Crazy but true

Well, a phone ring tone makes number one in the charts!

This blog is a little gloat in the direction of my good friend and blog associate Pat, who I’m sure is really a closet fan of crazy frog (I told you it would get there!). The thing is in all honesty, there have been worse conventional number ones than this infectious, catchy but equally irritating track.

Nostalgia

Some years ago when I was naïve in the ways of music, I lived with my parents with my collection of vinyl albums, cheesy pop posters and an attitude. A neighbour gave me a Jethro Tull album to audibly peruse. I wasn’t really that fussed but ended up giving it a spin and loving it. Soon after he asked me to go and see Jethro Tull with him at Manchester Apollo. Along we went and I sat there not knowing really what to expect, I think I was still a teenager at the time. Someone came on and announced that the support band had failed to show or could not play for some reason and that Jethro Tull were going to play a longer slot. Indeed they did and played for over 3 hours. So, I was invested into the legend of Tull and have since been a life long fan. I sat in awe as the lead singer Ian Anderson stood for ages balanced on one foot playing a flute, its lively sounds weaving in and out of carefully crafted guitar riffs. I recall 3 hippies sat on the row before me smoking something that drifted back towards my innocent nostrils and had an obvious effect. Tull played their hearts out; there were no fancy fireworks or lighting – just solid music.

Yesterday the postman delivered a live double cd of theirs called ‘Bursting Out’ I’d ordered over the net and all the nostalgic memories came flooding back as I gave it a spin and recalled that marvellous night back in the early 80’s and the best band I’ve ever seen live.

Big Bro is back !

It’s back, the daddy of reality tv shows. I sat and watched the new victims go in one by one and this year I didn’t sit back and get all judgemental as they entered. Lets face it, they probably do represent a good cross section of people from our diverse and eccentric culture and anyway – what is normal these days??
Oddly and a bit disturbing is the amount of people in the house from London, four out of the first five were actually from London, surely all wacko’s don’t reside in the capital? However I do quite like this years housemates and I think Endemol have done well to select such an oddball bunch with the potential to clash. I think my two faves at the moment are Makosi and Mary purely for eye candy value and the fact they aren’t really bimbo’s. jeez I’m such a ……

http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/

Vegas

Johhny Vegas in ‘18 stone of idiot’ had me laughing my pants off Friday night 10.15pm after Big Brother. Vegas seemed to have had a pot or two before the show and fired up to entertain. Usually I can take or leave Vegas and in some other things of late he hasn’t been allowed to shine so it should be interesting to see how he fares in his own show with a live audience. He certainly had be in hysterics with his crude humour and riotous shenanigans especially when he jumped over Ray Winstone on a bike and plunged into a crash mat only to rise to the strains of ‘I could be so good for you’. It was television without rules and I loved it. I can’t wait to see how the ‘Celebrity lock in’ will unfold. Do yourself a favour and tune in for a large slab of Mr Vegas!

Sympathy card

After my college night class I was munching on a sandwich and channel hopping whilst deciding on having a peek at just how bad ‘Celebrity Island’ was bombing on ITV. It seemed the celeb’s were lounging in the sun and drinking copious amounts of vino destructo and Paul Danan was pretty shit faced on it and turning into a very sad sight as he began arguing with the others. Soon after he was told to cool it and sort himself out he said ‘You’re only picking on me because I’m small’.

Now statements like this really piss me off, probably because I’m vertically challenged myself and don’t like to hear all that self pity crap. Psychologists call little guys getting aggressive the ‘Napoleon syndrome’, the media have termed it in less flattering terminology but the thing is (and I can’t deny it) that it does exist … especially after a few beers. I guess as we are all shapes and sizes there is always somebody bigger or smaller than ourselves. If we floor someone bigger than ourselves we are heroes, if they floor us they are villains and bullies. It’s amazing how we all use our physical features to either promote or demote ourselves when the situation arises; either to generate sympathy, compliments or make lame excuses, the list goes on.

The thing is you very rarely hear actual disabled people moan about their genuine disabilities and restrictions, they strive to be accepted and work very hard and don’t play the sympathy card so readily as us able bodied clowns do, maybe we should consider that next time we moan about our less flattering attributes.

Orville Snorville

With celebrity love islands figures dropping a whopping 6 million to just over a million it’s a good job we’ve got ‘The Farm’ on channel 5 to keep the reality tv boat afloat. Last night having been forced to sleep in a barn for 24 hours Lionel, fireman ‘nobody’ Dave and the hyper Flavor Flav got revenge by having a chance to vote for someone of their choice and be excluded from the vote them selves. Admirably they picked ex depressive and geriatric puppet wielding Keith Harris who is surely not hoodwinking viewers with his ‘Mr Nice Guy act’. Then the psychology kicked in as Flavor Flav was the sacrificial lamb to break the news to the rest, a point to note was the villainous Lionel Blair and Fireman Dave shrinking into the shadows. Later in the farm yard both Lionel and Fireman Dave added fuel to the fire by trying to distance themselves from each other whilst gossiping about all and sundry and fanning flames of discontentment amongst the group. If was Fireman nobody, the squealer of his ex to the tabloid press that was keen to incite the others with his elaborations – once a snitch always a snitch and it’s evident Fireman (hang on – partially trained fireman) craves some sort of place in the celeb pathos. Later Keith nominated Charlene (ah my beloved) to join him in the public nominations – surely he has made a clinical error as Mr Irritating Harris and the pouting Orville will soon exit stage left – I implore you to vote him! (if you don't I'll send him around to your house to do a private performance!)

