Category Archives: TV

Everybody talk about Pop Muzik

Posted on by
10

I’ve always had an odd taste in music. I was pretty much ‘down wiv da kids’ all the way up until the early 80s, but then The Jam broke up, punk was long gone, and the ska and reggae revivals had pretty much had their day. So I started going back in time to discover sounds new to my ears, but old hat to everyone else.

I can probably trace this first spark of curiosity to when I first saw the John Landis movie The Blues Brothers. I was captivated by the music of all these people I’d vaguely heard of but never actually heard nor seen: “Ah, so that’s what James Brown looks like ? He’s the man !” ” Jesus – I now see what all the fuss about Aretha Franklin‘s all about.” “Do love that John Lee Hooker. What a cool dude.” ” WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ????  “Oh- that’s a Cab Calloway. Wonderful stuff.”

It was but a few short steps from hearing that stuff for the first time to discovering Buddy Holly, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley (and any other old popular acts which will boost me up the Google rankings).

I was in my element and I loved it. For the next 20-odd years all I ever did was listen to old stuff (ok, ok, of course I kept tabs on Status Quo and Chas n Dave, but a man’s gotta keep up with the times, ain’t he ?). I was experimenting with music in the way young kids in the 60s dabbled in The Doors, The Rolling Stones and hallucinogenic drugs. It was the same music for me, just 15 years later and with tea & peanut M&Ms.

In the early 21st century I left my shaded safe haven of Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell albums, into bright new world of singer-songwriters like Nora Jones, William Elliott Whitmore, Diana Krall, Jack Johnson and the like. You know, the singers that sound exactly like  Joplin, Dylan, Cash and Mitchell. At least I was consistent. Like a Japanese soldier, I emerged into the light, not asking “Is the war over yet?” more like “has Kurt Cobain stopped wailing shite yet?”.

And as luck would have it, he had.

In this way I (thankfully) missed New Romantics, Rap, Housey Housey, Hiphop, Britpop or anything else masquerading as entertainment.  When most were listening to the Gallagher Brothers, I was more than likely listening to the Everly Brothers or even the Doobies. When the naive easily-led young fools of the world were discovering The Smiths, I was genning up on The Temptations. I didn’t think anything could be as abhorrent or sounds as bad as Soft Cell or Morrissey – until I accidentally overheard Oasis and Eminem.

So (and this is where we get to the bit where I disclose why I’ve been wasting your time with all this self-opinionated rubbish) it was with some surprise that I stumbled across this (by way of a Viz magazine tweet) today and found myself wondering: why the hell haven seen this before ? I have never listened to Depeche Mode back-to-back before, but I sure had at least one second-take at this one. If I’d had known back in 1982 that this existed I’m sure I would have hit paue on my tape deck on which Songs for Swinging Lovers was playing (or was that 12 Gold Bars ?)

So in case you missed it (and, as I say, I could have saved us all a lot of time) I give you: Deepche Mode. Performing (miming to) See You.   Holding chickens.

I dunno what the hell they were thinking, but from being a song I couldn’t stand to hear, this video is now strangely alluring.    Chickens.

Jobs for the Boys and Girls.

Posted on by
2

I’ve had a few decent jobs. I’ve had a couple of bloody awful ones too. I spent a good deal of my working life at The Telegraph; then a decent amount of time in London at TIME Magazine. I spent only a few months in the employ of Rupert Murdoch, but I don’t think he misses me. He’s probably got plenty on his plate to worry about at the moment anyway. Mr Dacre doesn’t lay awake at night wondering why I only did a couple of weeks freelancing on his Daily Mail. At least I assume he doesn’t. How much time Alexander Lebedev spends wishing I was still at The Independent, only he knows. When he gets too depressed about it, he goes off and punches someone, I hear. Robert Maxwell fell off his boat before I got the chance of working for him. Pity.

So you’d think that the constant moaning and whingeing from her father might have put a young Bealing off of journalism, wouldn’t you ? Well apparently not.

If you click on the picture above you’ll see an interview with former Tory politician Ann Widdecombe, the first raft of questions being asked by my eldest daughter Lucy (bottom right hand corner of this photo) . The more observant of you will notice Lucy keeps here questions to Ann’s role in Strictly Come Dancing rather than tackle her on political issues. It’s probably for the best: Her dad, whereas he would have struggled to come up with anything coherent or relevant to ask about Strictly, would have ended up on an assault charge should he ever have had to ask Widdecombe about her “struggle against Socialism”. Probably why her dad ended up as a picture editor, rather than an interviewer. You’ll also note that Lu speaks the Queen’s English unlike her father. Another advantage she has over me.

