Which swine forgot the grilled eggplant?

To celebrate her birthday, a good friend of mine recently organised a trip to see Romeo and Juliet at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. It’s a beautiful location to see a play, even though the nature involved sent my hayfever crazy and I nearly suffered an untimely death by drowning on my own snot.

It was obvious a lot of people had attended a show there before, since they were smart enough to bring picnics to enjoy on the grass before everything kicked off. It was all very Pimms o’clock. At one point my boyfriend heard someone exclaim, “Xavier’s here!” Of course he is, and he’s jolly well bringing stuffed vine leaves for everyone!

The play itself was really very good, marred only by the people sat behind me. One of these days I’m going to be rich enough to go all Kermodian and buy all the seats around me so I’m never bothered by the general public. This time I was treated to a wonderful family of American tourists - a teenager, a mother figure and the dreaded Small Child. Oh joy.

They annoyed me from the off by chattering to the sprog about what was going on. I lasted about ten minutes before I couldn’t gnash my teeth any harder without grinding them to dust and turned around to shush. I found myself nose-to-nose with the Small Child, who was leaning forward in his seat. He received every last drop of my bile as I ordered him to be quiet. His eyes widened, and his mother nodded violently, pulling him back.

Luckily, this seemed to do the trick, and the sproglet sat in silence for the rest of the first half, but when the interval arrived the teenager decided to wank on about where they’d got to in the play. I was treated to what seemed like hours of his nasal musings because it took forever to get out of our respective rows. “We’re, like, at Act Three, Scene Two… No, maybe, like, Act Two, Scene One… No, like, I think it’s Act Four, Scene Three… Or it could be…” At this point I roundhouse-kicked his head square off his shoulders and we all agreed to disagree.

When the play began for the second half he once again forgot how to behave in public and spent a minute or so talking over the actors to explain what was going to happen to the sprog. Not just, “Oh, and now Juliet’s going to be ordered to marry Paris. Let’s see how that turns out, ho ho!” but a SYNOPSIS OF THE WHOLE PLAY FROM THAT POINT ON, from the proposal of forced marriage to the death of our heroes. I tried to have a sense of humour about it and muttered, “Aw, what? Spoiler warning!” The people next to me giggled, and I felt validated in my wrath.

Safe in the knowledge their idiot child knew exactly what was going to happen, they stayed silent till the end (which, incidentally, borrowed a little too much from Baz Luhrmann’s version but brought tears to my eyes regardless). Romeo had poisoned himself in a dramatic fashion and Juliet had shot her pretty little brains out. They lay draped over one another, their families wept and the Prince made his dramatic, “Now look what you’ve bladdy well gone and done!” speech. The Teenager clearly found the performance somewhat lacking, and at this final moment felt it necessary to start reciting the lines in a stage whisper, saying them just before the Prince did. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. And to add insult to injury, he got them wrong.

I’m still not sure why I let him live. Actually, I’m annoyed at myself for not having turned to him afterwards and told him that he’d ruined the end of the play for me. Because he did. Totally. I should have said something, but I just clung to my boyfriend and tried to let my anger disperse in a non-violent fashion.

I understand that my fury is probably disproportionate to the various crimes, but that said:

1) If your child is too young to understand or be entertained by Shakespeare, take him to see the fucking Lion King. That’s what it’s there for.
2) DO. NOT. TALK. DURING. A. PLAY. With it being outside the ambient noise was distracting enough (planes, a random air-horn, kestrels going WAGH! WAGH!), and I didn’t need twunts like you pulling me even more out of it.
3) If you know the play well enough to recite it, good for you. Save it for the home times, the special secret sexy times. No-one is impressed that you can quote Romeo and Juliet. Like a lot of people, I know great swathes of the play by heart after studying it at GCSE, but I didn’t feel the need to show off. They are the actors. You are the audience. Know your FUCKING place, dickhead, and shut the goddamn hell up.
4) I hate the general public.

Snap Judgements For Funsies

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I love Big Brother. It won’t be the same without the lovely Dermot O’Leary on BBLB every evening, and Big Mouth has never really recovered since Russell Brand left, but I’m still entertained beyond all belief by the main show.

The contestants went in tonight. Here are my earth-shattering and ridiculously judgemental first impressions.

Dennis, a 23-year-old dancer, is this year’s Token Gay. He looks like a bloated Pete Wentz. He combines his sexual preference with being exceptionally loud and smug. As such, all the women in the house are taking turns to drape themselves all over him so he can squeal how “hot” they are and how he’d totally snog them if he liked girls. I bet a fiver they’re showing him their tits by Sunday - it’s okay, you see, he’s gay. I bet another fiver he’s not actually gay.

Dale is the Token Misogynist. In his intro film he said, “If there’s fanny in there, I’ll nail it”. To be blunt, he’s the kind of guy you wish knob-rot on within minutes of meeting him.

Michael is the Token Disabled. Being blind, people are invariably dragging him around the house to make themselves look good or asking in braying tones if he’s “touched things with his hand”. I hope that he grows weary of this treatment and starts touching everything in far more antisocial ways, just to see how far he can push their tolerance. I especially look forward to the day he wipes his knob on everything, starting with the toaster and finishing with Dale’s horrible little face. Loses points for coming dressed as a goat herder. There’s no excuse for a poncho, not even profound blindness.

