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Thursday, July 31, 2008

CARTROUBLE, PART ONE 

Dive complained in a comment on a recent post on here that he didn't know much about current popular music because he is old.  I'm nearly as old as him, and don't know very much about current popular music either.  What I do know about it is a bit random.  

There comes a point in your life when it seems a bit unseemly to be "up" on, I dunno, bassline house, or whatever happens to be fashionable this week.  That age is probably about 25.

Still, in an effort to keep up with what is out there, I've been scouring the style magazines to find out who are THE top band of the moment, and who you'll all be talking about in a year's time.  Even though you're of pensionable age, you'll be able to say "oh, I heard of them ages ago!"  You'll be able to thank me.

That band is ... THE AUDITORS.

The Auditors are a band who've been described by Harper's Bazaar as "the missing link between The Kinks, Big Bill Broonzy and Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Ting Tang Bing Bang Bong".  All of the style mags, broadsheets and gossip columns are mad about them.

The five members of the band - vocalist Charlie Fitzgibbon, guitarist Gerhard Von Trapp, bassist Pierre Le Pierrot, keyboard player Prince Alexander VIII of Moldavia and drummer Hugo Jeremiahs - met at a Swiss finishing school.

Three of them have modelled part time, and are definitely NOT socialites or rich, stupid cunts on trust funds with the right connections.  

Karl Lagerfeld has raved about singer Charlie (third from the top in the picture), saying "he is ... the epitome of beautiful modern man who has the discipline of not eating.  He has the narrowest hips I have ever seen on a man.  This is the evolution towards the perfect man - he is in fact very nearly the perfect man."

This is what Charlie has to say, as culled from an interview in the Evening Standard colour supplement:

"Gerhard and I thought it would be rather fun to form a pop group when we left school.  Daddy has good connections in the gramaphone industry so we got a record deal in, like, a couple of weeks, and this huge advance.  Mummy has this huge sort of record collection so we were sifting through all these kind of vinyl records by these amazing sixties bands such as The Tourists and Tears For Fears, which is where we got the ideas for our sound.   We learned to play our instruments in a couple of weeks, which was a bit tedious, but, as daddy said, probably necessary.

We did a short tour and stuff, supporting Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Ting Tang Bing Bang Bong.  To be honest, it's already becoming a bit of a bore, and we've been told we may have to go into the studio to record something or other.  I'd much prefer to, like, hang out with Kelly Osborne or Peaches Geldof and those sort of edgy streetwise kooky people, or to go to some hot underground club like Bungalow 8, or get sent free designer clothes or cocaine.  Those sorts of things are rather fun and make all the graft worthwhile.

Still, I've enjoyed all the attention and doing the fashion shoots for Vogue and the Telegraph has been rather fun.  After all ... duh!  Who goes to India in their gap year any more?

We've been going for a few months, but I'm not bothered if we become popular or not.  My uncle has got a job high up the Diplomatic Service lined up for me in September.

That should be rather fun!"

Charlie is currently dating supermodel and sculptress Portia Von Trapp, sister of the band's guitarist Gerhard.  I will be telling you all about her in the next post.

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Monday, July 28, 2008

OMELETTE FROM OUTER SPACE 


It's with great sadness (ahem) that I have to note that Weston Super Mare Grand Pier has been *engulfed by flames* as the tabloids would have it.

GMTV this morning encouraged viewers to send in their "memories" of the pier. I mean - who the fuck has memories of a seaside pier? They're much of a muchness and you'd have to be really easily pleased to think of them with any fondness.

I do have (not particularly fond) memories of Weston though, because we used to take our annual week's holiday there during my childhood.

As I've said before, if you grew up in the 1960's or '70's, and you were of 'umble origin, chances were that you went to the same holiday destination every bloody year. No one ever questioned why they had to go to the same place year in year out - they just did. One of my uncles and his family went all the way to Swanage in Dorset, which was a bloody long way from Staffordshire. They didn't moan about the long journey or the dreariness of the caravan park they stayed in - they just rolled up their sleeves and got on with it.

Holidays weren't to be enjoyed really, once you'd got past the age of about five. They were an endurance test from which you emerged tired, depressed and malnourished, but eager to get back to home comforts.

When I was eight, my parents took a controversial decision - THEY DECIDED TO CHANGE THEIR HOLIDAY DESTINATION.

In previous years, we'd gone to Colwyn Bay in North Wales ... but the landlady of the guesthouse we always stayed in had decided to retire.