So that’s my eldest sorted out for the future, but the job market is a precarious one. My current job of “Watching Columbo and Printing T-Shirts” is one of my favourite jobs I’ve had, it just doesn’t pay anything like I thought it might. Almost the opposite in fact. On the other hand, I’m working at a place I like (home) with people I like (my mate Rob) and the hours are pretty good.

It could be worse, I could be Andrew Strauss who’s looking particularly precarious in his job as England cricket captain, his team having lost its fourth test match in a row. There’s no disgrace losing in Sri Lanka. The conditions are brutally hot and the pitches are so different from those in England that you’d need to be a particular talent to pull off a win, especially in Galle which has the reputation of being a graveyard for English players, and in particular English bowlers.

Bealing leads off The Fleet St Exiles having taken 6-22, taking them to a
3 wickets victory against the Sri Lankan Airways XI, Galle, Sri Lanka 2005

Then again some people are luckier than others. My good mate Dave has finally ended his long wait for a permanent job by landing a plumb one on a magazine. It’s been a long wait for him and I was thrilled when he called to tell me he’s landed it. Well done, Wavey ! Then there’s rugby’s Stuart Lancaster who has just been given the job which everyone in the country (57 Old Farts aside) thought he should have been given weeks ago. The new English Rugby Coach has fought off seemingly nearly every other coach in the world for the job before the old Twats of Twickenham finally run out of South Africans to turn them down. The RFU were forced to give the job to Lancaster, something they should have done when it was clear he a) knew how to coach a rugby team and b) had no time for show ponies. Celebrity coach he ain’t. And thank fuck for that.

Andy Robinson keeps his job. Yes, really. The Scotland coach had presided over a team which last won a match in black&white but somehow managed to convice the SRFU that he’s the one for the post. Can there be another man in the country (and yes, we can still count Scotland in that) who’s luckier to be still employed ? No, not if you don’t count Francis Maude there isn’t.

The Idiot Saville Row Tory Cabinet Office Minister Maude emplored drivers to fill up their Jerrycans with petrol and prepare for fuel shortages due to the tanker driver’s strike and that “there are lives at stake”. Once people had Googled what a Jerrycan was (apparently not everyone’s obsessed by WWII like me), checked that there is no strike (and won’t be one for at least a fortnight, and even then, probably not) and that the tanker drivers weren’t using Mad Max II technology to threaten people’s lives and protect the remaining gasoline, everyone assumed Maude would be taken round the back by Dave and Gideon and pummeled to death with his own Jerrycan. Sadly not.

“Half a tank of unleaded and 3 lucky dips for tonight’s lottery, please mate.” – a scene from Mad Maude II: The Road Warrior

For starters, Dave was too busy telling us how much he loved Pasties, and about the hilarious incident when he recently bought a pasty on Leeds railway station from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. MMMMmmmmmmm….Yum Yum. Trouble is all the poor sods at the Leeds station branch of the West London Pasty Company lost their jobs in 2007. So all that justification by Dave, all that gettin dahn wiv da prols an da kidz was, ow u say,  a load of old bollocks.

Still, Dave’ll soon have some proper opposition in Parliament to point out all his mistakes, scandals, lies and wrong-doings. George Galloway is back in a job. Sadly, it’s true. The Big Brother Cat Impersonator is back in his job as an MP, this time by winning a by-election in Bradford West, a once Labour stronghold. George won by a landslide by campaigning on one issue: An anti-Afghan War campaign in the predominantly-muslim neighbourhoods of Bradford West. He even intimated earlier in the campaign he actually was a musilm (he isn’t really).

Just fancy that: A tv celebrity, however micro and annoying to you and me, campaigns in a Muslim area against a war seen by many to be anti-muslim, securing a 10,000 majority and WINNING a by-election in a previously Labour heartland. Now who could have predicted that ? Should anyone in Labour be brought to account for this humliation? Should Mr Millipede still be in his job ?

Magherafelt’s Got Talent

Posted on by
2

Of course, Simon Cowell didn’t invent it ….

