Awards Season
Image
1
Monthly Archives: February 2013
A Good Week to Bury a Bad King
Man is attacked by plasticine while playing Richard III, Peckham Town Hall
Apparently, when the great and the good the boffins and the geeks, the beardies and the weirdies assembled the press to great fanfare and pomp to announce the results of a recent dig, they decided to do so in a long and drawn-out manner— the idea being to keep the world and its media on the edge of their seats and build the suspense to a Hitchcockian level. Unfortunately for them, by the time their little show had come to a climax and they were to actually, finally reveal their findings into whether or not the body underneath a car park in Leicester was indeed that of the much-maligned King Richard III of England (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) news events elsewhere had taken precedent and, by the wonders of modern electronic communication, the reporters and photographers, the news hounds and correspondents, the hacks and the monkeys had been ordered by their newsrooms to clear out and go cover the news that a prominent British politician had persuaded his wife to take the blame for a traffic misdemeanour, and to accept the penalty points for speeding. The news agenda had overtaken the professors in Leicester and they were rudely reminded that they, rather like this paragraph, had taken far too long to get to their point. When they were finally ready to reveal all, they had lost the attention of everyone save the man from Leicester Car Park Weekly and the reporter from Cockney Rhyming Slang Gazette. You might say they had Leicester talk to. Then again you might not.
You gotta feel sorry for them though. I’ve since heard many say that they should have front-loaded the announcement, should have got the important and relevant info up front to satisfy newspapers and The Daily Express alike. But what were the chances of their declaration of national importance being usurped by another in a long line of dodgy Liberal Democrat gaffes ? They felt they were safe with the only story in town to risk a long, drawn-out build-up.
Wrong.
There are some days when I watch the tv news at 5.00 am (I’ve told you about my sleep patterns, right ?) only to switch on the bulletin again at 10 o’clock that night and sit through exactly the same bulletin as I’d seen some 17 hours previously. The lead story on both would be a new Michael Gove initiative for schools, Scotland experiencing a cold snap, or something equally as riveting.
But this week is somehow different.
There are, very occasionally, times when I miss working in the news industry. Not often, just every now and then. This week would have to be one of those times. How much fun must it be to be in a newsroom at the moment ? Take this lunchtime’s T’BBC news broadcast, for example:
ITEM 1. Children in Lancashire (it’s in the north somewhere. Near the BBC, oddly) have been served up with horse meat in their cottage pies (a menu item which, for the foreign readers’ benefit, is a rite of passage for UK children of the lower classes.). This is one of those stories (like hospital killer bugs, foxes/dingos stole/ate my baby, or GangNam Style dancing by celebrities or sportsmen) that keep on giving and keep papers going to the real silly season starts (usually just after Easter Monday).
Imagine if there was horse meat served (gedditt?) at Wimbledon or Ascot Ladies’ Day how much hilarity would ensure ? [“News” editors are normally seconded from the Features Dept or the Fashion desk during Ladies’ Day when “Woman Wears Frock” suddenly becomes a news item. Real news men would be incapable of recognising great stories like that. Thank Buddah I was one of those men.]
ITEM 2. Oscar Pistorius weeps in court having been charged with murdering his model girlfriend (run VT of bikini shots), and confronted with the phrase “premeditated murder”. When this one broke in the early hours of the previous morning, the scuttlebutt was that dear, dear old Oscar mistook the missus for an intruder and, as is de rigueur in the “Rainbow” Nation, shot the shit of of him/her, preferring to ask questions later. However we are now told that Oscar and Reeva had a bit of previous on the domestic dust-up department, and therefore he’s been hauled up in front of the beak for planning the whole thing.
This is a huge story. Huge. Obviously not as huge as meat being found in a school meal, but large, nevertheless. I put it to you, more people in the world know of The Blade Runner than knew of OJ Simpson before he definitely didn’t kill his missus. Pistorius wins track races without legs. The world knows this and he is the face of Paralympic sport. OJ was a footballer. Or a Basketball player. We outside the States knew he was famous for something over there and went along with the furore and spectacle of CNN’s first live news story that didn’t involve watching huge cannon fire things into a desert, beautifully commentated on by Christianne Amanpour though it may have been.
