Seems that Charlotte Church has decided to put her music career on hold (No follow-up to ‘Tissues and Issues’ anytime soon, I’m afraid). Instead she’s going to concentrate on her TV chat show. Channel 4, in their wisdom, have seen fit to commission another two series. I can only assume that the TV schedule leaves more time for smoking a hundred fags a day and getting off your face on Bacardi Breezer or whatever alchopop the youngsters are quaffing these days.
From an interview with the ‘Crazy Chick’ herself, it sounds like we’re in for more of the zany hi-jinks that the first season treated us to. Some excerpts from the interview with The Voice Of An Angel…
So what will you do apart from chat to your guests?
We’ll involve them in sketches, I love doing the sketches me.
(To be fair, I added the ‘me’ at the end of the sentence. It seemed appropriate).
Will you be duetting with musicians who come on the show?
I’d like to think so. At the start, I sing the theme tune, which is called ‘My Theme Tune’! It’s quite funny.
Hmmmm? Is it though? Is it?
One of my ideas for it was to make it a bit different every week, by doing it in a different musical style, be it rock, or reggae, just to put a bit of variation into it.
Excellent. Inspired. Looking forward to that then.
A last word about the show?
Hopefully it’ll be really quick and really funny.
Doubt the latter. Pray for the former.
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Over on Brilliant But Canceled, they’ve got a list of the top 100 TV catchphrases.
Unfortunately, they’re all from American shows so priceless gems such as the one in the title of this post don’t make it in . That said, there are some humdingers in there. In no particular order then, I’ve noted my top five and also my very, very bottom five.
Top o’ the bunch:
- “De plane! De plane!” (Tattoo, “Fantasy Island”)
- “Just one more thing…” (Columbo, “Columbo”)
- “You eeeediot!” (Ren, “Ren & Stimpy”)
- “I love it when a plan comes together” (Hannibal, “The A-Team”)
- “Aaay” (Fonzie, “Happy Days”)
I think those pretty much speak for themselves. Now to the rotters:
- “How you doin’?” (Joey Tribbiani, “Friends”)
Jesus, that got old quick. Seems it wasn’t enough to base a spin-off on either.
- “That’s hot” (Paris Hilton, “The Simple Life”)
Don’t get me started on this leech.
- “The truth is out there” (Fox Mulder, “The X-Files”)
Maybe, but I lost all sense of what was going on, and will to live, by about series five.
- “You’re fired!” (Donald Trump, “The Apprentice”)
Annoying, weasely, back-stabbing, lying, cheating, useless bastards. Fire ‘em all I say.
- “I want my MTV!” (MTV ad)
Not any more I don’t. Does anyone remember the last time they saw a music video on MTV (assuming that you don’t have some sort of premium satellite package that gives you forty different MTV channels)?
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As I mentioned earlier, I’ve recently started a new job. As well as the usual tribulations that accompany this sort of move (determining where I can get a nice danish and whether the canteen serves a decent rasher for my Friday breakfast treat), there is the usual ‘getting to know you’ phase where I’m forced to interact with people that, given the choice, I probably wouldn’t want to hang out with. While some of these people seem less moderately annoying than others, one has so far distanced himself from the herd by being the first, and strongest, contender for the role of alpha-tosser. He alternates between very dull and pretty dull and, as many of his ilk do, has an impressive array of peculiarities.
Today however, I’d like to discuss an odd Instant Messaging idiosyncrasy of his however.
Now, my desk is pretty close to his. He sits directly behind me and if I swiveled my swivel chair through 180 degrees, I could touch him without unduly straining my good reaching arm. The other day, I was waiting for him to finish with something so that I could do some work on it. I looked over my shoulder and asked “could you let me know when you’re finished with that?”. He said “Sure”. All good so far. A few minutes later, my Instant Message client popped up with a message from him reading “I’m finished”. Huh? I looked over my shoulder again to see if he’d sneaked off to some remote location that might explain the necessity for an IM. Nope. He was still sitting there within arm’s reach. “Odd”, I thought but, being new around here and all, I decided to give the benefit of doubt. I (verbally) expressed my thanks and went about my business.
A day later however, my IM client popped up again with a message from alpha-tosser, still seated directly behind me. It read “Have you got a sec?”. He’s right there! Why is he using IM? Why go to the trouble of opening the client, finding my name in the list, clicking the chat button and typing “Have you got a sec?”. After I did a double take, rolled my eyes and thought “tosser”, I said “Yep”. He then told me what he wanted verbally, without moving from his desk, because that’s how fucking close he is.
What’s the story? Is this going to continue? Why do it at all? I’m at a loss. Next time he does it, should I ignore it and pretend I’m away from my desk?
Some people.
Here’s the thing, right. I fucking hate the show so why is it that I know that it’s called ‘Sex AND the city’ when most of the morons that actually like that dross insist on calling it ‘Sex IN the city’? It’s fucking ‘AND‘, not ‘IN‘. They’re two different words.
Tossers
What do I need to do to get a decent cup of tea?
Having recently moved jobs. I was happy to note that my new employer (a very large multinational of which I’m sure you will hear more) has thoughtfully provided a little kitchen area quite close to my desk. Quite pleased with this facility, I brought in my mug and a box of Twinnings finest. I made my first brew and popped back to my desk to get on with whatever work I was currently avoiding. I happened to glance into the cup as I reached the end however. Jesus, it was manky. There were dark brown scum marks all down the inside of the cup that indicated each pause in my drinking. Worse, in the liquid at the bottom, there were dozens of little black flakes of crud. I hurried back to the kitchen to wash my cup and stole a peek inside the kettle while I was there.
