Hot Rant

10 Bad Things About The Noughties

2009-12-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

1. Claude Makélélé – How to turn a game about scoring goals, into one that isn’t. Since the emergence of Claude as every pundit and journalist’s favourite man about whom to write a ‘tactical’ article, each team has splashed millions on purchasing players with an unhealthy desire to pass sideways. Remember remember Djemba-Djemba? Of course you do – because he was an awful ‘Makélélé role’ purchase that viewed his purpose in life to spoil the games he played in not only for the opposition, but for his own team and for the people watching.

2. MP’s Expenses – In the 1890s when people were pissed off with politics, they threw a bomb at a prince. In the 1980s when people were pissed off they rioted and organised dissent. In 2009, when we discovered that our MPs had been systematically raping the public purse, we all bought the Daily Telegraph and came to the conclusion that they probably weren’t paid enough.

3. Jo Whiley – Simply for praising everything you would find on a HMV Recommends list. (Pigeon Detectives, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Now That’s What I Call Vacuous! Vol. 26.).

4. Tesco – A dangerously bigger and more abstract version of Whiley, Tesco has enjoyed a fine decade of promoting bland taste. Ever flicked through Tesco’s top ten books? All you will learn is that Dan Brown has some very stupid opinions about Jesus, and that Katie Price is a stupid opinion. Ever listened to Tesco’s top ten albums? All you will learn is that Mark Ronson makes incomprehensibly shit songs even worse, and that Johnny Borrell can’t possibly have listened to his own ‘voice of a generation’. As well as this, Tesco’s Finest seems to enjoy a sterling reputation – why? It might be the best in Tesco, but that doesn’t mean it is worthy of praise. I mean, ‘Definitely Maybe’ is the finest Oasis has to offer….

5. Deal Or No Deal? – Everybody hates this crap. You don’t even have to comprehend Noel Edmonds to hate it. It represents the worst kind of spirituality to be found in people. The “£20,000 for a box is a good deal, but you do what is true in your heart” kind of speak. It is a show packed with literally the worst advice in the world. If something is true, then it is true. It can’t be true in my heart and not yours. It is either true or not true. Stop feeding into the hands of the producers (sorry, the nasty ‘Mr. Banker’) and all deal as soon as you get offered such badass sums of money. If I came up to you in the street and asked you if you would like £20,000 for not walking into a room, and also told you there was a tiny chance that in the room there was more money, you would definitely take my £20,000 and walk away from me and my bizarre generosity. If you didn’t you would be unhealthily stupid, and as such I would ensure that the room didn’t contain more money, but simply Josef Fritzl. A year for every grand you could’ve had – this is what Austrians call ‘justice’.

6. Being Patriotic About Soldiers – At the turn of the decade, the dominant opinion with regards to Britain’s foreign activities is “it doesn’t matter if we should be there or not, what matters is that we give the troops out full support”. Actually, it really does matter; it matters an awful lot to the people in the country. If I came home to find soldiers firing guns at my dad and detonating my grandmother, I would probably want a good explanation. And why oh why must I give support to the army exactly? I care so little about it, and anyway it was their choice to take a job shooting at people. So given a choice as to where to spend public money, I am going to promote the NHS for a massive increase in funding; definitely after having seen adverts for some soldiers who have released an album upon returning from Afghanistan. If this is what tax money produces, then I want nothing to do with it. Having said that, a full scale cover of Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ complete with outfits could change my opinion entirely.

7. 50 Cent – An odious little prick if ever I saw one. This man is the most overexposed tool in the music industry – constantly playing up to the negative themes and stereotypes that hip-hop was born to rid us of. Afrika Bambaataa told us about renegades of funk, Public Enemy had a nation of millions trying to hold them back, and 50 Cent has a gun in one hand whilst driving an expensive dick-substitute rapping about pricey piss-sweet alcohol. Cretin.

8. Ironic Genre Adoption – When The Clash got involved in burgeoning New York hip-hop and disco scenes, as well as the super good dub of the late 70s, do you think it was done with a smug wink to postmodern theory? No, because Joe Strummer wasn’t a penis. And he never once thought about how being retro (see also, ‘nu’) was such a wonderful way to play with culture and the metanarrative of time. And he didn’t make a throwback 80s synth album because all of his music scene mates were. He wrote ‘Radio Clash’ instead.

9. T4 – Constant irreverent humour, constant crap sarcasm, constant bad music, constant bad programmes – constant thorn in my side. The people who present this show are basically breathing Topshop mannequins, but with poorer conversational skills than their inanimate predecessors. They are the kind of people who think that the Ricky Gervais style of humour is the funniest thing of all time (as well as THE most intelligent form of wit), and that Extras was a genuinely high-quality show. They often end up on comedy quiz panel shows, during which they will speak roughly once – and it is always painfully unfunny, or an inane comment that leads to a gag from a second rate comedian. I do hope you read this Alex Zane; for God’s sake man, you are the comedic bitch of Michael McIntyre.

10. Hollywood Re-Hash – This past decade has witnessed horrendous examples of systematic abuse. It was a period that gave us a real strong effort from the US army, who forced suspected terrorists into dressing like Slipknot fans and engaging in what I can only assume were nude games of stuck-in-the-mud (the photos don’t lie). The torture was endemic, but conveniently palmed off as a matter of semantics. And when you think about it the neo-Cons were right; how can we be expected to act morally when words have such slippery meanings? I propose some kind of ‘convention’ in which we lay out these meanings. Maybe Geneva could host it? A mere thought. We also saw the Catholic Church in Ireland really open up to contemporary liberal Christianity – but not in the way we expected. Rather than re-examine it’s stance on abortion, or homosexuality, or contraception, the church decided to re-examine the role of child abuse. Having adopted a thoroughly modern approach to exegesis, the church determined that God wasn’t totally black and white with regards to the issue, so set about methodically abusing as many kids as possible. Both of these episodes pale in insignificance however when compared with Hollywood’s systematic abuse of movie icons over the last 10 years. Remember how great ‘Star Wars’ seemed? Remember how much you loved ‘Indiana Jones’? Remember thinking that ‘The Pink Panther’ was as good as Sellers could give? Hollywood clearly doesn’t. For fuck’s sake, even the captivating ‘King Kong’ wasn’t sacred. “Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast” concludes Denham in the final lines of the 1933 masterpiece; but having seen Hollywood’s new offer, I think Peter Jackson had a hand in it.

Richard Duffy

Travelling: The Pressure to Grow a Beard

2009-08-17T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hot Rant kicks off the week with a livid tirade straight from the heart of contributor Jack Collins. Woe betide any poor soul who crosses paths with this angry young man in a foreign country while sporting ill-conceived facial hair...

Hello fellow ranters. Firstly, I must stress that this rant is being written in a particularly mind-fuckingly-annoying-gappy-shit-muncher-hostel in Bolivia, so perhaps my perception of the world around me is particularly warped right now. Nevertheless, the fact remains: just because you dick around the world does not mean you have to grow some disease-ridden joke of a facial-hair-stain on your ra-ra, meathead, Quagmire-esque chin.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against beards. Some of the world's finest have sported the face-rug:

1) Dumbledore.

2) Your Mum.

3) David Bellamy.

4) Annie Jones.

Some of my closest friends have beards. I am not anti-beard. I have even allowed myself to grow a fairly decent face-covering from time-to-time. But amongst the travelling folk of South America in 2009 it is verging on the epidemic. Why the necessity? Why do people feel that as soon as they leave the confines of Britain that they should instantly commence the cultivation of little wispy bits? It is probably a mindless attempt to identify themselves as a traveller. The beard completes the look: the jumper emblazoned with a llama, the rainbow-patchwork pyjama bottoms, the beads around the neck. It is not needed you fucking sheep. Everyone knows you are travelling. You stick out like a sore thumb in Bolivia and Peru. You are white for fuck's sake, and the locals are not! They also like to sport little bowler hats and carry around llamas or babies.

There is no chance of you being mistaken for a local peasant, if that is what you are so worried about you twat.

Sorry, my outburst may seem a little rash. Indeed, I don't blame you Mr Travelling Douche-Face. I too have fallen foul to the pressure! The horrible, just horrible pressure which you have experienced from your far less hirsute friends. You know the type: the ones who didn't have pubic hairs until they were 19, and only need to shave once a month. The kind of chap who says the following phrase: "Oh yeah, you should blatantly grow a beard! I defo would if I could, but I can't". To be perfectly honest, when it comes down to it I like to be clean shaven. I relish the fact that after I have given myself the twice over with my trusty Mach 3, that my face is smoother than your girlfriend's bottom. So please do not try to egg me on, and advise me to grow a moustache. Sure, if i do grow some kind of upper-lip extravaganza, I will start to look like a winning combination of my own father and Freddie Mercury.

But I would prefer to not blend into the mass of dickweeds who surround me everyday. Let me stay nice and smooth, or i may be forced to find another use for my razor and slit your throat. Thank you. Jack Collins

Micro-rant of the day...

2009-08-15T03:43:00.000-07:00

...from Mike Leigh's harrowing, yet still very funny 1993 classic Naked. Here, Johnny (David Thewlis) subjects a hapless security guard to an apocalyptic tirade of epic proportions. Brilliant. AC

I. HATE. ESTATE.

2009-08-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

An exciting new contributor to Hot Rant this week. A contributor who, being a fair lady, has finally smashed this site's existing sausage stranglehold. Time for council-house hating Claire Geddie to talk estate agents...

Estate agents are muppets. Not the furry, well-meaning, yellow and blue friends of our childhood. Rather, they are bumbling buffoons, idiot guardians of the hallowed halls of London real estate. Gatekeepers of the garrett, keymasters of the corrupt. Their levels of ineptitude are positively Dickensian, and all is made worse by a degree of avarice that would make Scrooge blush with the sheer cheek of it.

I prefer to have little to no association with this breed. For nearly 5 years I have lived in a building which is part of a family run network of properties, with an office next door. While far from perfect, it's more Fawlty Towers than Amityville Horror. And because I know there are alternatives to your classic agency/highway-robbery-by-bank-transfer, I fear my tolerance for their antics has declined.

Fast forward to 2009. Faced with an onslaught of family moving to London, I am awarded the task of screening flats in advance of their arrival, and not just flats, but the holy grail of the London property search - the immaculate and reasonably priced 2 bedroom in Central London.

With 8 years of London living under my belt and the weight of 5 previous property searches under my belt I am embarking again on this Titanic Ship of Fools. And true to form I am met with pain and suffering at every turn.

Your honour, if it please the court:

Exhibit A.
A two bedroom property on King's Cross Road. I am on my lunch break, it's a scorcher. And garbage day. There is nowhere for me to stand but beside a festering can of refuse. At the 15 minute estate-agent wait mark I ring, I am told "5 minutes off". 10 minutes later I am on the verge of leaving, when she arrives, apology-free. Fine, fine. After a tour, I am discussing the finer points of the related transactions with her (The finders fee, the Holding Fee, the Inventory fee, the 6 pints of blood, 4 phoenix feathers, and 6 weeks deposit).

Before long however, she takes a call, seemingly from a love interest, and starts discussing her date plans for that evening. 5 long minutes go by while I stand beside her like a lemon. Finally I hand her a notebook and WHILST ON THE PHONE she scribbles down the final financial points. I depart silently as she sets the scene for whatever naff estate agents do on dates.

FAIL.

Exhibit B.
At 9:15 I am outside the flat in question when I get a call asking if I am still on for my 9:15 appointment. Why yes, yes I am. In fact I'm here, which you would know if YOU were here. 5 minutes later he arrives, only to find that he can't open the door. I leave.

FAIL.

Exhibit C.
A two bedroom, moderately (yet still extortionately) priced flat is on the agenda. I have specified not ex-council please because traditionally (my prejudice) I don't like the cut of their jib. So we arrive - red brick building, lovely - enter the front hall - and it's 100% clear that we have a council situation. I ask for some explanation - "Council? You didn't want ex council? I thought you meant ex-counSEL. Like counsellors. Yeah. 'And you cheat, you lie, you make me wanna cry..... (Thanks Godley and Creme).

FAIL.

I wish there was a happy ending to this tale of one city. I fear it will all end with compromise and paying through the nose into a jackasses pocket. But I live in hope. Claire Geddie

With the new football season underway...

2009-08-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

...and Newcastle United no closer to escaping their laughing stock status, it's high time to revisit one of last season's finest football rants. Joe Kinnear, a man addicted to heart attacks and not afraid, in the presence of children, to brand short-lived female Premier League assistant referee Wendy Toms "a fucking slag, a cunt" to her face, lets rip.

"Which one of you is Simon Bird?"
"Me."
"You're a cunt."

Listen again to the infamous press conference here, and if that doesn't do it for you, here is the same dialogue as read by a computer. It's a stone fact that Radiohead's 'OK Computer' becomes at least twice the album if this is inserted in place of 'Fitter Happier'.

And don't forget - Dennis Wise was never in the Crazy Gang. AC

Muzik 4 Gymz

2009-08-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

When you step into a gym, you are inevitably entering an aural netherworld vibrant with music made exclusively by retards for retards. While thick-necked goons preen in front of full-length mirrors, the speakers emit a pounding, repetitive onslaught of violent toilet shat out by the likes of Scooter and Basshunter, as well as countless reworkings of songs that were rubbish when they came out thirty years ago, and are no better when re-recorded by some no-mark session warbler and stapled to a thudding Casio keyboard demo.

None of this, however, explains the unaccountable occasional curveball hurled in my direction by the ‘selecter’ at my local Virgin Active in Streatham. Today, for example, I was struggling as usual on the cross-trainer when I heard a pan pipe version of Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears In Heaven’. No sane person would think twice about listening to this song in any other situation than sobbing curled up in a foetal position on a cold wooden floor but Virgin’s music man somehow came to the conclusion that it was the appropriate score to gut-busting (for me) exercise. (Incidentally, of Clapton, the genuinely insane and rant-prone Anton Newcombe once said “People talk about Eric Clapton. What has he ever done except throw his baby off a fuckin' ledge and write a song about it?” - more Newcombe gold here)

It shouldn’t ever come to this (please Mr Selecter never do the pan pipes again), but it doesn’t have to be the other way either. There’s plenty of decent music that gyms could blast out that would tick the requisite boxes of upbeat and motivational, but would also be good. In 2006 James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem released the brilliant 45:33, which was actually a rather odd tie-in with Nike and trailed as a work-out soundtrack. The paunchy Murphy humorously and unsurprisingly admitted to not being a gym bunny himself. Failing that, hows about the sweaty, thrusting funk of James Brown or something equally priapic like Rick James as his crackpipe-toting best? Or perhaps something outrageously homoerotic like this, which would perfectly capture the groaning, burgeoning love-in atmosphere of the weights room.

You may (if you’re still reading) be wondering why I don’t just play my own music. The thing is, although I do have an iPod, no matter how loud I crank up the volume through my decrepit headphones, I’m consistently unable to drown out the sound of Lou Bega going “AAAAAAIGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTTTT!!!” or Eiffel 65 crying about how they’re blue and in need of a guy, abadabeebowbudai they’re in need a guy. I simply can't win unless music man sorts it out and ups his game.

A few weeks ago, a middle-aged woman let loose a voracious fart on the treadmill next to me. Any sense of perpetrative mystery or furtive second-guessing was entirely precluded by the fact that there was only two of us in the whole room. Her subsequent thousand-yard stare straight into the mirror suggested that a) she was unaware of the devilish crime she has committed against my nostrils or b) she was fiercely proud of it. That this unpleasant episode was soundtracked by a particularly vile remix of Duke Ellington's 'It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) by some technocunts called Gabin was both strangely fitting and utterly depressing. The worst smell in history and the worst song in history combining with lethal, unforgiving force to create an enduring microcosm of the worst that gyms have to offer. Sort it the fuck out guys. At least put something decent in my ears, especially when I've got something evil in my nose. AC

The Decline of the Comedy Duo

2009-08-07T05:01:00.000-07:00

Hot Rant welcomes a new contributor today - the wonderfully named Steve Boniface (of Les Valentine fame). And let me tell you, he's not happy about the state of British Comedy duos...

Does anyone remember when British Comedy duos were funny? Morcambe and Wise (OK I don’t remember them per se but we see their 486 brilliant Christmas specials rolled out annually). Reeves and Mortimer. The Two Ronnies. Cannon and Ball (erm…scratch that one).

The United Kingdom of the Great British Isles has a comedy pedigree that is arguably unsurpassed by any other country (the USA is out because they don’t understand irony), and that includes the great tradition of the comedy duo. Typically a magical combination of ‘the stupid one’ and ‘the exasperated clever one’, these pairs have entertained us through generations and we have gratefully thanked them.

But today? The youth of Britain are stuck with the mediocre likes of Mitchell & Webb and Horne & Corden, two duos rammed down the public’s throat just because they happened to break through into mainstream in television shows written by other, more talented people.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you ‘Peep Show’ and ‘Gavin and Stacey’. Both extremely popular, clever and genuinely funny televisual treats that happen to star a pair of actors who share an undisputable chemistry with the material and each other.

Problem is, as soon as a show like this hits, the great and the good in the world of comedy production smell a cash cow. No sooner can you say ‘David Mitchell isn’t as funny or clever as his character in Peep show’ than you start seeing these pairs EVERYWHERE!

Mitchell shows up on every comedy panel show going (except for ‘Argumental’ on Dave – the producers have good taste) and proves just how hilarious he isn’t. Horne & Corden are called in to do a dire segment at the Royal Variety performance. Both pairs are slung into hit and miss sketch shows on the BBC who should learn that the odd titter from the audience does not count as a success.

What does this prove? It all goes South when these people are required to stand on their own two feet and actually be funny.

And then? The inevitable feature length film.

First came Mitchell & Webbs ‘Magicians’, in which Mitchell hilariously cuts off his wife’s head on stage because she’s shagging Webb. But it’s all OK in the end because the pair make up, forget about her and become successful again.

Then there’s Lesbian Vampire Killers…has there been a more over-hyped British film in recent history? When it came out in the cinema you couldn’t walk 50 yards without seeing Horne & Corden’s smug faces glaring at you from a phone box, magazine cover or billboard. Panned by critics on release, the film was a flop – no doubt in part due to the fact that everyone was sick of the sight of them. At least for the DVD release the marketing people saw sense. The cover sees the two ‘stars’ crammed into a tiny section at the bottom, playing second fiddle to a large pair of breasts. What a pair of tits. Steve Boniface

The not so Belle side of France

2009-08-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and enemies. I'm back from a brief sojourn in Paris which led to a regrettable lack of posting action. Good times were had as I experienced the over-priced, obstinately rude, yet wonderfully art and monument laden hospitality of the French nation. However, the thing that has played on my mind most consistently throughout and after my trip has been a simple question: How have our Gallic friends managed to create some of the most amazing art and historical monuments known to man; produced a selection of the world's finest food and wine (notwithstanding the chips I was served in Montmartre which seemed to have been cooked, then plunged in a bucket of water before serving); and yet collectively failed to educate themselves in the not particularly challenging art of using a toilet correctly?

Somewhere in the cultural development of the French nation this particular skill seems to have been omitted. To the extent where they seemingly have no idea quite how a public toilet should be used or kept. It doesn't seem to matter how many free public toilets there are nearby, upon exiting any metro station in Paris you are forced to traverse a force field comprised solely of the pungent smell of human urine. The Frenchman (or woman), always eager to break convention, likes nothing more than to exercise his or her liberty to piss wherever the hell they want. Especially if the area is an absolutely necessary and unavoidable daily thoroughfare for thousands of people. Vive la revolution.

The famous liberté, egalité, fraternité motto may well have been coined to express the inalienable right of everyone French to relieve themselves anywhere in a brotherly manner. And how fitting then that they should exercise this right to the nth degree in the most opulent symbol of the ancien regime: Versailles. The men's toilets in Versailles were literally flooded with liquid expressions of French freedom, to the point where a Spanish lady emerged from the women's, almost in tears due to the unfortunate meeting of flip-flops and baggy trousers with the unstoppable invading force of the neighbouring men's overflowing urinals. Only in France could you be standing in a beautiful, listed, historic building, being told not to use the flash on your camera, while inch deep in piss.

None of this compared to the experience in Gallery Laffayette however. Having sauntered through one of the most upmarket shopping malls in Paris I thought myself assured of a reasonable toilet experience. How wrong could I have been. As I turned a corner, having just wandered past a series of €7,000 Versace dresses, I was hit by a wall of stench so powerful that I can only describe it as like having been directly hit by a salvo of explosive diarrhea straight from the arse of a particularly Camembert fond Gaul. Merde. Immediately my eyes began to water as my nasal hairs spontaneously combusted. This was awful. With no urinals I waited an age for a cubicle and finally got in one as it was vacated by a very smug looking old man. By the look of the floor, it seemed that he had used the toilet for the sole purpose of pissing himself with a modicum of privacy. As the heavy, sweet stench that only old man piss can produce entered my recently depilated nostrils I realised that his smugness had probably been due to the warm trickle of urine comfortingly making its way down into his shoes and the knowledge that he was about to olfactorily stick it to an Anglais. Touché.

Some attempt has to be made to clean all of this mess up and with a depressingly unflinching continuity this always seems to be the unfortunate job of a poor black woman. They look at you with the dead eyes of a person whose job it is to make some frankly token attempts to clean these cess pits, trapped by a system of institutional racism. Next time you witness the indomitable cheeriness of the (similarly racially profiled) toilet attendants found in English clubs, know that they are happily singing the 'freshen-up song' due to an uncontrollable joy gained from not being in France. Most often these poor ladies simply chuck buckets of soapy water at the floor while numerous Frenchmen continue to nonchalantly piss up the walls and shit in the sinks with a laissez faire attitude that only they know how to pull off. How hard is it to actually shit in the bowl, one wonders. The French so loathe to look like they are trying hard at anything that I imagine they simply drop their drawers, and with a Gallic shrug and an audible "Bah" simply hope that whatever their body produces does not go on their clothes. Quite how they arrived at this way of doing things, I'm not sure anybody knows; perhaps they were too busy cooking or painting or going on strike. However this came to be, there's a lot to be said for the good old British way of actually depositing bodily excretions in a porcelain bowl and doing this thing called flushing. Apart from that Paris was pretty cool. FC

Micro-rant of the day...

