When I tell people I used to be a journalist, the first thing they usually say is "But D.C., I thought you knew who your dad is?" and we both have a good laugh. Because let’s face it, being a hack doesn't come with a good reputation these days – images of scruffy losers digging through Hugh Grant’s rubbish bin springing to mind.
The second thing they might say is "so why did you want to be a journalist?". Well, the thing is, as a young shitkicker, I very quickly worked out that I couldn't play football for squat. To be frank, I was as close to useless as could be. Despite being a good foot taller than everyone else, I was useless in the air, and my pace could be measured by watching landscapes erode. Not that any of this stopped John Terry, mind. Obviously my political views must have held me back. Ahem.
In a moment of clarity surprising in one so young, I decided that if I was never going to be good enough to run out at Old Trafford, I’d have to compensate by *knowing* more about the game than my peers, which I soon was able to say. At some point, someone must have suggested a good use of this, um, skill would be being a football journalist. Seemed logical enough at the time, and I set about it with what for me counts as gusto: just doing well enough in my exams to get the absolute minimum required to go study Journalism at uni.
In three years doing just that, the main thing I learnt was that I wasn't cut out to be a journalist. Concepts such as “house style” were repeatedly emphasised and I picked up very quickly that to get ahead in this game, the most important skill is to shut up and do as you’re told. Even in sports reporting, there’s an agenda beyond what seems a simple matter of writing about a football match.
Despite this loss of innocence, I still wound up spending two years of my life as a professional journalist. At the time, I figured that having spent so long being “trained” to do something, I may as well try to get some use out of my degree.
"So what’s it like?"
The first thing to state is that in 99.999% of working for a publishing company, the glamour is around the zero mark. Most hacks do not work in London for national newspapers. Most work for publications like local rags in nowhere towns or, as I did in the main part, those Business-to-Business magazines that Have I Got News For You like to take the piss out of. Bicycle Seat Sniffer Monthly, that kind of thing.
"So why did you quit?"
The best reason anyone should ever need – I was bored.
Well, bored and skint, really. Journalism is not a well paid way to earn money. My starting salary (albeit seven years ago to the day) was £10,500 a year. The weirdest part was that I had been earning the best part of £50 a week more in my previous job doing menial data inputting, a job that also involved a cheaper and shorter commute.
At first, it wasn't so bad. The editorial and design team was made up of good people and we had a positive atmosphere that made getting through the slog of deadline day a bit easier. I also got some assignments that I actually enjoyed working on and took such a great deal of satisfaction from that I still have the cuttings to this day.
Yet as is such in the industry, turnover is high, not helped by readership appearing to be getting lower. By the time I handed my cards in, I may have seen my salary to rise to £13,000, but I was doing the work of just about two people to earn it. One particular deadline day saw me leave at 2.30am. All part of the job, I know, but when I found myself back at the bus queue some four hours after getting home, I came to the conclusion my life needed to take a sharp turn in a different direction.
The final thing I get asked is “would you ever go back to it?”
To which I reply “no”, for two reasons. One is that I've been out of the game far too long now. As with a lot of jobs, the key is always contacts and experience, of which there are countless others out there with much better supplies of both.
Secondly, as I've stated on here before and is known by anyone with half a brain, print media is dying so fast that the priest is hovering outside waiting to give the last rites. Hence, the industry is still desperately trying to work out ways to make their online services work. Ian Hislop may sneer at the fine work that a lot of blogs do, but he is doubtless worried that the work Private Eye used to deal almost exclusively in is now also done by writers such as those on Tabloid Watch and Zelo Street – both with the advantage of instant publication and costing nothing to the reader.
Of course, I’m also more than aware I may not have had the talent and/or attitude to get ahead in the industry.
I’m quite happy writing this lil’ol blog and the odd thing for No Ripcord – the best thing of all about this medium is that there’s no editorialising. If someone on No Ripcord wants to say the new album by whatever landfill indie band is flavour of the month with the NME is a bucket of shite, then he’ll have the backing of his editor to do just so, not being at the mercy of advertising revenue to toe a certain line. Freedom to write whatever you like (within legal boundaries, of course y'honour) - it's bloody fantastic.
Monday 27 February 2012
Thursday 23 February 2012
Talk to the Body
There’s nothing much worse than a cliché that becomes horribly true at your expense. Thus, I have came to the realisation that now I am officially an old bastard in my early 30s, I cannot get away with my dubious dietary and lifestyle habits anymore without some payback. The warranty on my body has expired and, as is the way, it's beginning to fall apart.
As things are, I feel like I’m at a point where I could easily go down the slippery road that leads to the one place I swore I’d never go – that of being a fat bastard. The signs are there: I’m around 20 pounds heavier than I was a couple of years ago, and indicators would show a lot of that is in the belly area. It’s not too surprising either, given for the last eight years or so my nutritional needs have been met by plenty of breakfast cereal, cheese sandwiches and pizza washed down by beer.
It’s not like I've not been warned either. A couple of years ago, I was invited to go play some five-a-side football by a work colleague. Despite my love of the game, I’d not played it in any form outside Playstation for the best part of a decade. Too much running around for this trooper. But this would be playing alongside a bunch of lads in their mid 40s, so I reckoned it would be a leisurely kickaround that even one as slow as I could keep pace with.
As they say, how wrong can you be? In minutes I was wheezing like a mono-lunged asthmatic who’d just been forced to run up a hillside, hiding my shame by offering to play in goal for the rest of proceedings. Did I learn? Did I fuck. Once the aches had subsided (which turned out to be several days later), I elected to keep any notions of exercise as far from my mind as psychologically possible.
Until recently, when getting my sorry arse into a pair of jeans with a 32 inch waist has become a wee bit of a squeeze. You wonder "how the hell did that happen? I was the guy who could shovel nothing but Pringles, Mars Bars and fizzy pop down his gob all day and suffer only shite skin in retribution!" I can deal with the grey hairs, wrinkles and creaking knees, but the idea of having even a tiny bilge tank peaking out of my shirt is beyond unacceptable.
