Goodballoon's paunch

Hello kiddies! Or should I say "What's winking"?

Is there anything more depressing than a good-looking rightwinger? Doesn't it drive you nuts when something like this happens:
http://amandadoerty.blogspot.com/
Check out her photo's: she's a really good-looking girl. Then check out her posts: She's a really good-looking Nazi. Now I know how Indiana Jones felt when he found out about Elsa.

Reasons to hate John Lennon:
Reason: Mr. Moonlight
Story: It's 1964. You're the biggest band in the World. You've released three albums including one of entirely your own compositions (A Hard Day's Night). Pressure is mounting for your fourth; it better be good. One problem: you've got a very limited number of new songs, the constant touring, filming and demand for new singles taking their toll. What about a few covers? Good idea! What about 'Leave my kitten alone' an absolute barn-stormer that sure to get the fans jumping up and down. Nah, Fuck it! Let's put on a simpering, sentimental piece of shite like 'Mr. Moonlight' instead. Jesus. Thank God the next album was 'Help!'.

Goodballoon's Slang:
Well the kids have gone completely 'anti-grav' (see below) for my new language and I think we can all see why. By my own admission it is completely 'rabid' and I think even 'barcode reader' would be proud to call it his own. Here's some more:

Sheriff = Idiot
Seeing dandruff = Goodbye
Anti-grav = doolaley
Reuters = Reuters
Plate-face = Kevin Spacey
Flap-clapper = Gutter-department doctor
Martian = Okay
Holmes = Beard (Can also use Cruz or Kidman)
Crystal ball = Calender
Hammock alley = Oxford Street
Millwall fans = Rapists

Hats off/Fuck off!
Michael Howard.
Hats off:
This week Michael managed to get the Prime Minister on the ropes after the Attorney General's original advice on the legality of a war in Iraq was published. If the right questions were asked Blair would be mortally damaged for good, his integrity shot down in flames, his style of Government, already slighted by Lord Butler, made to look ridiculous. All eyes were on the PM...
Fuck off:
...which unfortunately was not good enough for Michael. Why wasn't anyone looking at him? Why wasn't he getting more attention? What did he do? He admitted that had he seen this document himself he would have still voted for the conflict... If you would have voted for the war after seeing the document, what's the fucking problem? What's all the fuss about? Why are you wasting everyone's time gabbing like some kind of Tourette-suffering bonobo? You moron. I give up. It's your party. Arsehole.

Ways I knew I was getting old:
The other day I uttered the following sentence:
"I like Sundays; I can get loads of jobs done around the house."
Afterwards I heard feedback in my head and wanted to cut out my own eyes.

Things I'm listening to this week:
The Clash
New Oasis tracks
Kaiser Chiefs
Simon & Garfunkel
My heartbeat in my ears if I so much as look at a set of stairs. I've got to do some more exercise.

Seeing dandruff!

No really, I am. I just don't show it very well. This week there was some confusion about whether Tony Blair was greeted by a chorus of "boo"s or "boom"s when visiting a school, with "boom" apparently being "street-talk" for "yea". Now, I don't believe this little yarn for a second but it set me to thinking; what if the kids slip out of my grasp, so to speak? There's every chance that I'm not down with the young 'uns and that when they shout things at me in the street, they may not be entirely complimentary. There's nothing for it, I'll have to invent a new slang, a new jive-talk that all the kids will adopt and so, far from being Mr. Catch-Up I'll be Super Fonzie... or at least regular Fonzie. It's an organic process and so can't be forced but what follows is a selection of my life's work so far.

Goodballoon's Slang.

What's winking = How are you?
My glands aren't up = I'm fine.
Walter Neff's match lighter = Thumb
Squire = Any collective noun e.g A squire of ducks, a squire of beans, a squire of lawyers
Rabid = Good
Griff = Bad
Barcode reader = Samuel Pepys
Jack = Man
Jackanory = Divorced man
Wall holes = Windows
Conk wailer = Mobile telephone
Bun = Hat
Cherry = Hat-pin
Galvaniser = Computer
Greenwich Quicktime = A computer programme used south of the river.
Greenwich Slowtime = A waltz.
Mexican food = Cunnilingus

You'll all be using it soon.

