Tall Poppy Syndrome

Listening to 6Music this morning, the news came on at 07.30 and the first item was a summary of this piece’ about the devastating impact of Afghanistan’s opium monopoly (it says here an astonishing 92% of global production), despite (discuss) the best efforts of coalition troops in the region.

I am glad to note that my license fee is funding some sort of bitter ironist in an editorial role at the Beeb, because that news item was followed by the announcement that Dame Vera Lynn and others were launching the British Legion’s 2009 Poppy Appeal.

 

WHAAAT? #3

After a considerable hiatus, and being ankle deep in bits of paper, glue, slicing and snipping equipment for a few weeks (as well as trips abroad and two days in bed for manflu), I am delighted to trumpet the long-awaited* issue number 3 of WHAAAT?, the infrequent journal of the incredulous.

Available in glorious hard copy only (it’s like a blog for the bog, yeah?), please get in touch if you would like one.

* thanks mother

 

newsbite crash sketch

[Car interior - grainy fixed shot from POV of gear stick. Driver concentrating on road, windscreen wipers going, etc.]

Drive Time Radio voice-over:
More than a third of motorists who took part in a survey said they had become seriously distracted when driving, by changing compact discs, fiddling with sat-navs and using mobile phones.

Driver [Looking at radio incredulously]:
More than a third? That’s a load of shieeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhh!

[Smacks into car in front. Airbag balloons. Gets shunted from behind. FX breaking glass and angry shouts off, etc, etc...]

 

You ‘orrible shower!

The BBC (always my first port of call for “the news”, not least because I pay 61p a month for it) offered this early morning joy:

Taking showers ‘can make you ill’

I towelled my freshly-showered hair and read on, suspiciously. The story noted that a US study suggests one may be getting a dose of “Mycobacterium avium (M. avium)” from the shower… potentially leading to a number of unpleasant respiratory symptoms such as wheezing, dry cough, etc.

Lead researcher Professor Norman Pace, said: “If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy.”

I kind of started giggling at that point. First, because this is what I think of when I see the words ‘Norman Pace’:

Gareth Hale (L) and Norman Pace (R), try-hard comedians of yesteryear

Second, with reference to the foregrounded ‘dirty shower heads’, germ paranoia in UK media and advertising (as noted hilariously here) is, well, virulent. If some medical concern about the impact of cleaning products on the respiratory system is considered sufficient cause by the UK Cleaning Products Industry to issue a six page pdf ‘fact sheet’ saying it’s so totally not them… there must be something to the idea that when it comes to there being a constant massing of trillions of nasty cartoon bacteria lurking in the bathroom plotting our demise, as in the ads, it’s all a load of not-as-dirty-as-we-are-being-encouraged-to-fear bollocks?

Third and finally, because of the phrase ‘getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on’. I don’t doubt there may be something to the idea that lung-tampering nasties could loiter in the showerhead. I would certainly never have considered ‘Hot tub lung’ or ‘Lady Windermere’s syndrome’ to be anything other than super titles for jazz numbers before researching this article today, that’s for sure.

However, getting in the shower and then switching it on is simply not good shower practice. Anyone enjoying that thirty seconds of icy water first thing in the morning would probably agree that a face full of germs is also a bracing fix for what ails you.

I will continue to enjoy a shower as part of a balanced hygiene regime.

 

Hard Copy {Slight Return}

My previous post {here} saw me somewhat enthusiatically note a Mumford and Sons track that

‘… I wouldn’t have heard unless I was skulking inside snipping, sticking and eating boiled eggs…’

I note that this could be more accurately phrased to represent the activity… The thought of making and consuming a zine of boiled eggs was quite appealing, in a mentalist Tim Burton character kind of way, so I just left it.

 

Hard copy is democracy

I’ve been writing zines for quite some time now (first one was ‘Thingy’ in about 1996) and have always found it hard work, what with other things to do (working for money, eating, drinking heavily, having sex, enjoying the sunshine, writing and listening to Adam and Joe again… etc…)

This is why I’m quite glad of the instant publishing appeal of the blog format, because you just go ‘blaah’ and hit ‘publish’. However, it’s a bit unsatisfactory because you can’t really take a laptop into the lav (and the wap on my mobile is unreliable in the smallest room), and anyway it’s NOT THE SAME, dammit, as cutting and pasting using actual scissors and actual glue, constructing an actual object…

So! Issue 3 of Whaaat?, the zine me and m’colleague Julia at the Ministry and ‘other contributors’ have been putting off compiling a new one of for far too long is ON, it’s IN HAND (well, in pieces on the table next to me), and coming out in time for Zineswap.

There, I said it. It’s been announced, so it has to happen. Setting out the equipment here – scissors, paper, glue, pics, printer, slicing board, all those accoutrements, bof alors, I may don a beret I’m half-cut with left bank ponce excitement – I am actually beside myself with glee. I don’t get that waiting for the computer to finish dicking about with the virus checker.

