At least you can keep his spirits up by sending in inappropriate names. I fearlessly borrowed someone’s phone and used it to trick Santa into admonishing the serial murderer Dennis Nilsen for being a naughty boy. He also read out a follow-up name – the rather puerile ‘Carmen Mite-Hitz’ – but sadly blew it by mispronouncing the forename as ‘Cameron’. A subsequent attempt to get him to read out the name ‘Ivana Fahkz-Humbaddi’ failed completely; they wouldn’t even add it to the list, the cowards. If you fancy a laugh and don’t mind pissing money up the wall like a champagne socialist, you could do worse than spend this afternoon texting in innocent-looking but obscene-sounding names for Santa to babble at his audience of oblivious children.
Currently, Santavision only runs from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. In an ideal world it’d come back on air at closing time, with an ‘Adult Santavision’ service modelled on Babestation and the like, in which nihilistic drunks text in increasingly demeaning physical commands for him to obey, such as stuffing his balls into a stocking or coming down the chimney. Or let’s dispense with the wordplay entirely and just make him roll around on the floor, clapping and farting until Christmas at £1.50 per emission. The perfect metaphor for the entire season.
Rage within the machine
21/12/2009
At the time of writing, it’s not clear whether the 2009 Christmas No. 1 will be ‘The Climb’ by Joe McElderry, or ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine. I’ve just done my bit to inch the latter closer to the top spot by downloading it – something I’d resisted doing until now because I initially thought there was something a bit embarrassing about the campaign. After all, as every other internet smartarse pointed out, both tracks are owned by Sony BMG – so no matter which one sells the most, Simon Cowell wins. In other words, even by raging against the machine, you’re somehow raging within it.
But profit isn’t the point – or at least it’s not the reason I downloaded it. For one thing, I happen to think ‘Killing in the Name’ is an excellent song, so I’ve already got something out of it. Most importantly, it contains genuine emotion. Even if the climactic repeated howls of ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!’ put you in mind of a teenager loudly refusing to tidy his bedroom – as opposed to a masked anarchist hurling petrol bombs at the riot squad – there is at least an authentic human sentiment being expressed. Zack de la Rocha is audibly pissed off.
Compare this to the pissweak vocal doodle that is Joe McElderry’s X Factor single. For a song whose lyrics ostensibly document an attempt to gather the spiritual strength to overcome adversity and thereby attain enlightenment, ‘The Climb’ is about as inspiring as a Lion bar. It’s a listless announcement on a service station tannoy; an advert for buttons; a fart in a clinic; a dot on a spreadsheet. Listening to it from beginning to end is like watching a bored cleaner methodically wiping a smudge from a Formica worksurface.
But then nobody’s buying ‘The Climb’ in order to actually listen to it. They’re buying it out of sedated confusion, pushing a button they’ve been told will make them feel better. It’s the sound of the assisted suicide clinic, and it doesn’t deserve to be No. 1 this Christmas.
This isn’t mere pop snobbery, by the way. I’d rather see Girls Aloud at No. 1 than Editors. But ‘The Climb’ is a lame cover version of a lame Miley Cyrus song. If X Factor can’t be arsed to do better than that, its grip on the yuletide charts deserves to be broken.
Anyway, while I’m happy for Rage Against the Machine to be enjoying the sales and publicity, I can’t help thinking we could’ve organised a slightly better protest ourselves. Chances are the X Factor will try to kick back extra hard next year – perhaps by actually releasing a song with a melody in it – so it’s best to start planning the resistance now.
The temptation might be to pour a lot of time and effort into creating a catchy anti-X Factor anthem, but the smartest counter-move would be to release something short, cheap and throwaway that isn’t even a proper song at all. I propose a track called ‘Simon Cowell: Shit for Ears’, which consists of a couple of eight-year-olds droning the phrase ‘Simon Cowell, shit for ears’ four times in a row in the most deliberately tuneless manner possible. It should last only about fifteen seconds or so. Quick enough to register; brief enough not to outstay its welcome.
Then we release it online at the lowest price possible. What’s the bare minimum you can charge and still be eligible for a chart position? It could be as little as 2p. Because the track is just recorded on to a cheap mic, and released without the assistance of any record label, 100 per cent of the profits go to charity.