Vanity? Of course, but we all have a bit of that, unless you’re the bod sleeping in a puddle of your own Diamond White-tinged piss in a park somewhere. Thus, a line is to be drawn in the sand – the 32nd year of my life, things have to change.
Not that I’m going to be hitting the gym, you understand. No chance. I visited one, once, and found it one of the most terrifying places I could imagine. My own personal Room 101. I've no ambitions to get in “shape” or be able to run more than 100 yards without needing a bit of a lie down. With luck, all it’ll need is a few ten minute bursts of basic exercise a day and knocking certain beverages on the head outside weekends.
Basically, do the absolute minimum to get by. Why change the habits of a lifetime? Not until my second heart attack, at least.
As things are, I feel like I’m at a point where I could easily go down the slippery road that leads to the one place I swore I’d never go – that of being a fat bastard. The signs are there: I’m around 20 pounds heavier than I was a couple of years ago, and indicators would show a lot of that is in the belly area. It’s not too surprising either, given for the last eight years or so my nutritional needs have been met by plenty of breakfast cereal, cheese sandwiches and pizza washed down by beer.
It’s not like I've not been warned either. A couple of years ago, I was invited to go play some five-a-side football by a work colleague. Despite my love of the game, I’d not played it in any form outside Playstation for the best part of a decade. Too much running around for this trooper. But this would be playing alongside a bunch of lads in their mid 40s, so I reckoned it would be a leisurely kickaround that even one as slow as I could keep pace with.
As they say, how wrong can you be? In minutes I was wheezing like a mono-lunged asthmatic who’d just been forced to run up a hillside, hiding my shame by offering to play in goal for the rest of proceedings. Did I learn? Did I fuck. Once the aches had subsided (which turned out to be several days later), I elected to keep any notions of exercise as far from my mind as psychologically possible.
Until recently, when getting my sorry arse into a pair of jeans with a 32 inch waist has become a wee bit of a squeeze. You wonder "how the hell did that happen? I was the guy who could shovel nothing but Pringles, Mars Bars and fizzy pop down his gob all day and suffer only shite skin in retribution!" I can deal with the grey hairs, wrinkles and creaking knees, but the idea of having even a tiny bilge tank peaking out of my shirt is beyond unacceptable.
Vanity? Of course, but we all have a bit of that, unless you’re the bod sleeping in a puddle of your own Diamond White-tinged piss in a park somewhere. Thus, a line is to be drawn in the sand – the 32nd year of my life, things have to change.
Not that I’m going to be hitting the gym, you understand. No chance. I visited one, once, and found it one of the most terrifying places I could imagine. My own personal Room 101. I've no ambitions to get in “shape” or be able to run more than 100 yards without needing a bit of a lie down. With luck, all it’ll need is a few ten minute bursts of basic exercise a day and knocking certain beverages on the head outside weekends.
Basically, do the absolute minimum to get by. Why change the habits of a lifetime? Not until my second heart attack, at least.
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Guts or Not, Still No Glory
Weeks after the Italian dude decided he couldn't be arsed managing the England team anymore, the dust appears to have settled and the matter of the next guy to take the fall is put aside while the more important matter of the league title race is decided. Thankfully.
At the time of writing, it’s looking nailed on that “Honest” Harry Redknapp will get the gig, especially since his acquittal from wrong-doing. His line that he was, essentially, too stupid to have been able to pull off the financial shenanigans he was accused off must surely rank alongside the Chewbacca Defence.
Though you sometimes wonder if it was indeed a front. A rumour was doing the rounds that when the time came to submit his Spurs squad for the Europa League, he knocked up a badly spelled list with "Ask Joe" (being Joe Jordan, his assistant) for the last three names. Scurrilous, perhaps, but somehow believable.
The key word we've heard, once again, bandied around the media is ‘passion’. Capello, being Italian, didn't have it for the job because he was foreign. Not that it appears to have hindered the Irish, mind, with Trappatoni taking a squad of has-beens (Keane, Given, Dunne) and average also-rans to the European Championships. Perhaps the Irish are less fussy - their most successful manager of all time coming from the country that they’d have every right to hate most of all may well have lowered some prejudices.
Redknapp, it has been judged, does have the passion for the job. England needs an Englishman who understands the spirit for the three lions (that most English of animals, natch) and knows the words to God Save The Queen. All 100 verses, and especially the one about battering that lot North of Carlisle.
But let’s stop a minute, and consider the only manager who could really be considered a successful England manager: Sir Alf Ramsey. Look at the footage of when the fourth goal is scored in the 1966 World Cup final – all around is the chaos of English celebration, except for one man. Ramsey remains seated, calm and dignified. This was a man who undertook lessons to tone down his Essex accent into something more ‘respectable’.
He also had little time for the media, which is an area I always thought Capello was on a hiding to nothing. Redknapp, of course, has his column in a newspaper and his son as a pundit on Sky Sports. Like Terry Venables before him, he’s a London boy part of the capital media scene – journalists know they’ll get little bits of information to keep everybody happy. Capello seemed to have no interest in talking to hacks outside his basic duties as England coach: his personal life, for one, was kept strictly off-limits.
In the end, despite a comparatively leisurely progress to the Euro finals this summer, the press were desperate for him to go and have their (or "the people’s") man in. Capello may well have been looking for an excuse to bail – sticking up for John Terry of all people seems an odd way to make a stand – and perhaps he thought that he was on a hiding to nothing in terms of getting any decent results out of the squad.
Not that he was blameless as a coach, presiding over some of the worst performances by an England team at a World Cup since the first two games in Mexico ’86. Additionally, the decision to allow David Beckham to hang around the squad was a beyond odd choice from a coach with so much experience. After the snottering at the hands of the ever-reliable Germans, he doubtless should have taken a leaf from their book and looked to build a squad of hungry young players for 2014. Signs of this were seen when the likes of Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones and Kyle Walker were blooded, but an insistence on keeping Terry, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the squad – despite repeated failures in various championships – gave the impression of a man afraid to make all the changes needed.