My dad decided that we were going to a place he had fond memories of ("????") It was the place where he convalesced after breaking his leg in a mining accident.

I just put that bit in so that I can score a few salt of the earth prole points over you middle class ponces.

Anyway, that place was Weston Super Mare.

Here are some happy memories of Weston. Do you think I should e-mail them to GMTV, and would the lovely Kate Garroway read them out tomorrow morning?

1. I can remember us finding a nice, quiet spot on the beach which was warmer, more sheltered and less blustery than anywhere else on the seafront. We put down our deckchairs and relaxed. About two minutes later, a donkey being ridden by a small child walked past, stopped and dropped a stinking heap of dung a few feet away from us, so we had to move.

2. Once we went on a coach mystery tour around Chew Valley Lake, stopping off at a few pubs on the way. The journey back around The Mendip Hills was particularly memorable. As the coach screeched around winding hidden bends are great speed, and veered bumpily across the country lanes, it became apparent that the driver had partaken of a lot of beer in each of the pubs. "The driver is completely drunk," my mum whispered "but don't say anything about it because his bloody wife is sitting in front of us".

3. On another coach tour, this time to Bath, in 1974, I time travelled back to 1971. That's all I'm going to say. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, I felt very nauseous afterwards and it involved people in tank tops.

4. The dodgy guesthouse we stayed at was run by one of those women in their fifties who has a very dark suntan, long, dyed black hair and always wears carmen red lipstick. The sort of woman who says "people always say to me that I look a bit Italian or Spanish and a man who chatted me up once told me that I look like Gina Lollobrigida". When we were sat down for breakfast once she leaned over my dad and said "you've got lovely eyes".

5. One year, in a Fawlty Towersesque way, a bloke died during the first night in the room next to us.

6. On another night it was raining heavily and I awoke to find that my bed was soaked from water that had leaked through the ceiling. We weren't even on the top floor.

7. Once I dry heaved all the way through the dinner. The salad was covered in living, moving aphids.

8. I was nearly run over by a motor bike in the town centre.

9. We used to go to the Golden Egg eaterie in Weston once every holiday for an omelette and chips. The seats were big, puffy, mustard coloured things and the backs of your legs used to stick to them so that when you stood up you had wheals all over your thighs.

10. Most of the West Midlands population decided to take their annual holiday in Weston the same week as us, for reasons unknown. We bumped into one bloke who my dad knew and his family. Later, my dad informed me that this bloke was the real dad of one of my friends, and she was the result of a one night stand.

11. For many years afterwards, I used to have regular dreams about drowning at Weston, even though the sea was usually about twenty miles out at any given time.

Will that do?

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Friday, July 25, 2008

DESPERATE BUT NOT SERIOUS 

Here's a running commentary from the recent BBC3 coverage of the first annual At One With Oneness Festival which took place last weekend just outside Grimsby.

Even though there have already been 96573 music festivals in Britain this summer, the At One With Oneness Festival is, say organisers, "a completely new and exciting concept".

The BBC cameras captured the highlights over the weekend. On hand were Radio One's Edith Bowman ...


Edith: muddy but amazing

... and Radio One's Zane Lowe (aka Zip Love, aka the New Zealand B-Boy, stop larffing at the back).


Zane interviews somebody or other on site, fuck knows who.

The camera cuts back to the studio, which is done out in the style of a barn, with haystacks and a zany papier mache cow. There has just been an OB featuring Rufus Hound interviewing the Moving Cardboard Theatre Co., who are dressed up as egg cartons.

Zane: "Thanks Rufus! Edith, I believe you've been having a bit of a walkabout and took in a few bands earlier today. Who've you seen?"

Edith: "Well, I went to see The Fratellis on the Hope And Serenity Stage."

Zane: "How were they?"

Edith: "What can I say? They were just ... amazing ... incredible. Then I moved on to the Recycled Pigeon Shit Stage halfway through Groove Armada's set."

Zane: "What were they like?"


Edith: "Oh, they were incredible, just amazing. The atmosphere was just amazing. I was amazed. After that I felt like I needed to, y'know, chill out a little bit so I went to the Acoustic Smugness Tent and saw Duffy doing a low key set."

Zane: "What was that like? A lot of people would say that people like Duffy don't belong at festivals ..."


Edith: "That's just ridiculous - she was amazing. That girl can sing! She was amazing. Anyway, I've been told that you've been hanging out at the Post Ironic Stage!"

