Archive for November, 2008

Dirty Diegos, yesterday

One of the most exciting single releases in recent years. This song epitomises everything that is great about pop music. A band formed from four fictional characters, the most exciting of the young ones in Hollyoaks. This is a ridiculous, fun pop song (a cover version, as it happens. originally by Dimestars, Kim Wyldes sisters band.)

Dimestars, yesterday

Anyone else recognise the black guy on the end? Does that mean the Dirty Diegos are cool now? Who knows, they are an amazing pop concept, no matter what. Listen to it here. Needless to say the NME don’t quite get it.

…Tony Hutchinson’s a peadophile.

Tony Hutchinson, after poking a fifteen year old, yesterday

Hollyoaks Later is here. If they build it, we will watch. You can tell it’s the late night version because the kids act a bit more like kids, swearing and talking about sex and that, but still no one smokes.

The hope however, hangs in the air that Michaela might get her knockers out for a bit, she is very much the type. But almost certainly not, pointlessly late night versions of soaps invariably follow the same route; established characters will do nothing more than swear, or perhaps be shown to enjoy being drunk. There will be hints at nudity that will never be fulfilled (due to actors contracts) and there will almost never be full penetration (except in that ill-conceived late night version of Last Of The Summer Wine). The promise of nudity, though, is what draws us in. Just because none of the main players will be getting nude that doesn’t mean no one will. There are plenty of bit part actresses prepared to make the effort in order to get their names on the board, so to speak, and best of luck to them, they serve an important purpose, namely to inspire hope in gentlemen viewers, like them actual real life strippers that were on it just.

So anyway, thus far we have learnt that Kris (Hobbies: Moral indignation, shocking Daily Mail readers) is the most self-centered and ignorant person on the planet after he outed himself as a tranny and a bilord at his dads funeral. Pick your moments, son. I think he was just worried no one would be shocked by his lifestyle choice.
We have learnt that Zac is the most irritating cartoon of a human being since Gilly. Or Rhys. Male character development appears to have been lifted directly from some piece of chick-lit you find stuck to the front of a magazine for menopausal women: only there to show how rubbish boys are and to fucking humiliate them.
We have learnt that one hour a night might be stretching it a bit. There is some genuinely good drama (Niall’s return [although it is very un-Hollyoaks] and the HIV plot surrounding Kris, Malachy, and the increasingly skeletal Mercedes.) that sits uncomfortably next to the escapades of the Dirty Diegos. This feeling of over-stretched-ness is compounded by the heavy handed use of music in some episodes but when the music is the ACTUAL single by the ACTUAL Dirty Diegos, (click here so you can read about NME readers not really “getting it”. What! frivolous throwaway pop music! NOOOO!!! Music should be about pain and stone, not fun!) then it can be forgiven a certain amount…
We have learnt that the best words of advice that a smackhead can get are from a former member of S Club Juniors, they presumably lived the life too.

S Club Juniors, yesterday

We have learnt, due to a rookie mistake made by Josh Ashworth (”Yeah, Michaela’s family are robbing scum”  - No, Michaela, It’s not how it sounds! I think it fucking is, mate.) to never trust journalists because they are all lying, murdering, duplicitous cunts.
We have learnt that Steph is as thick as absolute fuck. When warned by Niall not to contact the police she begs her brother not to. Having seen far too many movies she assumes that a man who is clearly mentally unstable and has been living rough for a few weeks has some sort of device that will allow him to listen in. The stupid bitch should have phoned them and explained the situation. The most positive thing about the return of the cheeky prankster Niall is that with any luck we may get to witness the end of fucking Tom fucking Cunning-fucking-ham. Here’s hoping he perishes, eh?

