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The Daily Mail Song
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Category Archives: Journalism
Tomorrow’s Fish n Chip Paper
Amazing what you find in the old Sharp Single print archives.
Norton Your Nelly
The dreaded Eurovision Song contest will again soon be upon us. Once Terry Wigon decided he’d had enough of the block voting, any fun to be had pretty much disappeared. I freely admit to spending many a happy Saturday night each spring, chuckling away to the wit n wisdom of Terry as he ripped in to the acts, their costumes, and their dreadful, dreadful songs. For the past few years it has been presented on the BBC by Terry’s fellow Irishman and reluctant celebrity Graham Norton. Eurovision is a poor imitation of its former self.
We can thank the competition for ABBA, and rue the day it introduced the world to Riverdance and the morbidly offensive Michael Flately. The music has always been biblically average, the fashions tragic, and the judging makes FIFA or the IOC seem positively fair and above board. The Russia/Ukraine dynamic will be worth a watch at the very least this year. But none of this really ever mattered as Wogan was as cutting and funny on commentary as Norton isn’t. With the correct amount of Guinness, single malt whisky, chicken dansak and convivial company a Eurovision party was a great source of ironically camp mirth and merriment. And you could always run a book on the outcome while giggly along to Terry’s witty, if mildly xenophobic banter. Norton likes making himself laugh, which he does a lot, but laughing out of context is no real substitute for his predecessor’s class.
Of course to some sections of society it still is one the highlights of the year. The ESC is, rather unsurprisingly, hugely popular in within the gay community. A pal of mine (a confirmed batchelor) runs an extraordinarily popular blog dedicated to Eurovision, which tens and tens of thousands of people visit to find out everything they ever wanted or needed to know about the song contest. Now while I’m not suggesting that everyone who clicks onto that site catches the other bus (I just clicked on it for research purposes, honestly) it’s clear that there is a huge appetite out there for this mincing wince-fest.
The newly-admitted eastern European states have embraced the contest with their huge hairy arms as a chance to express themselves. Where once they only had the excitement of annual Soviet Bloc cabbage-throwing competitions or acid rain drinking contests, Eurovision has given them the chance to show the watching millions how their prog rock and endless folk ditties can compete with the worst that Europe has to offer.
Over in Ireland it’s as eagerly awaited as The World Cup, the Second Coming of the Lord, or the Third Cumming of a Catholic Priest. The Irish have had their share of success over the years (certainly more than they’ve had in soccer or rugby) and to win the contest sends yer average Dubliner into fits of orgasmic delight. Heaven only knows how Gay Irishmen react to a win. Kleenex and change of underwear all round, I would think.
So no, it won’t be on my must-view list this year, I’m afraid. I’m not Irish, I’m ball-breakingly hetrosexual, there’ll be no Sir Terrance W and no song this year (or any other) will ever match My Lovely Horse. They really should have entered it, you know.
Big it up for Channel 4 who won’t let me embed the Father Ted video, but you can see it here.
and now a word from our sponsor…
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Herbert ct Trousers b Sister 4 (mum stopped play)
I was once caught off my brother’s bowling, bat, pad, dog’s arse. Never even went upstairs to the 3rd umpire (or Dad, as he liked to be called).
Cartoon by Nicholson from “The Australian” newspaper: http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au
What’s My Motivation for This?
It’s the little things in life that really get up my nose.
People who step onto a train (or into a lift) before you are able to get off. Wouldn’t it be easier for me to get out first, thus creating room on the train? Never mind common courtesy! Then there are those others who, when you’re waiting for a lift having pressed the button and made it light up, come along in front of you and press that button very same button again- as if you hadn’t thought of doing that. “IT’S ALREADY LIT YOU CABBAGE !! I ALREADY PRESSED IT!!”
They are right up there with people who, while you’re stood holding a door open for them, say nothing and just saunter through. Not a thank you, kiss-your-arse, NOTHING. Or worse, they walk through the open door not even bothering to take their hands out of their pockets to take the door from you. Bastards.
