Song of the day: #33 Rakoth – "Fear (Wasn't in the Design)"

Gallopy ridiculous Russian Lord of the Rings/Robin Hood forest metal. Too many amazing/terrible bits to enumerate. You'll have to pick your own favourite.

Spodify advert reviews pt. 1

Who/what: Amy McDonald

The gist of it? "Hi, youu can broowshe throoough maaa baack cataloogue on Shhpodifyyy..."
Net result? Sounds like it was recorded onto a tape Walkman pissed after falling out of a Yates' Wine Lodge.

Who/what: Frankmusik

Gist? "Boom, ka-BAPhi, i'm-boomboom bap Frankchkkachkkamusik. I'm boom-ba-KA!doing that boof chk-chkreally annoyingticktick ba-ba-ba beatboxing-and-speaking-widdly-BOOM-chk-chkBOOM-bababa-duggadugga...AT-THE-SAME-TIME thing that boomBOOMboom Rahzel's been doing since der-der-derrrr before we were all spunk. Chkka-chkka-chkka."

Result? Like someone dug up Les Rhythmes Digitales and gave him an even stupider name and worse music and made him spew his Urban Tourette's™ all over my fucking playlist every half an hour. Wank.

Who/what: Little Boots
The gist of it? "Hi, ...Spodify." Followed by her music.
Result? You hear Little Boots' music and wish you hadn't.

Who/what: Mika
The gist of it? Promoting his new single
Result? Twofold. Initially there's dismay that Mika is still out there making music. This is then tempered by a kind of nauseated amusement at the way his new song simultaneously rips off Jason Donovan's "Too Many Broken Hearts", "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle, Kiss, Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer", The Darkness and about eight other really bad songs.

Who/what: "The Spotify answerphone"
The gist of it? Britain's Got Opinions (whether it deserves them or not)
Result? "Hi there... errrr.... Spotify's like amazing like, but the only fing that'd make it better is, ummm, y'know, if you could like, save the music, like, onto your EmPeeFree playa like, yeah?"

i can't even write suitably sarcastic commentary about how dumb that sentence is.<sup>1

1</sup> Yes, it's obviously a paraphrase. But the meaning is consistent with that of the original.

Secret number fail.

Let's hope your patients don't own computers.

Hey Ryan Reynolds, stfu. Love, LJB

It's galling to me that serious people actually give enough of a shit about what slick Hollywood sleazoids like Ryan Reynolds think to commission Written Articles About Stuff from them, especially when it's ostensibly reputable blogs like Huffington Post doing the commissioning.

Take this bleating piece, for instance, in which Ryan takes the moral high-ground re: the decadent wastefulness of competitive eating contests, mainly by invoking a variety of third-world children he has made up. "Young Mustafat, who maintains a strict diet of inner turmoil and bleached hope, looks forward to watching the ESPN-televised event to better understand what gigantically wasteful, fucking super-retards we all are", he wails, rending the air around him with concern.

Without, of course, pausing at any point to consider that: (a) competitive eating contests are at least 5 times more entertaining than any film Ryan Reynolds has ever starred in, and his self-congratulatory writing and poor stabs at Socratic irony too, for that matter; and (b) the combined staging and costs of every competitive eating contest in the United States wouldn't exceed the budget of a wack summer tossbuster such as, ooh i dunno, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.¹ (Ryan's condemnation of the excess promotional budgets of 7-11 convenience stores, Papa John's pizza,² the California Milk Processor Board and Schick razors is also strangely absent.)

Moral? i guess it's partly this: if you once starred as Van Wilder: Party Liaison, your right to diss anything on the grounds of taste is pretty fuckin' limited. And so, unless your salary for the next brainless superhero mindsore is all being donated to, e.g., MSF, it might be best not to single out one business's pefectly legitimate promotional tactic as if it were the major cause of the West's entire ethical downward spiral.

So, in summary, then: shut-up, pretty-boy. Now somebody pass the frankfurters.

Eine kleine wurstmusik:
mp3: Men's Recovery Project — "New Talking Sausage" (YSI)
mp3: Sam White — "Polish Sausage"

¹ FYI: The only reference i can find to a budget for the Nathan's annual Hot Dog Eating Contest is a 1995 NYT piece which postulates that Nathan's, as a "smaller" chain "with only 30 company-owned restaurants and fewer than 170 franchisees", can probably afford an annual advertising budget of "less than $1 million". Now i know that's old, and deals specifically with TV spots; but factor in the cost of staging the contest and then adjust for 14 years' inflation, and i still don't think you're near the same ballpark as X-Men Origins: Wolverine's $150 million budget. i'd speculate that maybe the X-Men catering budget might be nearer the mark. Assuming that's even vaguely close: so for the cost of promoting 30 restaurants and 170 franchises for a full calendar year, you could also achieve a small fraction of 107 minutes of celluloid! Positively bargainous, no? Well... no.
² Why the fuck would you want to eat at somewhere called "Papa John's"? It just reminds me of Papa Doc Duvalier. Preusmably if you displease the staff, you don't get your food gobbed in, you just get fully fucking hexed and then "disappeared".

