How to Save a Billion Dollars…

tiger_apology

So let’s say (hypothetically speaking of course) I’m a well loved billionaire. I sleep my way through a quarter of a deck of cards worth of women while my beautiful wife is at home with the kids. I make a silly error and the whole world finds out that I’m not as squeaky clean as I put myself out to be. Now all of a sudden the media turns on me, my wife threatens to leave (and any Judge is likely to whip my a** with child support), advertisers are afraid of my name and in a nutshell my world starts crumbling down.

I try to lay low for a while but that only allows rumours to spin out of control so I then try to go into therapy but thanks to all the celebrities that have spoilt that avenue as a panacea, it doesn’t help. So now I realize that I’m on a downward spiral and unless I do something soon I’ll be so damaged that I’m gonna be googling charity shops and ramen recipes. So I get together with my PR team and we come up with a plan to save my bank account and my image and make me marketable again.

I stand up in front of selected journalists for fifteen minutes, shed a tear at certain points and try my hardest to keep a humble look on my face. After this I take no questions and give no interviews, I’ve learnt my lesson already and can’t screw things up right now. This isn’t really hard to do since all I have to keep in mind is the money I could stand to lose from my lucrative contracts with General Motors, Titleist, General Mills, American Express, Accenture, and Nike. I kinda regret that I didn’t speak up sooner and put an end to this before things got out of hand.

So now that I’ve done some damage control and crisis management, hopefully people will feel sorry for me and embrace me again. I’ll lay low for a while and then be back on my ‘game’ again.

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Blair Shows No Remorse, Bin Laden Augurs More Conflict, Jedward Achieve Success, Alex Reid Wins BB, and Music Continues to Die Slow and Painful Death…

Osama bin Laden prophesies more conflict. Alex Reid wins Big Brother. Jedward hit No.2 in the singles charts. It’s the end of civilisation as we know it. Run for the hills; get down to your private bunkers, and forsake this mad, doomed world. The four horsemen are galloping into town, even as we speak…

Alexandra Burke is bad enough, but how in Hades did those Evil Irish Twins convince people to BUY their track? I’ll admit to a soft spot for the original Vanilla Ice version of ‘Ice, Ice Baby’, but this new version (which monstrously includes elements of the original original Queen song) is the most tasteless, talentless piece of bantha fodder this side of Jabba the Hutt’s faecal discharges. Clearly the dregs of the music buying population are at their all-time lowest standard of judgement; Cheryl Cole could fart into an amplifier and it’d be guaranteed the No.1 spot, at this point.

And have all these people failed to notice that the Evil Irish Twins don’t actually DO anything on the track, other than jump up and down a lot? Vanilla Ice is the only half-talented thing in the entire affair.

As for Cowell’s cynical shepherding together of ‘artists’ (translation: a collection of X-Factor contestants, plus the senile and overrated Rod Stewart) to rape and pillage a classic piece of music (specifically, REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’)… I’ll bite my tongue on that one, on account of it being a fundraiser for the Haitian relief efforts.

So, anyway, that covers the ongoing slow and painful death of the music industry…

Popular culture in general continues to march to the rythmless beat of Katie Price’s drum. Quite why Alex Reid won Big Brother is something of a mystery (all he did, as far as I could see, was get naked a lot and sound stupid); but the great Jordan, never one to miss a trick or a profit, promptly married him (in a quick and ‘quiet’ ceremony – which, needless to say, also included photographers from a celebrity magazine). That bandwagon got to her so phenomenally quickly, it must have been drawn by the same lions that drew Mark Antony’s chariot.

Seriously, Katie Price and Simon Cowell should surely join forces; they’d be unstoppable. They could own and run the entire mainstream media within a year, tops.

As for the Iraq inquiry and Tony Blair’s recent grilling; why is everyone so shocked or disappointed that he didn’t ‘apologise’ for the invasion of Iraq? Why would he apologise for something he felt was the right decision? And, regardless of whether he was right or wrong, why would you WANT someone to apologise for doing what they BELIEVED to be right?

Another very popular world figure is has just recently released his latest video message to the West. Bin Laden has indicated that there’ll be no peace until there is first peace in Palestine. There’ll be no peace, then…

Well, not unless someone goes back through time to the First World War and prevents the British government from stealing someone’s country and giving it to someone else – and all on the basis of a few Biblical passages. Though, of course, we wouldn’t want to get mixed up in temporal complications and predestination paradoxes. Anyone who watches Star Trek knows full well that it’s unwise to mess with the past.