Darnell is the Token Psycho. His entrance to the house was, quite frankly, terrifying. He stomped around the walkways like a furious toddler denied a multipack of Yazoo at the supermarket, flinging his belongings at the crowd. I give him four days before he smashes the place up.

Kathreya is the Token Wacky Foreigner. Dressed as she is in a hot pink lamé romper suit and gold stacked trainers, she looks like a demented baby from the planet Disco. She carries around a jar of cookies everywhere and everyone seems to be avoiding her. She seems all right, apart from the fact she’s clearly a lunatic.

Then we have the Token Idiot Women. Jennifer, Rachel, Sylvia, Alexandra and especially the vomit-inducing Stephanie are the type of girls that make you ashamed to be female. In fact, they make you feel ashamed to be human. They all think they’re eminently fuckable and their smugness hangs around them like fuggy clouds of yuck. Dale has already ranked them in shag order. They all want to shag Dale.

Mario is the Token Dogger. His real name is Shaun and he wants his girlfriend Lisa (also in the house) to lose weight and have bigger tits. Oh, and to stop caring about her looks so much. Everytime I look at him I hear Alan Partridge in my head talking about the big barns farmers have that we’re not allowed to go into because they contain chickens with giant beaks. Mario looks like an experiment in the genetic modification of Matt Le Blanc gone wrong. He lives in one of Alan’s imaginary big sheds, confused, enormous and, because of his charming opinions on wife Lisa, utterly hate-worthy.

Lisa seems all right, as do Mohammed and Rex. BORING. Luke is clearly meant to be the Token Weirdo, but his I-Wear-Suits-I-Don’t-Drink wackiness is already tedious beyond belief. He’ll be out within a fortnight, as will Screamy Nutpiece Rebecca.

I bet all of you a shiny penny that Mohammed wins.

And Terry Wogan explodes from his own anger after one of those undeserving ethnics takes the crown AGAIN.

I love Eurovision. I do. I bloody love it. And not in a painfully kitsch LOL FOREIGNERS AND GAYS fashion, but in a tragic, treasure-every-second way.

I’ve missed the last couple of years, much to my distress at the time, but this year I switched over just in time to see the UK take the stage and bore the arse off the viewing public with some instantly forgettable disco number. Brilliant. When Terry Wogan announced that our singer, Whatshisname McThingy, had done an amazing job, I couldn’t wait for Tels to be totally confounded when we went home with nil points again.

Which of course he was. We managed to avoid the horror of scoring nothing, but we still did shockingly, coming right at the bottom, and as always Wogan decided to spout on about political voting throughout the whole thing, as if certain countries really do vote for one another to make some sort of statement. I was writing my dissertation the first year we scored nothing (for a momumentally cack performance from the ones that sang out of tune, Blondetits and Wankface. You remember them, right? It was 2003, I think). Anyway, after that debacle certain people couldn’t wait to blame it on Labour. Our culture had gone to the dogs under Blair, crowed a Tory politician! Like Eurovision has ever been anything other than shite where we’re concerned.

When it comes to certain countries voting for one another, the so-called political voting - I have another theory. It’s really fucking out there, but bear with me, okay? Here it comes:

Other countries take the competition seriously.

Let me explain. We’ve been doing this for donkey’s years; since 1957, in fact. We’ve won a bunch of times and we always get our entries in, even if they sucked, thanks to the big fat cheque we pay the heads of Eurovision every year. However, a lot of countries are new to this song contest lark. In the last five years alone no fewer than thirteen new nations have started taking part. And you know why they want in in the first place? Because they actually care about being in it, and they care about winning. We don’t. We couldn’t give a fuck, truth be told. We don’t want to be beaten by Moldova or somesuch, but we don’t really care that much otherwise.

So imagine that all the ex-Soviet and Balkan countries care about the contest. They take several steps to ensure they do well:

1. Fame. They know it.
They pick someone well-known to represent them. Russia’s winning entrant this year, Dima Bilan, came second in the 2006 contest, and he’s a bloody great big star in his homeland. This guy is one of Russia’s biggest selling acts. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that if he’s big in Russia, he’s going to be somewhat of a name in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia et al. In short, check out his bloody big ready-made walloping gallumpha of a fanbase. Those people already love him. Those people will vote for him, even if his song is a turd. He even roped in Evgeni Plushenko, a world champion skater, to slide around him on Saturday night, and some dead popular violinist. In contrast, we have Splatty Thingyjim and his backing band of nobodies. Who gives a shit about Splatty Thingyjim? No-one, except maybe his mum. Who’s going to vote for him, besides his mum? No-one. Because no-one knows (or cares to find out) who Splatty Thinyjim is. Which leads us onto…

2. Promotion. They use it.
This is a simple one. If you want people to vote for your song, it needs to have stuck in their heads. Our entry failed because it was instantly forgettable. Then again, I can’t remember the Russian one either. However, I’m willing to bet hard cash that Dima Bilan promoted his arse off in the run up to the competition. That song would have been on radio and television all over eastern Europe. Why? Because they take it seriously. We, on the other hand, employ some X-Factor reject and poke them onstage at the last minute before throwing a cheery thumbs-up their way and running away giggling.

