Shared Memories
July 31st, 2006 at 00:11

It’s the end of an era for British television- Top of the Pops, a programme which I have never made an appointment to view, nor have I ever watched for extended periods of a time, came to an end. Watching the last programme was like being at the funeral of someone you didn’t know, with Dave Lee Travis presenting embarassingly bad links between mourners.

One thing that I’ve noticed about the whole I remember TOTP and have various memories bandwagon that has been suffocating the media with its rose tinted polyfiller injection gun is the fact that everyone of a certain age seems to have the same memory- word for word the same.

I’m talking about middle aged men apparently all having fond memories of Pan’s People, whoever they were. Even the BBC Two continuity announcer said “make sure Dad’s watching”, before introducing a documentary on the aforementioned bizarre dance troop. I’ve seen the clip from Porridge of Ronnie Barker talking about them three times in three programmes this evening.

Surely everyone can’t have had the same thoughts in the sixties, and are merely retroactively applying someone else’s observations and thoughts to their own past? Paul Ross’s fond memories that he spoke about in I love 1973 might just have become everyone’s. The media are just repeating what the media is saying, perpetuating the belief of what never happend… DCB.
Another example of this might be that everyone of about 40 has a memory of, quote, “hiding behind the sofa” whilst watching Doctor Who. My mum even said this to the tour guide at the BBC a few years ago (pre-blog times, unfortunately), for some reason. If you’ll switch on to any news programme doing a lighter “…and finally” item about Who, or some sort of clip show, or indeed Doctor Who Confidential, I can guarentee you’ll get one of the stars saying “I used to watch Doctor Who when I was little… I used to hide behind the sofa when the Daleks were on the screen”.

I don’t know about you, but the sofa in my home is against the wall. In order to hide behind it, I’d have to wreck up the place a bit, and it’d take more effort than, say, changing channel or stabbing myself in both eyes to avoid the apparently terrifying sight.

The same goes for memories people have of how amazing Live Aid was.

This raises an obvious yet tedious question: What will be the common memory for my generation?

• “Thundercats, yeah, I loved that! I watched it every week whilst eating breakfast!”
• “Peter Andre being called a commercial bore on L&K Friday was hilarious!”
• “I remember seeing that episode of Rainbow where they talk about ‘twangers’, but I didn’t see the innuendo at the time!”*
• “9/11… yeah, great, wicked! I had to hind behind the sofa because I was so scared of the policy changes the Bush administration could push through with this as an excuse.”

Perhaps I just find this all odd because I live in a world of diversified media? At risk of sounding like an ITV executive explaining why their TV channel is fucked, rather than four/three/two channels to choose from, I have 400, as well as the entire internet. In a few years, the latest episode of 24 will be on an equal footing distribution-wise with yet another mobile phone video of a firework being attached to something.. with hilarious consequences. Are common memories even possible in this day and age?

“When the kids flew off of the roundabout that was being spun around by a moped, I hid behind the sofa!” doesn’t have quite the same universal quality about it.

* It wasn’t actually broadcast. It was created for a christmas tape, that the different ITV companies sent to each other each year featuring outtakes and parodies of their programming, sort of in competition with each other.

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Wrestling
July 29th, 2006 at 20:27

Surprise, surprise, I was in a pub last night, with Bouff. As regular readers might have guessed, it was a Scream studenty pub, because I’m feircely brand loyal- this meant that the TVs dotted around, rather than show football scores on teletext or Sky News, were tuned to kids channels or Wrestling. It reminded me of just how silly it all is.

Wrestling I mean, I’m not making some slightly pretentious statement about how silly life is, or anything.

I’ve never really understood wrestling- as far as I can see, its large sweaty men, in a state of undress, essentially dancing with each other in close proximity. Whilst being watched by thousands of rednecks.

I mean, if what the wrestlers were doing in the ring, was instead done in the privacy of their own homes, it’d look totally gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this of course- I just can’t see the appeal of watching people express their sexuality physically in a stadium. With two commentators going rather wild whilst watching it.

I tried to like wrestling once- back when my friends all liked it. I’d play the computer games at my friend (who’s now a coke-head!)’s house. They were like fighting games, only with sluggish controls and slower action than if an 80 year old Stan Lee had insisted on playing the part of Spiderman himself.

I think the main problem with wrestling is that its rubbish and repetitive.