The enduring image of the OJ Trial was of the guilty party innocent man claiming proving for the cameras that some gardening gloves didn’t fit him. It’s gonna be a bit tougher for Oscar if he tries that defence with his lower limbs. (As a side note, I was told a good few years back by a sports journo that Pistorious was the most obnoxious, self-centred, arrogant man he’d ever met. That certainly doesn’t make him a murderer but may explain why he’s loved and admired all over South Africa.)
Back to the news.
ITEM 3. Coronation Street Star accused of 19 (count ’em) NINETEEN sex offences including raping a child, indecently assaulting a child and sexual activity with a child. A man who has starred on our screens, apparently, for 30 years is arrested for multiple sex offences comes in a poor third in the running order behind a Palamino Pasty and an accused without, frankly, a leg to stand on. We have become very blasé about sex offenders in this country. The Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter cases seem to have dulled our senses to any more kiddy-fiddling stories (more of which later), and as famous as this latest bloke surely is in his native third world of Mancunia, he ain’t no Stuart Hall, allegedly. Or maybe he is. So third place he stays, behind the Paralympian and just ahead of:
ITEM 4: 950 injured as meteors crash to earth. I’m sorry, I’ll re-type that : 950 injured as meteors crash to earth. Yes, you read that right: Nine Hundred and Fifty. Injured by Meteors. METEORS. This isn’t a FOURTH story of the day. This is the stuff of Hollywood. This is some cock-awful dreadful movie starring Bruce Willis and Nick Cage (with, perchance, a cameo by Jude Law as a lump of moon rock) and Tom Wilkinson playing the retired Astronaut. I can see it now. Or rather I can’t. I couldn’t possibly. But you know what I mean. It’s made for filming. And whatever happens, it couldn’t possibly be a worse movie than Armadeddon (1988) Dir Michael Bay . Could it ? Really. But instead, like journalists in a Leicester car park we have to wade through all frippery of mass poisonings, celebrity murders and serial rapists before we get to the , ahem, meat of the matter which is THE WORLD IS BEING DESTROYED BY ASTEROIDS. Or something. A clue as to why this story was so far down the running order is to be found when you see that it all happened in the Urals. Fucking Russians. Fuck ’em. If it had happened in Bangladesh they would have hidden it between “Local Man Bitten By Local Dog, Locally” and “Mayor of London wins Rear of the Year”
So there you have it. Time your news conferences and special events carefully. In a busy week, you never know which story will hog all the coverage. What you think is earth-shattering news will be overtaken by events and quickly be forgotten. Just ask the scientists, still there talking in a Leicester car park. Or that ex-Hitler Youth, Peadophile Apologist who retired this week— he’s hardly had a look-in since.
See: You’ve forgotten him already !
STOP PRESS:
Yes, it was Richard III. Please tell the world (unless you’ve already buggered off).
That Would Explain a Lot, Freddie
Image
…And the Winner Is
Best Performance in a Leading Roll (in a Foreign Comedy)
In a tightly contested race, the award of biggest comedian on show yesterday went to the French No.10 Frédéric Michalak for his near perfect portrayal of an explosion in an idiot factory during an amateur production of Les Miserables in Paris last night. Michelak, although easily carrying off the award (while trying not to drop it), had to fight off some pretty strong competition, notably from the likes of The Stade de France groundsman, Monsieur Herbe du Somme; Scotland’s own Jim Hamilton for Sunday Morning Lummox —his harrowing portrayal of a 1974 ExB Lock Forward with a forearm smash addiction; and Luciano Orquera, the Italian Outside-Half for his reprise of the Daniel Day Lewis‘s role from My Left Foot.
But in the end the award rightly went to Michelak for possibly the most embarrassing display by an old man on a sports field since Muhammed Ali ‘fought’ Trevor Berbick or Henry Leconte stopped his ‘zany’ antics on the ATP veterans tour. Michelak, of course, even in his prime could never be accused of having been an Ali, but yesterday many french rugby fans were heard to dub him “Leconte”. Or something like that.
