I be a bastard like you?’

The final straw for the pair is when, confused and alienated by her husband/boyfriend’s** indifference, Thirty-Odd Brunette withholds sex or ‘perks’ (the emasculating term Marshall has taken to using).

So what next for the increasingly bitterly ironic ‘perfect family’ campaign? Well I have a theory, remember that black girl at the party, the one that appeared and reminded Kris of his lost freedom and then did the same thing again in the record shop? She’s what’s known as ‘a crow at a wedding,’ a harbinger of doom that reveals your eventual destiny to you ahead of time.

He may not have sex with the black girl but he will probably stray – he’s already started justifying it to himself ‘It’s good to have a few secrets’ etc. I’d say we’re two years away from the ad where Kris organises his affair cheaply and efficiently with a combination of BT Total Broadband personal email and free weekend calls to land lines, taking advantage of personal settings to forward any calls from his other girlfriend to his BT Fusion Mobile when he’s out.

Of course Thirty-Odd Brunette will find out. She’ll probably see a photo of them on facebook and have no problem downloading it because of BT Broadband’s generous download limits. She may even back it up with ‘Digital Vault’ to torture herself further before drunkenly confronting him in front of the kids.

I’m sorry, I hope I’m wrong but it seems to me that the ‘perfect family’ are on borrowed cut-rate call time.

*What is the deal with the washed out colours?

**Are they married or arent they? Nobody cares - how very modern of you BT

Oh, I See... The truth Behind the IOC

2008-05-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does the Beijing Olympic stadium look a bit like a... Like a...... Nevermind, forget I said anything.

Quote of The Week

Alan Brazil: I like Cambridge City, not as much as Colchester but they're my second team.
Paul Hawksby: Ever been punting on your trips to Cambridge?
Alan Brazil: What do you mean? Cambridge Dogs?

MAIN EVENT

Do you fancy throwing me a party? You know, a great big shindig in my honour, with my name plastered over everything...

Yeah? Great!

Couple of minor details, the party needs to be two whole weeks long. You’ll also need to buy in a whole load of expensive equipment and build loads of stuff that you’ll never use again - a permanent bouncy castle bunker, underground Mexican takeaway, stuff like that. Naturally this will be entirely at your own expense. There’ll be photographers and journalists everywhere so you’ll need to make sure the place is spotless and that any embarrassing friends and relatives are out of sight. Oh, and another thing, I’ve got loads of mates coming over to sell stuff in your back garden, that’s cool right? I wouldn’t ask, only they’ve already given me a load of money. I’d cut you in but, y’know I don’t want to.

Actually, come to think of it I’ve got a few other people interested in throwing this massive party for me so you’re going to need to kiss my arse and buy me presents for a year or two before I decide to let you hold it.

What’s that? What do you get in return? Well, you get the right to say you’re having my party. Isn’t that enough?

Still interested? If so, great! Don’t read any more of this and give me a call...

For anyone who isn’t completely daft, congratulations, you’re less gullible than all the governments of the developed world. The above is exactly the deal that the International Olympic Committee gives host nations like Beijing and London. You know the estimated £9.4 billion pounds of tax payer’s money that’s going to be spent on the 2012 games? Well, not one penny of that will be made back by the event itself.

Not that a lot of money isn’t going to be floating around the games. Olympic sponsorship is one of the most expensive endorsements you can buy (despite the fact that many, many more people watch the World Cup*). It’s impossible to quantify exactly, though it’s fair to say Olympic sponsorship costs more than it delivers in terms of increased sales, it’s just an exercise in corporate cock-measuring** a way of saying, we are the biggest company who do whatever we do.

Never ones to miss an opportunity to exploit someone, the IOC then makes the sponsors run the bloody games for them – that’s right they don’t do that either. Tag Heuer will handle the timekeeping, Lenovo will run the computer system and supply all hardware, McDonalds will be expected to flood the olympic village with their ‘restaurants’*** etc. After all that, the companies don’t even get to put their logos anywhere near the only thing that anybody is watching, the events - that would pollute the Olympic brand!

Right, so the host cities don’t see a penny of the sponsorship money however, they do get**** a load of sports facilities. Although if history’s anything to go by they won’t be used an awful lot. I’ve been to the Barcelona Olympic village twice now - it’s a very beautiful ghost town, Athens’s facilities lie unused and largely unfinished. Sydney still use theirs but let’s be fair, we’re talking about a nation so sport obsessed that 11 people randomly picked from in and around Darling Harbour could probably beat England at Cricket. London is not Sydney - somehow I don’t see East London having a tremendous amount of use for a vellodrome, do you?

What about the hundreds of people on the ground who work to make the Olympics happen, the stewards, the drivers etc? Surely they’re IOC employees. Well, no those people are - I shit you, not – volunteers. Yep that’s right, tragic individuals who have drunk IOC coolade.

So, all in all the IOC do nothing except pick a city and cash a cheque. They even have the nerve to call themselves “A catalyst for collaboration” and a “Service to humanity.”

This is a nice idea but it doesn’t really bear scrutiny. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that humanity was not especially well served by undermining decades of work to force the Chinese government to be less shitty to its people by giving it a great big international pat on the head. Oh yeah and then there’s the whole thing about letting a Nazi dictatorship host one in 1936 but we’re not supposed to mention that.

In any other situation the Olympics would be called what they are, a scam... Though to be fair it is a brilliant one, probably the greatest ever. IOC, I salute you

*300 million tuned in last December to watch the draw for the 2006 World Cup! That’s 300 million watching a fat man pulling balls out of a pot!

**The Olympic Games is one of those things that would cease to exist if there were a decent number of female CEOs. Just like team-building trips, or high class whores.

***Something the marathon runners are absolutely thrilled by!

****By get I of course mean pay for and build themselves.

RICHARD DAWKINS CAN FUCK OFF!

2008-05-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

When it comes to religion I’m really not sure what I believe and to be honest I don’t give it a tremendous amount of thought. My view is that I’ll find out eventually so why stress about it now. If there is a God then I’m not a massive bastard really, I should be able to talk my way into heaven or at least a non-smoking table in hell. If there isn’t and it turns out we really are just a giant evolutionary mishap then it won’t matter – I’ll be dead.

The truth is that no one can prove anything either way which is why it continually baffles me that people - often very intelligent people - seem to feel the need to discuss the question at length. These conversations are the definition of pointless and are basically just the intellectual equivalent of those debates about meaningless triviality you have when you’re stoned. Y’know the ones where one guy will swear blind that Marilyn Manson was in ‘The Wonder Years’ or that Dogs can’t look up and another guy will strenuously disagree. Neither side has any means of proving their point but both believe themselves to be 100% right and a very boring discussion ensues.

This is the way a conversation about religion between a religious person and an atheist should go...

“I believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that God is looking out for us all”

“That’s nice, I don’t though”

“Fair enough, would you like some pie?”

Of course that almost never happens, (especially the bit about the pie) what usually happens is that the atheist starts talking loudly about fossils and evolution whilst everyone else edges away slowly.

Some atheists aren’t satisfied by simply having this argument and feel the need to actually dedicate their lives to it by writing books and appearing on TV. One such twat, sorry academic, is Richard Dawkins*, a scientist and author who has a chair** at Oxford University. He’s done other stuff in the past but at the moment his whole thing seems to be going round the world and explaining to religious people that they’ve wasted their lives.

That’s fine I guess, the question is why? He’s an atheist why does he care? It’s got nothing to do with him. It’s like straight men being interested in lesbian sex. Sorry bad example, er okay, lets say it’s like a man being interested in sanitary towels.

It certainly can’t be to help them – “Gee thanks Richard – I used to believe that there was a plan to the universe, I helped people less fortunate than myself and I had no fear of death. Good job you stopped all that.”

One reason he cites is that wars have been fought over religion, therefore it is bad. Yes Richard, wars have been fought over religion, millions of people have died in its name but do you really think that there would have been no war without it? I think we’d probably just have had wars for different reasons don’t you? Sadly people just fight with each other sometimes, people’s interests are at odds sometimes, sometimes people look across borders and think ‘Y’know what? I’d quite like all that land for myself.’ More often than not religion’s just an excuse.

‘Religion gets in the way of scientific progress!’ is another justification for this campaign of one-upmanship. Yeah you’re right it probably does, but actually scientists don’t get to determine the course of humanity on their own. I know you want to play with all the exciting new science right away but everyone’s got to live together on this planet and it’s quite reasonable that the ethics of, and popular support for things like human cloning are interrogated properly, by everyone. Me you and a billion other people may think that stem-cell research is brilliant but some people don’t and they get to be heard too before we go ahead and start messing around, so be patient***. Splitting the atom seemed like a great idea too remember? Because of that we almost blew the planet up in the 60’s. Let’s just behave like mature adults rather than kids the week before Christmas okay?

But what about intolerance? Religions promote intolerance right? Okay, a very small minority use religion as an excuse to be homophobic, racist etc. But again, there are just small minded people in the world who are going to see somebody doing something different and get all angry. People hear what they want to - if someone’s chosen to fixate on the obscure parts of the bible or the qur’an that deride homosexuality then, let’s be honest, they’re most probably quite the homophobe anyway. It’s not as if there aren’t racist/sexist/homophobic academics now is it?

What he of course downplays on his TV show and in his book is the positives that come from religion, the charitable giving and actions, the great works of art and architecture (not so much music). Michelangelo had such a hard-on for God that he created arguably the greatest work of art in history. I’m pretty sure people will still be going to see the Sistine Chapel when every copy of ‘The God Delusion’ has been rightly pulped - are we really more of an advanced society without God?

Even if we assume that what he says is all true (quite the assumption) he is still basically just being a mean spirited little gob-shite - like the guys who delight in ruining the twists in films by telling you right at the start: “By the way, there’s no heaven and Bruce Willis is a ghost.”