I am a twat for thousands of reasons, but the main one at the moment is that I have had the wrong e-mail address linked in the column at the side. It's fixed now so I expect to be inundated. That's it.

When Tony Robinson first asked me to write this introduction to New Labour’s 1997 manifesto, well I can’t tell you how excited the National Executive Committee were. Here I was, “the foremost actor of any generation” (Sheridan Morley, The Times) giving my nod of approval to this marvellous new off-shoot of the Labour Party.

As many of you will know, the Labour Party started out as a reaction to Churchill’s stuffy so-called “bowler hat” policies of the 1920’s where he insisted upon the working classes wearing either a bowl or hat to work as head protection. Really! Who was he to dish out fashion advice when he continued to smoke cigars right the way through the humidor and cigarette-holder eras respectively. Anyway, it was their party and they’d cry “scab” if they wanted to.

Alas, cry “scab” they did and nothing really happened for years and years. Wilson and Co. had dalliances with being in Government, but it really didn’t fit in with the beer and sandwiches image so beloved of Messers Benn and Jenkins. In 1979 Mrs Thatcher finally put an end to all of the squabbling and led Britain into a long, glorious decade of success only sullied by a few local difficulties such as the Falklands and the coal-mining debacle. The Iron Lady soon retired with all of the good grace one would expect from her and we were left with the shambles that we find ourselves in now.

New Labour and Tony are here for you. Together we can take Britain back to the good old days; Nouveau cuisine, Colin Welland, Steven Berkoff and Erasure. Vote for Tony: you know what you’re getting really.

Love Alan Rickman

• No one ever discovered anything watching the Discovery Channel.
• Woody Allen should make less films to take the pressure off of himself.
• Oasis should record more albums to take the pressure off of themselves.
• Anyone who reads The Bible and comes away thinking of God as a being is severely missing the point.
• You don't get the football team you deserve.
• With no proportional representation and an unelected head-of-state the United kingdom has no right to tell others about democracy.
• Star Wars is not the best film ever. It isn't even the best film of 1977.
• Soho reception desks are manned by blonde women during the day and black men at night.
• If one lawyer is untrustworthy, what do we think we'll get out of a Parliament full of them?
• True bravery often occurs during war. Real cowardice often leads to it.

Int. Day - Jonathan Ross's front room
JONATHAN enjoys forty winks on the sofa. Around him various animals snooze and sigh. The doorbell rings.

Jonathan (waking):
Oh no! Who could that be?

Enter TV's RICKY GERVAIS in tennis gear.

Ricky:
Hey! Alright Jonathan? Up for a couple of sets of tennis? I'll bet you a cat I win.

Jonathan:
Sorry Ricky, I can't; I put my back out moving a chest last night.

Ricky:
What's that? A new piece of furniture?

Jonathan:
No. I was bathing the wife.

Cue: Audience laughter & applause.

Next week: David Baddiel and Richard E. Grant pop round to borrow various condiments.

(Idea stolen from Two-Face at Moving The Goalposts)

Ways I knew I was getting old #3:
Antiques Roadshow is now a viable option for Sunday afternoon viewing. I find myself guessing how much items are going to be worth. I am a twat.

If black is meant to be slimming, how come so many goths are still fucking enormous?

Reasons for hating John Lennon:
Number two: Sunday Bloody Sunday
As Lennon approached his thirty-second birthday a creeping realisation approached that he had wasted much of his life singing songs and making films that really didn't matter much. He set his mind to more political ideals and the resultant 'Some time in New York City' was released in April 1972 (September 1972 in the UK). On it was the song 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' in which Lennon, with all of his vast and detailed knowledge of the subject, attempted to solve the Irish problem in three minutes. His heavy-handed approach is shown magnificently in the third verse where he states:

You anglo pigs and scotties
Sent to colonize the North
You wave your bloody Union Jack
And you know what it's worth!
How dare you hold to ransom
A people proud and free
Keep Ireland for the Irish
Put the English back to sea!

Apparently unaware that many of the Unionists in the North had in fact been born there, Lennon continued to write nonsensical "political" songs from his mansion-sized appartment in New York for some time.