Short people using umbrellas in public places. They are a danger to my eyesight. I’ll go blind soon enough, thank you very much, and don’t need any help from you attacking my retinas with your steely spikey spokey pokey brolly. Then again, I really despise those who take something from you, whether a cup of tea, a pencil or whatever and who not only don’t say thank you, they don’t even look at you by way of acknowledgment. Grrrrr…
While none of these annoyances, taken individually, would force you to unleash the forces of hell, imagine how you would feel if all of the above happened to you in the space of one morning?
Well , welcome to my world.
My bad morning had started early, (as early as last night, in fact) as I’d lost my glasses. This was the first time it’d happened to me in the six weeks since I’d been viewing the world in glorious HD. I was worried, and it irked me. I’d either left them at work, or in the pub, or on the train, or somewhere. Bugger. Still, I was so knackered last night, couldn’t be arsed to worry about them, so I decided to sleep on it.
I woke up this morning and immediately started to worry about them. Bugger. And Charlton had lost again.
With my spare pair of specs (£9.99 Foster Grants from Sainsburys) in my top pocket, I set off for work by my usual train. I don’t like my spare pair. Ok, so they’re approximately £337.21 cheaper than my lost pair, but they do look every bit of that. Ill-fitting, cheap-looking plastic frames and, in all honesty, I can’t see out of them. Dunno why I bothered really.
Having squinted my way through the morning’s reading matter, the train started to pull in to my stop. I made myself ready by the door, the train came to a halt and I pushed the button to open the door. I hadn’t even time to put my worst foot forward across the threshold when a 50-something, short, fat woman pushed her way through the doorway ARSE FIRST, while she closed and shook her umbrella dry. As she try to push her way in, I gave her the gentlest of knees in the sphincter. She stood bolt upright. “Oops, sorry!” I lied, as I squeezed through the rather small gap between her and the doorframe. I didn’t bother looking around to see the look on her face, I have a decent enough imagination on me. I stomped off to work.
In reception, the queue for the coffee bar was too long to worry about so I headed straight for the lift. One of the three lifts had been out of action for weeks so the wait for one of the other two can be irritatingly long. I pressed the button. Nothing happened for a while. Then it did. A youngish bloke holding a grande latte walked in front of me and pushed the button again. I assume he must have been able to hear me snorting behind him. Then he pressed it again, and then taptap…taptaptap, like he was sending morse code. Amazingly, after only seventeen presses of the button, the lift arrived. I said nothing, I just ticked.
Up to the second floor and as the doors opened a girl from the features desk made a feint to get in before I got out. I can only assume the black look on my face, resplendently framed in cheap plastic glasses, put her off. Only a nutcase would wear them, surely. She made a tactical retreat. “Thank you” I barked, forcing a smile.
Down the corridor I huffed, to the door at the end. I could hear footsteps behind me and as I reached for the door and I turned to see a young, suited bloke about ten yards away coming towards me. I pushed the door open, went though and then waited, holding the door for him to take. He walked straight through the gap, saying nothing, leeaving me holding the door as he walked past, like I was his sodding doorman.
“My pleasure” I called after him. He looked over his shoulder and smirked.
“Pig” I added.
I can’t tell you.
The next twelve minutes went relatively well. My mood was much improved by the discovery of my glasses, in their case on the desk where I had indeed left them the night before. Hurrah! All was again well in the world, so I went to buy a round of coffees. Returning to the office, I passed them around to the chaps, and all but one thanked me and offered me the cash. The last bloke, never took his eyes off his pc, just held out his hand for me to give him his cup. Having grabbed it from me, he slurped it and set it down on the desk, eyes still focussing on the screen.
“Oh, don’t mention it, Phil” I squarked.
He didn’t.
I walked over to my desk and booted the waste bin 8ft across the room. Another colleague sniggered, sensing my well-disguised exasperation.
“Well, Mike, if you didn’t wanna work with clowns, you shouldn’t have joined the circus”
And it was still only 10.30.