Zane: "Ahem. This is true."


Edith: "And a little bird told me that you saw ... Engelbert Humperdinck! Wow! Amazing! What was he like???"

Zane: "I tell you man ... when he took to the stage I had my doubts. Does someone like Engelbert belong at a festival? But after a couple of numbers he rubbed into Please Release Me and I tell you, the crowd went crazy and he JUST KILLED IT! What can I say, the dude's a legend!"


Engelbert: killed it

Edith: "Amazing! Wow, who would've thought it! Anyway, now we're going over to three hours of highlights from The Editors' set because the singer knocked me up ... but they were just amazing."

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

NEVER TRUST A MAN (WITH EGG ON HIS FACE) 

Who would've thought that this bloke ...



would've turned up looking like this ...



because disguising yourself as



... Harold Shipman isn't exactly going to give you a low profile, even if he has been dead for some time.

Come to think of it, how many times has Tom Conti been mistakenly hauled in for questioning about war crimes in The Hague in the past few years, eh?


Radavan Karadzic


Tom Conti

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

THE VOODOO THAT YOU DO 

Chiles: smiling through the pain

Champagne bottles were uncorked and there was mass hysteria in the streets recently among the women of Britain at the joyous news that Adrian "Voodoo" Chiles- the most sexually attractive man in Europe - was once again a free agent.

I'd certainly be at the head of the queue to get my claws into Adrian (41) if 

(a) I wasn't already married or

(b) He wasn't four years younger than me and will probably eventually *find happiness* with, I dunno, television's Fearne Cotton.

Sigh ...

We're still persevering with The ONE Show, of which Adrian is one of the co-presenters. I wrote a post about it a couple of years ago.  Most importantly, we're still persevering with watching The ONE Show with the sound turned off.  Don't ever watch it with the sound turned on: it will only disappoint you.

In a recent ONE Show, the main guest was dreamy, gorgeous former footballer David Ginola (41), who certainly rivals Adrian for the crown of Most Sexually Attractive Man Of Europe.

The ladies on the show had definitely put in a bit of effort, no doubt *for David*.

Co-presenter (and Garfer lust-object) Christine Bleakley was wearing a lovely dove grey chiffon frock.

That ginger woman whose name escapes me was wearing a burgundy pencil skirt with a split in it that was twisted round so that you could see almost all the way up to the Golan Heights. Well, I ask you!  A woman of mature years gadding about like that!  What a carry on!

Anyway, I imagined the question Adrian put to Monsieur Ginola - two great sex symbols of our age locking horns ...

"Davvvveeed, yo'm an 'it with the ladies.  Could yer give us a few pointers, loike, tell me weer I'm gooin' wrong?  Chat up lines and that?  The missus 'as kicked us out after a year of mekkin' me sleep on the sofa.  Do yer know any French birds yo can fix us up with?"

As I said - don't watch it with the sound turned up.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

CENTURIES OF TAMING 

Oops, I can feel a rant coming on.

Last night I saw Judith O'Reilly being interviewed on Richard & Judy's show.

You may or may not know that she is the former Times journalist who landed a book deal a few weeks after starting a *blog*.  The back story is here.

I don't know anything about her writing, and have read very few of the "acclaimed" blogs.  I've got better things to do with my time than read the very long winded *musings*, *ramblings* and *meanderings* of twee middle class housewives who churn out babies on a regular basis and seem overly pleased with themselves.

Still, the interview in itself was enough to wind me up.  

Unfortunately, watching it pissed me off so much that I became very angry, and had to storm off to do the washing up to the accompaniment of loud music.  Oooh, get me!

The only CD to hand was Adam & The Ants' Greatest Hits, which didn't quite hit the anger button. 

Ms O'Reilly isn't really a "representative" of British bloggers (indeed, who is?).  Thank the feck for that.

I just hope that she isn't a "representative" of women in general.

She was asked why her blog had got so many readers in such a short time.

She replied that she felt that it represented women today as they are - as wives, daughters and mothers.

Eh?

Feminism has come a long way.  Women aren't women - they're wives, daughters and mothers. Apparently we're living in a pre-Jane Austen era.

Well, I must be completely fucked up then - my parents are both dead which means I'm not a daughter, and I haven't churned out any middle class babies, so I'm not a mother.  Does this mean that I'm not a woman, and should I therefore kill myself now?

Strange - I'm pretty sure that most of the women I know don't see themselves as just wives, daughters or mothers.  Perhaps I've misunderstood them, though.