Punchlines to jokes that you'll never hear again!
"If I'd wanted it to look like that, I'd have pulled it myself!"

I never thought I'd say it but the BNP have got a couple of ideas that I could really go with; giving all of their members a shotgun is, I believe, an absolute bloody winner. With any luck the no-thumbed numbnuts that sign up for that misanthropic shower of shit that calls itself a political party will blast themselves and their sink estate, window-smashing, arsonistic offspring into kingdom come and leave this glorious island for the rest of us to enjoy life on, with all of it's many and varied multicultural joys.

Michael Howard was born in Birmingham in 1922. The son of a disillusioned wassailer and a unemployed satirirst who had once been hounded out of Leeds for mocking Lloyd-George's moustache, the young Michael was easily impressed. His formative years were spent in and out-of-bounds and it was only when the draw was made for the second round of the World Wars that Michael found his true calling. Captured during the liquidation of the Midlands ghettos, the Howard family found themselves being transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and it was at this point that the young Michael realised something really needed to be done about the trains.

During the long years at Auschwitz Michael woke up to the true meaning of human spirit. He watched the people around him and saw that it was these folk, these strong people of honour that symbolised all that he stood for and all that he would stand for in the future... plus he absolutely adored their uniforms.

After the war the young Michael could not decide on a profession. He loved the arts and would spend hours and hours with his face pressed to the window of the local hairdressers trying to discover their secrets. Eventually he plucked up the courage to enter the place but, wraught with nerves, it was as much as he could do to say his name, much less ask for a job. Two hours later he emerged with the hairstyle that became famous the world over as 'Howard's dancecard filler', for no woman who wore it "need ever concern herself with worries of wallfloweredness again". Michael opted for his second chosen profession which was, of course, stand-up politico-comedy folk-singing and boy, was he succesful. In just six months Michael had upwards of five bookings and he never went to the same place twice. As audiences chortled at his ribald rhymes and mischievous melodies like 'One Nation Conservative tax shortfalls' and 'Harold Wilson's pipehole' Michael saw that lampoonery was not enough for him, he wanted to make a difference.
Westminster called and Michael was not going to disobey.

Soon enough he was able to find himself Conservative parlimentary candidate for Manhattan South and his performances on the hustings ensured that Michael Parkinson Howard M.E was soon Michael York Howard M.P. His easy-going style and devillish good-looks soon made him Mr. Popular in the Commons, so much so that his maiden speech in favour of taxing nurses on their tips got a standing ovation from all sides of the house, although alas, never making it onto the statute books due to the famous white paper shortage of 1976-1977.

If Howard had been popular in opposition, then he was God-like in Government. As Mrs. Thatcher's favourite Jew other than the Queen Mother, Michael was the social conscience of the famously caring Conservative cabinet of the eighties and early nineties. When pit closures were announced it was Michael who bravely said "It's a shame" in front of his shocked colleagues. His follow up line of "It's a shame... we didn't do it earlier!" had them all rolling in the aisles once more, and got him a kiss from Douglas Hurd and a special pat on the head from Mrs T herself.

Opposition years followed and Michael watched his beloved Conservative party tear itself apart. He knew what he had to do; he must lead them to certain defeat so that he could be replaced by someone else after the 2005 election. Michael set about losing the election by remembering he was Jewish. The public would feel much better about a racist if the racist was a Jew. How could a member of the most persecuted race in history possible want to persecute anyone else?

Wearing his Jewishness like a country club member's pass, Michael cut a swathe through rational arguments. He tossed facts aside like past manifesto promises.

"Travellers? Get travelling! Asylum seekers? I'm not falling for that! The poor? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

The Conservative heartland were emboldened; here was a man who would take us back to the glory days. Poll tax. Three million unemployed. Super gun. 15% interest rates. Aitken. Archer. BSE. The Belgrano. Kenny Everett. VAT on fuel bills. Oh hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Michael Howard is Jewish.

