...ruffles...

Tonight I’m going out with George and Gill, some old MBA buddies. When I did the course I learnt but two things. Most interestingly, I found out that structured training is not as good as learning through shared experience. The principle being that those who can’t do; teach, and extrapolating that further, those who teach, probably teach things you shouldn’t do. This is born out in research; structured training is, by definition, sanitised and often promulgates outdated practice.

So, in short, people who have mastered bad practice are simply passing on bad practice badly. This is often legitimised by hackneyed theory straight out of the Idiots Guide to Management Bullshit.

On Tuesday, we had a meeting which was supposed to be answering a fairly fundamental question – why do we put so much effort into producing something which has no obvious benefit. It was, instead, hijacked by a facilitator hell-bent on ignoring the issue at hand. Instead he put us through as many mind and consciousness expanding exercises as the time permitted.

It’s very much in vogue to punctuate any group meeting with a series of exercises that take you ‘outside the box’ and get the left and right side of your brain working in tandem. First we did some collective self reflection. Where on Tuckman's model of team performance did we think we were? Tuckman invented four stages in team building – which are something like Forming, Norming, Yawning and pawning your awning – the point at which team performance collapses to such an extent that is becomes necessary to liquidate equity that may exist in any light weight canvas structure (including small marquees and bivouacs).

Following this, we indulged in some individual reflection, having to write on post-it notes (obviously) how we thought we were seen and, on a different colour, how we would like to be viewed. My temptation was to write “Likes to eat cheese” and “Likes to eat chips”. I bottled out, which was a shame, given my Chief Exec put “Change agent who doesn’t listen” and “Change agent who does listen, but ignores you anyway”.

Then we had lunch, then we discussed for the briefest possible time, the question at hand. Then we had coffee. That out the way, we did some more collective reflection (same exercise, to see whether things had changed – they hadn’t) followed by some more individual reflection (why our preferred and real perceptions were different – probably down to my relationship with my dad or something). Then we went home with the central question unanswered.

The second thing I learnt in my MBA? Don’t eat the canteen’s Cornish pasties.

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Labels: Friends

I used to write about the Little Publishing Company on the Hill. It’s where I spent nearly four years goofing around with a little gang of twenty something post graduates; Lizard, Ravey Davey, Catherine, Chuckles and Joella. I keep in touch with Chuckles, and Joella although that’s through her blog. Despite the passing years, I’ve learnt that Joella and I still have but one thing in common; we are both utterly indifferent to each others’ interests. She can’t be arsed with football, and I’m not bothered about Women’s issues. It’s probably why we got on. I remember her, the gang, our antics and our traumas with huge fondness. It was nearly ten years ago.

The Little Publishing Company on the Hill was a local company with local people having big international successes. Its success attracted a big ugly Dutch corporate who bought the place out, made its millionaire founder more of a millionaire and rolled in some big ugly corporate executives to run the place. The old directors; chancers, charlatans and lunatics the lot of them, were eventually run out of town. The corporate bled the place dry and closed it down.

The other day I was being harangued by a salesman who was trying to get me to spend £5,000 advertising on a website they hadn’t launched, couldn’t show me and had no marketing materials to support. I Googled my old boss’ name to see if I could find out what she’d up to… and whether she still had translucent skin and wears clashing primary colours in animal prints.

It didn’t take long to find her. She’s started up an event management company with most of the directors from the old charabanc. I looked up their website, and it turns out they’ve moved back into the Offices on the Hill. The circle is complete… perhaps somewhere there’s a next generation Ruffles mucking around writing inappropriate stories about staff members and trying to break email records.

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Labels: Work

I am not a little bit country, nor am I a little bit Rock n Roll. I am, however, a quite a lot Old Skool. People my age can start to get set in their ways. Often, it seems, they settle into a stereotypical social construct of marriage, kids, mortgage, country pubs, golf handicaps, Katie Melua, Joss Stone and Beau Vista Social Club as the beginning and end of world music chic. I don’t begrudge anyone who wants all that, but it’s not me (in the main) that said, I am becoming set in my ways, but my ways are Old Skool.