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And The Winner Isn’t (Original Screenplay)
Scrolling through the list of nominees for this year’s Academy Awards it dawns on me just how few movies I’ve been to see over the past 12 months. I saw Up on a plane and Hurt Locker on DVD. Although a huge movie fan, I’ve always shied away from going to the cinema, preferring to wait til the DVD release. Yes, I’m fully aware that films were made to be watched on the big screen, but a trip to the flicks has always been a less than underwhelming experience for me.
Whatever The Drifters may think, Saturday Night at the Movies was a miserable, wasted night. I could never get comfortable, movie houses having a penchant for packing you in, in rows of seats with airliner leg-room. You couldn’t get a beer (well not in the UK anyway), which means 2 1/2 hours of your weekend wasted, and I always manage to sit in front of someone annoying bastard from one of the following categories:
1. He’s seen the movie before and would give his mates/girlfriend a commentary of the film, using helpful phrases like “oh, this is a good bit” or reciting the upcoming line 2 seconds before it was delivered.
2. He’s bought out the concessions stand in the foyer and would rustle and chomp his way through the whole movie, right in your ear hole.
3. Him and his missus are copulating throughout the film with the accompanying squeaks, giggles and groans being very off-putting. And it’s even worse if the couple happen to be sitting in front of you. A silhouetted head bobbing up and down in the row in front of me once made me miss every third frame of Schindler’s List
4. He laughs heartily at every single gag in the movie, as if he was the scriptwriter.
5. He’s pissed, so all of the above could apply.
And before you tell me that multiplexes now have huge sofas and bars with proper food and drinks served to you, it’s too late. The die has been cast, and anyway it’ll still be full of gits.
Ah! That's more like it
No, even for one with such tolerance for and love of my fellow man, I prefer to watch my films at home from the comfort, peace and quiet of my own sofa, where the only sound is the door of the fridge opening when the Incumbent opens another couple of beers.
It’ll be the first time in ten years that I won’t be participating in TIME magazine‘s Oscar Sweep, where we’d predict/guess who will win which category. But seeing as I’ve watched very few movies this year my chances of winning would be, at best, minimal. Although some of the awards they hand out are so obscure that it’s a complete lottery anyway (who makes notes on their favourite Writing from an Adapted Screenplay ? Certainly not that girl sitting in the row in front of me blowing her boyfriend)
So when the time comes I will be hoping that Hurt Locker romps home with the award for Best (Only)Nominated Picture Seen by Me This Year and UP walks away with Best Animated Feature shown by Oman Air Last November.
Obviously we’ll all be biting our nails, hoping Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wins in the category of Sound Mixing.
Catching 40 Winks in the Rye
I wasn’t going to write about the death of J.D.Salinger. Surely enough has been written? (and he never bothered to leave a comment on these pages). But then I thought I could perform a great service for anyone tempted to read him for the first time following the acres of copy written after his demise. Mr Salinger was a renowned American author, though for many of us, perhaps moreso on this side of the pond, I suspect his name first came into our consciousness via the reported antics of juvenile assassins and teenage mass-murderers.
When I was but a surly youth it seemed that you couldn’t turn on the evening news without someone having been shot down by the NYPD or similar for killing some celebrity such as Lennon or McCartney (well,you can dream) or instigating the massacre of a whole commune of cultish (spellcheck please) and religious nutcases somewhere in the Great American Midwest. Time and time again it seemed that the doers of these dreadful deeds appeared to have read Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye before they decided to pull the trigger.
A conveyor belt of judges and jurors were subjected to the flimsy defence of surviving adolescent would-be murderers, blaming Rye for tipping them over the edge, such was it’s subject matter. It’s touted as a book with “themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation and rebellion”.Read this book, so the theory went, and you’d immediately develop a hatred of tutors, teachers and authority figures everywhere.
“That sounds the very thing for me!” thought a young me, who had already started grooming his black puppy. So I bought myself a copy of the book, fully expecting to turn into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac. There were a few teachers at school who deserved to be vapourised, and this sounded like the very accelerant I needed.
