The last few days has seen some major political developments. By “the last few days” I really mean “Thursday night”, but I was too lazy to blog about it at the time, so I’m going to call it “the last few days” so I don’t sound behind the times.
Politics comment #1!
Apparently no one is being charged over the Cash for Peerages thing. This is ridiculous. Selling access to the legislature to the highest bidder is one thing – but letting in rich businessmen for free is insane. Of course they should be charged – think about how much money they could raise!
Politics comment #2!
The Tories were thrashed in two by-elections. I was going to blog about this earlier, making a hilarious play on the phrase “by-election” by speculating who was the best bisexual: Simon Hughes or Captain Jack from Doctor Who/Torchwood. These two were the only two famous bisexuals I can think of, which is why this blog entry never materialised.
I was pleased with the election result though – UKIP were once again proved to be a political insignificance, being beaten by the BNP in Sedgefield. Yeah, that BNP. I guess its because people prefer an honest racist to a closet racist. In Ealing Southall, they were beaten by the Greens and Respect. Ace.
Politics comment #3!
Eight cabinet ministers have admitted to having smoked cannabis. This annoys me, as it implies that politicians are much cooler than I am. I’ve never smoked cannabis (Coke is a different story), and yet whilst I’m sitting here unemployed being a poor student, the naughty kids who took drugs are now running the country. There’s no justice.
I reckon this was all a clever political move though. Nobody cares whether these politicians smoked cannabis at university – what people do care about though is whether David Cameron has. I dare-say the Tory grass-roots would be too thrilled if their leader had taken drugs, what with them being more, er, conservative, than your average voter. Are they trying to provoke some discontent amongst the Tories? I hope so. Its a very clever plan.
Politics comment #4!
Boris is definitely running for London Mayor and is on the Tory shortlist. I wrote about this only a week ago. I don’t know how anyone can think that electing a man who was complicit in an attempt to assault a journalist is a good person to run London.
Last night I went to see the band Citizen Fish play at a venue called The Shed. Like the name suggests, it was a bit dank. It was about the size of a front room – only instead of a sofa and all of the accumulated tat the occupiers had built up over the years there was a licensed bar and a stage with loud shouty bands on.
The people there weren’t the sort of people you usually find in your front room either. In my case, they weren’t my parents. A lot of the people there seemed to be “proper” punks, who take dressing up to ridiculous new levels. They all had ridiculous hair and were wearing braces. One person had a leather jacket on, on which they’d written on the back “POWER DOESN’T EXIST WITHOUT CONTROL… CONFLICT”. Yeah, they were going to fight the power all right – they were going to skank so hard that the man wouldn’t be able to stop them.
It was a surprisingly long gig too – there were five bands on.
The first band on were named Accidental President – I was sure I’d heard the name before, and on later investigation, it appears that they’re named after a font. Bizarre. Tommy’s Heroes who were the next on incorporated a ukulele into their songs.
The third support act were really good. ‘Rentokill‘, as they were called, weren’t a new musical subsidiary of the Rentokil Initial group, but were in fact an Austrian melodic hardcore band. Throughout the set it was obvious that they wished they were Propagandhi. The sound was incredibly similar, their songs were all politically charged (they had one about Chechnya) and on their website and CDs they say that they’re anti-racist, anti-homophobia, anti-sexist vegetarians. Just like Propagandhi. I bought their CD at the end whilst the singer was watching me, so when confronted with three to choose from, I went for the most expensive one out of the three.
For a couple of songs into their set, I thought the fourth band were Citizen Fish. The Shed website only listed four bands, and I had no idea what CF actually looked like. It was only when I realised that AOS3 were a bit rubbish, and weren’t playing any recognisable songs, and didn’t even have a trumpet that I realised something was up. They had a projector set up projecting hundreds of predictable anti-Bush photoshops in the background during their set – presumably to show how political and “with it” they were. Some of them were pretty good.