Normal run-of-the-mill daytime Hollyoaks has taken the bold step of running what is in essence a pro-peadophile story line. Whilst obviously not an actual pro-peadophile story line, it does raise the idea that not all girls who have sex when they are underage are victims, some are manipulative fiends. Which of course can be happily interpreted as “All girls are asking for it no matter what their age.” if you don’t bother thinking about it. Tony “Humbert Humbert” Hutchinson has only gone and got mixed up with another bloody McQueen, hasn’t he? What a twat. That’s right, Tony Polanski stuck it in a fifteen year old and now has to face the music like the rest of us. Way to go, Tony Glitter.
Could that story arc be seen as an homage to Lolita? Is it jabbing a rusty fork into the open wound of today’s morality? Will it dissect the media reaction(in Hollyoaks) when he is inevitably released? Almost certainly not.

Tony Hutchinson, in happier times, yesterday

Be seeing you…

(Incidentally, in the course of writing this I have googled, among other things, “Peadophile” “Lolita” and “S Club Juniors”. It dosen’t look good for me, does it?)

Due to Future Of The Left splitting up, (idle speculation that you heard here first, viewers) they pulled out at the last minute (and also scrapped three tours, sure signs of a band in trouble) leaving a lot of unhappy punters. A lot of people got refunds and went away therefore missing out on the worlds greatest Mclusky tribute act, Untitled Musical Project. In all seriousness they should have stuck around because UMP would have cheered up any FOTL fans with their cheeky Falco-isms, provided they hadn’t seen them before. Which got me to thinking, re-imagining the whole scene, what if, y’know, f’r instance all the FOTL fans had stayed? What if they had all watched UMP? What if they had won them over? What if this was the start of something beautiful for them?
Well it wasn’t. It was just another gig where a certain amount of effort was put in, a certain amount of joy was shared, and a certain number of songs are played with a certain amount of passion.

TV

In the teen-high-school-drama version, a disinterested crowd form around the foot of the stage, Future Of The Left’s name writ large across the backdrop. Backstage we cut to the band themselves saying, “We’ve got to do this, boys, for Falco.” They do a one for all and all for one thing with their hands on top of each others. “Let’s do this thing!” they jog onto the stage.

UMP kick off their traditional opening, a squall of noise and feedback drowning out the background noise and making everyone sit up and listen, if only they hand been standing.

Taking the stage they begin sloughing through their opening number, people start looking up from their tiny glasses of beer (high-school movie, y’all.) and start to nod appreciatively. The song goes down a storm. “Thank you, thank you.”s from the band, applause from all around.

Competently the plough through the majority of the back catalogue, Andy’s (s’bassman) backing vocal seeming to have got a kick up the arse from somewhere, adding a real weight to the numbers.

Seizing the chance, smiles spreading from mouth to mouth, they play better and better, glances paying off each other.  They are lost in the music, three men in love, but nothing funny about it.

There were new(ish) songs played tonight and they stand up to, and surpass the likes of “Why Isn’t Paul McCartney Dead Already?” and “The People Vs. Michael Miller”. After a long period of stagnation, it’s very positive to see them progressing again.

They clatter into the final number having secured for themselves a place in the heart of everyone present when disaster strikes! Every string on the lead singers guitar snapped! There was no way that they could continue the best set of their career…

Andrew Barry Graham, yesterday

The only issues tonight involve Kieran’s (Vocals/ Guitar) guitar and mic stand, no one on stage declaring “I’ve had enough of this, does anyone mind if we don’t play anymore?”

Glancing around in fear, they appeal nervously to an increasingly hostile audience, they want satiating. “Please, we have run out of strings, we can’t play on…” bottles hurtle towards the stage, a girl n the front row raises her hand, “I can help…”

The mild irritant of having to replace his guitar dealt with, some members of the band seem a little bit bored…

Pulling the wires from the braces on her teeth she offers a trembling hand to the singer and realising her beauty he snatches them and swiftly restrings the guitar. They play louder, better, faster and harder than ever before, the bond between the singer and the girl in the crowd grows, and they long to be in each other’s arms.

Exploding to the end of the song, the band are carried shoulder high from the venue, paraded down the street towards their destiny, within a week, they have both number one single and album. History is good to them, the years kind…

As always, photographs by the lovely Miss Brid Rose. She will take photos for you if you ask her nicely. Coming soon, some three thousand plus word pieces on people you have niether heard about, nor care about. And rightly so.