My targets, however, were saved by one small yet important fact : The Catcher in the Rye is a bag of old shite. It is THE dullest collection of self-important ramblings ever written (and I’ve read The Daily Mail). It IS , honest. There I was, aching for an excuse to end it all, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a cure from insomnia. The only people I wanted to kill after reading it were Salinger, his agent and his publisher. I may be wrong about this, but I doubt it. Feel free to tell me otherwise.
If you really want to get angry or depressed, or dabble in a spot of murder why not ingest a tome by Elizabeth Gilbert? Her brand of sickly shit chick-lit has already landed her a movie contract for the dramatisation of her first great work Eat Love Pray, a piece of celluloid sewage soon to be at a movie theatre far away from me, and starring Julia Roberts (shame on you). It’s another example of the creeping crud that is blighting all our lives. Let’s strangle this bollocks at birth.
If on the other hand you don’t live your life through Desperate Housewives or Bridget Jones, and would like to rebel against this post-feminist, Spice Girl/Anna Wintour/Alpha Female fuckfest which is infesting our arts and media (and would enjoy having a wee titter along the way) can I suggest you look no further than the magnificent drinkcursehate.wordpress.com. It’s a website written by three blokes who want to live as blokes in the world they thought they were growing up into during the 70’s, not as the cowering, emasculated sheep which a diet of Sex in the City, Strictly Come Shopping or Eat Love Pray would have them be. It hopes to be the antidote to Marie Claire and the Mail on Sunday. You might like it. Especially if you happen to be a fella.
Finally, a little self-congrats: Happy 1st Anniversary, The Sharp Single. Who said it’d never last? Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell anyone with money who might want to pay me money to write this kind of rubbish.
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Brothers in Arms
A couple of years ago I spent several great nights in a fantastic bar. And not just any old fantastic bar, but Robert’s Western World in Nashville, Tennessee, probably one of the great bars anywhere. On the face of it, there’s nothing remarkable about it: It’s a small, glass-fronted boozer, with the bar running down the length of one side, shelves full of cowboy boots running down the other and the beers pretty dire (we are in the State’s after all). But there’s enough whisky (sipping or otherwise), stetsons, dancing, good ol’ boys and sensational live bands to keep anyone happy for oh, about 12 hours a night, I reckon.
I’d been recommended this bar by my old mate and former colleague Jim Frederick (that’s him above, left , trying to keep the author upright, in front of the stage in Robert’s). Jim knew that me and my pal Shaun would be in Nashville and arranged to meet us there.
He had left the UK to return home to the States to write a book of the true story of some US soldiers who go into a spot of bother in Iraq. In fact they got into a lot of bother. A lot of his research took Jim to Kentucky and Tennessee and the Army posts and barracks thereabouts.
The three of us settled in for a long night of chat and booze, country music playing and boots stamping all around us. As the three of us drank and jawed our way though the evening, Jim had Shaun and I spellbound by his story, a sad, occasionally horrific, always gripping tale of boys plucked from the suburbs, given a gun, shouted at and sent abroad to fight. What happened to them created headlines all around the world and is an astounding yarn of the effects and the stresses of battle on our fighting forces. I demanded a copy of the book when it came out.
A night or two later (or it may have been that same night, my memory isn’t what it was) into this maelstrom of Johnny Cash tribute bands, blue-grass guitars, hoopings-and-a-hollerings, and yee-haws, walked a young lad and his family. The relatives had come into town for a drink and to toast this young man and wish him good luck. He was off overseas to fight in one of the wars in which America was involved.
He was in his number 1’s, USMC mess uniform, immaculately turned out, tightly cropped blonde hair and looked about 17 years old.
And he looked absolutely terrified.
Then a very strange thing happened to me: I stood up as he walked by and I shook his hand, wishing him good luck. Dunno why I did that. Have never considered myself a war-monger, and am no great patriot (even in my own country, let alone theirs) but yet I felt this was the correct thing to do. I guess it was because I could see the fear in this lads eyes, and got angry at the madness and folly of sending our youth to the slaughter, leaving the politicians thousands of miles behind at home to spin their corrupt webs.
