My First Bus Ride Countdown (24.02)

(For more like this, go to shouting at cows. We bring the news, we bring the funniez. You bring the eyes).

I don’t know if any of you were lucky enough/rich enough/middle-class enough to read yesterday’s Telegraph, but there was the most brilliant article by Binkie West yesterday, where she described the event that us normal folk worry about the most; the finer points of our absurdly ostentatious wedding to an affluent beau we met at our local polo club. She really did manage to encapsulate the population’s qualms with her piece, especially in these times of financial peril. Without people like her, who is going to keep the Pol Roger champagne empire afloat?

It made me think of an event that I too will be experiencing for the first time this year; using public transport.

As a young boy, I had visions of being a public transport passenger with a lovely blond tussle fringe with foppish undertones. A bit like an aryan Hugh Grant. In preparation for this, I booked myself in for a wet trim at Supercuts (www.supercuts.co.uk). I don’t want to look like an utter plum-in-mouth, upper class nitwit, so I’ve gone for something that says to fellow passengers ‘yes, I too am one of the proletariat. I’ll happily spend my weekends drinking pints and watching soccerball on the television’. Getting on a bus you want perfection, and I think a haircut that says ‘public school wanker’ is rather lovely.

On Saturday I attended a ‘Using public transport for the first time’ party. My hair looked rather lovely. They couldn’t believe it was £8.95 without a booking! We went to Wetherspoon’s for their ‘Beer and a Burger’ lunchtime deal. It was great to be there with my brother, who will be accompanying me when I embark on this amazing journey. He has ridden on buses before, so Biffo thought it would be a good idea to call him ‘Dole Daniel’, as he doesn’t own a car. Honestly, first time me and Hugo heard that we chunderd so hard. With many of us using public transport for the first time this year, there really is tube fever about.

All this preparation for being ‘down with the ozlone layer’ was stressful, so to relax I went for a game of laser quest with some friends (www.laserquest.co.uk). A few head shots will make me feel my absolute best on the big day.

This week I also sold my car. D-Cam was talking about how as a country we need to go green, so I sold my little runner (www.autotrader.co.uk). I learnt to walk when I was two and have always been a little tusker, so I’m relishing the experience. In preparation for this green-shift, I’ve imported some eco-friendly radiators in from San Francisco, and installed them at a competitive rate (www.Britishgas.co.uk). I just think it’s criminal how other people don’t care about their environment as much as me, and refuse to import eco-friendly home wares in on gas-guzzling freights.

Having left my job as an assistant regional advertising recruitment consultant executive, I’m relieved to have so much more time on hands. Not only are there appointments to fit in, but there is also the ongoing admin. I have to buy the ticket, pick out my outfit (you don’t want to look pompous, but at the same time you want to make it pertinently clear to other passengers that you have a shitlot more cash than them). There are the various questions to ponder over; do I go free plan with some autumnal layers and a simple cashmere scarf, or do I opt for some knitware to appropriate the ‘boho-chic’ look, metaphorically saying to other passengers ‘yeeeeeah, just taking the bus. It’s how I roll. Might go for a jazz cigarette and pint of beer later as well. Just the crazy shit that a man in knitwear gets up to’. I’m constantly planning different outfits, so this morning I visited my favorite little ‘underground’ clothes shop (www.topman.com) to find something hip and unique to make me stand-out on that communal vessel of hopes and dreams.

When I think of all the friends and relatives that might venture down to experience this with me, it makes me wish that I’d picked a double-decker, or even a Megabus (www.megabus.com)! Having said that, I wouldn’t change my first bus ride on the number 6 (doesn’t go past my house during off-peak times) for the world. I always wanted a small, intimate bus ride for my first sample of public transport, and so far everything is meeting all of my expectations. I can’t wait!