Of course, given considerable evidence that Osama bin Laden has actually been dead for about seven years, one has to wonder who that fellow is who keeps recording these messages.

If Bin Laden truly is long deceased, then the real threat to our civilisation remains Simon Cowell and Katie Price…

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How RATM Stole Christmas. Plus Dracula Rocks, and American Movie Star Converts Katie Price’s Gigolo Cagefighter to the Lord Jesus (Amen)…

The snow’s come and gone, and what a lovely gift it was… apart from all the slipping, breaking of collar bones, snail’s-pace traffic jams, and general freezing to death. But wasn’t it pretty? The answer is… no, not really. The only time snow is pretty is on Christmas Eve; unfortunately, we had the snow (and, worse, the ice) every day APART from Christmas Eve. The weather fairies, it seems, are growing increasingly incompetent. And now we’re told more of the Arctic shafting is on its way.

But Christmas 2009 was made gleeful all the same by Rage Against the Machine making Christmas No.1 – possibly the single most unlikely event since Greece robbed Luis Figo of the 2004 European Championships. It was a glorious victory for music, made all the more worthwhile just to hear the middle-aged viewers calling into GMTV and expressing their outrage at ‘poor Joe what’s-his-face’ being unfairly robbed of his No.1 spot, and having the dreary GMTV presenters look into the screen in all seriousness and ask ‘is it right?’ for this to have happened? Well, it did happen. In your face, children.

Speaking of hard rock, mystifying news has broken that Sir Christopher Lee is releasing a heavy metal album – which qualifies as the most unlikely event since Rage Against the Machine made Christmas No.1. Seriously, the prospect of hearing Dracula/Count Dooku taking lead vocals on a collection of metal numbers is a little bit fascinating, and might even eclipse some of those confusingly compelling spoken-word epics by the likes of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.

The present Celebrity Big Brother, we’re told, is the final one. I’m not sure I understand why, when viewing figures are so high and there’s no shortage of third-rate celebrities apparently willing to be subjected to its manipulations. Channel 4 dropping it would make about as much sense as the BBC dropping Johnothan Ross. Oh, wait…

I’m not a supporter of reality TV in general, but Big Brother has always been the exception to me, tending to provide some genuinely interesting television. Granted, it might work out to only about ten minutes of good television for every five hours of footage; but that’s still better than anything ITV has churned out. Generally, the first week (especially the always overblown hullaballoo of the launch nights) tends to be mind-numbingly dull; but then, typically, by the second week the dynamics have become far more interesting.

We’ve had Stephanie Beecham proving that a woman in her sixties can be significantly more sexy than girls more than half her age.  We’ve had the infinitely interesting Heidi Fleiss. We’ve had Stephen Baldwin proving to be the first ever entertaining AND inoffensive Bible-basher. And we’ve got the massively overrated Vinnie Jones revealing himself to be a grim, whiney old man. Why does everyone keep pretending that Vinnie Jones is some kind of great cultural figure? He was NEVER that good a footballer, and he’s even less adept at acting (pretty much playing yourself in a few films does NOT make you Peter O’Toole).

Still, the point is this; what other show could create a televisual moment as bizzare as having one of the Baldwin brothers hold hands with Alex Andre (that’s his name, right?) and having him summon the Lord Jesus into his life? Katie Price must’ve been choking on her piles of money – the LAST person she wants showing up in her life is the Son of God.

If anything, the normal Big Brother (the one that goes on for six months at a time and is populated by desperate and slightly retarded attention-seekers from really bad night-clubs) is the one that should be axed, while the celebrity version (which, let us remember, has managed over the years to entice the likes of George Galloway, Dennis Roddman, Pete Burns, TWO Jacksons, and now an evangelising Baldwin) could continue for one month a year.

And since we’re on the subject of celebrities, how on earth did a talentless mop of blonde hair like Jessica Simpson wind up coupled with one of the greatest geniuses in rock history; aka, Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins? They’d be about as well matched as Osama bin Laden and Miss Piggy.