I’ve now been shovelling this shite for a couple of weeks and have had, according to my trusty site meter, one or two visitors. Now, we’re not talking http://www.bignakedtitsandwilliesandbumsandminkys.com/ levels of traffic, but bits and pieces and that’s… well vaguely interesting. The problem is I don’t know who you are and (in the words of Kevin Keegan) “I’d love it, I’d just love it” if you’d leave a little note saying something. Anything. Nothing too nasty; I’m a delicate little flower and I’m unsure if my constitution could take it, but just a word, even if you never intend to darken my doorstep again. You'll see a link to my e-mail at the side so we can get hot and heavy that way if you'd like. Whatever.

I discovered something this lunchtime; if you read a good cookery book whilst eating your McDonald's Big Mac Meal you don't get quite so upset. Do have lots of napkins handy so that your tears don't water down your barbeque sauce. Thanks.

It's all kicking off up the East End, me old china! Muslims in general hating Oona. Fundamentalist Muslims gunning for George. I'll bet he doesn't know what the hell else he can do. That's his core vote. Maybe he'll salute their indefatigability. I hope so.

Ways I knew I was getting old - Number two.
After having a shower I stopped to check myself out in the mirror (not like that!) to make sure I didn't have a huge hair hanging out of my nose, or something along those lines. First of all I noticed a spot on my chin. Annoyed at still getting these fuckers well into my twenties I dealt with it and turned around to leave the bathroom. It was at that point that I noticed the thin line of hair wending it's way down the back of my neck and onto my back. Not only did I have hairy nostrils and a hirstute back, but I still had spots meaning that my body had entirely bypassed being a sexy twenty-something and had, instead, gone from to gawky teenager to middle-aged man.

We are all, every one of us, bloody idiots. We all have the capability to be brilliant and ridiculous at the self-same moment, or at least within a very short time-span. As such I present a new section with a limited lifespan called:

Hats off/Fuck off!
Today:
The Sun newspaper.
Hats off:
Well done the sub-editors for Tuesday night/Wednesday morning for there astoundingly good headline reporting that young Cardinal Ratzinger had been named Pope. Summing up a man's life, particularly one as interesting as this, is always difficult and yet they managed it with an astonishing comic flourish. The result: "From Hitler Youth to Papa Ratzi". Masterful.
Fuck off:
Having done so much good work on Wednesday, the paper then let itself down on Thursday by declaring it was backing New Labour in the election. Now, for a national newspaper to back the Government of the day is nothing to be ashamed of and is probably to be expected in large swaths of the media, however, it is the way in which The Sun came to this decision. Did it look at the different manifestoes and decide which was most in-tune with it's thinking? Did it weigh up the different political parties on one particular issue? Did it pick the one with the best-looking leader? No. It did a phone-poll and picked the one that it's readers were most likely gonna vote for in an act of cynical cowardice unmatched since the Navy blew up the Belgrano. Gotcha!

Did you know that Pope Benedict XVI parents were called Joseph and Mary? Like Craig David, he was born to do it. Also like Craig David, he's a bit of a spazz.

Reasons to hate:
John Lennon.
Number 1 - John Lennon co-wrote and sang on Elton John's 'Whatever gets you through the night'. At the time Elton's star was in the ascendency and Lennon was looking for stuff to do so it made sense, plus John was not the second-rate sappy balladeer we know now but a genuinely gifted performer/songwriter with a good ear for a tune. Unfortunately the song went to number one in America... John became a huge, international star and his big gob and potato head have been with us ever since. Bastardo!

Ever walk in and hear the end of a knock out story or fabulous joke? Annoying, isn't it? Well if you hated that, this'll drive you barmy:

Punchlines to jokes that you'll never hear again!
Number 1 - 'No, you silly bugger! I said "Which way is it to get to the ship!"'

I heard a couple of tracks from the new Oasis album yesterday on a very dodgy site. They may well be demos but they sounded pretty complete to me. One was called 'Mucky Fingers' and ws pretty much one little riff played over again with Noel singing over the top of it and then some 'Shelter from the storm' Dylan-y harmonica parts. The other was 'Let there be love' which was a demo from 'Standing on the shoulder of giants' which never got used. They've bolstered it up a little but I'm just a tad concerned that they are going back to songs from five years ago. With four songwriters in the band they couldn't produce eleven brand new songs? Hmmm... Anyway fingers crossedthat the album's good and fingers crossed that the Coldplay bubble bursts with their new album; I hate those MOR ginger-afroed nob-ends! And Keane. And bloody Snow Patrol. And Doves whilst I'm at it.

