Bollocks, Tears and Gold...

This song, nay, Hurts in general, have completely mixed up my feeble little mind. On one hand, Blood, Tears and Gold is an absolutely cracking song - talky bits followed by singy bits, the repetition of 'baby' and even little bit angsty bits perfect for a karaoke booth clenched fist emphasis. Hurts are pretty cool too - they look like Bros suffering the effects of a massive come-down, possibly after being cryogenically frozen for twenty years and their clothes herald a brand new era of hipster attire; a boon for maufacturers of Brycleem and Claire's Accessories earrings.

So what is the problem? I hear you cry. Well, it's all gubbins really, isn't it?

' It's twenty seconds since I left you/And I remember why I never looked back' - Well that's not exactly hard is it? Apart for instances of epilepsy or severe violent blackouts, it's pretty hard to forget what you were doing twenty seconds ago. I was debating whether to italicise some text. I write slowly.

'I never let you down baby baby /I never let you down baby baby /And it won't get any better, blood tears and gold' - What is better than not letting someone down? Not letting them down and giving them a tic tac as you do so?

Now I have no problem with gubbins per se, indeed some of my favourite songs feature gratuitous use of the word 'baby' and/or make very little sense but come on Hurts, the po faces? The arty black and white shots of a woman shaving her leg that I assume is some intense symbolism but just makes me shudder and remember Bic-related injuries of yore? Blah. The song itself is about as profound as Lady Bunny hosting a symposium on the latest trends in glitter eyeshadow, so why not just be bait about it? You can still sing about sad things. Take Alcazar, for example, and their ten year old dancefloor classic 'Crying at the Discotheque' (curse you, embedding disabled by request)

Lets compare.
Raw emotion. Eyes are the windows to the soul, so it makes far more sense to stare cross-eyed into the light as this intesifies their emo beam. Highlighting them further with a massive pair of Primark sunglasses is optional.

What is more powerful? An eagle walking like an Egyptian, or a leg? One screams 'tribute to the lost kingdoms of yore, the power of nature and the might of the Bangles' the other 'Gilette'.


You can frown or play a gutiar at an odd angle to convey intesity. But then again, you can do a dance routine while clad in tin foil and flanked by a host of weird animal hybrids. You tell me what is more intense, being trapped in a room with two blokes in a sulk, or being trapped in a room with a load of terrible genetic experiments gone wrong and a man wearing silver kneepads who keeps trying to bump his cock against you. Exactly.

The Cross-Chart of Awful Facebook Fanpages

Gawker wrote this great article yesterday called ' The Eight Types of People to Unfollow on Twitter or Defriend on Facebook'. Whilst I totally agree with them about Twitter, I'm dead against de-friending people on Facebook. Completely block their access, sure. Hide all their fucking 'Today God Wants You to Know' and 'Bejewelled' updates, but deleting only limits your own source of information and endless amusement.

I love that I can basically work out the torrid life story of one psychopath I used to know about four years ago through her 'TMI is putting it lightly' status updates and 'cryptic' photo comments. I live to find out what utterly ridiculous fanpage another friend has joined each day. In fact, it was this latter 'friend' who inspired me to make this cross-chart of psycho fan pages. All real, all grammatical errors intact and all including at least one of my friends amongst their membership. Oh, and most have over 20,000 members. It's like that realisation that even when you're brazic and eating toast for dinner, you're still wealthier than 97% of the people on this planet. Only with brains.



Click on chart to read it more clearly.

April is Such A Cheery Month

Props to the people behind 'Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month' . They may lack a catchy roll-off-the-tounge name, but at least they don't conjour up a world where Fred West is Santa Claus and children skip around a maypole made from barbed wire charged with live electricity.

Thou Shalt Always Kill (De La Version) Lyrics - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip feat. Plug One

I bloody love 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' by Scroobius Pip, so when I heard the new De La Soul remix on 6Music today, product of the Smash Hits generation that I am, I tried to find the new lyrics online. Naewhere tae by found.