Dot-eyed CGI judge and omnipresent hair product spokeswoman Cheryl Cole recently complained that the campaign against McElderry’s single was ‘mean’, adding ‘If that song – or should I say campaign – by an American group is our Christmas No. 1, I’ll be gutted for him and our charts.’
She’s missing the point. It’s not mean: it’s funny. If the Christmas No. 1 turns out to be an angry, confrontational rock track that concludes with an explosion of f-words, it’ll be precisely the shot in the arm the charts have been sorely lacking the last few years: something that puts a genuine smile on the face of millions of people; sensitive people, thoughtful people; people alienated by the stifling cloud of grinning mechanical pap farted into their faces on a weekly basis by cocky, clattering, calculating talent shows like X Factor. It would give these people hope. Maybe only in a very small and silly way, but still: a tiny spoonful of hope. And what could be more Christmassy than that?
*
In retrospect, reading this back now, I seem to be taking everything in the world terribly seriously indeed. Like, about twice as seriously as necessary. I mean really: ‘a tiny spoonful of hope’? What a dick I am.
Proximity Big Brother
09/01/2010
The final Celebrity Big Brother is here. Yes, the final one. As you watch Sisqo hooking his pants out of his bumcrack, or Vinnie Jones boiling an egg, remind yourself that this is your last opportunity to do so, and attempt to defy the tears prickling the rim of your eyeballs. Where do we go from here, as a people? I cannot tell you. All I have to offer is sneering descriptions of the contestants. My existence is pointless. I’m banging on the glass here. Release me or kill me, someone.
This year’s launch night included a telling format-change. Normally we’re introduced to each celebrity via a short VT in which they themselves explain what a must-watch character they’ll be (‘I’m not afraid to speak me mind … if anyone in there winds me up the wrong way, there’ll be fireworks’ etc., etc.). But this year, these talking-head character sketches were absent, replaced by short packages in which Davina patiently explained why each inmate qualified as a ‘celebrity’. Often the evidence consisted of photographs of them standing near other, indisputably more famous, people on a red carpet. Two of the contestants appear to have been invited to participate on the basis that they’ve been inside a famous person, and one because a famous person has been inside them. That’s not celebrity, that’s proximity. ‘Proximity Big Brother’ actually has a nice ring to it.
The trouble with introducing each player via their CV is that the viewer ends up with zero idea of their actual character. Basshunter’s arrival was a low point. His VT package might as well have been a short educational film outlining the properties of magnesium. In fact, sending in a small mound of powdered magnesium in his place wouldn’t have been an entirely bad idea. What happens when you introduce a small quantity of magnesium to a room full of quasi-famous people? Nothing. But at least that’s a genuine ‘TV experiment’.
So who’s in? Well, you’ve got Vinnie Jones (yawn), Alex Reid (a videogame version of Daniel Craig), Dane Bowers (nice but yawn), Lady Sovereign (a Sporty Spice keychain figurine), the aforementioned Basshunter (a stretched Swedish Hasselhoff), Rolling-Stone-seductress Katia (effectively a student-age Alice who’s wandered through the looking glass and into her TV), and Nicola T of ‘having tits’ fame.
&nbs
p; Nicola T already seems likely to establish herself as TV’s dimmest comic character since the heyday of Trigger in Only Fools And Horses. She communicates exclusively by asking stunningly stupid questions, and always seems surprised and confused by the answer. It’s an endearing trait, albeit one which would swiftly become grating during a day trip to the Science Museum.
Grand dame Stephanie Beacham should probably win, on account of her habit of sitting in the corner making laconic observations, like a louche unseen narrator. Just for an experiment, they should scrap Marcus Bentley for an episode and get her to do the voiceover. Or permanently station her in an adjoining antechamber and let her communicate with the other contestants via an animatronic stag’s head mounted on the wall.