That's all the venom I've got for the moment. Laters.

So, we've had two lots of smoke so far. Black smoke. No decision. I'm bored already. I hope they pick Mel Gibson. That would be brilliant. Or one of my uncles. That would be even better.

Did you ever expect it to be this way? I know I didn't. I honestly thought I'd hit thirty and look good, feel good, have some money, my own home... that kind of thing. Instead I'm aqua-planing out of my twenties and straight into a mid-life crisis that'll make Peter Stringfellow look like Richard briers in 'The Good Life (or 'Good Neighbors' as it's known in the USA). Anyway, a string of events has helpfully pointed the way toward my impending middle-age and thus to my breakdown. It is these I shall chronicle in:

Ways I knew I was getting old.
No.1 - Opening 'the Guide' on a Sunday afternoon and being delighted that there was some rugby on TV. Not only does that sentence point out how middle-aged I am, it also flags up how overwhelmingly middle-class I am.

Heston Blumenthal's 'The Fat Duck' in the Berkshire village of Bray has been voted the best restaurant in the World by Restaurant Magazine. I once drove past his three Michelin starred restaurant but was, alas, too poor to be able to go inside. Other great restaurants that I have nearly been to are Marcus Wareing's Petrus at The Berkeley Hotel, Angela Hartnett at The Connaught and, of course, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road. In the future I hope to be too broke for Thomas Keller's French Laundry in California's Napa Valley.

You thought I'd forgotten...
Descriptions from the back of Extreme music CD 'Chemical Beats' (XCD 045):
Track: No.7 Tool Time
Description: Got An Uzi, Gonna Uzee?

I haven't mentioned Michael Jackson yet and feel that I probably should. Hmmm... what to say? It has been an astonishingly uninteresting case so far... Er... that's it. Who cares? He probably didn't do it, but he's probably done it before so everyone's lying in some way, so whatever the outcome it'll be wrong. Right, I can tick that box.

One last thing, go to the link below and sign up. Sign up your friends, your family... whoever. Arrested Development is a stupidly funny TV show from Fox TV (the channel who confirmed the Pope's death). It has been universally praised by critics, apart from Bonnie whoeversheis on Late Review, and Jason Bateman won an Emmy for it. It's like a mix between The Office and The Simpsons and features, amongst many others, Liza Minelli, Ron Howard, Jeffry Tambor, Portia De Rossi and Henry Winkler. The problem is the vast majority of American and British TV audiences have the mental capacity of a wheelbarrow with Downs syndrome, and so nobody's watching the show which means Fox want to cancel it. Sign up and 'Get Arrested' and they may not... although they probably will. Do it; one day you'll be thankful that you did.
http://www.getarrested.com/
Thank you.

Did you hear the news? Have a look:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4416446
It looks like we are right in the shit, don't it? After all, what would an insurance company get out of people being concerned about terrorist attacks? Nothing, right?

Then there was this beauty:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,1462192,00.html
If Britain's finest police minds are saying we need ID cards, who am I to argue. I mean, what does one of the highest ranking policeman stand to gain from the introduction of ID cards. Or any authority figure for that matter.

Then we have this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/17/nricin17.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/04/17/ixportaltop.html

The Sunday Telegraph shows us that al-Qa'eda terrorists were planning a September 11th style attack on the Heathrow Express (note the senior Whitehall and police sources). Except they weren't:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-050411.htm

So, when the Tories start up with this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4442219.stm
It's almost as if they are misrepresenting facts for there own political ends. Surely not.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4449681.stm
Well... maybe.

"Oooo, Channel 4 are doing a poll for the best albums ever. I think I might ring them up and vote."
"Really? What are you going to say is the best album ever?"
"Hmmm... tricky, that one. Probably Madonna's 'Like a prayer'."

At some stage, on some level, maybe even internally, somebody had this conversation. They weighed up all of the music ever recorded, considered things like musical innovation, influence on what came after, use of melody, harmony, social comment and so on. Then they disregarded all of these parameters and voted on who had the best hair. What the fu...