2009-08-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

...from a truly brilliant film that not nearly enough people have seen.

Living In Oblivion (1992; dir. Tom DiCillo)

Bad Lieutenant. Brilliant Idea.

2009-08-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

It is safe to say that Nicolas Cage - now less an actor than an anthropomorphized side of livid ham - is a favourite of Hot Rant. So it is with great joy that we bring news of a collaboration that threatens to undermine the foundations of cinema, and rational thought, as we know it.

It has been announced that Cage will star in an upcoming remake of 'Driller Killer' director Abel Ferrara's 1992 sleaze and rant-fest 'Bad Lieutenant', helmed by famed nutter Werner Herzog. And if that wasn't enough, there's an appearance by twat-of-the-90s Val Kilmer. (Trailer below - even that screenshot is enough to get you worried...). Ladies and gents, this could well end up being the most over-the-top film in the history of over-the-top films.

The original Bad Lieutenant featured an extraordinarily ripe performance from notorious scenery-chewer Harvey Keitel, and included graphic scenes of drug abuse, rape, public self-abasement and nude whimpering. All of this allied with Nicolas Cage's frightening inability to control his facial expressions means the possibilities are endless.

Brilliantly, if somewhat predictably, this melange of warped egos has inspired some very public mud-slinging, with Herzog claiming never to have seen the original, nor to have heard of Ferrara.

I, for one, can't wait. AC

Portrait of the intern as a young man: Day 1

2009-08-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

As I feared, the day has arrived. I am interning again. I have finally felt the aching swell of the Broonite economic crisis, losing my job as the lynchpin of the lucrative sex-business arm of multi-national non-fiction behemoth Dorling Kindersley, and returning to the depressing pursuit of sitting on the internet with nothing to do and not even having to pretend i'm working as i'm getting exactly zero pounds-per-hour for my efforts. Sure, i could have tried to get another interim job before my career as publishing magnate/professional country-punk guitarist finally drags itself into fruition, but the temptation to be subtley proactive and improve my cv instead of contemplating suicide at the mercy of Office Angels seemed all too sensible.

To coincide with this new development in my post-graduate life, i have decided to show the initiative Owain (who, incidentally, has reached the end of his antibiotics and thus should be infection and scab free by now) never did and start a diary of my experiences. Yes it will be banal. It may be unreadable in it monotone lack of events. But it will, to all purposes, be the most pure example of immersionist journalism ever to ooze from the fingers of a son of the Isle of Wight.

Day 1:

In attempt to look entirely ubiquitous around the office, i have worn the finest threads messrs Carnaby and Neal have to offer and ridden my single speed in. It has worked perfectly. As expected, the Vice stronghold is open plan, stripped brick and wood panelled. As also assumed, i have nigh on zero to do. the few tasks I have been deemed qualified enough to attempt luckily draw straight (potentially plagiaristically) from these very pages; i am researching to write blog pieces on a wave of Stalinist giant crabs desecrating the northern scandinavian shellfish populations, and on the american obsession with creating terrifying robotic animals for use in military and intelligence operations. Great. And that is about it. The potentially exciting caffeine headache i have developed from drinking too much Diet Coke is currently being soothed / exacerbated by the repeat playing of Sunn0)))'s new record, whilst my eyes are aching from staring meaninglessly at an antiquated computer screen. I am almost longing to be sent flyering around Brick Lane, and considering leaving early despite the fact that i have been here for little over 5 hours. Compared to being told i was 'Prince Charming' by a hoard of pubescent schoolgirls at the prep-school i worked in last summer, i feeling a definite lack of gratification for my trade skills. But worry not, readers, i will Indesign the fuck out of these reprobates yet. TH

Hot addendum: Robert Kilroy-Silk video special...

2009-07-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

As a valuable supplementary piece to Edward Mantle's disembowelment of Leicester's finest racist orange fox, Hot Rant presents a mini-compendium of Kilroytastic moments.

1)

2)

3) a clip from K-S's brilliantly mean spirited and short lived quiz show 'Shafted'

AC

The New Silk Route

2009-07-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Contributor Fish Stock returns with an assault on the very British disaster area Robert Kilroy-Silk.

Question:

Why is Robert Kilroy-Silk a twat?

Answer:

What do you mean you don’t know? Just look at his face. It’s really obvious...

In his defence I certainly don’t feel the same desire to puke on my cock every time I see/hear/read about him that I do when Morgan or Grylls are brought up. So think of this as less of a Hot Rant and more of a Warmed Tirade. But he is, as we shall see, a massive wanker.

One of my biggest gripes with him, apart from the colour of his skin [/racist], is his lack of any political stoicism. He was a university lecturer with somewhat respected and published work on socialism under his belt before becoming a labour MP, albeit an unpopular one with his backbenchers. I simply can’t understand how the man could manage to lose political direction so drastically in such a short space of time and go from this to this.

Seriously. UKIP. Really? The bizarre relationship that formed between Joan Collins, Kilroy-Silk and Gordon Brown look-a-like Roger Knapman made for brilliant headlines in the UK press at the time and provided no end of free publicity for the party – possibly why they managed to push the Conservatives into fourth place in Hartlepool prompting Kilroy-Silks calls for them to be “killed off”. Long and bland story short, it turns out that UKIP weren’t all he was hoping for so the silver-haired one defected to start his own party, Veritas, which he formed at that bastion of social equality – Hinckley Golf Club.

Obviously this couldn’t last and after leaving his role as a representative of “The Straight Talking Party” he began his current role which seems somewhat confused. Although he was elected to the European Parliament on the UKIP list and is still technically a member of Veritas he stood as an Independent MEP. His election campaign saw him quoted as saying he would spend little time at the European Parliament if elected. True to form he promptly buggered off to appear on Ant and Dicks I’m a celebrity... where he continued to receive his parliamentary wage while on the show.

However earlier this year it was announced that Kilroy-Silks name was not going to be on the list of candidates for election the EP meaning that as of 17th July when parliament reconvened he became technically unemployed. (I’m not sure if he was really very busy anyway, he hadn’t given any parliamentary speeches since 2005)

Not that he ever gets bored. If he’s not watching Everton at Goodison Park (a lifetime ticket holder - twat) he’s making ludicrously offensive comments... Discussing a rise in HIV infections in Britain in the Sunday Express he wrote “The indigenous population is not responsible.... It is the foreigners that we have to focus on.”

Not content on his berating “the foreigners” living in this country, KS finds it just as easy to criticise others around the world, specifically the Middle East:

Back in 1991 he wrote for the Daily Express that “The Muslims are backward and evil and if it is racist to say so... then racist I must be — and happy and proud, to be so.” This was just a sign of things to come as in 2004 the man published not once, but TWICE the same article, again in the Daily Express which contained the following, frankly mind-boggling, paragraph in which he discusses “the Arabs”:

“What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on 11 September 2001 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?”

Honestly. What was his brain doing when he typed those words? Was he having some sort of stroke? The man clearly has no desire for a quiet life. He even declared: "I don't do humble."

Actually, I think I take it back. I would like to puke on my cock after all. What a cunt. Fish Stock

Classic aggro from yesteryear...

2009-07-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

...in which 90's funkateer and ex-Denise Van Outen's bit of rough Jay Kay (out of Jamiroquai) finds himself on the wrong end of a diminutive cab driver's thrusting pate, after acting like the world's biggest twat. COSMIC!

Please relax and soak in the joy of this remarkably little-seen clip. AC

Hot Rant Health Bulletin: Intern Down

2009-07-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

I hate to be the bearer of upsetting news. Like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, he probably doesn't want everyone to know it, but as of yesterday afternoon, i can confirm that Owain Rhys-Mumford, our beautiful, lazy, 'having-a-job-is-more-important-than-working-for-us-for-free" intern has contracted that most brutal of scabular ailments, IMPETIGO. Sounds jolly doesn't it? WRONG. The affliction most commonly referred to as 'student leprosy' is a vile, socially-imparing shitstorm of infectious stickiness and not, as it might sound expounded in a jovial fashion, a television magician's catchphrase.

We senior journalists here at Hot Rant must implore all our readers to help Owain help himself by avoiding any contact with the boy, even at a distance, and stop him putting any pressure on his immune system by exerting any energy through socialising. This means calling him, emailing him, or even acknowledging his existance if passing him in the street.
Wolfpack may have temporarily lost it's wind, but by Mumford we will return with a gale. Dr. TH

The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron - with Rupert Everett

2009-07-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

I am currently watching the aforementioned program and will attempt to write a running commentary of lunacy that I am witnessing.

Everett begins by informing us that Byron was a bisexual pervert, who lost his virginity at nine. What is it with literary figures being colossal perverts? As my mind wanders, thinking about James Joyce's scatalogial fetish, I realise that Rupert is now talking to a prostitute in an Albanian restaurant.

Everett: "Who have the biggest penises?"
Hooker: "Probably Brazilians"
Everett: "HIGH FIVE!"

Ok, what the fuck has just happened? He has just high fived a prostitute about Brazilian men having the biggest penises. What does this have to do with Byron?

The show cuts to Everett riding a donkey covered in a massive bear skin. This seems more like it. He is accompanied by a similarly beclad 'Byron expert' and a lone Albanian donkey guide. They arrive at some kind of cottage and Rupert dresses up as Byron: "I look like a twat but I feel like a twat most of the time anyway" Finally some insightful analysis.

The scene cuts again and our two bear skin clad protagonists are surveying an Albanian castle. They walk by a coke machine and the 'expert' chimes in with a rare observation: "Obviously this is not exactly how the castle used to look." He's making his presence felt.

They walk under a decrepit gate covered in plastic bags full of rubbish. The 'expert' stays silent. maybe this is historically correct? Everett is entranced: "Listen you can hear the cattle bells! You could hear people coming for miles!" Presumably only if they are wearing cattle bells. But he's just getting started: "This is just like the Hollywood movies. This huge mammoth bisexual man with fingers covered in jewels fingering our poor lord Byron." He has officially lost me.

After some rather strange scenes, including Everett talking about Madonna on an Albanian chat show and discussing the merits of communism with some tracksuited kids, we find our host on a sail boat. He quotes Byron's quip that the British favor drinking and whoring whilst the Turks prefer sodomy and sherbet. "I'm quite looking forward to sodomy and sherbet. Sorry granny! sorry mum!" While you're at it Rupert you can apologise for the vest you're wearing as well.

Much talk of buggery shops and guys lap dancing follows, along with a genuinely funny quote from Byron which ends with him describing a naked bath attendant as a man who "never hesitates to lie on his back and entertain a man with his arsehole." Everett does not attempt this on camera.

Suddenly Rupert in the British embassy in Turkey. He literally charges straight towards the visitor's book, signs it frantically and then starts commenting on the size of the Queen's breasts. He wanders upstairs. "I think I'm going to have a bubble bath." I am now looking at Rupert Everett doing a strip tease down to his tighty whiteys, about to get in the bath. He's now in the bath. I am lost for words.

Freshly bathed Rupert goes to a diplomatic do and proceeds to tell the sodomy / sherbet anecdote again and again to incredibly lukewarm reactions from Turks and Brits alike.

After presumably being expelled from the embassy he turns his attention to swimming across the Bosphorus. "Better to die doing this than during a facelift." On balance I think he's probably right. He has roped in some poor Turkish boys into doing it with him. He is swimming in just his tighty whities. He gives up half way.

Undaunted by his failure Everett begins to wax lyrical about Byron's trip to Athens. "The idea of arriving in Athens, the centre of ancient Greece must have been like an acid trip." On balance I think this is complete bollocks. Suddenly we are witnessing a puppet show of a man getting raped by his own penis, engineered by genie. This is like a real life version of a film that Ashley wrote with a friend in year nine called Volcanus. I will let him elaborate in the comments if he wants.

Rupert's back on form. He's standing on a balcony, looking at a picturesque monastery. "I can't think of a nicer place for full intercourse to take place. it's absolutely lovely." This was presumably not what the architect had in mind. It must have been tough on the monks.

I think we're nearing the end. We're in an old mansion house with its owner and Everett is doing some investigative reporting.

R: "Do you have any of Byron's pubic hair?"
Owner: "One of my ancestors burnt it."

Safe grandad. I have so many questions now. But mainly THIS ONE.

This is definitely ending now. Rupert informs us that next week he will be "diving to the depths of pussy-hungry depravity." Tune in. I will. FC

Micro-rant of the day

2009-07-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Drugs are bad...but they're made much funnier with an ironically detached and amused Kiwi voiceover laid over the top.

Proper ranting here from Down Under. 0:30 for serious comedy gold. AC

Travelling: The Inevitable Conversation

2009-07-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of Edward Mantle's second delivery of hot rage, Jack Collins returns to regale us with a story about how shit a time he is having traveling the world for six months. Or something like that.

I have now been traveling the globe for the past three months, and everyday for the past three months I have had the same fucking conversation at least ten times. It's inevitable. Nobody wants to have this conversation. It just happens. I do it myself; and every time I feel the words shitting out of my mouth, I get a little bit more pissed off that I sound fucking more like fucking Cilla Black. My life is a constant meet and greet, cut from the same mould as Blind Date. "What's your name and where do you come from?" To be honest, I don't care what the answer is. Within two seconds I will have forgotten it completely and your bearded, gappy face will have melted and merged with the other bearded, gappy faces I have already had the displeasure of encountering.

It has even got to the point where I hate the sound of my own travel plans. If I hear myself say the words, "I'm gonna drive up through California to Portland and then swing down to Colorado" again, I'm going to swing for the nearest person who has just asked me what I'm doing next. And what the fuck does "swing" even mean? Am I going to leap between the trees whilst hanging from vines like that "Show Me the Beef" kid did in the latest joke of an Indiana Jones movie? No. Just no.

Even once you have spent enough time with a person that you can move past the whos and wheres, the conversation will almost certainly descend into the abyss of travelers' verbal diahorrea that is- kids TV. Does anybody honestly remember that Knightmare was essentially just a very suspect man, inviting young children into his dungeon and asking them to play with his helmet?

The show was essentially just a shitter version of your favourite RPG on your Amiga, and it was also accompanied by the irksome soundtrack of little scrotes shouting out the lyrics to the latest dance-craze-party-song, "Sidestep left, walk forward, take a small step to your right, pick up the key".

The other day we finally had a heated/drunken debate with another girl about the implications of the potential assassination of Barack Obama. A wonderful occurrence, which also provided the opportunity for me to utter the words "Don't be a twat!" to the girl (who I'd known for just one afternoon) when she was essentially being a twat and trying her hand at being very patronising. Sweet relief. Please send me more douche-bags I can argue with and save me from the niceties. Jack Collins

Piers Morgan

2009-07-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

Lock up your sub-editors! Our reliably vitriolic contributor Fish Stock returns today with an evisceration of a man with no morals, no class and no chin...

Question:

Why is Piers Morgan a wanker?

Answer:

First of all his name is actually Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. Surely anyone who has the audacity not to change their name more to something more responsible is a wanker…

It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to this truly risible figure. In my (obviously very worthy) opinion, he represents precisely 50% of what is wrong with British journalism over the past fifteen years. (The other 50% being found somewhere between here and here and definitely here)

Morgan edited the News Of The World for just one year before he undertook his decade long tenure at The Daily Mirror. During his time at both he was responsible for any number of fantastically offensive leaders. His front pages were iconic, but arguably for the wrong reasons: Sensationalist doesn’t begin to describe them.

His orchestration of the papers’ coverage was incessant and invasive; often dragging stories about the likes of Dunblane, Ian Huntley and Sarah Payne out over many months, continually harassing witnesses and the families involved for a sound bite under the guise of reclaiming Britain’s moral compass on behalf of the people.

Well here’s a soundbite for you Piers. Fuck off. If I ever need lessons in morality and ethics from an odious little creature who manages to package all the inhuman qualities you should so guiltily embellish on your CV into a physical form, then I’ll come straight to you. But you could be waiting a long time. If there’s one thing my parents taught me, it’s this: Don’t be a cunt.

Alas his papers sold and continued to do so. Even more so after he, in 2002, decided to do away with the Daily Mirror’s traditional ‘red top’ in favour of the high-brow black banner. It was an attempt to rebrand the Mirror as a serious paper, to take it above and beyond – to the next level. Of that period, he says “It was the great tabloid decade”.... Cunt.

One of my favourite “Morgan Moments” as they shall hereafter be known was his getting punched by the also dubious, albeit substantially less so, Jeremy Clarkson at the British Press Awards ceremony about 4 years ago. Clarkson didn’t stop at one punch, delivering three rather satisfying haymakers allegedly in revenge for The Mirror's coverage of his personal life.

Private Eye, of which HIGNFY captain, Ian Hislop is currently editor, routinely refers to Morgan as “Piers Moron”, sometimes extending him the courtesy of ‘Piers “Morgan” Moron’ and even more recently, “Rent a Gob”, in reference to his ever more frequent appearances on talentless shows like Poptards: The Remedials and America’s Next Top Cunt.

He sheepishly faced MPs' questions about the publication of photographs allegedly showing abuse of prisoners by British soldiers in Iraq. He cynically stood by the decision to send to print despite doubts over the pictures' authenticity, and refused to reveal his sources, even when the photographs proved to be fake citing reporters privilege.

Perhaps the series of stories he is most famed for are his “run-ins” with the royal family (and Paul Burrell), one of which spawned the masterful headline: "Harry's had an accident but we're not allowed to tell you." Which was printed over rumours Prince Harry had got a bit slicey slicey on his arms.

Of his apparently happy and stable childhood Morgan jokes: “I've tried to come up with some clouds, make one of those misery documentaries. I said to my dad, ‘Can't we come up with some beatings, say you stubbed out some cigarettes on me? We could make some money, shift half a million books’.” Hilarious you may think, but I truly doubt such self-serving cynicism is below him.

There was a fantastic albeit depressing comment about him, which I found a year ago on that last great bastion of free-speech, Youtube. It read: “He may be a wanker, but he wanks all the way to the bank". Too true. Fish Stock

Hot Guilt

2009-07-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty unequivocal in the recent past regarding my distaste for the free newspapers which clog up any remaining space on London's public transport system. The reasons for my antipathy are legion: no actual news; reams of coverage of pointless twats and non-celebrities spilling out of sleazy nightclubs; vapid columns with titles such as 'City Boy on his Blackberry' and 'Gay bloke all over the shop'; sports writers with names like Kirk Blows (- he really does); their sheer relentless ubiquity forcing the now dignity-free Evening Standard into the most over-egged advertising campaign since... since... (*fails to think of single egg brand, aborts pun)

But today, as I picked up the Metro with the intention of tossing it disdainfully onto the floor to show it, if nobody else, that I cared not for it, I was stopped in my tracks by the cover story - the tragic tale of a man who had gone apeshit with jealousy, shot his girlfriend and murdered her Jehovah's Witness father. A bloody sad story I figured, and an unusual one to run on the front page in this climate of Ashes-Gate, Swine Flu-Gate and Michael Jackson is dead-Gate. A second look, however, and the mystery started to unravel...

The murderer's name? Jonathan Cock. *Cue voluble snigger, followed by unconvincing "that was a cough" cover up. The name of the family he went after? The Hustlers. *Cue full-on seal-howl, followed by the least convincing straight face in history.

Immediately, I felt a flush of guilt - what a bastard I'd been! But once I had gathered myself, I realised that maybe I wasn't so bad after all. These guys knew what they were doing when they placed Cock and the Hustlers front and centre of their paper. It wasn't the Metro's fault that Cock did what he did, but you could just visualise their staff giggling at the thought of people's grave faces splitting into creases of remorseful laughter. Actually, I applaud them for their naked disingenuousness.

The story reminded me of a similarly wretched tale I came across a couple of years back, also in the Metro, in which a man named Brahnie Scott was alleged to have hanged himself in a telephone box (!) because his girlfriend Julie Toddhunter (!!) had attempted to prevent him kissing her by deliberately eating some mustard (!!!). Turns out Scott really didn't like mustard. Again, there was death. Again, inevitably, there followed laughter.

As the comedian and actor Chris Addison points out in an interesting article in today's Grauniad, sometimes we need comedy to remove us from, and elevate us above the bleakness of certain situations. Michael Jackson's death is a recent example of a wave of crass (and frankly mostly unfunny) jokes helping to provide a more recognizably human context to what was a truly unexpected and unsettling event.

But this is Hot Rant, not Hot Cod Psychology (which sounds like either Steely Dan's fictional main jazz-funk rivals, or the most inexplicable Fish & Chip shop ever, depending on your preference). Maybe this is all beyond analysis, and it is simple - we can't help laughing at funny names and dead people. Or maybe I am just a total bastard. Yep, that sounds about right. In fact, I'll prove it by concluding with my favourite ever joke:

Q. What's the opposite of Christopher Reeve?
A. Christopher Walken.

(I'm going to hell.) AC

Animals there should be more of - Part 1

2009-07-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

A series to run alongside Tom's famous 'Animals that should get extinct' serial. This will not focus on the merits of conservation efforts to save animals there actually should be more of (ie. lions, elephants, dodos etc.) but will rather be a more egotistically centered tirade aimed at animals that I think are cool, and more importantly animals that piss off or harm members of the human race that I do not like.