Daily Mail: Amanda Platell Hates Women (21/02)

Amanda Platell is my favourite Australian export since piss-weak beer and the Neighbours Christmas Album. She is brill. Platell is amongst the throng of female writers including Liz Jones, Jan Moir, Georgina Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips over at Mail HQ, that would make Emily Pankhurst turn in her grave. This is a special brand of of hate-filled woman -  each has her own target and attacks them without cessation. Like really vile Power Rangers. Liz Jones; hates the poor. Jan Moir; hates the gays. Georgina Littlejohn; hates fat people. Melanie Phillips; hates EVERYTHING. (She’s like the Red Ranger; the boss. Funny story actually, I had a Red Ranger AM/FM radio as a kid. I can never think of it the same way after this metaphor however. If I ever found it, all I’d see is Melanie Phillips looking up at me saying something inflammatory about Palestinians.) Amanda Platell, it appears, abso-fucking-lutely hates women. At least she’s fair though, she hates all women. White, black, European, American, religious, atheist, mothers, workers; all of them; if it’s got tits, she hates it.

Among Platell’s recent articles, we’ve enjoyed character assassinations of Fern Britton;

She is living proof you don’t have to diet and exercise to get slim, you just have to have a gastric band fitted.

The ‘absurdly pointless’ (her words) Jemima Khan;

…who’s famous for ­nothing more than inheriting her father’s fortune and her ­terrible taste in men.

Angelina Jolie’s marriage;

They start and end each day by meditating and reciting a sacred word that encapsulates their union. Is that word ‘money’, I wonder?

Lady Gaga;

Pity when it comes to sartorial judgment, she’s increasingly gaga and certainly no lady.

Danielle Lineker;

Does she not own a mirror, or is there plastic between her ears as well as on her chest?

Kelly Brook;

I’m sure it was your big personality the photographer wanted to capture whenyou posed for Playboy in 2010.

Victoria Beckham and ‘her Poundland copycat’ (again, her words) Colleen Rooney;

…have proved that they are willing to endure almost any humiliation by their husbands so long as they get to keep the keys to the mansions and the Mercedes.

And this fantastic measured response about large breasted women:

Bra company Bravissimo has launched the mammoth L-cup to accommodate bigger breasts.

It puts the demand for them down to changes in women’s diet and exercise — which is polite talk for the gargantuan bosoms of obese women who stuff their faces and don’t get off their butts.

Get real. The ­elephant in the room is . . . the women needing bras like this.

And these were all stories in the last two months. But the fun doesn’t stop there. In amongst these phenomenal works of journalism, we’ve also had full editorials by Platell, with such titles as;

• A wretched woman who degrades democracy.

• It’s not just me that has switched off middle-aged women.

• Women on top? Not with this lot.

I mean, wow. Just wow. That is devotion to your prerogative right there.

She’s quite an amazing woman really; despises celebrity culture, yet is utterly obsessed with women in the public eye. Particularly vindictive on the subject of larger women, yet repulsed by any suggestion of women going to lengths to change this (should also add, she’s hardly a stick-figure herself). I mean she really is an enigma, wrapped in an Australian flag. That’s been soaking in acid. And piss.

Anyway, The Platster is back this week with a fantastic article on… wait for it… awful women! You would never have guessed!

Figures just out show a sharp increase in the number of women getting pregnant during the recession. Statisticians put this down to the fact that, during hard financial times, couples turn to each other for comfort and support.

What tosh. Nothing divides couples more than money, or a lack of it. The baby boom is much more likely to be down to opportunistic single mums on benefits who’ve clocked that producing another baby is the quickest way to double their income.

Yeah that’s right! Bluddy conniving women, going through 9 months of pregnancy then 18 years of a child’s upbringing for a few extra quid a week. What evil, self-absorbed scum. Platto knows more than the statisticians you see. She doesn’t need ‘figures’. Figures are ‘tosh’. All she needs is her self-inflated sense of importance and a total lack of perspective. Hey, it’s got her this far.