Duran Duran's 'Rio'? Are you lot on glue? Meanwhile 'Rubber Soul', an album that includes Drive my car, Nowhere man, In my life, I'm looking through you and Norwegian Wood plus Think for yourself and Michelle doesn't get in the top 100. Not in the top 100! Prats! And 'OK Computer' isn't even Radiohead's best album, let alone the best album ever. Let's hope that now you've all got that out of your system, we don't get any nasty surprises come the 5th of May. Do you here me, Burnley?

With a General Election in three weeks, democracy has never been so popular an idea. Oh yes, everyone wants a piece of that pie. Vote for this, vote for that, swings to the left, landslides to the Tories...well, lets not go too far, but you get the gist. Just in time Channel 4 has produced a list show that will, once and for all, prove that the public are not to be trusted with making decisions of any import whatsoever. The programme: The 100 greatest albums of all time.
I don't know the results of this show, how could I? But I'm willing to bet that the following bands/albums will all appear and the nasty truth about democracy will be there for everyone to see.

The Sex Pistols.
Yes, yes; God save the Queen, cheated out of the number one spot, blah, blah, blah... however it has never really been pointed out properly that they were shit. Proper shit. Shit band. Shit songs. Shit everything. Everyone on telly pretends to think they were good because really they were listening to The Bay City Rollers at the time, but want to look cool now. That goes for you too, Gallagher!

Robbie Williams.
Council estate Bryan Ferry.

The Rolling Stones.
I've tried. I've really tried but so much of what the Stones produced was so crap. Don't get me wrong, some of the songs are great, really great, but so many are such dull-arsed bad blues that I can't even get to bar twelve.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Good album. Top hundred of all time? Yeah. But it doesn't stop there. This monster will be vying for top five position, possibly the top spot itself, but it's not that good. Look at the track-listing and tell me the songs that you really like. With a little help from my friends? Really? Within you without you? Yeah? Honestly? When I'm sixty-four? I didn't think so. Now, I love the Beatles. I'm a Beatle-bore. Revolver is unquestionably the best album ever and should have the top five places to itself just to illustrate it's greatness. Sergeant Pepper is not.

Scissor Sisters.
Mark my words, this heap of cat-shite will be on this list. Don't believe the hype; it's poo.

Franz Ferdinand.
See above.

Beck.
Name that tune? Try spotting one for starters.

That's all I've got for now.

Don't ask. 9.00 on the dot I rang those bastards and they hadn't opened the bloody phone line. By the time I redialled it was too pissing late. Half and hour later all I had to show for it was a warm ear and a sore finger.

Is there anyone outside of The Sun's offices who gives a flier about Colleen? For those not in the know, Colleen is Wayne Rooney's girlfriend and seems to be one of those travellers that the Tories seem so concerned about (well, she's taken up residence on the front page of The Sun for the last two weeks). She has absolutely nothing interesting about her whatsoever and yet they cannot stop talking about her. At least Victoria Beckham was, at one point, a bonafide pop-star (as opposed to the bonafide nut-job she seems to be today), as far as I can tell Colleen alternates her time between shopping and occasionally going on holiday. That said, I'm talking about her now... damnit!

Question Time last night. Here's a question: What the hell was Ruth Kelly speaking out of? The sound seemed to emanate from her nose, but the words were pure anus.

Descriptions from Extreme music 'Chemical Beats' CD (XCD045):
Track 10: Reaktive
Description: Solid Slam-Bam, Slices Nicely

Can I just recommend to all and sundry that they can do an awful lot worse than to sign up to the Channel 4 news Snowmail service. Once a day, between 5.00pm and 7.00pm, you receive a brief summary of the days events from the man himself. He writes very personal little sentences about each item in a style very different to that of any other news service. Almost comment pieces in themselves, you can see in them the very model of professional journalism. He's still no Trevor McDonald though. But who is?

Reasons to hate Mel Smith:
To round off this mini-series of venomous diatribe against a man who, in all honesty, has never done me any harm, I could talk about his odious smugness. His two decades of sub-standard television. His obvious gluttony. I could do all this but why go to all the effort of typing hundreds of words about the man when God clearly hated him more than even I could. Evidence? Click on the link.
The following link contains graphic images that may offend!
http://img153.echo.cx/my.php?image=melsmith9ye.png

I'm sorry you had to see that.