Finally, there are the Americans. Sisqo, a poor man’s Skee-Lo. Usual Suspects actor-turned-born-again-rightwing-talk-radio-scary-man Stephen Baldwin, who looks and sounds like an escaped serial killer who, having cut off Alec Baldwin’s face with a jagged spear of glass, is currently wearing it as a mask and speaking very softly in a bid to evade the authorities. He’s the contestant most likely to perform a live, spontaneous exorcism in the house. In fact, I thought he might do precisely that when Heidi Fleiss walked in. Fleiss is spooky. She vaguely resembles Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler morphing into Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
And that’s the lot. Celeb BB can probably safely shuffle off into history with a mild snort, leaving we viewers to blink away the tears and try to put our lives back together. If we possibly, possibly can.
*
As you may be aware, this was not the final Celebrity Big Brother, because Channel Five revived it shortly afterwards. It will never, ever end. Never. Ever.
Britain’s got payback
11/01/2010
So then. Following a half-hearted coup attempt, which turned out to be the equivalent of Hoon and Hewitt trying to assassinate their target by firing a rubber band at his head as he walked past the tuckshop, bookmakers say there is currently 25 per cent less chance of Labour winning the general election than there is of Kevin Keegan giving birth to a horse on St Swithin’s Day.
The Conservatives don’t have to do much except wait patiently, gliding towards 6 May like a baleen whale with its mouth flapping open, lazily preparing to inhale an acre of krill. Unless David Cameron holds a live televised press conference at which he pulls his fleshy mask off to reveal he’s been Darren Day all along, they’ve got it in the bag.
Even a preposterous advertising campaign can’t dent the Tories. All over London, billboards depict Cameron looking you in the eye with an expression of genteel concern, accompanied by the slogan ‘We can’t go on like this’. To the observer, the overall effect is that of a man trying to wriggle out of an unfulfilling sexual relationship without hurting your feelings. Would you vote for that? Not normally, no. But when the opposition is a flock of startled, shrieking hens, your range of options shrinks drastically.
But perhaps there’s still a glimmer of hope for Labour. I recently watched several episodes of a high-quality US comedy-drama serial called Breaking Bad. The storyline revolves around an underachieving, debt-ridden fifty-year-old chemistry teacher who discovers he’s got terminal cancer. But wait, it gets funnier. Realising he has absolutely nothing to lose, he decides to become a crystal meth dealer in an insane last-ditch attempt to provide financial support for his family when he’s gone. Cue plenty of pitch-black hi-jinks.
It’s a good show. It’s also a road map for Labour. The party’s condition is similarly terminal, so it might as well go for broke by announcing a series of demented and ill-advised election pledges in an openly desperate bid to retain power. Who knows? It might just work. And if it’s having a hard time choosing some make-or-break policies, I’ll be only too happy to provide a list. Starting now.
Pledge 1: Promise to govern while wearing spandex leotards like they do on Hole in the Wall if elected
On the face of it, this sounds terrible. No one wants to see David Miliband rising to his feet in a silver bodysuit so tight you can make out every facet of his groin in topographic detail. They don’t even want to read that description of it. But while it might be hard on our eyes, it would be uncomfortable and humiliating for the MPs. And think about it: they have to wear it every day for at least four years. They’re not allowed to take them off either, so by the end of the term the House of Commons would reek. I’d vote for that. Come on, it would be funny.
Suggested campaign poster: Ed Balls in horribly tight leotard.
Slogan: ‘SEE BALLS PUSH FOR GLORY’.
Pledge 2: Tudor-style execution of Simon Cowell
This would be desperately unfair on Cowell, who would be arrested, held in the Tower of London, and beheaded on live television should Labour get back in. No matter how low your opinion of Britain’s Got Talent, the man has clearly done nothing to deserve that kind of extreme treatment. But extreme treatment grabs headlines. And the recent Christmas chart triumph of Rage Against the Machine over Joe McElderry’s X Factor single indicates a hitherto-untapped, steadily expanding groundswell of anti-Cowell discontent which a cynical and desperate party could exploit for its own nefarious ends. Barbaric and cynical, yes – but on balance marginally more humane than scapegoating an entire minority and establishing death camps or anything quite as horrible like that.
Poster: Photoshop of Cowell’s head on pole.
Slogan: ‘BRITAIN’S GOT PAYBACK’.