This is one of those videos you’re sent and think “ooh! 9 mins 10. That’s gonna be far too long to bother with.” Fear not , my friends, time will just fly as you watch this one.

It leaves you with so many questions, and here are just a few which occurred to me:

Was this filmed by the world’s shortest cameraman ? Why didn’t Emperor Roscoe (and his performing genitalia) appear on TV more often ? What, apart from a huge wig and some superglue,  did contestant #1, John Henry, ask for on his 27th birthday (and if he’s 26 I’m a bad disco dancer) ? Where can I buy an Atmosphere Extractor for my house like the one used by this Discotheque ? And why don’t more people dance like Cossacks , as demonstrated by number 10 (H.Moore) and his enormous performing trousers ? And why is he “dancing” to the theme from Crimewatch ?

I’m sure you’ll have your own questions. Meanwhile :

Download Part II yourself to see who won, if indeed anybody actually did.

SHARPSINGLEPIEAD

Going Back to a Simpler Place and Time (Woo Woo!)

Posted on by
1

The Incumbent suggested I might like to look up on Youtube the latest sensation to take to the stage in Britain’s Got Talent. In the spirit of Susan Boyle, the producers have unearthed a young lad with the face of a fat Ross Noble and the voice of an Italian fiver. The missus was drawn to tears by the young man’s performance, and quite right too. I always cry when I watch a show including David Walliams but this time I had moist mince pies not because the poor man’s Michael MacIntyre was on the box again, but because he was on a panel (how ? HOW?) judging the worth of various acts. This eclectic bunch had, presumably, seen he’d had his own TV show and thought “well, if he can make a couple of quid with bugger all talent at all, I must have half a chance”.

Walliams, like the other half of the new BBC Sports line-up, John Bishop, is about as funny accidentally ending up at Michael Barrymore’s holiday home in Homs, Syria  where he’s holding a comeback swimming pool and toilet brush party. Recently, in lieu of telling shite jokes, the gruesome twosome have donned swimming trunks and taken the place of horse racing, Formula1, cricket, Football and Rugby. Just in case you find yourself enjoying it, Mike Bushell pops up to fuck up all the continuity announcements, and Boom Goes the Dynamite. The half time entertainment is provided by Freddie Flintoff naming the flags and national dishes of Commonwealth countries.

But I digress.

So Walliams with his fellow smug arse Simon Cowell (I neither have time nor space to discuss him here) hold the power of life and death over a motley collection of talented (or otherwise) men and women, boys and girls (or otherwise) who perform on stage in front of a tv audience of millions. It’s mostly pretty buttock-clenching stuff, but every so often they unearth a Susan Boyle or a Jonathan Antoine and his friend Charlotte (who The Sun exclusively reveal today is an aspiring model !!!! Who knew ???)

The boy John really can sing. He has a fantastic pair of lungs. (I’m not posting the video here because a bit of me thinks every click justifies Cowell and Walliams existence and that’s not what I’m here to do. Honestly. ) But it got me around to thinking that after the success of Subo, the fat and ugly clubs of the UK have been inundated with Simon’s talent scouts looking for someone with a face like a blind cobbler’s thumb and the voice of a Disney cartoon nymph to “surprise” the panel for the new series. If you happen to have  a face like a bulldog licking the piss of a thistle, expect a mic thrust under your nose on the off-chance you can knock out a tune like Engelbert Humperdink – or even maybe in tune.

And before you ask, no – I have not been approached by a team of researchers with a tape recorder asking me to warble Old Shep for Amanda Holden to weep over. And weep she would, for all sorts of reasons. Weeping is also rife in my house – and not just when The Incumbent watches young singers on talent shows. DIY SOS gets me, if you really want to know.

So big Johnathan and his sister got through to the next round and I suppose the recording contract has already been signed (even if it hadn’t been by the time we saw him on our screens). Is Susan Boyle still a going concern ? I don’t know but I suspect she is making shedloads of cash from sales to every other mothers in the land. Johnathan, I suspect, will be heading for a similar, successful career.

If you really want to see talent, take a butchers at the below, sent to me this afternoon by The Talented Mr Rapley (raconteur, bon-viveur and wit) who couldn’t help himself from reminding us all of the great talent that were Gladys Knights Pips (and that’s not a euphemism). If Johnathan could squeeze himself into either one of these magnificent flared suits, or even Gladys’s poncho, and perform these moves he’d get my vote every week. But in the meantime, no weeping just sit back and enjoy these chaps at their peak.