The greatest trainers ever are Adidas Superstars, the greatest football (let’s face it, we all have one) is either the Adidas Tango, or the Mexico 70 vintage. DJ’s use Technics 1200’s and vinyl, anything else is just cheating. Hip hop should sample James Brown and be funky. Football should kick-off on a Saturday at 3pm.

It’s not that I’m closed to new music, fashion, and football kick-off times, but I’ve experienced my best of breed, anything new has to fight hard to surpass it. I’m very comfortable with this.

On Thursday as I descended into Wycombe (topographically and spiritually) at some god-awful hour in the morning I was listening to James’ Gold Mother – a classic from my Sixth Form. I’d stumbled across it in my CD rack and thought it was worth a whirl.

I found that I was comforted by it, I remember Sit Down being played at parties and discos when I wore long sleeved Happy Mondays t-shirts and had floppy hair. There’s a live version of it on the CD (I originally had the tape, which didn’t have Sit Down on it, that was done after it became a hit, fact fans). At the end the band finish and the crowd just sing the chorus over and over again. It was like a lullaby, completely soothing.

Then I realised that the reason I’m so comfortable within being stuck in my ways, is that it’s safer there than it is in the real world. Five minutes later I was in the car park, first in, again, having been last out, again. It was like emerging from blissful hibernation, the stresses and strains returned like a mallet to the head.

Or a Mallet’s Mallet, if you’re really Old Skool.

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Labels: General me

On the way back from Toronto we saw bugged eyed Arian German tennis playing legend Boris Becker careering down Terminal 4 departures towards a flight. This spot was all the more significant, according to Sara, because he was carrying tennis rackets.

Becker is a legendary tabloid bastard, doing something to some woman in some broom cupboard, or something. That shouldn’t make him special because all celebrities are bastards. Look at it, to be a celebrity you have to do something that distorts accepted norms; actors pretend to be other people, sportspeople play games for money, Jodie Marsh wears no clothes. Do these things in a normal job and you’d be fired.

To want to pervert a norm like this you have to have guts, you have to want to do something most people typically won’t do. You have to have an unstinting self-belief that people will want to pay you to distort these norms. You’ll have a belief that people will pay you to do something they actually want to do. More than anything they have to resist the immense social pressures that you’re subjected to whenever you step out of line form a social norm.

I recently saw Tony Hawks do a corporate gig, he turned up late, sat at the top table with all the VIPs, ate a £60 a head meal for free, did twenty minutes on stage in which he swore when he was asked not to, took the piss out of the main speaker and host of the evening and left several thousand pounds richer.

Funny bastard.

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Labels: TV and radio

Emma managed to commit the ultimate faux pas this morning by crippling the fragile ego of an adolescent boy, I think she got away with it though.

Phoning her friend Jo:

Emma “Hi Jo it’s Emma”
Jo’s son Tom “It’s Tom actually”
Emma “Oh, I’m sorry Tom, you sound just like your mum, not that you want to hear that. You have a very strong and manly voice... and so does your mum.”

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Labels: General me

A week since my last confession…in my absence, I see two of our great national institutions have taken a kicking in the last week.

First Delia Smith is derided for her impromptu pitch-side tirade at Norwich City fans. Why is this news? Because she is a) mumsy b) middle class and c) a woman at a football match. Typically, a) gritty b) working class c) men who rant at football matches are considered passionate “football people” with infectious enthusiasm and drive. Deels, on the other hand, is just a silly woman who’d got a bit squiffy on a white wine spritzer. Poor love.

A few days later Katie Price, wisely dropping the Jordan brand for risk of it being sullied, was humiliated during her Eurovision attempt. Her skin slowly turning an odd shade of taupe, she waddled around the stage in a pink catsuit screeching some sub-Arabian pop catastrophe with a rubbish subtext along the lines of “I’m revealing the real me”. Yup, big norks and a lot of luck.

We should preserve these woman in formaldehyde and be done with it.

