Pass my pills

What gives with Twitter? Over the past week it's suddenly been all over the media. Much to my amusement they had a Celebrity Twitterers feature in the Mirror last week. One of the so-called celebs was Will Carling. Now by all means Twitter if that's your thang but at least have the gall to put something interesting on there. One of Carling's entries was 'Taking the dog out'. Phew, the life of an ex-England rugby captain and Royal adulterer, eh? I don't know how he copes.

A lot of this has come about because Stephen Fry is a compulsive Twitterer. Why, only this week he was trapped in a lift and Twittered on about it to the 750 million people who follow him on Twitter. Now I'm not good in a crisis involving myself, I tend to panic. And although I'm not a lift-phobic, I do have a sense of relief when the bell goes, the doors open and I can step out of one. So the last thing I'm going to do if I'm trapped in a lift is to start Twittering (besides, I have an internet-enabled phone, but don't ask me how to access the internet on it). In reality, what would happen to me is that I'd be crying and pissing myself so much the lift would gradually fill up with water so that only my head would be exposed at the top of the lift carriage, like in a disaster film.
And why would you want to follow the minutiae of someone's life like that? You might as well move in with them.
Things came to a head last night when my preferred Forest blogger announced that he was going to Twitter match updates from the stands. When I go to football I go to watch the match and have a laugh with my mates. Not to stand there staring into a mobile phone all night Twittering. Mind you, I'd have loved to see some of last night's entries after half time, probably something like "Oh God, I'm going to jump off Trent Bridge if Kris Commons scores" leading on to "Oh shit, goodbye cruel world..."

And what if nobody wants to follow you on Twitter? How depressed would you be? Who the hell would be interested in what I've got to say:
07.00 Got up for a shit, shave, shower and shampoo
07.15 Preparing porridge.
08.00 Having a lazy wank
08.15 Watching Freshly Squeezed on Channel 4 Plus One
09.30 Watching To Buy or Not to Buy
10.00 Having a lazy wank
12.00 Preparing dinner. Heinz Ravioli on toast I think
See? How mundane is that? Let's have a little straw poll, who'd follow me on Twitter? I bet nobody. Anyway, I'm a Faceberk man, and going on Twitter would be like sleeping with your best mate's missus.

The day the music didn't die

Two points from yesterday's Steve Wright show:

1 - He kept banging on about it being fifty years since Buddy Holly wished he'd took the bus instead. This kept being referred to as 'the day the music died', it clearly didn't. I know this because 99% of my record collection is made up of records written and made after February 1959. He'd obviously been told to promote something that was on later called The Hour the Music Died, which dramatised the hour leading up to Holly's death. The clips made it sound awful, like a cross between the Radio Ham and Airplane. Holly would have been so proud. Not.
My parents went to see Holly at Nottingham Palais when they were still courting (What a lovely term. Do people still 'court' each other, like deer?). True to form, Dad fell asleep. Only Dad could fall asleep at a rock 'n' roll gig. He was deeply uninterested in music and probably only took mater to keep her quiet. Dad did anything for a quiet life.

2 - Much as I loathe Wright, he does sometimes play some good records which you can tell he likes because you don't hear anyone else play them very often (see here). Yesterday he played Is it Like Today by World Party. Like XTC and The Auteurs/Luke Haines, I love everything I've heard by them but have never got round to buying the catalogue. The other thing is, what happened to World Party? I know they were mainly an ex-Waterboy called Karl Wallinger, but what's happened to him? Like Talk Talk's wonderful Mark Hollis, he seems to have disappeared without trace. Here's the other World Party songs I know and love (And I know She's the One but only because the fat dancer from Take That covered it. Wasn't Guy Chambers in the World Party orbit at some point?).

While looking for those videos, I found this. I used to love it and haven't heard it for probably the best part of twenty years. Now tell me that You Tube isn't the internet's finest hour.

Fille de Fer douze points!

I know I shouldn't allow myself to get wound up by Eurovision, but this year it really is the limit.

If you aren't aware, Andrew Lloyd Webber's took it upon himself to write the UK's entry for the 2009 contest in Moscow. Lloyd Webber, quite rightly, thinks that the UK's involvement has been seriously undermined over the years by people like Terry Wogan and the block voting of Eastern European countries. The problem is that the song he's written is, in a word, pants. As you can see, if you watch that video, it's one of those oh-my-God-I-don't-believe-I've-won-this X Factor winner's efforts, complete with histrionic vocals. It'd probably sit well in a musical, but this is about pop records, and ALW doesn't write pop records. It's the sort of song that's so easily forgotten when mixed in with a Croation band of accordianists and jugglers and intense Gallic chanteuses (is that a word?) on the big night.

In an earlier show we witnessed ALW trolling around Eastern Europe begging people, including, get this, Vladimir Putin to vote for the UK. I'm sorry, but you can't moan about block voting and then expect people to block vote for you. Apparently ALW's popular in Eastern Europe, which is apparently why he thinks people will vote for a song he's penned. Wrongitty wrong. On that reasoning, Iron Maiden are massive in Eastern and Northern Europe, so they should be a shoo-in, surely. Besides, they've got the stagecraft down to a fine art already, Bruce Dickinson loves running around a stage waving a Union Jack (including, rather insensitively, at Dublin's Croke Park stadium) So, next year, can we have Iron Maiden represent us please? Remember Lordi?