Citizen Fish came on stage at twenty to midnight – I think its safe to say this is a little later than I expected. The only reason I really know who they are is because they released a split album with Leftover Crack. Just looking at them more or less explains why they decided to do a split with some crack-smoking New York squatters who (probably) don’t wash: It turned out that they look like a bunch of tramps too.
This didn’t stop them from performing some good music though. They played a good set (and, er, I managed to get a pretty good recording of it), playing the songs I recognised from the split. Meltdown, a cover of Choking Victim’s Money, and so on.
One of the funniest moments was watching the people moshing at the front. A lot of them had taken their shirts off, as seems to be the done thing at gigs like this, and one of them in particularly – who was the spitting image of George Dawes if he were wearing trousers held up by braces – got up on to the stage, waved his arms about and then jumped back into the crowd. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t the most packed gig, and the crowd density wasn’t able to support him. By which I mean, everyone moved out of the way when he jumped sending him head first into the floor. This happened a number of times.
The band had an interesting approach to playing an encore. Because it was in quite a small venue, if they were to leave the stage, they would have been standing in the audience – so at the so-called ‘end’, they just switched the lights pointing at the stage off and the band turned around for a few seconds. Before resuming to play a few more songs.
Ages ago, I wrote about some ideas that I had for new TV shows. I think the TV landscape has changed considerably in the last few years – more channels has lead to more competition, and has forced broadcasters to dumb down in order to maximise their viewers. Case in point: forty years ago, ITV had landmark documentary series The World at War, these days they have Club Reps.
Admittedly, the latter would probably be improved if Sir Laurence Olivier were narrating.
The trouble is, as viewers are now everything, broadcasters cannot afford to take risks. Its why the TV schedules are filled with derivative reality TV formats and the only reason Torchwood was commissioned was because it was guaranteed to bring in a chunk of the Doctor Who viewership. So here are some of my ideas for other derivatives/spin-offs:
Antiques Sideshow
Michael Aspel tours the country looking at different curiosities: mostly old people with some sort of disfigurement. Elderly midgets, elderly people with six fingers, that sort of thing. No elderly bearded lady though, as they’re ten-a-penny.
Doctor Who Confidential Confidential
Taking a behind the scenes look at the making of BBC Three’s most popular factual commission. Sneak a peek at production meetings and marvel at the graphics team overlaying name graphics on to the final edit of Confidential. Includes exclusive interviews of the producers describing what happens in that week’s Confidential.
999 Confidential
It must be depressing working in a 999 call centre. I mean, nobody ever rings up “just for a chat”, it’s always as if they want something. It’s always “get me an ambulance” or “help, there’s a fire!”. Never “so how’s your day?” or “how are the kids?”. It’s almost as if they’re taking advantage of you: they’re using you for your connections, and don’t care about you as a person. They only talk to you because you know someone who knows someone who can sort out their fire or stop their burglar. This series looks beyond this and gets to know the people on the other end of the phone. What their hobbies are, pets, etc.
P.E Justice
We all know that PE lessons at school were the worst thing ever. I get the impression that it was only invented to give the stupid kids something they can be good at, and end their school reports on a high after pages of being told that they’re dreadful at real subjects like Maths and English. Its almost as if the hour or two a week for PE are there to let the bullies let off some steam by legally being allowed to beat up the other kids without fear of repercussions.
Schools are inherently fascist institutions with the teacher demanding absolute power in order to retain control. In this gripping new reality show, the tables are turned on PE teachers, as they’re forced to run around the field in the cold, participate in warm-up exercises where the slowest participants will be “punished” with the demand of more running/press-ups/whatever despite them not being physically capable of it, and have it explained to them how important it is to learn how to dribble a football, despite it not being at all relevant to their future studies or careers, and having exactly zero transferable skills.
What Not to Wear – For Men
This can be a short filler programme to make up for lost time or show when programmes run short – it won’t need longer than five minutes. Unlike the women’s version, where two idiot women solve all of the participant’s life problems simply by using clothes, the men just go to a shop, buy some clothes, pay and leave, and then go and do something more worthwhile with their lives. Presented by Tim Vine, as he hasn’t been doing much lately so is probably free, and he has a penchant for loud shirts. He could try and liven the no doubt tedious proceedings up a bit by making some quips: “What’s your favourite type of shoe? Left or right?”, etc.