For example any species that attempts to harm Bear Grylls. Speaking of bears they probably top the list due to their good form in maiming idiots who climb into their enclosures, eating nutters who go and live with them and generally being 'bad ass mudas' who don't take no crap off of nobody. Honourable mentions go out to to tigers, primarily for the on stage mauling of Roy Horn. If you were forced to pose for this photo and had the power to openly savage one of the people involved how long before you cracked? He was asking for it. At least his reconstructive surgery was partially successful. Stingrays probably deserve a mention too. As much as I liked Steve Irwin, at least they went and put themselves on the map with that move. On the flip side, I fully agree with Tom that alligator snapping turtles deserve to go, if only for their inability to defeat a mentally retarded, American version of Steve Irwin.

A recent story to warm the hearts of those who thought that our animal friends had lost their edge was broken on Friday on the BBC. It seems a buzzard in Cornwall has taken a commendable dislike to joggers. At first one might have questioned the buzzards judicial judgment in attacking a man who was simply minding his own business having a run. We all dislike joggers and their smug ability to go running in circles for ages but was resorting to physical violence really necessary? Surely a warning swoop or a well-aimed defecation would have been enough of a warning. These questions seem pertinent until you delve deeper into the article and realise that the man was on holiday and had still gotten up at 9am to go running. The buzzard had indeed conducted a thorough threat assessment: this man is clearly a fanatic and drastic action was needed. Even now he has not been dissuaded from his insulting show of steely determination to engage in one of the boringest activities known to man. So determined is he to make all people who don't get up early every day to run back to where they started feel bad that he has vowed to continue. Thankfully he has admitted that "I decided not to take any chances and invested in a hat." I can't imagine this has done much to discourage the buzzard who must be licking its beak for round two.

In other news jumbo squid have invaded the shores of San Diego. Not only does this appeal to my irrational hatred of people who engage in water sports (ie. surfers) but further credence is added to the jumbo squid's case due to the fact that they seem to be acting like some kind of 1950s gang. Apparently swarms of them have been "roughing up" and "spooking" unsuspecting divers, which sort of makes them sound like some kind of underwater 'West Side Story' gang. They are also deemed to have a sensitive side, with one victim describing their "doleful, expressive eyes". Another witness said that their eyes looked "all-seeing, all-knowing", which raises the question of what the fuck squid can actually know? And, if indeed they are all-knowing, what fucking use does it does them, seeing as they only seem able to swim around pissing off divers. If indeed these all knowing squids have deemed this the meaning of life, then maybe I may become slightly more open towards the idea of religion and a God who is presumably as vindictive and petty as me. FC

Facebook Friends and High School Reunions

2009-07-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hi people, sorry for the relative lack of action on the blog this week. Been a busy time. should be back to normal in the coming days. Just a stop gap post for now, something short, and again stolen from Fazed.org.

This link will take you to a hot rant from a self confessed geek, berating his former high school bullies for now trying to add him as a friend on facebook. The whole 'why do people who I'm not friends with add me on facebook' rant is rapidly becoming one of the most overplayed social conventions of our time, possibly set to rival talking about the weather as the most common conversation to have with people you don't know. Ironically, this type of inane chatter (which is usually along the lines of "are you on facebook?", "so am I, it's great but gets a bit much, doesn't it?", "Yeah people I haven't seen in years and didn't even like back then keep adding me as a friend. "Yeah! Me too, what is it with them") is usually conducted with a person you don't know / haven't seen in a while / certainly don't want to be actual friends with and culminates, more often than not, in you both going home and adding each other on said website.

That said the blog post is well worth a read. It's a very eloquent riposte to the insultingly hypocritical attempts by his bullies to be all matey a few years down the line (much like the rudeboys who would rob you and then immediately after say "safe" and try to give you a terrorist fist jab). That and it is positively simmering with barely repressed nerd rage, which is never a bad thing.

The comments are also worth reading. Number 34 is a particular favorite:

Wow. Your story makes me really glad that I went to a small private school where academic achievement was actually valued (by teachers and students both), and abuse of that sort was not tolerated. If I heard of someone getting their fingers intentionally broken by another student at my old HS, I would be shocked. And that student would certainly be "told on" by other students and "asked to withdraw" immediately. What you went through is fucked up, Mark, and for the sake of everyone else, I hope that is well outside the norm even in large public schools.
Posted by: Uncephalized

Ahh, private schools. I love the idea of being "asked to withdraw" for purposely breaking someone's finger:

Dear Johnny,

You have been caught making Swastikas out of fire and breaking little Mark's finger to see what it sounded like. While your inventiveness and curiosity is to be commended you have been thoroughly 'told on' by your fellow students. A full blown expulsion would be far too embarrassing for all concerned so we are kindly asking you to withdraw from our establishment. Lets hope this does not happen again, even in those filthy large public schools you will now be attending. Say hello to your father.

Yours sincerely,

The Headmaster.

FC

Are you retired?

2009-07-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

Are you?

FC (via the excellent fazed.org)

John Terry - Ultimate Twat

2009-07-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

What makes a man? Is it the power in his hands? Is it his quest for glory? These are all fascinating questions, for sure. But right now, I'm more interested in in a different question.

What makes a twat?

And you know what, when I stare long and hard at the jaundiced, hammer-featured, sloping criminal-foreheaded skull of inexplicable England captain John Terry (marks off immediately for falling into the selfish England international habit of having two first names), I get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly.

There are a number of key reasons why John Terry is the embodiment of the consummate modern urban twat.

Here are a few of them;

1) He's dishonest. 'Mr Chelsea' refuses to just come out and say he wants the money of uberc*nt Garry Cook and his legion of Arab investors at Man City. Consequently, he's inspiring dishonesty in the likes of the hitherto admired Mark Hughes, who is having to keep a straight face while cracking out lines such as, "It is not a question of finance, or money, it is about a different challenge, and John being at a different stage in his life and his career". PLEASE!

2) He has a total lack of class. Lacking the erudition of many of his contemporaries (translation - Graeme Le Saux), John Terry epitomises the bland face of cliche-ridden English professional football, spouting platitude after platitude about "the lads done this..." and "at the end of the day" on one hand, whilst on the other somehow getting away with being the Noughties face of post-Roy Keane referee-intimidation. And he pissed on a bar.

3) He's actually quite shit. Everyone knows that Rio Ferdinand is miles better on the ball, is a more natural footballer and has massively more curly lips. At club level, he has been carried by Ricardo Carvalho, whilst Alex is clearly much harder, much quicker and looks much more like Danny from Hear'say (forget the apostrophe at your peril). In fact, a Sky Sports stats breakdown the other day proved that in the last couple of seasons, Chelsea have a higher win ratio, and a better defensive record without Terry in the team. Sadly, the number that Millie Clode/Natalie Sawyer/the other one etc... gave to me in All Bar One the other day doesn't work, so I can't confirm those figures just yet.

4) He's the modern embodiment of this country's retrograde obsession with "passion" as a key component of success. But unlike the genuinely rabid Stuart Pearce, or the kind of man who exhibits the brand of "passion" that you simply wouldn't bother arguing with (fast forward to 1:57 and howl with laughter at his impassioned defence of his actions), Terry carries out his own version of passion in a softly-spoken, insidious, bloodless, corporate yet mechanically thuggish fashion.

And if ... if you were thinking that all this was just an excuse to post one of my favourite YouTube vids ever, then you'd be half right. But my God, is it worth it... AC

Micro-rant of the day (x2)

2009-07-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have followed my career with interest (translation: those of you who may have once been friends with me on MySpace) may well have seen this before. Prior to Armando Iannucci's graduation to becoming the creator of the greatest British comedy of the decade (the rantabulous 'The Thick Of It') and more recently, Hollywood power-player ('In The Loop' - which had a fucking fantastic Saul Bass-inspired US-only poster), he was responsible for a vast array of the best comedy these shores have had to offer. These included, amongst others, The Day Today and I'm Alan Partridge (a touching scene which taught me, wrongly, that it's OK to play air-slap bass as long as you take it off and put it down afterwards).

From 'The Armando Iannucci Show', this is Alan Ford (star of 'Lock Stock and Two Remarkably Dated although still actually quite good Barrels' and the more aptly named 'Snatch') brilliantly satirising the portrayal of ridiculous 'ard-nut gangsters that Lord Sir Guy Augustus Ritchie II so desperately wanted to get into bed with. Revel in the comedic gold of someone getting it so completely wrong, with so much aggression...

and, still on the subject of ludicrous 'gangsters', here's another Lock, Stock-themed treat from the marvellous Fast Show, chock full of amazing ranting...

AC

Classics of Yesteryear Part 2: "Is that Ray Liotta?"

2009-07-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure we haven't posted this before, but i'm not sorry if i'm mistaken. In a show of unabashed stream-of-consciousness lunacy, a Virgin Atlantic customer has created one of the classic personal letters in the history of the english language. The seamless seguing from rage, to childhood disappointment, reluctant professional respect, referencing of morbid gifts, and personal insults is quite extraordinary. Hugh Hefner's aformentioned confused admirer has real competition for the accolade of 'Hottest Rant of the Noughties'. If anyone would like to help arrange a ceremony for this and collect all these maniacs together (perhaps a BBQ in Fred's garden) then drop us a line.

Tasty morsels:

"Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?"

"I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard."

"More mustard than any man could consume in a month."

"I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point."

"When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese."

Note the consistent intimacy with which said anonymous Giles Coren-alike refers to the megalomaniac 'All-bran' Branson. Remember how say they the majority of murder victims know their killer? Or maybe it's rape victims. It doesn't really matter either way, Richard is doubtless a broken man after this. TH

The hottest rant of the year to date...

2009-07-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

It would be severely remiss of us here at Hot Rant to let a truly epochal moment in the grand history of ranting pass without celebration.

In a nutshell: deeply crazy woman who believes she is a hat files a $3bn lawsuit against Hugh Hefner in the form of an unbelievably long, incoherent letter. Which you can attempt to read... here.

Despite your best intentions, however, there is not a cat in hell's chance that you will be able to make it all the way through to the end in one sitting, but highlights are bounteous and there is more than enough to keep you coming back for more. AC

Hot Rant hit the cycle track

2009-07-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

This morning me and Tom got up at 8 am to go cycling at the Herne Hill Velodrome. In a rather un-Hot Rant fashion we actually found it amazingly fun. The sign up man was a small British cycling version of Mr Miyagi; that is if Mr Miyagi was an incredibly belligerent, child hating official. Some choice moments included him asking a kid to "get away from me" for having the nerve to ask how he could sign up for cycling and screaming at a child to stop touching a fence post as a fellow instructor attempted to go over crucial safety points. Nevertheless good times were had by all (except most of the, frankly terrified, children). Cycling around with no gears or brakes in a big circle is surprisingly entertaining, as a result me and Tom decided to start a track cycling team. Like most interns, Owain has proved a massive disappointment. He still puts at least four too many drops of milk in my latte and has yet to realise that we have no desire to help him develop as a an office worker or a person: we just can't afford a proper coffee maker. Due to this endemic level of poor performance we have decided to recruit him to do most of the grunt work for the newly named 'Wolfpack' cycling team. He claims to be bad at riding a bike so he'll have to contend with a steep learning curve (a gradient of 13% on the track to be exact) but will hopefully make me and Tom look like pros. Our kind job offer and an introduction explaining the origins of the team name 'Wolfpack' cand be found in the video below:

FC

Baldur's Gate II

2009-07-09T01:13:00.000-07:00

Baldur's Gate II. What do these words mean to you? Careful it may reveal more than you'd like. Nope it's not an obscure late 70s action film, nor is it one of those weird military operation names. The correct definition is of course one of the most singularly addictive nerd fests of an RPG ever created. You take control of a merry band of adventurers in a mythical land and attempt to rescue a childhood friend from the evil grasp of a wizard called Irenicus who is actually trying to trap you into fighting him because you are the son of Bhaal. Or something like that. More importantly I believe it to be as chemically addictive as crack cocaine or even Championship Manager. Last night, in a desperate bid for freedom, I had to delete it from my computer. While I stoically resisted the urge to shove a remote control up my ass, I had ample time to think about the toll it had taken on my life.

I only started playing it a couple of weeks ago, in a pique of nostalgia for my thirteen year-old self. Since then many lows have been reached. Particularly bad was informing my girlfriend that "there's a female elf and mage in my party who I think both have the hots for me, but I've got to play it cool because love will only get in the way of the mission." Love getting in the way of the mission became a recurring theme between me and my girlfriend for the duration of the gaming experience. Our relationship deteriorated into sitting in the same room, in silence, while I just finished "clearing out one last orc's nest before saving'. This was no way to live. Or so she told me. A choice had to be made and Baldur's Gate II was wiped.

I don't know what makes these games so damn addictive. Maybe I'm just a huge nerd and wandering round a magical land full of dwarfs, elves, magicians and monsters whilst casting spells and slaying dragons is just too much to resist. I realise many people (seemingly especially female people) will view this in a less than favourable light. Well, tough. While I'm at it I might as well admit that I spent a a large chunk of my pre-adolescent childhood playing Warhammer and building Airfix planes. It was great. But even those solitary and frankly (girl) friend alienating activities never quite engendered a computer game level of obsessiveness. Those of you who play Champ Man may well understand. The (hopefully) true story of a friend of a friend who dressed up in a suit when he made the Champions League Final on the game springs to mind. Equally embarrassing was me and Ashley playing out this scene a deux in my room on a Friday night when other right minded youths were out partying and meeting members of the opposite sex.

As all the evidence so far points to me being very easily addicted to computer games I've wiped the game from my computer and instructed my girlfriend never to let me install another one. I think this is the best course of action until I find an environment as suitably supportive as the one in the following video:

Even in this (I assume mythical) gamers' paradise, there is an obvious bias towards one of the sexes. I believe I did manage to spot one person with long hair but seeing as they had their head in their hands as a result of a Street Fighter match I'm going to hazard a guess that they were just a ponytailed, male nerd. Look at those sad men fist pumping as if they had actually achieved something beyond controlling some pixels into a pre-programmed sequence... Who am I kidding. Where do I sign up? FC

From Ice Cream To Cage.... The Heat is On

2009-07-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Today we introduce a new contributor - Matt 'Albert' Kerly - who has some choice words for the state of British weather, draws Nic Cage into the Hot Rant fold once again and forwards some troubling thoughts about the mysteries behind the departure of a much-loved superstar.

Hot Rant! Couldn’t be more apt! It’s hot, I’m hot, i’m ranting about being hot. Slap me in the eye with an irony spoon!

Whether we get any or not- heat plays a great part of the British ‘summer’. If there’s none between May and September the nation complains. If the heat does arrive between May and September, a whole other set of factors comes into play, giving some, not all, but many, more to complain about! Buses are ovens on wheels, trains become microwaves on rails, shops- powder kegs of potential violence, MJ’s coffin, a miniature tub of playdough. (brace) And Jo Whiley is a dick (she’s onscreen so it must be Summer).

If I feel brave enough to wander about in this heat, (let’s face it, that intense daylight is somewhat alluring) I’m instantly looking for two things- Ice cream and Air Con! One, an incredibly expensive outlay for potentially little usage per year, and don’t even get me started on the price of Air Con! (At this juncture, I’d like to clarify - I am referring to the atmospheric temperature control system ‘Air. Con’ and not Nic Cage’s’s stolen plane, put-the-bunny-back-in-the-box, action movie ‘Con Air’. However- Remember. That. Face). The other, ice cream.

The big problem with ice cream is that they get more expensive year on year… a ‘99’ was named so, because back in 1978, they cost 99p! NINETY-NINE PENCE! Imagine that! What’s worse- the darn things seem to get smaller every year too! Whoever markets the ‘Feast’ needs to have a serious rethink! I’m suggesting ‘Morsel’, ‘Nibble’ or ‘Tidbit’… no, I’ve got it ‘Pisstake’. “Mint or chocolate flavour ice cream, with a yummy chocolate flavour centre, all covered in a crisp, chocolate flavour coating with crunchy biscuit pieces. Mmm, ‘Pisstake’- what a treat!”

And trying to find an air con system that works in the summer, y’know- when it’s actually needed- is like trying to find the Holy Grail… filled with Slush Puppy! Talking to various friends and family, it appears nobodies’ air con works. M&S and the Odeon amongst others but the best one I’ve been told has got to be Madame. Tussauds’. A tourist attraction that relies on accurate wax replicas to well… attract tourists! Imagine the meltdown… Sylvester Stallone’s mouth level, Boris Johnson’s fringe even, Michael Jacks- (snip! - Ed.)

Actually, on a serious note, amongst the many conspiracy theories surrounding the sad death of MJ, I believe I am the first to raise the following- check this - “June 09 - The new (Michael Jackson) figure recreates the classic Jackson pose of the new tour poster…. …To be unveiled in July 2009, the Madame Tussauds team have been creating the figure for 4 months.” Could this be the ultimate publicity stunt? Are they to unveil this new ‘figure’ only for it to burst to life after a few minutes? (he was fucking good at standing still for ages) …unlikely. But more sinisterly- could have Tussaud’s engineered this whole thing in an evil attempt to cut corners on their new MJ figure? Sounds unrealistic right? Not if you have a certain A-list actor on your side.

Look at this covert footage and tell me something untoward isn’t going on. Complete the trail of thought… Michael Jackson – Lisa Marie Presley and... bingo!

I’ve blown this wide open…

…and only slightly over the word limit. M.A Kerly

Unpaid Internships

2009-07-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

I wish I could honestly say that unpaid internships were for suckers, but it’s not true. The basic fact of post-graduate life is that if you want to enter a profession that doesn’t drain every iota of enthusiasm and love for the daylight hours of Monday to Friday from your soul, you’re pretty much 90% going to have to be an office bitch on expenses for six months at some point in your early twenties. The privilege of the moneyed classes, interning for a substantial amount of time is free for those who can afford it, incredibly expensive for those who can’t. Take Owain, our resident Hot Rant whipping boy and all round charming gringo. He’s enthused , dapper, and a pro with the franker but is he going to get a job if he works less than the mandatory year tenure on daily receipts of €10? In the esteemed words of Baudelaire: “NON.”

But why, one may ask, has this all of a sudden become a bone of contention? "Hey Tommy," you ponder, "didn’t you intern at Full Time Hobby for six months during second year? And then at Matador in the third?” Why yes friend I did. But like a child encountering a pederast on the fringes of a copse, I never got my sweets. An internship with some faint glimmer of a salaried position at its culmination is perfectly acceptable, should even (you'd think) be expected. Fattening up ones CV is a necessary tool in the quest for meaningful employment. But the shameful truth seems to be that if you want to work, like I did/do, at a record label or subversive fringe-culture oriented periodical, it’s a case of being in the right place at the right time, preferably after being on the dole for the amount of time ittakes your average starter to hit the 10k mark. To return to my point; this is all spurred on by two facts. Firstly, the company I work for (an internationally esteemed publisher of illustrated non-fiction books. Only minutes ago was I reading about ‘His Top 5 Handjobs’. It’s pretty enthralling stuff) is being restructured and, as a lowly temporary editorial assistant, I’m pretty much a dead cert to be chopped from the ranks like a deliciously stuff-able flower from a courgette. Secondly, I have an interview at Vice magazine (all tying up, no?). For an internship. Somebody wants to talk to me about not paying me a single cent for three whole months of full time effort. I don’t know what is wrong with me. If I do it and stay there then brilliant. I’ll have dragged myself up out of the quagmirious pit of humanities graduates, moaning pitifully like a hoard of lepers about ‘wanting to do something creative’ to a job envied by nearly every asymmetrically-quiffed jackass in a 2-mile radius of Dalston Kingsland. If not, I’ll have self-inflicted a metaphorical employment form of violent, unrestrained congress upon myself which will leave me out of pocket for the next eighteen months and back applying for jobs in publishing recruitment. I’ll probably take it. TH

BNP babes, Barrymore and Barnes

2009-07-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

What should we do about Lenny Henry? Find out here, and consequently weep with anger, hilarity, rage, shame and confusion.

Credit where its due - I found out about this remarkable piece of entertainment/horror through broon44, a poster on the great music/culture forum Drowned In Sound.

Sitting back and branding the BNP and its various associates and acolytes as thick, ignorant, pathetic, laughable etc... is almost as passe these days as it is easy, but when you see something like this, it is simply a natural reflex for anybody of sound mind.

To elaborate on recent themes, here is an almost unbelievable audio-visual treat that similarly combines the name Michael, unfunny British comedy and disgusting racism (see above). Join me in celebrating the 25th anniversary of Michael Barrymore impersonating John Barnes. Live on BBC.

Winner of the outraged YouTube comment award goes to GreaserLeo;

Tonight, Michael Barrymore IS Anal Rape Murderer.
How can he still be on television. He refuses to comment on the night of the anal murder.
Disgusting.

Ranting at its absolute finest. AC

Michael Fucking McIntyre

2009-07-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's fair to say that my Granddad and I have a different take on the state of modern comedy. Recently driving past a billboard featuring the looming visage of Russell Brand, he remarked without irony, "That man exudes evil". He visibly purples at the very mention of Jonathan Ross. And recently, as I tried my hardest not to laugh, he recounted, in a state of solemn exasperation, a TV stand-up's routine which apparently consisted of the comic saying the word "masturbating" over and over again. I feebly suggested that there may be have been some context that he had missed, he was steadfast in his disappointment with not only the state of comedy today, but clearly, the world we now live in. "Masturbating", he repeated softly, ashen-faced, head shaking slowly, eyes fixed to the floor.

But it turns out we do have something in comedy common after all. When I heard him bemoaning the act of "a Chinese fella who kept laughing at his own jokes before he'd finished, or often, started them", I knew he could only be referring to one man...

That's right - its Britain's new comedy hero, Michael Fucking McIntyre, who is in fact

Not Chinese
very, very irritating
displacing Peter Kay as the doughy-faced poster boy for unfunny British comedy

Ubiquitous to the point of making me physically angry, McIntyre began spreading himself remarkably thin across every panel show going a couple of years ago, and has since graduated to the lofty heights of hosting his own BBC Comedy Roadshow. According to The Daily Telegraph, McIntyre is "quite simply top-to-toe hilarious". Above and beyond the obvious crapness of that review line (are anyone's toes, even Eddie Murphy or Dave Chapelle's, hilarious?), it is woefully inaccurate.

