The Touch of Death

Fiona Phillips is the embodiment of car-crash daytime television. Crass, ill-informed and fundamentally moronic, no-one escapes from an encounter with the haggard sunbed disaster untainted. Not even Billy Bragg. I had switched over to GMTV just as Fiona was in the middle of a live two-way interview with Billy from Hive Beach, one of the beaches affected by the oil slick from the damaged SS Napoli.

Billy was wearing a semi-Barbour jacket and has clearly been on the pies, so it took me quite a while to be certain that this man who was appealling for local residents to come and help with the clean-up of the beach at the weekend was the same angry political firebrand of past.

So the interview comes to an end and it goes something like this:

FP: Well, thanks Billy for coming on the show and good luck with the clean-up. In fact I've been humming one of your songs all morning. Shipbuilding.

BB: (looks embarassed.)

FP (to co-host Andrew Castle): such a good song

BB: it was Elvis Costello

FP: (aghast) oh gosh. Sorry my researcher told me it was one of your songs.

BB: (embarassed) I wish it was. It's a great song.

FP: Oh well thanks Billy anyway.

FP: (to AC) so what are Billy's most famous tunes ?

AC: (looks flustered)

FP: Never mind. Anyway. This morning you could be winning £20,000.....


Technorati tags:
GMTV, Fiona Phillips, Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello

Great London Writing

Like much of the best graffiti, this piece found near Old Street tube is both confounding and amusing.

A simple bawdy gag ('Sit on Myspace') gains a satirical power from being scrawled on the blank, silent walls of a 'Private Shop'. The necessarily euphemistic name of the shop adds further gusto, in comparison, to the writing. Even better, there is an inexpicable word ('fortress') in the window.

As an imprecation it doesn't quite work. It's difficult to work out the point the writer is making about the shop, Myspace, or his/her relationship with the world at large. And thus, it takes its place in the great London tradition of nonsense graffiti.

Technorati tags:
Graffiti, Bad Science, London, Myspace

A dirty threesome

Dr Quirky goes serious, in conversation with Blogmarch

Yesterday, the Independent does this big full page splash about Blue Monday.

Using “mathematical equations”, Dr Cliff Arnall, psychologist and former tutor at Cardiff University, has worked out that January 22nd is officially the most depressing day of the year.

This bloke does the same thing every year, and still gets it in the bloody papers. Last year it was revealed that he was simply producing some 'boffin' thing for a travel company to get publicity for cheap holidays at this time of year. This year it’s the RAC taking advantage of a lazy newspaper looking for some light-hearted filler.

As for that Edmund King cnut from the RAC. What the funk is he talking about here?? "We hope motorists will rise to the challenge of 'beat blue Monday' day and find ways of beating the commuting blues," said the foundation's chief executive Edmund King."Travelling smarter rather than longer is part of the answer, while putting a great song on the stereo is a proven mood-lifter."

How can you swap longer for smarter in a traffic jam?!?!

Anyway, Dr Cliff Arnall has previous on this as exposed by the Ben Goldacre’s brilliant Bad Science column. He’s one of a number of "whackydemics" happy to perpetuate the caricature of scientific boffins using “mathematical equations” to measure daft things. Check out the amusing clarification by Cardiff University which they clearly insisted on.


Technorati tags:
Dr Cliff Arnall, Bad Science, Blue Monday, boffin

What I Don't Want

I really don't want a FLAME WAR, you know. Not a bar of it. Just in case you were wondering. You might have come to the conclusion that cyber conflict was right up there at the top of my ambitions for Jan/Feb 07. I'm not sure what would have given you that impression. You are wrong, anyway, so wrong. You see, I just don't want to get involved in such a thing.

I don't see things changing in the near future, either. I think I'm unlikely to develop a yen for a FLAME WAR. It is of no appeal.

If I haven't made myself clear, I'm not looking for any sort of computer-based exchange of rhetorical hostility. It's the last thing I want to do. Hate the idea. Hate it. Far too many other things going on in my life at the moment.

And don't think you can tempt me in with your coquettish games. You see, if I had the time to get fully greased up up in a FLAME WAR I'd do it in style. I would display the awesome technical nous and withering array of slapdowns that has become my FLAME WAR hallmark. Or it would have done, if I were interested in FLAME WARS. Which I'm not.

Soviet Bus Stops

Look at these. They're amazing.

Link found via the wonderful Things magazine site.


Technorati tags:
Soviet bus stops

Making World History

Result! I have officially complained to OFCOM about Big Brother. I’m one of the record breaking 21,000 complainants and I’ve got the email to prove it. I think it’s up there in my Top 3 alongside queuing overnight to sign the Diana book of condolence and taking part in last year’s UK’s biggest Flash Mob event in Trafalgar Square. In fact, it was one of the easier ones. They’ve even got a shortcut on the homepage which takes you straight to the application form.

If you want to do the same don't forget to save a printed copy of the application for the scrapbook. To be honest, it was quite hard working out what to say as I don’t actually watch Big Brother but I wanted to sound authentic. Some of my friends have secured tickets for the eviction event this Friday and I’m very jealous. I think it will be historic and they’ve spent all week working on getting the placards right so they get a really good spot in front of the barriers and maybe even talk to Davina.


Technorati tags:
OFCOM, Big Brother, Shilpa, Racialism

Dead Christmas Trees. A Series.