Be seeing you…

Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, yesterday

This is a program I would like to see.

Bear Grylls (12, real name Cedric Featherstonehaugh) is being built up as an inappropriately hard man by tele at the moment but he is clearly designed as an antidote to housewives favourite, Ray Mears (84), in a misguided attempt to pull in the yoof market. Grylls would have trouble surviving a mild hailstorm and, compared to Mears, is naught but a preening nonce.

Bear (Ass) Grylls, the man who would be king, yesterday

Mears, I am fairly convinced, could live underwater for a year or failing that, set up a comfortable campsite on the dark side of the moon, surviving on dust and starlight (and the occasional pasty that he has secreted about his person. You don’t get that size on a diet of leaves and spiders.)

Ray Mears, the king, yesterday

So anyway, here’s the premise; Mears and Grylls are both dumped on opposite sides of a distant island, ideally the one from off of Lost and Thunderdome rules apply. Two men enter, one man leaves.
The smart money is on Mears, obv. I would estimate that within two days, Mears would have fashioned himself a functioning polar bear suit and would have killed and eaten any of The Others that got in his way.
Grylls meanwhile would be so busy searching around for his usual 74 strong camera crew/ entourage he would fail to notice someone creep up behind them and bonk him on the head with a coconut.
Finally they meet, stripped to the waist on a rope net suspended over a pit full of boiling oil, like in that there Tarzan film I saw years ago (not Greystoke, an old black and white one, you know the ones that used to be on at six on BBC 2? One of those. I incidentally saw a James Bond rip-off called The Silencers starring Dean Martin in that slot. Even to my young, naive eyes I could tell he was utterly shitfaced all the way through it.), Grylls fairy-dances around before Mears crushes him with his Bear like grip (Oh! The irony!).
Mears is awarded the prize money and airlifted from the island. The chopper never makes it home, all that is recovered is the black box (I’ve got a joke about that actually, I’ll tell you later) which, when replayed contains snatches of screams and a “Ray! NOOOOO!”. We conclude that Mears has gone feral.
Be seeing you…

There are two words that are currently ‘doing the rounds’ so to speak. Two words that are catchphrases amongst the hip and trendy and therefore are already pathetic and sad and past it. These two words are “Epic” and “Fail”. They can be combined to make “Epic fail” which is just brimming with cuntability, isn’t it? “Epic” and “Fail” are the new “Random” so bear that in mind if ever you choose to use either of them. I am a great lover of the English language (which I know must be very hard to appreciate if you read this), and it’s nuances and it’s subtleties (and it’s great history of Anglo-Saxon swear words) and it really upsets me to see (or hear, I suppose) everyone using the same words and perverting their meaning. I appreciate that words and their meanings change over the years, but it is an organic thing, the way “Random” has come to mean absolutely anything and absolutely nothing at the same time is just ugly. Please, please, please stop it. You cunts.

The type of girl who says

Lots of people seem unnaturally interested in comas or people in comas. How disappointed they must be when they hit my pathetic little blog and see a picture of some poor bastard in a come that I have stolen and abused for my own amusement. Why, I want to know, are so many interested in pictures of people in comas. Surely if they can’t find a picture of a person in a coma that they like, they could just use a picture of a person who is asleep? I defy anyone to tell the difference. Also, if someone is in a short coma, is it a comma (Eyethangyew! Tip your waitress)? If you are one of those bizarre people hunting for pictures of coma victims then please get in touch and tell me why. I am desperate to know. Is it anything to do with the recent repeats of the latest series of My Name Is Earl? We’ll soon find out, that’s just finished. I’ll let you know if it drops off.
Be seeing you…

A woman asleep or in a coma, you decide, yesterday.

*Be afraid, I’m going to start doing daily updates from now on. Except for over the weekend because I think I’m going to be busy. Great, so now I’m a fucking liar, too.