So, in conclusion; are those guys at the Christian rock concert waving their hands in the air a little weird? Yes. Deluded? Maybe, but you definitely can’t call them miserable. They’ve figured out a way to exist in this bizarre world that works for them and they’re not hurting anyone, so leave them alone you sanctimonious prick!

*If for nothing else he’s a cock for this tag-line on his website, ‘Richard Dawkins.Net: A Clear Thinking Oasis.’ What-a-bell-end!

**Most people send their children but whatever works mate

***I have become my Mother

Local Elections Live: Part 2/2

2008-05-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

12.30 - 13.30

I'm making serious headway with the first bottle of wine so expect some splling mastikes soon....

12.30: For the first time ever Labour have lost control of Bedworth. It's gone blue! The BNP gained two seats as well... So obviously an educated ward!

Tessa Jowell is completely freaking out! By the end of the night I expect her to be cowering in the corner of the set, babbling incoherantly and wearing a tin-foil hat.

Seriously though, that's pretty bad. This is going to be a long night for Labour.

12.45: Jeremy Vine is dressed up as a cowboy and doing a southern accent while he talks about projected Lib Dem percentages. Am I awake?

12.45: Tories take control of Southampton according to Tony King it's "Sensational!"

12.50: Tories about to take Colchester after promising everyone a free convertible white Ford Escort (Probably).

Pretty much all anyone is saying tonight is Conservative gain, Conservative gain, Conservative gain! Tessa Jowell looks as if she's about to cry, every cloud eh?

13.05: Tories have more councils under their control now than Labour did at their peak in the 90s... Bottle of wine 2 now I think.

13.10: Boris Johnson's Dad is on TV now. He reminds me of uncle Monty from 'Withnail and I'. 'I mean to have you boy!'

13.25: Jeremy Vine is the King of the laboured analogy, this time something about Gordon Brown and Mr. Bean.

Right it's 1.30 and I'm tired and drunk. I'm going to knock this on the head and just declare the Labour Party totally fucked.

Boris Johnson is seeming a lot less humourous now...

Local Elections Live: Part 1/2

2008-05-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

11.30 – 12.30

Hello and welcome to the NORLJ coverage of the local elections. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t particularly up for this half an hour ago but I just heard Richard Littlejohn Refer to ‘So called climate change’ on Newsnight and it worked like Popeye with Spinach! I’m angry enough to write now.

I've got one bottle of alright wine and one bottle of awful wine and I'm powered by righteous indignation.

Suffice to say... It’s on!

11.45: Tessa Jowell (tonight looking like Skeletor's Mum) is trying not to sound worried and getting beaten up by David Dimbleby.

Charles Kennedy tonight is played tonight by Bert from Sesame street.

This is the segment of the evening where nobody knows anything and nothing's happened so everything anyone's saying is essentially meaningless. They might as well talk about The Apprentice.

11.50: Off to Bury to talk about Black Puddings and how nobody gives a shit about the war anymore. Which war? Then to Wales, where things are progressing slowly... Big fucking surprise!

Emily Maitliss in City Hall in London (where is that?) is talking to some bloggers in the same way you might talk to an eight year old before a nativity play. They've got a great big shiny set with a bar in it!

12.00: Lab -1 LD -3 Con +4 Oth 0

12.00 - 12.15: Massive technical failure with my fucking Dell! (always save, kids).

The Lib Dems have taken control of Hull City Council, Labour retain Knowlesley (wherever that is). Bunch of other results that I can't be arsed to type.

12.25: 52% of people think Gordon Brown is a liability.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION

2008-04-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Fuckhead Revisited:

The future Prime Minister, the future London Mayor and the rest of the Bullingdon Boys photographed shortly before going off to get smashed and destroy some poor sod's restaurant. Hoorah!

(Boris Johnson: bottom right, David Cameron: top row, second from left)

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION

Dear Electoral Commission,

How are you? I’m fine. My name is Matthew Thomas and I’d like to suggest some changes to the voting system ahead of the London mayoral elections tomorrow. I know it’s late notice but if you hear me out I think you’ll see the logic.

They say your politics become more moderate as you get older. It’s true, when I was 16 I believed socialism was the only ethical way to run a society and that everybody on the right of the political spectrum was a selfish, myopic twat. Now that I have had time to mature and learn about the world, I believe socialism is the only ethical way to run a society and that everybody on the right of the political spectrum is a selfish, myopic twat, with excellent taste in wine, some interesting things to say about cricket and the ability to get Wimbledon tickets without queuing.

You could say that maturity has given me a more rounded opinion of conservatives as people and softened my, admittedly extreme, views about what to do with them in the event of a revolution*. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I like many of them – and not just because they’re my bosses. Whilst I still find them cold-hearted and illogical, I’ve even come to understand their views a little better, particularly in the run-up to Thursday’s mayoral election.

Let me explain. It’s fair to assume that this is now a two horse race between Ken Livingstone and a real-life P.G Wodehouse character called Boris Johnson. They enjoy pretty much equal support with Boris ahead in the richer suburbs and Ken Livingstone ahead amongst the working classes in the inner-cities.

For a while I was completely baffled by how Boris, a man who has made a career out of being an incompetent boob; who edited a magazine that nobody reads and still managed to cause a national scandal; who once described black people as ‘flag-waving piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’; whose whole persona is based on being, y’know NOT VERY GOOD AT THINGS, could actually be in with a shout of running Europe’s biggest city. Then it hit me, I realised why. The wealthy people voting for Boris simply aren’t qualified to make a decision of this magnitude.

I know, I know, that’s pretty insulting but hear me out. The residents of Richmond, Belgravia, Putney are very confused. It’s our fault really, when you’re struggling to pay £500+ per week in rent on a pitifully low salary and spending half your life wedged against Perspex panel 100 metres below ground it’s easy to forget that when you mention job-seekers allowance to these people they think of gardening leave and a 6-figure golden handshake.

We really should have explained better, after all they have little or no experience of the NHS, state education, unemployment, council housing or benefits. They’re not in debt, they haven’t paid rent in a long time, the air quality where they live is fine, they won’t need a state pension, crime for them is someone taking their seat in All Bar One and if they use the tube it tends to be beautifully run lines like the jubilee and they certainly don’t take the bus.**

So you see, they’re not qualified to speak on pretty much all of the issues.

Oh, sorry I forgot there is tax and nonsense like the congestion and emissions charges. These they’re intimately acquainted with, seeing as they’re the ones with the money*** and the ones who can afford to drive in London. This obviously isn’t enough to chat about for an entire dinner party so new and exciting issues have to be invented also – cue immigration panic, family values panic, gay marriage panic etc****.

Conservatives rail against the notion that they’re self interested and out of touch, but when your entire rationale for making a decision is based what’s best financially for you and your already privileged family, your right to drive a ridiculous car + some invented fluff, I really don’t see what else to call it.

That’s why I’m proposing that we reclassify Chelsea, Richmond, Kingston, Wimbledon, Belgravia, Balham and Clapham as rotten boroughs. Maybe then we’ll get to have a proper debate.

Thoughts?

Your’s Faithfully,

Matt.

*Let’s just say it involved a game reserve on the Isle of Wight and genetically modified giant Foxes riding wolves – you can guess the rest.

**Admittedly not all of these issues fall within the remit of the London Mayor but national issues have always been factors in people’s choices in local elections. In other news, cats dislike dogs and there’s no such thing as the Loch Ness Monster.

***Which of course they hauled themselves up by their bootstraps to get with absolutely no help from their, upbringing, accidents of birth or the rest of society.

****Strangely global warming panic hasn’t quite taken hold yet.

Schadenfreude: German Word, British Institution

2008-04-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how when a couple starts having an argument in public everyone else gets much quieter? It’s as if there’s only so much noise in the world and these two are hogging it. What it really is of course is people keeping their own conversations to a minimal volume so that they can hear the particulars of the argument, without appearing overly interested. If society allowed us to get away with it we’d pull up a chair and gawp like our lives depended on it - unpalatable as it may be to admit, there’s nothing British people like more than someone else’s domestic.*

Most people generally try to keep public fallings out to a minimum, preferring to wait until they’re in the privacy of their own home where they know which doors make the most satisfying slam and they won’t be called upon to make the shrugged shoulders “I dunno mate” gesture to a complete stranger when their girl/boyfriend flounces off on some trumped up pretext. However, every now and then somebody looks at somebody they shouldn’t, or leaves somebody somewhere to go and talk bollocks with their idiot friends, or doesn’t take someone’s side even though their clearly wrong and it all kicks off. That’s the cue for the rest of us to subtly turn off our MP3 players and switch from reading magazines to pretending to read magazines.

If you can overhear the conversation but can’t be heard yourself that’s perfect – it gives you occasion to trot out all kinds of hackneyed bon mots. In fact, it’s actually the law in England that if a group of more than three people witness one of these arguments, at least one person has to say “trouble in paradise” whilst looking smug. If a woman’s present she - under penalty of prosecution - is required to say “He won’t be getting any tonight**,” whilst nodding suggestively.

It’s marginally less fun if you know the people - the argument’s still entertaining but you’re expected to participate in the clean-up operation. If you’re a woman this involves listening to your friend cry and blather on about how in love they are and how much of a ‘passionate relationship’ it is whilst you fight the urge to inform her that she’s dating a nutter and is behaving like one herself. If you’re a man it involves going for a beer and talking about sports to ‘cool off’ – being a man is so great!

Well that’s about all I have to say about the entertainment factor of other people’s emotional turmoil. If this has put you in the mood for witnessing a live barney then may I recommend the bus stops at Trafalgar square around 3 in the morning – there’s something about the thought of a 90 minute bus ride to Croydon or Kingston that just brings it out of people.

