The not so Belle side of France

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...

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


Living In Oblivion (1992; dir. Tom DiCillo)

AC

Bad Lieutenant. Brilliant Idea.

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

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...

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

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...

...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