Christ, it was nightmarish. It was a sort of crusty black towards the bottom that faded to a dark chocolatey brown as it neared the top. The heating element was caked in black vileness and I could see lots more black flakes swimming about in it. What could I do though? Forego my tea? Not bloody likely mate. Next cuppa, I thought I’d try give the kettle a bit of a rinse first to see if it helped. I rinsed it three or four times and filled it again. I let it boil and then left it minute to allow the flaky bits time to settle. I poured slowly so as not to upset said flaky bits and had tea with slightly less flakes but just as much brown scum.
I determined that this wasn’t good enough and decided to buy a new kettle. As I’m new around here however, I couldn’t be known as the toff who was afraid of the manky kettle. I wasn’t prepared to be branded Mr. Fancy Pants and be taunted by the rough children who’d accuse me of being ‘too good’ for their flaky bits. I’d have to sneak the damn thing in. I bought a cheapo, supermarket kettle for a tenner (a small price to pay for a nice cup of tea) and the next day, I smuggled it in under cover of early. I popped it in the kitchen and said nothing. From the lack of any response or overheard conversation, I’m assuming that not only is my appliance-buying secret safe but that nobody even noticed.
All was well for a couple of days. My tea was flakeless (although I did notice that the scum was still present, albeit slightly less prevalent). After recently filling the kettle however, I’ve now seen that my snazzy new one is already covered in a darkening brown film. It’s only been a few days. What the fuck is in the water? At this rate it’s only a matter of time before the return of the flakes. I’m predicting that I’ll probably need to buy a kettle a month to enjoy tea without shite in it.
Any experts in the field of brown tea scum reading should feel free to suggest solutions.
Hi Chuck. Love your work. If you’re reading, could you include some sort of catch-type device to stop the tongue of my All Stars from slipping away down the side of my foot?
Cheers.
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Getting the bus into town the other night. Sitting quietly upstairs listening to my iPod when the bus stopped sharply. Something rolled along the floor and hit me in the foot. As I shifted to look at it, I noticed the girl in the seat behind me shifting and looking at the floor. So, chivalrous as you like, I picked up the object which turned out to be a half-empty soft drinks bottle. I turned in my seat and held it out for the girl to take back. She just looked at me like I was a nutter.
Moving at the speed of embarrassment, my brain registered the fact that the bottle actually wasn’t hers and that she had been looking on the floor because it had brushed her foot on its journey to stop at mine. Instead of a nice guy returning the nice girl’s drink, I was in fact a mentalist offering rubbish to a stranger on the bus.
To top it all, I had a half-empty bottle to deal with. I couldn’t put it back on the floor as that seemed like it would be even weirder (and it would just roll around again). I couldn’t wander around the bus to see if it had an owner. I don’t know the etiquette for this sort of situation. What do you do? I had to hang onto it and nonchalantly pretend that nothing was wrong until my stop. Then I left it on my seat. I hate the bus.
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Behold. NME have released their Cool List for 2006. All of the bated breath and anxious wringing of hands can cease. If you look on the NME site, it currently directs you to go buy a copy of the magazine to find out the winners but they’re all over the net anyway. For your convenience, I’ve popped the top twenty below.
- Beth Ditto, The Gossip
- Faris Rotter, The Horrors
- Lily Allen
- Jarvis Cocker
- Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Kieren Webster, The View
- Kate Jackson, The Long Blondes
- Gerard Way, My Chemical Romance
- Thom Yorke, Radiohead
- Lovefoxxx, CSS
- Paul Simenon, The Good, The Bad & The Queen
- Liam Gallagher, Oasis
- Jamie Reynolds, Klaxons
- The House Of Lords, The Young Knives
- Tahita Bulmer New Young Pony Club
- Cee-Lo, Gnarls Barkley
- Ryan Ross, Panic! At The Disco
- Carl Barât, Dirty Pretty Things
- Jack White, The White Stripes/The Raconteurs
- Jamie Frost, The Automatic
Now, the first thing that I thought when I read this was “what a lot of complete cunts”. I can only spot one or possibly two names on this list that aren’t cunts. Possibly NME have a different definition of cool than I do (well, I’m sure they do really). However, for a start there are two blokes called Jamie on the list so they’re tossers. Anyone that refers to himself as ‘The House Of Lords’ is a tosser. Liam “if I’m so cool, why’d I get my teeth kicked out by a
computer salesman?” Gallagher? Tosser. Don’t even get me started on that whinging, chav-thrash Lily Allen. Christ, she’s shit.
NME’s page on this includes some quotes from The Cool on what it means to be cool. Amy Winehouse reckons that “Cool is not giving a fuck”, while The House Of Lords explained: “People who are arbiters of good taste and cleverness and doing cool things”. That zany old The House Of Lords. What a tosser.
Incidentally, Pete Doherty made the list at number 28. Not in the top twenty but I’ve singled him out for special praise as he’s one of the worst and most useless cunts around.
The only small ray of light however, is that Jarvis Cocker has made the list. Let’s face it. Jarvis is quite likely the coolest man in this universe.
Now don’t get me wrong after all this ranting. Just because this site is named after an aging rocker’s pants doesn’t mean that I’m some dinosaur that hates all music made after 1978. I’ve actually got a pretty eclectic music collection if you’re interested. This has nothing to do with their musical ability (or lack thereof) and everything to do with the simple fact that they’re cunts. And as for NME…