PS; if anyone’s thinking of stealing that idea of Bin Laden and Ms Piggy as the basis for a sitcom, back off – I’m getting it copyrighted, ASAP…

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Please Help Haiti…

It’s been all over the news so by now everyone knows the devastation that Haiti is currently faced with.  I can not, and would not want to imagine being in the same situation.  I gave my donation and I urge you to do the same (no matter how little).  The has been much controversy over which fund raising efforts are genuine, therefore, I endorse donating to the British Red Cross‘ appeal.

Haiti - Presidential Palace destroyed

Haiti Earthquake Aftermath

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KILLING IN THE NAME OF…

Viva Facebook and God bless Rage Against the Machine!

RATM are the greatest rap/rock combo in the world and one of the greatest bands, full-stop, of the past twenty years. Joe Bloggs is a karaoke singer from a TV talent show. If RATM make Christmas No.1 with ‘Killing in the Name Of’ (one of the most unchristmasy songs of all time), it will represent a glorious coup for the dying world of real music and a timely black-eye for Emperor Cowell and his empire of brainwashing tedium. It will also be the second most faith-affirming demonstration of the power of the Internet since Obama’s presidential victory.

And yet, even now, we have Cowell and Cheryl Cole coming out and objecting to the Facebook campaign, like disgruntled royalty complaining about the peasants. The pot’s got nothing over the kettle when Simon Cowell has the nerve to come out and compare the RATM Vs Joe Karaoke contest to ‘David and Goliath’ – and actually suggesting that ‘The X-Factor’ is DAVID in the analogy!

Right – so the billionaire mass media mogul and corporate dictator is complaining that his TV-manufactured product is being treated ‘unfairly’ because thousands of people are supporting a hard-working band of proper musicians who’ve worked their trade for sixteen years and built up a proper fanbase? Sounds about right. Seriously, if there was a Nobel Prize for Hypocrisy, then Simon Cowell would be a dead cert. He practically OWNS the music industry in this country; and THAT’S why he’s upset – no dictator is happy when the people mobilise and try to take back some power.

As for Cheryl Cole – a woman who makes Danni Minogue seem prodigiously talented – what business does she have publicly criticising the Facebook campaign? If  I were a talentless piece of eye-candy who’d somehow become filthy rich despite having no merits, I would be a bit more humble about it and just keep quiet, rather than whining about the competition. I’m sorry, but when mega-rich celebrities complain about the actions of real musicians and real music-lovers, I want to reach for the sick bucket.

At a time when musicians and musicianship are being crowded out of the marketplace by this vast corporation of television karaoke, there’s something very satisfying about the prospect of a band as great as Rage Against the Machine scoring a victory for the art over the mass media manipulation and hype. The days seem to be long gone of artists making meteoric impacts, shaking the industry or inciting musical and cultural revolutions (the Bob Dylans, Sex Pistols’, Public Enemy’s and Nirvana’s, etc); and if the X-Factor style of chart dictatorship continues, then such revelatory moments or recordings will be wholly consigned to history. But if ‘Killing in the Name Of’ outsells Mighty Joe Young, then the signs are good that hope is not lost. Rage Against the Machine are the very antithesis of anything the X-Factor might roll off its factory line, and so the choice of both artist and track are entirely fitting.

The dull, dead-eyed automatons churned out by the X-Factor have claimed the Christmas No.1 spot for the passed four years in a row. Let’s all do a favour for music and make Rage Against the Machine this year’s chart-toppers – and it’ll be a Christmas to remember. It’ll also make Jesus very happy. He was well into RATM. He’d also appreciate the somewhat Messianic nature of RATM’s potential sabotage of the corporate machine at this time of year, as Christ was all for revolt.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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Dubai’s Ruin, England’s Walkover, and Amir Khan’s Controversial Claim…

In some ways, it’d be a shame if Dubai fell into ruin due to its financial crisis – all those pretty buildings surely need to be kept standing now that they’re there. But, on the other hand, how much natural sympathy does one feel for a glitzy, superficial paradise island, built on virtual slave labour for the gratification of oil tyrants and sports stars to indulge in a billionaire playboy lifestyle? And when are people going to learn not to borrow money and accumulate debts? I owed a hundred quid to a mate once and I paid back within a week, knowing that I didn’t want that debt hanging over my head. I’m guessing Dubai owes a bit more than that, but still…

Still, one wonders what’d happen if our present civilisation collapsed at some point; would some of Dubai’s kazillion dollar monuments become the Coliseum or Parthenon of future generations? Would explorers and archaelogists of the distant future stumble upon that palm-shaped Jumeira Island, or the islands shaped like the World, and wonder, ‘Who built these mysterious constructs, and what for what purpose’?