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Labels: General me

As he carved a career as the Internet generation’s Tony Hart, I bet Neil Buchanan thought he was the cock of the Number 73 alumni. The fact he had his own show, Art Attack, shadowed anything Sandi Toksvig (scary site, huh?) managed. Numerous appearances on smarty-pants TV and radio shows and she still never really transcended her image as a poor man’s female Scandinavian lesbian Stephen Fry. In fact, The Sandwich Quiz was pretty much her finest hour. As for the rest of the gang, well, they just fried in Buchanan’s after burn didn’t they. Didn’t they?

Buchanan was the bollocks, and he knew it. His bouncy curly mullet, his neat logo’ed pullovers, he’s the (40+ year old) boy next door. Mums all over the country could leave their children in his capable hands, safe in the knowledge that the worst he could do was suggest that using different colours of tissue paper can make a rudimentary stained glass window. Buchanan was the only true survivor of the much underrated Saturday morning show of lore, the man, the winner, numero uno. Goodnight Vienna.

That is until rollerskating dad-candy Andrea Arnold rocked up to the Oscars and bagged herself an Best Short Film award for Wasp. Zoinks!

What next? Gaz Top wins a Nobel Peace Prize for single handedly placating Iraqi insurgents through the introduction of GCSE Spanish and speed dating events?

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Labels: TV and radio

Unlike us Brits, who have a predilection for specifics, it is not untypical for an American to be interested in the altogether more generic pastime of ‘sports’. When it comes to American sports, the Toronto Raptors command a similar level of importance in the sporting lexicon as the Springfield Isotopes. When we asked the hotel concierge to fix us up with some tickets, he said that he’d try but with the hockey season locked out “people do funny things, like see Raptors games”. And this guy is paid to sell us the city’s attractions.

The benefit this sort of anonymity enjoys is that, and all the guidebooks reinforce this, a Raptors game is a rare opportunity to see some of the world’s top ‘ballers e.g. those who play for other teams.

Last week the Chicago Bulls were in town, a shadow of the all conquering team of Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippin et al, but one of the bigger boys none the less. According to the Toronto Sun they are a young and exciting team, now I don’t know much about basketball but they were certainly too good for the Raptors.

With Hockey’s political problems marginalising its interest (though not its space in US news bulletins – go on, test me, ask me anything about the strike), the triumvirate of Baseball, Basketball and American Football (what we call Rugby according to our Niagara Falls tour guide) dominate the national psyche. But, similarly to the baseball we went to see a couple of years ago it is not the game of basketball that dominates an American sporting event.

Both the start and finish of a basketball game are strangely muted affairs. It’s a mere sideline to buying merchandise, food and finding your seat. As the clock runs down two and a half hours later the crowd leave as though they’ve just watched a rather average film. At least a football game always ends with a jeer, cheer or muted applause.

Yep, two and a half hours to make it through a 48 minute game something has got to make up the time. NBA have picked up on the Hip Hop chic that surrounds b-ball, so each attack is soundtracked by an instrumental hip hop break. The next day I went out and bought Ludacris, Nas, Lil John and De La Soul albums... suckah.

Interspersed with the game itself is all sorts of tomfoolery; the Raptors Dance Pak do three stints, we play NBA Bingo, Ralph Raptor, the Toronto mascot, shows his nifty moves to a track which has a hook of “Don’t you play around with my click”. He follows this with a skit where he runs into a popcorn selling stooge (evidently Torontonians love that sort of stuff). Then there’s the bit where they run the camera around the arena picking out some lucky fella to sit in the expensive court-side seats. There’s the One Minute Madness, where t-shirts are thrown into the crowd. At half-time the world’s cleverest dog does some appallingly executed stunts which apparently got him and his owner onto the Jay Leno Show. The owner, pushing forty and dressed in a cheerleader’s outfit, urged us all to “Do more stuff with your dogs” as she exited. Then a short ugly redneck failed to basket any of his prize winning shots from the free throw line. In the second half a larger rubberised version of Ralph Raptor appeared to stalk the perimeter of the court. His actions range from hilarious – falling off a ‘trash receptacle’ to downright suspect – mounting a small child. He returned later in his smaller guise to give the dominant Bulls the ‘I’m watching you’ sign (pointing at his eyes then pointing at his prey).