As things are, we need to see if Redknapp's ego blinds him to common sense and he takes the job. Yet no matter who is in charge, it's a struggle to see England impressing this summer, especially when they have to get past France, Sweden and Ukraine. Comedy hi-jinks may well be there for the nation to enjoy.
At the time of writing, it’s looking nailed on that “Honest” Harry Redknapp will get the gig, especially since his acquittal from wrong-doing. His line that he was, essentially, too stupid to have been able to pull off the financial shenanigans he was accused off must surely rank alongside the Chewbacca Defence.
Though you sometimes wonder if it was indeed a front. A rumour was doing the rounds that when the time came to submit his Spurs squad for the Europa League, he knocked up a badly spelled list with "Ask Joe" (being Joe Jordan, his assistant) for the last three names. Scurrilous, perhaps, but somehow believable.
The key word we've heard, once again, bandied around the media is ‘passion’. Capello, being Italian, didn't have it for the job because he was foreign. Not that it appears to have hindered the Irish, mind, with Trappatoni taking a squad of has-beens (Keane, Given, Dunne) and average also-rans to the European Championships. Perhaps the Irish are less fussy - their most successful manager of all time coming from the country that they’d have every right to hate most of all may well have lowered some prejudices.
Redknapp, it has been judged, does have the passion for the job. England needs an Englishman who understands the spirit for the three lions (that most English of animals, natch) and knows the words to God Save The Queen. All 100 verses, and especially the one about battering that lot North of Carlisle.
But let’s stop a minute, and consider the only manager who could really be considered a successful England manager: Sir Alf Ramsey. Look at the footage of when the fourth goal is scored in the 1966 World Cup final – all around is the chaos of English celebration, except for one man. Ramsey remains seated, calm and dignified. This was a man who undertook lessons to tone down his Essex accent into something more ‘respectable’.
He also had little time for the media, which is an area I always thought Capello was on a hiding to nothing. Redknapp, of course, has his column in a newspaper and his son as a pundit on Sky Sports. Like Terry Venables before him, he’s a London boy part of the capital media scene – journalists know they’ll get little bits of information to keep everybody happy. Capello seemed to have no interest in talking to hacks outside his basic duties as England coach: his personal life, for one, was kept strictly off-limits.
In the end, despite a comparatively leisurely progress to the Euro finals this summer, the press were desperate for him to go and have their (or "the people’s") man in. Capello may well have been looking for an excuse to bail – sticking up for John Terry of all people seems an odd way to make a stand – and perhaps he thought that he was on a hiding to nothing in terms of getting any decent results out of the squad.
Not that he was blameless as a coach, presiding over some of the worst performances by an England team at a World Cup since the first two games in Mexico ’86. Additionally, the decision to allow David Beckham to hang around the squad was a beyond odd choice from a coach with so much experience. After the snottering at the hands of the ever-reliable Germans, he doubtless should have taken a leaf from their book and looked to build a squad of hungry young players for 2014. Signs of this were seen when the likes of Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones and Kyle Walker were blooded, but an insistence on keeping Terry, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the squad – despite repeated failures in various championships – gave the impression of a man afraid to make all the changes needed.
As things are, we need to see if Redknapp's ego blinds him to common sense and he takes the job. Yet no matter who is in charge, it's a struggle to see England impressing this summer, especially when they have to get past France, Sweden and Ukraine. Comedy hi-jinks may well be there for the nation to enjoy.
Sunday 19 February 2012
The Day The Rain Came Down
I've been putting off playing Heavy Rain for some time, perhaps in part to it being by the same team that made Fahrenheit on the Playstation 2. That was a game that started with an intriguing premise (man has murdered random stranger but has no recollection of why) before descending into a plot that could be best described as "batshit insane".
That may explain why now, in 2012, I'm writing about a game that came out in 2010. But, hey, you can probably pick it up for a tenner now, which I'll say now is about the correct price for a game that doesn't bear repeat plays. More on that later.
Back to my original point, I was concerned Heavy Rain would go the same route as Fahrenheit, being as just about the core of it followed similar lines: you play a number of people brought together by unfortunate events and by "play", we mean do the odd dialogue choice in between mashing the buttons in quicktime events.
Hardly riveting gaming, then, but the whole point of these gigs is the story. Which goes something like this: Ethan Mars is living an idyllic life, with success as an architect, a loving wife and two sons. Naturally, it all goes completely to shit very early in the game and an unfortunate event sees him spend time in a coma, coming out with a nasty case of black outs and terror of being in crowds. In fact, the game could well be sub-titled "The Increasingly Shit Life of Ethan Mars", such are the horrors inflicted on him, which may well delight sadistic gamers.
While Ethan is struggling with this and major-league domestic problems, some nasty little fucker is going around grabbing wee laddies off the street and drowning them in rainwater, leaving origami figures on the dumped bodies. Investigating these are FBI agent/drug addict Norman (yes, really) Jayden and stereotypical private eye Scott Shelby, which is just as well for Ethan as his youngest son winds up being the latest victim and time is running out before the poor mite drowns. Insomniac journalist Madison Paige, whose digitised nipples are there to be perved on if wished, also winds up involved with Ethan, offering help and the most implausible romance sub-plot I can remember.
Given the story would appear to be the main area of interest, it does a pretty good job on first playthrough. The identity of the murderer is kept secret till very near the end, which kept me guessing and the twist was indeed very effective in making me go "no fucking way!".
However, and this may be the biggest however I can think of, in the 30 minutes or so after the game ended, tiny plot holes began to grow to the point they were the size of those you see in open cast coal mines. How did the killer afford all the stuff needed to carry out the crimes? How does Shaun survive any length of time in his makeshift cell? And that's just those I can tell without spoiling the story.