“Yeah, look at that! Wow! Smash-slam! Ooh! That must really hurt! It isn’t atall fake!”

“He’s using a chair to hit the other guy with… I didn’t see that coming!”

“Bugger me! A third combatant has jumped into the ring, presumably breaking the rules!”

There never seems to be an overall winner declared either- the belt just perpetually moves from one human steroid cabinet to another, and as far as I can tell, there aren’t “seasons” like in football, so you can’t even say “Captain Stageviolence won the 2005/06 season!”.

Oh, and its all fake. The worst thing is that people seem to believe it, as I’ve various memories of my friends enthusing about how exciting it all was. Looking at Wikipedia pages about wrestling, its impossible to decipher how the business end of the WWF (ie: WWE) works, because the pages are littered with storyline things that have no bearing on reality.

I’d put money on the various wrestlers going backstage after a dance, and speaking in a Shakespearian accent, whilst slapping each others backs about what a good show it was.

I don’t like wrestling.

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Emergency Stop
July 26th, 2006 at 20:24

I was driving through town earlier on my way back home from the Co-Op. It was a lovely sunny day, so my windows were down, and I was in an excellent mood- so I thought I’d turn up the volume on the car stereo. Yeah, Rock for Sustainable Capitalism by punk/thrash trio Propagandhi is the perfect summer tune.

The secondary objective of this was too look damn cool by listening to rock music whilst driving a car. My mum’s Ford Ka, in fact. Cough.

I fully intended to stop at traffic lights, lean back in my seat, one arm on the wheel, the other perched out of the window. All I’d have needed were sunglasses and a left hand drive car, so I’d be next to the pavement and able to say things like “Yo!” and “Sup!” to pedestrians.

As I was turning up the volume on Propagandhi all the way to ‘13′, I looked up and saw a the rear end of a car hurtling towards me at some speed. Moments later I realised that I was the one doing the hurtling, and I was a collision course with the car in front.

I’d been training for this moment ever since my driving instructor first cried “Stop!”, and tapped their hand on the dashboard. I slammed my feet on to the break and clutch as fast I could, and with a mighty screech, the car began to slow down a bit. After I’d floored both of the pedals, for what felt like hours but was probably just a fraction of a second, the car continued rolling. I was powerless to do anything as I saw the car in front continue to approach me, albeit at a constantly decreasing rate.

At the last microsecond, just before I rolled into the back of the car in front, causing the world’s most gentle collision, my car came to a halt. After spending a few seconds worrying that I might have done something wrong (like nearly causing an accident), I looked out of my right hand window to see an old man. He was a very stereotypical old man- he had a walking stick, was wearing a shirt and you could only see his lips when he had his mouth open, as if old age had sucked his skin slightly more into his mouth.

I was mortified. Here I was, the youth of today, driving apparently wrecklessly, listening to loud popular music. I’d just reconfirmed what the Daily Express has been telling him about the state of Blair’s Britain, and I was no better than a kid with an ASBO, or a chav with a car modified to have (illegal) blue lights, 50 wheels and a batmobile fin. I consider old people to essentially be the zeitgueist when it comes to judging young people, and I didn’t want this guy to think that he’d died in some war to let me drive dangerously whilst listening into unpatriotic music.

In a bid to patch things up, I looked at him, and he looked at me- he understandably looked a little surprise having just witnessed quite an exciting people of motoring. I raised my arm in what would have been a wave if I’d rotated my hand a bit and shouted “Sorry!” in a half hearted way. The fact that I’d not nearly crashed into him seemed irrelevant.

Thankfully, he raised his hand and walking stick and did what could best be described as an “old people smile”.

“Phew!”, I thought, “The reputation of young motorists everywhere, saved“.

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Stained Glass Window Stolen
July 24th, 2006 at 00:45

I was reading my local paper the other day, and was shocked to discover that a stained glass window had been stolen from a local church.

Apparently the church are having a fund raising event to raise money to replace the stolen window- at least it makes a change from yet another new roof for a church.

I daresay it was quite an ill-conceived plan on the part of the thieves- it’s not like you can walk up to someone in a pub, wearing a long coat, and say “Psst… want to buy a stained glass window?”. Aside from weight issues, it’d probably be about ten feet tall anyway. Carrying it openly, claiming that the virgin Mary isn’t your bird might work - although she is two-dimensional, translucent and made from coloured glass.