In fact, McIntyre's act seems to consist of giggling a lot, talkingreallyquicklyasthoughwewon'tnoticethatwhathe'ssayingisn'tactuallyfunnyatall and making 100% certain that every sentence he utters goes up in a questiony way at the end like a Californian schoolgirl?

Of McIntyre, one fan had this to say - an inane snippet of drivel which perfectly encapsulates what I despise about the man's comedy.

"He was on “Have I Got News for You”; he was funnier than Paul Merton. In fact, Paul didn’t get a word in. Not often that someone can get the better of him.’"

If your idea of being funnier than someone is talking so much that they actually get a word in edgeways, then your idea of comedy is very different from mine. I don't hate this guy as much as I hate the inexplicably overpraised Catherine Tate, but I do wish he'd give it a bloody rest. AC

Geezers

2009-07-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

Guesting today is Jack Collins, a globe travelling, fast talking, Somerfield party food eating, skinny jeans wearing, geezer humour victim. Catch up with his travel blog at digitalpostcards.blogspot.com.

Just to clarify - a geezer is not a volcanic, water-spurty thing from Iceland. A geezer is someone who uses the phrases: "facking mastard!", or "You mappet!". The geezer's interests are: 1) birds, 2) tinnies, 3) Kasabian, 4) being a cunt. The geezer can be identified by his: A) awful tattoos, B) geezer mullet, C) A tendency to end every single sentence with: "yeah?"

Interaction with such fellows is unavoidable. However, I have personally had the misfortune of working in recruitment, a profession which is as packed full with geezers as the sun is packed full of burny bits. My colleagues had all of the standard attributes, but additionally possessed a brain-achingly twattish arrogance about them. Strutting around the office with their fat ties, and smug grins, believing they were "facking mastard" humans, because they had gotten the most IT professionals hired that day. Erm, wait a second Lock Stock! You haven't actually done anything. The candidate has done all the work, attended the interview and answered the questions to get the job, which incidentally is far more interesting than your profession. You have pushed a few buttons, and opened your cockney gob, yeah?

Recruitment is a geezer minefield. However, some of my most infuriating geezer encounters have occurred elsewhere. Once, a particularly burly arse-cheese actually stopped mid phone conversation (presumably when discussing "tits and arse and Millwall FC") and aggressively asked me: "How tight are your jeans mate, yeah?" Erm, very tight sir, thanks for asking and showing an active interest. What are you doing? At no point, repeat at no point, should you approach a stranger and make any kind of comment, positive or negative, in regards to their clothing. I would never approach a south-london rude boy to politely inform him that unfortunately the price tag is still attached to his baseball cap and that he looks like "a mappet". And by all accounts, I would never consider walking up to you, you gravy dribbling, white-collar-on-a-blue-shirt wearing, prize-winning turd of a primate; and tell you that your replica football jersey is particularly tight when stretched across your ever-burgeoning beer-belly, yeah?

Another geezer favourite which should be dispatched to oblivion is the following exchange-

Geezer: "Lookout mate, you've got something on the back of your heel."

Me: Oh, really (turning around, bending my leg slightly, and looking at my heel)

Geezer: Ay, ay sailor! Waaay! Hahaha etc.

What the fuck is that? That is not a joke. Oh right I get it: sailor = homosexual (your favourite object of derision). But how is bending your leg a sign of homosexuality? Just stop it. And please do not combine your violent geezer-laugh (an apocalyptic combination of both coughing and guffawing) with a heavy-handed slap on my belly. Don't touch me with your greasy, fake-tanned hands. My shirt, unlike yours, is actually all one colour: white. Hands off you fucking gorilla, yeah?

Annoying isn't it? Yeah. Jack Collins

Attack Cardio wth Vinnie Jones

2009-07-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

Attack Cardio with Vinnie Jones from Vinnie Jones

Harsh Comment of the Week Award goes to:

Vettethrils:
I liked this skit better the first time i saw it. when it was on SNL 10 years ago as a personal trainer commercial parady. jones plays a great tough guy, usually, but in this skit hes just an unoriginal bastard.

Scathing stuff. Personally I love the "I'm taking your picture!" bit. FC

The Guardian

2009-07-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

Being a fairly open minded but at times righteous, middle-class liberal I should literally love the Guardian. It should be my bible; leading me to some kind of organic food filled, climate change ending, equality centric mecca where everyone is unfailingly polite to each other. Instead it's starting to really piss me off.

The G2 section is the worst offender. I think it is purposely being turned into an horrific caricature of liberal views. Like a reverse Daily Mail where, instead of calling for the murder of all pedophiles and the deportation of anyone 'a bit funny looking', it campaigns for human rights for all free-range farm animals and the compulsory return to stone age technologies in order to avert the imminent global warming doomsday. It almost as if it's just a massive conspiracy, created to make all liberals look like the wussy, cotton headed cowards which right wingers so desire as targets. How else do you describe a front page headline which read "How do I tell my children about climate change?" The article was seriously about breaking the news about global warming to your children without giving them psychological damage. Seriously.

Secondly, G2 is also regularly filled with some of the most vapid pieces of writing ever. A recent article was entitled: 'Geoff Dyer: My secret life of crime' It continued: "There are three episodes in his life that Geoff Dyer prefers not to remember. He could have ended up in jail - but thankfully didn't. So did he just get lucky?" What were these terrible episodes? He threw a milk bottle at a window (but missed), almost crashed into another car (but didn't) and (finally something vaguely dangerous) accidentally smuggled a small bit of weed into the Bahamas. He seems to think that all of these episodes would have led to life in prison and the end of his life as he knew it, if he had been caught and if, in the case of the milk bottle and car crash, they had actually happened. Those are some big ifs. He carries on: "I would estimate that it was about 99% certain that I would pay the price for my actions. But I didn't. I got away with all three of them, scot-free, without a scratch." How on earth did this man come to the figure of 99%? Not by scientific means I imagine; two thirds of his crimes didn't actually happen. As if reading the tedious confessions of a man who has done nothing wrong wasn't bad enough, he ends his piece with a torturously awful simile, even by Hot Rant's standards:

I had a certain amount of random, unprotected heterosexual sex in the 1980s and 90s, but the chances of getting Aids was minimal compared with the chances of facing the consequences of these actions. Put it this way: given the limited extent of my sexual adventures I would have been extremely unlucky to have contracted HIV. These three incidents, on the other hand, would be the equivalent of having unprotected sex with a promiscuous homosexual IV drug-user.

No. They are the equivalent of going to a gay bar which contained one promiscuous homosexual IV drug-user, but not having unprotected sex with him due to you not being gay and only having gone to the bar to accompany a friend. About that risky. Or if you want a made up figure: 3.2%. FC

Micro-rant of the day

2009-07-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest breakdowns in TV history - once again from the magisterial The Thick Of It, hopefully soon to return to our screens.

All together now... "I AM A MAN!" AC

Lewis Carroll's 'Darius in Wonderland'

2009-07-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

I hate the transfer window - the churning, torpid, yearly funeral procession characterised last year by the numbing ball-ache of Gareth 'I'm not half the player Xabi Alonso is' Barry's coquetteish skirt-lifting in the general direction of Rafael Benitez. The transfer window is traditionally the time when agents get hot under the collar and take centre stage, when Sky Sports news becomes even more inane and repetitive than usual, and the time when football fans have to cruelly delude themselves into believing that they care about whether Bolton really will go through with their (free) swoop for Sean Davis (a surefire addition to the canon of players that mutate from young and promising into hardened stalwart seemingly without the bit in the middle - c.f. Danny Cadamarteri, Francis Jeffers)

This year's transfer window has been lent a certain edge by Real Madrid's manic, Brewster's Millions-esque spending spree and the tragi-comic publishing (in the Daily Heil) of Michael Owen's debut novel, 'I'm Not Actually Dead'. But generally speaking: so far, so glum...

... until today. Something has happened that has utterly defied expectation, sense, logic and, frankly, belief. I can't decide whether its a Frank Capra fairytale or a David Lynch nightmare made flesh. Either way, we have travelled, as a nation, at the speed of lightning, through the looking glass.

The pictures will tell their own story;

Ladies and Gentlemen, your eyes do not deceive you. This sequence of pictures really does document a vast number of people associated with Turkish football club AnkaraGucu beside themselves with joy at the capture of Darius Vassell. That's Darius Vassell. Darius. Vassell. A thoroughly OK striker with a pretty poor goals to games ratio, and no discernible star quality.

To be honest there is nothing I can add to the pictures. I'm mystified. Clearly, Darius (if the slogan above is to be believed) is more than a player. I just don't know what.

I'll leave you now to try and figure out this in your own sweet time. I'll be doing the same. E-mail any responses or comments to hotrant@gmail.com
AC

Business venture naming nightmare of the day...

2009-06-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Take one gargantuan Russian oil company. Merge it with one of West Africa's most powerful energy providers. What do you get? Click here to find out.

AC

Murraymania / Andymonium / Go away, please

2009-06-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

Rack another one up for the guest contributors. Today it's Henry Birkbeck's turn. Henry runs a small business customising and painting shoes through his website leshouvre.com. Instead of setting up a petulant, moany website complaining about the world, Henry has done something cool, creative and hopefully profitable with his internet connection. Not that I'm jealous or anything. Regardless I'm not sure I can overstate how frickin cool his custom shoe designs are. Like 'em? Well order a pair of unique, one-of-a-kind, hand painted, individually designed shoes here. Mention you came from Hot Rant and Henry will give you 25% off. Anyway he's taken a break from being annoyingly cool to write up a little rant on the topic of Andy Murray:

Wimbledon – the ol’ SW19. Those currently employed (as well as those who just think tennis is a shit sport) could be forgiven for not being up-to-date on the latest from the All England Club, but given that I watch a lot of daytime TV at the moment, it’s fairly inescapable. This year is perhaps the most exciting in recent memory because Andy Murray, the very embodiment of home-grown ~~Scottish~~ British talent, may almost sort of slightly perhaps have a shot at the Gentlemen’s Singles title. Maybe. And boy, do we like those odds.

It’s not Murray himself who annoys me – he may be a surly, wiry haired Scotsman, but he seems decent enough. No, what gets to me is the press; the relentless broken record that is the British media. At least Henmania was generally tempered by an undercurrent of realisation that Tiger Tim was about as dangerous as a house cat in the Rajasthan jungle; his eyes desperately pleading for approval as he clenched his skinny fist in a futile display of faux agression before again getting whupped. But the general attitude towards this year’s ('Murray's year!' (c) British press, 2009) tournament is borderline ridiculous.

Plain and simply: Britain is not very good at tennis. There once was a man called Fred Perry. Sure, he was great. He won lots. He was British. Unfortunately for us, the last time he won Wimbledon was in 1936. As in, 73 years ago. And no British man has won since. And I know that’s a long time, and we’re all desperately hoping for a Brit to reclaim the men’s title, but seriously, chill out.

Murray has never won a Grand Slam. Yes, he just won Queen’s, but he has a much better track record in smaller tournaments. Yes, he got to the finals of the US Open last September, but in my opinion that was largely a fluke, and he still got pummelled by Federer, who last time I checked, was pretty bloody good. Again, I’ve got nothing against Murray, but I cannot stand the unnecessary hullabaloo that the press is making about his significance.

Case in point: Federer’s pre-Wimbledon 2009 interview with the BBC, in which they ask him (a) “do you expect to play Andy Murray in the final?” and (b) “why do you think Andy Murray has such a good record against you?” Clearly displeased by what he’s been asked, Federer delicately points out that though good, Murray played him when he had back problems and mononucleosis. In other words, he basically said: “I am better, bitch”.

Perhaps these feelings of anger bubbling inside me are not anti-British sentiments, but instead illustrative of my very Britishness: maybe this stuff gets to me because I know Murray probably won’t win, because Brits never win anything (except Olympic cycling), and I’m just trying to be pragmatic and setting myself up for failure. There is also a lot to be said for the rapidly declining British trait of not making a fuss about things. But ultimately, who cares? Really, I just wish Murray was asked more questions like those asked by Jonathan Ross when he interviewed him last summer. My personal favourite: “Are there people, who, because they look a bit funny, it’s hard to play them?” Now that’s what I call sports journalism.
Henry Birkbeck - Le Shouvre: Custom Hand-Painted Shoe Designs

Tragedy update

2009-06-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hot Rant is sad to hear of the demise, hot on the heels of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, of the US equivalent of Cillit Bang's Barry Scott, Billy Mays.

We had never heard of him before today, but a quick glance at his output revealed that he invested his advertising pitches with an intense, ranting, messianic quality sorely lacking in these parts since Scott (rumoured to be a RADA-trained actor - a rumour ignored by us) in his heyday.

Take it away Billy;

AC

Uri Geller

2009-06-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

The recent untimely death of the King of Pop has, amongst other unfortunate consequences, led to Uri Geller stealthily bending himself back into the public eye. Having switched on BBC News 24 to find out if Jackson was indeed dead, I was immediately confronted with the voice of the Israeli savant / psychic repeatedly stating "I can't comment on that" when faced with the question: "When did you last speak to Michael?" Pray tell, Uri. You were perfectly content to discuss your friend potentially being alive or dead live on the air as the news unfolded, but to discuss when you had last telephoned each other would obviously have been a severe breach of privacy? I suspect the real reason may well have been that even Wacko Jacko got fed up with the incessant pestering and pseudo-spiritual mutterings of this self proclaimed paranormalist. His presence so annoyed me that I spent much of the night wishing that his middle name was Nate. Childish.

Geller's resurfacing has once again raised the troubling question of what the hell his profession actually is. A cursory Google confirmed that "Uri Geller is most famous for his claim to be able to bend spoons and keys with his mind." This claim has always baffled me. Firstly, if you had psychic abilities to be able to move and bend objects with your mind, why on earth would you simply focus on keys and spoons? Surely this man could become an international force for peace and good by bending guns so they couldn't fire, blunting criminal's knives or even just fixing people's glasses when they got a bit bent.

This raises the very real possibility that his powers really do only extend to spoons and keys, which if you ask me is a little bit rubbish. I am struggling to see any use for these skills, except maybe for when you bend a spoon by putting it in really hard ice cream. Even then I fear his super-exclusive mind bending skills could be undercut in the market place by some enterprising labourers willing to just use their hands. To my uber-bitter unemployed graduate mind it all seems a bit unfair that he has forged a career centering around ruining metal implements that are otherwise quite useful. Then again I am trying to sell myself to employers on the basis of my in depth knowledge of Early Modern state building . So touche Uri... touche

A visit to Uri's website is quite a treat. Immediately unsettling is his cautious pronouncement: "This website could change your life for the better". Not will, but could. Furthermore, if you know someone who is learning to speak English as a second language it would be interesting to see what they make of sentences such as: "Spoon bending is just the tip of the iceberg!" It seems pretty pointless to go into the details of why Uri Geller does not actually possess psychic powers but lets just say that claiming to have made a Scottish international miss a penalty is about as impressive as me waving my hands at the sun and then claiming the credit for it setting.

But back to more pressing matters. In a show of remarkable attention-seeking in such a sensitive time, Geller,

in an interview with Channel 4 News ... admitted hypnotising the late pop star to question him about the child abuse allegations that dogged his final years. Geller stated that although he knew questioning Jackson under hypnosis was unethical, hearing him deny the accusations while in a trance confirmed innocence in his eyes.*

Well thanks, Uri. I hope that the next mega pop star to shuffle off this mortal coil has the foresight to pal up with a mystical maverick who actually has a job title - spiritualist medium, pehaps?

FC and AC

*The Independent, Fri 26 June 2009

Textbook rant

2009-06-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

If you've seen it, watch it again.

If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat.

"Do you understand? Do you understand?"

AC

Bear Grylls

2009-06-27T03:26:00.000-07:00

Time for another contribution now. This hot, hot rant comes courtesy of filmmaker, raconteur and renowned cottager Fish Stock. Take it away, Ed!

Question:

Why is Bear Grylls a wanker?

Answer:

First of all his name is actually Edward Michael Grylls. Surely anyone who changes their name to “Bear” is a wanker. Almost as big a wanker as the late Conservative politician, Sir Michael Grylls, Bear’s father who was knighted in 1992, having lied two years earlier to the committee on members’ interests on the number and amounts of Ian Greer’s payments to him during the Cash for Questions scandal. Interestingly Michael Grylls managed to avoid notoriety unlike former Tory trade minister Neil Hamilton, who married Grylls’ secretary, Christine…

But I digress…

Recently aired on Channel 4 were repeats of Born Survivor.

Born Survivor saw Bear wandering around what may as well be Epping Forest, looking for discarded sandwiches to stave off the hunger when one of the 4-man camera team he travels with thought, for realism’s sake, not to invite him to dinner at the hotel the crew are staying at. Whilst you and I, and hopefully everyone else must realise that the locations are no more exotic than Windsor Great Park, we’re led to believe that Bear instead braves the Alps one week, and the fjords the next.

One particular episode of this insult to Ray Mears’ hallowed name sees Bear stalking purposefully through the swamps of the Everglades in Florida. Completely isolated in this most dangerous of habitats (bar of course the camera crew and rescue team hovering overhead in the Lynx) he’s forced to confront the local fauna by engaging in hand-to-hand combat with, er, some minnows, a handful of grubs, a baby frog and a turtle that looks uncannily like Dan Akroyd’s face in Coneheads.

The camera never actually shows anything that might qualify as a dangerous creature but Bear, not worried by this lack of drama, decides to add some of his own – by shimmying up a tree when he sees in the distance... bubbles. That’s right. Bubbles. He and the crew then turn tail and run/splash/trip in a most undignified manner, to the sound of Bear screeching “we’re too close! We’re too close!” To what Bear? A flatulent beaver?

When it comes to survival techniques, however, Bear is highly accomplished. “Lost” in this most forbidding of terrain, he needs to find higher ground. But fear not! Bear has a solution! He ties his shoelaces together and shins up a tree with all the charm and grace of Gordon Brown smiling on Youtube. “I’ll be able to get a glimpse of some pine trees,” he tells us, which is good “because they grow on dry ground”. He gets to the top, and shins back dejected. “I couldn’t see any” Oh, right.

Bear is a man who appears to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders as his furrowed expression shows us. He is clearly in danger every time he hears the breeze rustling through the trees, something he learned during his years at Eton. “The swamps are so forbidding. Anything could be lurking in the water”, he tells us, wading past some crisp packets and a shopping trolley.

Seeing the crisp packets has obviously made Bear hungry. The Everglades episode shows Bear taking a knife to a turtle and appearing subsequently with his T-shirt drenched in the unfortunate reptile’s blood. Later in the series we are blessed with an image of Bear snaking through a field of long grass (I believe they’re in Shrivenham) with a stick. Suddenly he jumps up letting loose a blood curdling scream as he hurls said stick ’somewhere’ into the grass from no less than 3 different camera angles. He dives in like a bored dog after his stick, presumably trying to alleviate himself from the mind crushing dullness that programming like this propagates, subsequently emerging with what can only be described as the still body of a young Elk, which our intrepid explorer promptly begins to hack at with that bit on a Swiss army knife for getting stones out of horses’ hooves…

Thankyou for the magic Mr Grylls.

But wait. Bear, old boy, I do believe you’ve led us astray! Although the title of your laudably egotistical programme is in fact “Bear Grylls: Born Survivor” one must look at the credits for a further insight into the production of this sham of a mockery of a mockery of a sham. My thanks instead should be directed to Kris Thoemke who is honoured on the credits as “Survival Expert” with Bear down only as “Presenter”…

Clown. Fish Stock

Micro ramble of the day

2009-06-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

What a great combination of two of my favorite pastimes, and one that works to surprising effect. This is pretty much a representation of what would happen if you compressed my whole university experience into five minutes. A particular favorite line is: "let these snakes bite you for a little bit and they will make it all better." Medicine really did used to be mental. Although after reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, our whole feeling of superiority towards old medicinal techniques may be somewhat undermined by the fact that homeopathy is now taught in numerous universities. I'm going to put it out there that if you are a homeopath, or spend lots of money on homeopathy, then frankly, you are an idiot. FC

Internship announcement

2009-06-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

The successful candidate has been decided! We welcome Owain Mumford to the Hot Rant fold! Although he met none of the employment criteria it turns out our fathers used to know each other. And his application was faultless. For all those who applied and failed here's what you should have done. As a humanities student at a top 10 UK institution, Owain is about as unemployable as it’s possible to get without being on various government lists. So we extend to him the false promise of future employment and the chance to acquire crucial workplace skills such as 'moving boxes', 'tidying up crap we can't be bothered with' and 'duplicating tasks for no apparent reason except finding you something to do'. Owain, your CV will never be the same again. It's the perfect stepping stone to the 100ft vertical cliff face that is the jobs market.

As certain members of HotRant staff have recently discovered, having a degree is no guarantee of gainful employment in these dark economic times. Our own Fred Carnegy has been luckless in the job market, while Tom Howells is being made redundant from an internship which barely keeps him in organic elderflower cordial and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference sundried tomatoes as it is.

It’s a baleful picture which has been borne out (sans Howells’ favourite braised duck and focaccia bread) in newsprint: the guardian recently reported this year’s pretty grim statistics of graduate unemployment last week to a collective groan from finalists. For those too idle or too busy frantically scanning Gumtree, it also says that a similar number will be unemployed next year at least, if not for the next four.