Worse still, the game has little/no replay value because all that you can change is who makes it to the end alive. If, like me, you seemed to have got the "best" conclusion (i.e. everyone lives, psycho killer turned into mince), then going through again seems a tad pointless. It would have been very cool if there were two or three other suspects to provide a different finale.
On other points, the game does look great. The constant rainfall certainly adds a dark gloom to events, aided and abetted in style by a great music score, though the voice-acting stays around the average-at-best mark.
As a potential look into the future of film-making or video games, Heavy Rain falls short. What it does work as is a decent thriller/murder mystery that can fill up ten or so hours of your time, but no more.
That may explain why now, in 2012, I'm writing about a game that came out in 2010. But, hey, you can probably pick it up for a tenner now, which I'll say now is about the correct price for a game that doesn't bear repeat plays. More on that later.
Back to my original point, I was concerned Heavy Rain would go the same route as Fahrenheit, being as just about the core of it followed similar lines: you play a number of people brought together by unfortunate events and by "play", we mean do the odd dialogue choice in between mashing the buttons in quicktime events.
Hardly riveting gaming, then, but the whole point of these gigs is the story. Which goes something like this: Ethan Mars is living an idyllic life, with success as an architect, a loving wife and two sons. Naturally, it all goes completely to shit very early in the game and an unfortunate event sees him spend time in a coma, coming out with a nasty case of black outs and terror of being in crowds. In fact, the game could well be sub-titled "The Increasingly Shit Life of Ethan Mars", such are the horrors inflicted on him, which may well delight sadistic gamers.
While Ethan is struggling with this and major-league domestic problems, some nasty little fucker is going around grabbing wee laddies off the street and drowning them in rainwater, leaving origami figures on the dumped bodies. Investigating these are FBI agent/drug addict Norman (yes, really) Jayden and stereotypical private eye Scott Shelby, which is just as well for Ethan as his youngest son winds up being the latest victim and time is running out before the poor mite drowns. Insomniac journalist Madison Paige, whose digitised nipples are there to be perved on if wished, also winds up involved with Ethan, offering help and the most implausible romance sub-plot I can remember.
Given the story would appear to be the main area of interest, it does a pretty good job on first playthrough. The identity of the murderer is kept secret till very near the end, which kept me guessing and the twist was indeed very effective in making me go "no fucking way!".
However, and this may be the biggest however I can think of, in the 30 minutes or so after the game ended, tiny plot holes began to grow to the point they were the size of those you see in open cast coal mines. How did the killer afford all the stuff needed to carry out the crimes? How does Shaun survive any length of time in his makeshift cell? And that's just those I can tell without spoiling the story.
Worse still, the game has little/no replay value because all that you can change is who makes it to the end alive. If, like me, you seemed to have got the "best" conclusion (i.e. everyone lives, psycho killer turned into mince), then going through again seems a tad pointless. It would have been very cool if there were two or three other suspects to provide a different finale.
On other points, the game does look great. The constant rainfall certainly adds a dark gloom to events, aided and abetted in style by a great music score, though the voice-acting stays around the average-at-best mark.
As a potential look into the future of film-making or video games, Heavy Rain falls short. What it does work as is a decent thriller/murder mystery that can fill up ten or so hours of your time, but no more.
Wednesday 15 February 2012
Study Break
I've rarely had much patience with American sitcoms. Seinfeld did nothing for me, neither did Frasier and the less said about Friends, the less likely I am to fly into homicidal rage. The big exception was always Cheers, of which I really need to pick up some box sets.
Thinking about it, I think the reason I've enjoyed the first series of Community is that it shares a central theme with Cheers - the cool guy thrown into a situation with a bunch of losers. Compare: Sam Malone, one time baseball star now runs a bar frequented by oddball alcoholics. In Community, Jeff Winger is a one-time hotshot lawyer attending community college, working in a study group with a bunch of oddballs from various ethnic groups.
Though like any sitcoms it has dud episodes, it works brilliantly. Winger, forced back to studentland after it was discovered his degree was not quite legit, is smart, handsome and knows it. Spotting an attractive fellow student, Britta, he decides to start a study group for their Spanish classes (taught by the unhinged Senor Chang) to get in her good books. Joining them, much to Jeff's surprise, are geek Abed, one-time school quarterback hero Troy, single mother Shirley, studious Annie and retired businessman Pierce.
The last of those is played by Chevy Chase, and a big part of Community's profile is down to him returning to form i.e. being funny again. He plays the role of guy bewildered by the modern world, prone to moments of incredible crassness (he assumes Troy and Shirley are related because they're both black) but also desperate to be liked by the rest of the group.
It's a fine ensemble cast that makes Community so watchable, even when the writing has an off-day, notably the whole Jeff/Britta will-they-won't-they angle that goes on too long. But even this is signposted when Shirley says they're like "Sam and Diane. I hated Sam and Diane". The character of Abed is one who lives his life entirely as if it's one big reference to various TV shows and films - chances are that like me, the TV Tropes website is one of his favourites. His growing friendship with Troy is one of the key arcs over the series, with some top notch comic turns.
To pick one moment over the series would be easy: the episode Modern Warfare was simply one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen. Tipping it's hat to 28 Days Later, The Terminator and Die Hard among others, it was as good as the medium can get. Bring on season two.
Thinking about it, I think the reason I've enjoyed the first series of Community is that it shares a central theme with Cheers - the cool guy thrown into a situation with a bunch of losers. Compare: Sam Malone, one time baseball star now runs a bar frequented by oddball alcoholics. In Community, Jeff Winger is a one-time hotshot lawyer attending community college, working in a study group with a bunch of oddballs from various ethnic groups.
Though like any sitcoms it has dud episodes, it works brilliantly. Winger, forced back to studentland after it was discovered his degree was not quite legit, is smart, handsome and knows it. Spotting an attractive fellow student, Britta, he decides to start a study group for their Spanish classes (taught by the unhinged Senor Chang) to get in her good books. Joining them, much to Jeff's surprise, are geek Abed, one-time school quarterback hero Troy, single mother Shirley, studious Annie and retired businessman Pierce.