* Unless we’re asked to weigh in and give our opinion, then it’s all “I don’t want to get involved mate. None of my business.”

**Women as a gender have failed to realise that the average man spent the better part of his teens trying and failing to get women to have sex with him. Therefore many of them somehow think that withholding sex is a viable way to punish us. This is like giving an Abu Ghraib survivor a Chinese burn – ladies, unless you’re really willing to keep it up for 16 years, we can take it.

Return of the Time Thief

2008-04-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Fact of a Week: No matter how secure you feel in your relationship, buying an 18-pack of condoms is tempting fate. He/she will break up with you the next day and those things will stare at you from the sock drawer for the next six months.

Go See This: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXyK0ean-D4&NR=1 I love James Corden.

MAIN EVENT

When you die I reckon God/Allah/Buddha/L. Ron Hubbard takes you aside and presents you with a long list of stats about your life. These stats would include things like number of days bunked off work, number of miles cycled along the pavement and the all important wank/shag ratio. He/she/they will then analyse these stats, much like Alan Hansen on Match of the Day (hmm, maybe he’s God)*, and decide how worthwhile a life you’ve led. This will then translate into how nice a flat you get in heaven – whether you get to live in a cool converted factory or above a chicken take-away 2 miles from a tube.

If this is indeed how it works then my most shameful stat is most likely to be number of hours spent watching Channel 4’s ‘Shipwrecked’. I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. I have however still managed to spend an estimated three days of my life staring at the bloody thing like a confused marmot. There are two reasons for this: firstly, on Sunday mornings I tend to be in a vulnerable state where complex thought is impossible and an hour and a half of pretty people in a pretty environment seems appealing; Secondly, at least once an episode, Shipwrecked can be relied upon to make me so angry that I throw something at the TV – I find this perversely enjoyable.

For those unfamiliar with the format, Shipwrecked is a programme where two groups of people with ‘sexy-messy’ hair, from Godalming and the surrounding areas are marooned on two separate islands. They then proceed to wander around talking about how spiritual they feel and what a great experience they’re having, despite the fact that they’re doing literally nothing. There’s kind of a competition element tacked on but no one really pays attention.

The islanders are there for three months which, as the voice-over keeps telling you, places a huge emotional strain on them as they have only each other for company. Well actually, each other, a sound recordist, a producer, a production secretary, a couple of runners, a stylist and at least 3 cameramen all working in shifts with other production teams of equal size.

Despite this Satre’esque isolation the islands’ inhabitants rarely even argue and if they ever have sex with each other (which they surely must sometimes) the viewer never gets to hear about it. In fact, it’s bloody difficult to distinguish one episode, or even one series, from another. I’ve been watching the thing fairly regularly for its entire six series run and I can’t remember a single memorable moment or one cast member’s name - that is how unremarkable the show is. It’s basically exactly what you’d see if you put a camera in the common room of a posh sixth form college.

This year promises more of the same, though the producers have at least tried to keep a 50:50 toffs /proles split. All are ridiculously good looking except for one overweight girl. however, to her credit, after 2 days on the island she says ‘fuck this’ and speedboats out of there, pausing momentarily to pick a live fish from the water and swallow it whole**. There’s also a model who was tragically born with a speech impediment that forces him to shoehorn the words ‘sweet’ and ‘Yeah?’ into every sentence and a mouthy brunette who I’m hoping will get buried neck deep in sand with honey spread on her face (to attract ants) by episode three.

The first episode’s bile inducing money-shot comes courtesy of mouthy brunette who, upon learning that they have to nominate two people to leave the island, goes into a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ style fit of hysterics, successfully making the moment all about her – I think she’s a drama student. When they finally choose the smiley blonde from Cheshire as one of the ones who has to go, mouthy brunette goes into overdrive, hugging smiley blonde and screaming ‘I can’t do this without you’ through her sobs. Pretty impressive emotion for someone you’ve known for five days lady. She’s clearly one of those people who describe themselves as ‘big-hearted’ on application forms because they can’t spell clinically insane.

* Over the course of writing this I’ve decided that Alan Hanson is in fact God. Join me in worshipping him, the first sermon will be about the lack of clarity in the offside rule. Meet me in the car park of the Woking Morrison’s 10 am this Sunday.

** This last bit may have only happened in my mind.

Boris Johnson on the US Presidential Election

2008-04-08T09:43:00.001-07:00

-Bet she wasn't that luv-ver-ly you spade faced twat!

Now, I think there are many good things about the US: Hollywood, cheeseburgers, guns, executions of the mentally incompetent, this is all good stuff. However, there are some things they get badly wrong. There is, for example, no American born person capable of uttering the following sentence in conversation “I’m sorry I don’t know enough about that, I wouldn’t like to comment.” They also don’t understand irony, real ale or the proper way to pronounce the letter A.

I wasn’t aware of this until recently but another one of those areas of incompetence is apparently politics. That’s why I’m glad that London Mayoral candidate, editor of The Spectator (if you haven’t heard of it you’re probably poor!) and world class political mind, Boris Johnson has agreed to offer us a brief master-class on exactly why.

Take it away Boris....

Boris Johnson on the US Presidential Election

Hello all. Let me first say how honoured I am to be writing on ‘Everyone Likes Jazz.’ I wasn’t sure at first, but then Matthew told me that his father used to play rugby with me at Eton, so naturally I was onboard in a flash. He also told me that this is going to be broadcast over some fancy computer thingy, wasn’t really listening to be honest, can’t abide boffin-talk, but it all sounds jolly clever nonetheless.

Anyway, enough chat. To the point we must go.

When we colonised North America in 19-whatever we brought with us a fully functioning, hierarchical society based on the solid foundations of guilt, shame and resignation to your lot that had worked perfectly well for hundreds of years. This august way of doing things was of course known as the class system. However, regrettably over the years since we left, the Yanks have rather eroded these noble values until all that’s left is a hollow imitation.

As we all know the basic foundation of the class system is that you will die in the class that you’re born. Ergo, no matter how much wealth the working classes somehow acquire, they will never be afforded the status necessary to affect any real change in the status quo. Quite sensible, I think you’ll agree. Can you imagine the alternative – Alan Sugar, Jordan and Ray Winstone would probably have turned Westminster Abbey into a snooker hall by now.

No, it’s far better that the serious decisions, be it in business or politics, are made by the ruling classes. After all, how are you supposed to vote for a chap or invest in his company if you’ve never even heard of his school?

The Americans however, have seriously misunderstood. They seem to be determined to choose their leaders based on so called achievements! The upshot being that now any old Tom, Dick or Harry who’s led a life of public service and happens to have made enough sound investments to acquire a rather vulgar fortune of new money is capable of being elected bloody president!

This year the Republicans have actually nominated a man who not only didn’t go to an Ivy League university – that’s the equivalent of not going to Oxford! Or even Cambridge! – but was actually in the Navy! How uncouth!

Don’t even get me started on the pair of toerags the Democrats are thinking about nominating. Thank goodness the British are capable of seeing past the issues. They know an all round good egg when they see one don’t they.

Vote Boris for Mayor!

Unofficial Cross-Weight Boxing Match: NORLJ EXCLUSIVE!!

2008-04-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

As great as No One Really likes jazz is, the money it generates is not quite enough to maintain my playboy lifestyle and pay child-support for my army of illegitimate children. Therefore I have to supplement my income with actual writing work. The bulk of this ‘work’ is sports related. This is great because it gives me a cast-iron excuse to waste my life in front of, say Ipswich vs Wolves, and no one can say a thing because ‘I’m working actually!’

If I wrote sports content for a national newspaper I’d get millions of perks like match tickets and proper interviews however, because I write for websites and teeny-tiny magazines I do all my writing based on TV coverage and barely ever get to go to live sporting events. So imagine my delight when on my way home from the pub last Monday I was treated to a live boxing match between two amateur fighters.

I was so impressed by this impromptu sporting display that I’ve decided to write it up, just like I would for sport.co.uk or gambling.com.

Here goes...

Bouncer vs Skinny Hacket-Top Guy: Unofficial Cross-Weight Unification Match

Result: Bouncer by a (probable) knockout

History’s great fights: Foreman vs Ali, Eubank vs Ben, McGuigan vs Pedroza have all been battles between fighters of conflicting styles. This is what made the bout between Hacket-Top Guy: with the clear height and reach advantage and Bouncer: at least five weight classes above his opponent, such a mouth-watering prospect. The build up to this fight was brief, though there was clearly no love lost between the pair, especially after the bouncer hauled Hacket-Top’s trainer and promoter, Pinstriped Shirt Guy, out of a nightclub and onto the pavement moments before the fight commenced.

Round One: Hacket-Top’s unconventional style comes into play early on as he takes the unusual step of approaching the bouncer shouting obscenities with his arms outstretched. This cavalier rejection of standard form reminds you of the early days of Prince Naseem - perhaps that thought had occurred to the bouncer who cautiously didn’t take the bait, merely crossing his arms and nodding. He saw an opportunity towards the end of the round and got a shove in but other than that, nothing. A tactical chess-match of a bout appeared to be shaping up.

Round Two: During Hacket-Top’s stern pre-round talking to from Pinstriped Shirt Guy I was close enough to hear the training code ‘leave it’. Of course only they know what that phrase means exactly but it must have had something to do with insulting the bouncer because Hacket-Top launched into the second round with a Mohammed Ali style tirade, though rather than ‘You Ugly, Foreman!’ it was more ‘Come on then, you fat c**t!’ The tactic really worked, the bouncer got so worked up that he grabbed Hacket-Top by the neck prompting the round to be abandoned as support staff and trainers poured in to separate the pair. As he was being dragged away Hacket-Top shouted ‘You’re lucky!’ sense of humour being another similarity with Ali.