The 30 year of from the south of France (born To Lose Toulouse 1982) is also in the running for Worst Director of 14 Other Men, and The Academy‘s honorary Do Us All a Favour and Hang Up Your Boots Award (colloquially known as The Warnie), but has been withdrawn from circulation until further notice, having been found to contain at least 90% donkey.
Upright Grandiose
A movie which is sure to pack them in when it previews at this years Tory Party Conference, “Beyond the Candelabra” is a biopic by Steven Soderbergh and features Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover, as shown is the magnificent image above. If you listen very carefully you’ll hear the hurrumphing sound of a million homophobes lining up to criticise the release, even before they’ve seen it. Give it a little while and the usual suspects will be commenting on it right here.
The movie has already run into trouble for, would you believe it, ‘camping-up’ the story. One thing’s for sure, there’s no way Liberace would want any Hollywood portrayal of him to come across as too gay:
“Brokeback Mountain” and “Milk” may have captivated audiences and swept award shows in recent years, but it seems Hollywood still has some reservations when it comes to portraying gay content on the big screen.
Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh has revealed that many studios weren’t exactly keen on “Behind the Candelabra,” his much-anticipated Liberace biopic which is now set to air on HBO.
“Nobody would make it,” Soderbergh told The New York Post of his new movie, which stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. “We went to everybody in town. They all said it was too gay.”
Soderbergh, whose credits include “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Traffic,” as well as last summer’s smash “Magic Mike,” said he was “stunned” by the response.
“This is after ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ by the way, which is not as funny as this movie,” he recalled. “The studios didn’t know how to sell it. They were scared.”
Damon, who plays the long-term lover of Liberace (Douglas), has previously said of the film, “These two men were deeply in love and in a real relationship — a marriage — long before there was gay marriage…The script is beautiful and relatable. Their conversations when they’re dressing or undressing or having a spat or getting ready for bed? That’s every marriage.
(Huffington Post)
Who Nameth This Child ?
Gotta love this from last week’s Independent Online.
Billy ‘36′ Twelvetrees and the best nicknames in sport
By Paul Howarth
Nicknames perform important functions. Some represent the high regard in which the recipient is held: Ace, The Panther, Big Man, Love Machine, that sort of thing. But enough of my school days. Others confer a sense of belonging, of acceptance to a group: Mr Cricket, The Kid, Eric The Red.
But, personally, I prefer the ones that give me a good old belly laugh.
Billy ‘36’ Twelvetrees
What a start to the Six Nations. I’ll let the proper rugby writers dissect England’s new sense of adventure, Ireland’s thrilling near-collapse in Cardiff and Italy’s monumental achievement in overturning the hapless French.
What I want to celebrate here is the emergence onto the international stage of the man with the finest nickname in the modern game.
Respect to Geordan Murphy. It’s thanks to his Dublin accent that we arrive at this piece of mastery. As in “Twelve trees are tirty six.”
Mark Waugh – ‘Afghanistan’
Life isn’t fair, is it? Mark Waugh was one of the most elegant batsmen ever to take the crease. He was graceful, technically correct, possessed of a cover drive that somehow managed to be both languid and violent, and able to whip good-length balls from outside off-stump through mid-wicket better than anyone bar Viv Richards. Not only that but he remains the finest slip fielder I’ve ever seen, gobbling up catches off seamers and spinners alike in kid-leather hands.
And what nickname did this giant of the game get saddled with, being less of an early flourisher than his brother? ‘Afghanistan’: the forgotten Waugh.
Such is the luck of the draw when you’re a twin, I guess, particularly when that twin is the relentless Steve Waugh (another epithet Mark had to put up with was ‘Junior’). However, one member of the Barmy Army once tried to redress the balance by shouting, “Oi, Stephen. Best batsman in the world? You ain’t even the best batsman in your family!”
Alex Loudon – ‘Minotaur’
Cricket seems to throw up amusing nicknames for fun. The late Graham Dilley was known as ‘Picca’. Allan Lamb was, perhaps more obviously, called ‘Legga’.