3. Music. They like it.
Terry Wogan, eh? What a funny chap. ‘Oh ho!’ he crows, ‘This is going to be rubbish!’ over every single slightly ethnic sounding track. I’m quite happy to giggle at the utter rubbish some countries send into the contest - Spain excelled themselves this year with new levels of bonkers arsewankery - but on occasion his commentary borders on xenophobia.

Take the half-time entertainment this year, for instance, provided by the amazing Goran Bregovic. If you love a little eastern European brass madness, go buy some of this guy’s records. I had no idea he was due to appear, but I was delighted when I heard his name. It was such a brilliant addition, and such a surprise - one comment on YouTube phrased it perfectly: “I didn’t expect to see him there at all. Brega playing in Eurovision is like Stanley Kubrick showing up at your high school’s amateur film festival”. I may well have clapped my hands in delight. Wogan sneered at it all, of course, but I expected him to shut up after a few seconds. He didn’t. He talked over almost the entire thing, and even when he wasn’t sniping, he had the sound turned down, so we couldn’t hear the music either way. I was so frustrated and angry I wanted to cry.

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I’ve been able to watch Bregovic and his band back at my leisure, and it was bloody worth it, I tell you - check it out for yourself:

The point is, what the fuck does Terry Wogan know about music from this area of the world? Nothing whatsoever, if he chose to talk over Bregovic. And really, most of us won’t be familiar with the trends of the music industry in every country in the world, unless we’re a bone-fide expert (or, probably, Stephen Fry). So he can talk over the entries all he likes, but I’m going to go out on yet another limb and guess that many of the entries are styles of music very popular with people from that part of the world. They like it. They vote for it. They’re less keen on limp and self-consciously camp disco from the UK. They don’t vote for it. It’s a simple system, and has fuck all to do with politics.

If you combine all of these elements, you’re onto a winner. Sorry Terry, it’s got nothing to do with Iraq. We’re just shit at this.

As a side note, my favourite entry was the ridiculous song from Bosnia & Herzegovina. The version on the night was much weirder - no chicken, but a washing line and loads of brides - but this one still delights me. I found myself genuinely liking the song, and it’s the perfect example of why I like Eurovision so much. Who knows what utter weirdness is going to make it onto your iPod?

I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it. I like to… watch something not moving for about an hour.

A friend of mine works in the art industry and takes me to openings now and again. The opening is usually a prelude to a night in the pub, and despite my complete lack of art savvy I’m usually happy to tag along. To her credit, the friend in question never outwardly shows her embarrassment at my scrunchy faces and whispered But-I-Don’t-Get-It protestations. She just lets me chug down the free booze and smiles benignly at my idiocy.

Last night she took me to see an opening at an old fire station in Marylebone. The place was decrepit and dark, decorated mainly with signs saying ASBESTOS! DEATH! DOOM! But it did have a pole, which somehow made up for the poison lurking around every shadowy turn. I don’t know why.

One of the artists had brought in a couple of mediums. They seemed like nice enough ladies, cuddly middle-aged delusionals who spent a lot of their time blessing people and telling us about protection spells they’d put around the place. Fred West and Hitler wouldn’t be ruining this party, no siree.

The medium session was rather fun. They announced a spirit wanted to make contact, giving vague enough details for it to have related to pretty much anyone in the room and then using all those Derren Brown-esque body language techniques to move things along once some sucker stuck their hand up.

“I have a woman. She’s a sister.”
*silence from room*
“No. She’s like a sister. She’s sisterly.”
*silence from room*
“Anyone?”
*silence from room*
“She wants me to talk to you (points at woman in front row). Had you a sister, or anyone who might be considered sisterly?”
“No.”
“Well, she says she felt sisterly towards you, so there.”

That was the general progression of things. Eventually they’d hit on something that rang true enough and they’d run with it till their luck disappeared (sorry, the spirit ‘moved off’). Brilliant.

Later on they held a séance in a tiny room downstairs. It was suitably creepy. The door creaked, they’d turned the lights off in favour of a lamp with a red bulb and there were a couple of flickery candles. There were even spooky noises floating through from the room next door, thanks to another artist’s piece that featured people in fire-fighter gear bumbling around a room and breathing heavily.

They were joined at the table by some right keenos who clearly believed very much in the whole thing. They laughed heartily at every nervous joke the mediums made to try and cover-up the fact nothing much happened. The planchett spun around a bit, the names Flnp and Tojgy were spelt out, and that was about it. Not exactly the ghostly experience I expect most people there (myself included) hoped might happen.

Let’s face it, if you go and check these things out there’s only a tiny part of you that doesn’t want something to happen. A ghostly visitation is far more exciting than watching a couple of mums bullshit about non-existent orbs and portals for an hour; we all like to be spooked, whether we choose to rationalise it afterwards or not.