Therefore I have just wasted a good half hour of my life, writing them down for you, dear reader (and my god do my poor finger joints now hurt). There are a couple of bits I couldn't catch, but I guess if you wait a couple of months it will be on one of those psycho spammy websites where you get the chance to download a ringtone/virus and flashing bejewelled Dan Le Sac with your lyrics.

If you haven't heard the song, here is the video. It's great.



Thou shalt not assume that because I'm a Leo I will act real proud.
Thou shalt not type 'lol' unless you're really laughing out loud.
Thou shalt not ???? verve on your voice so you can say 'thou shalt not'.
Thou shalt not think everyone with a beard is a terrorist.
Thou shalt not think that having a blog makes you a journalist.
Thou shalt not lie to anyone under the age of six, unless it's concerning major holidays.
When someone dies thou shalt no longer be under obligation to cry saying 'he'll be missed' knowing good and well that he was an asshole.
Thou shalt not take the names of Paul Newman, Jimmy Stewart, James Dean, Humprey Bogart, Groucho Marx, Geroge Carlin or Midge Hedberg in vain.
Thou shalt choose a political party based on their policies, as opposed to just going with who your family's always supported; they are not a football team.
Yo and you should not be mad, that everywhere you go, outside your pad, smells like cigarettes because no one can smoke inside now.
Thou shalt not upload half naked pictures to an folder called 'Me and my Bitches' then get upset and get in stitches when you get more ???????
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thou shalt not rush to buy the next Ipod.
Thou shalt not buy Coca-cola products, thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not rush home to watch X Factor.
Thou shalt not rush De La Soul into making his next album... yo lemme do it again, let me do that one again.
Thou shalt not put musicians or recording artists onto ridiculous pedistals no matter how brave they are, or were.
The Beatles? Just a band
Led Zepplin? Just a band
The Beach Boys? Just a band
The Sex Pistols? Just a band
The Beastie Boys? Just a band
A Tribe Called Quest? Just a band
Organised Confusion? Just a band
De La Soul? Just a band
Foals? Just a band
The Ting Tings? Just a band
The Streets? Just a band
Kid Carpet? Just a band
Radiohead? Just a band
Bloc Party? Just a band
The Arctic Monkeys? Just a band
Next big thing? Just a band
Thou shalt not refer to any of my peeps as 'people', if that word 'people' is following after the world 'you' and be spoken by someone not of colour.
Thou shalt not point out to me how stupid it is to call myself a 'person of colour' but then get mad if someone not of colour calls me a 'coloured person'.
Thou shalt not fuck with my children.
Thou shalt not fuck with my money.
Thou shalt not convince me that Dr Phil is better than Dr J.
Thou shalt not think that Tina Turner can't shake her ass harder than Beyonce.
Thou shalt be aware that there are no longer any musical genres - they're all just different dress codes and different fashion styles.
Punk is now just a style
New Rave? Just a style
Emo? Just a style
...aah forget it I ain't getting into that again.
Thou shalt not scream if you wanna go faster.
Thou shalt not move to the sound of the wickedness.
Thou shalt not make some noise for Detroit.
When I say hey thou shalt not say ho.
When I say hip thou shalt not say hop.
When I say he say she say we say make some noise....kill me
Thou shalt not look in the mirror while you're crying, your eyes already know.
In this world of many distractions thou shalt not lose focus.
Thou must stay on track.
Thou shalt always...thou shalt always.... killllllllll.

Fitness DVDs, Shame and the Many Faces of Davina McCall

It has so far eluded me, in my twenty-five years on this earth, to discover a way to do strenuous exercise without looking like a massive, utter, twat.