Beer today, gone tomo....Oh, I'll get me coat....

Whilst enjoying a few cans of refreshing Grolsch lager over the weekend, I noticed this symbol on the side. I presumed it meant that Grolsch wasn't a beer to be enjoyed by heavy metal fans who modelled themselves on Mr Greedy with severe backache. I then had it explained to me that it means 'lay-deez, don't drink it if you're up the stick'. Surely if you're sexually active and mature enough to get yourself pregnant then you should already know that drinking copious amounts of mid-strength Dutch beer is detrimental to the unborn baby's health? Or am I being very old-fashioned? I also notice that the silhouette, handily, already has a Croydon facelift.

It's health and safety gawn mad. And that's coming from a H&S officer.

Anyway, on an unrelated note, I've just been out clearing mine and some neighbours' drives and pathways of snow and putting salt down. I don't believe in the afterlife, but just in case it does exist I reckon I've put a few points in the bank this morning. I'm bloody great , me.

Doh!* I promised myself that I wasn't going to blog about snow. Bah!

*That's a Peter Glaze 'doh!', not a Homer Simpson one, because I'm British.

Disgustipated from Newark writes...

While browsing Statcounter just now I notice that someone's come to this blog by putting 'steve wright fat bastard' into Google. Which reminded me of this story I saw in the Mirror this week. Is that why his three hour daily twatcast is called The Big Show?
I also notice that someone's come here by Googling 'play van halen on ukulele', which makes my heart sing. In other Statcounter news, I'm still getting the usual Diane Keen pervs desperate to see her knockers and some misguided fool who thinks that Kate Thornton's started advertising yoghurts.

I had a letter published in the local paper today. Yes, I knew it would happen sooner rather than later that I'd start writing letters to the paper. Mind you, having said that, I actually know someone who writes letters to TV listings magazines complaining about the amount of swearing on TV and the amount of violence in Eastenders, and they pay him to do it. Bah!
Unfortunately, such is the crapness of the Newark Advertiser's website, they only put a selection of letters online, and mine didn't make the internet cut. It was in the paper under the heading 'No one knocks', so I'll leave it up to your imagination what it was about. They did seem fit to omit mine and put a letter in where some old fart, currently living in Spain, was reminiscing about Newark in the 60s and 70s.

Have a good weekend, and here's someone with too much time on their hands playing Van Halen's Eruption on the ukulele.

Still...

...on a Luke Haines' tip. Here's a good article about the man from possibly the world's dullest newspaper, if you needed any more convincing to buy it that is.
I should be on commision...

Choose not to choose life

I watched a TV programme about Trainspotting the other night, and it reminded me how much I love that film. I remember seeing Shallow Grave at the cinema in about 1994, I think. It was one of the few times I've seen a film at the cinema more than once. I thought at the time that these people who made it must have a great future ahead of them as it was a British film that stood head and shoulders above all other British films at the time. In those days if you went to see a British film it usually meant a romantic comedy or a costume drama. Shallow Grave showed imagination with a great idea and young, relatively unknown actors. One of whom was Ewan McGregor. I was aware of him before because he'd been in Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar, and because of that I thought he was a Cockney. His performance in Shallow Grave was just ace.
I became aware of the people behind Shallow Grave making Trainspotting because I used to read Empire magazine (this was in the days when I was trying to impress women and had a large socialising circle so I used to go to the pictures a lot), and I'm sure it was some sort of news story in there. I'd read the book Trainspotting by that time and couldn't wait to see how they were going to put it on the big screen. My appetite was whetted further by this teaser trailer that was put into cinemas in the summer of 1995.



Well, after seeing that the excitement was to much to bear and there was still another six months before we'd see it. Even on that one minute trailer it looks brilliant.

Then it finally came out. I think I went to see it maybe three times, which was unheard of me and I think it's still a personal record. I just loved everything about it, the camera angles, the freeze frames, the captions, the acting, the amount of proper swearing, the fantasy sequences, the music, the black humour. Of course all the Daily Mail moralisers were up in arms about how it supposedly glorifies Class A drug abuse. It was quite obvious to me that none of them had actually seen it (so what's new?) as in the second half it clearly shows the down side of the 'H'. I was of the opinion at the time, and I still hold the opinion, that it should be shown in secondary schools as part of social education classes. Let ver kids make up their own minds and don't preach to them.
Back to the film, and there isn't one weak performance in it. McGregor, as Rent Boy, was everything you wanted him to be. Ewen Bremner as Spud was perfect casting. Robert Carlyle's Begbie was just like every pub thug you've ever met. Danny Lee Miller's Sick Boy had a cool swagger about him which is just what you want from the character.

And the best thing of all, and the reason I went to the pictures three times before the video came out? The opening titles. They're the best opening titles of any film ever. It hits you between the eyes from the second it starts, just hearing that drumbeat on Lust For Life brings me out in goosebumps. Strap yourselves in for this film, it will blow you away.



There's even a surprise appearance by Dale Winton.

What more can I say, I love it and I'm going to order the DVD right now.

Choose life. And remember, don't let your friends tie you to the railway track.