The game itself is a side attraction, it was all but over when, after 2 and a half minutes of the first quarter, the Raptors called an emergency timeout to solve the mystery of how they’d managed to go 10-0 down before half the crowd had finished their first hotdog (my previous assertion that American sports are just a more interesting way of consuming junk food wholly reinforced).

American sports are a fully evolved genre of show business, in Curse of the Bambino Dan Shaughnessy admits that most fans of baseball don’t really care how their chosen teams get on. Plenty happens, there’s lots of opportunity for advertising and making money and you’re almost guaranteed to be entertained – regardless of how good or bad the actual game is. Even though it was a great night of safe light-hearted amusement the game itself ended a rather meaningless 115 to 121 and the Raptors continued their march to humble obscurity. I’m no expert, but they could do worse than draft in their new English phenom, the slightly camp looking ginger number 18.

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Labels: Holiday

You might argue that choice is one of life’s gifts and one of life’s curses. Mars, Twix, Yorkie, Snickers… Ford, Volkswagen, Alpha Romeo, Saab…choices choices choices.

I mean how many different ways can you take the piss out of someone who claims to not be able to get to work from Reading (to High Wycombe, 20 completely snow-free miles away) because they were snowed in?

Or do you start on the woman at work who left at 4.30 on Monday because of “what was happening out there” cue: light flurry of fluffy flakes.

Decisions, decisions.

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Labels: Work

Toronto was a grower for me, following an eight hour flight and a typically irritating tussle with immigration, my fatigued initial reaction was that the city was all building sites and grey snow. It didn’t have the buzz of New York; probably because it was Sunday and everyone was sensibly at home. Nor did it have the instant appeal of Boston, because the lush greenery that compliments Boston’s mix of Colonial, Victorian and Federal architecture won’t survive in Toronto’s sub zero winter temperatures. There’s a distressing number of homeless people struggling to survive on frozen streets sleeping on heated vents under piles of dirty blankets – but their presence is all the more conspicuous because the more fortunate prefer to spend their time in the PATH - the underground city which riddles Toronto’s downtown. Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck in a North America of the mid seventies. Snow tyres are necessities on the cars and trucks so they look typically huge. The workmen are rugged in heavy dungarees and hobnail boots and there are more handlebar moustaches than at a Village People look-a-like contest. It all feels very practical and dour.

But Toronto isn’t the tediously functional city it first appears to be. There’s the exclusive district of Yorkville and the cooler younger homelands of Queen Street West and Kensington Market. Expecting to encounter a stream of ruddy lumberjacks, it’s instead occupied by the stylish, the self-assured and the beautiful. I was surprised by its cosmopolitan complexion; its Chinatown is typically bustling, its Portuguese, Italian and Asian communities a surprise. It mixes modern commerce with colonial history; it’s a young and fresh university town and an exclusive enclave of the nouveaux riche. The city begins to reveal itself as one of effortless style laid over chunky affluent confidence.

Canadians are more direct than their cousins further south. Having set my bullshit-ometer to hyper sensitive to accommodate the infinite cheese of an American service culture, I had to reset to accommodate their more friendly, but pragmatic demure. They love it when you wince at their mild but sub-zero temperatures, telling you that a couple of weeks ago it was -24 (and out of the city, a very nippy -42).

It was mild when we were there, the temperatures didn’t drop below -5 although with the wind chill it was cold enough (Gareth upgrading its cold status from ‘eyeball cold’ to ‘bollocks cold’). The chill can be quickly warmed with a cup of Tim Horton’s hot chocolate so you can comfortably sit and watch (and not do) ice-skating in front of City Hall, visit the CN Tower, see some real, proper NBA basketball, shop at Sam the Record Man or the World's Biggest Bookstore or just hang out with real people living real lives. Valentine's Day was spent eating Burritos in a sparsely populated Tex Mex on Queen Street West with groups of, presumably, singleton Torontonians.