So, to all you women out there thinking about a cheeky bonk in order to sponge off the state; don’t you dare! You know what? You can’t be trusted. Leave the double bed. Saw it in half and plonk your half in the hallway. Actually scrub that, stick your husband/boyfriend on the couch. No wait, live in separate properties. Ahh wait, but then you’ve got a single mother situation, and they are the most opportunistic of all the benefit scroungers. Jesus, tell you what, this rampant reactionary anger isn’t half problematic sometimes.

I have my own theory on Amanda Platell. I have a suspicion that she isn’t really a woman. I think that the Mail paid a guy to have a sex-change, so that they could employ a sexist arse into their Femail department, then all his thinly veiled attacks on women could be defended, as ‘I can’t be sexist; I’ve got a fanny!’. Now there’s no ‘evidence’ or ‘facts’ to back this up, but that never stopped Platell. Statisticians only come up with tosh anyway. Let’s look at a few interesting things;

1. Her name is A MAN da Platell.
2. …..

I don’t know about you, but that’s enough proof for me.

Consider Amanda Platell; Mythbusted.

TV REVIEW: Hotter Than My Daughter - BBC3 (17.02.2011)

(For TV based tomfoolery like this, go to Shouting at Cows. It’s good for your health)

BBC3 is really the forgotten relative of shite TV. When people talk about TV stations where the output is unfiltered dross, they’ll roll off the usual networks like Living TV, Bravo, Sky News etc, but BBC3 is often forgotten, despite its relentless commitment to providing TV of such a low grade that it would make Endemol think ‘You know what? Bit crude. We’re more respectable’. BBC3 seems to mainly exist now to keep the countless members of Atomic Kitten employed, and current show ‘Hotter Than My Daughter’ (which I should add, is on its second series) is no exception.

The basic plot is this; mums are dressing too young, daughters are dressing too shit. They get a makeover, families are saved. It’s essentially a chance to watch a throng of mid-40-somethings slut it up for 30 minutes. Sorry, what sexual deviants out there are that desperate for a wank?

The first gruesome twosome is 46 year old Tracy and 26 year old daughter, Layla. Tracy says Lady Gaga is her style icon, which is fitting, considering Tracy look a bit like a transvestite from the right angle. Most of Tracy’s dresses are either corsets or sparkly numbers, except one lovely garment which makes her look like she’s off to a pagan ritual hosted by G-A-Y. Daughter Layla is 26 but dresses like a 15 year old sk8er (that’s how the kids spell it… apparently). Layla has two kids and fell into the trap that a lot of parents do of putting all her effort into her children’s upbringing, rather than her choice of eyeliner. Pfft, silly sod.

To judge their current look and give them a makeover, they rope together some of ‘Wolverhampton’s most stylish people’. It’s the usual rabble of ‘style experts’; couple of trendy girls with obscene haircuts and a homosexual gentleman in an ill-fitting suit. Because, you know, people who can’t dress themselves and people who can’t get a haircut without re-mortgaging their house are the epitome of style.

Host – let’s just call her ‘blond scouse lady from non-descript pop band’ – delves deep into why Layla wears these ‘trainer’ things. Turns out she was bullied at 14, which made her personality quite introverted. See, with these things there is always a sob story. It can’t just be that she finds jeans comfy or something. It always has to be some drawn-out story like ‘well my dad was strangled by a burgler with an Alexander McQueen ball-gown, and my mum got her head caved in with a Jimmy Choo stiletto, so since then I’ve always worn hoodies’.

The basic summary is that one is frumpy, one is mutton dressed as lamb. Or to be more exact, mother Tracy is ‘dressed like a stripper’, while daughter Layla looks like a ‘little boy gone wrong’. Both are unhappy with the jury’s verdict, Layla wailing ‘I don’t look like a boy, and mum doesn’t look like a stripper’. Err, she does. And, erm, you do. Sorry.

