Fart Parading As Art

Originally posted by The Realist

It was with baited breath that I prepared to watch Nine Songs last night. That makes sense - I am a gig-going indie kid in London who loves music almost as much as I love sex. The film is also about sex and relationships in London and is filthy. Surely, this film is for me, aimed at me, about me. No? Well, No.

It is unremitting pile of ape-wank from start to end.

Any pretensions of ‘art’ fail, the gig scenes are unrealistic and dull and the 'love scenes' are truly, truly terrible – inducing an intensity of cringing I last felt when hippos ‘got it on’ during Sunday teatime nature documentaries watched with my family.

‘Close your eyes and imagine you're on a beach in Thailand’ kick-started one particularly cringe-worthy segment.

The ending was an, ahem, anti-climax, leaving me stunned – my face looked like a dog who'd been shown a card trick.

You would all be vastly better off getting a couple of decent music dvds (Mozza’s ‘Who put the M in Manchester’ is rather good - sorry Bridget) and then, for your adult needs, heading off to a Soho videostore for a copy of ‘Help! My Ass is Haunted!’

It’s Not Indie Rock and Roll For Me

Originally posted by The Realist

Nice to see that Glastonbury this year was a washout. The post-festival comments were all along the lines of:

‘It didn't matter about the rain or mud, Coldplay were absolutely amazing’

but that’s clearly a load of old cock. I was at the two real mud-fests (‘97 and ‘98) which made this look like a picnic in a desert and it does matter and it’s not fun. The positive reviews stem from a collective will to see that the festival is ‘great’ or, at the very least, ‘worth it’, despite the weather. It’s not. It’s the same blind faith and desire to see something replicate a glorious past as when Second Coming came out and people were willing it to be great.

In reality, just like the Vale of Avalon last weekend, it was an unrelenting shower of shit.

Homoflexible

Originally posted by The Realist

Ha ha. Another victory for liberalism and another blow for the christian right. I’ve ranted about this before. God is dead, therefore anything is permissible. The Canadian christian websites are suspiciously quiet on this one. I’d like to think that the US would be next, but somehow I doubt it. The first gay marriage is happening here in the UK at the end of the year and we will then be the sixth country to fall in line. The rest of the world will, over time, fall in line, with the exception of the two bigoted religious idiocracies: Nigeria and America.

Greece is the word

And so I return to London like a dog after five glorious days in Greece to see two of our friends get married. A wonderful time, a beautiful place and it's absolutely dreadful to be back in London. The only saving grace was not having to be back at work today, but it's difficult not to feel a bit blue when, until a couple of days ago, we enjoyed sunsets like this from the patio of our apartment every night. . .

They Say That Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Originally posted by The Realist

Quite a week or two for The Realist. Not content with being run over, fate* has deemed it necessary to ensure that my best friend, currently in Manhattan, is going through the most hideous, protracted break up since I had my wisdom tooth out. So, he’s back over here and it’s been down to me to look after him.

Any emotional change is hard, but break-up pain hurts more than any other type of pain. Except toothache. The process also feels like it’s going to last forever, however it takes three months. I'll tell you how it gets better:

To start of, you think about it all of the time, then most of the time (sometimes forgetting it and then remembering it - that's the worst stage), then it's just sometimes, then rarely, then almost never. And (and this is the bit I like), when you're at the 'almost never' stage and it pops into your head, you smile at the fact that you're not cut up about it.


*There is no such thing as fate.

I blame the parents. . . but I also blame the children

So I was reading The Independent on the way to work this morning. I find this is something that I do less and less these days as the paper has started to irritate me - it isn't "independent" in the slightest. How can a newspaper that editorialises on its front page pretty much every day claim to be independent?

Anyway, they're leading today with a piece on Asbos (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) and how they are increasingly being used on children (defined therein as anyone under 18). The Indie then provides some examples for us to consider (these are from the print edition so I cannot link):

Boy, 16, from Birmingham
Banned from housing estate after he and some fellow gang members vandalised cars and homes

Boy, 16, from Staffordshire
One of 11 gang members ordered not to misbehave in public after drunken rampage in which windows were broken

Boy, 17, from Livingstone
Banned from main shopping area and streets near family of former girlfriend that he allegedly stalked

Boy, 15, from Co Durham
Banned from playing football in his village after causing havoc on busy roads and abusing passers-by

And so on.

So I'm reading through these and thinking "Yes? And? What's the problem, exactly?". Admittedly, there were a few instances where the slapping of the Asbo seemed a bit inappropriate, for example in the case of the boy with Tourette's syndrome being banned from swearing in public, or another where a 15 year old boy with Asperger's syndrome was banned from staring into a neighbour's garden. OK, these don't seem right. But I bet the vast majority of these little shits thoroughly deserve to have their freedoms curtailed and quite frankly, if it becomes necessary for civility to be enforced in this way then so be it. I just don't have a problem with anti-social behaviour being punished. It sometimes feels like this country is under seige from louts and general chav types, so if we have a way of fighting back, let's do so and bollocks to the bleeding hearts brigade. You can blame the parents, blame the schools, blame society, but ultimately the way you behave comes down to individual choice.

Should we talk about the weather?