With most cities, four days is usually quite enough for me, mostly for the same reason they appeal; New York’s intensity, Boston’s tranquillity, Rome’s antiquity, Paris’ timeless style, Vegas’ crass commercialism. But I could have spent a few more days in Toronto visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame, or the Bata Shoe Museum, or the Royal Ontario Museum. We only scratched the surface really, there is still plenty to reveal.

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Labels: Holiday

I suppose the least surprising thing about the Da Vinci Code is that Sophie is both brilliant and beautiful. I mean, you're just not going to get... 'Sophie was a brilliant cyptologist, but she was an ugly old sow'. The least surprising thing about Air Canada air stewardesses is that they are, at best, a little ruddy and well worn.

Four hours into the flight, they also managed to pour half a litre of water over my lap, and laugh at me whilst they did. To add insult to iminent nappy rash, my iPod, which was in direct firing line, also got it sploshed making the jog wheel work only intermitently. I completed an 'incident report' which will go to their insurance company. I don't know what the profit margin is on your average transatlantic flight but I doubt it stretches to a new iPod.

Toronto is wet and cold, this library is warm and dry. We shall return to the streets when we've thawed out.

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Labels: Holiday

I’m off to Toronto on Sunday morning so here’s something to read about Meet The Fockers. Read it slowly, there’ll be nothing new on here for week. Toodle pip…

Ben Stiller’s life is easy; think of a dumb plotline, make it dumber, point camera and shoot. For this read Dodgeball, Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch and his cameo as the anchor of the Spanish language channel in Anchorman (“Ben, put this moustache on and do something stupid for a bit”). He’s not trying to satirise or be clever or win Oscars although presumably he’ll get to a point as Spielberg and Tom Hanks did where he’ll want to be taken seriously and we’ll all hate him for it.

The mistake that was made in Meet The Parents was that he was put on a platform with Robert De Nero. This raised expectations; you expect a De Nero film to deliver something a little smarter. It was a half decent set piece, hapless goon meets uptight father of girlfriend and endures endless contrived mishaps. Maybe De Nero was too big for the film, or more likely they spoiled the simplicity of the concept with the De Nero as CIA agent subplot. It was garbage.

Meet The Fockers should be an even bigger bomb. Whilst playing down the CIA thing (though not completely, it’s just not needed) they treble the gravitas with by introducing Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand as Gaylord Focker’s parents. Both have weighty reputations for taking themselves terribly seriously (see Hoffman in I Heart Huckabees). As “Holly Hunter” says in Team America – “As actors, we have a responsibility to read things in the newspaper and then repeat them as our own opinions”. The problem with big stars is they have big brands to maintain, which means being terribly clever about everything.

So the formulae stinks – poor previous film, stupid plot in itself and enough weighty reputations to sink a battleship full of elephants. But director Jay Roach, presumably introduced Hoffman and Streisand to Stiller and challenged them to out-stupid him. Which they do, they are both brilliantly daft. If they’d cut out the CIA stuff (De Nero has a hi-tech investigation lab in the base of his mobile home, sigh) there’s a risk it would be the best comedy of the year.

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Labels: Films

Do you ever feel like you’re rushing to keep up? That the world it moving too fast for you to truly comprehend what is actually going on? Lots of little oddities that throw you for a second, but before you have a chance to analyse them, the next thing is on top of you. So, for example: -

Plumber; I’m not coming round on Monday; I’m coming in a couple of weeks. Me: Why I’ve booked holiday and everything. P: It’s down to the Kyoto agreement. Me: Really? P: Yeah, the government are offering £100 off energy efficient boilers in accordance with the Kyoto agreement to cut emissions, but they’re not doing it for a couple of weeks so I’m waiting until the price drops. (result: Kyoto discount doesn’t come through).

Emma leaves a message on my phone saying “Hello, can you tell me what time it is on my mobile”

To the plumber; do you want a tea? Yes please. How do you have it? Just a splash of milk. Sugar? No thanks… what has it come to that plumbers don’t have 45 sugars in their tea anymore? What’s more, the plumbers mate didn’t have sugar either.

