For no particular reason I watched an old episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks today. It was the - apparently - 'infamous' edition featuring Chris Moyles, whereby he was subjected to a 'right kicking' from Mark Lamarr et al.
Except, he wasn't. In fact having just seen it, it turns out it seems I already saw it at the time, and found it so uneventful that it barely registered. In fact, if anyone was targeted in the programme, it was fellow guest Vic Reeves, who was repeatedly - and rather unfunnily - subjected to a sample of music from a band he used to be in.
All it did really was remind me why I stopped watching the programme altogether, namely because it just wasn't very funny. Indeed, I started to find the rather aggressive, bullying style of the regulars, and in particular Lamarr, rather unpleasant.
Why bother trying to be witty when you can target a vulnerable guest and repeatedly insult them until they're on the brink of tears? That'll teach them for coming on some poxy quiz to earn some money and have a bit of fun.
Seeing Sean Hughes recently on a edition of Animal Rescue Live looking like a tramp who'd inadvertently wandered onto the set almost makes me believe there may be such a thing as karma.
Anyway, you can see the episode in question (on chrismoyles.net, curiously enough) here. Scroll down a bit, it's in there somewhere.
It made me think about how things get spun one way or another, in this case if you'd only heard the hype and never seen the episode you'd think that Moyles had been ritually crucified while his close friends and family were made to watch. I'm not saying he looked particularly comfortable - he never really does on TV - but I've certainly seen people come off much worse on the show. If you were one of Moyles' many detractors though, you'd probably be keen to make much of it.
Rather like the Janet Jackson 'Nipplegate' incident, whereby a small group of fanatics would have you believe that the only way to rectify such a heinous offence is to fine a TV company to the point of bankruptcy, and in turn impose ever more ludicrous puritanical regulations (saying 'bum' on network television is punishable by a day in the stocks now), while the rest of the world sits scratching its head wondering what all the fuss is about.
I realize complaining about news and the quality of the media in general is next to pointless, but occasionally it still manages to stun me with the depths of banality they're prepared to plumb.
Check out this recent story I noticed about how some member of the Royal Family has left a button of her coat undone.
You know how people sometimes wonder if they're the only real person in a world of robots? Well I have a similar thought sometimes, only I'm more or less convinced I've somehow been dropped into a parallel universe populated almost exclusively by total cretins, and the whole thing's building up to me eventually having some kind of cage fight with Stephen Fry.
Just found these vids of my favourite comedy double act, Lee & Herring, back together again after some years apart: It's a one-off for some charity do earlier in the year, and it's only 20 minutes long, but it's a great reminder how good they were together; the painfully accurate targeting of their bile, the ludicrously layered in-jokes etc. I hope they do more.
I was struck though, by yet another kicking for fellow comedians Mitchell & Webb, and more specifically those online Mac adverts they did. I only saw a couple of the ads at the time, and while not being particularly impressed, they certainly didn't negatively impact my life in any real way.
Given that most of the criticism that I've noticed of Mitchell & Webb for doing that campaign does seem to have come - it has to be said - from other comedians (and Internerds, obviously), it's difficult not to wonder if any of the snidey-ness might simply be based on pure jealously. In fairness, Lee & Herring's own diatribe is ultimately subverted by Rich whingeing that it should have been them doing the ads instead, but there does seem a genuine underlying disdain for the other duo being, as they put it, 'sell outs'.
What exactly does that mean though? How are they sell-outs? Maybe if they'd built a Bill Hicks-esque career on the back of likening advertising executives to the spawn of Satan, or if for some reason they'd previously waged a public campaign against electrical retailers I could understand it, but as it is I don't really know what the big deal is. And they're only selling computers anyway - it's not as if they're flogging a new brand of asbestos nappies or something. As it stands, any criticism from 'fellow' comics only sounds like the sourest of grapes.