No, probably not, but what the hell. This country is a terrible place to be when the weather is like this. Humid, clammy and uncomfortable. Sweating like John Leslie and smelling like a Frenchman is no way to spend your time. Sleep is impossible as well. Had a fan on all night, but all it does is circulate warm air. No wonder the murder rate goes up around this time of year.

Roll on October, say I.

Mama always told me ‘Be careful what you do – don’t go around getting children drunk, showing them porn. Then showering with them’

Originally posted by The Realist

Well, I just spent a lovely long weekend on an island with 29,000 liberal elite urban indie kids and 1,000 chavs. Great fun, chav thievery aside. I got back to news of the Jackson verdict, which I don’t really care about. It certainly didn’t warrant all that news time.

I don’t know if he’s guilty, but if I were a billionaire paedophile, I’d build an amusement park in my garden.

From the Silent Majority to the Vociferous Minority

Ofcom have criticised the BBC for a Christmas special of the Vicar of Dibley, in which the main character gets drunk, forgets midnight mass and falls off her pulpit. (Oh, my aching sides.) Never mind the “insensitivity” of showing this on Christmas Day, what about the insensitivity of showing this programme at all? As a showcase for Dawn French’s comedic talents, the Vicar of Dibley is the perfect vehicle because, just like Ms French, it isn’t funny in the slightest. Passing a kidney stone would elicit more laughs. And that’s the really offensive thing here: the crap that passes for mainstream British comedy.

Meanwhile, Ofcom acted on the back of 66 complaints. Assuming an audience of ten million or so, that is such a small percentage I feel dizzy just trying to work it out. The show’s written by a Christian anyway (Richard “I used to be funny” Curtis), so they were actually processing the complaints of a tiny proportion of Christians upset about something that another Christian wrote because it dared to create comedy (in the broadest possible sense) out of a Christian ceremony.

So it’s a double whammy: through our TV licence, we pay for this rubbish to be created in the first place; then, through taxes, we pay a regulatory body to appease the whingeing of a hopeless minority who managed to be offended by a show which is, at best, harmless and at worst, staggeringly bland and unfunny.

Satan, thy name is Paul Dacre

Depressing news in the Guardian today. The Daily Mail could be on target to become the UK’s top selling daily newspaper. It’s already the paper of choice for Britain’s terrified, ageing middle class and, according to predicted sales figures, could be on its way to bashing the once-untouchable, super soaraway Sun in the bitter circulation wars. Not that I’ll be shedding any tears for Murdoch’s red top you understand, but I think in the greater scheme of things, his tacky tabloid is nowhere near as malevolent as the Daily Mail: hate and fear spurts from every page of this vile shit rag, feverishly gripped in a permanent state of outrage about, well, everything.

The cunning tactic has been to combine their infamous right-wing, fear mongering journalism with an endless stream of celebrity obsessed piffle. A sort of cross between Mein Kampf and Now magazine. So instead of just reading news items about single mums / benefit cheats / teenage abortion / dwindling church numbers / illegal immigrants and the endless influx of darkies and gypsies, etc., readers are also now “treated” to features on the size of Abi Titmuss’s arse; the colour of Coleen McLoughlin’s socks; Kerry Whatsername's new tits or how many cheeseburgers Britney Spears ate yesterday.

And if all this weren’t bad enough, the Mail last week dug deep into its big pockets to lure back the “talent” of its prodigal son – Richard Littlejohn. Ah, bless, he's returning to his spiritual home. The mouthpiece for Middle England bigotry himself. The man who sees no irony in writing endless tirades berating the erosion of British society from the comfort of his home in. . . . Florida. To repeat his hackneyed phrase: "You couldn't make it up!". (Except he does, of course. Frequently.)

So there you have it. The Daily Mail: newspaper of our times. The one that captures the zeitgeist. Probably even fancies itself as the paper of record. It’s enough to make you puke.

Soldier's latest book review 'not helpful' reports Allah

Originally posted by The Realist

Guantanamo is an abhorration. Illegal, unnecessary and ineffective. America should be absolutely ashamed of itself over this one. Oh, and the truth re the Koran-abuse has come out today – my favourite passage has to be:

‘In one instance, a guard was said to have urinated near an air vent. The wind allegedly blew his urine through the vent, soiling one detainee and his Koran.’

US soldiers all over the world will die as a result of this.

And bloggers in the US think it's all very petty – I mean, it’s just a book, right? Now, the four regular readers we have will know that I despise religion in all its pathetic, superstitious, nonsensical forms, however if dark-skinned people illegally held priests from the US and pissed on the bible in front of them, these same bloggers would be weeping.

Like Jesus.

Maggie May. . . but Penny Did

So it seems Rod Stewart is to be a father. Again. At sixty.

For fuck’s sake, can’t we force this ageing Lothario to the vets and have him fixed once and for all? Stop breeding, you scabrous embarrassment! You’re in your sixties - have some self-respect. Oh, and blonde, leggy models of the world: stop spreading yourself for this ageing self-parody, will you? Please? OK, he’s rich, but Jesus – think of the cost! I’ll tell you what the world doesn’t need right now: another celebrity pregnancy yielding yet another spoilt rock star child. So please, women, do your bit for humanity – next time this grunting has-been pops a Viagra and starts humping your leg, smack him round the head with one of his gold discs.

And the same goes for that old cunt Jagger too.