Pledge 3: Free warm croissants on buses
Yes it’s lame, but it’ll get people talking far more than yet another dull promise about education spending or the like. Not only can the voter imagine it actually happening, they can virtually smell it in their mind’s nose. And that feels good during a cold snap. Come on, Labour. Go for it!
Poster: Mouth-watering close-up of warm croissant.
Slogan: ‘MMMM!’
Pledge 4: Let the country exit with a bang
Let’s face it, no matter what we do the environment’s knackered, the deficit’s insurmountable, and Britain’s Got Talent will return in the summer. The future’s bleak, so rather than face it, why not encourage the entire nation to go out in a frenzy of nihilistic excess? Step one: legalise everything. Step two: sell all remaining national assets to the Chinese. Step three: spend everything we have on chocolate pudding, narcotics and sex toys. Step four: announce the beginning of a year-long mass public orgy during which absolutely anything goes and participation is compulsory. Step five: on New Year’s Eve, we congregate naked around a massive bomb and nuke ourselves out of history forever.
Poster: An explicit orgy photo.
Slogan: ‘HEY, WE MIGHT AS WELL’.
Anyway, there you go. One or more are probably worth a try. In Breaking Bad, the protagonist uses his grim predicament as the catalyst for a string of crazy actions that leave him feeling more alive than ever. Perhaps embracing an equally hopeless situation with similarly mad gusto is the only actual hope Labour has left.
The treacherous snow
16/01/2010
Oh, how it snowed. It snowed like a bitch. It snowed so hard you could be forgiven for thinking God had decided planet Earth was an embarrassing celestial typo and was desperately trying to Tipp-Ex it out of existence. The build-up was unrelenting: everywhere you looked compacted strata of white powder looked back at you. It was like being trapped in one of Shaun Ryder’s nostrils circa 1992. But colder. Much colder.
It was so cold your breath hung in the air before you, then froze, plummeted and broke your foot. And icy. Did I mention it was icy? It was so icy that if you lived in a south-facing house in Edinburgh and slipped outside your front door, you’d slide all the way to Plymouth and fly off the edge of Britain without passing a single frictional surface along the way.
Not that you’d drown: the sea was frozen too, so you’d simply carry on skidding, all the way around the entire circumference of the globe, eventually ending up back where you started. Where you’d find a news
crew waiting to interview you.
You may think I’m exaggerating. So do I. But I’ve been watching the saturation news coverage of Britain’s cold snap and consequently it’s hard not to view the snowfall through apocalyptic eyes. The thick layer of snow received, quite literally, blanket coverage. As far as the twenty-four-hour rolling networks were concerned, this wasn’t a freak weather condition. This was war. Death from the skies. Earth versus the Ice Warriors. Snowmageddon.
Actually, ‘Snowmageddon’ would’ve been a good name for it. Every news crisis needs a snappy name. The BBC initially christened it ‘Frozen Britain’. Sky opted for ‘The Big Freeze’, and everyone else eventually fell into line. The Big Freeze it was.
The minute the government started issuing guidance about not making journeys unless strictly necessary, the reporters hit the road. Every five minutes we had to go live to some poor sod standing outdoors in Benson or Brome or Bromsgrove or Birmingham, shivering like a man with a vibrator in his pocket, telling us how cold it was through his chattering teeth. Not that you could actually see him: chances are he was obliterated by an alabaster flurry.
Presumably at some point the British climate had promised to behave and then unceremoniously reneged on the deal, because everyone kept referring to the weather as ‘treacherous’. The phrase ‘treacherous conditions’ was repeated like a mantra, like a catchy tune the news couldn’t shift.
Every witch-hunt has its victims, and before long the accusing finger pointed at roads and pavements: the reporters screamed that these too were ‘treacherous’, and presumably had been in cahoots with the weather all along. Icy patches on pathways provided the news with chucklesome footage of people falling over and agitated soundbites in which aggrieved pratfallers complained about the lack of grit on pavements. You can’t please some people. One minute they’re whining about the mollycoddling nanny state, the next they’re insisting the council employs a man to walk directly in front of them, shovelling grit beneath each potential footfall.
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