Round Three: Hacket-Top senses blood in the water. As the other bouncers crowd around their guy Hacket-Top stalks his corner like a caged tiger. Pinstriped Shirt Guy is clearly confident too, so much so that he’s fucked off home. With a final yell Hacket Top swings wildly at the doorman, missing completely. In the next instant he’s buried by about 60 stone of door staff. Fight over I think.

The Credit Crunch Explained

2008-03-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

MAGAZINE OF THE WEEK: Just different enough to FHM for me not to get sued... Oh, bugger!

MAIN EVENT:

Remember all the smug tossers you went to school with? You know, the ones that make you drift off into your own mental world when you meet them at parties, the unfortunate souls born without personalities, who all went into phenomenally well paying jobs in the city. Well those guys have been a little worried recently. Yeah I know, I didn’t care either, until I found out that what’s worrying these guys is probably pretty bad for us as well.

It’s called the credit-crunch and it’s causing a global tidal-wave of recession that is apparently set to send us all back to a 1970s standard of living, if we’re lucky. Those of us in retail/media/arts and therefore without unions, will more than likely end up in Dickensian poorhouses, with wooden teeth, sending our girl/boyfriends out whoring and begging Mr Fenniwinkle for another week to pay the rent. I’ve already bought my stovepipe hat.

NB: If you were foolish enough to buy a house you’re especially fucked. Ha ha – Not so grown-up now are you?

The most annoying thing about an economic crisis is that despite the fact that everyone is totally fucked nobody has any idea why. It’s like sharing a studio apartment with a complicated robot that doesn’t have an off-switch, whose sole purpose in life is to poke you in the eye as soon as you fall asleep. However, as someone who once, for three whole weeks, worked in Canary Wharf – or ‘Satan’s Cathedral of Evil’ to give it its full title – I feel qualified to spare us all this indignity. So prey silence for...

The No One Really Likes Jazz Guide to our Impending Doom

Like all good international fuck-ups, it began in Washington. The hilarious Bush administration, during one of their seltzer-bottle and custard-pie meetings, decided to give every Yahoo and Yokel in the country their very own mortgage. Unfortunately, they’d forgotten that thanks to the free-market economy, the peasants were employed in low paying and precarious jobs, and that due to the school system that they’d forgotten to fund for eight years, they were too stupid to look after their own teeth, let alone their own home.

So the Federal Reserve gleefully handed out credit to every slack-jawed commoner that wanted it assuming that it had enough spare, unfortunately it had already given most of it to contractors in Iraq, who blew it up, and Saudis, who fired it into the air in celebration.

When the Fed realised this, they dispatched every employee to the corners of the country to look for more credit, unfortunately this included the bloke whose job it is to hold onto the guy-rope that keeps the dollar down. Due to inflation the dollar soon over-inflated and slipped its moorings, sailing off into the sky. The yuan, who copies everything the dollar does (it’s so cute), followed suit and soon the currencies of the world’s two superpowers were racing each other to the moon.

For a while the pound and the euro simply drank coffee and giggled, marvelling at their newfound buying power. However, they soon realised that the US could no longer afford to buy their stuff and began to cry, which sent their own economies into a downward spiral.

At lavishly catered board meetings across the continent, executives agreed that action must be taken. Strangely, nobody suggested that they take a temporary pay-cut and put funds into marketing and R&D to sure up their market share. Instead the decision was taken to drastically cut jobs in everything but core departments and adopt a zero risk, zero growth, siege mentality – the corporate equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la la la until everything’s alright.

The upshot is the sorry situation we’re in now. So basically, you should switch down a supermarket class - Waitrose to Sainsburys, Morrisons to Lidl etc –, forget about that holiday and not expect many scientific advances in the next decade. Sounds fun huh?

Now get back to work before they sack you.

BEGINNERS GUIDE TO (GOOD) US TV

2008-03-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Dammit! I was so onboard with the whole Obama thing until I saw this. Now I’m seriously going to miss George.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghSJsEVf0pU

Oh, and do you remember the ‘I’m fucking Matt Damon’ song? Well this follow up was probably inevitable – very good though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIQrBouWRiE&NR=1

Beginners Guide to (Good) American Telly.

Part 1: The West Wing and 24.

A couple of weeks ago I used this blog to vent my spleen on exactly why US television is so much better than ours. You’d have thought I’d have it out of my system by now. Apparently not, this is the rant that keeps on ranting so prey silence for my beginners guide to good US TV via the medium of talking about its 6 best shows of recent years in no particular order....

1. The West Wing.

Some people think that this programme is merely an exercise in self congratulation by left-leaning media types. However, considerably more people, with more teeth and less ‘complex’ family trees, think it’s one of the best things ever to be shown on telly.

It centres on the challenges facing president Jed Bartlett and the group of ‘Harvard types’ that make up his staff. The first two seasons are produced and largely written by Aaron ‘A Few Good Men’ Sorkin, who is to pithy dialogue what Jimmy Hendrix was to the electric guitar. The back and forth is quick-fire, witty and generally of a quality that makes a viewer suicidally ashamed to have ever laughed at a joke on ‘The OC’.

It’s also educational without being (very) preachy; I’m not ashamed to say that about half of everything I know about world politics comes directly from the show. The amount of politicos, presidents and journalists that list it as their favourite show should tell you a little bit about its realism too.

When Mr Sorkin left the show, as a result of being arrested with enough cocaine to frost the Leicester Square Christmas tree in his carry-on luggage (officially exhaustion), the show became soapier and lost some of its spark though remained better than 99.896% of the worlds TV.

Down-points. It’s a little too impressed with itself sometimes: there’s only so many ‘God Bless Americas’ a European can take. The soundtrack is also FUCKING ANNOYING! On a technical note, they spend a lot of screen time introducing people and storylines only to drop them a couple of episodes later - in one case a member of the core cast, Mandy simply disappears, though she was a right pain in the arse so I forgive them. Also there’s a very daft character called Donna who exists solely to explain semi-complicated plot points by endlessly popping up out of the blue asking questions like ‘so what’s all this about?’ I don’t care how complicated your story is. That’s just sloppy writing.

These are just niggles however. It’s still one of the best things ever to grace our screens.

Quote:

Josh: I really don’t anticipate the Capitol Building exploding.
Donna: What percentage of things exploding have been anticpated?

See For Yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaVUjjH3EI

2. 24.

Each series of 24 centres around a particularly hectic day for CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agent, Jack Bauer, as he tries to thwart some terrorists who have a bomb/virus/state secret/thingy that can make nuclear plants go wrong - delete as appropriate. With the obvious exception of Warren from Hollyoaks, Jack Bauer is the hardest man in television. Over the six series of 24 Jack has been shot, stabbed, blown up, addicted to heroin, tortured by the Chinese for 2 years, seen his wife murdered in front of him and been forced to kill his father and brother. Throughout all this he has never just said ‘oh for fucks sake’ and gone down the pub. Speaking as someone who once left his place of work in a huff because a colleague deleted a semi-important excel spreadsheet, I find this trait particularly admirable.

In later series Jack is given a sidekick called Chloe who has a really weird looking face and sits somewhere on the autistic spectrum. I can’t put my finger on it, but some reason she’s my favourite character in any TV show ever.

The show isn’t perfect. In fact there’s a lot wrong with it, for instance it’s more in need of a sense of humour than any programme I’ve ever seen. It would also be nice to have just one episode where Jack doesn’t have to brutally torture someone for the good of national security – Amnesty International are very much not fans (Fucking hippies!). Also, the acting is highly suspect and there’s several niggling questions that don’t seem to leave your head when you watch it: Why do the terrorists only ever attack LA? Shouldn’t there be someone over 35 working at CTU? Why does no one ever eat?

None of this is really that important though. The real appeal of the show is that almost without fail the producers manage to create consistent tension with credible cliff-hangers every 15 minutes – a difficult thing to do. Often you literally can’t look away as Jack drives around at speed chopping people’s fingers off, having personal Crises and saying ‘Dammit!’

So much so that this programme should really come with a health warning. Seriously, it’s the crack cocaine of TV Drama. Sit down with a box set and watch an episode - I defy you not to watch another straight after. Before you know it you’re strung out on explosions and melodramatic dialogue and your attention span has shrunk to that of a Meer Cat on ProPlus. Smokers whinge about Nicotine. Pussies! Where’s my Bauer patch!

You realise things have gotten really bad when you start doing things like ringing the switchboard at work and asking to be ‘patched through’ to people. At that point it’s time to read a book.

Quote: ‘Chloe. We don’t have time for your personality disorder today!’
(Bill Buchanan. Director, CTU)

EVER WISH THAT LIFE WAS LIKE A FILM?

2008-02-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: The popular phrases “It’s just like anything else” and “Its all relative” are really codewords for ‘I have no idea what I’m talking about and would love to bail out of this conversation but I feel I’m committed now’

HAIKU REVIEW: This week, ‘Be Kind Rewind’

Jack Black wipes tapes

Mos Def? Too few syllables

Very, very good

MAIN EVENT:

About a year ago in yet another example of me ‘living the dream’ in London I was working as a barman in a semi-fancy Balham bar. One night an ex-girlfriend who I, to say the least, had not left things well with walked in with her new boyfriend. Suffice to say the experience was awkward for all concerned.

Don’t worry I haven’t turned into Lucy Mangan you can keep reading. I’m telling you about this simply to illustrate a point. Okay here comes the point then, are you ready? When the young lady walked in the door the mortifying experience was made eminently more bearable by the fact that it gave me an excuse to use the quote “Of all the gin joints in all the world…” from Casablanca, in a real life situation!

Using film quotes in everyday contexts is a lifelong hobby of mine, one that I seriously suggest you all try. It’s ridiculously fun, much more fun than it should be, the other day I was in Soho and my friend wanted to try to find a fish and chip shop, which finally gave me an excuse to use the line “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” I was so excited, I felt like jumping up and down and guffawing like a toddler at a magic show. When you finally pull one off you’ve been waiting for forever it’s great feeling.