I'll leave you with a quote that Paul McCartney gave me when I bumped into him just outside his home in Rye, Kent.

"Fuck off before I have you arrested!"

Goodnight.

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Take a look at the slideshow at the link below. It puts not getting Oasis tickets into some perspective, if you need it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4445811.stm

Good News - I got a comment
Bad News - I don't understand it. Obviously it's from Spinal Tap, but what's it got to do with the rubbish that I wrote? Hmmm... curious. Any ideas?

Have you heard Kilroy-Silk? What a man. He's seen that what we needed in Britain was a party that was slightly more racist than the Tories, slightly less racist than the BNP. It's good to see a party leader urging less tolerance in these troubled times. Mr. Kilroy-Silk, I salute you.

Talking of cunts, have you seen Sky News lately. What a laugh. Hour after hour of the greatest spoof news footage I have ever seen. Here's a quote from their web-site:

"...who'd have guessed stunning Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry is half-English? She still enjoys a very close relationship with her Liverpudlian mum Judy, a retired psychiatric nurse."

Amazing. And they say satire is dead. Still, not as bad as the ITV News Channel.

Things I saw in Soho this lunchtime:
A young lady ringing the doorbell of a lap-dancing club.
A tramp on all fours in the middle of the road.
Helen Bonham-Carter looking like a character from 'Cats'.
A lot of men with very plucked eyebrows.
A male colleague of mine looking shifty on the gayest road in Britain.

Descriptions from the back of Extreme music's 'Chemical Beats' (XCD 045):
Track 2: Psyhco (sic) Slam
Description: Blisterin' Burnin' Bass Turbine

Reasons to hate Mel Smith:
Number 3 - This was taken from the first Google group entry I came across:

"To add to my already vast predjudice towards the gross and hugely unfunny Mel Smith, my brother once had the misfortune of having to wait upon the fat git and his friends at a very exclusive hotel in Glasgow...he said they were rude, obnoxious, fat ( mel smith never acts, he obviously just IS :) ) ...i could go on..but to cut it short they didn't know how to behave and Smith was the worst of the lot..and to top it..he was a tight bastard and didn't leave a big enough tip!!!"

You don't have to look far.

At 9.00 tomorrow morning the nations optimists will be hitting the phones and banging away on their computers. With hope in their heart and not a little nervousness Oasis fans all over the South East of England, and maybe a few from further afield, will be hitting refresh and redial buttons in a vain attempt to get one of the pitifully few tickets available for the band's London shows. I may be one of them. Part of me really doesn't want to play ball; if they had any respect for their fans they wouldn't make them clamour for a handful of tickets and charge them over £30 quid for the luxury, particularly when playing shit-heaps like the Astoria. What a dump! Small, sweaty, stinky, £3.00 for a can of Stella and God alone knows what that is on the floor of the gents! However... it's Oasis. They're my team. It's like football. Premiership or Conference, it doesn't really matter. Expect me to be sixty quid lighter tomorrow.

"Whoah. Check out that guy. He makes Speedy Gonzales look like Regular Gonzalez."

"Did you see them? Weren't they lovely? So convincing. Little Anthony is such a good boy. So clever. And big John: marvellous. His line about extending the M25; real conviction. Young Ruth didn't muck up her lines either. Steered well clear of Jamie Oliver and school dinners as instructed. Well done that girl."

You've got to take your hat off to them; they've been in office for eight years and still have the gall to talk about what they are going to do. I'm trying to remember back to the last manifesto... did it mention inciting the largest peace-time demonstration that Britain has ever seen? The death and maiming of thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of servicemen? Of course it didn't... but I think Oliver Letwin may have mentioned it for the Tories.


In a week where we have seen the Government temporarily bailing out Rover it's good to know that at least one aspect of our industry is working at full production. I am, of course, talking about library music. Library music, for those not in the know, is that music you hear in the background on cheap TV programmes like 'Property Ladder' and 'Masterchef' published specifically for that use and much cheaper than any chart music. It is, in the main, appalling but not as bad as the descriptions that you find on the backs of the CD cases. Examples, you say? I proudly present...