The last of those is played by Chevy Chase, and a big part of Community's profile is down to him returning to form i.e. being funny again. He plays the role of guy bewildered by the modern world, prone to moments of incredible crassness (he assumes Troy and Shirley are related because they're both black) but also desperate to be liked by the rest of the group.
It's a fine ensemble cast that makes Community so watchable, even when the writing has an off-day, notably the whole Jeff/Britta will-they-won't-they angle that goes on too long. But even this is signposted when Shirley says they're like "Sam and Diane. I hated Sam and Diane". The character of Abed is one who lives his life entirely as if it's one big reference to various TV shows and films - chances are that like me, the TV Tropes website is one of his favourites. His growing friendship with Troy is one of the key arcs over the series, with some top notch comic turns.
To pick one moment over the series would be easy: the episode Modern Warfare was simply one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen. Tipping it's hat to 28 Days Later, The Terminator and Die Hard among others, it was as good as the medium can get. Bring on season two.
Monday 13 February 2012
Indoors World
Ah, sweet sloth. If I were a Christian man, it would be my favourite sin. But as I think it's all a load of old tosh (but whatever gets you through the night), I can fully embrace my sense of sloth to be a right lazy sod on days like today.
As I've been keen on reminding people the last month or so, this is my week off from work. Free to use just for myself and my idling ways. Well, except for Wednesday, when my ma and pa are passing by. Which means I'll have to do some tidying up Tuesday night. But except for that - plenty of time to be sat on my arse doing very little. And there's a United game on the box on Thursday - excellent!
I get the feeling most people feel the need to do something when they have a decent spell on leave. That they have to go somewhere, experience stuff, meet people. Then there are those, like me, who only need a sofa you can lie fully across and some quiet. Getting out of bed this morning seemed a lot like hard work, so a nice half hour spell back off my feet was just the ticket to refresh me before a tough three hours watching Frisky Dingo and Community.
All of which reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend the other week: that we live in a time where it's almost possible that if you didn't need to go to work, you'd never have to leave the house if you wanted. We can order all our goods and pay our bills online. You only time you'd need to leave the front door would be to take our the rubbish. Or escape in event of fire, which can happen, y'know.
Of course, it's stretching it to say even I would enjoy that all the time. It's nice to go out to gigs and the pub quiz. Plus it would be tough to be in a band that existed exclusively in my living room. All the same, I reckon I would hack it as a lifestyle better than others - this blog is named for a good reason. If only I didn't need to work for a living, eh?
As I've been keen on reminding people the last month or so, this is my week off from work. Free to use just for myself and my idling ways. Well, except for Wednesday, when my ma and pa are passing by. Which means I'll have to do some tidying up Tuesday night. But except for that - plenty of time to be sat on my arse doing very little. And there's a United game on the box on Thursday - excellent!
I get the feeling most people feel the need to do something when they have a decent spell on leave. That they have to go somewhere, experience stuff, meet people. Then there are those, like me, who only need a sofa you can lie fully across and some quiet. Getting out of bed this morning seemed a lot like hard work, so a nice half hour spell back off my feet was just the ticket to refresh me before a tough three hours watching Frisky Dingo and Community.
All of which reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend the other week: that we live in a time where it's almost possible that if you didn't need to go to work, you'd never have to leave the house if you wanted. We can order all our goods and pay our bills online. You only time you'd need to leave the front door would be to take our the rubbish. Or escape in event of fire, which can happen, y'know.
Of course, it's stretching it to say even I would enjoy that all the time. It's nice to go out to gigs and the pub quiz. Plus it would be tough to be in a band that existed exclusively in my living room. All the same, I reckon I would hack it as a lifestyle better than others - this blog is named for a good reason. If only I didn't need to work for a living, eh?
Thursday 9 February 2012
Second Chances
Ten O’Clock Live returned to British TV screens last night. I've been critical of the first series, reckoning that if the intention was to create a challenging alternative to Newsnight and Question Time, Channel 4 failed as miserably as if they had hired a bunch of Amish kids to write biting satire. So were lessons learned and improvements made?
Err, no.
Jimmy Carr is still doing sketches that define “truly wretched”. Charlie Brooker still looks uneasy playing live. Lauren Laverne takes “vapid” to a new level. Even David Mitchell looked like he couldn't be arsed. Quite what the point was in him arguing the importance of football with Alastair Campbell (a devoted Burnley fan) and Clarke Carlisle (a footballer) seems pointless when Mitchell freely admits he doesn't get “it”. If they’d had another fan doing the questioning, we may have got a decent debate about whether players should be held as heroes/idols, the role they can play in fighting racism/homophobia in sport and so on.
Today, I’m struggling to remember a single laugh. Laverne was given a pathetic counterpoint to withdrawing banker’s bonuses (an argument taken apart on the Mail Watch forum last week) to read on the autocue. Mitchell and Carr offering differing political stances was akin to watching two small children who have read the Ladybird Guides to Marxism and Capitalism.
On the plus side, reading back the complaints I had a year ago, at least they got rid of the cuts to audience chuckling.
I’ll be staggered if Ten O’Clock Live gets a third series. I was surprised it got a second. Brooker, for one, looks like he doesn't want to be there. His whole “what does a banker do?” routine was tired beyond belief. In his defence, his old anger and contempt may well be waning now he’s slipping into domesticity: he’s become a TV personality, whether he likes it or not, with another celeb as a wife and a baby on the way. The days where he could sit around playing video games and spit venom at vapid TV bods in his column are long gone. After all, he doubtless has to meet those people now. You had a good run, Charles, but you’re not one of us anymore.