I tried running around the streets, but could never quite get the balance right between 'speeding so fast that no one has the time to recognise you before hyperventilating behind a privet hedge' and 'jogging at a normal pace with a loftier-than-thou expression of vague detachment as you go absolutely nowhere'

Gyms are expensive, whirring sweatboxes full of blase thin girls touching their toes, glistening ripped men honking by the weights and sweaty people grimly staring into space as they trot on the cardio machines. They are also so incredibly boring that I can't go on a treadmill without wondering WHAT THE HELL I AM DOING WITH MY LIFE and thinking of all the energy that is being wasted by the crowds of runners going nowhere. Oh, and I go bright red and get sweat patches in unfortunate places.

I think I first tried an exercise DVD around the time that Eric Pryds did that 'Call on Me' video, or more specifically, when Ministry of Sound did a rip-off exercise DVD. As a not terribly co-ordinated person with a tendency to catch sight of myself in reflective objects, even with the Flatmate out and the curtains shut, the awareness of myself, flobbing around in a weak, wobbly imitation of the lyrca leotard clad thrusting models on the telly, mixed with the occasional glimpse of a flailing bodypart was such that I almost had an out-of-body experience and floated above myself in a spirit of intense mortification.

Enter Davina.

Can't quite remember why I tried to dip my toe into the waters of galumphing around my living room again, possibly it was back in January when the snow was somewhat biblical and the thought of going to the gym and undressing in public was about as appealing as playing pinata with a bag of sick. Anyway, I thought I would try Davina 'I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOUTING' McCall a go, as she's always full of terrifying optimism and is a bit goofy. And I couldn't think of anyone else. So I borrowed her first attempt to crack the fitness market - 'The Power of 3'

Wow.

This is Davina and her two trainers, Jackie and Mark. Jackie appears to be a Boreham Wood housewife who would kickbox you into next Wednesday if you gave her dimante handbag the slide eye. Mark is a huge lunk with a hearing aid who would look terrifying in a dark alleyway, but I suspect has a mind full of unicorns, kittens and rainbows. More on that later.

'Chooooon!' Davina says this a lot, usually just as another repetitive, generic dance song starts. Admittedly, later DVDs feature proper songs by real artists such as Run DMC, but this first DVD sounds like it was written by the people who score Masterchef. Still, it is a better soundtrack than Lady Isabella Harvey (borrowed off friend, see I have been getting a bit obsessed of late), who squats and thrusts to what only can be described as Hot Chip after the advent of a lobotomy, done with a spoon. I also love how Jackie looks like the long suffering mother of a toddler in this shot.

Although this is the face most of us would make if, after a long period of chastity, we accidentally walked over a powerful fountain, this is how Davina skips.

Many, well, all the people I have spoken to who 'do Davina' (it's like a semi secret society of shamefaced 20-something women) are convinced Mark and Davina got it going owwwrn. However, as you can tell a) from Davina's distain when he didn't know what Tai Chi is and b) this look, that says 'I want to wear your sportsbra and run around in a brown wig' as much as it says 'phwooooar', this is a complete untruth.

At this point Davina realised she had forgotten to feed her nest of baby McCallchicks and hurridly regurgitates a worm.


'Choooooooooon!'
'Tee hee hee! Raindrops and snowflakes and patta-cake patta-cake!'


See, now this is the crux of why Davina is great. If you forget that Davina isn't blonde, wearing ironically large, steamed up glasses or a strange shade of puce, this could be like looking in a mirror.


Although a gesture like this is a terrible insult in some lesser-known Eastern European country, this would be Davina congratulating you for not crashing through into the flat downstairs with your elephantine clumping. At first I found this praise rather reassuring, as yes dammit, this is hard work. Oh. Except it ain't. Well, not after you've done the routine a couple of times and realise that for all her groaning and grimacing, Davina is finding this workout only fractionally less difficult than passing wind.

The powers that be, for some reason, decided that in future Davina DVDs it would be best if she didn't mug like a Spitting Image puppet, holler random phrases or flirt outrageously with a beefcake infront of his menopausal wife. I's a lot poorer for it! Still, Davina cannot be totally repressed and manages to throw in some super patronising 'pixie claps' at the end of the workout.