Before the whole thing began, the mediums asked if anyone could feel their hair being pulled or their nose itching. If so, spirits were letting you know they were there. This was a fun little ruse, but surely everyone knows the power of suggestion when it comes to itchiness. You put the idea of an itchy nose into someone’s head and the nose will immediately become itchy. It’s just one of those things. They also said that there would be fluctuations in temperature, fluctuations that only the mediums themselves felt when they happened, strangely enough. I scoffed internally every time they whispered about feeling hot or cold. And then, right out of the blue, my own temperature began to rise.

At first I just cursed the room for becoming stuffy. Then the hot flush spread over my whole body. I started to tremble, my knees became weak, and things started to ripple in my vision. Nausea took over and I wondered what I would do if I did actually need to vomit.

Seconds later it passed. I felt normal again, if a bit shaky. Phew.

I realised straight after that I could read it two ways. Had I spoken up, no doubt the sickly spell would have been put down to some sort of spiritual intervention. Had I been a firm believer, I probably would have swallowed it and remained spooked forever. After all, on those ghost hunting shows there’s always *some* member of the crew who has a funny turn. I was haunted, right? My body was haunted. IT WAS DEFINITELY HAUNTED.

Except it clearly wasn’t. In truth, I had been stood very still for a very long time. It was getting on towards 9pm and I was tired. The room was very dark and it disorientated me briefly, helping the nausea, and the strain on my eyes from the poor light affected my vision. There was no way I could slip out without making a scene, adding to the edge of panic the feeling of imminent puke gives by default. And I’d only eaten a packet of prawn cocktail crisps all day. Oopsie.

It’s safe to say I came away from the experience even more aware of how suggestible a person is when they put themselves in that position. Derren Brown would have had a field day, truth be told. In fact, I went to see his show in London a couple of weeks back, and the second half was devoted entirely to old-school séance techniques. He did a bit of table tipping and it was bloody brilliant watching it float. I have no idea how he did it, but the whole thing was clearly not real. It was an illusion, an example of how easily people would have been fooled back in the day.

With my near-puke experience I can only thank my lucky stars I was able to rationalise the entire thing as it happened and not allow myself to get carried away with all the occult-dabblation* (which, admittedly, is a lot of fun when you’re a dirty cynic and can watch with a sardonic expression on your face and a ‘pfft, yeah, right, whatever’ in your head).

Otherwise, I would have looked like a right tit. And, as we all know, there’s no bigger tit than a tit at a séance.

*I think I made this word up. Feel free to take it and use it. It’s a gift from me to you. Enjoy!

Fame! I’m going to die inappropriately young!

Channel Four screened Brokeback Mountain last night, and despite promises to myself that I wouldn’t watch it, I sat through pretty much the whole bloomin’ thing.

My failure annoyed me because Brokeback Mountain is a film that falls into a select category in my mind, one that has been named Films That Make Me Weep For Seven Years Every Time I Watch Them. Even though  I’m one of those pansies who’ll cry at adverts when no-one is looking, this remains a very exclusive club. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind goes in without question - If I’m not bawling my eyes out when Clementine murmurs, “Come back and make up a goodbye this time… let’s at least pretend we had one”, there’s something not right in the world. Likewise, if I’m not fighting back the tears when the Hungry March Band storm the titular club in Shortbus and Severin starts screaming the place down, the world is all askew. 

 

(note: this video probably isn’t work safe, unless your work don’t mind you watching the beginnings of an orgy).With Brokeback Mountain, the opportunities for a little sob are numerous. What about when Alma catches Jack and Ennis kissing? Wah! What about when Ennis finds the bloodied shirts hidden away? Mew! What about that very last scene where Ennis mutters, “Jack, I swear…” For Christ’s sake, there’s snot everywhere.

Nothing quite compares to the last trip to Brokeback, however. The squabble that ends in bitter recrimination and weeping always leaves me a wreck on the sofa. Whose heart isn’t stamped into itty-bitty pieces when Heath Ledger’s face squinches up and he spits out a defeated, “It’s your fault I’m like this… I’m nothing, I’m nowhere…”? Bloody brilliant stuff.(As an aside, I tried to find a clip of this scene on YouTube, but I couldn’t see for the lake of fanvids. I’m too trepidatious to open them, but from the stills and the titles I’m going to guess they’re montages of Jack and Ennis having a little cuddle to Ronan Keating songs and that one by Aerosmith. Soz. )

So I started off this post insisting I didn’t want to watch one of my all-time favourite films, and the reason is simple: advertising. The last thing you need during a film like Brokeback Mountain is a noisy ad break every twenty minutes, the emotional rollercoaster pulled to a grinding halt so you can be bombarded with jaunty images of delighted pensioners licking the lid of life, or puppies letting you know how best to wipe your arse. No, no and thrice no. I want my misery UNINTERRUPTED, okay?

I’m going to start a campaign to have all films of an emotional manner screened solely on the Beeb. Channel 4 and ITV can have what’s left: teen comedies, films about fast cars and any that feature unrelenting and depressingly vivid violence.