You can see a scanned version of the first edition here. Meanwhile, in the trad ‘fanzine’ spirit, here’s my new favourite band, Mumford and Sons who I wouldn’t have heard unless I was skulking inside snipping, sticking and eating boiled eggs instead of going out and enjoying this delicious September blue sky, so the interweb’s good for some stuff I spose…

Oh, and then Dr Buckles and Dr Sexy stuck the Ballad of Dorothy Parker on… and now it’s Gruff Rhys! Well, maybe I’ll make it out by noon.

Giddy!

snip snip snip

 

Mock the Nick

I don’t normally watch Mock the Week… I have a low telly threshold, and it seems just another one of a million diminishing returns set of channel fillers, like a live comedy writers’ brainstorming panel, where some of the gags stick and some should have been left to expire.

It makes me wonder about locking them all in a room somewhere, getting a comedy distillery going, or even better extend the format to make it like Big Brother-X-Factor-Mock-the-Week meets Obama’s mythical death panels. ALL the comedians of Britain are involved, and the ones who tell a duff gag are killed by Jerry Sadowitz? ‘Laugh or the Stand-up Gets It’?

I know I’d tune in! However, last night a rich seam of invective was discovered, as the panellists set about porky Cambridge graduate and neo-Nazi Nick Griffin. I’ve written about darlin Nicky before, in the what I hope was unequivocal post ‘Off our streets, Nazi scum’… so I was kind of loath to tag him again, given that Heston Blumenthal is already looming large in the clouds to our right, and I don’t want any nascent readership getting the idea I’m a stereomaniac (or whatever the correct word for someone with a twin obsession is).

But he IS a risible, if compelling character, as fascists often are, and they had a good go at him, which makes me happy. So much for the ‘debate’ about not having him on Question Time. Get him all over telly! Get him on Have I Got News For You? Ten minutes with Paul Merton would destroy him.

ANYWAY, Mock the Nick. I laughed for ten whole minutes at Frankie Boyle’s comment:

“He looks like a plucked owl that’s been fast-tracked for management at Greggs.”

Every word beautifully weighted. More choice quotes and a video from James Manning’s suspicious blog. Some people just get up earlier than me.

 

Reality used to be a friend of mine

‘Real life versions of Q’ (the fictional boffin from the James Bond films) are being offered government money (i.e. really my money) to develop technology to fight groups like al-Qaeda (the fictional terror franchise), according to this bafflingly serious article from the BBC.

But no, stop the giggling! It’s really real! There is a Home Office unit called, Bondishly, INSTINCT! They have a strategy for it and everything… called CONTEST.

I love the idea (described on the Home Office site) of ‘horizon scanning for technical threats’. It dredges up the image of INSTINCT blokes in lab coats swivelling the periscope on the SS CONTEST, looking for ruthless acronyms sailing into view with devices the like of which we cannot begin to fear adequately.

Really, really though. ‘CONTEST’. Who sits thinking up this rubbish?
Presumably people who describe terror threats as a ‘very real danger’, such as blogger Mark Dowe, whose oaty tones outline the

‘very real danger that such terrorists will gain access to unconventional weapons – chemical, biological and nuclear’

Setting aside an examination of the term ‘unconventional weapons’ (which might be extended to include items such as depleted uranium, say, or passenger jets used as missiles by actual real terrorists), this phrase highlights one of the most alarming tropes in ‘the war on terror’: the use of rhetorical amplification.

People in public positions (such as ex-Prime Minister Blair) are always saying things are ‘very real’, usually in the sense of there being a ‘very real danger’, or ‘very real threat’, or a ‘very real chance’ of something appalling happening, where what they in fact mean is ‘not at all real’.

What can ‘very real’ be supposed to suggest? Some things we think are real are not real? Some things are real, some things are, like, megareal? Pffft. There are, of course, people who act as though blowing up themselves or other people is a valid way of making a point… armed ideologues are always dangerous, it doesn’t make them any more dangerous to suggest they are a very real danger. Stop trying to make it sound worse than it is! If something is already shit, making it sound shitter is not going to help, and in fact the more you insist it is properly awful, the less inclined people will be to believe you. Ask a shepherd. Doubleplusungood Alert, is it? I see.

Then there’s the serious expression people always get on when they use the phrase, which only compounds the insult. As if they have access to a better version of reality than everyone else, and they can convince you of their unique capacity to sort it all out simply by the subtle and sincere use of intensifiers.

“No, this is VERY real. You thought the Nazis were real? The IRA? ETA? Just playing at reality compared to these guys. They’re so real, they’re like a kiss on the lips from Slavoj Žižek… with tongues.”

How real do you want this? VERY REAL, PLEASE.

Still, you really can’t be too careful. So, in the spirit of innovation, I’m developing a great new anti-terror device. Based on a brown paper bag, it’s basically a brown paper bag, and every time you feel full of terror, you breath into it and it makes the fear dissipate.