The day has come

Yep, 19th May - Revenge of the Sith at the cinema. I'm going to see it Sunday and will be divulging my hobbit/yoda wisdom on it shortly after - the word 'excited' is an understatement! Went to see 'Kingdom of Heaven' last night and I thought it was ok but I kept reflecting back to the trailer of 'Sin City' before hand, looks very tasty!

Soured

Celebrity love island just does not work for me, sure I love my celeb's and reality tv but this show sucks. Twelve already spoilt ‘B’ list celebs being pampered on an island in Fiji set in opulent surroundings and sprinkled with decadence is going a bit far. Why couldn’t they have just sent members of the public, normal overweight, ginger haired, bespectacled, neurotic and flat broke people to this island? Would have been far more fun and far less predictable. Of course the celeb’s will no doubt be looking to promote themselves to the full whilst protecting their image, the whole thing reeks of shallow and false. Paul Dannan (who?) commented about the press and media to Abi Titmuss quoting something along the lines of them being intrusive and always wanting to expose them etc. Hang on a minute Paul – aren’t you in the media spotlight with this tatty show??? Lets face it without the press, media and the endless stream of gossip mag’s these celebs wouldn’t be that much anyway, some are already little known outside of their trendy London club and wine bar circuit anyway. This show has definitely soured my taste for reality tv – still, at least we have channel 5’s class show ‘The Farm’.

Bad News yet Good News

The good news is that the acclaimed BBc2 series from the 80's 'The comic strip presents' is coming out on dvd !!! The release date is 04/07/2005 and the box set of dvd's contains no less than 39 episodes spread over 9 disc's! Play.com are selling it for £34.99. I can't wait to see the 'Bad News' episodes again. Apart from the 'Young Ones' this is Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson at their best, not forgetting French and Saunders and the enigmatic Alexei Sayle. I'm also a fan of Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer and the series has guest appearences from Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson and Keith Allen among others.

www.play.com

Vic and Bob

It's nice to see Vic and Bob back on tv, BBc2, 10pm 'Vic and Bob in Catterick'. I never tire of their offbeat and surreal humour, to me they are still as iconic in British comedy as they ever have been.

http://www.vicandbob.net/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/shootingstars/

Charlene

YAY - Charlene made it and escaped the public vote on The Farm !!!

Here's a photo for all the males out there... and any inclined females!

Funny Farm

The farm continues to grow on me and tonight it’s the first eviction, the contenders being 54 year old babe and ex porn star Cicciolina who was nominated by housemates and then had to pick someone to go up against her in the public vote – to my horror she chose ex Dallas star Charlene Tilton. I like both women but Charlene has to be my fave, the pint size hobbitesque (ooh invented a new word there!) cutie MUST stay. Cicciolina looks stunning for her age but so far she’s seemed a bit detached from things, at least Charlene let Ron Jeremy give her a bottom massage the other day! Flavor Flav was on form last night, he was talking about gays and when Emma B enquired what he thought about two women together he replied ‘I’m all for that shit !!!’

http://www.five.tv/accessibility/programmes/thefarm/home/

Mainly listening to ...

This week I have mainly been listening to …

The Passions – 80’s class
Republica – Saffron where did you go? Come back please!
The Human League – Check out ‘Unlimited orchestra’ by them
Zodiac Mindwarp – The tattooed beat messiah himself
The Crow soundtrack
The Adventures – The Sea of Love album is an 80’s classic
Marilyn Manson – I gotta get more from him, awesome
Headrillaz – ‘Cold Harbour rocks’ is one trippy punchy cd
Garbage – always good for motivation or a reality check
Pulp Fiction soundtrack – Cool tunes for cool people
Nouvelle Vague – Lounge music at it’s best
Alice Cooper – The daddy, what more can I say!?

Mp3 Heaven

After some deliberation and research I recently splashed out on a quality MP3 player. Rather than take the predictable ipod route I plumbed for the Creative labs Zen Micro. The reason I chose it was that it did more than an ipod and cost less. It has 5Gb of memory, built in FM radio, 12 hour rechargeable battery life and lashings of sound quality features. It arrived yesterday courtesy of Play.com and I couldn’t wait to get it fired up and loaded with my fave albums, to my delight the sound quality was excellent. Walking to work last night I was in my own little world and in raptures with my new palm sized gadget – to think a few years ago I was popping cassettes into a walkman and thinking that was the bee’s knees!!!!