Unsurprisingly, government ministers have moved quickly, mainly by making soothing wooshy noises and showy token gestures. David Lammy said quite sensibly in January, when this hoo-ha started, that a degree was still the cornerstone of many a long career, just in case some people didn’t think it was worthwhile anymore. Meanwhile, a giant talking egg prophesied that students everywhere would eat each other in the mad, undignified scrabble for even the most menial jobs. Or something. Lammy added that the government would be working with the likes of Barclays to provide graduate schemes for struggling students; because of course they’ve got 40,000 of those knocking around.

In any case, such bald statistics don’t really consider the distinction between graduates not getting their ideal job and not getting a job at all. The unpalatable truth for students is that some will have to slum it for a while in soul-destroying database tedium. For an unfortunate number, Lammy hints, it may mean they never end up in their ideal job. Then again, how many people in this country, nay the world, end up in their ideal job? The best advice it seems is to find employment, any employment, for the time being, until your junket in the Maldives eating Turkish delight and teaching Fred Goodwin’s children to do the Times crossword becomes available.

Then again it’s not unreasonable for graduates to want a return from their sizeable investment into higher education: let’s face it; it’s a pretty enormous waste of three years and 20 odd grand if you’re going to end up hurling dead otters at passers-by in some slave-wage Keynesian burlesque. It’s also a rather humourless irony that being the first in-take to pay top-up fees, this year’s finalists emerge with worse job prospects than their less encumbered predecessors. Personally I find it sad that degrees have been reduced to such commercial proportions: some now see degrees merely as a premium worth paying to get ahead in the job market. Most of the jobless won’t take consolation in the government's 'largesse'. Doubtless they’d rather be in a position to start paying their loan back, and be able to buy the duck and focaccia bread while they’re at it. Owain Mumford

When one headline single-handedly justifies the existence, and public profile, of massive twats

2009-06-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

Micro passive aggressive rant of the day

2009-06-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

From the always brilliant passive aggressive notes.com FC

Red Mist a la Rue

2009-06-24T02:44:00.000-07:00

I think I am beginning to be severely affected by all-encompassing road rage. Sure, everyone hates buses and taxis but, in a shocking lack of solidarity with the usually close-knit cycle commuter community, I have found that I now abhor nearly everyone on the road, full stop. Arriving at work today after my usual 6 mile commute through the idyllic dales of south east London, I was struck by the realization that, in a kind of red mist, my thoughts the whole way had consisted only of whether I should tell other road users to 'GET TO FUCK' or, more succinctly, just to 'GET FUCKED' should they carve me up, push me into the curbside gutter, walk out in front of me, or simply drift into my 2 square metre personal space. I have never known such rage as when a service vehicle blindly turned left off a public highway with plenty of notice given that I was cruising down the inside lane. This lead to intense gesticulation followed by shrugged gestures of disgust and heartbreak as my middle-class upbringing prevented me from screaming profanities and/or shattering his windows with a well aimed d-lock.

I vehemently believe that anyone who drives in zone 1 who could be on public transport should be tarred and feathered and made to live rough in Covent Garden piazza at the height of the summer holidays (so, so many French schoolchildren). Pedestrians are really just as bad; I was once having a perfectly adequate time whizzing through Brixton on a winter's eve, only to have a woman consciously dawdle out across in front of me, throwing me over my handle bars as I attempted not to total the cretin. Incredulous looks abounded as I waited for an apology, which were met only by her intoning that "that's God telling you to slow down". Thanks, God.

And of course pinstripe business prick-looking obese men with combed back hair, who NEVER FUCKING LOOK when they step out into my path. Rage at situations like these is fine. Encourageable in fact. What is more unreasonable is the fact that I now hate pretty much anyone in my peripheral vision whilst commuting. Of course, we have the Guardian-identified Summer morons who find it acceptable to simper along the Embankment at 8.30 in the morning like it's rural Normandy in the dusky haze of a spring's eve. But it's everyone else as well. The fools with matching team lycra suits. Almost anyone with gears, and certainly anyone without a helmet. Girls on dutch riders who are slow out of traffic lights. The man on a single speed with too-full panniers this morning who was flailing like a maniac and still not going all that fast. Anyone who looks like they're going to change into a suit when they complete their journey. The criteria for my hatred is in fact so wide that it threatens, in a Rick Springfield-esque example of surreal self loathing, to encompass even me. This will, of course, never happen though, as like every other stubborn London commuter, I consider myself superior to the stinking idiots around me.

Couriers are fine of course. No helmets, or often brakes, but they are lunatics so it is sort of justified. Plus, they know how to deal with troublesome drivers: recall the infamous, possibly apocryphal, yarn of the messenger who, when clipped off his bike by a particularly irate and foolhardy business man, subsequently picked up his crashed machine and smashed it through the knave's window screen, a la the cover of the Clash's 'London Calling'. Commendable move. TH

Never delete someone's World of Warcraft account

2009-06-23T02:49:00.000-07:00

The wining youtube comment is this earnest inquiry:

straightouttanorway
I've watched this video about 15-20 times. I do not understand why he tried to stick the remote in his ass.

Neither do I. The bit where he goes into the closet, then comes out of the closet and then tries to stick a remote control up his ass is rife with symbolism though. Someone give this kid a Nintendo 64 already. Actually on second thoughts this could well be the same kid who excitedly received the N64. It was a gateway drug. FC

Open mic nightmares

2009-06-22T11:48:00.000-07:00

In theory, it should work. An egalitarian, philanthropic and optimistic process in which plucky hopefuls or seasoned veterans of the circuit take to the stage to either surprise or delight the expectant crowd. But the reality of the open mic night is so very different. More often than not, open mic nights are about as easy to sit through as a public screening of your parents having sex on the platform of Clapham Junction at rush hour.

So who's to blame?

Often, it's the behaviour of the crowd. Recently, an absolute shower of pissed, jiggling Antipodean harlots descended upon the bar at my place of work and decided to crow inanely about Home and Away (or something) over the top of the guest performer who, predictably, happened to be a sensitive, rootsy singer-songwriter guitary type. These awful women responded to the artist turning up her volume by indignantly ramping up their own horrific squalls. As if this wasn't enough, a bunch of estate agents (see fig. 1) were simultaneously holding court at the other end of the bar, laughing about how they celebrated ripping off a bunch of students of their deposits by playing a marathon game of soggy Ryvita with each other (or something). I had hellish visions of the women and the estate agents disappearing off into the night to furiously copulate with each other in a vomit-stricken corner of Walkabout. And I really felt for the artist.

fig.1
The performers, however, must also show a robust degree of awareness in judging their audience and surroundings. Screaming "RESPECT THE MUSIC, MAN! THIS IS ART" at bystanders who have the nerve to enjoy a drink and have a bit of a chat in, you know, a pub, would raise the hackles of even the world's most reasonable man.

Thirdly, and most painfully, there is no direct correlation between the gumption of a have-a-go open mic hero and their level of talent. Perhaps he grimmest moment of my life happened a few years ago when a drunken troubadour took to the stage and announced that he was about to salute his recently deceased brother via the medium of song. Thirty minutes later, after one chord played a thousand times in an ocean of tears, someone plucked up the courage to get up and put him out of his misery. It was a sad show, but that was no 'Try Not To Breathe' or 'Knocking On Heaven's Door' up there. Put simply: he sucked, and if you suck, the crowd or your own attitude don't matter a jot.

I fondly remember one hazy student evening at the notorious(ly crap) Brighton rock haunt The Hobgoblin, when another such hopeful took to the stage. He resembled nothing so much as a whippet-thin Lenny Kravitz who had traded in the former's legendary sexual appetite for a speed habit of similar proportions. Having taken to the stage after being informed of the strict three-song limit, ersatz-Kravitz proceeded to circumvent the problem by playing a two-song set in which each song lasted an average of 17-and-a-half minutes. His set closer, following hot on the heels of his set opener, was a shamanistic dirge, featuring the anguished mantra "All kinds o' cheeses!" (later corrected disappointingly, but plausibly, to "Bow down to Jesus!" by my friend Tom). Nobody had the balls, or heart, or both, to stop him.

This leads me to the conclusion that this guy, and only this guy, should perhaps play all open mic nights, everywhere. Either him or the guy below. At least you know the audience would shut the fuck up and have something to talk about afterwards... AC

(make sure you watch til the end)

The sad decline of Jean Claude Van Damme

2009-06-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

A brief Sunday update here. This weekend I've mainly been thinking about the death of the eighties action movie. Whatever happened to films like 'Kickboxer' and 'On Deadly Ground'? It seems like all the main action movie stars of that era basically went bat-shit insane at around the mid 90s mark, consigning that type of movie to the scrap heap.

I think the majority of the blame for this can probably be laid at Steven Seagal's feet. His pseudo-spiritual arrogance led him to make a series of atrocious movies where he seemingly refused to obey the costume department and just wore his own clothes. He also got so fat he couldn't do stunts (cue many shots of his feet during chase scenes) and was involved in possibly one of the most bizare news stories ever. Apparently a dead fish was left as a threat on a news reporter's car and Steven Seagal was implicated. A dead fish? As a threat? At least a horse's head in your bed is quite scary. Not many people decapitate horses and it does leave you wondering how they sneaked it into your bedroom. But a fish on your windscreen? What the hell does that prove? Watch out, Steven is a fish killer. He just murders a fish, he'll leave a dead trout on your windscreen, without a second's hesitation. I don't even think this is in any way an illegal act. I also can't imagine that walking around with a stinking fish carcass, just in case you need to 'send a message' makes you a badass. In my head I have a picture of Seagal creeping up to the car in the dead of night, slipping the fish under the windscreen wiper, screaming "RUN!" and the camera then cutting to his feet as he makes a deceptively slow get away.

Anyway enough about Steven, I wanted to highlight Van Damme's equally acrimonious decent into insanity. Jean Claude has always loved dancing. I have picked three videos which symbolise his, and the whole genre's sad decline, expressed solely through his love for dance. First we have him as a young, hip, potential future star. Look at those moves:

Then Van Damme at his peak. Click the link to see this timeless scene from Kickboxer. Finally, the end. Possibly the exact moment in time when it became clear he would never make a Hollywood blockbuster again:

Sad times. FC

Arnold Schwarzenegger urges people to contribute to Hot Rant

2009-06-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Do it. hotrant@gmail.com FC

Hazel Blears – a life in pictures

2009-06-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Guest contributions coming in hard and fast now. Today we have Tommy T from the excellent cyclebitch.blogspot.com. Check out his blog for a heady mixture of politics, cycling and some vaguely disturbing revelations concerning 'Chafe-Ease'. If you feel like contributing, send us no more than 500 words to hotrant@gmail.com. And now to everyone's favorite ginger, pint-sized, tap dancing, motorbike loving, free spending, resignation tending, politician:

Hazel Blears has begged the people of Salford for forgiveness. Apparently they have accepted it – which is moronic.

Hazel is said to be overjoyed, proving that no matter how much “rocking the boat” you do, 30 years of hard graft for the Labour Party cannot be overlooked.

And what a 30 years it has been…below are some highlights:

Picture 1: Hazel as a baby. Calm and serene. The love child of Arthur Scargill and one of the Biker Mice from Mars.

Picture 2: Hazel in her youth. Bushy tailed and bright eyed, she looked forward to a world where everyone shared their nuts with her.

Picture 3: Teenage Hazel. Rebelling against the Thatcher Government, Hazel became a shrewd tactician and starred in her own feature film.

Picture 4: Hazel today. This was taken just after she resigned from the cabinet on the day of the local elections. As you can see from the photo, she isn’t bitter or smug, just ready to go back to the grassroots - championing causes on behalf of the people of Salford.

In describing her recent Constituency meeting, Hazel said the following:

“It was good. Everyone expressed their views and were free to say what they felt.”

I can only imagine how fun that must have been.

Tommy T - www.cyclebitch.blogspot.com

Hello, New Closer Heat out now today, OK?

2009-06-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Is there anything that better demonstrates the cretinous cretinality of our burgeoning cretinocracy than the litany of 'celeb' magazines that adorn the shelves of all friendly news agents and supermarkets? OK, Hello, Closer, New, Heat, why do they all have one-word names that lose almost all meaning when suffixed with the word 'magazine'? I literally don't know whether "OK magazine" is a question or an all too honest statement of mediocrity. Meanwhile 'closer magazine' sounds like some kind of whispered come-on that would slip out of the mouth of a periodical obsessed pervert. Why do they all share the exact same disgusting front cover design, replete with garish pink, red, yellow and blue colour motifs?

I'd love to mount a scathing attack on everyone who has anything to do with these atrocities but I can't and neither can you. I read them, you read them. You might not buy them, but if it's there lying on a bus, train or in a doctor's waiting room... "But I never pay for it" you may cry like a fourteen year old kid whose parents have just found out that they smoke weed. Shut up. I was in the dentist's today and was drawn to 'New magazine' like a smack head to a big lump of brown. Inside I knew it was wrong but I read every bloody page, morbidly drawn to the seedy stories of Eva Longoria's weight gain, imagining myself to be above it all, smugly heralding my own superior intellect. Then came the creeping realisation that this arrogant belief in my own cultural eminence was a complete sham, I fucking loved it, every second of tawdry private life revelations, just like the sniveling 16 year old wanabee glamour girl reader I was taking such pleasure in deriding. I am a dick, I am ruining society. And so are you.

Now that's out of the way let's indulge:

Further lending credence to my long-held views on celebrity chefs, and reinforcing the utter banality that characterises 90% of these magazines' content, Jean-Christophe Novelli delighted the reader with the following:

"I’ve got every single episode of Columbo on DVD. My fiancée Michelle and I were invited to go to a party in LA attended by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But Peter Falk, who plays Columbo, was opening a gallery nearby, so we went there instead! Sadly, he’d gone when we arrived."

Why do I want to know this?

Next up the current cover of 'Closer Magazine':

Seriously? You'd think that the old adage of 'once bitten, twice shy' might have applied here. It really worked last time! Poor Harvey. Still, at least this all happily reminded me of the episode of Peter and Jordan's reality show where Peter took acting lessons. For the rest of the week, during every conversation Peter would suddenly, and completely out of context, start menacingly demanding "are you patronising me?!?" After a few seconds of social awkwardness he would relent and proudly admit that "I'm acting! That's just acting!" Only Harvey saw it fit to truthfully react to this tiresome scenario:

FC

Organised Fun

2009-06-16T08:08:00.001-07:00

Another guest contributor today. This time a Scotsman in Australia tackles the two word calling card of the drunken idiot abroad: organised fun.

Some people think that organised fun is a good thing. These people are wrong. One hideous event that I recently had the misfortune to learn of abundantly illustrates why.

The 'Big Night Out', organised by the Gold Coast Backpackers Association, is everything I hate about Going Out. (I must confess that I didn't actually go, so there is a small possibility that it might have been amazing. But I doubt it. As my friend Alessandro once said, 'I might be wrong, but I'm not.') On the face of it though, it's a fairly inoffensive pub crawl, sold to eager travelers as ‘the chance to party with your fellow backpackers on the most exclusive Backpacker’s Big Night Out in town!’ A reasonable sentence at first glance, perhaps, and maybe even an appealing one - if it wasn't a big, fat, stinking lie.

The Big Night Out is the antithesis of exclusivity. Surfers Paradise, where this extravaganza takes place, is a community that exists solely to service backpackers. If backpackers didn’t visit Surfers, it would be nothing more than a perfectly pleasant but completely anonymous hamlet on the Australian Gold Coast. Instead it is a bustling, mile-long stretch of high-rise hotels and tacky bars and restaurants. Backpackers made Surfers. Backpackers are Surfers. The Big Night Out is ‘exclusive' only in the sense that it is exclusively available to anyone willing to fork out the $30 attendance fee.

Amongst the things you get for this $30 is 'FREE VIP entry to four clubs'. My issues with this are twofold. Firstly, it's not free, because YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. Secondly, VIP entry only provides a benefit if there is a qualification for admittance, some sort of, I don't know, EXCLUSIVITY. If everyone's the same, then there's absolutely no point. It takes 200 VIPs just as long to file into a building as it does 200 Ps. Idiots.

But some of the very worst things about the Big Night Out are those that the flyer doesn't flower up. Take the 'FREE group photo'. You know the kind: everyone strains to get to the centre of the picture, thrusting a drink in the air and forcing an open-mouthed grin in a desperate attempt to be memorable. They are completely charmless and totally naff. Look at you all! You sheep! You cretinous sheep! There you are with your stale, watery lager and your carefully unbuttoned Ben Sherman shirts and your whiter-than-thou trainers, doing your very best to have fun - or at least appear to be having fun - because you're supposed to. What a crock of shit.

Organised fun will never work because the pressure to achieve your collective aim of enjoyment makes it virtually impossible to relax. The best policy is to never, ever want to go out. That way, when you are occasionally persuaded to leave the comfort of your home for a bar or, God forbid, a night club, there is a small chance that it might be better than fucking awful.
Vincent Forrester

Interns

2009-06-15T02:46:00.000-07:00

Calling all graduates!! Do you want to work for a hot new player in digital media? Feel the need to add the final piece of the puzzle to the veritable mosaic that is your CV? This job could be for you!

Here at Hot Rant we have decided that we need an intern.

We have so little to do it seems almost vulgar not to go the whole hog and make an intern do it. We have no office so you will have to be a self-motivated, self-financing, self-starting, selfless pushover.

Duties will include:

Presenting yourself at you computer at 9am sharp every day (including weekends) in full Morning Dress.

Spending the next two hours in eager anticipation.

At approximately 11am, once we are thoroughly fed up with your grovelling emails entitled "does anyone need a hand with anything?" we will proceed to find you some completely superfluous database updating work. This may include:

Spamming Charlie Brooker with pleading emails every thirty seconds for the rest of the day requesting that he looks at Hot Rant and mentions it in his Guardian column. Should he ask you to stop you must re-write the email in caps lock, up the font size by a factor of 10 and send every 15 seconds

Copying out by hand the contact details from a 1000 entry long excel spreadsheet and sending them by post to Tom Howells (he does not like to look at long documents on his screen and his printer is broken)

Something else totally pointless and unimaginably time consuming

Every time you walk past your own kitchen you must make 10 cups of tea or coffee, in constantly changing variations. E-mail us what you have made and how many have milk / sugar and we will reply something along the lines of: "I actually wanted a tea with half a demerara sugar cube, three quarters of a spoonful of sweetner and 0.25ml of milk." You must then remake all beverages.

The ideal candidate will have two years experience of office admin including at least six months of only pushing letters through a franking machine. You must have a typing speed faster than it is physically possible to read, have an M.Phil. in Environmental Design in Architecture and, of course, A level Mathematics. This is a full time, three year internship. The position is unpaid, but we will supply expenses for the successful candidate who does not spend any money on traveling to work or on their luncheon.

The successful candidate will be heavily remunerated, in praise ("Great coffee!") and will receive stunning references ("he was completely ethereal") for a cv that no one will bother reading anyway. Please send your covering letter; cv; references; copies of your degree, A-level and GCSE certificates; a note from your mum; your family tree dating back to at least the 5th century BC; a digital recording of your first word; and a baby picture of you dressed as a lobster to hotrant@gmail.com. FC

Row Boat Cop

2009-06-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Here is the first, of hopefully many, guest contributions to Hot Rant. We're really keen to get lots of contributions so if you think you could do better, equitably well, or even comically worse, please send no more than 500 words to hotrant@gmail.com. Today we have Jaime Madrazo on a literary tear against one of the banes of our country's fine river system.

What could possibly be awry about the Gin palace motor boat pictured above? Look at its strong nose and moist back end. Like Paris Hilton after midnight. Much like Paris Hilton it is what fills this vessel that is particularly heinous. Unfortunately for her it is a portly middle aged gent owner who generally looks something like this:

He is the true victim of my ire. Dear reader, I am about to convince you that the idyllic perception of these vessels is mistaken, and that this vile creature is of such low moral standing that he deserves to be counted even lower than the humble beasts which my fellow writers have so rightly disparaged. Deserving even of banishment to the furthest abyss of hell from which he doubtless sprang for extra time on toasting detail.

I make no apologies for the personal rarefied nature of this vitriolic shower of abuse. I take my justification from Ratty in ‘Wind in the Willows’: “there is NOTHING - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Who am I to argue with a fictional rodent used as a propaganda tool against the crass commercialisation of our culture; forewarning against the celebritisation which we so bemoan in the press and our every day life. After all, more people have heard of him than me.

I make no secret of the fact that I love a quick row on the Thames on a summer evening, or alternatively during a winter blizzard. It just seems unfair to me that I have to share it with idiots who believe that due to some quirk of fate giving them enough money to buy my family and then sell them into better lives, they are entitled to a greater right to use my, MY MY!!! River, than me. Were they there in the snow? No. Did I see them there when it rained? No. But come summer- ‘Oh yes its a nice day, lets go and spoil it for all the proles rowing on it , actually using the river in a way which doesn’t pollute, leaves them healthier and oxygenates the water for the fish, by chugging some fuck off motorised oil and petrol leaking excrescence whilst we have a few beers on deck adding to our beer guts and Britain’s obesity epidemic.’

Perfect. You do that mister in your 5 ton motor boat whilst I skim through the tidal waves you create in my 14 kilogram single scull shell, with its 30 cm wide look. And do you do you know what that means? It means that I can’t afford to take the time off focusing on not getting swamped to give you the two fingers you so royally deserve as you cruise past calling ‘Hello! Nice day for it’ interpreting facial expressions more often associated with suicide bomber level murderous fury as a desire for a pleasant chat and fraternisation.

‘By their own hypocrisies shall ye know them indeed...’ Jaime Madrazo

Totally brilliant evisceration of The Streets by the wonderful Cassetteboy

2009-06-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

The best bit: the cameo from the Pet Shop Boys at 0:57

I'm also, now I think about it, curious about how I missed the moment that Mike Skinner turned into Dr Tobias Funke...