The Territorial Army advert where two stern looking women are being chatted up by two blokes, when, eventually the blokes ask the women their names they reply with “This is Lance Corporal Jones and I’m Captain West”. At which point the men recoil with obvious horror and revulsion. Women, join the army to scare and repel men.

The comments book in the curryhouse from Dan and James “Lovely meal, now we’re off to bum each other”

To the plumber; do you want a tea? No thanks I’ll wait a bit. What has it come to when plumbers don’t drink you out of house and home anymore?

10 and a half minutes from the end of my gym session, the ten and a half minute sure-fire adrenalin shot that is Impact by Orbital comes onto iPod. After about 2 minutes it inexplicably flicks onto next ‘shuffle’ track… Transmission by Joy Division.

…and without a word of a lie I saw naked hairy man with his arms round a naked dwarf coming out of the sauna at the gym. The naked dwarf was laughing saying “And I’m not letting you do that again”.

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Labels: General me

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a quiet night in. Just cooking a nice meal and watching a DVD. Last Saturday was a quiet night in; Jamie Oliver Botham Burgers, Fried chilli wedges, fizzy pop followed by Tesco Finest Toffee Sundaes at a gluttonous 800 calories per pot. Yummy.

Sorry? Which DVD you say? Oh yeah, Supersize Me.

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Labels: General me

At first, the Aviator seems to be all sub-plot. You suspect that the story of Howard Hughes is simply too big and Scorsese should have chosen a more modest yarn, like biopic’ing Howard Hughes from Ever Decreasing Circles.

It jumps from one preposterous adventure to another, the world’s most expensive film, the world’s fastest plane, the world’s biggest plane, buying TWA, dating Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardener, taking on the US Government and Pan Am and winning. Hughes did it all, and in this film, he does it really really quickly.

You get no real sense of his impact or the perspective and environment in which he operates. He’s accused of being a war profiteer, but you don’t get a chance to understand whether that’s true, or even that there was a war on. This may just be a reflection of the general detachment the US had during the War. They probably ran their own World (Series) War (Bowl) at the same time proclaiming the Denver Spitfires World War Champions in the process. It feels like you’re watching Hughes’ life through a frosted window, with ear muffs on, and a towel in your mouth… and, well you, get the picture… or not, as it turns out. Eventually, however, the story emerges. It’s about his obsessions; his ability to pull off stunning audacious projects is simply the result of a neurotic fastidiousness he struggles to control.

From compulsive hand washing to fully blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Hughes struggles to channel his mania into something productive, and then fails completely. Whilst it’s an overly long film that broods rather than thrills, it’s this that lifts it from a straight Biography Channel story.

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Labels: Films

For a hackneyed cliché in corporate team building, paintball is a particularly lonely experience. I’ve been twice, both times on Stag dos. Whilst there is a camaraderie that surrounds a Stag party it is a brittle one. The party is made of a mix of work, university and school friends, each with their own histories and stories. To build a team through paintball means that you have to be a close knit team in the first place. Making it all rather pointless.

For those who have never been, a day of paintball involves joining a hybrid team of birthdays, stag dos, corporate team builders and most worrying, hobbyist paintball enthusiasts (serial killers in training). You take part in a series of set piece games with names like ‘defend and attack’, ‘take the flag’ and ‘total annihilation’. Paintball guns fire little pellets of paint that feel like you're being hit by a hailstone. When you’re hit you’re dead. In between each game you gather in a holding area where the general bonhomie of naive squaddies ensues, nonchalant marshals with heavy metal hair drift around waiting for the next game to start, when it does the anomie sets in.

Paintball companies are paranoid about safety, exiting the safety zone you put a full face mask on which makes you look like a Stormtrooper. With everyone wearing identical baggy fatigues you’re stripped of your identity, unable to separate friends from strangers. The walk to the battleground is usually made in near-silence. All you hear is the hiss of your own breathing. By the time you get there, the mask has usually misted up so you can’t see anything.