What annoys most of us, however, is that C4 had the best show around that mixed comedy and news: the Daily Show. And they dumped it on E4, then ditched it altogether bar the weekly Global Edition. For that, I hate everyone involved with the entire channel. To knock out the excuse that putting together a weekly show can be tricky due to occasional lack of material in the news is somewhat pathetic, especially given the Daily Show manages around 90 minutes of it over four days a week. It also benefited from having a charismatic, confident host.
Meanwhile, we're left waiting for a mainstream English satirical show that can finally rid us of that tired corpse, Have I Got News For You.
Err, no.
Jimmy Carr is still doing sketches that define “truly wretched”. Charlie Brooker still looks uneasy playing live. Lauren Laverne takes “vapid” to a new level. Even David Mitchell looked like he couldn't be arsed. Quite what the point was in him arguing the importance of football with Alastair Campbell (a devoted Burnley fan) and Clarke Carlisle (a footballer) seems pointless when Mitchell freely admits he doesn't get “it”. If they’d had another fan doing the questioning, we may have got a decent debate about whether players should be held as heroes/idols, the role they can play in fighting racism/homophobia in sport and so on.
Today, I’m struggling to remember a single laugh. Laverne was given a pathetic counterpoint to withdrawing banker’s bonuses (an argument taken apart on the Mail Watch forum last week) to read on the autocue. Mitchell and Carr offering differing political stances was akin to watching two small children who have read the Ladybird Guides to Marxism and Capitalism.
On the plus side, reading back the complaints I had a year ago, at least they got rid of the cuts to audience chuckling.
I’ll be staggered if Ten O’Clock Live gets a third series. I was surprised it got a second. Brooker, for one, looks like he doesn't want to be there. His whole “what does a banker do?” routine was tired beyond belief. In his defence, his old anger and contempt may well be waning now he’s slipping into domesticity: he’s become a TV personality, whether he likes it or not, with another celeb as a wife and a baby on the way. The days where he could sit around playing video games and spit venom at vapid TV bods in his column are long gone. After all, he doubtless has to meet those people now. You had a good run, Charles, but you’re not one of us anymore.
What annoys most of us, however, is that C4 had the best show around that mixed comedy and news: the Daily Show. And they dumped it on E4, then ditched it altogether bar the weekly Global Edition. For that, I hate everyone involved with the entire channel. To knock out the excuse that putting together a weekly show can be tricky due to occasional lack of material in the news is somewhat pathetic, especially given the Daily Show manages around 90 minutes of it over four days a week. It also benefited from having a charismatic, confident host.
Meanwhile, we're left waiting for a mainstream English satirical show that can finally rid us of that tired corpse, Have I Got News For You.
Wednesday 8 February 2012
What's My Name? (Slight Return)
I've written before that a crucial point in any fledgling band’s existence is when the point comes to choose a name, and the theme has been playing on my mind again recently. There are many considerations: how it sounds, how it looks on posters and the connotations it carries.
Having a great name can carry a band even if their image is a lot of cobblers. It would have been easy for the Human League to be known as Stupid Haircut if not for having such an ace handle. It doesn't need to be something too clever either: after all, the Smiths is as basic as it gets, but hints towards the band’s songs of normal working class lives.
Naturally, some get away with having a lousy name. Generally, it works if the look can compensate. The Beatles, as I said, is a terrible name. But first with their leather-clad rent boy look, then the smart suits and mop tops, they looked great – perfect for the oncoming TV age – and it’s easy to see how they became the biggest band in the world instead of more staid lookers like the Shadows. Equally so, Paul Weller could get over naming his band the Jam because he was a dynamic, handsome young lad with great taste in clothes that ensured he appealed to plenty of folk. That he fell into the same trap with the Style Council is a bit inexcusable, mind.
XTC may well have been a bunch of hicks from Swindon initially smuggling a ride on the punk bandwagon, but Andy Partridge knew exactly what he was doing when he picked the name. On a poster, it looks great – three capital letters suggesting high energy. Equally so, the Go-Betweens acts as a clue to more sussed people of the literary qualities of that band’s music.
Then there are bands who fail miserably on both counts: crap name, crap look. The biggest culprits of this that spring to mind are 80s Scouse synth-pop merchants A Flock of Seagulls, the band who got me thinking on these lines again while listening to their debut album this morning. Taking your name from a lyric by the ultra-macho Stranglers isn't a good starting point in the first place, especially when you look so fey that Belle and Sebastian would think they could take you in a fight. Which brings us to the look: now, younger readers may wish to take a minute to google image the band to see exactly what I’m talking about here.
(pause)
Back? Yeah, I know, I know. You have to ask what Mike Score was thinking about. Actually, I can take a faint guess that he saw the attention Phil Oakey got for his effort and wanted a slice of that action. Being a former hairdresser, he came up with the most bizarre look he could and voila. In fairness, the fact they scored a couple of hits in America (and a Grammy!) would suggest it worked. On the other hand, that they were pretty much finished in a couple of years says otherwise, and how often do you hear them mentioned these days other than as a point of ridicule? See The Wedding Singer and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
Which is a shame, as they should be best remembered for a trio of classic singles in I Ran, Space Age Love Song and Wishing, all of which stand up to anything else from the era. I Ran is also fab enough to be used in the ads for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, one the best games ever. But fate has decreed that they will be remembered for a haircut: new bands, take note
Having a great name can carry a band even if their image is a lot of cobblers. It would have been easy for the Human League to be known as Stupid Haircut if not for having such an ace handle. It doesn't need to be something too clever either: after all, the Smiths is as basic as it gets, but hints towards the band’s songs of normal working class lives.
Naturally, some get away with having a lousy name. Generally, it works if the look can compensate. The Beatles, as I said, is a terrible name. But first with their leather-clad rent boy look, then the smart suits and mop tops, they looked great – perfect for the oncoming TV age – and it’s easy to see how they became the biggest band in the world instead of more staid lookers like the Shadows. Equally so, Paul Weller could get over naming his band the Jam because he was a dynamic, handsome young lad with great taste in clothes that ensured he appealed to plenty of folk. That he fell into the same trap with the Style Council is a bit inexcusable, mind.