And one more thing, here is one of the most explosively, diarrhoeically (sic) shocking pieces of music of all time. A massive shit sandwich, straight from the heart of the Midlands (also home to the horrible The Enemy). That noise you can hear is UB40 spinning in their grave and the bitter sobs of The Specials, crying for the death of Midlands music. AC

Classics of Yesteryear Part 1: Swanchomper

2009-06-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

The Daily Mail. Supporter of the buffoon, hater of video games, and purveyor of bona fide news gems such as this. Where to start? Treason, stabbings, nibbling, public disturbances, racial tension, R.E., ludicrous user comments... this high point in the last decades of forward thinking journalism has it all covered. Now, because I feel I cannot do the piece justice (and as I am at work and briefly unsupervised), here are a few tasters of the literary gold enclasped within the Mail's Nike-ad riddled latrine of a website:

"I was hungry, I had to eat the swan. I killed it, I stabbed it."

"But vets, who carried out a post-mortem on the animal, said it was unclear whether it had been attacked by the knife or Miah had bitten the swan's neck himself."

"Using a pair of binoculars to get a closer look, Mr Cuthbert watched as Miah picked up a carrier bag and saw the head of the swan topple out."

"I hate the Queen, I hate this country."

"Whats wrong with just eating a piece of toast or something?"
- Bev, Preston, England, 22/11/2006 18:50

Dinkus Morgan would be so proud.

TH

Slow news day?

2009-06-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Holy crap we're all going to die!

I was confronted with this distressing information while watching BBC News last night. Mars is LITERALLY GOING TO CRASH INTO THE EARTH. Maybe. Possibly in 3 billion years. The BBC even managed to shoehorn their favorite word in by calling it PLANET CRUNCH. Like the credit crunch with millions of deaths not debts!!! The word is literally losing all meaning, just add it after any notable event: credit crunch, job crunch, generation crunch, expenses crunch, swine flu crunch, Gordon Brown crunch, Ronaldo crunch, crunch crunch, crunch crunch crunch...

Anyway this is only, as they mention in the report, if scientist Jacques Laskar (pictured below) has done his maths right.

I can only imagine that this is a computer generated image of how Jacques will cope with the Earth/Mars collision when it happens: cool as fuck. Freshly crowned 'Dynamique' of the solar system by virtue of being the only remaining human, calmly punting around on his lava-proof gondola. "I told you so". Typical smug Frenchman.

I have to say I feel slightly cheated. I love science and I like news. But when they combine it so often goes so very wrong. (for more see Ben Goldacre's great Guardian column). I got sort of semi-excited about the prospect of seeing the world end in a gigantic hot death collision. But it turns out it's billions of years away. I'm still not entirely sure what a billion is (a million million? a hundred million? a trillion million?) But I know it is a lot. Seeing as the world is only 4.5(ish) billion years old, it seems like an awful long wait. So thanks I guess to the BBC for mocking up a digital representation of the event that looks like it should grace the cover of a Sega Saturn game (why fate, you cruel mistress did you so badly want that console to fail).

Interesting as Jacque's findings may be I'm not quite sure how this made the news. It's hardly like this desperately had to go out at ten o'clock for the general good of the public. Stories like this do make it hard to defend science from the idiots who "don't care about it" and think "it doesn't affect them". Namely because this story actually doesn't affect them and even I am dangerously close to not caring about the small possibility of the world ending in 3 billion years time. Even less alarming was the more probable scenario of Mars coming "uncomfortably close" to Earth. Just like when your boss got on the same train as you and you hid in the toilets to avoid conversation. How close exactly would be comfortable? Anyway "uncomfortably close". They did a picture for that too:

The report ended with the 'stop the press' news that Mercury might also crash into Venus but that the planets would simply merge (WHAT?). "The new planet would be a little bit bigger than Venus, and the Solar System would be a little more regular after the collision, but the Earth's orbit would not be affected." Phew. FC

Micro-rant of the day

2009-06-10T16:31:00.001-07:00

Blistering stuff from Jamie.
From the magnificent 'The Thick Of It' AC

A watershed fortnight for twats across the country.

2009-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

Due to time-consuming work commitments, and a burgeoning, yet thoroughly impotent, rage directed at so many things all at once, this will read as a rant in its purest sense: forget rationality or cohesion of argument. Any correct grammar can be taken as a bonus.

If you are a twat, then this has surely been a watershed couple of weeks for you.

Firstly, poetry twats countrywide could revel in the pointless non-story about some sad old jackass (who may or may not have starred alongside a blooming Max Branning in a 1989 Yellow Pages ad) who initiated a smear campaign against another poet. Guys, calm down - this is poetry. Nobody cares. TWATS.

Then came the dawn of yet another series of the interminable Big Brother - a veritable haven for twats and twat-lovers alike. And the first eviction is always the worst, because the preening nonce that gets the chop always says something along the lines of "I didn't want to win. I came here for the experience" - BOLLOCKS! YOU'RE LYING! YOU TWAT!

Real twats will enjoy the news of the BNP's ascension to claiming two MEP seats in the European elections. Political analysis or debate is not necessary here: the BNP are a racist, thick organisation. And their success here may ultimately be a blessing in disguise, because, with the bigger stage afforded them, they should now have to face more rigorous policy questioning, to which they will have no answers. Because they are TWATS. Just look at this TWAT's face. I wish he'd been strangled at birth. And then ground up like shitty pepper.

And when we thought there might a nationwide drying up of twats, along comes another. Bob Crow of RMT, with his ridiculous tube-striking antics. Doctors, nurses and teachers who earn far less than your salary are obstructed from doing their day's work because you want more than your 30k (min) salary, and a ban on future redundancies, in the time of a recession. TWAT TWAT TWAT.

At this moment in time, it might be nice of me to introduce some light and shade into the article, and suggest that, in the grand scheme of things, what with the reawakening of the nuclear threat, the AIDS crisis, predicted record levels of unemployment for this year's graduate students, this doesn't really matter too much.

But I'm not. Bob Crow - you are a selfish, bullying twat. Fuck off. I hate you and your childish strike. TWAT.

With this is mind, there is literally no better time to introduce/remind the reader of the majestic 'London Underground Song' by Adam Kay and Suman Biswas (...me neither)

Enjoy AC

Alligator Snapping Turtle update. Part 2

2009-06-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

Tom?

"Don't ever trust them". Wise words. Although this is a man who knocked his front teeth out with a chainsaw. How do you even do that? FC

Alligator Snappers Update

2009-06-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

Just to prove it's not just ne'er-do-well idiot-papers jumping on the hype here. Found this nice little inclusion in a Times article entitled 'My Top 10 Dangerous Animals Encounters'. Good work Richard Conniff, you insane lunatic. I think it's fair to say we are officially backing the man's book. TH

Animals That Should Get Extinct, Part 2: Spiders That Jump And Bark

2009-06-08T04:55:00.001-07:00

Afternoon rageaholics. Part two of our series concerning species of animals that should just stop it concerns that traditional eight legged bugbear, the Spider. I hate them, you hate them, the Pope hates them, Gadaffi probably LOVES them. Whatever, as living creatures they suck it hard. Even more so than crabs (that is a big one to come in a few weeks), they appear to have been designed by some mischevious deital hand more interested in pissing people off with miniature free-roaming monster beasts than creating useful beings like Labrador Retrievers and the cutesy lizards you always see on holiday in the Med. I once had one so large and hairy in my family home that I had to call down a friend on leave from the army, and even he didn't know what to do with it. Luckily for both of us (and the pair of over-excited young ladies we were protecting from a most heinous threat of repulsion), we managed to swiftly sweep it from the wall with a rolled up copy of the Guardian, whereupon the faithful family Labrador (as if my earlier point of their brilliantine existence needed proving) devoured the hellspawn bastard in seconds. Disgusting to behold, yes, but also strangely satisfying. Good work, Sweep.
This rant, though, looks to take our understanding of the need to destroy arachnids one step further, with a few examples of heightened horrors our arachnid nemesi can perpetrate. To the southern hemisphere we depart.

Firstly, and with the least proof as I DEFINITELY SAW THIS ON THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL but can't for the life of me find anything on Google apart from 50's horror films, there is an island in the Pacific, a bit Papillon but for all that is good and pure in the world, called Spider Island. This small land mass is, as one might guess, literally covered in the diabolical fiends. And I mean truly covered. It is said that one tree can hold over a thousand species of spider. Just thinking about this makes me feel quite wretched. How they got there, nobody knows. Why local armed forces dont bomb the life out the place, no on can quite understand. Thousands of miles away or not, I would happily see my tax money go on destroying it.
Next, to Papua New Guinea, the deadly land of Raskols, murderous gang rapes, witch burnings, cannibal tribes and unmapped jungle. "Jesus god, if only they did a 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Or I Will Literally Be Dead By Sundown' here" one might exclaim. Add a new scourge to this list. Not one, not ten, but FIFTY BRAND NEW SPECIES OF JUMPING SPIDER. Why is there even one kind of jumping spider! JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??? I truly, truly feel for the poor intern who was baited up to discover this, presuming that something has to be leapt upon to discern all this.

Finally, and most skin-crawlingly of all, I must direct your attention to a recent story run in the Times of London concerning an unfortunate Outback Australian town overrun by killer Tarantulas. The more biologically aware of you may already be privy to the fact that these hairy rogues are not, despite their appalling appearance, particularly dangerous. And whilst these infiltrators couldn't kill a grown human, they will annihilate a dog in one bite and make a child very queasy. "Okay," I hear you all murmur "That is all fine and good, but why has this example been granted the apex of such a learned discussion?". Because, dear reader, of one salient fact. One even worse than the fact that these stinkers are huge and almost certainly disparaging of Holy faiths. Or that they had the terrible uncouth manners and initiative to invade a poor, defenseless outback hamlet. No, the key reason they need a good, hard nuking is because when aggressed they hiss and BARK. LIKE CERBERUS. I can barely even think about it. The image of a leviathon arachnid baring it's fangs and barking is just too foul to contemplate. If everyone is getting a bit perturbed over the madman Kim Jong-Il's love affair with living in a dream world and manufacturing nuclear weapons, they should just kill two birds (or a million spiders) with one warhead and appease him by allowing a free reign on nuking the crap out of this town. It'd be great. Like the best film ever. Arachnophobia crossed with Star Wars. He loves Hollywood blockbusters, we hate spiders. TH

Points based immigration system

2009-06-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get so angry about stuff I find it physically impossible to express myself coherently. The red mist comes down and I just blurt out unconnected swear words like some kind of Norse Berseker in the heat of battle. Or maybe more like a middle class, 23 year old Berseker, living at home, who's actually swearing at a newspaper in the comfort of his own kitchen. Slightly embarrassed by the presence of his parents. Nonetheless I had one of those moments yesterday as I read a story about our new points based immigration system in the Times. Full article HERE.

Following in the rich tradition of the government making laws that end up criminalising or discriminating against a huge majority of innocent people, in various misguided attempts to catch or stop people whose media-hyped threat to society has been exaggerated beyond any reasonable level, they have engineered an immigration system that stops artists and academics from coming to this country to perform or lecture. Amongst other outrages detailed in the article, the Ballet Russe in Swansea faces closure because their Russian dancers can't get visas. The director claims that:

"The authorities raised endless problems ranging from whether or not the concept of “Russian Classical Ballet” even existed, to suggestions that we should advertise the “vacancies” in a national newspaper"

Advertise in a national newspaper? It's the Ballet Russe you Fokin & Gorsky denying ignoramuses. On a more personal note, even before these new unfair stringent measures, Dan Deacon was stopped from entering the country to perform at Field Day. He was literally the only reason I bought tickets. I had to endure one of the most depressing days ever, including: crap bands, rain, massive queues for the toilet, and beer I could not afford, all the while trying not to cry in front of my girlfriend because I was so sad about missing Dan Deacon. And why? Because our border authority thought it would be dangerous to let this man in the country:

Look at him, he's like an overgrown blind baby tramp with a bald head and a beard. By definition: harmless.

Admittedly there have been some successes: Allisson Crowe, the aurally challenging, female version of Daniel Powter, was banned from entering the UK. But even she didn't deserve to be detained, have her passport stamped 'barred from entry' and then deported all because she lacked a letter of sponsorship. Especially when they have repeatedly allowed fellow Canadian Alanis Morrissette in the country despite various please from yours truly.

Another Canadian, this time a journalist, was also threatened with deportation to Morrocco before eventually being returned to Canada. What's the big deal with Canadians? Are we living in some kind of real life verison of South Park? Actually our lawmakers could probably do with sitting down and watching the South Park movie; seeing as it demonstrates the disastrous consequences of governments acting solely on the basis of reactionary popular outrage and news coverage. I do feel that sometimes, amongst all the simplistic, illogical and baseless cries of 'Britain is full', people need reminding that IMMIGRATION IS ACTUALLY A GOOD THING. FC

I see your true colours shining through. I see your true colours, and that's why I love etc...

2009-06-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Richard Keys, the poster boy for even-tempered, corporate, football-presenting square-heads with jaw-droppingly hairy hands worldwide momentarily loses his cool in a comically sarky manner. Enjoy.

"Yeah see ya. Daft little ground. Silly game. Fuck off."

P.S. I have made this better for myself by imagining that at 0:16, Keys goes on a silent offensive overdrive, including liberal use of the c-word

And does he, at one point, really say "Nae promos", in a cod-Scottish manner? AC

Phoenix- 1901

2009-06-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

This is not a post of rage, or bitter cynicism. It is a declaration of confusion.
As stated in my Jordy post all those moons ago, I like French new-popsters Phoenix an awful lot. It's Never Been Like That was a fine, fine album. Take that, cut the weaker tracks, up the anthemic appeal of its best tracks (Consolation Prizes and the title track particularly), squeeze in a bit more synth, times by eleven, and what do you get? Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the band's damn near faultless uber-recent record. "STOP YOUR FAWNING!" i hear you yell. The point i am coming to is that the album's first single, 1901, is causing me actual disorientation due to it's sheer, unrelenting brilliance. To the point where i have stopped working to write this as i can't think about anything else. It's like a goddamn work of art. A good one. Like a Reubens. It's perfectly executed and completely thrilling. Not quite as full of sex and violence as a Reubens of course (it's French soft rock after all) but that's just the first thing that came to mind. The chord change in the bridge is just one of the finest things ever to grace my young ears. The bit where the synth rolls out under it's first repetition. Faultless. And the chorus. And verses. And the grand climax with the lovely delay swathed guitar lines. Good god. Added to the fact that Fleetwood Mac have announced that they are touring with the Rumours lineup in the UK (oh Buckingham...) and I think it's safe to say work is over for the day for lightheaded elation. TH

People who use the phrase "it's a free country"

2009-06-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

I'm really a big fan of the whole 'free country' thing. I'm quite proud (hopefully un-jingoistically) of Britain's long history of parliamentary democracy, universal adult suffrage, freedom of speech, freedom of the press; and the unavoidable maxim that an Englishman's home is his castle. I think I'd probably even extend the whole home/castle thing to the Scottish and Welsh, and women too. Gay marriage, schools teaching about homosexuality, the right for absolute lunatics to have stupid protests about religion. I'm all for it.

Obviously being a free country isn't all about gays and religious lunatics. I should probably emphasise that I am making no comparisons between the two. Gays are normal people, religious lunatics are, well, lunatics. But you know, believe in and live in whatever manner you please as long as it doesn't harm other people. So yes, if you want, carry banners around the place proclaiming 'death to all who insult Islam' because that doesn't actually harm people. It just makes you look like a complete simpleton, denouncing freedom of speech using the medium of freedom of speech. It's then the not very taxing job of sensible people to make arguments against the 'kill people for making fun of something' brigade to ensure their continuing unpopularity.

Unfortunately the phrase "it's a free country" is rarely used in a context that comes close to denoting any of the above. It is more readily put to use by people defending what they see as their inalienable right to be an arsehole. So the person playing their music out loud on the bus, the man knocking into the back of your chair in the cafe, or the drunken neanderthal making advances on you girlfriend at the bar, are all likely to use this pathetic defence when asked to stop. Look, my mentally challenged friends, I am now going to instruct you as to why your utterance of this phrase is so monumentally stupid. As a result of us 'living in a free country' I realise that what you are doing is not illegal. On balance it's probably a good thing we don't have laws against prodding the back of someone's chair, intentionally or otherwise. That is precisely why I politely asked you to stop, instead of calling the police.

So bravo idiot, we can agree on this point: no laws have been broken. But let me also remind you that there are no laws against crapping your pants or taking a bath in your own urine. Just because you're allowed to do something doesn't always mean you should. You see we live in this thing called a society, which, these days, tends to involve many people living in rather close proximity to each other. The way we have learnt not to live in a world whereby everyone does as they please - culminating in some kind of terrifying uncivilised, murderous, phone-music-on-bus free for all - is through the acceptance of some common guidelines known as manners. The very 'free country' mantra you so proudly recite like some kind of uncritical four year old, is based on the premise that all humans are able to display a level of empathy towards others and should therefore be granted a level of freedom to do as they please and a right to vote about issues that will affect society. By being an unflinching prick, not only is your 'free country' defence completely out of context, but your actions are undermining the very foundation that it is built on. Dick. FC

David Mitchell on speed cameras

2009-06-02T04:35:00.001-07:00

David Mitchell wrote a pretty much flawless article about speed cameras in the Observer a few weeks ago. Including gems such as the following:

"British drivers who think the speed limit is unjust are blessed with a democratic system within which to campaign for its reform. The proper way of going about that is not just breaking the law you don't like and then moaning – that's what the French do."

I'd strongly recommend you follow this link and read the whole thing.

Animals Which Should Get Extinct, Part 1: Domestic Riversystems

2009-06-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

I love nature, I really do. Almost nothing makes me happier than wandering the tracks and footpaths of my native Isle of Wight, amid the dusky whispers of the evening breeze and the chill crunch of a walked in Hunter on twigs and moss, spotting our noble friends brock and reynard going about their ancestral ways so blissfully ignorant of the hubbub of our soul-less modern world. Or perhaps the silent kestrel, floating ethereally on the downy winds; maybe the powerful stag beetle, enforcing the laws of the copse unto his quadropoid bretheren. I find it all totally magical.
Which is why, I wonder, the world must also be home to some of the most unspeakably sickening creatures ever to avoid the big chop. Perusing the internet for my daily dose of wildlife anecdotes, I came across the Alligator Snapping Turtle. Regular Snapping Turtles alone are pretty bad. Think of a Tortoise; pretty good, no? They’re slow, sort of chubby, they eat lettuce, and they sit in the front baskets of bicycles in the lanes of Northern France. Snapping Turtles are like the disgraceful working class cousin of the Tortoise. They’re moody, they stink bad, and they bite when aggressed instead of just nobly cowering away like any half sensible humanities undergraduate. For the Alligator Snapping Turtle, times this by about a thousand. There is just no need for them to be alive. They’re massive, can weigh easily over 200 pounds, terrifying looking, and they can kill and eat alligators. A TURTLE EATING AN ALLIGATOR. What else is there to say? They will devour basically anything you put in front of them. This could include a baby, or a priest. They have no qualms about their shocking guzzling, and even have a peculiar red protrudence in their mouths to act as bait for unwary prey. How incredibly cowardly. They will think nothing of comitting the most abhorrent waterway atrocities with their curved bird-like beaks. Once they have their demon spawn (luckily the only reason they venture onto land), they have basically no parental care system, somewhat like their humanoid equivalents again. Oh and they live for around 70 years. THE WORLD HAS CHOSEN THAT THIS MONSTER COULD LIKELY LIVE LONGER THAN ANYONE READING THIS. Horrific.
But perhaps not as bad the Snakehead, or a member of the Channa family of fish. These little bastards are carnivorous and destructive to the eco-systems of waterways they invade. “Surely a human error!” I hear you cry, “Who are these rogues spreading them about the rivers of North America like some kind of conscious nightmare fish epidemic?” Wrong. In their adolescent phase, Snakeheads are obligatory air-breathers. This literally means that they have to breath oxygenated air, and they can survive on land for up to four hours. They can also move about out of the water, and can thus leave their natural habitats to join other natural waterways, potentially infesting and destroying unprepared permacultures. The Sun, that bastion of high journalism, even reckons they can devour people, but they also cover Britain’s Got Talent with more fervour than the North Korean nuclear farce so that’s about that.

Next up: Jumping spiders, barking tarantulas, sea scorpions, and dinosaur sharks. Seriously. Til then wildlife haters! TH

Boyle-ing Over/On The Boyle/Boyled Egg etc...

2009-05-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

Given the title of this blog, it would be remiss of me to let the latest 'celebrity' outburst pass without comment. That's right, I'm talking about furious virgin crooner Susan Boyle (left), who has blown her Scottish top about something or other.

The only problem here is that when it came time to do any research for this piece, I immediately lost interest and started thinking about something else. I was reading about the story in the turgid freebie London Lite on the way home, and I decided that I should keep it so that I could refer to it later. But moments later, through a combination of force-of-habit and sheer subconscious good sense, I discovered that I had thrown it in the bin.

Then when I arrived home and started to read about the story on the interweb (now despised by my colleague Fred) a similar thing happened. Without realising it, and within seconds of starting to cast my eyes across the article, I had timeslipped into another marathon innings on time-wasting classic Little Master Cricket Game.

Can anyone really be surprised by the news of this lady going a bit mental? Some of the most rational, reasonable and hitherto composed people have been driven to distraction by media manipulation and/or circumstances beyond their control (Sir Isaac Newton, Phil Brown and Jesus Christ to name but three). And, let's face it Susan Boyle is at the very least one bollock short of the full scrotum (although, in fairness, that has not interfered with Lance Armstrong's inalienable right to 'tweet'). Let the woman get pissed-up and go mental. Just don't start moralizing about it, or being any more patronizing than you already are.

