I mean, I'm as vain as the next man (and most of us are far more vain than we'd have you girls believe) and I'm all for looking after yourself.
But come on, advert makers. Do us males a favour and stop insulting our (admittedly variable) intelligence by assuming that we're all macho cretins who only respond to adverts containing sports, grunting, stubble, and ludicrous product names like Turbo Booster (for fuck's sake!)...
]]>All I want to say, basically, is that this particular season of X Factor has pissed me off more than any of the others, for a number of reasons. Shall I be anal and list them?? Why not eh...
1) The auditions suggested a much higher level of contestants than has actually materialised. Stacy Soloman is quite sweet but they clearly don't know what to do with her, Jamie Archer is mildly entertaining (for a pub rocker, which is absolutely what he is, despite the repeated protestations to the contrary) and I like Danyl but I can't picture the guy having an actual pop music career. If he can't even handle a bit of personal criticism on a talent show, what makes him think he could hack it as a pop star? He'd be in rehab before his first single hit the shelves. Somehow, all the apparent ability that was there in the auditions has been sifted down to a really quite dull set of contestants. Bah!
2) Cheryl Cole. God, what an irritating woman. I liked her at first, until it became apparent that she hasn't got a clue what she's on about. Her appalling musical ignorance is rivalled only by her obvious inability to dress herself. If you're in the public eye and that bloody clueless, then employ some kind of musical adviser and a stylist for heaven's sake!
3) Jedward. OK, I will admit to a sneaking enjoyment of some of their antics, but isn't the joke wearing just a little bit thin now? I mean, I quite admire their resilience - they get booed by half the audience most weeks and they just get on with it! And what happens last night? Simon Cowell actually passes up the opportunity to get rid of them! A man as shrewd as Cowell must have done that because he believes they're keeping the ratings up. Well, I for one say enough's enough. Time to get rid.
4) I just cannot believe who the public want to stay, and who they want to go. Lloyd, to stay?? Blank-eyed, baby-faced, can-hardly-sing-at-all-anyway?? Fuck's sake! Whereas Lucie, Miss Frank, and Rachel have all gone! Unfuckingbelievable.
5) There really is no-one to root for this year, no-one I can honestly say I would like to win it. Which pretty much takes all the fun out of a show like The X Factor.
I may even stop watching it, who knows. Or simply drink more when I am watching it.
]]>I had to go and wake Logan up for his tea, he was spark out.
(Yes, he is napping as I type this!!)
As I type this, Logan is upstairs having a nap, which I hope will be a big nap. Big enough so I can catch 5 minutes' sleep on the settee, in fact.
Yawn...!
]]>http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/6338139/16440695
So, what I'm looking for is this - can someone recommend me some decent Motorhead albums from this decade?? I heard "Inferno" was supposed to be good...
]]>
Imagine my amazement, then, when I happened to see Mark Ronson's Oh My God video the other day. Ms Allen had been successfully transformed into a svelte cartoon vamp in the Jessica Rabbit vein! Unbelievable! Talk about the wonders of modern technology. Whatever next? Making Katie Price likeable?
The spell is of course completely broken when the cartoon Allen opens her mockney gob and speaks, but even so. An honourable late addition to the ranks of Sexy Cartoon Characters.
]]>I needn't have worried.
Bonnie Greer ran rings around everything he said (while classily showing the man a respect that he didn't deserve) but most merciless of all was the audience. They just would not let Griffin off the hook, on anything. Tremendous.
He ended up coming across as shifty, dishonest, ill-informed, and quite frankly downright weird. Which in my book is a good result.
]]>I don't really like it, but now the old one looks wrong as well.
The more I've done on the new design, the worse it looks. But now I can't go back to the old one either!
Fuck it. There's nothing else for it, I'll have to do some work.
]]>http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/14/starsuckers-tabloids-hoax-celebrities
If you can't be arsed to read it - basically a group of people invented a selection of ridiculous stories about celebs, then posed as members of the public and sold them to the tabloids. Who duly printed them. All of them.
Makes you think dunnit?
]]>Idiots!
]]>Anyone got any misheard lyrics they would like to share?
]]>It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a sin
Everything I've ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I've ever been
Everywhere I'm going to
It's a sin
At school they taught me how to be
So pure in thought and word and deed
They didn't quite succeed
For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
Has one thing in common, too
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a sin
Everything I've ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I've ever been
Everywhere I'm going to
It's a sin
Father, forgive me, I tried not to do it
Turned over a new leaf, then tore right through it
Whatever you taught me, I didn't believe it
Father, you fought me, 'cause I didn't care
And I still don't understand
So I look back upon my life
Forever with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to blame
For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
Has one thing in common, too
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a sin
Everything I've ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I've ever been
Everywhere I'm going to - it's a sin
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
(Confiteor Deo omnipotenti vobis fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione,
verbo, opere et omissione, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa)
[trans. "I confess to almighty god,
and to you my brothers,
that I have sinned exceedingly
in thought, word, act and omission,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault"]
No? Well, I did - I was that bored. And attention-seeking.