I’ve never been that close to a Marine before or since (during our stay, everywhere was swarming with young soldiers on their way to, or returning from some conflict-or-other). It’s not something you see very often back home, thank god. But without getting too daft about it, I will remember that boy’s face for a very, very long time.
Anyway, the book’s out now, and I’m about to order it. So should you.
Fatty Owls
The Null Stern- bring your own pyjamas
News reaches me of the world’s first zero star hotel. The Null Stern Hotel (slogan: ‘The Only Star is You’) in Switzerland is a converted nuclear bunker where, for for six quid (about 1 Euro at present) you get a military-style bunkbed for the night, hot water bottles rather than central heating, and earplugs to blockout the din of the ventilation system. Who gets a hot shower in the morning and who’s shower is cold is determined by drawing lots.
All very shocking, I’m sure, but does it really deserve no stars? And if it does, I’d like to nominate a few more which deserve that honour. One that immediately springs to mind is the lovely en-suite double I once stayed at in Morecambe. En-suite, it technically was, but the bathroom was of Fawlty Towers proportions. I literally had to open the door to lean forward to wipe my bum. Lovely. Especially for my partner.
Then there was the establishment in Blackpool where a turd was discovered in the cleaner’s bucket (though that may have been left there by one of the guests), not forgetting the B&B above The Swan in Bath with 1 room, five beds and a sink, which one night trebled-up as a wash basin, urinal and bidet.
Closer to home there’s Blackheath’s very own Clarendon Hotel, which stands above the village as a beacon of overpriced misery, a monument to peeling paint, a seven-star shabby shit-pit, spewing out streams of swindled Spaniards, irate Italians and dejected Gerries onto the surrounding streets and environs as they spend a gruesome night there as part of their coach trip round Britain. They’re easy to spot wandering around the bars and eateries of the village, all with that same bemused look on their faces as they struggle to come to terms with where their tour company has billeted them for the night.
At one newspaper I worked at, district men and foreign correspondents were put up in the Clarendon for the night if they were called to the London office. They threatened to strike until the company eventually found a proper hotel.
I stayed there once, during my divorce malarky. I stayed in a single room of such drabness, smallness and all-round lessness that, even in my misery of a break-up, I pitied the poor French or Japanese sods who have to put up with ‘traditional quaint British hospitality’, and fork-out a fortune for the privilege. I can’t remember exactly what they charged my for that room, but it in the neighbourhood of a hundred quid. What must the visitors think of us?
On the other hand, sometimes the guests are actually worse than the hotel: On a rugby club tour one year, and after a particularly long and boysterous first night in our hotel, an ashen-faced hotelier staggered into the breakfast room the following morning to address us.
“I’ve been in the hotel trade for 35 years and that was the the worst behaviour I’ve ever seen” he whimpered.
“Stick around!” came a voice from the back.
It makes an abandoned nuclear bunker in Switzerland seem quite appealing.
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Pleasantries Aside
It fooled me every time.
As a nipper, from about the age of four or five, every so often I was allowed to stay up and watch telly a little while longer than was usual. My usual bedtime was, say, 8 o’clock but there I’d be, still sitting on the couch as the music to The Sweeney started playing. It would have dawned on me long before that that I was up way after my allotted time and assumed my folks were so engrossed in the Onedin Line or World in Action that they’d completely forgotten I was there.
So I’d sit there, making like a cushion, motionless and noiseless for fear that one little cough, giggle or fart may awaken them from this Peter Gilmore-induced trance and dispatch me off up the wooden hill to beddybyes. In my heart, I knew that the chances of snatching a few early frames of The Sweeny, or even better I CLAVDIVS were slim indeed, but you never know your luck in a big city.
The following morning I would be left to doze in bed, in place of the usual reveille from mum to my brother and me, and the ensuing scramble for the bathroom. No, on those mornings I was left under the duvet. On one occasion, I heard my bro out on the landing asking mum “Is Mike not going to school today?”
“No”, she replied, “Mike has a dentist’s appointment today”
“AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.
THAT’S WHY THEY’VE BEEN NICE TO ME!!!!!! I HAVE TO GO TO THE SODDING DENTIST !!!!!!!!!!”