With any luck, Boyle will go the full nine-yards and get axe-murderous on our asses, starting with the repulsive, Les Dennis-jilting vacuum Amanda Holden, moving onto chinless muppet Piers Morgan, carving a chunk or two out of profesional c*nt Craig 'Revel' Horwood and finishing off with a countrywide massacre of all the morons who have talked down to this woman, tried to manipulate her appearance and lifestyle and made her a commodity when she is so obviously ill-equipped to cope

Jesus, I do care after all... AC

How the internet makes everything that is amazing, really terrible eventually

2009-05-28T05:58:00.000-07:00

I love you internets. But I also hate you. Why? I have come to realise that every moment of brilliant comedy gold that you feed me is invariably tainted by the fact that it will evolve into some kind of nightmarishly popular and unavoidedly ubiquitus internet meme that will proceed to infiltrate almost every aspect of my life, until the original humour has been so distilled, that instead of making me laugh, it will knock another dent into my decreasing faith in humanity, slowly accelerating my progress towards a point where I am forced to launch a pathetic failed suicide bid, which David Hasselhoff may or may not find hilarious. That's why.

Look what you've done to poor Rick Astley:

You've turned his whole life into a joke. Rick Rolling went too far. Look at him barging that stooge kid, who is likely getting paid the same as him, out of the way so that he can sing and get the hell out of there. Look at the the pained, forced smile on his face, concealing the emotions of a man thinking 'was it worth it? Keeping the same haircut for twenty-two years. All for this?' If you look carefully at his eyes I'm pretty sure he's crying.

Another nadir was reached when internet users voted him 'Best Act Ever' at the MTV awards. The sight of a matching tweed trouser and tie wearing Perez Hilton announcing that 'Rick Ass-ley" had won but wasn't there to collect the award was devastating. Especially as we all knew that, as Perez spoke, Rick was backstage, sitting in a locked toilet cubicle, almost passed out from embarrassment, with a shotgun in his mouth daring himself to use his big toe to pull the trigger.

It's the same with everything that starts out good online. And I almost exclusively blame this on the rise of real grown-ups learning how to use the internet. The following pictures will show that I use the term grown up with no reference to age:

The FMyLife and Texts From Last Night websites were pretty funny. But then they were taken over by people whose sense of humour has been so dulled by the exigencies of working 9 to 5 in some corporate hell hole, that they have no idea when to let a good joke die. Look at this post:

Today, I went to the Verizon because my phone was broken. It hadn't rang or received a text in 3 weeks. So, I got to the store they check out my phone. There was nothing wrong with it. No one had called me in 3 weeks. Then they charged me $30. FML

That's not funny. It's just plain boring. It's also a lie. Thankfully, the web has had the grace to throw up a delightful parody site in the form of MyLifeIsAverage. But God damn you internets you're going to make that rubbish soon aren't you. I hate you. FC

ps. Love you really

A few pointers for the general public on the bus.

2009-05-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

1) When the electronic display (handily placed both upstairs and downstairs so that everybody on the bus can see it) bears the legend: 'bus stopping', this means that the bus is now (or will soon be) stopping. You need not, therefore, repeatedly push the bell once you see the display read 'bus stopping', for the simple reason that the bus cannot be any more stopping than it already is.

2) When you have a conversation on your mobile phone, you need not broadcast the contents of said call to everybody else on the bus. Believe it or not, they might not actually be interested! Furthermore, you need not subscribe to the unwritten rule that the volume of your voice increases exponentially with the inanity of the conversation.

3) In the morning, when you are seated on the top deck of the bus at the back, and you have already flown in the face of traditional notions of personal sound concealant (= headphones), why not try blasting out something relaxing or light-hearted instead of your more outre confection of gabba, bashment, reggaeton or auto-tune daddy Akon? Perhaps Jordy, who is fast becoming a Hot Rant staple.

4) Popular deodorant brands include Sure, Lynx and Right Guard. They can be purchased in all good chemists, supermarkets and even cornershops. The application of said deodorant prior to a bus journey ensures a happier time all round.

5) Not everybody is psychic. If you require the person sitting on your outside to move to allow you to get out, why not ask them nicely! Not everybody interprets a grunting noise and a death-scowl to the back of the head as a request to slide over.

Any top tips on how not to behave on the bus that I have missed are covered in the following seven-minute epic - the 'Stairway to Heaven' of African men arguing on the bus, if you will...

AC

Metro Station

2009-05-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I just can't believe it. When I think about how some bands get international recognition from perpetrating these kind of audio visual crimes, it just cuts me up. Metro Station are just horrible. Ugly, ugly teenagers peddling lazy dancey pop-punk with no sign of shame or referential knowing to anything that is right or good in popular music anymore. At least Jordy had integrity and sang with a true passion and insight for the trials he was living through. It's no surprise the French banned that kind of hardline truth-telling.
That Metro Station's video for Shake It (oh god, just the name makes me want to die) was the worst thing I saw on 100 channels of Egyptian and American cable television drivel on a recent family holiday to the Middle East speaks volumes. This is a country (delightful in so many ways save ludicrous swine flu contingency plans and, you know, human rights discrepancies) where every single damn music video is of a man in sunglasses and a white suit, covered in hair gel, moaning dross over early 90's quality keyboard string banks. EVERY SINGLE DAMN VIDEO.

The sheer number of cringeworthy facets of the song is hard to believe:
- The inital call to arms of 'LETS DROP' seguing into the most underwhelming excuse for a hybrid indie / dance beat imagineable.
- The senseless, banal lyrics about ugly teenagers touching each other and 'shaking it'. Seriously, the chorus is so pointless and awful that the lyrics genuinely lose any understandable meaning by the end of the song, like when you say a word out loud until it doesn't mean anything anymore.
- The singer's ghastly, terrifying autotuned sex offender-priest sigh-singing, gloriously backed up by the other chap's atonal nasal blurts.
- The damn breakdancing nerds.
- The 'singing' at the camera. So, so, so smug.
- The gangly fellow's diseased looking pierced face. And his name's Chase. Lordy!
- Just everything. The horrible guitars, boring drumming, Pro-Tools'ed everything.

It makes New Found Glory sound like Springsteen.

You stupid kids want good new music?: http://www.myspace.com/dinosaurjr.

There. God. TH

The concentrated insanity of Japanese cultural taste

2009-05-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

I use the word 'insanity' in the above title because 'Balls-to-the-wall one-small-step-for-man cat-on-a-hot-tin-tin-roof slap-me-round-the-face-and-call-me-Tina unbelievable-awesomeness' was probably a bit too long.

While our culture mandates that the majority of adverts must be safe, inoffensive dross, with across-the board appeal, the Japanese are busy creating some of the best minute-and-a-half moments of beauty ever to grace a TV screen. Take for example computer game adverts. Something we have a history of doing very badly (see Morcambe and Wise and Trevor Brooking trying to sell the Atari). Over here, the Nintendo DS launched with one of the most yawn-worthy and stale moments of boyfriend-girlfriend flirty interaction ever seen. Meanwhile, in Japan, a Wii game is launched with the following campaign:

We get: a smug Lee Ryan lookalike cooing 'that's definitely a keeper' as his overly hot girlfriend digitally alters a photograph so that their skin looks blue. Blue I tell you! Oh how we laughed.

The Japanese get: constellations in the shape of muscles; near naked body builders running through walls; a startling array of rainbows, sheep, aliens, rhinoceroses and penguins; a polar bear in speedos; and a digital representation of Hulk Hogan when he's eighty doing the wanker sign as an over excited man shouts "NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY, NICE MUSCLES' over the top. All soundtracked by some lovely female sung Japanese pop.

HOW IS THIS FAIR?

This horrible mismatch continues in every field of advertising and entertainment. We have Duffy advertising Coke. The Japanese have Arnold Schwartzenneger advertising something that may or may not be a drink. In the west, our game shows all now seem to involve an array of talentless buffoons listening to odd members of society cry and sing opera. In the east all their game shows seem to involve members of the public being submitted to humiliating and terrifically painful ordeals, all the while maintaining their good humour:

So who's up for moving to Tokyo with me? FC

A little context, please?

2009-05-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I picked up my Oxford English Dictionary to search for the definition of the word 'inexplicable'. The entry instructed me to walk to my laptop, load up YouTube, and type in the following words:

Richard Littlejohn + Garth Crooks + niggas.

This was the result:

AC

Micro-rant

2009-05-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Stolen from the Guardian. Keeping the jolly sentiments of Franco alive through the medium of football.

"Forget fair play: the only thing that ever mattered to Carlos Bilardo was winning – as he showed when his Sevilla side played Deportivo La Coruña. His physio, a man by the name of Domingo, had run on to the pitch to treat Diego Maradona but, seeing that there was nothing wrong with the Argentine, turned his attention to the bleeding face of the Deportivo defender Ribera. Most thought it a lovely gesture; Bilardo thought it all wrong and leapt from the bench screaming. "Domingo, our players are the ones in red! In red! Jesus Christ I feel like dying!" he shouted, head almost exploding. "You don't even give water to your opponents. All you do to opponents is stamp on them. Stamp on them! Stamp on them!" TH

The auction of the century

2009-05-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, Michael Jackson has been auctioning off the contents of his Neverland Ranch. I had just about reconciled myself to the fact that I was going to miss out on the sale of the millennium, until I saw this painting:

I can only describe the above as perhaps one of the finest works of art ever to grace human eyes. I am reconciled no more. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Mona Lisa, Michael Jackson and E.T. What on earth do these six figures have in common? Are they MJ's main sources of inspiration? Is he still planning an extra-terrestrial sci-fi thriller concept album, where space time curvature combines with beautiful art and good government to save the world? Is Michael trying to suggest through some frankly crass imagery that, in direct opposition to the linear passing of time, all of these figures were actually inspired by him? Maybe that they share some kind of creative, righteous, heroic and alien heritage? Or is this based on the hitherto undiscovered historic fact that all of them had a secret penchant for sunglasses and gloves? I'm not sure we'll ever know, but like all good art this asks the difficult questions.

On a side note, we all know that everyone's favorite accused pederast is innocent, yesterday, today and forever. But seriously Michael, sometimes you REALLY. DON'T. HELP. YOURSELF. FC

More photos can be found HERE. (Link found via Fazed)

The Concentrated Idiocy of French Cultural Taste

2009-05-22T01:32:00.000-07:00

Now, I immediately apologise for the overly general sentiment expressed by the title of this post. I think the cultural nous of those handsome romantics over in Gaul is, largely, impeccable. The New Wave movement, half of Stereolab, Eva Green, the Impressionist collection at the Museé d'Orsay, the accent Peter Sarstedt sings with in 'Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)', Calvados, and soft rock revivalists Phoenix. All totally brilliant. What has today, an idyllic, sunshine filled pre-Summers day, revealed itself by the miraculous powers of the YouTube network, is a video which almost changed all this hard earned appreciation. The following, a song sung by a four year old knave called Jordy, entitled It's Tough To Be Baby, was number 1 in France for FOURTEEN WEEKS. The words escape me.

Did he write it? The subtle, informed comments on the tumultuous life of an infant leaving the 1980's - "My name is Jordy, and I am very small" being a particularly choice translated example, would have us assume so.

"Studio conjurey!" one might exclaim. But then we see this:

Note how quietly fuming Prince seems around the 15 second mark. Incredulity at the state of the contemporary popular music industry? Or rage at the tangible fact that a toddler of a similar stature has had a worldwide dance megasmash as relatively successful as any of his compositions?
And who the hell is the man he kisses?
Unsurprisingly, Jordy was banned from appearing on television and radio in 1994.
TH

"It's time to go to war. That's the reality."

2009-05-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

Convinced of the superiority of their craft and the notion that nobody else understands what it means to cook something on time, male celebrity chefs seem to have become trapped in an alternate reality whereby their job is the only one on the face of the earth that involves stress and working to deadlines. A number of them have taken this mistaken ideal as an excuse to act like a complete twat, maybe hoping that their macho posturing will somehow cause the general public to forget that they actually share a career with Delia Smith.

Leading the f-bomb filled charge is of course Gordon Ramsey, but a figure equally deserving of ridicule is Marco Pierre White. With his bandanna tied around his head, he stalks the kitchen, dressed as some type of ninja-Rambo, dealing out pearls of wisdom like an insane Mr Miyagi:

"It's time to go to war. That's the reality. If you're going to lead the troops you've got to lead them from the front. You've got to look like that warrior" - I haven't seen many armies wearing a uniform consisting of a Palestinian scarves and chef's jackets but maybe I'm missing something. The only military figure that Marco even comes close to looking like is a Kamikazee pilot, which mean that the only thing he's leading his men to is suicide. Equally I must have skipped the part of being a bingo caller that involved crucifixion.

How I would love to see Marco in a real combat situation. I can imagine the man going over the top, dressed in his kamikazee chef get-up, screaming commands ineffectually: "Tim you're saying yes but NOTHING IS HAPPENING." "Tim's DEAD Marco." And then inevitably, pinned down in a shell crater, offering his men some final words of consolation: "Worry not sweet shepherds. The bingo caller died for our sins EVERY NIGHT."

Unsurprisingly no one seems to be buying his military madness (except this perceptive drunk lady sitting next to Fern Britton). Instead he is left to offer his poor assistant Nick baffling pieces of advice and to embarrass him in front of the camera. His reaction to Nick's joke below is priceless:

So Marco is likely insane but seriously, when are these chefs going to realise that they're not re-inventing the wheel or actually getting shot at, they don't have peoples lives in their hands. They are just cooking some food, albeit nicely. Calm down. FC

Arthur Fowler having a hot breakdown

2009-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

The noise he makes at 0:08 is remarkable.

Sitton duck

2009-05-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

"All I'm saying is, when it pops out, you've gotta be crafty..." - what does this mean? Is it the sage advice doled out from a master baby thief to his young apprentice? No - rather, its one of many gnomic pronouncements from Prince-lookalike ex-Leyton Orient manager John Sitton, who garnered fame for his manic half-time outburst (below) captured on film in Channel 4's 1995 documentary Orient: Club For A Fiver

It is difficult to pick a favourite moment here, with so many ludicrous examples of a man singularly failing to deal with the pressure of his job packed in to such a short space of time. There's his doomed attempt at calm, manifested in the low quaver of his opening words which resemble nothing so much as a trembling baby building up to a monster tantrum on the bus.

Then there is Sitton the philosopher: "What'd I say to you about good players? They wanna be good players all the time. Don't you know how profound that is? Have you not examined the fucking words?". By the time he's expelled this wisdom, Sitton, close to tears, has already sacked a player on the spot.

Sitton's least explicable moment surely comes when, arcing from his mouth and leaping above his extravagant sports polo-neck, the following words drop like nonsense bombs:
"You, you little cunt, when I tell you to do something and you, you fucking big cunt, when I tell you to do something, do it. Cos if you come back at me, we'll have a right sort out in here, alright? And you can pair up if you like, and you can bring someone else to help you out, and you can bring your fucking dinner. Cos by the time I'm finished with you, you'll fucking need it".

The first bit I get: it's common-or-garden football aggression. But bring your fucking dinner? John, you've lost me. With the most generous associative logic applied to an analysis of his words, one might suggest that he was trying to say something along the lines of, "You'll be eating hospital food when I'm finished with you".

But he didn't say that. He advised two men to bring their dinners to a fight, and told them that they'd need them afterwards. It's a fantastic image - two bloodied, battered footballers crawling over to a plate of steak and chips following a good kicking from Mr. Sitton - but, alas, Sitton was never around long enough to bring his vision to life.

Like a first year undergraduate essay, the last word must belong to Wikipedia:

John Sitton is a former professional footballer, manager of Leyton Orient and
black cab driver ... Alongside his career in transport, Sitton also works for the FA
Coaching Education scheme

Once you have digested the terrifying possibilities of

a) Hailing a cab and discovering that this lunatic is your driver
or
b) Enrolling in a course at the FA and discovering that this lunatic is your teacher,

you can take solace in the fact that he has given you 14 years fair warning. If you turn up without your fucking dinner, you've only got yourself to blame. AC

The life and times of Nicolas Cage

2009-05-19T07:50:00.001-07:00

Coincidence?

I think not.

In the beginning, when it was just Nic Cage, his twin brother and a precocious dream of stardom, no-one could have predicted the level of success that he would go on to achieve. Especially not in the early days when the 'Jessica-Parker-Cage' four-tet could be found pedaling their extreme form of performance art in various parks around Chicago. However, after a particularly vicious argument between the Cage twins, the handsomer and more virile Richard went missing. Never to be seen again. Under the stress of this "disappearance' the crew broke up, with Nic's girlfriend Sarah accusing him of the murder of the much loved Richard.

Sarah Jessica-Parker moved to New York, to the city, to get what Nic could not give her. Sarah's sister was rumoured to have appeared in a straight to video B-movie where the level of her performance got her struck out of the Actor's Guild.

Meanwhile Nic began to carve out a niche for himself in Hollywood. His style was at first uncompromising. He recently confessed in an interview:

“I welcomed the idea of bad reviews because that would mean I was doing something that challenged the critics. I thought I could change acting, which isn’t really my goal anymore. But at that time I was headstrong.”

Despite this repentant tone, evidence suggests that Cage's hunger for bad reviews has yet to subside. Who would have guessed that this man had won an Oscar:

His career reached a nadir in 2008 with Bangkok Dangerous. Re-making a critically acclaimed Thai movie but changing the central character (and therefore the whole plot really), from a deaf mute to a man who could speak and hear, because he wanted some lines. The man has won an Oscar don't you know.

After Bangkok Dangerous bombed he was faced with the daunting reality that no-one was going to fund any more Asian influenced action movies in which he was the star. Undeterred, Cage hatched a radical plan to build a time machine to take him back to a more innocent time, when overweight white men with greasy hair could conceivably be highly paid action movie stars. In the year 2017 he finally succeeded, sending his longer haired and chunkier self back to 1988 under the pseudonym 'Steven Seagal'.

Finally he was free to make as many films dangerously free of any plot or semblance of the craft of acting as he cared. And cared he did. His finest hour was in 'On Deadly Ground' when he beat up a septuagenarian and reformed a racist through a game of extreme slaps, all in the same scene.

Here's the link to the entire scene. Words cannot describe.

Now that both present and future Nic Cage's careers are drying up at the same time we can only hope that 'Steven' will reintroduce himself to his past self and that they can combine to cross that final frontier and make an album of immeasurable beauty.

Basically what I am saying is that Nic Cage needs to stop pretending he cares about cinematography, put on some weight, grow a ponytail, buy a leather jacket and make some abysmally good action films. Just never re-make 'The Wicker Man' again. FC (Bees video courtesy of AC)

Now THIS is bad parenting

2009-05-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Forget 911 lady. We have a winner. A very brief but thoroughly comprehensive manual on how to ruin your kids' lives is included below. I pray this photo never reached their school friends. Also can we please all now agree that living in the seventies (video becomes amazing around the 1:49 mark) would definitely have sucked.

I also came across the best photograph ever while researching this post:

Followed by the best comment ever from Stephanie who says:

"Look it’s Sarah Jessica Park and Nic Cage! Look it’s Sarah Jessica Parker and Nic Cage!"

(Both photos from awkwardfamilyphotos.com)

Politicians making music

2009-05-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

Is bad. Very, very bad. Exhibit A:

Why a man with the personality of a wet blanket decided to appropriate the braggadocio world of rap as the most appropriate medium to get his message across is unclear. It just ends up making me side with Bashy on this one: "Put Prescott in a headlock / then piss in his eggnog." Indeed. When you're getting out-dueled with those types of lyrics it's time to give it up.

Equally I think we all know how wrong it is for Gordon Brown or David Cameron to go on about their favorite bands. Shut the hell up. You're not meant to be cool and like music. Just get on with doing boring things like setting VAT rates and making policy about pensions. Politicians and music is like sex and your parents. Two separate things that should never ever collide.

The only time this rule can be broken is when politicians are unwittingly made to make music. (This exception to the rule does not apply in the case of sex and parents.)

Quite how long this auto-tune gimmick will last before it becomes totally played out and just not funny any more is debatable. But a conservative answer is probably two to three weeks. As such I better get this gem in:

Ok so he's not a politician. Just a prostitute beating pervert. Still funny though.

I'm about to kill this little bitch.

2009-05-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons for starting this blog was a general love of rage and how brilliantly funny it is. The more impotent the rage the better really. And shouting threats at someone over the phone is surely one of the best manifestations of said impotency. (Ash - you might know more about this than your average man on the street)

So here's some of the best cases of ~~SEX~~ RAGE OVER THE PHONE

I'll kick off with an old one but a good one. The brilliant rage of a man who hates cold calling. I particularly love the way he answers the phone with "what the hell do you want?" This man is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. GET THE FUCK OFF MY PHONE LINE.

The next example is a persistent old lady, who is trying to claim some car insurance. There's a long build up kind of ruined by some douche bag-y radio hosts but the payoff is worth it. Link here

However, none of these videos come anywhere close to this:

"he's not coming home from school, he's just now getting in, he's supposed to be doing volunteer work at the Boys and Girls Club."

I disagree strongly with people who say this lady is a bad mother. This is a textbook 'instilling some discipline' move which should be taught to all mothers. Didn't say thanks for dinner? Haven't tidied your room? Well BAM you get confronted with your mother threatening to kill you with a hammer while simultaneously pleading with the emergency services about the need to send round someone to stop her. You're not going to make that mistake again.

This rant also contains the finest turn of phrase ever used by a mother about her own son, which I have duly used as the title of the post. "I'M ABOUT TO KILL THIS LITTLE BITCH" You get back to the Boys and Girls Club little man.

Micro-rant of the day from Morrissey

2009-05-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

I actually quite like Jamie Oliver.