Any commissioning editors reading? Drop me an e-mail.
Here’s an idea for a blog meme that I’m surprised I haven’t seen before: blogging about people with the same name as you! It turns out that there are a few people on the internet who share my excellent name, so I thought I’d write about them, to try and judge whether they’re as cool as I am:
1) James O’Malley
This James O’Malley appears to be the most famous of us. He appears to be some sort of American folk musician. The front page of his website claims that “His sweet voice and gentle finger style on the guitar enthralls the most jaded listener” – I’d like to think that this sentiment applies to James O’Malleys in general, and not just this one individual. I had a listen to some of his MP3s and for a genre I’m indifferent to it was tolerable stuff – one of his songs sounded like the background music from the Lon Lon Ranch in Ocarina of Time.
2) James O’Malley
James O’Malley, PHD is proof that the name is a sign of intelligence. He’s an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. They call him Doctor O’Malley. Like other James O’Malley’s, ‘the doc’, as we call him to differentiate him, concentrates on important work: according to his bio, he is “developing likelihood-based methods for estimation of multilevel covariance structures” – coincidentally, I am also in the process of conducing some research in this field. I am researching the meaning of the word “covariance”.
“Dr. O’Malley received his BSc (honors) and PhD degrees in statistics from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He then spent the last two years of his PhD at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he simultaneously earned an MS in applied statistics.” – that’s two post-graduate degrees earned simultaneously. Christ(church) on a bike.
3) James O’Malley
This James O’Malley is an artist. A proper artist too. Judging by his photo, he’s rich and has a big house. Excellent.
4) James O’Malley
This one scares me a little bit – he’s trying to muscle in on my territory. He’s got his own blog, he’s a student and calls himself a journalist. He even gives me a mention. The interesting thing about looking at the page of James O’Malleys is that we all appear to be quite lazy – preferring to lean against things to prop ourselves up rather than stand under our own weight.
5) James O’Malley
This last one is some sort of graphic designer. Looking at his CV, it looks like he has an arts degree, like I myself am hoping to get. Coincidence? Maybe.
Scientific Conclusion
So it looks like James O’Malleys are generally excellent. Admittedly, the sample isn’t massive and I guess the likelihood of having a website is going to be related to technical skills and success – but is it merely a coincidence that none of the James O’Malleys that I have stumbled upon have their occupations listed as ‘failure’? I don’t think so.
Are you a blogger? Why not blog about people who share your name? We could start a meme, it’d be fun. I’m not going to “tag” anyone, as it seems a bit rude, because you give someone the horrible dilemma of snubbing the friendly request/challenge or having “here’s a stupid copy and pasted chain letter on my professional website”.
For the past few months I’ve been desperately trying to introduce a new phrase into the public lexicon. I’ve been irritating nearly everyone I’ve spoken to since April by asking them “what are the haps?”. And now I fully intend to abuse my position as a media whore to promote its usage.
Its how all of the cool kids these days say “What’s happening?”, or “How are you?”. But you didn’t need me to explain that – you’re not that out of touch, right? If there’s any parents with teenage kids reading, try asking your kids what their haps are: they’ll think you’re so cool and “with it” that it might evoke more than just the standard grunt from them.
I’d really like to see it catch on – not only because I’d become a trendsetter and become a cultural leader as I push the zeitgeist into a scary new direction, but because it may displace the perennial “alright?” as the standard casual greeting.
I really hate it when people greet me by saying “Alright?”, as I can never figure out what they’re asking, nor how to respond. Are they basically saying “Hello”, or are they asking “How are you?”? If you misinterpret the question you risk looking like an idiot.