An alternative three-click rule.

How about this?

"A user of a website who gets frustrated and leaves if they can't find the information they desire within three clicks is the kind of indolent, spoon-fed scumbag that should be ridiculed and told to grow a fucking attention span, rather than pandered to by ineffectual, moron-enabling web designers."¹

mp3: Ice Water — "Click Click" feat. Raekwon

¹ 'Specially since the three-click rule is a total canard anyway.

Inauguration Day.

My favourite thing about Barack Obama so far is that he can actually string a convincing-sounding sentence together.

The George W. Bush years can essentially be summarised by this picture.

Stupid country of the day.

Step forward Thailand, where having 30 – 40,000 child prostitutes is considered de rigueur, but you can get three years in jail for "insulting the monarch".

The monarch in question is King Bhumibol Adulyadej (right), whose 63-year stint in power makes him the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history and the current longest-reigning monarch in the world. He also has a personal net fortune of US$35 billion and is regarded as a literal demi-god by his people as part of Thai law.

You'd think, therefore, that the poor diddums wouldn't be so insecure as to need another law allowing for anyone who insults him to be jailed for between 3 and 15 years. But nonetheless, you can in fact be jailed for "insulting the monarch" in Thailand for a range of offences, down to and including "failing to stand for the national anthem" in cinemas (though you'd think that wearing hats like the one in this pic could be construed as deliberately trying to catch people out — not quite Bozza Johnson running through Trafalgar Square in a Death to Smoochy outfit threatening arrest for anyone who started sniggering, but not far off).

This case is possibly also the biggest Streisand effect i've ever heard of in my life. If you recall, that's when an attempt to suppress a piece of information backfires and the spread of that information, and desire to find out about it, increases exponentially as a result.

Harry Nicolaides' book Verisimillitude, which got King Bhumi's knickers in such a twist, was a vanity pressing that sold precisely seven copies the world over. The only copy known to be still extant sits in the Thai National Library, freely open for viewing by the Thai public. Meanwhile, the story goes around the world.

A bit like the time the silly sausages tried banning YouTube over a video showing the King "with feet superimposed over his head", leading to "YouTube users around the world ... posting a series of Bhumibol-bashing clips, some even more offensive than the originals", each of which "has been viewed tens of thousands of times". D'oh.

MP3: Run-D.M.C. — "Down With the King" feat. Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth

Notes on Ross and Brand.

i wrote this piece at the time of the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs fiasco. Not sure why i didn't publish it then, but i just re-read it and still agree with what i thought then, so i thought i'd share, for posterity. Anything in dark red below (save for a couple of minor edits) dates from the time in question.

• Cruelty isn't humour. "Hurrr hurrr hurrr he fucked your granddaughter" is not a punchline.

• Jonathan Ross is paid as much as 1,000 journalists (and isn't shy of "hilarious" reminders of same). To me, he doesn't match the value of one-fifth of a journalist. I am always amazed that people don't treat him with the same C-list contempt deservedly afforded to his equally mediocre brother Paul.

• Brand is not a stupid man, although he is guilty of consistently underselling and dumbing himself down to pander to fashionable modern anti-intelligence sentiments. This is worse.

• Noel Gallagher apparently says "it's really them and us now". Well, good. It literally fills me to the brim with pride to know that Noel Gallagher identifies me with a group he considers to be "them". Newsflash: fuck you, you third-rate Rick Parfitt impersonator, it was *always* them and us. Where "us" represented "non-cunts" and "them" represented... well, you.

• "But she *did* shag him!" Oh, so that makes it all OK then, yeh? This is by far the most worrying aspect of this whole story to me: this insane reaction that, because it's *true* that Georgina Baillie *did* have consensual sex with Russell Brand, that means she's somehow fair game. You and i have probably had sexual relations with some people too. Does that mean we want it on our grandparents' answerphones? No.

• I've noticed a lot of people say that complaining about something like this means the complainers must be "square", "fuddy-duddy", obsessed with unimportant trivia, a humourless killjoy, etc. So what does that make complaining about people complaining about it?

• Another reason it's unfashionable to complain is because "...[t]he call was actually pretty funny!" Ahh, so humorous value is now the determiner of what is appropriate for broadcast, yeh? So if i find paedophilia funny, that makes it family entertainment, then? No. Majority belief in an opinion doesn't stop it from being bollocks, as a brief glance at the Top 40 will demonstrate.