There was a point to all this, actually. Are you ready for it?

Excellent.

The reason I’m wanking on about the wonderful Brokeback Mountain is because watching it in the wake of Ledger’s untimely death left me thinking about his acting legacy.

When he and Jake Gyllenhaal signed up for the film there was a lot of discussion about whether the decision would ruin their careers, and the ‘bravery’ they were showing by taking on such roles, like they were planning on doing a non-stop sponsored wank until all world debt had been eradicated or something. Bravery? No-one would call it bravery if two female actors had signed up for the lesbian version. Then it would have just been front page news on the cover of The Sun with the headline ‘PHWOAR! HOLLYWOOD STARS KNOCK KNOCKERS’ attached. But that’s beside the point.

Regardless, I’m sure it would have taken a lot of thought on their parts. But say Heath Ledger hadn’t signed on and made this film? I think it’s fair to say that it’s the performance of his life, that he was robbed of that Oscar… but what else would he have been remembered for? A Knight’s Tale? Ten Things I Hate About You? Unlikely.

You see, the discussion that went on around their employment focussed on whether the pair would be cast in anything ever again after playing gay in one film. Would their careers suffer? Would it be worth it? No-one knew that Ledger would be dead three or four years down the line, that this fine performance would be the shining moment of his professional legacy.

So all I really wanted to say was this: it’s a bloody good example of carpe diem if ever I saw one.

Hey, Uncle Sandro, how we don’t really know, but seems like politicians can be only wrong.

If you had a vote yesterday I really hope you took some time to read the mayoral manifestos on the London Elects webpage. I did so last night, realising I had no idea who to award my second vote to, and it was both terrifying and hilarious. Here are some of my favourite political jackasses.

Matt O’Connor
English Democrats
First off, this is not a man. This is a creation. Somewhere in this world, Dr. Fox has secured the funds to build a lab deep in the earth’s crust, and in that lab he built a man based on his own image. Foxy gave him a rudimentary history lesson, made him angry about kilts, named him Matt and released his creation into the world.

This is what the leader of Dr. Fox’s master race has to say about things:

“We all remember a country we called home. A green and pleasant land that gave the world the English language, Democracy, the Mother of Parliaments and the Magna Carta.”

Seriously? That’s his political angle, to make people feel nostalgic for the days of the Magna Carta? This particular piece of English legislation hasn’t crossed my own mind since I studied it at school circa 1992, and I struggle to think of the last time it came up in any sort of conversation.

…apart from when Hugo, Toby, Rupert and I went boating at Toby’s divine family estate and discussed all manner of bloody brilliant English things over ginger beer and hard boiled eggs. We made a top ten. The Magna Carta came third, beaten only by cricket and the Queen. What ho!

Matt is also Very Angry About Scotland. You get the feeling he’d start stabbing the place up if you so much as offered him a piece of shortbread. He probably spends his days writing letters to the ASA complaining about that Wine Gums advert.

Alan Craig
Christian Choice
Say hello to your friendly religious fundamentalist candidate! I don’t know about you guys, but in a diverse city like London we DEFINITELY need the person in power to bleat on about Jesus. You know, just to bring the community together. Well, the Christian community, anyway. Just ignore the fact London is made up of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Rastafarians, Atheists and more religions than I have time to think of. In short, there’s loads, and the vast majority don’t give a toss about Luke or what he had to say in 22:26. For that reason, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that ‘Jesus said “The leader is the one who serves”‘ has no place in a political manifesto. Also, if it’s a direct quote Luke had poor grammatical skills. Wanker.

Beyond that, here’s the first three points on Craig’s winning manifesto:

The Christian Choice priorities:
- Promote marriage and stable family as a long-term solution to youth crime, educational under-achievement and child poverty
- Stop the mega-mosque at West Ham near 2012 Olympics proposed by a controversial Islamic sect (MegaMosqueNoThanks.com)
- Champion London’s most vulnerable – the unborn, the elderly, the refugee

Which essentially translates as:

- Continue to blame single parents for all the crime on our streets.
- Pretend that racial and religious diversity doesn’t exist in London. Also, ensure even more hostility between The Good Guys (henceforth known as ‘Us’) and the Muslim community (henceforth known as ‘The Terrorists’).
- Ban abortion.

Cunt.

Finally, let’s go see what everyone’s favourite neo-Nazis have to say.

Richard Barnbrook
BNP
You see this chump? See his wistful face? Guess what he’s thinking. I’ll give you a little time to construct an answer.

…

If you said, ‘Our wonderful party is so inclusive! YAY!’, you’d be wrong.

If you said, ‘I hate it when people think we’re racists. It makes me have sad face. :(’, you’d be wrong.

If you said, ‘I think I’ll have a wank over the Stephen Lawrence thing later… no matter how much time passes it still makes me stiff as a board!’, you’d be closer, but still wrong.

What this absolute cockend is thinking is:

“Remember London the way it used to be? Clean, friendly and safe.”

No, Richard. No, I don’t remember that. What you’ve done, right, is confuse London, the sprawling capital city of our dear nation, with a rural idyll somewhere in Cornwall. You know the one - it’s where all the nice, non-threatening white people live.