So now you get the idea. However, before you go out into the wide world of real life film quoting let me be clear, there are some ground rules. Well only one actually, but it’s a biggy. The quote has to be in context. Any old twat-bag can shoehorn in a quote where it doesn’t belong but this violates the spirit of the game and makes you look like a nob. Ones I hear all the time include “We can’t stop here, this is bat country” (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) when you’re in a slightly dodgy bit of town and “We’re not in Kansas any more Toto” (Wizard of Oz) when you’re lost. Just shut up! You’re not funny, you’re lazy charlatans who probably haven’t even seen the films you’re quoting. I bet you’ve just seen David Walliams talk about them on some hundred greatest bollocks and think you’ll look like some kind of cool postmodern cultural commentator if you shoot your mouth of about them in public. You won’t, you’ll look like a dick… And take off those big red charity shop sunglasses you’re nearly thirty.

You see the experience is so much more fun if you wait until for instance you’re actually travelling out of Kansas with a guy named Toto. Admittedly it probably will never happen, but that just it makes it so much better if it somehow does. Can you imagine how cool it would be to get to actually have to say “I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle” (Terminator) to someone.

Quotes obviously vary in difficulty ranging from easy one’s like “Show me the money” (Jerry Maguire) which I actually used this morning when invoicing someone; to difficult (but achievable) ones like “I love the smell of Napalm in the Morning” (Apocalypse Now); to the absolutely bloody impossible ones like “These are not the droids you’re looking for” or actually anything from Star Wars.

By this point in the proceedings you’re probably thinking I’m a massive nerd who as finally toppled off the edge of reality and you’d probably be right though I know that quite a few of you are simultaneously trying to think up quotes you could use yourself. If you are, then let me help you out. Consider the below a starter pack.

“Show me the money.” (Jerry Maguire) Easiest one in the world, use it at work today.

“You shall not pass!” (The Fellowship of the Ring) Good one for teachers in inner-city schools.

“It’s okay, we can walk to the curb from here.” (Annie Hall) Excellent quip when dealing with a bad parker.

“I see dead people.” (The Sixth Sense) One for your next open coffin funeral.

“Get away from her you bitch” (One of the Alien films) For when you accidentally take your girlfriend to a lesbian bar.

“How do you like them apples?” (Good Will Hunting) Worth a trip to Sainsburys on its own.

“I wish I knew how to quit you.” (Broke Back Mountain) For when you’re not used to using a Mac and you get stuck in Photoshop.

GOD BLESS AMERICA…. SERIOUSLY!!!

2008-02-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

HAIKU REVIEW: This week, a brief ceremonial Japanese review of by far the best movie of the year so far. Juno.

Young Girl Gets Pregnant

Hilarity Then Ensues

Killer Soundtrack Man

MAIN EVENT

There are a number of things that Americans don’t understand, Irony, tact, sports they didn’t invent, the difference between Scottish and Irish accents to name but a few. However, one thing they certainly do understand is how to write and film stuff so that it becomes awesome then put it on the telly. Yes that’s right, American TV is better than any other TV anywhere else in the world. Especially Italian TV, their shows are surreal and a little sinister.

Yankee telly is absolutely better than ours. Don’t even try to deny it. British TV is only good at creating groundbreaking nature docs which everyone intends to watch but never manages to and achingly self-important costume dramas like Bleak House (yes, well done BBC, with one of the greatest books the world has ever seen as your source material you produced four hours of semi-engaging TV, have a big shiny Bafta).

American telly isn’t all gold. The reality TV is pretty shoddy - though certainly no worse than ours - and the news is highly suspect: ‘Killer bees on the rampage in Iowa; what that means for your weekend after the break.’ However, Where the Americans really excel is the drama they produce. It’s not exactly a fair fight to be honest, ‘The Sopranos’ probably spent ‘Life on Mars’s’ entire operating budget just feeding James Gandolfini, likewise, the special effects department on ‘Battlestar Galactica’ wouldn’t deem ‘Doctor Who’s’ CGI as fit even for the screensaver on their office computers. Also, when the Americans decide to make a series, they make-a-fucking-series (unless they cancel it mid run), they go for at least 18 hour long episodes, none of this two feature length specials crap.

We simply don’t take the whole thing as seriously as they do. For example, I have probably as good a Film and TV writing degree as it’s possible to get in Europe. A fact I felt pretty good about until I met someone who went to UCLA film school, I left that conversation firmly put in my place, it was like we were talking about different things. The best thing to do is just accept that ‘The Bill’ is never going to compete with ‘NYPD Blue,’ ‘Spooks’ is never going to outgun ‘24’ and, in general, aside from the odd exception like ‘Prime Suspect’, ‘Cracker’ or ‘The Lakes’ British Drama is never going to measure up. Just sit back and enjoy.

To be continued…

WANT TO GET AHEAD IN BUSINESS? THEN GET YOURSELF SOME SURREAL METAPHORS!!

2008-02-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

WATCH THIS: If a girl broke up with you like this you’d probably just have to say fair enough and shake her hand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUowJzpgxs&feature=related

HAIKU REVIEW

This week, African circus show ‘Africa Africa.’

Death defying stunts,

White people pay, black people dance,

It’s not racist though

MAIN EVENT

“Brian. It’s mission critical that you scan the Ts and Cs ASAP and put the FD in the ball-park visa-vis the deliverables so we can manage expectations going forward.”

If you understood anything beyond Brian in the above sentence then the chances are that you are a fantastically important person who is totally au-fait with the timesaving executive language known as management speak. If not you are a failure and will never amount to anything.

Roughly translated the sentence means “Brian, read the contract quickly and explain it to John so that we don’t promise something we can’t deliver.” A lot simpler I hear you cry. Well you would think that, because you’re only a lowly desk jockey and don’t understand the executive mindset… You twat!

You see, a funny thing happens to the human brain once a person is promoted past team-leader rank. That person begins to view their job as only slightly less important than God’s and therefore develops a complex speech-system of metaphors and acronyms that makes every task the company performs seem more complicated than the building of the Sphinx. The person becomes obsessed with getting ducks in rows and looking at things from 1000 feet and curiously always wants to be placed in a baseball stadium.

The plus side of all of this is that it makes everything, even actually important matters on which thousands of jobs hang, sound really cool. If you close your eyes you can imagine that your four hour crisis meeting is actually a very long epic poem.

There is literally no sentence that doesn’t sound much better in management speak. Here are some supposedly ‘good’ bits of prose for examples.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr – ‘I Have a Dream.’

Colleagues and clients. I have an action plan. That my four children will one day enjoy a scenario where they will not be assessed on their offline characteristics, but on their skillsets and key competencies.

Much better than this shit…

Ladies and gentlemen I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Dylan Thomas – Do Not go Gentle into hat Good Night

Bottom line thinkers at their maximum project bandwidth know strategic R&R is win-win idea though a lack of mission-critical best-practice means they are typically resistant to outside the box methodologies.

Much more straight forward than this rubbish…

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

John Lennon – Imagine

Colleagues may interface visa-vis my blue sky thinking mindset though I am part of a strategic alliance. I hope you’ll come on board going forward and we can sing from the same hymn sheet.

Is far better than this load of cockwash…

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

COMMENT IS FREE… THERE’S A REASON FOR THAT.

2008-01-31T09:14:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: You secretly fancy Kate McCann

HAIKU REVIEW

This week, Charlie Wilson’s War…

Tom Hanks drinks whiskey,

Seymore Hoffman hates Russians,

Some woman’s there too

MAIN EVENT:

The internet is cool. We know this because the media tells us so every day. Those guys love the internet. If the internet were a rock star, the media would be a queue of groupies jostling to give it a long lingering blow job while it talks to its tour manager about t-shirt sales. Get more than one media type together and the conversation - after the customary discussion of where they can get some cocaine - will turn to the wonders of the internet and how it’s going to change everything, literally everything, every-fucking-thing!

In any such discussion one buzzword that’s sure to be bandied about is ‘Web 2.0’. Good rule of thumb: the first person to use the phrase is generally the biggest nob-head in the room. It refers largely to the explosion of user participation sites like YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia which wouldn’t exist without people writing or uploading ‘content’ to them.

The media, like a child who’s just learnt their first joke and expects it to be as funny every time they tell it, has decided to tack on a user generated content element to half its output. UGC ‘innovations’ include things like ‘BBC Writer’s Room’, ‘Comedy Lab’ and Guardian Unlimited’s ‘Comment is Free’ section – by far the internet’s biggest nutter magnet. For all its lofty aspirations it’s basically just a way of getting keyword searchable text, videos and sometimes entire programmes without spending any money! Saying that comment is free is basically the same as saying that coming over to the Guardian offices and making us all a cup of tea is free. Of course it’s free I’m driving traffic to your site!!!

By far the worst offenders in this respect are the news media. Local news in particular, you’ve all heard the appeals, ‘Filmed anything on a grainy camera phone today? Got any nice pictures of snow? well send them in and we’ll put them on telly.’ No! Find your own news, you’re the journalist, you’ve got pens and pads and cars go drive to the news you lazy local bastards!

National news is just as bad though. There’s currently a troubling obsession with reading out the demented texts of viewers. This strikes me as a bit odd. When you’ve carefully prepared and meticulously researched a report and then illustrated that report by discussing it with experts live on TV, is it really necessary to get John from Hemmel-Hempstead to weigh in?

Ironically ‘News Round’ was doing this ten years ago, way before it was cool. I remember the comments from children scrolling across the screen. They were always weirdly right wing and reactionary and always ended with the phrase, ‘It should be banned!’ For example ‘kissing in public is disgusting! It should be banned!’ – Kelly, aged 8, Durham. This isn’t the first time Newsround has predicted the zeitgeist either, think of the changes in TV news over the last few years, presenters without ties, standing up whilst reading the news, Krishnan - all News Round innovations.