Once the game starts, hope of any kind of teamwork is instantly forgotten and you become an individual vigilante. The game is explained in about ten seconds and the opportunity for planning almost non-existent. There are two broad strategies you can employ. The first is ‘Hide in a Hole’. This involves finding a nook, or diving behind a bit of wood and randomly firing into the general area of your foe. The second strategy is ‘Run like a Loony’ This involves kamikaze runs at the enemy firing wildly. The first means you play for the whole game, but have no fun. The second means more fun, for about 30 seconds, then you get shot and it hurts.

When you are shot and therefore out of the game, you have no idea who shot you there’s a thud, a burst pain and it’s all over, you’re being bullied by a faceless aggressor. Usually after you’re shot you’re hit a couple more times as you head for the Dead Zone. This is exacerbated by the fact that you don’t know how successful you’ve been because you never see the people you’ve shot. You’re being bullied and you don’t know why, and you are stripped of your individuality and any affirmation of your own ability.

Even a victory is hollow, last Saturday we had a couple of girls in our team. Both were little over five foot tall. In the heat of the first battle a scream was heard behind…

“Owww”
“Are you alright”
“Shit I’ve been hit”
“Oh no, does it hurt”
“A little bit, I’m dead so I’ve got to go”
“I don’t want to get hit, I’m coming too”

We’re not dealing with trained killers, a victory is meaningless.

When the game is over everyone trudges back to base in silence. When the masks come off, everyone has a fictitious war story of taking a hail of paintballs for the team. Johnny had a good strategy, he bought 200 paintballs per game, suggesting he’d either seen some serious action, or was eating them.

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Labels: General me

Bez’s Celebrity Big Brother win gives me reason to tell my favourite Bez story.

Years of lurching from one disaster to another Tony Wilson’s punk rock brainchild, Factory Records, was going to the wall. Two things could save them, New Order’s new album Republic and the Happy Monday’s fourth album, Yes Please. There were doubts that New Order could stop arguing long enough to record anything. The Mondays were Wilson’s last chance.

The Monday’s were deep in a hellhole of smack addiction. Surrounded by gangsters and drug dealers Sean Ryder simply wasn’t conscious for long enough to complete the album.

Wilson decided to get the band out of Manchester so he sent them to Jamaica. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, you might say. The band spunked tens of thousands of pounds on cheaper, purer crack cocaine, selling items from their studio to raise the cash. The wolves continued to bark at Wilson’s door.

Wilson needed Yes Please; the Monday’s needed money so Ryder took the master tapes hostage. Despairing, Wilson pawned his children and wired the money to Jamaica. Ryder handed the tapes over where the relieved Wilson played them, they were half finished instrumentals with no vocals.

The madness continued. Bez, bombed out on smack, hired a jeep to drive across the island. Travelling down a one way track he came across another jeep coming the other way. Swerving, he turned the jeep over. He broke both his arms and was rushed to hospital. The doctors put both arms in solid casts fixed so that his arms were sticking out as though pinned to a crucifix.

Feeling he was missing the party, Bez quickly discharged himself and decided to get out of the madness (presumably his maraca parts were sorted). He took a holiday on the other side of the island.

Still in his plaster casts he was drawn to the fun that could be had riding the ‘flying bananas’ which were popular with tourists. Despite being unable to hold onto the straps the world’s greatest Mancunian went for a thrill a minute ride…

Where he hit a wave, was thrown into the air, landed in the water he broke his broken arms.

Both of them.

Again.

Within a week.

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Labels: Music

Last night Channel 4 mapped the Michael Jackson’s compulsive attraction towards young pre-pubescent boys in, er, Michael Jackson’s Boys. Inevitably the story of Jordy Chandler raised its head. The programme investigated the FBI's in-depth enquiries into the allegations. One ‘source’ said…

“They took pictures of his front private parts, his back private parts, his side private parts…”

Excuse me? Michael Jackson has side private parts?