I am currently brainstorming names for the device, but I believe it will make a significant contribution to the very real fight against all those wishing to terrorise me in a far more quick manner with their fat-fingered throttling of the English language.

Perhaps when we’ve all calmed down and put the rocket-propelled nets back in the closet with the swingball, we can address the very real threat of bombdogs.

 

The Traditional Excitement of Transfer Deadline Day

Non-soccer fans not wanting to read something all about le foot may wish to look away now.

Today was the official closure of the first Transfer Window of the year in the UK, which was again being treated by the BBC and Sky Sports News (generally the two most reliable sources of soccertainment upon our sceptred isle) as the Single Most Gripping Thing to Happen in Association Football.

Perhaps the nadir of rolling news non-event sports journalism filler, the reportage throughout today was particularly poor. First of all, setting up a relatively recent innovation as something footie fans have been eagerly anticipating since the days of Sir Stanley Matthews is disingenuous and more than a little reminiscent (in its sickly enforced carnival excitement) of the Seasonal Red Cups at Starbucks campaign.

Second, the posts on both the Beeb‘as it happens’ and Sky’s Clockwatch took on a tone of holiday camp enthusiasm, the typing on the tickers speaking of reporters all wearing a rictus of desperation as non-event after non-event spattered their empty chat room walls with rotten eggs, tomatoes, shite.

Witness the BBC this morning:

1154: Is it just me, or is one done deal graphic for five hours work a touch on the disappointing side? Worry ye not, though – it just means there are more to come. Plenty more. Is everyone you know getting involved yet?

Glossing over the graphics – technology now allowing us to assign a whimsical little icon for every possible permutation of non-event, such as the flying pig for ‘wild rumours’ – and the concluding plaintive and misguided attempt at whipping up some, any, interest, however, it must be noted that plenty was not forthcoming. It was not, if you will allow some abysmal football-related wordplay, even top ten finishing or relegation battling. Fast forward to:

1701: Of course, there’s bound to be stuff going on we still don’t know about. There’s just bound to be. Or I can just get my coat and leave…

…and you can almost hear the hiss of the toaster in the bath, Brian. At least the BBC were trying to lighten the tone by admitting it was watching-Johnstone’s-Paint-dryingly dull. Over on Sky, the channel that arguably invented modern football and take it VERY SERIOUSLY, in the way that people with buckets of cash depending on the issue will tend to, the tone was much more studied:

15.19 Sky Sports News understands that Valencia midfielder Ever Banega will not be making a deadline day loan switch to Everton.

That “understands” was priceless. It must have been so dismal in the Sky News Room having to cover what essentially amounts to a bunch of faxes being sent between lawyers that any attempt at intrigue was to be encouraged. How do you make nothing happening interesting? Over to Jeff Stelling:

“Exciting news from Merseyside there; our sources suggest that there is confirmation nothing is also happening at Ewood Park – Charlie.”
“That’s right, Jeff, nothing IS happening here in Blackburn. Nothing was rumoured to be taking place earlier on, and we can now verify that to be the case.”
“Great stuff, Charlie! Now, over to Jim at the Stadium of Light, where there’s nothing happening… can you illuminate us, Jim?”

Etc etc etc.

Eventually, it became obvious that the only way to liven up the Traditional Excitement would be to have the hapless hacks at the BBC and Sky covering each other’s updates:

16.55 Sky Sports News believes that the BBC suggests Svensson is NOT going to Bradford on loan, we understand we can reveal.

One could have gone on for, oh, 8.5 hours or something. Easy! Easy!

 

Dr Buckles and Dr Sexy

Fantastic – it’s a sunny morning in east London, not a single cloud in the sky, West End Girls on the radio, lovely breeze wafting in from the balcony…

the view

Up absurdly early, for a Saturday, but it’s the Bank Holiday weekend and so excitement reigns. Plotting shopping lists of herbs and spices and brown rice and shopping trollies and sex toys and quinoa and pots for plants on the balcony and EVERYTHING. Excitement reigns

[tedious music commentary]
Listening to 6 Music through the freeview box, and Iyare was playing some interesting music, as well as the new Arctic Monkeys song Crying Lightning, which sounds kind of entirely like Space, sorry Monkeys, but there it is, and announcing that Noel Gallagher has quit Oasis with great relief (not as great as ours, Noel, let me assure you, seeing as it was all finished when the career full stop of ‘Acquiesce’ was made) then, joy of joys, Adam and Joe are finally back off holiday to save us from hopeless twunt Danny Wallace. It’s all very schmindie, but schmindie has at least got a bit of ein groovybeat ja on now, in places, you know, like robot electropop from 1984? So yeah.

Enjoy Boggins! Wuzza.
[/tedious music commentary]

It’s THE BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND, and excitement reigns.