London has never been clean, London has never been friendly, and London has never been safe. It’s a fucking capital city. It has eight million people living in it, not to mention all the commuters and visitors. Nowhere this big, this busy, this exciting will ever be clean and safe. As for friendly, why not try being a little less terrified of anyone who doesn’t share your dour pallor? It helps breed the wacky things like friendship you crave so much.

You know, I could lay into this asshat for days. Look at some of his policies!

- British jobs for British workers

British jobs? What exactly is a ‘British’ job? Tea maker? Yorkshire pudding chef? Stout landlord at the local free house?

- Build a better NHS

That’s something for the MPs of the House of Commons to deal with. Unless you have something to say about LON-DON, get off my land.

- Scrap the congestion charge

YEAH! DOWN WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN! Fucking PRICK.

- Better education for all our people

Again, not your fucking concern, matey. And don’t think for a second that any of us are stupid enough to miss ‘our people’. That’s right, keep the immigrants down where they belong - uneducated and too underqualified to do anything but sweep our dirty, dirty streets. That’s progress, that is. That’s what it’s all about. Ooh, I’m feeling rigid.

What do things like ‘build a better NHS’ and ‘Better education’ mean, anyway? They’re just words. We all want our free healthcare to survive - it’s a wonderful ideal. But you can’t just say it, you have to say how you’re going to do it. Or don’t, since, y’know, it has no place in this election anyway.

The worst thing the BNP does is use quotes from people ‘just like you’ to try and convince you it’s okay to be a racist these days. Here are the ones they picked this time:

People Like You Voting BNP

HOUSEWIFE – Lorraine Henry
“I’m terrified about my children’s future. Knife and gun crime are out of control and paedophiles are released back into the community. Only the British National Party have policies which keep our children safe.”

BUILDER – Ken Seager
“I vote BNP because I’m proud of my country and our heritage. We should celebrate things like St. George’s Day and other Christian festivals like St Patrick’s Day instead of other festivals such as Ramadan and Eid.”

STUDENT – Samantha Winter
“I’m voting BNP because I’m Irish and the BNP are the only party that cares about the indigenous peoples of these islands. Our jobs are under threat from economic migrants and only the BNP will protect our interests.”

Now, these are clearly made up. Any halfwit can see that. But doesn’t it make your skin crawl? Take this fictional Ken Seager character. His major concerns when it comes to governing a city is whether or not we celebrate St. George’s Day. He doesn’t want to be celebrating Ramadan and Eid. I can’t even summon up the words to describe now sick this kind of rhetoric makes me.

Oh, and notice the insidious inference in the title? People Like You Voting BNP. Read it again. Poor grammar? Bad English? Maybe. But you can read it two ways and both offend me.

So what did people have left? The UK Independence Party, another right wing wankathon that’s desperate to remind us how bad Europe is; Left List, whose candidate seems fine and dandy with a solid background in feminist and anti-racist political work, but clearly has no hope of winning; and Winston McKenzie, an independent with a grainy photo and no manifesto.

Then there are the real front runners: Ken, Boris, PC Brian and the lovely Sian Berry, representing the Green party. When you look at his competition outside of those three (and Left List), Boris almost seems like a warm, fluffy option.

How terrifying is that?

This pin used to hold a pearl the size of your eye. Look at me now! LOOK AT ME NOW! I’m wearing a cardboard belt!

Unless you’re one of those tiresome people who bleats on about the merits of ‘never watching TV’, it’s likely you’ll have seen the new Davidoff ad featuring Ewan McGregor. If you haven’t and want to carry on thinking Ewan’s an alright sort, I would advise against clicking on this here YouTube window.

Horrible, isn’t it? The first time I saw it I was left with my head in my hands, feeling layer upon layer of treacle-thick shame by proxy. ‘Why Ewan?’ I whimpered. ‘Why did you do it?’

I’ve since seen colleagues and netlings alike react in exactly the same way, and rightfully so - Ewan has ruined himself for years to come with this thirty-second folly. Rainwater must have been trickling through the knackered ceiling and directly into the bed of his infant child for him to have been this desperate for cash. Right? Right?!

Truth is, it probably wasn’t. Maybe he just fancied some new saddlebags for his motorbike, no doubt fashioned from the skins of one-hundred-and-one dalmations. Those pups don’t come cheap, you know.

Anyway, here’s the real point: why do I feel such disappointment in Ewan for selling out? Sure, he’s a fine actor and terribly good looking, but what has he done film-wise to elicit such horror over his unwise ad deal? Let’s take a look at his IMDB for a second. Ooh, Shallow Grave, that was a good ‘un. And Trainspotting, no-one could say that wasn’t a fine film. Little Voice, Brassed Off - excellent Sunday fodder if you like your Film4 productions about it being grim oop norf, and all that.

After that his CV starts to look a bit shaky. We’ll pretend Velvet Goldmine never happened, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say those Star Wars films weren’t as ace as people hoped for.  What else? Moulin Rouge (irritating beyond all comprehension), Down With Love (pelt him! pelt him in his plastic face!), Robots (piss-poor animation by numbers), Miss Potter (kill. me.), Scenes of a Sexual Nature (the worst film of 2006)… What has Ewan McGregor done that’s worthy of respect in the last twelve years?