And what else can you do with a window that would look out of place in anywhere but a church? Using it as a window in your own home would be the equivilent to Ian Huntley getting a tattoo saying “CHILD KILLER” on his face, before stabbing up some kids in front of a police station. (The ‘C’ and ‘D’ can surround his eyes with the ‘LL’ can go on either side of his nose).

What about putting it on eBay? Presumably “Location: Leicestershire”, would be a bit of a giveaway and even if it wasn’t, a detailed description matching the stolen window would have to be given for keyword searches. “NR MINT STAINED GLASS WINDOW NO RESERVE L@@K… Features 4 of 12 diciples, a dove, old timey clothes, and a goblet. Would best suit arch shaped windows- one previous owner. Cash only.”. The postage would be huge anyway- I daresay it’d be cheaper to list it in the classifieds section of the local paper: “STAINED glass window. 1 previous owner, good cond, pic last week p14. £300 or BO”.

If I were going to commit a badly thought out local crime, I’d steal a police radio, because at least then I’d know when they were after me.

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7 Seconds of Love
July 23rd, 2006 at 01:42

Another grainy picture of people playing instruments? Why, it must be another gig review!

I went to see 7 Seconds of Love this evening with JD. I’m just pleased they were an excellent ska band, as opposed to a romantic comedy called ‘7 Seconds of Love’, which would have been awful.

Who are they? If you’re savvy enough to read a web 2.0-esque blog, then chances are you’ve seen Rathergood.com… the lead singer is the bloke who does that. To use an already tired expression: they were rather good.

The band’s gimmick, aside from being a band who sing silly internet songs, seemed to be wearing hats. Joel Vietch, the singer, was wearing what looked a bit like a nazi hat, whilst the rest of the band wore more fun hats, like fishing hats. Lead guitar had a stuffed parrot on his shoulder. They were certainly a bit “wacky”, but thankfully, didn’t try and boast about it, using the phrase “wacky” in the process.
Seeing an audience scattered with silly internet things… a ska/punk audience no less, was a joy to behold. Someone had even gone to the trouble of constructing a giant can of soup so that they had soup on their head.

In fact, the best bit was the songs from the famous flash animations- the audience went wild during Looking for my Leopard, the aforementioned Soupy George, and Ninja.

The support bands wern’t bad either- the first support, bizarrely, had a double bass… meaning that in the space of four days, I’ve seen two live punk bands that use a double bass. The second band also had a familiar sound- they were Irish punk like Flogging Molly.

It was all very good, but no doubt, not very interesting to read a blog entry about unless you’re a fan of the band in question- less gig reports soon!

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The Peacocks
July 21st, 2006 at 00:30

I have a horrible feeling that this is going to be one of those blog entries that start with the phrase “last night”, followed by me trying to explain what happend, in an interesting way.

Last night, I went with my mate Bouff (backstory: he has a ginger afro and uses the word ‘blates’ instead of ‘blantantly’) to see Swiss punk band The Peacocks. Yeah, I’d never heard of them either.

The vaguely irritating thing is that unlike the other gigs I’ve been to, I’ve been unable to classify the band that I’ve gone to see as “famous” or “nobodies”. [spunge], Capdown and Flogging Molly are all “famous”- local band who’s name I can’t even remember, are not. The Peacocks are from Zurich, so must have travelled a fair way just to do a tour, so must be famous, surely?

There were two support acts- one standard punky affair, with the gimmick seeming to be that the drummer is also the singer, and a ska band where the singer had really spiked hair, and the people playing the trumpet and trombone wore sunglasses… at night.

The Peacocks had an incredible gimmick: rather than have someone on a bass guitar, they had a guy with a double bass. Rather than use a violin stick or whatever, he played it like it was a guitar, and even jumped about with it and stuff.

Overall they were dead good - its hard to try and describe live music, because unless you were there, you won’t know or care what I was talking about.

Afterwards we went to Mosh. Yeah, a nightclub. It was good because they were playing punk on one of the floors, so I got to enjoy hearing Goldfinger, The Offspring, Transplants, and so on, surrounded by people I didn’t know, in a dark room, drinking CocaCola.

As a musical aside - if indeed I was singing this blog entry, this paragraph would be the bridge of the song, tonight (ie: Friday 21st July, if anyone reading, who knows me in real life, wants to go and see Graveltrap and 4ft Fingers in Milton Keynes tonight, let me know as soon as possible! I want to go but have no one to go with. I’ll drive and I even have satnav now, so the possibility of getting lost is this: nil. Go on, real people, help me gather data for yet another gig review.

