Friday on my mind

It seems to have been I *heart* Woolies Day on Radio2 today. What annoys me is that people aren't in love with Woolworth's at all, they're in love with a) nostalgia and b) getting things cheaper elsewhere. Woolworth's slit their own throat by trying to change too much. At one time they were the shop where you could buy, literally, everything, on any high street. Then they changed to a shop, which, at its core, sold CDs/DVDs/video games, toys, basic hardware and kids' clothes and moved to large superstores. All the time shops like Tesco, Wilkinson's and Argos were busy stealing their trade. Now they're paying the price.

I blogged about eighteen months ago about how we're all guilty for this state of affairs by picking up CDs with our weekly grocery shop and all sorts of cheap stuff via the internet. I hope they can be rescued, because if they aren't - besides thousands of people being put out of work, which is horrible - that'll mean one less record shop in my home town. Apart from supermarkets, the only place to buy music will be WH Smith, and even their music department seems to have shrunk a little more every time I go in there. I can remember, as little as ten years ago, there were three independent record shops, and three music departments inside larger stores here.



Anyway, I'm not here tomorrow, as I'm going to see The Zutons. I'm not really bothered about going but I'm humouring my gig-going chum as he's a fan, and he wasn't overly fussed about Elbow, but they won him over. So here's your Friday treat. A ZTT Records double-header this week. The first one's based on a Yes track, but don't let that put you off. The second was the theme tune to Top Gear Rally Report, but don't let that put you off either. And getting back to record shops, I bought both of these singles for about 20p from Boots after they'd dropped out of the Top 40. Boots was the place to go if you were a paper boy on a tight budget and could wait a few weeks for your singles.

Christ on a bike

I never liked the Krypton Factor as a kid, but they repeated it on FTN a couple of years ago and I got quite addicted. Today's reveal of the new presenter leaves me extremely cold though. He's the televisual equivalent of beige. Ugh. Unlike Gordon Burns - who is currently starring on the BBC's regional news in the North West - he's had a personality bypass. Besides, Gordon Burns once introduced me on Radio2, fact fans.

Actually, looking at that photo, Burns and Shephard do look quite similar. I don't think many women fancy Shephard though.

I know...

...I blogged about this last week, but I must urge you to watch BBC4's The Department Store. Last night's concerned a shop in Huddersfield called Peters, which, two years ago, was taken into administration. The store's still being run by its previous owners, husband and wife David and Caroline, only this time they're only managing the place. What I loved about last night's episode was that it showed the British at their best. For example:

• The customers were incredibly good-humoured.


• The British ability to either stand and pose or say 'oof' and run out of the way when confronted with a television camera pointing at them.


• The way someone stuck in a lift was only concerned about being late back to work off their dinner hour.


• The way British people, in shop cafes, are quite satisfied with a jacket potato 'inc. salad garnish'.


• Thinking that prawn and ham would be a satisfactory filling for a wrap.


• The way people in positions of power in clothes shops go to work dressed as though they're going for a night out.


• The unflinching optimism which makes them believe they can recreate a terrace cafe in Milan - which is overlooked by a stunning cathedral - in the Packhorse Centre in Huddersfield overlooking Dazzles ear-piercing emporium.


• The way that 'lady petrol' is somehow seen as decadent.

The director, Richard Macer, is quite clearly from the Louis Theroux school of filmmaking, but you can't begrudge him copying when his films are as good as this. Watch it.

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't understand

There are certain things that, over the course of this last weekend I know I'll never understand.
The first thing is the appeal of the film, Mamma Mia. You know the one, based on the music of Abba? I was perusing the female members of my family's Christmas lists over the weekend, and every one of them (out of four) had the Mamma Mia DVD on there. Now, I'm not one to start slagging off Abba, they did some good pop songs, and they did some bad pop songs, but why would you want to see those songs in the setting of a film?
Now, the film is obviously very popular; I was told on Saturday that it's only just stopped being shown at my local multiplex, and even then that was because of the impending DVD release (handily in time for Christmas). The film was released in UK cinemas on July 10th. So it's been showing continually for a quarter of a year. Now I'm not one to discourage people from going to the pictures, but is there nothing else that these women (and I'm assured from those who've seen it that the audience is predominantly female) would like to see instead? I was rather looking forward to catching Shane Meadows's film Somers Town when it was released on August 22nd, but guess what? None of the cinemas round here were showing it. Which is a shame when you think that Meadows lives fifteen miles from where I sit now. I suppose the screens were blocked up with Meryl Streep doing the splits and Pierce Brosnan being out of tune.
Never mind, I'm sure that Bjorn and Benny are currently sitting on their own private island somewhere lighting handmade Cuban cigars with high denomination banknotes, while a convoy of trucks pull up outside their homes in Sweden and deposit huge wodges of cash down a chute into their cellars. And good for them.

The next thing I know I'll never understand is the appeal of the mobile phone. I know they're incredibly handy things to have, and now I can have a camera with me wherever I go. The thing is, I was in a phone shop on Saturday buying a phone for my mother. She needs a simpler one to the one she's got because at the minute, instead of receiving calls, she starts taking accidental photographs whenever someone rings her. Well, I was just stood looking at the display to work out my options when I was more or less kicked out of the way by three teenage girls. One of them said "Yeah, this is what Darryl's buying me for Christmas. It's a lovely phone the LG GS666X-WANK ain't it?" A beautiful phone? Now, I like things that are aesthetically pleasing, but I'd never go as far as to call a mobile phone 'lovely'. It's a tool for communicating with, nothing more, nothing less. My boss often tells me that people at work who have the latest phone probably have absolutely nothing else in their lives apart from a fancy phone. For once I think he might be right.
You see, when I was a kid the things I drooled over were things to play music on. The more graphic equalisers the better. And if not stereos, it was poring over the browser in the local record shops looking at what records you couldn't afford out of your paper round wages.
Who knows, in twenty odd years time those teenagers might be blogging about why the kids of today are obsessed with teleportation devices, in their day it was mobile phones.