• "Yeh they made the call, but why should they get in trouble for it? After all it was pre-recorded, maybe we should be firing the people who allowed it to air!"

Right, so you want to absolve the people who wilfully and cynically overstepped the mark to make themselves look cool and edgy on the radio, but fire the production staff (whose wages are paid directly by Brand) charged with trying to keep the enormous egos of same in check and keep their output transmittable at all?

Yeh, that seems fair. After all, those bastard producers actually let it go ahead without pressing the "STOP" button. All poor innocent Wussell and Wossy did was come up the idea of doing prank calls to a unsuspecting celebrity in the first place (box-fresh, guys!), add the genius idea that the prank calls should be obscene, record the obscene prank calls and then schedule the obscene prank calls for broadcast on a show that bears one of their names. Clearly they are blame-free in comparison with the malevolent producers.

• Ross has pulled out of the Comedy Awards. Why was he even involved in the first place? He's a chat-show host.

• Remember when Radio 2 used be seen as the "dad music" station? (Well, it still is, technically, but now they also play vapid modern pop and adopt Estuary accents to fit in as well). If this sort of thing is standard practice at R2 now, i hate to think what Radio 1's target audience is like these days. Presumably pre-schoolers and people who failed the Jeremy Kyle audition for being too inarticulate.

• "Support Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand!" groups on Facebook. Why? They don't need your support. They are famous multi-millionaires who are even now reaping all the publicity from this incident to further their careers. On his salary, Jonathan Toss has had bigger shits than three months' pay suspension. Russell Bland barely even works for the BBC anyway, so his "falling on his sword" (put down the Dictionary of Overdramatic Victorian English, you utter fool) amounts to nothing more than (a) a continuation of his big fat pay-cheques from Sky and C4; and (b) probably a rake of new offers from the kind of misguided people currently considering him to be rebellious and hard-done-by rather than a gasbag who got his comeuppance for being a bit of a bullying wanker on a publicly-funded media channel.

In other words, the poor diddumses will get over it.


JAY SHERMAN (disgusted): How do you sleep at night?
MCBAIN (smug): On top of a big pile of money, with many beautiful women.



• In effect, Ross and Brand are basically The Crap Version of Ashton Kutcher.

Talk about the punishment fitting the crime.

The only thing left to note is that in the run-up to an epochal change of leadership in the US, with wars in the Middle East grinding unstoppably on and the global economy haemorrhaging to death around our ears, it would have been nice if we hadn't had to take a week's break to focus exclusively on coverage of "two squawking men shouting at an actor" (as Radio 4's The Now Show excellently put it).

A point made ad infinitum at the time, of course. Not that anyone listened.

News in brief (scanning thru Beeb website)

Concern over Katona TV appearance
An erratic appearance by former pop star Kerry Katona on ITV1's This Morning caused viewers to call in with concerns about her health.

The singer's slurred words prompted host Phillip Schofield to say: "You don't seem right to me... Your speech is a bit slurred, how are you feeling?"

Katona seemed surprised by the question, but blamed prescription drugs she had taken to help her sleep.

Former pop star does drugs, you say? Gosh, This Morning viewers are an incisive bunch. Still less of a concern, i'd say, than the continued pollution of our screens by tossers like J. Oliver, J. Clarkson, J. Kyle, Heston "Jellyfish and Banana Quiche" Blumenthal* et al.

* (for instance)

Also, Phil Schofield is one smooth bastard. i'm definitely trying out the line "you don't seem right to me" next time i hit the town.

Police 'exaggerate demo numbers'

Police "over-egg" the number of people taking part in demonstrations to justify the amount of cash they have spent, a climate protester has claimed.

Phil McLeish, from Climate Camp, said police used to "downplay" the number of protesters at demonstrations.

But now they were "colluding" with protest groups to make demonstrations appear bigger than they were.

A police source told BBC News: "This is a bit rich. They always criticise us for underestimating the numbers."

That last sentence is like a customer in a restaurant telling the chef that part of his food is still frozen, and the chef replying with "That's a bit rich. You usually criticise me for burning it." The point being, neither are really particularly desirable.

Bad policeman, no doughnut.

Naked man found wedged in chimney
A naked man found wedged in the chimney of a supermarket in Wigan has been arrested on suspicion of burglary.

Police officers discovered him trapped in a chimney breast of a Tesco Express store on Ormskirk Road, Pemberton.

Firefighters were called to rescue the man who had become trapped in the chimney as he tried to get out.

Police said that because the man was naked he was taken to hospital as a precaution but was treated and discharged before being arrested.

A GMP spokeswoman said: "It is believed some of his clothes came off as a result of him struggling to get out of the chimney."

Not a lot to really add to the awesomeness of this one, except i quite like the idea that someone being naked is now considered a sign that precaution should be taken.

