Category: Idiots

The day in stupidity

~ Inquisitor

Bobby Gillespie has apparently been beaten up in Madrid. Probably wasn’t because of the Scream’s new album – he has a tendency to mouth off extremely stupid things about world politics, especially Israel/Palestine – but it should have been, ’cause it’s terrible. Shame, really, I like XTRMNTR a lot (despite the stupid politics) and wish they’d do more in the same vein.

And also in stupid politics, Bush has confounded even the harshest of critics’ expectations with his truly awe-inspiring CCTV-monitored conversation with Blair, who doesn’t exactly distinguish himself either. I mean, “Yo Blair“? Come on, this is the leader of the free world we’re talking about here and he sounds like he’s just got his first Myspace profile.

Much of the media are, like the sheep that they are, focusing on the fact that Bush refers to the Israel/Lebanon situation using the word “shit”, which is really the least interesting thing about the transcript (a better translated, but incomplete version is on the BBC website) – in fact, more interesting is that he refers to it as “ironic”, which indicates a complete lack of understanding of what irony is. The conversation does indicate that Bush has some kind of control, but in a very “folksy” and unprofessional way; it also shows his complete dislike for all things “ceasefire”, unsurprisingly.

It’s a must see document, mainly because we shouldn’t be seeing it – although all professional politicians are supposedly trained to treat mics as live at all times, so who knows why it them so long to turn it off? Oh well, it’s one of the few times that we actually get to see the real, un-stage-managed, Special Relationship, and for that we must be thankful to whoever left the mic on.

Scary people

~ Inquisitor ~ 2 Comments

Because Israel and Lebanon are hurling threats and bombs at each other, it must be APOCALYPSE TIME! At least according to denizens of the Christian fundamentalist Rapture Ready messageboard.

Choice quote:

I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

You know this is a bit embarrassing for them because when the link to the thread started spreading among the US lefty blogosphere, the board killed it off. Gee, wonder why? It exposes what the Christian right really think about world events – as a sort of paranoiac, list-making exercise in misguided, greedy self-confidence. Everything must be linked in God’s glorious plan, after all, no matter how awful or screwed up it may seem to the rest of us.

And don’t forget, we’re looking here right at the percentage of the US population who’ll still vote for Bush. We’re looking here, possibly, at Bush. They have their hand on the Bomb, and they hope every day for Armageddon. Doesn’t that just scare the shit out of you?

(via: Pharyngula, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion.)

Goodbye, “Top Of The Pops”, we knew ye too much

~ Inquisitor

It's been a shadow of itself for over ten years now and, finally, the BBC have axed it. About time too, as far as I can see – there's enough music channels showing nonstop crap that there really is no need for any more of it on the national airwaves. Shame that it'll reduce the amount of live music on TV, but since that's from near-zero to nearer-zero it isn't so much of a problem.

TOTP has been destroyed basically because it was the kind of format that the Theakstons and Coxes that dominate the BBC light entertainment department don't understand – they tacked on "interview" segments and added in lame "celebrity" hosts and it really didn't work. In its heyday, it was presented by Radio 1 DJs – at the time, as far from appearing in Heat magazine as you could get, and better for it (you certainly wouldn't get a John Peel-type figure presenting a primetime music show nowadays.) It has been killed by people who think that "celebrity", rather than skill or knowledge or a sense of fun, is the be all and end all for producing a "kids" TV programme.

It's also been killed by the music it's been showing; it's been rather incongrous watching the BBC2 variant of the show and seeing an archive clip of Bowie or whomever strutting their stuff and having that followed up by Yet Another Generic R&B Song (or something much, much worse). It just confuses people; who is such a show for?

If relaunched properly – no Andi Peters producing, no celebrity input, more artists in the studio (if not actually performing live, allow them to perform live), a presenter who actually likes music and has a sense of humour – TOTP could actually have worked. But it was never going to happen, and it's too late now for it – let's put the show out of its misery.

At least we still have 6music, for now; the station that Radio 1 should be, but isn't. And we've got Radio 2's specialist DJs, most of whom are wonderful. Shame about everything else, really…

Who’s the biggest wanker?

~ Inquisitor
  • eBay, for claiming that their real estate auction site is "not binding" when a buyer gets gazumped after putting in a $900,000 winning bid
  • The vendors, for gazumping the seller to sell a house to a backdoor bid
  • The buyer, for being willing to pay $900,000 for a house he's not going to live in because of somewhat dubious historical credentials.

When you realise that the gazumped buyer is Uri Geller, on the other hand – a man for whom the term "fraud" doesn't do enough justice – it becomes fairly easy to determine the answer to the question. Quoth the article:

"As the clock closed on the bidding [on] Sunday, I felt intuitively I got the price," Geller said.

"Suddenly the radio started playing an Elvis song. That was Elvis telling me we got the house."

[BBC News Online, "Elvis's home sold to Uri Geller", 16.05.2006]

What a load of utter bollocks.

Still, even though there's a bit of schadenfreude in seeing Geller get outmanoeuvred with no place to go, it doesn't say much for eBay's buyer protection for you and me, does it? So here's a few lessons we can take from this…

  • Don't buy a house on eBay
  • Don't be Uri Geller

That should do, I think.

Who the hell dug Sham 69 up?

~ Inquisitor

Graham Coxon, apparently. No offense intended, I love Blur and I don't mind his solo albums, but… did we really need this?