Shove that up your arse, Walliams.

A Reet Petite Jock

Posted on by
Reply

This is Jackie Wilson. 60s singing sensation, the man who brought us the classics Reet Petiite, I get the Sweetest Feeling and (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher amongst others. Known as Mr Showman, Wilson has oddly never received the credit for his influence on popular music, being one of the great pioneers of what was to become soul music, but remains one of the great acts of one of the most exciting times in music history.

This is John Thomas WIlson, known as ‘Jocky’. He was two-time World Professional Darts Champion in the 1980s and was notable for his ability to drink heavily and play darts at the same time. He too was as great showman and his battles with his great rivals at the time, Eric “Crafty Cockney” and John Lowe” kept a nation enthralled and glued to their television sets, at a time when there were only 3 channels to watch and long before the BBC decided to turn its back on any sports event that didn’t involve John Bishop or David Walliams.

Jocky was a constant sweet-eater and refused to brush his teeth – “my Gran told me the English poison the water” – he had lost his last tooth by the age of 28. After his 1982 World title win, he paid £1,200 for dentures, but never got on with them. They made him belch when drinking, he complained

Unlike Jackie Wilson, Jocky’s music career was short-lived. In 1989 he released a record Jocky on the Oche but it failed to spark the public imagination and is reputed to have sold just 850 copies.

Sadly for the darts lovers of the world, Jocky died overnight and will be sorely missed by his family, colleague and all those who enjoy a character with our sport. When Jackie WIlson died in 1984 he was inexplicably originally buried in an unmarked grave until 1987 a fundraising campaign collected enough money to correct the mistake.

When in 1982 Dexy’s Midnight Runners performed on Top of the Pops their current hit single Jackie Wilson Said (a cover of a Van Morrison hit)  few could have predicted that somewhere in the BBC was a picture researcher who knew little of Van Morrison or Jackie Wilson and his music, let alone what he looked like. Or perhaps lead singer Kevin Rowland singing in a Birmingham accent was enough to convince the production team that The Runners were praising the World Darts Champ and not celebrating the career of a great R&B singer.

Whatever the reason, this was the final result.

Humvees for Goalposts

Posted on by
1

Messi’s footwork part of anti-Syria conspiracy-TV

By Oliver Holmes REUTERS

BEIRUT, March 21 (Reuters) – Barcelona footballers don’t just have a slick passing game, they can also secretly indicate arms smuggling routes to Syria, a pro-government Syrian television channel claimed this week.

Without a hint of irony, Addounia TV superimposed a map of Syria on a screen [above) to show how Lionel Messi and his team-mates, representing smugglers, had kicked a ball, representing a weapons shipment, into Syria from Lebanon.

The subtle signals to rebels were transmitted when Barcelona played Real Madrid in December, said the channel, which is owned by a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad. It did not trouble viewers by revealing Barcelona’s motives for the exploit.

“First we see how the guns are brought from Lebanon,” the presenter comments as one player passes the ball. “Then they cross into Homs and give the weapons to other terrorists in Abu Kamal,” he added, referring to rebel strongholds in Syria.

Messi’s final flick indicates the successful handover of the weapons to their destination in eastern Syria, he said.

Bizarre it may be, but paranoid conspiracy theories are common coin in the deeply divided and conflict-ridden state.

Messi smuggling in AK47s to Homs. (AET)

This is not, of course, the first time vital messages were sent by strange means. There’s the famous case of The Daily Telegraph Crossword during the build-up to D-Day when all the codewords which were to be used in the invasion of France – Omaha, Utah, Neptune – started appearing as crossword answers in the daily newspaper.

Let’s not forget the time when The Manchester Grauniad published a free wall poster for your bedroom showing all of Montgomery’s tank movements in the run up to El Alamein, The Daily Express front page on the morning of 9/11 read “Does Flying United Airlines Give You Cancer?” and Charlton Athletic’s tactics were so close to the attck formations of  Mussolini’s Republican Guard that Churchill considered disbanding the club. Don’t believe me ? How dare you !

So before you poo poo the reuters story above, take a butchers at England’s crap running between the wickets next week in Sri Lanka and ask yourself: what are they trying to tell us ?

They may be trying to tell us that they don’t know what they are doing. Or maybe they are signalling to militants in Yemen ?

Or not.