Coldplay

2009-05-16T02:09:00.000-07:00

Coldplay have just released a free to download live album "as a thank you" to their fans. Yay! songs that you already own but in a shitty live recording. FOR FREE! The album cover is on the left where I have included a hidden subliminal message. I'll provide the link here on the proviso that none of you actually click it:

http://lrlrl.coldplay.com/leftright.html

Anyway, this little nugget of news got me thinking about just how much I really dislike Coldplay. And reminded me of the glee I felt when all those music stealing allegations emerged. Here and Here. (I love Cat Stevens getting in on the act).

LET'S DO THE MUSIC THEORY! (If you don't like nerds, don't click this link). The allegations seem a bit far fetched but I'm tempted to side with the youtube comment of a man who goes by the name of sjulianp:

Acabalos Satch!!! Putos Ingleses copiones.

I'm going to assume that a translation is not needed. It also reminded me of a quite brilliant rant from way back when in 2002 entitled: Let’s hunt and kill that guy out of Coldplay. I strongly reccomend you give it a read.

Micro-rant of the day from a film nobody has ever seen.

2009-05-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Not even Harvey Keitel.

Swine Flu

2009-05-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

So Swine Flu has erupted pretty much at the bottom of my road and like every other two-bit blogger I'm going to write about it. I'm probably a good couple weeks behind the curve on this one, I mean we've had The London Paper ("IT'S IN THE CITY") casting it's usual level headed and balanced eye over the matter. But even they seem to have given up trying to convince us of our imminent death and have reverted back to the more serious matter of documenting Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan and Lady Gaga's unofficial race towards contracting AIDS.

Coverage on the internet, populated as it is by immature nerds (I should know), has, for the most part, been in it for the LULZ. I say 'for the most part' because it would be crazy to ignore this man who is taking it very, very seriously indeed:

Seriously. "Securedeboadersandvacationindiscuntry".

Ignoring the utter impracticality of his suggestions (because the economic effects of not allowing anyone to enter or leave America just in case there is flu pandemic would really be offset by making everyone vacation within the US) shouting at a video camera and then uploading the results on youtube with all the other luminaries of our time, seems an unlikely way to get this turned into official government policy.

Of course various other crackpots, religious and otherwise, couldn't help chipping in with their views on the subject, key highlight include:

"Swine Flu a Pestilence of the End Times Christian Living"
"Swine Flu Genocide: Part 1 (Satans Homeland Minions Exposed)"
and "You fucked up huh, you know your ass is doomed" (Ok so not really, but it could be about anything)

I'd take these a little more seriously if they actually made any sense. What the fuck is 'End Times Christian Living' anyway? Meanwhile if you're really going to expose 'Satan's homeland minions' you probably shouldn't put that shit in brackets. It sounds like it might be important. Oh and before you ask I haven't watch part 2, mainly because Part 1, not content with being full of excretable lies, is also very, very boring.

The next video, I consider second favorite only to Mr Securedeboadersandvacationindiscuntry.

"Swine flu... is Christianity to blame?"

Now maybe Youtube has a policy that prevents a simple ten minute display of the word 'No'. That would explain the insanity that follows in this video which can be neatly summarised as stuff and zany rituals that make no sense and are a waste of time.

Unbelievably Mr Whatsnext?Illtellyouwhatsnext actually has the last laugh and maybe we should end with his pearl of wisdom: "HELLOO. YOU DON'T GET SWINE FLU FROM FREAKIN PORK. PUTTING A BAN ON PORK IS LIKE LINDSAY LOHAN REFUSING TO GO IN THE OCEAN BECAUSE THE DOCTOR TOLD HER SHE HAD FREAKING CRABS." Nice metaphor...

What does Joey Barton have to do to get kicked out of the game for good?

2009-05-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

Following Monsieur Barton's latest charming contribution to the 'beautiful' game - a wild, dangerous lunge at Liverpool's exquisite, composed midfielder Xabi Alonso - I began to wonder what exactly this man will have to do to find himself excluded once and for all from the sport. A 93rd minute decapitation? Dugout rape? Centre-circle bestiality?

Barton's rap sheet to date, even excluding his own irreverent spin on the art of the tackle, is startling. Of his numerous misdemeanours, a few are worthy of special attention. In December 2004, at the Manchester City F.C. Christmas party, Barton made a clean break from the traditional dispensatory powers of an ashtray, preferring instead to extinguish a cigar in the eye of a youth team player. Continuing his own special brand of 'youth work', the following summer Barton could be found assaualting a 15-year-old Everton fan, presumably because he looked at him the wrong way - a luxury sadly no longer afforded to his previous victim. Happiness is a cigar called...

Later, in 2007, Barton clashed with his City team-mate Ousmane Dabo in training, leaving him looking like he'd gone twelve rounds (OK, a round and a bit) with Manny Pacquiao. Admitting the charges (what a guy!), Barton soon went on to add to his reputation with a Happy Meal-tastic battering of a man outside a Liverpool McDonalds. His 77-day prison term presumably provided him ample time to carefully plan his next ankle-smashing blockuster.

It is fair, therefore, to say that we are not dealing with our common-or-garden petulant pantomime dame; a Robbie Savage, or a Danny Mills, if you will. Rather, Barton is a dangerous, spiteful, unrepentant villain with a disgusting track record. Barton's frequent "I'm a changed man"-style interviews only serve to make his consistent unpleasantness stick in the throat more.

In a perfect world, English football's governing bodies, or even his employers at club level, would tell him to sling his hook. But, alas, that would almost certainly prove a step too far for the morally skewed, money-powered version of football that constitutes the sport at its top level today. He is a 5.8 million pound investment, and it would thus be unthinkable to dispense with him on a business level. However, when Barton ends someone's career (or life - hey! this is a rant, OK?) one day with one of his trademark assaults, his apologists will not be able to say that they have not been warned. Football needs to amend its moral code, and act quickly to ensure that Barton can inflict no more damage...

Work part 2.

2009-04-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

If, from now on, we're only going to write 'what we know', I'm going to have to stop posting in the very near future. That or embark on a series of updates about the the ins and outs of the Lutheran Reformation. Neither of these options seems a particularly good recipe for a successful blog, so expect to again be reading the incoherent prose of a man who writes 'stuff he knows absolutely nothing about' soon. In the meantime, inspired by Ashley's brutally honest appraisal of his career to date, I thought I'd contribute another job to avoid.

Back in the summer of 2007, as a fresh faced second year history student, I got myself a job at a housing association in order not to default on my vastly over priced rent payments to my unesteemable landlord. Work began innocently enough: I was presented with a mountain of filing to do and people seemed modestly impressed that I knew what a mail merge was. What I didn't realise was that working there was going to make this tatoo seem like an eminently sensible world view.[ pic shamelessly stolen from here]

Having started out doing general office admin, my boss (who could clearly spot an eager-to-please push-over a mile away) soon began setting me to task on a series of jobs "with more responsibility". For no extra money I should add. The people I worked with were lovely people. Patient people who cared about helping others. I admire them greatly. The majority of people who live in housing association properties are normal, average, nice people who are just trying to get on with their lives and maybe get someone to fix the leak in their front room. Unfortunately the vast majority are not the ones ringing you up everyday demanding that you find them a four bedroom house in Covent Garden (true story). In fact the majority of the people who you end up dealing with day to day are either insane, inconceivably angry, or, more commonly, just out-right dick wads.

One of my first tasks with "more responsibility" was to ring up all the deaf tenants to double check if they were indeed deaf. Please just read that sentence again and take a second to absorb the utter insanity of the project. We were trying to get the attention of people who we suspected were deaf using the medium of sound. After a day or two of calling everybody on the list I reported back that, unsurprisingly, very few had actually answered the phone. My boss's response was "we'll have to try calling them at different times of the day. They must of been out." At this point my brain almost melted.

Not long after the deaf person telethon, I was promoted (that's the word used on my CV. A more fitting description would be 'given a job that everyone else refused to do'.) I became transfers administrator. This meant that everyone who wanted to move within the housing association had to contact me, and I then had to explain to them why they were going to be put on a waiting list for two to three years, possibly forever. Lots of people really, really needed to move due to overcrowding, medical reasons etc. Unfortunately there was no where to move them to. There were many, many genuinely sad cases. A family of five living in a one bed flat with a son who, due to being born with an imperforate anus, had no control over his bowels. The man who, due to his schizophrenia, got irrational urges to jump off ledges, but lived on the fourth floor with a balcony. Seriously, these people all existed, and none of them had any prospects of being able to move in the near future.

Were these the people giving me crap everyday? Where they hell. People with real problems tended to have some dignity and were polite and accepting of a system that simply sucked balls. They understood houses in London couldn't be magic-ed out of nowhere. Instead I got phone calls every damn day from a plethora of retards (apologies for the tasteless word but these people broke me) who seemed to think I was personally vindicating them by not allowing them to move to their dream home.

Yes I'm talking to you: lady who wanted to live within walking distance of her daughter's school. I'm sorry you couldn't get a move but it turns out the government doesn't have a duty provide you with a house on the specific street you want to live on. If you want to live there why don't you stop crying about your extremely reasonably priced accommodation and go and rent privately instead of being a massive douche and asking to speak to my manager. You see there are worse things than having to get the bus to school; for example having to live in the same room as your mum, your dad, your sister and your brother who can't stop defecating all over the place.

There were also two idiots who would ring me up on almost precisely alternate days to berate me for only giving houses to white people / blacks and immigrants [delete as appropriate]. I longed for the day when they would call up at the same time so that I could transfer their calls together. What these ass-clowns failed to realise was that calling someone racist over the phone when they had never met you and hence had no idea of your race didn't make any sense.

It was always those with the least to complain about who would demand to have a 1-on-1 meeting and then spend half an hour shouting at me, demanding I photocopy "important' documents (which turned out to be letters from the housing association, hand annotated with comments such as "Aha!! This PROVES I need a move"). Other notable efforts included a man insisting on a move because his floorboards were moving and he used to work for the Queen. When this didn't seem to be doing the trick, he promptly faked a heart attack.

I think a nadir was reached when I replied in writting to a woman saying 'Dear so-and-so, Thank you very much for the picture you sent me... blah blah blah' after she had mailed me a letter with a polaroid picture of her still born baby attached. God I hated this job. But, for all my dreams of going all Office Space at work, any act of rebellion tended to end up more like this.

So as I sit here unemployed, contemplating applying for "A recession PROOF career in recruitment!!" (Guardian Jobs) I can still allow myself a brief moment of happiness knowing that at least I'm not doing any of the above any more.

Words of warning from a call-centre veteran

2009-04-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

They say you should write about what you know. And despite the fact that I’ve never quite managed to figure out exactly who ‘they’ are, ‘they’ certainly have a point.

So what do I know? I know that I will always laugh when John Motson ecstatically chirrups something along the lines of “…and he’s come inside his man magnificently” over the top of some meaningless mid-table Premier League action. I also know, like the estimable Wyclef Jean, that two wrongs don’t make a right, especially when you’re just trying to have some dinner with some candlelight. I, unlike this lady, am aware that jumping into the bear enclosure at feeding time is a bad idea. Most of all, however, I know first-hand of the soul-crushing woe that comes from working in a call-centre. And it is this affliction upon which I will focus my attention.

First and foremost, it is important to provide some context. The call-centre can seem like an attractive proposition for some; flexible hours, the chance to meet new people, a lack of really stressful work. Don't be fooled, for the harsh reality is so very different. As a call-centre veteran (I have worked various spells over the years to support myself through University, and as a post-graduate to create a much needed financial buffer zone), I can now reveal the psychological torment that takes hold when holed up in one of these places for too long.

A brief summary of my call-centre resume should be sufficient to convince you (the reader(s)? - [ed - Fred has already made that joke]) to stay away. I have sold boiler insurance to old ladies, but was forced by the client to lie to them about the validity of the cover period. I have attempted to convince unsuspecting members of the public to sign up to a Kerry Katona-fronted bingo website. I have pressed Texan good ol’ boys into revealing their true opinions on "aloominum" wheels through the night.

I have been told, variously, to ‘fuck off’, to ‘get a proper job’ and, in a quaintly British sort of way, to ‘get knotted’. In addition to this, I have been branded a ‘timewaster’, a 'spastic cunt' (I kid you not) and most damagingly of all, a clown. The truth hurts.

Furthermore, the call-centre has a tendency to attract a certain type of person, comprised of penurious students (understandable), attention-seeking out-of-work actors and singers (irritating) and, finally, nutters who always want to strike up conversations with you, despite your best "leave me alone" lack of eye contact and negative body language. Moreover, it is always these nutters who seem to get promoted to the level of supervisor, at which point their over-eager friendship is replaced by the steely-eyed pedantry of a true jobsworth.

Another grave problem with the call-centre are the hygeine levels. These places are veritable hives of illness. If one person has a cold, everyone will soon have it. Packed in like battery hens, sneezes and coughs spread like wildfire. Oh, and I won't even get started on sharing headsets and mouthpieces. Your only protection against call-centreitis? The wet-wipe.

My antipathy toward the call-centre runs deep. In fact, my main problem with the recent Oscar-grabbing smash ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was not its overly schematic structure, wildly uneven tone or even Dev Patel’s gormless central performance; rather, it was that screenwriter Simon Beaufoy dared to suggest that any good whatsoever could come from a call-centre. Without giving too much all Boycway to those who haven’t seen it, a major plot catalyst stems from a humorous chance encounter in a call-centre. Had I not been trying to impress a young(ish) lady at the time, I surely would have hurled my popcorn at the screen and lunged manically at the projectionist screaming "THE LIES! THE LIES!".

Having said all this, the call-centre is not without its opportunities for Beckettian gallows humour. The whole process is so spectacularly inane that once one develops a sense of acceptance, black comedy can creep in. This humour can range from the basic (laughing at the names that come up on your screen. To wit: Captain Pollock, Peter Sutcliffe, Mr. Jesus Christ, Mrs Qunt - all true) to the more complex (howling with tearful mirth on the bus home as you assess the existential calamity of what you actually do for six pounds an hour).

Occasionally when sitting there like an automated chicken whose only role is to irritate and disturb, you will chance upon a member of the public who is sensitive to your plight, and will engage in empathetic conversation before either returning to their episode of Eastenders, or (and amazingly it does happen) acquiescing to your pleading request, and partaking in a questionnaire about the location and usability of their local cash machine. Getting someone to agree to do a phone questionnaire is not in itself cause for celebration, however, because that would be making the assumption that Joe Public is cognizant of basic skills such as listening, talking and counting. One memorable scene from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's groundbreaking 'The Office' epitomizes both the thundering inanity of the typical questionnaire and the terminally frustrating inability of the majority of said public to process a simple request, like scoring on a scale from 1-5.

My post-call-centre search for employment has been largely characterized by agonizing spells of inactivity and soul searching, followed by manic hot-flush internet sessions spent hammering endless combinations into the search criteria of Guardian Jobs, Milkround et al., only to be faced with the constant, mocking six-word epithet ‘Fancy a Career in Media Sales?’. But still I persist, because my determination to avoid these stinking hell-holes is strong.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions; my theory being simply, ‘if you want to do something, do it now’. But at the turn of this year, I made an exception. At the time of writing (Wednesday April 22), I've been clean of call-centres now for the best part of six months. I feel like a new man.

I think I'm doing well. Do yourself a favour - don't make the same mistakes I did - stay away from call-centres. AC

Twitter

2009-03-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

'Sup reader(s?). Another few months and another vague attempt at contributing to Hot Rant. Still it's not all been quiet since November. In the five months since the last post, Tom and I decided to do something about the abysmal irregularity of our updates. We started a Hot Rant Twitter profile! That's right we joined up to the new (actually quite old) social media phenomenon! I'm not going to lie, we were excited. So excited I just used two exclamation marks. Our e-mail exchange that day was awash with youthful exuberance. Hot Rant was going to get plugged in to the most up to date, hip, news generating, miracle of modern technology. We were going to go global. Micro blogging every hour, spreading impotent rage across continents, global conflict ending because everyone would just become too busy posting their pathetic anger on the internet. That was until it became abundantly clear that Twitter sucked. Bad.

Okay, so faced with this powerful tool for disseminating important news worldwide, we only managed one tweet. About a large rat in China. I still maintain that it was a correct editorial decision to lead off with this. The rat was bloody massive. I've never seen anything like it. But maybe it didn't capture the world's imagination like we anticipated. Nevertheless I stand by the fact that a news story which features a man shouting: "I did it, I caught a rat the size of a cat!" had News at Ten potential. Anyway that's beside the point now. Sometimes the best stories just don't get the coverage.

The real point is how the whole world has decided that 140 character updates directed at everyone you know (and don't) are the future of communication. I logged on today and was confronted by this:

lancearmstrongSitting here with @johanbruyneel at his house. Glass of wine, cheese and crackers. Now going to bed. Night, y'all. http://twitpic.com/2e0z4

First of all I don't know how the hell I ended up internet-knowing Lance Armstrong. Maybe he really likes really big rats. Second, and saddest of all, within seconds of being confronted with the possibility of interacting with a man as interesting as Lance Armstrong, Twitter has already managed to turn it into an unmitigatingly boring and life-sapping experience. To start with, you need to make your mind up Lance. Are you sitting with Johan or are you going to bed? Both cannot be happening at the same time unless you are actually narrating your life, typing in real time on Twitter. I hope you are not. However it would explain why you have included such snooze inducing details in your post. If, after the earth shattering update news, you can summon up the motivation to click on the attached link you will be transported to one of the most insipid pictures in the history of photography. Who is taking the photo? Why is the decor so horrible? And why on earth did you feel the need to share this with me on the internet?

I don't blame Lance (I assume it's ok to be on first name terms now). I blame Twitter. It's that damn 140 character limit which makes everything crap. Even Mr Armstrong talking about his cancer ordeal would be rendered shit and boring on Twitter:

"Sitting here with @testicularcancer in my balls. Glass of Platinol and othr drugs. Cured now. Night, y'all [Insert link to picture of cancer ravaged testicles here]"

Micro-blogging is terrible because, crucially, the minutiae of people's lives is not interesting. Even if you are Lance Armstrong. I'm sick of it.

Returns, developments and books

2008-11-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

Yes it has been a while since the last update but me and Tom are two people who like coming up with ideas and then doing nothing about them. In other words we are lazy. If I wasn't near-certain that it was just me and him who were going to read this I would probably launch into a rant about how great our sitcom / journal / bookshop-come-illegal unpasteurised cheese shop ('Raw Books' if you were wondering) / space program was going to be. As it is I will leave that for another day and simply ask you to be grateful that we ever got this half baked project off the ground.

Anyway since graduating we have both failed to do anything useful and the plus side of this is a massive backlog of things to hate and rant about. Starting out, I'm sorely tempted to launch into a tirade against my most hated and despised topic du jour, i.e. my life. However I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear the self indulgent wallowings of man with no real problems except having a degree and not really knowing what to do with it. As such I'm going to hold off and propose a novel direction to this blog. Yes I'm still going to rant about the man who attempted to make me inhale second hand heroin smoke whilst I was asleep on a rail replacement bus in Streatham. Seriously heroin addicted tramp, the bus was 150m away from where it was terminating. However I'm also going to suggest that not all of the rants have to be about stuff we hate anymore. So here goes:

First up is a brilliant rant from Charlie Brooker about the whole Brand-Ross saga. Check it out HERE. The topic of my first positive rant, is someone else's rant about something they hate, I acknowledge that, but let's view this as a gentle breaking in period. I'm not usually a great fan of Charlie Brooker but I think he pretty much hits the nail on the head here as far as I'm concerned.

Second is a book that I'm reading at the moment called 'The Last Mughal' by William Dalrymple. It's a history of the last Mughal Emperor of India and the Indian uprising of 1857 and it is brilliant. This reviewer may have a point that the book does devote a lot of it's pages to telling the British side of the story and concentrates on events in Dheli almost exclusively. That said it's probably one of the best history books I've ever read. It gives a hugely detailed account of a plethora of peoples experiences of the uprising without ever getting stuck in boring minutiae. Pre-uprising you get a fascinating insight into the Mughal's luxurious but impotent lifestyle which seems mainly to have revolved around writing poetry and being cared for by his many wives. The book really takes off with the uprising though. There's stories of brutal violence, high-jinx escapes and reprehensible murders on both sides. Dalrymple doesn't shy away from the horrific atrocities committed by both sides, giving detailed insights into how both the British and Indians justified them.

Not unexpectedly it's the ludicrous stiff upper lip attitude and ridiculous sensibilities of the British officers that provide some moments of comedy. Firstly there is General Nicholson a violent man who hated India and was unbelievably curt. A typical letter of his to his superiors reads:

'Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that I have just shot a man who came to kill me.
Your Obedient Servant,
John Nicholson'

The man seems to have been an actual lunatic. On his death bed, apparently barely able to breath or talk: "He was, however, still well enough to fire a shot from his pistol through the side of the tent to shut up his irregular cavalry, who had gathered in vigil outside his tent." Strangely enough he actually inspired a religious cult while he was alive whose adherents thought he was a descendant of Vishnu. "Nicholson tolerated his devotees as long as they kept quiet; but if 'they prostrated themselves or began chanting they were taken away and whipped."

Another example of insane British manners comes from the letter a young officer wrote to his mother the night before the British were due to storm Delhi. Musing about the effects that this near suicidal, full frontal attack on the city might have on him he wrote: "I hope it won't make me swear, though that is almost allowable for you are mad with excitement, and know not what you are saying. but I will strive against it with all my might."

It all reminded me of the attitudes on display in Nick Foulkes' 'Dancing into Battle' about the Battle of Waterloo. In a manner echoed by Nicholson's brevity of and nonchalance, Lord Uxbridge, the commander of the cavalry wrote this letter to his wife:

"Dearest Cha,

Be bold, prepare for misfortune, I have lost my right leg. A miracle might have saved it but for the sake of you and my dearest children I have taken the better chance of preserving my life.

God Bless You all."

Anyway what I'm basically saying is that it is a great book. I picked it up in Fopp for £3. I love that shop.