Ridden around on a big motorbike, that’s what.

The Long Way Down (or Around, or Up, or About) was a fascinating series, for sure, but when all Ewan has to his name is a reality show and two great films from the early nineties, why are we all so horrified when he makes a dodgy ad?

It’s because we remember the good days. We still embrace the likes of Renton and Alex in our memories and pretend that Ewan McGregor is as good at making professional choices as he is at acting. The sad fact is, it’s just not true - he was a lost cause years ago. Little cartoon dollar signs have been flashing in his eyes for the last decade, whether we’ve noticed it or not.

On the upside, there are always plenty of clever dicks who make wonderful parodies for our amusement. This is how it should have gone:

At the other end of the scale, there are the beloved celebs who you know really are doing it to fix the leak into little Pippa’s crib. What’s on the end of the stick, Vic? Oh look, it’s this month’s mortgage repayment in exchange for your dignity!

For shame.

All The Young Dudes

As I’ve grown older I’ve become more and more curmudgeonly when it comes to music. I seem to discover less new stuff that excites me with every year that passes. It’s really depressing.

But do you know what’s even more depressing? Realising how old you are compared to all the new bands that are appearing. Take Operator Please, for example. I quite like them. I have no idea if that makes me a complete loser, but I don’t really give a shit either way. Just A Song About Ping Pong is amazing. I might even buy their album. Yeah, you heard me!

The only downside? They’re about ten!

 Look at their tiny fresh faces! They shouldn’t be making records and making me feel old; they should be at school making me feel wise and learned. Godammit.

When I first got into Kenickie they were doing their A-levels. I thought they were well grown up and that. Now there are pop toddlers being rock stars and I’m some elderly failed hack scowling at their youth with bitter eyes. Curse the young! CURSE THEM!

Meanwhile, it would seem that Alphabeat are finally trying to make a name for themselves outside of Scandinavia. I saw them on Richard & Judy the other day, looking all pale and confused while Madeley battered them with nonsensical questions for what seemed like hours.

I love their single. Fascination has stuck with me for about a year and a half now, cheering me up with its wa-ohs and more wa-ohs. It’s the aural equivalent of jumping up and down on a bouncy castle while just a little bit tiddly on Babycham.

It’s definitely not cool, though. During the aforementioned interview, Richard said the band had been described as sounding like ‘the Scandinavian Scissor Sisters’. This is complete bollocks, of course; what they actually sound like is the indie S Club 7, as their new video shows.

I don’t really get the new video. Personally, I’m more of a fan of the orginal. There’s less ironic formation dancing and more limbs a-flinging we-really-mean-this dancing. You’re just going to have to trust me on this though, since the dastardly Danes have removed every version from YouTube and replaced it with this horrible new one.

Laura and I saw them play in Copenhagen last year. Aside from all the accompanying dads, we were the oldest people there by at least ten years.

Indie S Club 7, I tell ya.

Godlike Gobshites

To bring the farce that is the NME’s renewed support of Manic Street Preachers to a close, they were awarded the title of Godlike Genius at the Brats last night. I’m showing my age now, aren’t I? I don’t think it’s been called the Brats for about 15 years. Still, I like the name and they only changed it to please some corporation or summink so yeah anarchy lolz etc moving on.

Dave and I flicked over to the coverage because he was channel surfing in the bedroom and saw the presenters taking the mick out of the ever ridiculous Simon Price. Knowing how much I despise the silly little man, Dave came barrelling into the living room to tell me to turn over and about thirty seconds later the Manics retrospective began.

It was a tedious piece of film to say the least. Talking heads extraordinaire like Jo ‘I haven’t been relevant for 14 years’ Whiley and Halibut Jones from New Order wanked on about the fact the Manics once wore white jeans and looked a bit like girls back in the day, apart from James, who looked like a hamster with a dicky tummy most of the time (as an aside, if there was ever a film made about the Manics I hope to BEJESUS they cast Michael Cera as Bradders, ignoring the tiny fact of Cera being 40ft tall and James regularly making hobbits feel lofty. If you tell me it’s not perfect, I’ll tell you you’re an idiot).

Meanwhile, Steve ‘Single Peanut’ Lamacq somehow managed to contain himself and not remind the world for the seventeen billionth time that he was instrumental in the whole 4Real shindig. He always looks so delighted to tell that tale. Granted, it has become one of rock n’ roll’s most iconic moments, but he essentially goaded an utter nutter to the point of violent lunacy in order to prove a point. Lamaqc’s cheery punchline of ‘But you’re getting blood all over the carpet HAR HAR’ has never sat well with me. Still, at least he ditched Whiley, which puts him one step up from all the others.