But that’s off the point. What was the point? Oh yeah, Web 2.0. Another feature of Web 2.0 is synchronised media pant wetting over new online features like Internet TV. Internet TV is admittedly quite a cool idea in theory, though almost invariably shit in practice. The reason is that whilst you can get a guy to build you a channel for about 80k, TV programs are y’know actually quite expensive and hard to make.

So the channel controllers think, right I’ll get a load of UGC from the public, we’ll call it ‘Guerilla Telly’ or some shit, they’ll love it. Instantly 5 million students say ‘brilliant we’ll do it.’ However, anyone with the wherewithal to actually have a good idea realises that giving up their intellectual property for absolutely no reward is a stupid thing to do and puts their show on YouTube instead, where it stands a fighting chance of generating some buzz because thousands of people are actually watching it. Meanwhile, the channel controllers are counting the cost of the Guerilla TV publicity campaign and hiring two researchers to sift through the videos the students have sent in, all of which involve at least 12 breaches of copyright and are therefore useless.

With their entire operating budget wasted on absolutely nothing, they are forced to go cap in hand to big name brands and ask for their ‘branded content’ or in English, the adverts they have vaguely disguised as programmes. Half the time they won’t even give these up because by now the idea for what the channel was initially supposed to be has been changed, revamped and mangled so many times that it no longer makes even basic sense when they pitch it. The brands therefore think, fuck that we’ll be tainted by association.

The end result looks something like this… www.canned.tv

Hooray for the internet!

It’s not all bad though some channels have actually managed to make a go of it…

VBS.TV – Like MTV in the early nineties only a bit better.

MANIATV.COM – Decent American indie station. Has ridiculously good guests.

There are others that are worth checking out too, if you really want to know email me or something.

THE US ELECTION. BETTER THAN X-FACTOR?

2008-01-25T03:40:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: In private God refers to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby as ‘My Sistine Chapel’.

SEE THIS: I bet this video bought her an FBI file. For her sake I hope it’s ironic. “Universal healthcare reform, it makes me warm.” WHAT!?!?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU&NR=1

MAIN EVENT

In Medieval times Kings and wealthy landowners would often employ a Court Jester to entertain them. These individuals were not comedians per se, usually just mentally ill people that the courtiers would taunt until they cried for the amusement of the king. This form of entertainment still exists, in fact it has proliferated over time though it is now known as reality television.

I’m a huge fan of these kinds of TV programs. They combine the homely charm of a game show with the visceral thrill of driving past a car crash. Like literally everything else, the best reality TV comes from the good old USA. Their programmes, or shows feature better looking people than ours as well as music so dramatic that it basically implies that the couple eliminated in ‘Beauty and the Geek’ is going to be made to play Russian Roulette with each other for the chance to live (I’d watch it).

I think the Americans may have surpassed themselves with their new show though. It’s called ‘The Election’. The format borrows heavily from Survivor: contestants are divided into two tribes - though in ‘The Election’ they’re called parties - and forced to do battle with each other and every now and then – there doesn’t seem to be a logical timetable – the public votes on who they most like. Eventually the winners from both tribes will go head to head and, get this, the winner gets to run the whole of the USA for four years!!

That’s a pretty good prize. God knows how they managed to swing it with the government.

The tribes in ‘The Election’ are called Republican and Democrat - the names aren’t as good as in Survivor I know.

The Democrats have done a pretty good job of eliminating each other and now there’s only two left, bubbly blonde Hilary and token black guy Barak. Hilary wasn’t doing too well for a while but then she won the public over by accidentally crying on TV. Barak likes to talk about change, he’s a big fan of change; ‘America needs change’ etc. I agree totally. Without change all prices would have to be in multiples of five or ten, buying chewing gum would be brutal. I’m going for Obama.

The Republican tribe is more competitive. It’s basically a race between four white men, the most interesting being Rudy and Mike. Mike is overweight and balding and seems to think that standing next to a lean martial-arts star will make him look better. His policies include Chuck Norris and playing the electric guitar. Rudy is the ex major of New York. According to my blogging friend Billy-Joe from Iowa his hobbies include abortion and gay marriage. He also single-handedly gave New Yorkers hope after 9/11 by wearing baseball caps and hugging firemen. He’s modest too, he won’t talk about it. The only people who ever mention it are his campaign team and press briefers.

I’ve got no idea how it’ll all turn out. Can’t wait to find out though.

THINGS I WOULD TELL MYSELF AGED 14

2008-01-18T03:24:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: Everybody in the world has at some point claimed to love a film/book/band they have never heard of in order to prop up a flagging conversation they don’t want to have with a stranger they know they will never see again.

SEE THIS: People occasionally ask me why I don’t want to work in production any more. I normally tell them to mind their own fucking business and poke them in the eye, but from now on I’ll refer them to this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4

Haiku Review

This Week, a critique of the Stacey/Bradley/Max/Tanya love-parallelogram that’s been the only thing happening in Eastenders since the late nineties.

Buxom blonde Sexpot

Borderline Downs Syndrome case

Not a tough call mate

MAIN EVENT

In ten days I will be 24. Amongst all the usual soul searching and void staring I’ve been thinking about myself a decade ago when I sported a floppy hair glasses and a stone too much weight (How far I’ve come). Young Matt - or as I like to call him, the moody little bastard who I no longer share any bodily cells with and could easily deck - like every teenager knew fuck all about fuck all and could have saved himself a lot of bother with a few simple bits of knowledge.

Here are some of the things I would tell the little Pissant if i had a time machine.

MUSIC

The following albums, whilst kind of fun at the time of purchase, will have you asking ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’ mere days afterwards…

The Darkness ‘Permission to Land’

Dodgy ‘The Dodgy Album’

Blur ‘The Great Escape’

Razorlight ‘Up All Night’

In fact, don’t buy any new music at all after 2001 – trust me it’ll be easier on you.

Oh, and there are four ten year olds in Manchester who are going to outsell the Beatles in a few years. Deal with the anger now, that way you can just enjoy the album when it comes out.

GIRLS

Girls are no more impressed by good guitar playing than they are by average guitar playing so don’t waste too much time learning to finger tap.

Quoting poetry to a young lady loses some of its impact if you pick one of the GCSE set texts that she is also studying.

Casual sex is a spiritually hollow meaningless pass-time, but then again so are most of the things you’ll do in the next ten years so go for it.

Anyone who listens to Sum 41 is a virgin and will be for a while.

SCHOOL

Geography/RS/Latin/Business Studies/Chemistry is a waste of everyone’s time.

In fact, the only piece of information your brain will actually retain from school is how an Oxbow lake forms, so keep it all in perspective.

CAREER

Sit down because this is a big one. The A-levels and GCSEs you’re shitting your pants over completely meaningless AND unless you want to be a doctor, solicitor or something like that (you don’t, many people would die and go to prison) it actually doesn’t matter where you go to university, or how you do.

In fact, seriously consider fucking uni off entirely when you’re 18. In three years you’ll have your own flat, a car and three years of experience and skills that will look a lot tastier to employers than a dissertation on the post-modern semiotics of Battlestar Galactica. You could probably even hire one of your mates who went to uni as a runner/PA.

Knowing me, by this point I’d have told myself to fuck off so that’s it.

With apologies to Woody Allen for accidentally nicking one of his jokes. Try to guess which one… It’s the funny one.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PEACE OUT PLAYAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUICIDE BOMBING… I THINK I SPOT A FLAW IN THE LOGIC.

2008-01-10T03:55:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: The real reason that actors are boycotting the Golden Globes is that they’re shit scared of having to write their own speeches.

WATCH THIS: A few of you will have seen this, but if you haven’t you’re in for a treat. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I_tDNKYOwSI

HAIKU REVIEW: New feature in which I abuse the ancient Japanese art of Haiku by using it as a vehicle to review a film or song etc. This week, the new Will Smith film ‘I Am Legend.’

Fresh Prince All Alone

Zombies About, Careful Mate

Well Pointless Excursion!

I think that tells you all you need to know.

MAIN EVENT

Am I talking about the ideological contradiction of harming God’s own creations in his name or the fact that blowing yourself up erodes any sympathy others may have had for your cause? Not really. What puzzles me is the 72 virgins thing.

Theoretically speaking if I was to blow myself up in Lidl - something which from time to time I do consider - destroying several hundred pence worth of the great Satan’s frozen produce then, according to some interpretations of the Koran, I would be rewarded with 10.3 water-polo teams’ worth of inexperienced but nubile young ladies.

Sounds good. Or does it? To be honest, I don’t think these kids in training camps have properly thought it through.

Firstly. With the best will in the world, sex with virgins is unlikely to be that great at first. Particularly considering that a lot of bombers are impressionable teenagers, who won’t exactly be great lovers themselves, you’re probably in for at least a month of figuring it out. After that you’ve got to train all these women up, that could take anything up to five years as it would have to be one-on-one tuition - these girls are demure goddesses that would be far to embarrassed by any attempt at some kind of group seminar.

When you finally do have your 72 trained ladies, the question of what else is there to do rears its ugly head. You can’t shag all the time. What is there to do in heaven when not fornicating with your herd of women? Is there a bowling alley or something nearby? If so how will I get there? Do I have a bus? Come to think of it where do we live? Are we all in a big house like in ‘The Batchelor’ or in some kind of garden of Eden type scenario? Can I visit the other martyrs and their harems and finally have a barbeque party like the ones you see in hip-hop videos? These are the kind of logistical questions that would worry me and probably result in me getting kicked out of my terrorist cell.