David Mitchell and Robert Webb are excellent comedians, and in many ways natural successors to Lee & Herring - intelligent, subversive, with a keen eye for the absurd. All of which may actually account for some of the needling - you know, threat assessment and all that.
I'm reminded of the time a few years ago when I was flicking around the TV one morning and I noticed Lorraine Kelly on GMTV sat on front of a table filled with 'hilarious' novelty items, such as that Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish thing, and sitting round the other side on the sofa was none other than Richard Herring. I switched over too late, so I missed the feature, but it was clear they were doing some kind of Christmas novelty toy round up thing.
I don't know about selling out, but if you ask me, I know what I find more disappointing.
Whoah - two blog posts in one day! It's like I'm the new Scaryduck or something! Except... you know... shit.
Anyway the reason for this unprecedented outpouring of unread illiteracy is one of my favourite people in all the world: the Senator of Sad himself, Mr Richard Madeley.
Following a corker of a gaffe the other day (I couldn't find a clip sadly, but it involved a discussion about Princess Diana's memorial service and an analogy about speeding into a brick wall - priceless), today Madeley turned his not inconsiderable rage against a young protester who had come on the programme to talk about some demonstration or other he and his group were planning at an airport over the weekend.
Now, if there's anything that'll raise the heckles of ever-youthful yet curiously-hued Mr Madeley it's:
Polit-it-caaaarl cowectness gorn maaaaad
The staff in the control room not putting a picture up quick enough
or
Airports.
Namely, having to hang around in them, something Richard would seem to do fairly often having - it would appear - about 17 holidays a year.
The protest is apparently over the proposed expansion of Heathrow, and this lad and some other woman from the Green Party came in for an almost Paxman-esque interrogation from Madeley and his hired tabloid hand (in this case that bloke with the greasy hair from the Mirror), and yet all the while I kept thinking about that time they had Tony Blair on, and from what I recall the interview went something like this:
MADELEY: "So that Iraq war then. What's all that about?"
BLAIR: "Well, you know..."
MADELEY: "Oh, never mind that. Do you want to play You Say We Pay?"
I was in two minds whether to write this post. Having just seen The Bourne Ultimatum, I thought I'd tell anyone who cares (i.e. no-one) what I thought of it. The problem is, it usually takes me a while to work out what I actually think about a film having just seen it.
The reason I write this so soon after is probably related to the palpable feeling of disappointment currently swimming in my gut.
Having enjoyed the first Bourne film, and when the sequel turned out to be even better if anything, I was hugely excited by the prospect of a third entry in the series. Something you should understand too, is that I hardly ever go to the cinema, mainly due to the reality of most films being total dross, and also because even the better ones are rarely worth the £8,000,000 a ticket or whatever they cost now. So it takes something rather special to shake me out of my semi-agoraphobic stupor and drag me to a cinema complex.
But Bourne was definitely a franchise I'd grudgingly put some trousers on for.
Here's the thing; I was kind of... bored. Maybe that's too harsh a way of putting it, but whichever way you say it, that's not a great endorsement for an action movie. It wasn't bad by any means, it just felt like a re-run of the previous films - he still doesn't remember who he was, there's yet another shady CIA ponce after him (with a safe full of evidence that could completely destroy him - doh!), a couple more mute assassins, etc.
Even the obligatory car chase made me wonder if they'd accidentally slipped in a reel from the previous film.
It's worth pointing out that when I first saw GoldenEye at the cinema, I was less than thrilled, mainly due to the fact that virtually EVERY ruddy scene (bar the very end) had been shown endlessly in trailers and clips. But over time (and perhaps helped by the excellent N64 game) it's become one of my favourite Bond films.
I can't say it was the same situation this time though - I deliberately avoided looking at too many trailers or reading lots of reviews - but it's entirely possible I'll revise my opinion upwards as various good bits come back to me in the following weeks.