Technorati tags:
Dead Christmas Trees,

Function vs Form - Ultimate Smackdown

Due to standard IT restrictions on the downloading of software, I’ve been stuck with MSN Messenger version 1.0 for a very long time. It’s deprived me of a more sophisticated repertoire of animated emoticons like the barfing Pacman, the chance to see your funny ID photo and enigmatic applications such as Chalkboard.

So the day our IT administrator came to install some XP updates and then left to go and attend to a minor Blackberry crisis, I seized the moment and starting feverishly downloading all manner of updates.

5 minutes later I had a brand new shiny Windows Live Messenger and 5 minutes later I had spat it out of my PC. Because if Microsoft are consciously trying to be the absolute inverse of beautiful Apple user simplicity (which seems to be quite popular these days), then Windows Live Messenger is the glorious apotheosis of their master project.

It’s the ultimate intrusive Cillit Bang headfuck. The wonderfully discreet and minimalist Messenger 1.0 box that subtly nestled in the corner is over. Microsoft have clearly decided that WLM is the ONLY thing you’ll ever need your computer for. So you now have two windows open automatically which obscure the entire screen. And the menu on your left features all manner of branded links to websites they deem you would like to have, ads flash along the bottom in scrolling text, and the dialogue box is twice the size of its predecessor.

I’ve always disliked the smug anti-Microsoft tribalism of the Maclifers but I feel, like in Graham Greene’s brilliant novel The Quiet American, “sooner or later, one has to take sides”. On one side, maximised functionality that steamrollers any consideration of aesthetics or actually starting from the point of meeting a consumer need. On the other, a responsive, design led philosophy that seems to make our lives easier, simpler and just that little bit more classy.



And now of course we have the iPhone. Don't expect the first iteration to be that great. New Apple products and Operating Systems are notoriously glitch heavy first time round and that's a worry for them. We can manage without our iPod for a couple of weeks whilst it's down the garage but people have basic assumptions of cast iron reliability with their mobile phones. Maybe the prohibitively high price is designed to attract only the most evangelical Mac addicts who won't rock the boat. Blogmarch respectfully suggests you wait for the third mini iPod equivalent version cos by then they'll have it cracked.

Technorati tags:
iPhone, Windows Messenger, Graham Greene, Quiet American

My Tourette Shame

OK, so no posts for ten days, then a Celebrity Big Brother one. Whatever happened to the great ideals of the publication? People have been to prison for sentiments expressed therein, refusing to be silenced by the censorious spirit of Power.

When I say 'therein', I mean the whole 'writing things down' genre, you understand. Not Blogmarch specifically.

In recent days the downtime has been taken up, in bursts of a few minutes at a time, with observing the work of Mr Donny Tourette and his 'band', the Towers of London.

I know, I know. But take a look. And another. And for the full Spinal monty, watch them react to a lukewarm review in the NME.

Points that should be made. Forget the risible debate about whether Donny comes from Squatney or Buckinghamshire. Reflect on this. Doesn't he look like Paul Kaye aka Dennis Pennis? [Include timewasting theoretical interlude here, comparing Tourette 'singer' and Pennis 'interviewer', and their parasitical 'meta' relationship to their host industry. Pause to wipe self off.]

Also, this 'punk' thing. To me, they sound like they are ripping off The Damned more than the Pistols, while their look derives from Motley Crue/Dogs D'Amour, not punk. I wish I'd been a Punk Rocker with Elnette in my hair. The whole thing is, in fact,like something from that wonderful subgenre, 'punks created by TV executives' (see Sid Snot, and plenty of drama school boys playing the bad boyfriend in late seventies Brit sitcoms).

[The following paragraph features a false memory. Although Bolan and The Damned were fans of each other, there is no footage of The Damned being interviewed by Bolan. This must be a conflation of Bolan's own comments at the time about punk, and the fact that The Damned supported Bolan on tour at the time. Please excuse Blogmarch's ignorance and consider the following paragraph in the light of this. And thanks to vigilant truth defender, Mr Gavin Ross (I presume Gavin Ross, editor of A Thousand Mark Feld Charms, which looks ace), for pointing this out]

Ever seen the footage of Marc Bolan interviewing The Damned in 1977? Somehow the jeepster is transformed into the Vic Reeves trouser-rubbing man, his gaze lingering on these rough boys with their rough rock'n roll. Grr. Weirdly, Donny seems to be both The Damned and Marc Bolan at this lowpoint of both their careers. Or, at least, a cartoon of said artistes made with shitty twig by a drunk salmon.

Technorati tags:
Donny Tourette, Sid Snot, drunk salmon

Here's a Thing

While waiting at Moorgate station for an eastbound circle line tube the other day, I found myself reflecting on the magical distortions of time underground. One street level minute will take sixty, recognisably long, seconds. But take the short trip to beneath your feet and, as all Londoners will tell you, things cease to be so simple. A London Underground minute is worth anything up to four or five normal ones.

Which got me to thinking about the term "cotton-pickin'". You are most likely to hear it in the term "Now wait just one cotton-pickin' minute..." The sentence would seem to require an adjective that emphasises the shortness of the minute in question - it is 'just' the one, not worth refusing the request to wait. But of all the professions that make the time whizz by, I would have thought cotton picking is rather low on the list.

Technorati tags:
Moorgate, time