It's the Christian O'Connell "People's Anthem", and unfortunately the people have chosen Sham 69 – covering their "Hurry Up Harry" as "Hurry Up England" with tailored Great Escape referencing lyrics. Admittedly, Sham's form of punk was very much tailored to football terraces, so it's actually pretty appropriate. (The main change is the terrace chanting "WE'RE… GONNA WIN THE CUP" instead of, in the original, "WE'RE… GOING DOWN THE PUB"). It's hopefully going to be a bigger hit than Embrace because, unlike the Embrace single, it's got a tune, albeit a very simplistic one.

But, like all football singles, we didn't need it – there are going to be ten different WC singles this year and all are either forgettable (good), Embrace (bad), or Chas and Dave (very very ugly). Is it really the time for yet another, even if it's slightly more, well, legitimate (and a lot less musical)? Besides, in a tournament with Brazil in it England haven't a chance in hell, so why delude ourselves?

At least the cash is going to the Teenage Cancer Trust, so it's not as objectionable as the Embrace single for that reason alone. Also, there is one amusing moment in the lyrics, where time has already overtaken the single:

We've got Gerrard, Lampard and Wayne Rooney!

Oops.

PS3 at E3

~ Inquisitor

Microsoft and Nintendo must be laughing their heads off.

The PS3 is making the same mistakes Microsoft did with the Xbox360, only in a much worse way. It's got two unneccessary SKUs with major differences, like the 360, only Sony have made it much worse by actually cutting features from the cheaper one – HDMI and Wi-Fi – that can't be put back in using upgrades. HDMI in particular, considering that Blu-Ray movies can request to be digital only, is a big, big loss for the cheap PS3.

Add to that the ripoff of the Nintendo Wiivolution controller, with tilt sensors, despite the fact that it still looks like a Dual Shock and so you won't get nearly as much benefit with it than with the designed-for-the-purpose Wii controller; then add the fact that it's really, really expensive ($499 for the crippled version, $599 for full functionality) and also add to that that you haven't even seen proper game shots yet and all signs point to it looking about the same as the 360, and then Microsoft and Nintendo have little to worry about. Except Sony's market share, of course.

Hope the Wii launch goes better… it would be nice to see some real competition for the 360.

The decline and fall of Western consumerism

~ Inquisitor

MTV is free for a month on Telewest Essential, and as a result I stumbled across "Pimp My Ride UK" (Sunday 5:30pm). God help me.

Basically, the point of this programme is that celebrities with supposedly "clapped out" cars get an OTT make-over by (Tim) Westwood and a bunch of blinged-out morons – in this case, the one I'm watching is making over a black cab owned by ex-Happy Mondays dancer (and Celebrity Big Brother winner) Bez, and turning it into a psychedelic nightmare.

These are people who think putting 42" plasma screens in the back of a black cab is a good idea; they make the interior of the car look like a 70s disco with leopardskin and garish red leather; they add eight power amps and twenty speakers in the rear (in reality, it'll sound like a bassed-out nightmare); they put a DJ booth in where the front passenger seat used to be (a cheap mixer and a HP laptop running NI Traktor) and to cap it all off they paint the cab purple. Purple. A bad purple, at that.

So now we've established that the design is frigging awful, defiling the classic London cab – pretty much deserving of Bez, to be honest – what do I think of the show? It's unbelievably awful – no-one actually needs a video camera in the rim unless you're James Bond, Westwood is as annoying as he is on the radio, and everyone talks in an obviously faked "wazzup?" lingo.

And that's not going into the implications of referring to something as being "pimped up"; especially since, unless you're really rich, you're going to have to sell your sister to be able to afford such a makeover. People think that doing something like this will make them admired, whereas in reality they'll just look like a prat. And their peers tell them to do it.

No, it's a stupid, stupid, stupid show. And like most stupid shows, it's watchable in an open-mouthed way. Happily it's blatant enough that everyone should see that Westwood's a fake prat and Bez is a prat and the car is a Bad Thing, and the craze will burn itself out. We can only hope.

Embrace – “World At Your Feet”

~ Inquisitor ~ 14 Comments

It's terrible. Diabolically awful.

You're the first in my life
To make me think
That we might just go all the way
And I want you to know we're all hanging on

There's worse to come: 

They'll come and yes they'll try
To break us down
But we know that we'll never lose
If we keep moving forward and don't look back

Now, I thought the worst metaphor we were going to get was the title, but this is just taking the mickey now.

And then, to cap it all off, there's the chorus: 

With the world at your feet
there's no-one you can beat
yes it can't be done

[Embrace, "World At Your Feet", the official England World Cup 2006 song.]

You probably expected it from the title (I mean, come on) but there is absolutely zero excuse for lyrics like that. Compare World in Motion…

Express yourself
Create the space
You know you can win
Don't give up the chase…

[New Order, "World In Motion", the official England World Cup 1990 song.]

Now, doesn't that just beat the crap out of the Embrace song?

OK, so it's not exactly Dylan, but actual anthems don't need to be. "World At Your Feet" is not anthemic; it's Coldplay-lite with louder guitars and without any of the lyrical talent. As an anthem, it is a failure; as a song, it is a disaster. The FA should be ashamed. Shoulda given it to the Kaiser Chiefs, shouldn't they?

Funnily enough, this is possibly the first time in ages that I've agreed with the majority of posts on a BBC Have Your Say thread. Guess the song really is that bad.