In any case, all glory is fleeting; and if Dubai might be equatable to a modern day Pompeii… well, we all know what happened to Pompeii. They STILL haven’t finished digging it up.

I’m not a fan of Amir Khan in particular, or of boxing in general, but Khan is spot on when he says that if he were a white man he’d be a superstar. You can frown or complain all you like about that statement, but it is wholly true, even if it was said entirely out of ego.

Speaking of sport, 2010 just might be the year for English football to finally live up to its calibre and its seedings and actually win the World Cup. After what was a god-sent qualifiying group, lo and behold – England’s World Cup first-round group looks like it should be a walkover. USA, Algeria and Slovenia? The gods must be favouring the Capello’s squad right now, and the omens are good.

Which means something’s going to go wrong. Presumably, the easiness of this initial trio of games will settle England into a lax attitude, leaving them entirely unprepared to deal with being torn apart by Argentina or Portugal in the second round. Only David Beckham can save them then

For the record, I want to go on record even now as predicting that the Ivory Coast or Ghana might end up winning the tournament. Now, if I pop into the bookies and put a quid on either of those sides this early, I’d win… let me see… fifty-five million pounds.

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Susan Boyle Is The New Eminem, and Tony Blair Is Not the Anti-Christ…

Susan Boyle has the fastest selling debut album of all time in America; a record previously held by Eminem. Some might bemoan her success and cite it as another nail in the coffin of the music industry as any kind of meaningful artistic entity (and I’d usually be one of them); but this time I’m actually not all that bothered. Granted, Simon Cowell’s victory is invariably culture’s loss, but I don’t see how Susan Boyle shifting mega units is any more annoying than Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis, Cheryl Cole, Hanna Montana, or a hundred other karaoke singers and PR gimicks.

What maybe is a little bit surprising is that America seems to have top-heavied the Boyle bandwagon; the American record-buying public are generally less gimick-oriented and less novelty-inclined than we are in Britain, after all. Evidently, it’s all about the backstory; the Cinderella motif. It sure as hell isn’t about the music. But then nothing coming out of an overhyped karaoke tournament is going to be about the music. It’s entirely hype over substance; that’s what happens when predominately television audiences suddenly invade record stores in time for Christmas.

Someone just as popular in America as Ms Boyle is our former Imperator, Tony Blair. Just a shame he’s not so popular in Europe (or Britain, apparently), as evidenced by his missing out on the Euro Presidency and being shafted by the continent; probably a blessing in disguise – a great many (lonely) conspiracy theorists cite the prospective role of European President as equating with the prophetic figure of the Anti-Christ… and who needs THAT for stigma?

A belated R.I.P to Edward Woodward. ‘The Wicker Man’ may be his most remembered film, but those of us who grew up in the eighties will remember him for the TV series ‘The Equaliser’. Actually, all I can properly remember about the equaliser is the wicked theme tune. Which segways me into another objection: why, by Zeus, has ‘Knight Rider’ been remade? The original is perfectly fine. What is it with film and television producers and this endless procession of remakes and retoolings? Is there no one left with any original ideas, or are there no production companies or commisionning execs willing anymore to put their money and sanction behind proper creative or inventive enterprises?

Practically every other (large-scale) cinematic release is a remake or an adaptation. Where are the writers? Sorry to sound like a grim curmudgeon, but frankly the film, music, and television industries are at their lowest, creatively speaking, that they’ve been in my lifetime. Granted, my lifetime hasn’t been that long; but it’s long enough that I remember far better days.

PS: ‘Terminator: Salvation’ is (soiled) pants.