Once the dreary retrospective was over, the Manics themselves came up on stage to accept their dubious award. Nicky Wire looked so delighted that his mammoth ego had somehow been justified I was shocked he didn’t whip out little Nicky and congratulate himself right there. James Dean Bradfield stood where he always does at these occasions - several feet away, looking embarrassed while Nicky burbled into the mic. I feel for James. He’s genuinely very musically talented and by all accounts an alright bloke, but he always looks at Nicky with an expression that reads, ‘You’re practically family, and I love you to death, but for all our sakes just hush.’ Sean Moore was invisible, as always. Sensible Sean, he always has the right idea. I sometimes wonder if he applies the T-Rex rule to being in the Manics, the one we all learned from watching Jurassic Park: if you stay still, the gangly monster with the big gob won’t see you. Whatever his strategy, it works. Stay hidden, Moorus, it’s for the best.

Then came the exhibition of what has made them so great over the years: the music. They rattled through Motorcycle Emptiness with just enough gusto to make it worthwhile before bringing a dead-eyed Cerys Matthews on stage to duet on Your Love Alone Is Not Enough. She looked like she wanted to cry the entire time. E4 went to ads mid-song. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

Despite this rather sarcastic post, I really have nothing but love for the Manics, and Nicky Wire is certainly no more or no less arrogant than your average gangly transvestite bassist. But there’s something that just makes me cringe about them these days. It’s always been there, but it’s only during the last few years that watching them talk makes me want to look away, turn over, point out a car wreck… just do something that doesn’t involve paying any attention whatsoever.

It takes me back to a night working at the Hog’s Head pub in Uxbridge. After closing, we did a cursory toilet check and found a girl passed out in a cubicle, curled around the toilet. Her trousers were around her ankles and behind her lay a perfectly formed turd which had obviously just plopped out of its own volition.

Growing up with the Manics was a wonderful experience, but now they’re just that drunken girl with the loosened bowels. You want to have a little giggle, but it’s cruel. And you’re not just going to abandon her, because that’s crueller still. Meanwhile, she’s so blasted she can’t even comprehend building up a good head of shame at what’s just happened. So all that’s left for you is to be embarrassed on her behalf. Cringe good and cringe hard at the idea of her being so pissed she ended up having a little public poo.

You’ll never forget her and her fantastic faecal fuck-up, but you’re glad you can walk away as soon as it’s all over and take no responsibility for the whole dreadful situation.

The Borrower - part two

One of the highlights of my life is the arrival of my annual statement from the Student Loans Company.

For those not in the know, the beloved Tony Blair and his Labour government introduced student loans for anyone starting university in England and Wales in 1998. Tuition fees replaced the privilege of free education, and grants became loans, repayable on your entry to the adult job market. Essentially, the gravy train had puttered into Education Station and booted you unceremoniously onto the platform without so much as a bye or leave. Charmin’.

Of course, when you’re a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old the last thing you’re thinking about is repayment. Grown-up job? Get lost, grandad! I have missed lectures, traffic cone-theft and misguided dye jobs to be getting on with. Another Snakebite, anyone?

I entered university education with exactly this happy-go-lucky (read: utterly twattish) attitude to money. As a country girl heading down to the big smoke, I smugly grabbed at that extra grand of London Weighting offered, taking out a loan of £4,500 for every year I remained in education. Due to a balls up at A-levels regarding my ability to remember historical dates, I changed my course at the end of the first year and stretched my degree out to five long, long years.

I graduated from Brunel University in 2004. I had a 2:1 in Politics and Sociology, two proud parents and a shit-eating grin from the knowledge I’d somehow got away with writing my dissertation on the Manic Street bloody Preachers. Oh, and a statement from the Student Loans Company saying I owed them 22,500 beans… at some point.

Fast-forward to 2008 and that figure has risen to £25,518. I’m currently paying off the standard monthly rate for my salary, which doesn’t even cover two-thirds of the interest. Can I afford to pay more a month? No. I’d quite like to have a little money left after all my bills and debts are covered, thanks. You know, to piss away on a normal social life and that. Will I ever pay my loan off? I doubt it. I suspect it’ll just keep on growing until it matches the national deficit of the average Bush administration.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! I called the SLC this afternoon for an informative chat, and a nice Scottish lady told me that if it wasn’t cleared by the time I hit sixty-five the loan would be written off. Imagine that. Sixty-five. The most worrying thing is I think I probably will get to sixty-five and still be making those damn payments, and still only paying off some of the interest at that.

So the question I need to ask is this: was it all worth it? All that time I wasted watching Cash In The Attic in my pants rather than getting on the bus and attending another mind-numbing lecture on Bullshit Statistics For Pointless Studies II - could it have been better spent getting a job and working my way up whatever slippery ladder seemed right at the time? Probably, yeah. But it’s not stopping me seriously considering putting my limp excuse for a career on hold and seeing if I can somehow afford to do a Masters in screenwriting at the London Film School. I’m pretty sure we’ll all have been blown to bits by some sort of nuclear holocaust way before I hit sixty-five, so why the hell not?

That said, I suspect the Student Loans Company will somehow manage to survive even the most gargantuan mushroom cloud and, accompanied by an army of cockroaches and Twinkies, continue to bust my decomposing ass for many years to come for daring to want an education.

Bastards.