So! Imagine the intensity of my joy when I discovered, mere moments ago, that I have now attained the giddy heights of Page 7!!
If I could afford such a thing, I would buy you all a drink. (No, I can't. But the thought was there.)
Huzzah! Have a tremendous Friday.
]]>http://mattk.myphotoalbum.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album01&id=mugshots
...you might like to cast an eye over my latest passport photo (currently my profile pic). I have to renew my passport and get a new photo for my driving license this year, annoyingly. Maybe I have to get a retina scan for the passport as well, I dunno!
I'm thinking of trying out contact lenses - worth doing?
]]>The spoiled little cow is probably hoping for a public outcry. Me, I just hope for absolute public disinterest to this bit of news...
]]>Basically I have faffed around with it for no good reason...unless it's the same impulse that made me delete the several years' worth of crap from my email accounts around spring time this year. I reckon it's a time of year thing. Autumn is on the same spoke of the wheel of the year as Spring, but in the opposite position in the dark half of the year. So it's possible that I'm experiencing a similar drive to tidy stuff up, renew it, clear the decks a bit, that kind of thing.
Or maybe I just can't be arsed to do any work today, and am desperately casting around for anything else to do - that same impulse that makes you pair up all your socks then do the washing up, when you should be revising for your final exams.
Well, maybe it's a bit of both eh??
Anyone else here rearranging their blogs for no apparent reason?
]]>Whenever I was anywhere near the Coach & Horses in Soho (quite often, when I worked on Charing Cross Road) I would peer through the window hoping to catch a glimpse of the great man Tom Baker, the ultimate Dr Who and my childhood hero. My friend's brother had been in the Coach & Horses drinking and apparently saw Tom. "Did you say anything to him?" I asked excitedly. "Yeah," he replied "I said get out of the way of the bar will you". Gah!!
I never was lucky enough to see Tom Baker in the Coach & Horses, or anywhere else, but if I do I'll be buying him a drink. Are you reading this Tom??
]]>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8184225.stm
As Clarkson would say, oh come on!
It seems as if we've only just got rid of the self-pitying self-obsessed talent-lite tosser after an unbroken decade of inexplicable adoration from the British public. I hoped and prayed that we had all finally seen the last of that infuriatingly smug bug-eyed gurning face. But apparently not just yet.
Is it bad for me to hope that he falls on his arse with the next album, failing spectacularly?
]]>Knobhead!
]]>This has been going on for months now, and you know what? It's like coming home, in a sad and shame-filled kind of way. Because I actually watched Hollyoaks way back when it started, breaking the filthy habit after a while. A few years later I fell back into it; I found myself lapping up the laughably bad acting, storylines, and dialogue, and of course the wafer-thin excuses for showing various female characters in their pants at any opportunity.
Now that I'm settling into my third serious Hollyoaks habit, I'm just going to give in to it. In fact I'm going to get even more into it by tracking down the episodes I've missed in the interim (during those dark days of Hollyoakslessness) and watching them too! Yeah, I'm going with it, totally.
Who's with me? I can't be the only sad act who watches this show!
]]>http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090903/tuk-tea-shortage-to-send-cost-of-a-cuppa-45dbed5.html
I may have to up my coffee consumption to compensate...
Stan Still
Jo King
Justin Case
Barb Dwyer (my personal favourite)
Terry Bull
Paige Turner
Mary Christmas
Doug Hole
Hazel Nutt
Pearl Button
Barry Cade
Ray Gunn
Carrie Oakley (a bit tenuous, but points for effort)
Will Power
Teresa Green
Tim Burr
I'm disappointed not to see a Duane Pipe though.
One last thing - a girl I briefly worked with used to claim that friends of hers with the surname Lear "accidentally" named their daughter Shanda. Yeah right!
]]>
Non-UK readers might struggle to remember James at all, but suffice it to say that time has been very unkind to their music (which was pretty crap in the first place).
Check this out:
Ha ha! This is the first shirty response I've had so far to any of my reviews on Amazon, going back 5 years or so. Bless him, I bet he was wearing a Morrisey t-shirt when he wrote that.
Watch this space for more James-related bitchery...
]]>http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/may/29/crime.uknews
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