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Labels: Music

Leave meeting in Angel Islington at 6.30
6.35 Catch cab to Marylebone
Crawl across London in cab, whilst driver tells you about the suicide on the Marylebone flyover (they had to wash blood and bones off the road and everything).
Arrive at Marylebone Station at 6.46 see that next train departs at 6.58
Buy orange juice and pistachio nuts
Put ticket into barrier, pull out after it’s rejected
Look at ticket, realise that you’ve managed to buy a Travelcard which doesn’t cover Zone 1
Head for ticket inspectors
Wait for ticket inspectors to finish dealing with about 60 tourists
After 5 minutes of waiting decide instead to buy a Zone 1 ticket just to get you through the barrier
Go to machine, select appropriate ticket
Put debit card in
Take card out after it’s rejected because you can’t use it twice on a ticket machine in the same day
Go to cash machine to get cash out
Wait in queue
Withdraw £20
Go back to machine
Select ticket and put £10 into slot
Pull £10 out after it’s rejected
Put same £10 into slot
Pull £10 out after it’s rejected
Put another £10 into slot
Pull this £10 out after it’s rejected
Put it in again
Take it out again
Miss 6.58 train
Walk up to ticket inspectors
Look confident, wave invalid tickets in the air, proceed onto platform
Finally board next train at 7.30
Arrive Amersham at 8.15
Get changed in car park
Depart car park at 8.22
Go to Tesco to get Petrol
Realise you need the toilet
Drive to Tesco shop and go to toilet
Head for Beconsfield
Join M40
Listen to Pete Tong
Listen to Westwood
Turn Westwood off after 15 minutes as he doesn’t appear to have played a single record not completed a single sentence even though his music and talking have been constant.
Join M23 at Junction 7
Stop at Pea’s Pottage Services for Burger King
Eat Burger King
Feel ill
Set off towards M23
Turn back as Coke passes straight through and toilet is needed again
Go to Pea’s Pottage Services toilet
Get back in car
Put half cup of Coke in cup holder in glove compartment
Depart Pea’s Pottage Services
Drive over small bump
Spill Coke all over car
Turn back to Pea’s Pottage Services and collect napkins
Set off towards M23
Join A23
Arrive in Brighton at 10pm
Drive to seafront
Park at NCP
Check into Quality Hotel
Leave Quality Hotel, head north
At Traffic lights turn right
At HSBC turn left
Komedia is on your right
Arrive at Komedia at 10.35 (and the show ended 20 minutes ago)

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Labels: General me

OK, it’s not Ghandi, it doesn’t even have the emotional texture of Dodgeball, but Team America – World Police is as funny as your mum starring in a blaxploitation flick. Using Thunderbirds style marionettes gives Trey Parker and Matt Stone licence to do things that wouldn’t normally get near a mainstream cinema. Alongside songs about AIDS (whether you’re gay, straight, white or spade, everyone’s got AIDS) and hard core pornography is a clear ridiculing of the breast beating Americans and bleeding heart liberals that Hollywood is otherwise scared to touch at the moment. Every time Team America is deployed to save the world they’re accompanied by red neck soft rock soundtrack which goes “America, FUCK YEAH!” It says it all really.

Along side is the typically brainless South Park stupidity. Terrorists communicate with each other using a combination of just three words – Mohammed, Jihad and Dakadaka. Kim Jong Il is a Dr Evil type character with a daft evil plan for world domination. He talks by switching his Rs and Ls round (like what Koreans do). Whilst you shouldn’t, you can’t help laughing every time he says Herro Everlybody! His song, Ronery, is truly touching. Of course there’s endless jokes that can be drawn from the limitations of marionettes (stupid walks, imprecise movements, strings everywhere) they use every one, about six times each.

As a piece of satire, I’m not sure how clear the message, if there is one, really is. There’s something to do with pussies (liberals, depicted by Hollywood Actors) don’t like dicks (Flag waving Americans) because dicks fuck pussies, but dicks also sometimes fuck assholes (evil dictatorships) and if they didn’t we’d all get covered in shit, and that pussies aren’t that far from assholes anyway. There’s something there, but I don’t know.

It’s not big and it’s not clever, but it’s very big and very clever. Hmm.

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Labels: Films