Interestingly, one of the last films I saw at the cinema was Casino Royale (it would have been the last one, but I saw Die Hard 4.0 the other week, which elicited a more understandable feeling of disappointment), which I enjoyed a lot more, and more immediately, which makes Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass's rather disparaging comments about the Bond franchise even harder to take.
And as for Bourne being more 'realistic', there's just as much techno-bollocks in those films than in Bond.
To be honest though, I think the film may have lost me quite early on at the bit where the (unarmed) British police race to the scene of a shooting at Waterloo station... blowing whistles. I think it's fair to say the security situation in the UK has moved on somewhat since, y'know, the Victorian Age.
When some people say racist stuff on television they have effigies of themselves burned in public in foreign countries, and are banished from the public eye, lest they be ritually egged at Tesco's.
When Iggy Pop - apparently - does it, the TV presenters don't even bother apologizing.
So there I was watching the BBC's Glastonbury coverage on Saturday night, when none other than the sweating lunatic himself pops up on BBC2 to have a chat with Mark 'Please go back to doing stuff with Marc Riley' Radcliffe, and Jo 'I can't believe she's 42 on Wednesday, but I still definitely would' Whiley.
The interview kicked off with the almost ritualistic chat about wellies, like they continually find it astonishing that celebrities don't turn up in their finest diamond-encrusted suede brogues when they're invited to play what is effectively a mud pit with a couple of speakers.
Anyway, after this opening gambit Radcliffe decided to question Mr. Pop about the see-through pants he wore when he appeared on The White Room years ago, to which he said this:
Initially I was stunned, but given the presenters' rather nonchalant attitude I just assumed I'd misheard, or thought possibly that the word had another meaning in North America that I wasn't aware of, which is indeed true:
However, the fact that the BBC has apologized for this incident would seem to shoot down that theory.
Thing is though, without wishing to play down the seriousness of the term, I'm pretty sure it isn't commonly used in the States, and I'm actually prepared to believe Iggy didn't really have any concept about what he was saying, much like when George W. Bush used the word in front of the cameras a few years ago. But then, he does have the excuse of being unable to eat a pretzel without nearly killing himself, so at the time it was written off as an understandable error.
Although given the controversy caused by Bush's gaffe you'd think it would have gone straight into everyone's 'words not to use in polite company' file.
I think the best thing Iggy could do would be to get some new friends to hang around with when he's in London, although he really didn't help himself later on when he wrote off Gogol Bordello as a bunch of 'gypsies with women's clothing.'
What really strikes me about all of this, deliberate racism or not, is the relative lack of hoo-hah about it all. The only reason I'm writing this now nearly a week after the event is because I'd rather assumed every blogster and his dog would have shoved their two penneth about this in our faces by now.
This may initially be down to the fact that it all occurred at god-knows-when-o'clock in the morning, when all but the most hardcore/drunk were the only ones watching (the BBC received three complaints about their Glastonbury coverage, but were unable to say if they were even actually related to that particular incident), but I would have thought it would have filtered through by now and got more people talking.
Looking around the Internet, there's a few cursory mentions here and there, but they mostly entail no more than 'Iggy Pop said a word, the BBC apologize (later)'.
Curiously, I did find this Guardian article which contains the following paragraph:
"At the time of the broadcast, both Whiley and Radcliffe made it clear to viewers that the use of the phrase was not acceptable."
Which contradicts every other report I've read about this, not to mention the actual flipping footage up there. Unless embarrassed, jokey exchanges count as a damning indictment these days.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley (both for very different reasons), but they really should have said something, instead of deciding to shamble on and pretend nothing happened. What if he'd used the N-word instead? Is that really any worse?
My real gripe here is the varying treatment of this issue in the media; the girl who recently got kicked off Big Brother (one of the rare occasions I'm prepared to mention that wretched programme here) for using the N-word, seemed, much like Iggy, entirely oblivious to the impact of saying it, and yet was pilloried nonetheless. I think she's even received death threats, but then there is the average intelligence of a Big Brother viewer to take into account.