Like most boys of my age (45), I hate(d) the dentist with a real passion and mum knew that if she’d told me I had an appointment the following day a hissy fit would ensue. To guard against that, she would leave it until the last possible moment to break the news to me. She’d then have about half an hour to placate me before the bus journey to the house of pain that was Mr Nash’s surgery. She’d sugar the pill by letting me off school for the rest of the day and I would be bought a Matchbox or Dinky toy car from the corner shop for being ‘such a brave boy’ when Mr Nash announced I need three fillings and an extraction (which is what he invariably said).
This series of events occurred every six months for four or five years (or til I was about 38, depending on who you believe). Special treats for tea, Hotwheels races all over the lounge (front room) floor, staying up late, tucked up in bed, long lie in, and then BOOM!!! Mother dropped the big one.
I’m not suggesting that on other occasions I had a miserable time at home, far from it. We all got on well and I had a happy childhood on the whole, but every six months the niceness levels were cranked up to an eleven, and I never worked out what was occurring until it was too late.
What a young, gullible little fool I was as a boy, but at least I got a car out of it.
It’s been a hectic time at work of late and things have boiled over once or twice. There have been a few heated discussions, not to say snipes and arguments. I’ve put it all down to teething troubles and pressure of the new job. To be honest I haven’t yet felt fully part of this new team, been feeling a bit of a fringe-player. But we’re getting there gradually and yesterday I was in such a good place and state of progress at work that I upped stumps and scarpered a little bit earlier than usual, thus enabling me to go to the ‘tranquil’ Blackheath and quaff some vitamin G with The Incumbent and some like-minded pals. Sod’s Law dictated that, having made my early bid for freedom from the office, the DLR was giving its usual piss-poor impression of a commuter system and it took me a little while longer than was hoped to get home. You always have plenty of time to think on a DLR journey, even if you‘re only going one stop, so I spent the time ticking mental boxes from today’s work: Photo shoot done and in? Check; Research under way ? Check; Telephone calls made? Check, Check; Invoices paid ? Checkeroodle-doo. Happy days.
A pleasant evening was had by all and after my usual 4 hours of restless, broken and uncomfortable sleep, (see past posts) I made my way into the office. I was second in. Already in his seat was a guy who I’ve worked with for a few months. He’s ok. A wee bit offish, but ok. Hasn’t been very chatty, at least not to me, we’ve just co-existed really. This morning, however, things took a decided turn for the better: We actually had a pleasant conversation. Out of nowhere he asked me how I was! We discussed our plans for the weekend, football, cricket and cake. All rather pleasant indeed. Perhaps the initial tension between us was wearing off, or like so many before him he had realised what a spiffing chap I actually was, and not just a fat mockney prat in a suit. As people drifted in to start their days work, the mood was happy, chipper and friendly. And more to the point, they were happy, chipper and friendly towards ME! Now this was more like it! I’d turned the corner. Someone bought in muffins and we, WE, scoffed them. I must say everyone was being jolly nice.
When will I ever learn?
BOOM!!
The boss walked in and ripped me a new sphincter. The shoot was shit the research not what he wanted and hurryupandsortitoutcosIhaveameetingwiththebossatnoonandthisisnotgonnabegoodenoughandyouveputusallbehindanditsnotveryprofessionalandandandandand…
To be honest, I dunno what he’d really said. He’d lost me at ‘shit’. I’d already drifted off, thinking of the lovely hour I’d spent with my colleagues earlier in the day. They’d known what was coming my way. Presumably something was said last night while I was making my early escape. The chat and the muffins was a condemned man’s last treat. They’d taken pity on me, like you take pity on a poor dog the morning before you take him to the V-E-T to have his K-N-A-C-K-E-R-S whipped off.
It’s blown over again now, as these things tend to do. Business carries on as usual, workplace calm again, we are talking pleasantly again, it’ll all work itself out. But one thing I’ve leaned from all of this: Never trust anyone who’s nice to you, and don’t spit muffin all over the boss when you’re defending yourself.
So that’s two things.
The Sharp Single 