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Last PMQs
July 19th, 2006 at 18:51

At the moment my life doesn’t have much structure to it, as I don’t have a job or anything much to do. Today marked the end of one of the few things in my life that I can schedule. It was the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the summer recess.

I bloody love Prime Ministers Questions- it’s like how more oafish men enjoy watching football because they can shout and cheer. With PMQs every week you get politicians kicking each other’s arse. Today’s was particularly good.

David Cameron started surprisingly well, for a smug man with an easily punchable face. He got his backbenches chanting “dropped!” when berating Labour over their policies that are being dropped. “ID cards, dropped! Home information packs, dropped!”. He went on to suggest that Tony should pay be particularly interested in home information packs for people moving home as he’ll be “moving out soon”. Ho-ho.

I thought Dave’s last jibe was a bit risque- he suggested that Blair should answer the questions he’s being asked, rather than avoid them, as he’ll need practice before talking to the Metropolitian police. That’s a loans-for-lordships reference, kids.

Thankfully, and I say this not as a Labour supporter, but as someone who doesn’t like the Tories, Tony ‘war criminal’ Blair came back from this and kicked some arse. Blair listed tonnes of policies that David Cameron is rubbish on. “Hug a hoody? What happend to that” etc. It got the point where the Speaker got a bit pissed off with Blair’s constant barrage of attacks on Cameron, rather than answering tedious questions about PFI finance in some nobody’s constituency.

It ended on a Tory MP suggesting that Blair should go on holiday somewhere in Britain, so that Prezza isn’t left in charge of the country.

Oh, and Ming Campbell did something he does every week to get the other MPs to shut up, and said something sad about someone’s who dead.

It was incredibly entertaining- and of a much higher calibre than Flog It, or whatever was on BBC One at the same time. Hooray for democractic debate confined by the rules of the ruling elite!

The Daily Politics isn’t back until September. Gah.

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Superman Returns
July 16th, 2006 at 22:46

I went to see Superman Returns with my dad this afternoon. It was this: good.

I’ve never been a massive fan of Superman- he’s always been just too powerful. I prefer Spiderman and Batman because I can, erm, identify with the more. I too struggle to conceal my secret animal-based superhero identity whilst fighting off pantomime villains. Only the other day I foiled The Nutter’s devious plan to commit a food heist.

I think its slightly ironic that Superman, despite being the most indestructable of all of the superheroes has the most normal baddies. Whereas Batman has to take on a clown in a purple suit, and Spiderman has to cope with a man with four massive bionic arms that control him, Superman has to take on a little baldy scientist called Kevin Spacey.

The trouble with Superman though is that because his only weakness is kryptonite, its inevitable that it’s going to feature somewhere in the story- whereas if it were Spiderman, he could die in a wide variety of ways (guns, lazers, a giant rolled up newspaper, trapped in a big bath).

I enjoyed the film a lot though. I liked the bit where the thing happend then the man saved them. The special effects were incredible- of course, it’s obvious when things are computer generated or whatever, but the line is so blurred it all looks perfectly natural. Even the women’s plot wasn’t that bad- you might even call it integral. I’d have preferred to watch more explosions and disasters, though.

Overall, to give you some idea of how good it is, here is a list of the best (ie: only) Superhero films of recent years, ranked in order of best to worst:

1. Spiderman / Spiderman 2
2. Batman Begins
3. Superman Returns
4. Daredevil
5. Hulk

Eight on ten.

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Peace Process?
July 14th, 2006 at 23:18

It always amuses me when people talk about the Middle East Peace Process. Not in a way that makes me burst into tears of laughter, barely able to contain myself at the sight of a continual cycle of violence with no end fourthcoming, more of a “how curious” sort of amusement. More a “Murr” noise than a “Haha ROFL”.

I think its because despite what all of the well wishers do, the Israelis, and Palestinians and the affiliated parties just love killing each other to death. It’s almost frustrating to watch the cycle of “we’ve got a new roadmap to peace, and everyone’s going to love it, and it’s going to be great”, followed by one of the sides throwing a tantrum so they end up fighting again. See also: Oslo Accords, Intifada. Or the last 50 years.