I think what I'm saying here is that there seems to be a perception that some unacceptable words are less unacceptable than others, when there doesn't really seem to be any good reason for that.
I can't say I give much of a flying shit about the new London Olympics Logo, but to be fair I don't give much of a shit about the London Olympics at all.
Looking back at motifs used for previous Olympic Games, it's certainly no worse than most of them, particularly the one that looks vaguely like a cartoon phallus.
I already can't wait for it to be over, and it's five years before the damn thing even starts.
For me, the Olympic Games only means one event: chase your favourite programmes around the schedules. Although, it'll probably be on the BBC, right? It occurs to me that I hardly watch anything on BBC1 or 2 anyway, and with more high-tech recording devices (and other methods) we're already increasingly in a situation these days where we can choose our own viewing entertainment, whenever we want it.
I wonder how many people watch the Olympics just because it's there. I'd laugh my head off in 2012 if it turns out the 100 metres actually got 3 viewers because everyone else was off watching a cat be sick on YouTube.
Because I haven't updated this blog for ages (not that I ever have anything interesting to say anyway) I thought I might as well put it to some use and plug the repeat showing of Messrs Biffo and Hairs' Biffovision, or 'Digitiser without all that games shit'.
It's on at the slightly more sociable hour of midnight tonight on BBC THREE, so you've no excuse this time. Unless you have, obviously.
Also, M. Biffo has released a book of transcripts of online conversations he has had with randy gentleman while posing as a young lady. If that sounds like something that is right up your 'alley', then find out more about Confessions of a Chatroom Freakhere or read his own, equally sordid blog for details about any of this here.
Who says I never do anything for anybody else? Apart from that guy I found shot in the street, but he would have died eventually anyway, and I was going to miss Hollyoaks.
I cannot convey to you quite how much I hate April Fools' Day.
It would seem to be one tradition the Western world could easily leave behind without fear of an outcry, but for some reason it persists, like some recurring cold sore on the face of Spring. Indeed, given the almost certain appearance of 'hilarious lies' in every newspaper on this particular day, you'd think it was actually mandatory.
April fools seem to fall into two broad categories:
The first kind are so stupid and obvious, you wonder why anyone bothered, like the left-handed Mars Bars, or the one the Daily Mail seems to do every year which involves a member of the Royal Family doing something unexpected: Look the Queen's coming out of a bookies! Ha ha ha! But that would never happen!
The second kind are the big problem here. They have just enough truth to them to make you say, "Oh really?" when you're presented with them, which is all the excuse the prankster in question needs in order to claim, "Ha! I got you man! I really fooled you up!!!" like they now own your soul or something.
I think the problem I have with April fools is the problem I have with the wider world of practical jokes; they're only really funny if they're happening to somebody else.
Think about what's happening with a practical joke; you're laughing at someone else's humiliation - that's not very nice really, is it? I suppose if you have the kind of relationship with a group of friends where pranks are reciprocated regularly - like those WKD adverts - then it's fair enough, but personally I'd tend to give people like that a wide berth anyway.
There seems to be a bit of trend at the moment for TV based around the humiliation of others, at the vanguard of which is arguably Channel 4's Balls of Steel. It takes the Trigger Happy TV format and cranks up the unpleasantness to an unbearable degree. I cannot actually even bring myself to watch the programme, mainly because it feels like there's a deeply cynical, world-hating, nihilistic attitude right at its core. Maybe I'm just too sensitive, but I actually find it genuinely depressing.
Not that hidden camera stuff is new. Anyone who used to watch bearded prankster Jeremy Beadle's output during the eighties will be familiar with the sight of someone sitting slightly uncomfortably on a sofa with a rather stretched smile being forced to relive the worst day of their lives, when they were led to believe their beloved antique teacup collection had been condemned by the council, or something.