Anyway, it’s makeover time and the women each get a haircut from the doppelgänger of mid 90s Columbian footballer Carlos Valderamma. Which is interesting for fans of the 1994 Columbian football team. The makeover happens and Layla gets the usual Toni and Guy/Topshop look that every other girl on your average high street has. Anyway she’s well happy, so starts crying, as you have to give the Beeb their money shot.

‘All we’ve done is given you a haircut, a nice dress and put some makeup on you!’

What a fantastic use of licence-payer’s money. I feel a bit Daily Mail all of a sudden.

Couple Two! And we’re off to Preston, the home of fashion! (Not really, that was sarcasm.) Mother Tracy is worried that daughter Paris dresses too risqué for fifteen. This is slightly hypocritical when the mum’s dress sense can be best summarised as ‘tits = out’.

‘All the lads I know say she’s a MILF’.

Fifteen-year-old boys in ‘wanting to have sex with anything with a pulse’ shocker.

Tracy isn’t happy with Paris’ dresses sense, wanting her to dress ‘younger’. Paris takes the ‘Swiss Cheese’ approach to dressing; skin tight outfit, with arbitrary holes showing skin (that metaphor doesn’t really work, does it?). Tracey claims that her dress sense has caused problems before.

We were on holiday in France and two guys were looking at Paris. I went over and said “Piss off! She’s only Thirteen!” And after I left the cheeky bugger started looking again! Hahaha!

Ahh, paedophiles. Up to their usual brand of whimsical japery. When will they learn?

The Preston judges’ panel looks just like the cast of Glee. They claim that Paris ‘looks like a stripper’ and Tracy is ‘too much boobs’. Wordsmiths, I think you’ll agree.

 Makeover number two is on the horizon and Paris is going to be made to look younger, while Tracy is going to be made to look older. CONTAIN YOUR EXCITEMENT PEOPLE! It’s the same shit again for Tracy; haircut, make up, whip round the bargain bin at River Island. Paris is next for her makeover and, Christ on a bike, they make her look abso-fucking-lutely terrible. She looks like a Cabbage Patch doll in an ill-fitting wig.

‘I’m gobsmacked, I look completely different!’

You look like Robert Smith in a dress, love. I should hope so too.

So, what I’ve learnt from tonight’s show is that if you want to make people look older, you have to get them more mature clothing and makeup, and if you want to make them look younger, you have to give them more of a youthful look.

I’ve sent my findings to NASA.

The Midweek Newspapers in 3 minuets; Police crackdowns in Bahrain, Welfare crackdowns in Britain…(17/02/20110)

Inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian protests, a similar movement in Bahrain against their autocratic government fell victim to an immense police crackdown last night, with 5 people being killed and the destruction of their camp in Pearl Square, central Manama.

Hundreds of security forces used batons, rubber bullets and tear gas on demonstrators who had been camped out in Pearl Square calling for political reform.

“Police are coming, they are shooting teargas at us,” one protestor said amid the chaos. Another said: “I am wounded, I am bleeding. They are killing us.”

The protests are against the monarchy rule of the country, where the Al Khalifa family (a Sunni family) rule over a predominately Shia population.

By the morning, the square appeared nearly empty of protesters. Abandoned tents, blankets and rubbish dotted the area, and the smell of teargas wafted through the air.

One protester said he had driven away two people who had been wounded by rubber bullets.

Clearly, the ruling Al Khalifa family and the military weren’t willing to let what happened to Egypt happen to them, and used an over-zealous response to cut the protests off in their infancy.

“We were asleep and they started slicing through our tent,” said Nabeel Ebrahim, who was sleeping alongside two trauma surgeons from Salmaniya hospital. “They started firing gas from the overpass and attacking us from all directions.”

But it was not just protestors that were clamped down on, ambulances and civilians trying to help also felt the wrath of police, too.

Ambulances are being prevented from arriving at Pearl roundabout to collect dozens of wounded people thought to be trapped there.

They were quickly beaten back by riot police firing sound grenades and teargas as they charged towards the demonstrators, who retreated to the hospital grounds. Several more were wounded in the clashes.