Stop press: Another thing I don't get, is the obsession with Diane Keen's tits. I get more visitors to this site looking for Diane Keen's tits that anything else. I wouldn't mind, but they're nothing to write home about.

So, I come from Mos-cock!

I've been ill. No, I'm not looking for sympathy, I hate being ill - I just think about all the bonuses and extra day's holiday I'll miss out on. I won't go into it, just let me quote Fawlty Towers and you'll get the gist: "I think those prawns might have been a bit off."



Anyway, that's given me time to watch a load of stuff backed up on my PVR.
It's not all Turkey Twizzlers and crack cocaine here at Ambassador Towers you know, which is evidenced by my interest in military history. I've been watching a documentary series called WWII Behind Closed Doors. Using archive material not released by the Russians until the 1990s, it shows Joseph Stalin's part in WWII. I don't know about you, but Stalin's my favourite 20th-Century-dictator-responsible-for-the-needless-deaths-of-millions. I think it's the bushy moustache and proto-flat top combo coupled with those high-collared safari jackets festooned with medals and red stars ensemble that does it for me. But never mind about that, because it's a serious and weighty documentary, the BBC have made the reconstructions in Russian, hence no embarrassing 'Allo 'Allo style accents. The dialogue in these reconstructions is subtitled, and it was this which made me choke on my dry toast yesterday. Check this for fantastic use of subtitles: Uncle Joe's having perhaps his only moment of self doubt. He gathers the Politburo in a room and speaks "Lenin left us a great legacy, and we, his followers, have fucked it up". Brilliant.

I watched that thing about the department store too (I know Hepworth's blogged about it here). If you didn't see it, it was a documentary about an independent department store in Leyburn, North Yorkshire (watch it on the iPlayer here). When I say department store, I mean department store, as in they sell everything. As opposed to Debenhams who style themselves "Britain's favourite department store", even though their definition of department store is a clothes shop that sells a few tumblers upstairs. The documentary followed the patriarch's retirement and handing over of business to his daughter and son-in-law. Watching it, I'm surprised they ever turned a profit such was their propensity for falling out with each other. For those of you who have watched it, I'd like to make a few points here:

1. The 50% of me with Yorkshire genes got very cross when the daughter apologised first over the chairs incident. She was quite clearly in the right so should have let the mother come to her.
2. If the daughter was in such a thrall to the Playtex rep, why couldn't she blag herself a better bra? At one point, her knockers were pointing in totally opposite directions whilst resting on her stomach. As Gok Wan says "Ladies, get yourself decent underwear; it's the foundation on which you lay everything else. You wouldn't build a house on soggy soil".
3. The 'fashion' show is one of the funniest things I've seen all year. Or perhaps ever.
4. I love the concept of 'bingo trousers'.

Right, as it's Friday, you can have this. I'm reminded of it every time The Killers' rather insipid new single comes on the radio. The intro starts and I mistake it for this, and I think "Ooh, great, I've not heard this Tuesday-dinnertime-chart-rundown-background-music in years". And I'm always disappointed. The video's great, by the way, especially if you fancy the artist. As the artist himself clearly does.

What a cu...

I see that Robert Kilroy-Silk is appearing in this year's I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!
Now, Mr Kilroy-Silk, as I'm sure you're aware, is an elected MEP. He's an MEP 'representing' the East Midlands i.e. where I live. He was elected in 2004 whilst a member of the UK Independence Party; a party who were supposed to be against Britain's membership of the EU and, as such, against any sort of involvement in British affairs by a parliament based in Belgium. Apparently they stood for election to the European parliament in order to destroy it from the inside.
Well, these days Mr Kilroy-Silk turns up once a month to vote. If you don't turn up to vote, you don't get paid. So, as a public servant, claiming tax payers money, he turns up, votes and sods off again. That's really destroying the European parliament and sticking it to those on the Brussels gravy train, isn't it? Not.
I wish he'd go to Brussels to sort out some kind of EU funding for the dualling of the A46 between Newark and the other side of Nottingham. Oh no, how silly of me , he's currently eating insects on a vacuous 'reality' show with a load of other fuckwits.

While he was on the 2004 election campaign, Kilroy-Silk came to Newark to drum up support. I happened to be in town that day myself, a Tuesday afternoon, as I recall. I saw him and his hanger-on (a man so useless that he hadn't bothered to do any research as to when the market days in the town were, so his man would have found a huge increase in the amount of flesh he could have pressed. Which, in turn, Lead to Kilroy-Silk booming at him "Where are all the people!?"), they approached me, Kilroy-Silk with his arm outstretched ready to shake my hand. I carried on walking towards him, and didn't make any eye contact with him at all. Still with his arm outstretched he said to me "May I introduce myself...", now, I'm not usually rude, but I knew who the twat was and just carried on walking. I was quite proud of myself that day. I hope I never clap eyes on the oily, tanned, xenophobic, controlling turd again.

How much...

...would you have to completely hate someone to buy them this for Christmas?