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YOU M U S T SEE THIS MOVIE…

There were tons of things I might’ve written a word or two about this week; from the news or the papers. But then I went to the cinema to watch a certain film yesterday; and, frankly, nothing else in the world is more significant to me right now as a subject matter. You probably haven’t seen it yet, and most of you probably aren’t even intending to see it; but, to my mind, ‘Fourth Kind’ is not only the most important film of this year, but one of the most important releases of all time. You MUST watch this film…

The film, starring the beautiful Mila Jovovich, is a mixture of dramatisation and real-life video and audio recordings. The effect of this is more compelling than anything I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t want to give the whole thing away, so I won’t go into all the details here, but the (true) story is about a Professor Abigail Tyler; a proffessional psychiatrist who discovers that she, along with a number of her patients, is being tormented and abducted by anomalous/alien/demonic entities in her sleep.

This movie is not about an idea or a theory or a claim; it is about the EVIDENCE. And the evidence on-film here is beyond contention; real-life video footage of patients breaking down under hypnosis; real-life video footage of Mrs Tyler, as well as one of her patients, being possessed, forcibly levitated and having NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCES speak through them; real-life audio recordings of NON-HUMAN ENTITIES speaking in another language; and real-life video footage of one of the patients shooting dead his wife and children before shooting himself.

The real-life footage in the film is extremely disturbing and upsetting. It will shake you; but that, I believe, is a necessary effect in order to make people take the matter seriously and to have people realise that these are/were real people, with real lives, and that these were real experiences. That’s why this movie is so powerful – had it been entirely acting and dramatic interpretation of the story, the effect would be lost; it’d be just another supernatural thriller. But the intercutting of real material serves to maintain the reminder that these aren’t fictional events.

This woman is confined to a wheelchair and is mentally unstable – on account of her experiences. She suffered a broken neck from her experience. Her husband shot himself. One of her patients murdered his entire family and then killed himself. Another of her patients had his spine severed and neck snapped and was crippled for life. Her blind, seven-year old daughter (who she maintains was abducted by the alien entities) has been missing for almost a decade, without trace. Multitudes of people WITNESSED the UFO that she claims took her daughter (audio recordings of all of these eye-witness accounts are included in the film, during the end titles). A police officer witnessed the UFO above their very house at the very moment the girl went missing. This is not some mad conspiracy theorist in the wildnerness, or some attention seeking charlatan trying to sell a story.

I have personally been well-versed in the subjects of UFOs, alien abduction claims, and the paranormal in general, for a long time, and I’ve had the sh*t scared out of me a few times before from things I’ve seen or read – but NOTHING has hit me as hard as the footage in this move has. If the scenario depicted in this documentary/film is genuine – and you WILL leave the cinema overwhelmingly convinced that it IS – then it is the most significant, most important cinema release of my lifetime. For, what it does is to expose to a broader audience a horrifying, profound, and remarkably widespread phenomena that has largely been limited to the fringes of public consciousness. People – and the mainstream media – still sneer at, or even laugh at, people claiming to suffer supernatural torments and afflictions, and more often than not treat the subject as a joke, or as something unworthy of proper coverage. It is admittedly unlikely that this film will change that; but if it doesn’t make a big impact in that direction, that in itself only exposes the imbalance and injustice of the mainstream.

I have always wondered why (aside from the classic theory of a mass cover-up) why the mainstream media shies away from this area, given that it is indisputably an issue important to a great many people (and victims), and given that the various implications of the subject are of such importance to humanity, to society, to religion, to science, and to the world itself. If anyone watches this film without being disturbed, emotionally affected, and – most of all – convinced that there is something very, very important and very serious going on outside of the radar of common knowledge, then frankly there is something wrong with you as a human being.

It’s probably unlikely that ‘Fourth Kind’ will be a major commercial success (even with Mila Jovovic in it); but I doubt that was the primary reason it was made. This film is not entertainment. It doesn’t have special effects or massive stars or anything of the sort. It does, however, have a genuinely powerful emotional content, and it does convey a story that has enormous implications for the entire human race, this world, and both the past and the future.

On a technical level, the film’s combination of dramatisation and real-life footage/recordings (which includes a lot of split-screen editing) is very effectively done and works well. The movie is never overwrought, it never tries to be clever. This really isn’t about clever tricks or editing. It isn’t glossy, it isn’t Hollywood. The direction and production is very understated. The most striking parts of the film are not in the dramatised reconstructions but in the real-world footage. Although, for the record, Mila Jovovic (the most criminally underrated actress of the passed fifteen years) really does provide a first-class performance here.