XTC may well have been a bunch of hicks from Swindon initially smuggling a ride on the punk bandwagon, but Andy Partridge knew exactly what he was doing when he picked the name. On a poster, it looks great – three capital letters suggesting high energy. Equally so, the Go-Betweens acts as a clue to more sussed people of the literary qualities of that band’s music.
Then there are bands who fail miserably on both counts: crap name, crap look. The biggest culprits of this that spring to mind are 80s Scouse synth-pop merchants A Flock of Seagulls, the band who got me thinking on these lines again while listening to their debut album this morning. Taking your name from a lyric by the ultra-macho Stranglers isn't a good starting point in the first place, especially when you look so fey that Belle and Sebastian would think they could take you in a fight. Which brings us to the look: now, younger readers may wish to take a minute to google image the band to see exactly what I’m talking about here.
(pause)
Back? Yeah, I know, I know. You have to ask what Mike Score was thinking about. Actually, I can take a faint guess that he saw the attention Phil Oakey got for his effort and wanted a slice of that action. Being a former hairdresser, he came up with the most bizarre look he could and voila. In fairness, the fact they scored a couple of hits in America (and a Grammy!) would suggest it worked. On the other hand, that they were pretty much finished in a couple of years says otherwise, and how often do you hear them mentioned these days other than as a point of ridicule? See The Wedding Singer and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
Which is a shame, as they should be best remembered for a trio of classic singles in I Ran, Space Age Love Song and Wishing, all of which stand up to anything else from the era. I Ran is also fab enough to be used in the ads for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, one the best games ever. But fate has decreed that they will be remembered for a haircut: new bands, take note
Saturday 4 February 2012
They're Real To Me...
Five great fictional bands that aren't Spinal Tap.
The Be-Sharps
A classic rise-and-fall story, the quartet of Homer Simpson, Seymour Skinner, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Barney Gumble (replacing Clancy Wiggum) rode the barber-shop craze to huge success for one 80s summer. Their Baby On Board remains a classic of American music and won them nods from legends such as George Harrison and David Crosby.
Good enough, need it to be said, to beat Dexy's Midnight Runners to a Grammy.
The Commitments
Well worth checking out in both book and film form, the forerunners of "Dublin Soul" were put together when bassist Derek Scully and guitarist "Outspan" Foster asked their friend Jimmy Rabbite to manage them on the basis that he knew more about music than them as "you were the first in school to get the Frankie Goes to Hollywood album. And you were the first to realise they were shite".
Jim got straight to work and put together a killer line-up built around mentor/trumpet player Joey "The Lips" Fagan, an apparent veteran of many classic sessions, and vocalist Declan Cuffe. Styling themselves as the world's hardest working band, Dublin was taken by the ten-piece group and fame awaited via a jam session with soul legend Wilson Pickett. Tragically, ego and in-fighting brought about an abrupt end to matters, not helped by Fagan working his way through the group's female contingent.
Smeg and the Heads
Oh, the folly of youth. 17 year old Dave Lister really thought his band would be massive, especially with their catchy number Om. Despite a strong set at their local Liverpool boozer, it wasn't to be. Their drummer, a crazed whacked-out hippy called Dobbin joined the police and became a big shot in the Freemasons; bassist Gazza "neo-marxist, nihilistic anarchist" ended up selling insurance.
Lister, meanwhile, joined the crew of the Red Dwarf and ended up three million years in the future and being the last human being alive, meaning he was quite probably the best musician in the universe. However, in one alternate reality, Lister became obscenely rich, never went into space and instead bought three million copies of Om, enough to make it top of the pops.
Josie and the Pussycats
At the risk of sounding terribly laddish, I have a major thing for women who play guitars. And if she's got red hair... well, double bonus points. And if on top of all that she's being played by Rachel Leigh Cook... then I don't care how average the film is. Especially when Rosario Dawson is backing her up on bass.
The Blues Brothers Band
Well, obviously. For one thing, they played throughout the best film of all time, which is a good start. Then, as I noted previously, they had Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn in their line-up. You can't top that.
Their greatest moment came in a reunion concert organised to raise funds to save the orphanage that "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues grew up in. Organising this had been tricky, as Jake had been jailed for sticking up a gas station to cover the band's bar tab, leaving the others to get straight jobs. What might have been the start of a fruitful career was somewhat spoiled when the whole group ended up joining Jake back in the Joint. Their next comeback, minus their frontman, is best forgotten.
The Be-Sharps
A classic rise-and-fall story, the quartet of Homer Simpson, Seymour Skinner, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Barney Gumble (replacing Clancy Wiggum) rode the barber-shop craze to huge success for one 80s summer. Their Baby On Board remains a classic of American music and won them nods from legends such as George Harrison and David Crosby.
Good enough, need it to be said, to beat Dexy's Midnight Runners to a Grammy.
The Commitments
Well worth checking out in both book and film form, the forerunners of "Dublin Soul" were put together when bassist Derek Scully and guitarist "Outspan" Foster asked their friend Jimmy Rabbite to manage them on the basis that he knew more about music than them as "you were the first in school to get the Frankie Goes to Hollywood album. And you were the first to realise they were shite".
Jim got straight to work and put together a killer line-up built around mentor/trumpet player Joey "The Lips" Fagan, an apparent veteran of many classic sessions, and vocalist Declan Cuffe. Styling themselves as the world's hardest working band, Dublin was taken by the ten-piece group and fame awaited via a jam session with soul legend Wilson Pickett. Tragically, ego and in-fighting brought about an abrupt end to matters, not helped by Fagan working his way through the group's female contingent.
Smeg and the Heads
Oh, the folly of youth. 17 year old Dave Lister really thought his band would be massive, especially with their catchy number Om. Despite a strong set at their local Liverpool boozer, it wasn't to be. Their drummer, a crazed whacked-out hippy called Dobbin joined the police and became a big shot in the Freemasons; bassist Gazza "neo-marxist, nihilistic anarchist" ended up selling insurance.