I think people who regularly try and wind people up genuinely have some issues, and very often if they have the tables turned on them, they tend to react rather badly. Apparently Beadle himself was caught out by a TV show a few years ago, but he refused to let them show it. Noel Edmonds too, the terror of C-list celebs everywhere with his 'Gotcha' oscars, publicly whinged after Chris Morris got him to decry the new designer drug 'cake'.
I probably wouldn't have such a problem with the whole thing if they actually targeted people who genuinely deserved it, instead of random passers-by or the most vulnerable colleague in the office or whatever. If someone spread dog mess on George W. Bush's chair, or locked Richard Littlejohn in his car with a load of wasps I'd laugh as hard as anyone.
Sean 'Puff Piddly Poo-Pob' Combs has spoken of his 'disappointment' at having to cancel his UK concerts with 'Snoop' 'Dogg' after the latter's run in with the British Foreign Office over his visa application.
The ruddy fascists won't let him in to the country, just because he's a convicted criminal! Don't they know this man is a millionaire?
Puffston claims it's not about the money lost though, it's about 'letting the fans down'. And the money, obviously.
Curiously, Piff Paff went on to say this: "This tour was meant to be about spreading the peace. And with all the gun crime on in England right now I think it would have been appropriate to do the show," which would be rather like Jim Davidson attempting to set up a marriage guidance practice.
Unless by 'appropriate' he meant that for once the audience would likely be as tooled up as the performers on stage.
For fans of the late lamented Digitiser, you may be interested to know that the 'funsters' behind that legendary 'electric wordbag' have only gone and made a sodding television programme! On an actual channel! (Well, BBC THREE anyway).
Mr. Biffo and his potentially imaginary colleague, Mr. Hairs, have written a sketch show, and have somehow inveigled their way onto the national airwaves, perhaps by the use of lewd acts.
So, if you're willing to brave the prospect of accidentally recording a programme about disciplining horrible children, or fat people who only eat sellotape, then set your Space Recorder 5000 for the morning of Monday 26th March at 3.15am (till 3.45am presumably), and you won't* be disappointed.
The reason for such highbrow humour is that it's now 3 months since launch (5 since I ordered it) and I still haven't received my new Nintendo console.
I've got one on order with an online retailer, the first time I've ever done so with a new console, because I thought it would mean I'd be guaranteed one at launch, but a mealy-mouthed e-mail a few weeks before launch put paid to that. I think I would have probably been better off negotiating The Dance of the Idiot and pre-ordering at a high street games shop, but in fairness it probably wasn't their fault, as it seems everybody was over promised/under delivered units.
Another reason for my 'electro-purchase' was the slightly lower price and the fact that it would be delivered right to my door, but at this point I'd gladly hike to Antarctica in the nude if it meant I could pick one up straight away.
Twilight Princess turned up though, but at this point the only pleasure I can take from it involves rubbing the case against my body in a slightly unseemly way.
This may seem like a strange thing to say given that I've no intention of actually telling you my age. You know, just in case 'The Man' tries to use it against me somehow, perhaps by stopping me passing myself off as a schoolboy in order to get a cheaper travel card.
Anyway, the reason I ask is because a couple of months ago I wrote about a new programme that I said may be one of the worst attempts at comedy I'd ever seen. Well, some time has passed and I think it's important to review attitudes and opinions every now and again, particularly with the benefit of a bit of time to distance yourself from a potentially knee-jerk reaction, so a truer view of a situation can be assessed.
As such, I think I owe the producers of Channel 4's Blunder a huge apology, particularly as I've just seen ITV2's Funny Cuts.
Don't get me wrong, Blunder was still rubbish, but the spectacle of dreadfulness I've just witnessed makes me think they've just built a new extension to the complaints department at ITV and they want to test the phones.
But back to my original question: Is there out there somewhere a 16-year-old who's just ruined their trousers in fit of hilarity, having just seen two piles of Jenga blocks made up to look like the Twin Towers having paper aeroplanes thrown at them?