However, the genuinely compelling figure in this whole thing is Abigail Tyler herself, during the real footage of her being interviewed. She looks like the most tortured, haunted and afflicted woman you’ll ever have seen in your life.

So please do go and see this movie. Not for entertainment, and not even to be scared. But for the effect it might have on your thoughts and your mind. And because the woman (and her lost family) whose experiences are depicted in this movie deserve to have as many people as possbile be aware of what may ‘have been through.

And if the whole thing IS fake, as some people are saying, at the very least it is grounded in real life stories and claims, of  which there has been many over the passed decades…

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No World Cup for Ireland, and No Irish Friends for Henry…

The Republic of Ireland is up in arms. Ireland have been eliminated from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Thierry Henry is being villified and labelled a cheater. The reason being that his illegal handling of the ball led directly to the scrappy goal that eliminates Ireland from World Cup qualification. It’s an injustice, certainly; but football is full of such injustices.

It’s harsh on Irish football, without doubt. But the backlash against Henry seems a bit excessive.

He’s NOT a cheater, of course; across the span of a brilliant career, Thierry Henry has exemplified what is, in football, a great rarity – a top-class player who also happens to be a gentleman, with class and sophistication, dignity in his game, and sportsmanship. The fact that he handled the ball – and he clearly did – was most likely the reflexive action of a player under pressure. In the dying moments of a vital World Cup qualifier, a great many desperate strikers might handle the ball – instinctively, rather than in any kind of thought-out way. Players do it all the time.

The difference is that, nine times out of ten, they’d be red-carded and the resulting goal would be disallowed. The fact that Henry’s violation wasn’t spotted, and that the goal stood, was not the fault of the player, but of the incompetent officials. It’s the same principle as a player committing a foul or a violent tackle: every player does it, but they generally don’t get away of it.

It’s certainly an unfortunate situation for the Republic of Ireland – just as it was for England in ‘86 when Maradona and God slam-dunked the ball into England’s net to eliminate them from the competition. The difference, I think, is that Maradona clearly handled that ball with full intent and premeditation; whereas Henry, I think, reacted instinctively.

The offended party are calling for the game to be replayed; clearly they have a good case for that. If FIFA does capitulate, however, and allow for a rematch, one wonders if it’ll set a new precedent for future high-profile games. The idea of replaying matches that have been undermined by invalid refereeing could open a pandora’s box, in which all kinds of games might be replayed on the basis of everything from offside goals being allowed, penalties not being given, etc. While that would be very interesting, it’d also be infeasible on a logistical level.

Could you imagine a World Cup Final having to be replayed and the original winning side then losing the rematch?

Much more feasible – and many would say, long overdue – would be the incorporation of pitch-side monitors and screens with replay options for officials to double-check their decisions. With all the extraordinary amounts of money in the football industry, what would be the hold up?

In the meantime, if the Ireland/France score stands and the Irish don’t progress to the South Africa games, Thierry Henry will probably be a hated figure in Ireland for the next couple of decades…

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Hitler’s House, Ruby’s Fedora, Autopsy Photographs, More Contrived X-Factor Hype, and I’m (Not) A Celebrity (anymore)… Please Put Me On TV. Plus Um-Bongo, Um-Bongo, they drink it in the Congo…

It’s always extraordinary the kind of things people put up for sale (as well as the kinds of things people actually BUY); e-bay is full of such strange transactions. Everything from pencils to faecies. Uri Gellar, allegedly, bought a house once belonging to Elvis Presley off e-bay. But, on that subject, a house once belonging to Adolf Hitler is presently for sale in Austria for 1.2 million pieces of wad. Now, who’s going to want to live in that place? Maybe Nick Griffin could buy it as a holiday home…

Another strange, and somewhat morbid, item going up for sale recently was the fedora hat worn by Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Again, who would want it? Other than some gun-toting cowboy all in favour of executing innocent patsies on live televison?

Lee Harvey Oswald’s autopsy photographs have been in the public domain for some time, and make for grim viewing, as do all such photographs. And there are rumours now that a high-resolution photograph of Michael Jackson’s autopsy is being passed around TV execs. in Hollywood, having originated allegedly from a police officer. The picture is said to not show Michael Jackson in a flattering light. I, for one, hope the picture never sees the light of day. I have always hated this morbid penchant people have for displaying or viewing dead celebrities, and personally have zero interest in seeing such unflattering images of people in the public domain.