My favourite of all time, though, even surpassing dear old Mark Waugh, was the title bestowed on Alex Loudon. Although a highly talented all-rounder, Loudon never quite fulfilled his potential, gaining a solitary One-Day International cap for England. He became known as ‘Minotaur’ because, as someone put it, “that’s all he ever went on.”
Still, Loudon had the last laugh. He quit the game and started dating Pippa Middleton.
‘One Size’ Fitz Hall
I shall never, ever tire of this one.
I could go on about how appropriate a moniker it is for a journeyman pro with an uncompromising style who’s equally at home in midfield as at centre-half.
But, really, it’s just a very funny pun.
Martin ‘Chariots’ Offiah
Brilliant on so many levels, this. As the man himself once explained when asked why he got the nickname:
“Because I could run very fast, I suppose,” he told the interviewer, exhibiting the sort of incisiveness that brought him 501 career tries, “and it rhymed with how people pronounce my last name.”
Reading between the lines, “how people pronounce” his last name is not the way that it should be pronounced. Something like ‘OFF-y-ah’ is more correct, I believe. But, hey, let’s not let that ruin a high-quality piece of wordplay.
Stuart ‘Britsa’ Broad
I know I’ve banged on about cricketers a bit. But I can’t resist finishing on yet another.
You probably won’t have heard this. Mainly because the group among which it’s been shared has, thus far, been quite exclusive. For me and a select band of cricket fans, the current England set-up includes characters such as ‘Tinker’, ‘Foxy’, ‘Yogi’, ‘Previous’ and ‘Vesta’. But there’s one who stands head and shoulders above the others, and not just because he’s 6’5”.
Ladies and gentlemen, in case you haven’t read the sub-head above, I give you Stuart ‘Britsa’ Broad.
Beat that if you can…
Absinthe Friends
Pictured during the Sharp Single’s 4th Anniversary Celebrations, held at the Huhne & Gove Wine Bar, Sidcup. Mr P de Paris drinks from a glass-blown replica of the legendary ‘Nose of Heckler’. Interpol are distributing a description of the jacket to all schools, hospitals and border agencies. Photo—Bing Indisheaves.
Six Nations Final Score
Wales 23 vrs 30 Ireland.
Dogshit Park.
(No boots in the bar, please)
Wales’ Jonathan Davies‘ (no relation) turn to put the urn on (he’s done sod all else today). Wales to go on to play Basingstoke Ex A in the Plate competition, where they will field their new signing, the unexpectedly available, Peter Odemwingie, formerly of QPR WBA.
Get It Down, You Zulu Warrior
Here’s something from someone called @WelshDalaiLama on Twitter. All good fun and optimistic on his part I reckon, but well-intentioned for all that. Once the Welsh Oozalem themselves into Wooden Spoon position, I suspect they won’t need the rules of a game to dive into the bottom of a bottle or glass. My doctor has advised me not to be driving or be near heavy machinery during an “epic” monologe by Eddie Butler of the Observer (he changed his name by Deed Poll), but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye (or ear) out for Pit Bullisms.
It seems the BBC have come up trumps with the amount of coverage they have during this year’s northern hemisphere Rugby competition, with “Live and Exclusive” coverage of the Championship promised. They certainly do seem to be very excited at wrestling the coverage from Bitter Barnsey and Woeful Will over on Sky. Though I feel that the BEEB may soon be accused of overkill in the not-too-distant future. Breakfast News’ hilariously awful Mike Bushell this morning chose the Millenium Stadium to misread his own pisspoor script in what seemed like a mini-series rather than a sports report. We are promised much more from him throughout the tournament. Oh Deep Joy!
I’m also hearing that every evening at 11pm there will be a live discussion programme on the big Rugby issues of the day, hosted by Claire Balding and Keith Vaz MP, as it is written in the Charter of the BBC that they should appear for at least 12 minutes every hour of every day the company broadcasts. At least that’s how it feels at the moment.
As usual, some of the information above may not be true at time of publication (apart from the bits about Wales and Mike Bushell).
The Sharp Single 