Long, long ago, back in the dark days of 2004, back before the invention of Coke Zero and iPods with colour screens, I used to have a part time job in a well known chain of hardware stores where I spent all day sat on the till. What this meant was that I got to spend every Saturday and Sunday conducting an experiment as to which response was the most accurate.
When a customer got to the till and I’d politely say “Hello!” with as much faux-enthusiasm as I could muster, if they responded “Alright?”, the experiment began. Some times I’d respond with “Hello!”, again, which in retrospect, and indeed at the time, felt ridiculous, and sometimes I’d say “I’m fine thanks, how are you?”, as I thought they’d just enquired about my welllbeing. This was usually met with a blank stare or a patronising, drawn out “Yeeeeehs” and hurried packing of their bags. It seems that maybe there is no perfect way to respond to this most awkward of questions.
Maybe I’m just rubbish at light conversation? Maybe I should have tackled an issue with the customer that I can talk about with some degree of success, and tackled some heavy issues: “So, Iraq, eh?”, “The bleach is on two-for-one… hey, what do you make of the growing tide of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, and its collective influence on US foreign policy objectives?”.
So I’m leaving this to you. It is your duty to try and introduce ‘what are the haps?’ to every day usage. If you bump into me in the street, why not try asking me what the haps are? Or if you don’t like me, why not say “alright?”?. ‘WATH’ is much more concise than the archaic ‘alright’ (you’re asking someone what their haps are), and much more importantly damn cool.
So no one died – there weren’t even any explosions, in fact, no bombs were actually found. It was just some arsehole being an arsehole.
Terrorism is really irritating – not just because of the inconveniences when using airports or feeling a bit nervous every time you’re at a major landmark, but because when you’re a newspaper columnist and have to write to stuff to deadlines, its really irritating when you’ve written a cracking column, only to have to scrap it because someone got a little bit too irritated that they couldn’t return goods without a receipt or whatever.
For this week’s column, I was planning to re-work this blog entry. I was quite pleased with it – it’s almost like I’m a satirist or something. Unfortunately, this latest Tesco thing has rendered this tremendously out of date. Accusing the NHS of supporting terrorism is like so last week – especially as it looks like the doctors who were arrested didn’t necessarily do it.
Post any ideas for something I could write about in the comments – it’ll be like brainstorming and working as a team, only I’ll take all of the credit for the end product and forget about you little people when I’m a big-shot columnist.
I went for a walk with Bouff around town to see where was cordoned off. Here a couple of thrilling photos of some Police cars and so on. This practically makes me a journalist. Maybe.
Update (15/07, 01:37): Apparently these photos have been shown on BBC News 24. Luckily I pre-empted this and despite being out, were Sky plussing it all evening. Fingers crossed they’ll be some bad quality video of News 24 on here tomorrow!
There’s some major shit going down in my home town of Market Harborough today, by the sound of it. The whole town centre is now closed off, and it sounds like the town is entirely “closed”.
Apparently there was a bomb threat made towards Tesco’s. Earlier on when my parents were in town, it was just the car park that was closed off, but now it seems most of the town has been (I haven’t been into town to check, mind). My sister, who works nearby was sent home from work early.
The big rumour (ie: I heard this from my sister, who heard it from someone else, who heard it from someone else) is that its animal rights nutters. Apparently they’ve made threats against 15 Tesco stores around the country. This could be bollocks, mind.
What is slightly eerie is that its not being reported in the media – if there are major evacuations around the country, why aren’t Sky and the BBC touching this? The only reports we’ve heard have been from the local radio station. Emphasis on local.
Its been just like back in the war – the family have been gathered around the wireless listening for the latest. Admittedly, this has been interspersed with “hits from the 50s to the present day”, and the DJ jabbering on about a guess the lyrics competition, but it still seems pretty tense.
Hilariously, when they got given a statement by the police, the first time they read it out with the song “Spanish Flea” playing in the background, and then about half an hour later, read out another statement with the Benny Hill Music in the background. I might go for a walk later to bolster my journalistic skills.
Are there any other Harborians reading? Any idea what’s going on?
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