Or perhaps in some student digs somewhere, a young man has injured himself from laughing so hard at the man in the park's never-ending story of the time he met his girlfriend's parents and ultimately ended up sodomizing her father?
Am I just missing something here, or is being tastless and unfunny, all like, really ironic and stuff?
Essentially a rag-bag of stand-ups doing various characters and bits from their routines (including some award winners apparently - they should think about quietly returning them), and strangely intercut with Eddie Izzard talking about comedy, for no apparent reason, I never thought I'd be pining for the days of the BBC's Stand Up Show.
This blog was never meant to play host to a series of diatribes on British comedy going down the toilet, but there seems to be such a lack of quality control on programming at the moment (not just comedy, by any means), you've got to think that the field must be wide open for the next big thing to arrive.
Hopefully before Des O'Connor starts doing terrorism jokes on Countdown.
I haven't posted for a while, but when I saw this I felt compelled to mention it.
For those of you who can't be bothered to click the link, or have some kind of aversion to the BBC News website, essentially the story revolves around allegedly religious people protesting the fact that they won't be able to discriminate against gay people any more.
What's the world coming to when you can't hang a placard around a poofter's neck inviting people to throw rotten vegetables at them, eh?
The most amusing part of the article is the bullet-point breakdown listing a number of things that may come to pass should this legislation come into force, including: 'A Christian, Jewish or Muslim IT consultant could be forced to build a website promoting gay rights.'
Yes, that's right - Christians will be forced to build websites for gays.
I've just watched what may be the single worst programme of the year. Indeed, it's a hot contender for the worst programme I've ever seen.
C4's Blunder (10.00pm Thursday on E4, 10.35pm Friday on Channel 4) could not be more aptly named. Coming on the back of a small torrent of pre-publicity (well, it certainly got more than Dean Learner, whose final episode on Friday has been rather ungraciously shoved back an hour to 11.55pm, to make way for not only the Friday showing of this programme, but also for one of the new vehicles for the inexplicably popular Russell Brand), Blunder comes across like under-rehearsed collection of all the sketches and characters that were considered too shit to include in other shows.
The hit rate for jokes was about as close to zero as you could get without watching a blank screen. Honestly, I've seen episodes of Comedy Lab that were better than this.
One particular disappointment was the involvement of David Mitchell, but it could be argued that given his slight over-exposure recently, it was only a matter of time before he chose a genuine stinker.
Between the fart gags and jokes about gays, you've got to wonder how something like this slips through quality control. After all, it's not as if it features any major stars that might be holding a gun to Channel 4's head in order to get them to screen it, nor could cost of production be much of a factor, given that it looks like it cost about 8p to make the episode I watched.
I don't think there's ever been a sketch show that could be considered consistently funny from start to finish, but it takes a special kind of effort to turn out a show where nothing works.
In a rather unprecedented move, instead of screening it in some graveyard slot over Christmas like you'd imagine they would, Channel 4 have actually decided to 'preview' every episode on E4 the night before showing it on terrestrial telly.
Presumably the reason behind this is to give viewers a head start in wiping it from their memories.
A quick special no-thanks to Blogger.com, as I've just realised that there were comments waiting to be moderated from up to three months ago.
I rather stupidly thought that there might be some sort of indication when someone left a comment, like a small icon, or even just a short message on the Blogger Dashboard, but I suppose that would be asking too much.
Still, for the (two) people who left them, your words have now been put in their rightful place as you can see, unless you've decided never to look at this blog again because you became disillusioned with my overly high standards towards user comments or something.
The only reason I decided to have moderated comments in the first place was because I didn't want to get flooded with offers for knob cream and vole insurance (ironically I need both now).
Mainly though, it was to protect my fragile ego. Some kid referred to me as 'that man' the other day, and I briefly considered taking my own life.
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