Quotes from the Extreme music CD 'Chemical Beats':

Track 1: Hell-Bent
Description: Heavy Duty Deviant Jack Hammer

You can hear it in your head now, can't you? More tomorrow where I can promise you a spelling mistake from the CD itself! Ooooo...


The Champions League match between Inter and AC Milan last night was halted after the AC goalkeeper Dida was struck by flares thrown by Inter fans after AC Milan went 3-0 up. Hooliganism, flares... It's like the bad old days of the seventies all over again.

Just time for:
Reason's to hate Mel Smith No.2:
In 2000 Mel, along with Griff Rhys-Jones and Peter Fincham sold the independent production company Talkback pocketing £62,000,000 between them, Smith and Jones pocketing around £50,000,000 alone.
Now, have a little think about that... Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones. You know, the one's that your dad liked. The ones who were in Wilt. Did a skit on 'The Two Ronnies' called 'The Two Ninnies'. Remember? Yeah? Well if you took all the money that you will ever make, and any money that your friends ever make, and double it... they've still got more. You know you're hating him just a little bit more.

So... here we go. The difficult second album. After the runaway success of my first blog this one is sure to fall flat, but here we go. What a curious feeling: I know that absolutely no one is reading this barring one or two cohorts and hangers-on, yet I feel a strange desire to please... who? Never mind, here's:

Reasons to hate Mel Smith:
1) Here is a list of the films he has directed:

• Blackball (2003)
• High Heels and Low Lifes (2001)
• Bean (1997)
• Radioland Murders (1994)
• The Tall Guy (1989)

Five films in fourteen years and at least three of them are unmitigated shit.

Charles and Sarah Kennedy had a kid. Well done to you both. Still won't give the Lib-Dems a snowball's chance though.

A Tory has been caught doctoring pictures of himself and Ann Widdecombe trying to help an asylum seeker stay in the country so that they now show him being for more stringent immigration controls. I think he might have a chance at being the first person who has ever done it that way round... well done Ed Matts; you are a fucking genius.

This just in from the BBC News website:

"The United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, has told the UN Security Council that greater attention needs to be paid to human rights there. "

Thanks Ashraf, it's good to know you're there.

Just time to see if the judgement day, as promised by The Bible, has arrived... apparently not. Sorry kids, better luck tomorrow.

I was hoping to start with a nice big bang but it doesn't look likely. This is the first, and quite possibly last, entry in my first, and quite possibly last, blog. I've not been an avid reader of other blogs having little or no time for anyone's opinion but mine own and so am not quite sure of the protocol. Do I tell you my name? Where I live? What I do for a living? I don't think I shall for now. I will say that I live in London. I will say that I work on an outer arm of the low-rent TV industry. I'm not trying to be mysterious, it's just that I don't know what I'll have to say in the future and giving away my identity may stop me from saying it. That said, the possibilty of me having anything interesting to say is pretty remote.

So, what's going on? Over the last week we have seen the Pope snuff it and get buried. Pretty interesting but I'm starting to tire a little of how "remarkable" he was. It seems everyone thought the sun shone out of his holy hole which seems to sit a little queer next to some of the ideas he bandied around. Lets hope the next fella isn't quite so militant...

Charles and Camilla got wed. Nice to see. I don't give a stuff one way or the other about them particularly, but if him marrying her pisses off all of the twats who venerate his last silly tart of a wife, then it's all good.

The election's hoting up... well, I say hoting up, but quite honestly all we are seeing is one stage-managed press conference after another for the moment. Sooner or later someone is going to have to talk to a pleb (or even a journalist) and then the fun starts. Labour and the Tories both published their manifestos today. Labour's barely contained the word "Labour" by all accounts, so God alone knows how they expect anyone to know who to vote for. The Tories trotted out their ten words, which are "More recession, less blacks, less death, more circuses, higher trousers", or at least it's a good guess. The Lib-dems, with all of the astonishing luck that the Lib-dems have (or bring upon themselves), had to cancel their press conference as Charles Kennedy's heavily pregnant wife had to go hospital. Marvellous.

Who knows what'll be around the corner. For me it is nearly going home time, for I am writing this at work (another reason for the anonimity) so I wish you all the best. Thanks for reading. Until next time, adios.