In some ways, it seems like a natural extension of our society’s epidemic interest in seeing a variety of unflattering photographs of celebrities whenever possible – glossy mags make their entire profit out of playing to the bitch factor; any chance to see Angelina Jolie having a bad hair day, or someone or another wearing the wrong dress, or Amy Winehouse looking unwell. It seems a logical follow-through to subject the celebrity in question to the next level of public degradation – the death photo.

To my mind, it robs the person in question of their final dignity. It was disgusting when such pictures of Anna Nicole Smith were allowed to go public – how nice for her daughter to one day have to stumble upon those pictures – and it would be just as bad for Michael Jackson to be subjected to the same indignity.

The nation’s obsession with reality TV shows no signs of abating, with the annual onset of endless, incessant talk of The X-Factor, and now ‘I’m (not really) A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here (i.e: ‘Get Me In Here, Please; My Career’s Dying’).

What’s with all the outrage over Simon Cowell pushing a half-decent female singer onto the guilotine in order to increase the chances for those Irish twats (I mean, twins)? The whole thing is a cynical, tactical, premeditated enterprise. It has been since the beginning. The moment those kids stepped onto the stage for their first audition, it was evident to all that they’re destined to be massive pop-stars (this country loves shit music and glossy haircuts), and a massive money-spinner for Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, and The X-Factor. Trust me – they’ll be as big as Boyzone or Westlife. They will be around forever.

The show is not about who can sing the best, or who has the best tecnhique or even the most charisma – it is, plain and simple. about who is the most commerically viable; the easiest to market to either teenage girls or middle-aged women oohing and aaahing at the cute factor. They won’t win the competition itself, because the producers aren’t going to be that obvious about it – but they’ll be kept in it for long enough to maximise their exposure in preparation for the commencement of their glittering careers. Also, they look a lot like Bros.

As for that dead-in-the-water ITV offering in the reality-TV arena, this year’s prospective line-up of Z-list ‘celebrities’ is looking like the worst haul yet. Six or seven years of this ’star’-making, career-reviving, RSPCA-eluding nonsense and the only actual characters of any kind of calibre that they’ve managed to boast are John Lydon, George Takei and David Guest (let’s be fair to David Guest – anyone who was married to Liza Minelli has a high quota of credentials, just by default). There is NOTHING remotely good to be said about this show. And, frankly, any show that is responsible for the creation that monstrous entity known as Jordan-and-Peter should be condemned the deepest fires of Hades for all time to come.

So, right on queue anyway, we now have a new line-up of non-entities that I’ve never heard of, who’re going to despoil the Austrialian jungle, murder and munch a whole selection of living creatures, and dominate both ITV schedules and newspaper and radio coverage for the next month. And Sam Fox. Yay.

It will, of course, get good viewing figures; but this is only because half the country’s obese arses are stuck to their sofas.

A survey conducted by Waitrose has revealed aniseed balls to be the nation’s favourite childhood sweets. Aniseed balls were HORRIBLE. I didn’t know ANY child who liked those vile things. No, the best sweets were those flying saucer thingys. And maybe those strawberry lace thingys. Definitely not jaw-breakers (it’s no use crying about it when your teeth break – the clue’s in the NAME, Sherlock). Waitrose say they’re planning to stock them again – aniseed balls, that is. While we’re on the subject of bringing back favourite childhood products from the mists of our past; what the hell happened to Um-Bongo? You know, that drink all those cartoon animals were always singing about? They used to drink in the Congo, apparently.

I met someone from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and, no, he’d never heard of ‘Um-Bongo’. False advertising, that. He actually got quite offended by my repeated insistance than ‘they drink it in the Congo’. Also, I’ve been informed that African jungle animals generally don’t purchase fruit drinks anyway. And, also, that they don’t sing.

And also what happened to Lilt? Is that still on sale? I was talking to my little sister the other day and I discovered, to my dismay, that TRIO doesn’t exist anymore. You know, them chocolates with the little girl shouting with the massive mouth?

No Trio, no Um-Bongo, no Lilt. What is the world coming to? Next you’ll be telling me there’s no Woolworths anymore…

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