Case in point: some Israeli soldiers were kidnapped in the Gaza strip- so Israel in its infinite wisdom decided to charge straight back into the territory it had only finally pulled out of months earlier, and cause a bit of a fuss. No doubt pissing off a few extra people in the process, and then roughing up Lebanon a bit for good measure.

It’s like a drunken brawl over a woman- both sides have been drinking all evening and lost the ability to think rationally, so they’ve decided that rather than sober up and resolve it like men (with talking or robot wars), to beat the crap out of each other. And the woman is the size of Wales and has places important to both men (oo-er).

I mean, call me nieve or ignorant (although I have read a number of books about this, I don’t consider myself an arm chair politician, because sitting up is just too much effort when I can lay down), but Israel’s latest “response” to the latest fuss is like bulldozing a house because there’s a mouse in the garage. Then again, Israel are quite good at bulldozing houses. Ho-ho.

I find it hard to believe that the millions of civilians on either side are directly responsible. Dragging them into it is only going to change their opinion from “Those Israelis are alright, really, I suppose, why don’t we be friends?” to “I hate those Israelis across the road- always inviting themselves round uninvited and borrowing our stuff without returning it. I still havn’t got my strimmer back, and one of their bombing raids killed someone in my immediate family”.

The worst thing is, both sides have long memories- the Jews managed to remember that the used to live in Palestine before the Ottomans moved in, anyway- and the Palestinians aren’t massive fans of Israel because they can remember where the borders were before 1967. This latest violence is only going to make things worse.

The Middle East is rubbish- all of you should go home and think about what you’ve done. Erm, just don’t argue about whos home it is.

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Nutter of the week
July 14th, 2006 at 18:51

A few days ago I was in Leicester with JD. It was around lunchtime, and I was taking advantage of the Pizza Hut Slicebar. Whilst eating, we sat on one of the benches around the central clock tower, and ruminated over the major issues of the day (ie: Israel Vs Lebanon, DRM Vs Fair usage, Daddy Vs Chips).

Things turned a bit sour when a strange man approached us. “S’cuse me mate, couldn’t give us a quid could you?”. Not a very original opening line- I’ve had a number of nutters say this to me. What makes it interesting is the value they ask for- a female nutter in Northampton a few weeks ago asked for only thirty pence to make a “phone call”. This being a low value, is she expecting more punters to cough up some dosh? Does a low amount create a higher success rate? Would she overall net more money than a similar nutter asking for a pound or two? What would be the optimal amount to ask for? It’s like supply and demand in action!

“Sorry, I’ve got no money”, I eventually replied after thinking all of the above. What made this worse was his fixed gaze… he just kept looking at me, and didn’t seem to blink once. When he wasn’t speaking, his mouth hung open slightly, so that you could see the missing tooth on the bottom of his jaw. Or more accurately: the space in his teeth where the missing tooth should have been.

“How about a bit of your pizza then?”

“Sorry, I’m really hungry” - this wasn’t a lie, I was genuinely hungry.

“Just one slice!”, he said, looking increasingly frustrated. I believe at this point he clenched his fists even more- although I might have made this up to make the story slightly better.

“…Sorry…”, I said in a timid voice.

“I only want a bit!”, he persisted. I was getting a bit worried at this point because he just wouldn’t take the hint and go away. I suddenly remembered I had an iPod in my pocket, and a fairly decent (it has a colour screen) mobile phone.

For some reason JD decided to chip in at this point, “have you forgot your wallet?” in an upbeat way that contrasted nicely with the nervous wreck that I had become.

“No, I’m fuckin’ homeless!” the street urchin angrily scowled, before storming off.

When he thought the coast was clear, JD remarked “that’s one way to go about it”. Unfortunately, another tramp was sat near to us- we should have realised because he had a dog on a piece of string and a big beard, and he called at the bloke, and he came storming back.

“What did you say?!”, he cried at JD in a “I’m looking for a fight, as I’m at rock bottom with nothing to lose” tone.

“Nothing, sorry”, JD said, saving his life and my iPod in the process. And the nutter finally walked off.

The worst thing is that I feel bad about not surrendering my lunch and money to this Nutter of the Week because he was homeless. He’s probably sitting in a cold sewer crying right now, whilst I sit here in my penthouse lighting cigarettes with 50s.

Tip for the homeless: the more threatening you act, the guiltier your victims will feel!

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