One ambulance driver said he was stopped by police, who violently removed wounded protesters from the back of his vehicle and ordered him at gunpoint to leave.

The police were always going to clamp down hard on any signs of protest following the success of the peaceful demonstrations in Egypt, especially somewhere like Bahrain, were there has been strained relations between the ruling Al Khalifa family and the Shia population, following years of perceived discrimination towards the country’s religious majority. The use of force in Bahrain is likely to be replicated by other autocratic regions facing protest aswell, in particular Libya, where police statements released said ‘that protests will be met by lethal force’.

Other papers were more concerned with the major UK story of the day; welfare-state reform.

Work and Pensions secretary Ian Duncan Smith has outlined new reforms that will be – reportedly – the biggest welfare shake-up in 60 years. These include;

• A single universal credit to come into force in 2013
• Tax changes to enable people to keep more income
• Changes to the disability living allowance
• More details of the back-to-work programme
• Those refusing to work facing a maximum three-year loss of benefits
• Annual benefit cap of about £26,000 per family
• Review of sickness absence level

Response has been mixed to the proposals. Naturally, the Daily Mail and other right wing press were abso-fucking-lutely delighted about it, considering to them everyone without a job is a Burberry wearing sponge with 3 kids.

In an interview with the Mail, Mr Duncan Smith pledged that it would no longer be possible for anyone to choose a ‘life on benefits’, which he says has fuelled mass immigration over the past decade.

Yeah it’s the old ‘people choose to be employed, foreigners come here for hand-outs’ shtick again. The thing is, there is no point incentivising people returning to work and reforming the benefit system, when there’s no work for these people to go into. These reforms are on the back-drop of massive redundancies facing both the state and private sector. 2,000 jobs were axed from Manchester City Council alone, so it seems senseless to spend resources encouraging people to return to work when you just booted them out of the job they already had! (……..and, breath….)

Although an estimated 2.4 million people would be better enough, and estimated 1.6 would be worse off, and as chief executive of the National Housing Federation David Orr states, “To reduce the housing allowance for those out of work means punishing people for failing to find a job in a very difficult job market,”. Taken into account the £2.1bn cost to establish these reforms, it makes you ask the question; why now?

The other issue I have with it is that, is Duncan-Smith’s insistence on the family and his attempt to govern alongside his prominent Christian beliefs, including a cap on benefits paid to single-parent families, and this excerpt from the Mail, stating new plans to give kick-backs to married couples:

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Best Daily Mail reader comment

• Let in a lot more immigrants in and make them do the work and pay tax while the rest of us live on benefits and live a life doing what we would like to do instead of spending our lives slaving away for little or no reward.

- Gaz, n/e, 17/2/2011 2:37

EP Review: Spring Offensive - “An Unusual Valentine’s Day Proposal” (5.5)

Some words what I written…

thewhiteboardproject:

Title: An Unusual Valentine’s Day Proposal

Rating: 5.5

The Spring Offensive was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I. A common trait of bands with names based on Eastern European conflicts (The Decemberists, The Crimea….Dresden Dolls?) is of a certain experimental, surrealist feel to them. Spring Offensive are no different.

Spring Offensive first gained national attention following 2010’s Pull Us Apart EP. The 7-track release was a fantastic amalgamation of styles based around a low-fi palette. Shades of shoe-gaze, avant-garde, alternative-dance, mathrock and folk all came together to give Spring Offensive their unique sound. Think ‘The National’ meets ‘Foals’. It was one of the better EP’s of 2010 and had a couple of standout-tracks on it, like the dark, neo-gothic I Found Myself Smiling, and the more upbeat, stripped-down number Abacus Rex.