Ms O'Reilly re-located to Northumberland despite her husband working in London, because it's what he wanted to do.  Fair enough.  

Ms O'Reilly wants us to know that it's been a struggle being a wife, daughter and mother who has re-located to the wilds of the north (hmm... Scottish readers must be confused.  What is this "north" that she speaks of?).  She's tried to work part time and work from home combining this with motherhood, which has been difficult.

Perhaps not quite as difficult as it is for a single mother who has to do two or three part time jobs to pay the bills, but I doubt that such a woman would have the time to write a blog ... er, anyway ...

Ms O'Reilly further increased my irritability by saying that when her husband was away from home the car's petrol had run out several times.  She thought that filling the car with petrol was "a boy's job".

Bleeding hell.

Bleeding hell.

Maybe all of the female bloggers should get together to send a petition to Richard & Judy stating that Judith O'Reilly does not represent them as women, wives, daughters or mothers!

In the meantime, let's raaaaaak - fuck, yeeeeahh!!!!!


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Monday, July 07, 2008

THE AMRITRAJ BROTHERS 

Ah well, we decided to watch the Wimbledon Men's Final after all, what with it being a dreary day and with us not having anything better to do.  Maybe it could have renewed our interest in tennis after all.

The match lasted about three days and was declared in all quarters to be one of the best finals of all time - but I still couldn't feel involved or excited about watching it.

Roger Federer's more subtle play clashed with the powerhouse Rafael Nadal.  The shots these days are just too fast to appreciate.  Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if everything had been shown at half speed.  Or perhaps I agree with this opinion.

At first we both backed Federer, but, in the dying minutes of the game, we wanted it to be over with and switched allegiance to Nadal.

The main reason for this?  Federer was backed by Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani who were sat next to Federer's girlfriend in the box.  I always thought the box was reserved for family, partners and coaches only, but it seems that Wimbledon has left the 1920's and has embraced celebrity culture.

This meant that every couple of minutes you would see Rossdale cheering when Federer won a point. His missus sat there in her 1987 crimson all day staying power lipstick with a face like thunder.  Why are rich people such miserable cnuts?

We wanted to see Gavin lose, not Federer.  We wanted to see him punching walls and possibly the Duke of Kent. All of the frustration of being a has been rockstar rising up to the surface after years of playing second fiddle to Gwen.

It didn't happen.

Whenever the US Open Final is on, you can guarantee that the camera will be on Yoko Ono wearing a pair of huge visor sunglasses every few minutes.  Perhaps that's all that you can expect from tennis now - celebrities detracting from the boring spectacle of the game itself.

Long gone are the days of sinister-faced gangland type Harry Carpenter declaring that the young Bjorn Borg had "brought the *tenny* boppers to Wimbledon".  

Or, indeed, the days of Dan Maskell saying "there's Miss Graf's mother in the box wearing a pink frock".

"It's a red blouse, actually", I would shout back at the screen.

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

YOU MADE ME REALISE 

Here it is - albeit belatedly - the final post by a blogger who attended the recent My Bloody Valentine gig at the Roundhouse.

Indeed, I've read so many reviews by bloggers about this gig that I feel that there must have been at least twenty thousand more people in the audience than there actually were.

It makes me feel good though - realising that I was, at last, PART OF A MOVEMENT. This was OUR BAND and it felt great to be stood in slightly too close proximity to my fellow bloggers.

Now I at least know which ones "don't need" to use a deodorant, and I have a vague idea of who they are.

I will be using this information for blackmailing purposes in future.

For thirty nine years we MBV fans have waited for our heroes' return. They returned ... and how.

At exactly 22:54 hours they took to the stage in a cloud of smoke and stark lighting.

Frontman Kevin Shields still looked eerily youthful, fey and pensive.

The rest of the band slouched around in black, as ever.

What followed was an evening of aural assault, feedback drenched inertia, corruscating what have you, distorted jiggery pokery, pain, sex, ecstasy, brutality, desire - everything that you could ever want from music, in other words.

This was JOY, in essence.

Time stood still.

My ears are still ringing, and whenever I think about the gig I get a warm tingle in my loins that spreads up my back and down my legs.

Here is the obligatory YouTube clip of the band, as everyone else has posted one:

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

TONY PARSONS, RIP 

I heart Adam Buxton's dad.



Anyone who types "Welcome back!!!!!!!!! :D" in the comments box can fuck off and die.

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