Also, isn’t this all a bit sexist? What about the female suicide bombers? Correct me if I’m wrong ladies, but 72 male virgins is probably an even less appealing prospect. Hanadi Jaradat, who bombed the maxim restaurant in Haifa three years ago is probably up there now with six dozen Games Workshop assistants. Doesn’t sound much fun to me, unless you can’t remember the exact phrasing of a Monty Python quote in which case they’d be really useful.

Well I’ve trivialised this issue enough. I’m off.

PS: Before any of you smart-arses point this out. I’m aware that the traditional Aramaic translation of the Koran actually promises martyrs 72 white grapes. But that’s not as funny.

Pretty Much Everyone who Works at Radio 1 is a Twat… Except for Colin Murray

2008-01-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: To get a job at B&Q you have to be either under 20 or over 60 years old. Borderline autistic social skills are preferred.

GO SEE THIS: I laughed so much when I saw this that the friend who showed it to me considered calling a priest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT2wbnOfoEE

MAIN EVENT:

For anyone who may be thinking along the lines of the traditional ‘just don’t listen then’ retort I say only this: It is an unavoidable fact of life that everyone has at some point listened to Radio One for an extended period of time. This is largely due to a law passed in 1995 stipulating that the station should be played constantly at every minimum wage workplace and every office staff room in the country. This means that everyone who has ever worked in a kitchen, factory, warehouse, shop, building site or any shit job for that matter will have been subjected to the anodyne station and its 12 song loop.

The music, though invariably average, actually serves as a blessed relief compared to the dronings of the presenters. This cretinous collection of individuals appear to have forgotten that they are no more than skinbags employed to press a play button and thus spend huge amounts of airtime sharing their half baked musings with the public (starting your own blog and cajoling your friends into viewing it once a week is of course a different Kettle of fish entirely).

Here are some of the Worst offenders…

JABBA THE MOYLES: Bernard Manning for the Ipod generation. As he never tires of informing the country Mr. Moyles is most successful breakfast radio DJ ever, though he unfortunately fails to realise that this is mainly because he has the kind of grating, nasal voice that is completely impossible to ignore and fall back to sleep, forcing the country to get up, turn him off and go to work on time.

He is so self-absorbed that he once completely failed to see why a yelping impression of a stereotypical black sit-com character might be offensive to Halle Berry, who he was interviewing at the time.

JO WHY-OH-DEAR-GOD-WILEY: I know she seems nice, but consider the following.

Jo fronts a TV show that failed to find even an average band from all the unsigned acts in the country when half an hour on Myspace invariably yields four or five gems.

She has a section on her show called changing tracks that basically serves as an avenue for emo children to talk about how My Chemical Romance cured their eating disorder - nothing to do with doctors, psychologists or parental support then?

Despite being the very embodiment of the ‘cool-Christian’ that came to your school to tell you not to do drugs, she’s one of the most powerful people in UK music and therefore partly responsible for its current state. I think that’s reason enough to burn her at the stake.

SCOTT NO-THRILLS-MILLS

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Scott Mills got his job as a Radio 1 DJ through Adecco when his office administrator placement finished, such is the lack of enthusiasm for music he exhibits. Even in an age when every public patch of grass has at least three a year, Mills had never been to a music festival before a trip to Glastonbury a couple of years ago. I’m not saying that every DJ should be a bearded, record bag wielding, lentil smelling, skinny tied nerd but it would be nice to think they have some idea.

Another problem I have with Scotty boy is ‘Flirt Divert’. In this mean-spirited little segment, women are encouraged to give out a special number to would be suitors they deem unfit to bask in the glow of their beauty. When the poor bastards - whose only crime let’s remember is to attempt to start a conversation in a public place - call the number they get put through to Mills’ answer machine, he then plays the messages on his show and guffaws like toddler at a pantomime.

I guarantee you the girls giving out the Flirt Divert number are the same ones whining about how they never meet any good men. Could it be because if they put a foot wrong with their approach they risk humiliation on the national stage?

ZANE LOWEST-COMMON-DENOMINATOR: Stop shouting at me Zane! Just bloody stop it! I like Roots Manuva too but I don’t shout at you do I?

COLIN -ACTUALLY A NICE BLOKE- MURRAY: He’s the exception that proves the rule. I once met this guy after a DJ gig he played in Bournemouth, he was buzzing off his tits and challenged me and my friends to a game of beach football. We agreed. On the way to the beach he made his tour manager stop the car at a service station so he could buy porn and Dairy Lee Dunkers. Seriously!

What-A-Legend!

KIRSTY McCOLL CAN’T SAY FAGGOT ON THE RADIO… BUT EVERYONE ELSE CAN

2007-12-19T08:07:00.001-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: Nobody loves Raymond

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “You can’t go wrong if you smell like a celebrity.” – local waste of skin interviewed whilst actually buying Paris Hilton’s perfume

MAIN EVENT:

A Christmas tale from No One Really Likes Jazz….

Fairytale of New York is without question the best Christmas song ever recorded. Admittedly it’s not a field overly crowded with classics, but it’s still a good song purely for focussing on the true spirit of Christmas: Alcahol abuse, relationship break-ups, arrests and bells. It also features Kirsty McColl, who was - before she got run-over by a boat - the closest thing Britain’s ever had to a good country singer. Suffice to say, Choon!

Anyway, earlier this week Radio 1 decided that when playing Fairytale of New York and thereby slightly stemming the flow of Wizard induced Christmas suicides, they would beep out the word Faggot from the song’s second verse. Fair enough I suppose. I doubt Shane McGowan really meant any affront and it’s certainly no more offensive to gays than say The Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Angry Mob’ is to anyone who happens not to be middle-class, but it could feasibly offend a portion of Radio 1’s 18 billion or so listeners, so no problem.

Conversation over. Or so you’d think. In actual fact this vaguely understandable decision gave the ‘political correctness gone mad’ brigade - who of course can always be relied upon for a sensible, measured response - a reason to go crazy.

One enormous twat interviewed in a shopping centre stated, "The time will come when everything is banned and we'll have to watch whatever we say." Yes, very witty, if the microphone hadn’t been snatched away he’d probably have added something about a ‘nanny state’ to delight us further but alas, he wandered off to buy Jeremy Clarkson’s latest masterwork and stock up on opinions for the new-year. Mr Twat was not alone however and soon the message boards were crammed with demented listeners abusing their work internet connection to demand action.

Instead of issuing a statement simply reading 'Shh!', the BBC - who seem to continually forget that they are a uniquely powerful organisation, to all intents and purposes above conversing with the mortals that tune in - folded, completely reversing their decision. Not only that, they went on about the whole thing endlessly, ensuring the offending word was uttered by pretty much every employee with a microphone, spectacularly undermining their original point - the six o-clock news alone contained more faggot references than a kindling convention.

So the big bad company listened to the common man, all the Hobbits rejoiced and all was well in the Shire. The end.

Except that there are still two wars going on, you can buy a gun for 30 quid on any city street and David Cameron is going to be Prime Minister, but never mind all that.

Merry Christmas you cheap lousy Faggots!

THE NO ONE REALLY LIKES JAZZ TWAT AWARDS 2007

2007-12-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

GO SEE THIS: If David Cameron did this I’d vote conservative Till the cows come home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8

That’s right its time for the inaugural No One Really Likes Jazz, Twat Awards coming at you from my dining room and hosted by yours truly Matt Thomas – for red carpet enthusiasts I’m wearing a towel dressing gown with food-stain piping by Marks and Spencers.

It really has been a great year for twats. From Lohan to Cruise, from The Borrell’s to the Geldof’s our celebrity superiors have not disappointed, delighting us with their self righteous diatribes and cocksure paddies, the best of which are honoured below.

BEST NEWCOMER

The younger Geldofs are coming on nicely in Peaches’ wake and Lilly Allen’s brother, Alfie -an actor you know- is sure to be a solid performer in 2008 but this year it had to be Emily from Big Brother. She’d probably have made it for her “There’s this new music called indie” comment alone, but after failing to recognise that there’s literally no situation in which a skinny blonde from the home counties can say the immortal n-word (though if you’re a Jewish comedian it’s all good) she was a shoe-in. Mad props to Big Brother for kicking her out in he socks, though unfortunately she seems to have returned to her natural habitat – a Hertfordshire cafe most likely – instead of delighting us further. She’s a twat of the highest order, even though we all still would.

BIGGEST INTERNATIONAL (US) TWAT

I don’t really know where to start, there’s a case to be made for every single LA resident but I think I’m going to go with the first lady herself. That’s right, Paris -too fabulous for prison- Hilton. In a way you have to admire the gigantic balls of a woman who can get out of prison by pleading that she’s about to have a nervous breakdown and throw a garden party in the same day or attempt to appear in court via phone because she didn’t feel like driving across town. But in another way you really don’t. Apparently she bought the entire prison McDonalds to avoid becoming someone’s bitch, I wonder if it worked. If it didn’t there’s probably a tape knocking about somewhere.

BIGGEST POLITICAL TWAT

This one’s split between cuddly fascist Boris Johnson and the British public for buying his whole amiable fop shtick. The Brits have a longstanding thing for bumbling toffs and that’s all well and good when they’re in a hilarious wedding film, but should we really give them nuclear launch codes, or worse still control of the tube.

THE BORRELL AWARD FOR MUSICAL TWATTERY

He’s had it sewn up for a few years now and this year was no exception. Pete Docherty. For one count of releasing a terrible album, several counts of being allowed to sleep with Kate Moss but being too fucked to remember and most of all one count of releasing a coffee table book of your demented, miss-spelled, Adrian Mole on crack scribings and then going on the Jonathan Ross show talking about how sad he is that everyone knows his secrets.

THE FRANK LAMPARD CUP: FOR OUTSTANDING TWATTISHNESS IN SPORTS

The FA. Guys, he may be a brilliant manager but Fabio Capello speaks NO English at all. You’ve just employed a guy that wouldn’t be able to get a job in Starbucks.