Soap Awards

Just want to say it was nice to see the northern soaps doing well over the usually favoured Eastenders last night at the soap awards. Hail to Corrie and Emmerdale for consistently good story lines, believable actors and good old northern realism. East end wide boys and jellied eels – no thanks! They ought to re-locate Eastenders to Camden – Oh how I love Camden !!!

Down on the Farm

People who read this blog will know that I love my reality t.v and last night I tuned into channel 5’s ‘The Farm’ at 10pm. I hadn’t really planned to watch it as I’d missed last year’s series and I know Brother is looming on the horizon but I was sat cringing at the Grange Hill reunion so decided to switch channels. It was a wise move as the line up of celeb’s on the farm made me grin with delight and soon I was horizontal on the sofa laughing my head off. The line up includes the likes of Charlene Tilton from Dallas, Lionel Blair, Keith Harris and Orville, Flava Flav the rapper, Ron Jeremy the porn star, Emma B and Emma Noble (models), Cicciolina the Italian Mp and porn queen and erm… Dave Morgan??? (he’s the ex boyfriend of Eastenders star Jessie Wallace aka Kat Slater.

So with a sterling line up of class acts and the odd non descript I sat ensconced in front of my telly and let events unfold, watching them ask who each other were! The first item that tickled me was shortly after black rappers entrance, as he was chatting to the other celeb’s there was a freeze frame and the presenter said ‘if Flava Flav wasn’t black he’d be Jimmy Saville! After that comic gem I keeled up at Flava Flav’s remark to Emma B and Emma Noble about it being the ‘Emmy awards’ as he drooled over the models parading before his lecherous eyes. Later in the show the camera followed keith Harris as he put his ventriloquists doll ‘Orville’ to bed and remarked the Flava Flav had just flew in but hadn’t used a plane! Next the camera lingered on Keith Harris outside talking to non entity Dave Morgan. Harris remarked about getting Ron Jeremy mixed up with Big Ron Atkinson the soccer pundit !!! I chirped back at the telly saying that Ron Jeremy had certainly scored more times than Ron Atkinson!

I’m looking forward to future instalments, I mean with the likes of mature babes like Cicciolina (yes Mr Jeremy has had it away with her in porn films) and the gorgeous Charlene Tilton who was a childhood crush of mine. Lionel Blair’s facial expressions make me giggle and Flava Flav is gonna be very amusing – I can’t wait to get back on the farm!

Mobile madness

I guess this is a blog of two halves. Firstly I want to moan about customer service, this has been prompted by a recent blog my esteemed blogging associate, read here for her moan. Basically my mobile phone broke back in January so I sent it to a place I’d dealt with before in Wimbledon. Having made a phone call to them and explaining the problem I sent them my phone and sort of expected it within a scant few days, however I didn’t get it back till 7th May. In the end I gave up ringing as I got the usual excuses – ‘we are trying to source parts’ – ‘we need to do something else as the last thing didn’t work’. I reverted back to my old black and white Nokia and revelled in the nostalgia and simple reliability of it. So three months passed until I got a call (I’d given up chasing them) saying my phone was fixed and would cost £120, of course I got that figure down straight away pointing out all the time they’d had to do the job. They said parts had been ordered from China but when I’ve ordered things from Hong Kong they’ve arrived within about 4 days so I wasn’t buying their excuses. To cut a long story short I paid for the repair and got the phone back the next day, the thing is it had been gone so long it didn’t feel like my phone anymore, not only that I’d been out and bought another one that I really liked and felt comfortable with. I ended up selling the phone on to a friend but was left totally disillusioned with British customer service (then again what do you expect with southern workmanship!!!). The second bit of the blog is about mobile phones in general and the evil power they exact over us. Have you ever lost your mobile and felt lost, naked, anxious? The sad and ironic thing is we are lost without them, they’ve become an electrical extension of our own bodies. As the months pass new models come out that do more and more, it’s just getting plain scary. Each new generation becomes more dependant on them, on a recent visit to my dad’s I hid his mobile as a joke and watched him flap and panic till I gave it him back . You see people on buses and trains busily texting, playing games or simply just talking loud so every looks at their new phone. One of my workmates made a good point by saying if a company made a simple mobile that just made calls and texts it would be popular because many people simply just want that without all the extra’s! Sadly though I am a gadget freak who’d feel naked without his mobile but I often wonder what the future holds and how scary it could be!

Chavopoly

Must try it some time - NOT !!!

Alone

Being ill the last few days has made me realise a lot if things. I’ve only had a really bad cold/flu that left me feeling really drained of energy, even my fingers ached. At first you want to be left alone to wallow in self pity in your bed, alone with your pain, sniffles and thoughts but that doesn’t last. It made me reflect on the time I spent in hospital last year, even though there were people about I felt alone but not as alone as I’ve felt in the last few days at home. The end result is it made me think of others that are truly lonely and how they must feel, the people out there that have nobody to turn to, people that spend everyday alone – how truly sad that must be. I’m going to remember this time trapped alone with my thoughts and make damn sure when someone I care for is ill or alone for some reason – I’ll be there for them.