Spring Offensive’s latest move is to release an acoustic double-single, with the slightly bizarre marketing move of crediting people who pay above

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Single Review: MONA - Teenager

Words I wrote for The Whiteboard Project

thewhiteboardproject:

Name: Teenager

Label: ZION NOIZ

Release: February 28th

Rating : 5.5/6

Whenever someone tells me that I’ll like a band because ‘NME and MTV have said they are one of the bands to watch this year,’ part of me winces, part of me curls up and dies, and the other part of me thinks ‘meh, at least it’s not X-Factor’. MONA, Nashville based four-piece, are the latest band to have earned the moniker ‘liked by the mainstream music media’. They won MTV’s ‘Brand New for 2011’ award, but interestingly were also on the shortlist for the BBC’s ‘Sound of 2011’ award, which contained some very solid acts.

To get to obvious criticisms of the record, it is generic pop-rock rubbish.  It’s IKEA-lite ‘insert column A into slot B’, flat-pack, turn your brain off, mainstream rocking and a rolling. All the components are there; thumping ‘my first drum kit’ snare-highhat-bass pattern, gratuitous use of power cords, lyrics mainly consisting ‘Wo oh aaaho, Wo oh aaaho’, etc. The lead singer looks like a budget Joe Strummer. There are more skinny jeans on show than a Topman warehouse. The video is almost like a hipster parody; lots of stunning women in laundrettes and motels looking demure. I mean, it’s almost comical just how many clichés this song seems to contain.

Read More

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY EVERYONE!

………………..er, yeah.

MEDIA: Katy Perry subjected to the oddest airbrushing in the history of printed press. (12.02.2012)

I doubt it comes as much of a shock to people that photos of celebrities in magazines are airbrushed. Tweaked and tinted to such an extent that the person in the image may as well be a member of another species. The result is that women and men out there wonder why a) they can’t look like that, and b)they can’t be with them. For a guy, the closest they will ever get to women that looks as superficially enhanced as that, is to eject their disk-drive and try and fuck their PC.

Some airbrushing is easy to understand, skin, wrinkles etc, but others a bit odder. Original shots of Katy Perry were released this week from a Rolling Stone shoot last year, along with the post-edited versions. The airbrushing her photos received makes you wonder; why?!

Now they’ve edited out some blemishes on her stomach and made her skin brighter. Fine, whatever. But what about the rest? Firstly, why enlarge the tits? Katy Perry is well known for having a pair of bosoms so large that she could breast feed a crèche. Yet some bright spark though ‘yeah they’re big, but, they could always be, you know, bigger?’. You don’t need to be a genius to work out that she has a pair of breasts so glorious that God himself probably crafted them by hand between day four and five. Whammers, chebs, jugs, wabs, funbags, bristols, melons; whatever you call them, she’s got them. If anything, make them smaller. I mean imagine trying to hold a conversation with her and those two are looking at you right in the face, it would be an utter farce.

Secondly; her hand. For some reason they have changed her hand position because according to the editors of Rolling Stone, straight fingers are fucking minging. Rancid. Any they seem to think that she lacks the ability to close her palm. Call me odd, but when looking at a photo, the first thing I think is rarely if ever ‘wait……the fuck is she doing with her hand?’. I obviously lack a certain pseudo-hand fetish (now I feel like an outcast…).

And the lastly; the sock. They have artificially removed a sock. What’s wrong with a sock? Are socks that incredibly out of fashion in LA? Are they spoken in the same breath as parachute pants and mullets, now? Also, if you don’t want a sock in the photo, why not just ask her to take it off? Would it have been that much effort?

Photographer: Hi Katy, if you’d like to just sit over there we can………oh…..

Perry: Wait, is there a problem?

Photographer: It just, erm, the sock. Doesn’t really go with the shoot

Perry: Oh really? No problem. I can just take it off.

Photographer: Nah, don’t worry about it. We’ll just pay a digital editor a few thousand dollars to photo-shop it out.

Perry: …………………………………………ok…………

Anyway, clearly it proves how little I know about High fashion because I’m sure there is a very logical reason for it, but until someone informs me of what it is, I’m going to appear all intellectually superior and call Rolling Stone magazine dicks. Because…why not.