The Fight Starts Now, Right After Mummy’s Made My Supper

Posted on by
1

You’re reading a blog written by a bloke who seems to be one of the few who has yet to watch the Kony video. I was forwarded it by The Incumbent, who had in turn been sent it by her son. I didn’t watch it. My daughter asked if I’d seen it ‘yet’ (presuming some sort of inevitability about me watching it).  I hadn’t, and I haven’t. She should know me better than that by now.

I dunno if my complete lack of bovveredness about this latest in a long line of bandwagons rolling by is due merely to my growing awareness of my position standing on the wrong side of the age-gap, my long-held and well-founded deep suspicion and mistrust of social networks and their ensuing campaigns, or whether it’s the fact that this really does seem like a very old story indeed to me. Don’t get me wrong – it is a horrific-sounding story, and one which has been covered endlessly by the quality press over the years. You know the quality press ? They’re the lot who’ve been labelled as useless and corrupt thanks to Levenson Inquiry. For those reading this from the Twittersphere, you’ll find the quality press on the shelf in the newsagent ( that’s the shop next to the laundromat) below Heat Magazine and the Glee fanzines.

Maybe it’s because ever since I witnessed those middle class teenage wankers ruin a perfectly enjoyable and effective student demo last year, including throwing fire extinguishers off buildings at the coppers below, I’ve been less than impressed with the present crop of activist. Pater must have been jolly miffed with them when they returned home for evensong.

Then again, it could be my opinion that citizen journalism is a dangerous, un-policeable threat to well-researched, fact-checked and verified copy (this blog aside, of course), or maybe it’s because there are a million other things happening in the world to worry about, starting with Syria, the invasion of Iran, missiles from Israel, Banker’s corruption, and the disbandment of the NHS. Working my way down the list from there, past Scottish Devolution, which colour hat the Queen will wear at Ascot, the Downton Abbey plot and who’s going to win Masterchef until we arrive at the fate of Joseph Kony.

These views won’t of course be universally popular, but there’s something grating to me about the Teeny Tots of the Twittersphere presuming they can change the world cos they know how to shorten an email link and can use the letters OMFG with impunity. Labeling someone a “Douchebag” or calling each others efforts “Awesome” does not a New Model Army make (by the way, that’s the last time you’ll read either word here).

And there my thin and badly thought-out argument rested. After all, I haven’t actually seen the film and you wouldn’t expect one so level-headed as I to attack something I haven’t seen, would you ? Then I watched Charlie Brooker last night, and he has saved me from ever watching the sodding video. I never knew the film-maker was, in fact, an evangelical, bible-bashing, doucheb… there, you nearly got me at it. Turns out there is more to these videos than just saving little children.

Thanks Charlie.  Not further questions, your witness. Oh, sorry, did I disturb your Facebook session ? Oh never mind, let me know what you think if and when you manage to get out of bed. And do hurry up, your mum’s made lunch.

Jumpers for Goalposts

Posted on by
6

Ah, those were the days.  When we used to have a kick-about in the street outside my house, there would invariably be someone who wanted to be Peter Osgood, one who’d play as Peter Lorimer or Georgie Best or even  Derek Hales (well I had to look up to someone, didn’t I ? and I reckoned I was better than Killer was, anyway.) We didn’t have anyone who was hard enough to pretend to be Dave McKay.

Take a look at one of the great sports photos of the 70s. There’s old Dave about to throttle that little-shit-of-little-shits, Billy Bremner – no softie himself. But where Bremner – like  Ron Harris, Nobby Stiles and anyone who put a Leeds Utd shirt on – was a kind of slide-my-studs-down-your-calf-and-into-your-achilles-when-ref-isn’t-looking-sorta-bloke, Big Dave was a sort of snap both your shinbones in two if you try to get past me, in front of the ref, the linesmen, the opposition bench, the BBC TV camera and four JPs and still argue the toss that I played the ball first-sorta-bloke. A very very tough bloke. A great photo.

McKay is reported to be in poor health. It will be a shame to lose another character of my childhood. A reminder of when football was a contact sport, professional players could be built like Fannie Lee and still get picked for the side, and Alan Rough and Derek Hales were in gainful employment, somehow.

Wishing Dave McKay all the very best. Let’s hope the today’s millionaire show-ponies spend a little less time crying and rolling around on the grass this weekend. Big Dave would have given them something to cry about.