Have I left someone out? Is one of these guys a misunderstood genius? Let me know and I’ll enter you into a prize draw to receive a poke in the eye.

Peace out Playas.

EROTICA 2007: SEX IS FINALLY SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE… AND THEREFORE RUINED.

2007-11-29T04:46:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK: There is no such place as Belgium.

GO SEE THIS: If you like being angry and you have a soul check out this link…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=afAnsXuy.zaE&refer=h

It’s an article by a guy called Michael Lewis who proves once and for all that you don’t have to be intelligent to work in finance, just a twat. It made me so angry I punched a hole in space and time. Enjoy.

EROTICA 2007: SEX IS FINALLY SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE… AND THEREFORE RUINED.

In Peter Shafer’s dark, bleak and therefore acclaimed play, Equus a deranged boy catches his father at a porno cinema. The shame of this occasion causes the young man - in a slight overreaction - to blind a stable full of horses with a hoof-pick. If he’d have bumped into his dad at Erotica 2007 they’d probably just have laughed at the coincidence and gone to the onsite café for coffee and a penis shaped biscuit. Shame.

For those unfamiliar with the trade show for the UK erotic industry, it’s a yearly event at Kensington Olympia that showcases the latest innovations in the art of tickling, rubbing, slapping and generally cajoling ourselves and others into a sweaty, satisfied mess. It works a lot like the usual Olympia trade shows except that, instead of boats or home-wares the auditorium is filled with vibrators, tassels, dick pumps, pussy pumps, body paint, lubricant, masturbation sleeves, dildos, feeldoes (you don’t want to know) and, or course more porn than you could shake a double-ended pink orgasmatron at.

I attended this cathedral of filth (the reasons why are unimportant) assuming that the hall would be filled with the weird old men, slavering Essex boys and creepy couples. Those groups were represented, though surprisingly they were squarely in the minority. Aside from the odd extrovert, or to use the correct term tit, walking around in a studded leather cod-piece or the like, the place could have been a Marks and Spencers, just with a less erotic food section.

After a couple of minutes in the place, you begin to see that even sex has now been successfully co-opted by the corporate hive-mind into a collection of brands, consumer categories and targeted campaigns - it’s not a dildo, it’s a vibrating lifestyle accessory. Before I go all Mark Thomas on you, let me just say that I am not against capitalism, money or even globalisation, except when it interferes with this particular aspect of life. The fact that sex is naughty, shameful and generally not polite dinner conversation is surely part of the fun. To equate it to just another part of our daily brand-synergised market experience, or life as it’s also known, would be to ruin it.

I wandered round for the rest of the afternoon like Mark from ‘Peep Show,’ watching accountants and quantity surveyors browsing for whips, corsets and cages to give their loved ones for Christmas, silently cursing trendy modernity and pining for more dignified days when you weren’t supposed to know what your penis even did till you were 24.
The ‘highlight’ of the afternoon was a lady called Dita Von-Tease who is, I am reliably informed, the most famous burlesque dancer in the world and absolutely not a stripper! - She’s apparently had Marilyn Manson, which must be a macabre experience to say the least. Whilst she is very attractive in an 1950’s East German Olympian sort of way, for all the hype surrounding her you’d have thought she had three boobs or something. She doesn’t. You heard it here first.

All in all, an underwhelming experience. Though on the plus side, the gimp suit I bought fits really well.

Peace Out Playas.

PS: Since this is the only sex article I ever intend to write I wanted to fit in a mewling Carrie Bradshawism but couldn’t find anywhere. So here goes… As I watched a middle-aged man being flogged by a teenage girl I though about modern life; are we really-

No, sorry can’t do it. Too naff. See you next time.

HEATHER MILLS IS AN INSPIRATION TO US ALL

2007-11-21T03:51:00.000-08:00

FACT OF THE WEEK

God doesn’t allow anyone who has ever described themselves as zainy, cooky or mad into heaven.

HINT OF THE WEEK

If you do go to heaven, and Jesus asks you to lend him a fiver don’t do it. It’s a trick, he hates that kind of thing.

MAIN EVENT

Ms Mills, the mono-legged plant botherer has been in for some stick recently from the evil press, BOO!! And the evil public, HISS!! Well I refuse to join the chorus of naysayers; I’ll hear no jokes about how she doesn’t have a leg to stand on in her divorce case or how she goes lopsided when it rains, and certainly no implications that her alleged claims to have “not heard of the Beatles” before she met Sir Paul were anything less than the whole truth.

Heather Mills is nothing short of a national treasure. She's a personal hero of mine and she should be one of yours. For the following reasons.

Ambition: Paul McCartney may well be the violent, abusive, drug addict she makes out - we obviously have no way of knowing for sure because of the skewed reporting that evil, evil press. Though the fact remains that everyone on the planet is required by law to own at least one Beatles album and the mythology of the band has seeped so far into the collective unconscious that now all newborn children instinctively know the words to Hey Jude. You’d think that’d put somebody off attacking a member of said band in the very, very evil press.

Not Heather. Despite the fact that as well as being a knight of the realm Sir Paul would only have to ask politely to be allowed to fondle the royal breasts, the former Mrs McCartney keeps plugging away in the hope that one day we’ll all decide we like her more than our national favourite Uncle. What a trooper.

Courage: Despite being hounded day and night by the wild eyed attack dogs of the nefarious, dastardly press Heather carries on regardless. She goes on talk show after talk show begging the monstrous, bastard press to leave her alone, but it only seems to make matters worse!

Ordinary people like you and me might make the point that she could simply keep quiet. But we can’t possibly understand what it’s like, we can leave our front door without swarms of crack addled, machete wielding photographers descending, we can have a discreet meal in a well known celebrity hang out without it making the papers. That simply isn’t an option for Heather, the dog strangling, kitten eviscerating press simply go mad for charity activists, they always have - if she only ever talked about landmines or vegetarianism it would be just as bad. All she can do is struggle on, and at least once a day, inform us all of exactly how much she is struggling on.

Sense of Humour: Am I the only one who fails to see the comedy genius of turning up to a photo shoot against global warming (which is caused by the press) in a 4x4. The woman is a modern day Andy Kaufman.

Peace Out.

WHY, NO MATTER WHAT PAPER YOU READ, YOU’RE STILL A TOTAL TIT!!

2007-11-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to No One Really Likes Jazz. So named because after the first five or so million things I wanted to call it weren’t available, I went a bit angry and decided to indulge my petty prejudices.

Anyway here’s the first instalment of what promises to be a bilious, gutter minded and profoundly pointless endeavour. I hope you enjoy it…

FACT OF THE WEEK:

Once you’ve realised that Sugar Puffs look exactly like tiny vaginas, they're ruined forever.

MAIN EVENT:

Gleaning your information about exactly why we’re all completely screwed from one news source as opposed to another doesn’t make you less of a cock than anyone else, it simply makes you a different kind of cock.

Before you switch back to Facebook in a huff, bear the following two provisos in mind. Firstly, I include myself in this. Secondly, shut up. Here’s why....

The Guardian: I could just about handle this one, if not for the fact that a paragraph into any article a powerful urge to go mneh, mneh, mneh at the by-line photograph takes hold of me, which tends to me get me thrown off the train.

The Sun: Sun readers, or Rupert Murdoch’s goblin army as they are also known, are simply put, morons. Not necessarily bad people, but morons nonetheless.

Is it actually true that Owen Hargreaves went from being the worst player ever to put on an England shirt to the best, in under a year? Or do these twats just not know that much about football? Someone should inform them that there are publications you can buy which have nothing but topless women in them.

The Times: In the grand scheme of things, newspapers don’t actually make that much money. The point of owning one is simply to push your personal politics on whichever unfortunate country it’s printed in. Rupert Murdoch owns the Times ergo; the Times is essentially the Sun with longer words.

Any Times reader who’s ever sneered at the tabloid press should burn their hand on their own Aga as penance.

The Independent: For semi-literate lefties who like instructions on what to think spelled out for them with bright colours and charts. This week its climate change, next week electoral reform, woo. I want to buy it everyday just so I can not recycle it on purpose.

Oh, and put that free language CD down, you’re never going to learn Japanese!

The Telegraph: Once the population understand three basic facts this paper should be obsolete. 1. There isn’t an empire anymore and it’s a good thing. 2. Cricket is rubbish. 3. Top hats will never, ever come back into fashion.

On Line: I actually heard one utter copper-bottomed tit say this the other week, ‘I only read the blogs these days, it’s the only way to get to the true story’ (Twat, 2007). Yes, because a lone weirdo (I’m aware of the irony) with a laptop probably is better informed than international news organisations with correspondents across the face of the globe. Twat.

The Big Issue: Did you really want to read that KD Lang interview?

The Daily Express: Guys, she's dead, and to be honest, she was a bit of a pain in the arse when she wasn't. The only thing there should be an inquest into is why you’re such tossers.

The Daily Mail: Jesus, I don’t know where to start. Even I don’t hate humanity this much...

Readers of this strange little publication seem to want to turn Britain into some kind of theme park called ‘Traditional Values World.’ Based presumably on how it was in the ‘old days’, when everything was measured in furlongs and guineas, littering was a hanging offence and one had even heard of Poland. Sounds brilliant, book your tickets now! Unless you’re of anything other than English extraction, live in a city or have ever enjoyed a TV programme made later than 1974.

For the record. During this golden age a thoroughly bad egg named Adolf was leading a certain far right party called the Nazis on a rather bloodthirsty European tour, which incidentally, the Daily Mail wholeheartedly supported. That’s nice isn’t it, how very English.

Suffice to say, these people are nob-ends of the absolute highest order who deserve to be pelted with Euros by a gang of paedophiles, whilst asylum seekers take bets on who’s going to get knocked unconscious first.