Lister, meanwhile, joined the crew of the Red Dwarf and ended up three million years in the future and being the last human being alive, meaning he was quite probably the best musician in the universe. However, in one alternate reality, Lister became obscenely rich, never went into space and instead bought three million copies of Om, enough to make it top of the pops.
Josie and the Pussycats
At the risk of sounding terribly laddish, I have a major thing for women who play guitars. And if she's got red hair... well, double bonus points. And if on top of all that she's being played by Rachel Leigh Cook... then I don't care how average the film is. Especially when Rosario Dawson is backing her up on bass.
The Blues Brothers Band
Well, obviously. For one thing, they played throughout the best film of all time, which is a good start. Then, as I noted previously, they had Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn in their line-up. You can't top that.
Their greatest moment came in a reunion concert organised to raise funds to save the orphanage that "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues grew up in. Organising this had been tricky, as Jake had been jailed for sticking up a gas station to cover the band's bar tab, leaving the others to get straight jobs. What might have been the start of a fruitful career was somewhat spoiled when the whole group ended up joining Jake back in the Joint. Their next comeback, minus their frontman, is best forgotten.
Wednesday 1 February 2012
Rolling Down The Slope
The country of my birth, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was one of the, perhaps the, dominant force in the world at the end of the 19th century. To paraphrase the words of Manchester United supporters, we did what we wanted in the big wide world. Not that it mattered much to most people living here: my own great-grandpop was too busy not getting blown up while mining coal. I doubt the fact Queen Victoria was Empress of India meant more than jack shit to him or impacted on his life.
Fifty years, and two World Wars, later, the political map had taken a severe swing and the former colony of the USA had taken the crown as Big Chief of the World. OK, they got their arses handed to them in Vietnam, but what they couldn't do with bombs, they could do with their true big gun: capitalism. As opposed to Britain, which as noted by Eddie Izzard, utilised the clever use of flags.
Of course, sections of the English media still lament events before most of our lifetimes. They pine for the days Britannia ruled the waves and if any of the natives give us lip, we’d take them out back and have them shot. That nowadays the citizens of those same said countries should have the cheek to come over here looking for opportunity is nothing short of a scandal, obviously.
The more rational of us see this country for what it is: a pretty prosperous place, in the context of the world as a whole, where it rains a lot. Not as content as Costa Rica, perhaps, but hardly Iraq. Life here is good, despite our moaning about the weather, and the constant moaning from the likes of the Daily Mail and Express makes me struggle to correspond that with the reality I see every day.
And here’s the rub. 100 years ago, news to most people was what happened in their street or at the football game on a Saturday. Media meant the craic in the pub. Then, over the 20th century, first radio and television, then the Internet, took hold and the world shrunk so that now, what could be the fall of the American Empire is there for all to see.
Back to the States, and one of the more interesting aspects of reading the excellent Downward Spiral blog (see right) is that all the information about the economic decline in the States is out there – it’s hardly hidden away in secret Government files. It seems every day Bill blogs about some factory closing and other lay-offs. All I can imagine is that in 100 years time, the elderly will tell the youngsters that “there was a time we had airbases all over the world, and pictures of our film stars in states of undress were highly sought after”.
And yet the mainstream news sources seem to be far too preoccupied with which unhinged lunatic may end up El President next – the idea that there may not be much to take care off in 20 years or so doesn't seem to crop up. Still, who will the Republican choose to run? The homophobic one? The serial adulterer? The racist? Is that one or all of them?
Perhaps the plan is to level Iran and all move there, to ensure people are closer to the oil? All the same, I’d advise young Americans to start learning Chinese dialects if they want a job through the 21st century. It’ll be a damn sight harder then having to learn to spell colour and say aluminium incorrectly.
Fifty years, and two World Wars, later, the political map had taken a severe swing and the former colony of the USA had taken the crown as Big Chief of the World. OK, they got their arses handed to them in Vietnam, but what they couldn't do with bombs, they could do with their true big gun: capitalism. As opposed to Britain, which as noted by Eddie Izzard, utilised the clever use of flags.
Of course, sections of the English media still lament events before most of our lifetimes. They pine for the days Britannia ruled the waves and if any of the natives give us lip, we’d take them out back and have them shot. That nowadays the citizens of those same said countries should have the cheek to come over here looking for opportunity is nothing short of a scandal, obviously.
The more rational of us see this country for what it is: a pretty prosperous place, in the context of the world as a whole, where it rains a lot. Not as content as Costa Rica, perhaps, but hardly Iraq. Life here is good, despite our moaning about the weather, and the constant moaning from the likes of the Daily Mail and Express makes me struggle to correspond that with the reality I see every day.
And here’s the rub. 100 years ago, news to most people was what happened in their street or at the football game on a Saturday. Media meant the craic in the pub. Then, over the 20th century, first radio and television, then the Internet, took hold and the world shrunk so that now, what could be the fall of the American Empire is there for all to see.
Back to the States, and one of the more interesting aspects of reading the excellent Downward Spiral blog (see right) is that all the information about the economic decline in the States is out there – it’s hardly hidden away in secret Government files. It seems every day Bill blogs about some factory closing and other lay-offs. All I can imagine is that in 100 years time, the elderly will tell the youngsters that “there was a time we had airbases all over the world, and pictures of our film stars in states of undress were highly sought after”.
And yet the mainstream news sources seem to be far too preoccupied with which unhinged lunatic may end up El President next – the idea that there may not be much to take care off in 20 years or so doesn't seem to crop up. Still, who will the Republican choose to run? The homophobic one? The serial adulterer? The racist? Is that one or all of them?
Perhaps the plan is to level Iran and all move there, to ensure people are closer to the oil? All the same, I’d advise young Americans to start learning Chinese dialects if they want a job through the 21st century. It’ll be a damn sight harder then having to learn to spell colour and say aluminium incorrectly.
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