And finally, Mohammed al-Fayed may be a child sex offender. Don't worry, i'm sure it'll only be a matter of hours before it turns out to be all a conspiracy to discredit his good name, planned and executed by MI6, Prince Phillip and the Loch Ness Monster.

MP3: Aesop Rock feat. Rob Sonic — "Dark Heart News"

Endearing bungling; more Dark Knight

To Birmingham, and the news that the council there has printed up 720,000 leaflets to thank the residents for their diligence in recycling, but unfortunately illustrated them with a picture of the wrong Birmingham — the West Midlands city's redneck American counterpart of Birmingham, Alabama.

Sparing literally no expense whatsoever, they also appear to have lifted the image of the Birmingham, AL skyline directly from the aforelinked Wikipedia article:

Here's a picture of the Birmingham, UK skyline for comparison purposes:

Hmmm, yes. You can maybe see their point. Personally, i'm wholly in favour of this sort of thing; you can't fault their commitment to recycling stuff, at least.

However, the most charming bit about the whole story was the authorities' initial insistence that nooo, of course they hadn't made a mistake! Y'see, they were planning to display, ummm... a generic skyline "intended to symbolise an urban area"! Yeh, that's right! Any old skyline, that'll do! And... erm... it was just unfortunate coincidence that the skyline in question was from a city with the same name as theirs while also not being the right one. Yeh! Coincidence!!

That line of reasoning lasted for nearly a whole 5 minutes, until presumably everybody who'd heard it had been fully incapacitated with laughter and told the Council to stop pretending they hadn't been going in the biscuit tin, as everyone could plainly see the chocolate plastered around all their mouths. Sterling effort.

In other news:

Dear All My Friends,

I would very likely have come to see The Dark Knight with you if you'd told me Maggie Gyllenhaal was in it.

YouTube: Gang Starr — "Nice Girl, Wrong Place"

Unsurprising breaking news: PETA still morons

The clever souls at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are at it again, continuing to collect the public's unflagging sympathy and support for their worthy cause. Yep, the organisation that gave you such sane comparisons such as slaughterhouses with The Holocaust have apparently now decided that comparing every meat-eater with a psychopathic killer is really going to play well with the public. Genius. Hey you - enjoyed a tasty burger recently? THEN YOU'RE JEFFREY DAHMER!! Watch the membership requests flood in after that one.


People who genuinely care about animals – as opposed to slaughtering them while pretending to give a fuck – must surely be embarrassed to near-suicide every time PETA issue a new statement and make them, to a (wo)man, resemble some kind of insane cross between Bobby Sands and Beatrix Potter.

Personally, i just hope Ingrid "i'm getting my body made into meat, see what i did there?" Newkirk carks it soon, so i can order a load of "Newkirk Nuggets" and then shun them in favour of something tastier. (Let's face it, she looks like a stewed old boot, and there's no reason to suppose she'd taste any better.)

Like a big fat kangaroo steak, for instance. Mmmm... game-y.

MP3: The Meat Puppets – "I'm a Mindless Idiot"

Keith Vaz fucks up / Starbucks fucks off

Another example of the current government's uncanny ability to deal with the really important issues in our society, the ones that affect us all, the ones we all carry so close to our hearts.

Yep, that latter-day Roger Cook Keith Vaz has fearlessly stuck his neck on the line, weighing in with his usual integrity and passionate on the deeply troubling and incredibly important issue of the cinema rating of the new Batman movie. Holy Totally Significant Issue, Batman!

According to the Beeb, Vaz told The Independent, "The BBFC should realise there are scenes of gratuitous violence in The Dark Knight to which I certainly would not take my 11-year-old daughter. It should be a 15 certificate."

Uhhh, got news for you, Keith. A 12A certificate actually doesn't admit an 11-year-old (the clue's in the numbers) unless you specifically ignore the BBFC's advice and take the kid in with you as its legal guardian. So, um, your 11-year-old daughter wouldn't in fact be able to see the film anyway, unless you were a wilfully negligent parent. So if you don't want her to see it, don't take her to it. Just don't try and impose your misunderstanding of the ratings system on the rest of us for cheap political points.

How does such an egregious dunderhead get to lead a Select Committee, anyway? Presumably "Select" is like a Labour euphemism for "backwards", like "special" or "cerebrally challenged" or something.

---

In other news, three cheers for the Aussies! Apparently they've largely driven Starfucks out of the country altogether, corporate monolithery and shitty coffee and all.

When i got my mobile a few years ago, the inbuilt T-9 dictionary could accurately complete the word "Starbucks", but not "Shakespeare". So this news is not before time at all.

MP3: Don Caballero: "You Drink a Lot of Coffee for a Teenager"