Archive for the 'Celebrity' Category

F**k You Baldrick

Published on November 17, 2009 in Celebrity, History, People Be Fools, Ranting, Teh Madness, WTF!? and Whiiiit!?. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Once again I find myself sitting here with an incredulous look on my face and shaking my head in disdainful wonder at the so called “Great British Public”.

The BBC news has an article today that details a list of fifty unsung British heroes that the National Lottery has assembled as part of its 15th anniversary celebrations. You can see the full list here, but I’ll try to limit myself to a short rant on the contents of the top ten:

1: Michael Faraday, physicist

2: JM Barrie, author

3: Edward Jenner, smallpox vaccine pioneer

4: John Peel, broadcaster

5: Alan Turing, mathematician

6: Baldrick, Blackadder character

7: Midge Ure, singer

8: Percy Shaw, cat’s eyes inventor

9: Tim Berners-Lee, worldwide web inventor

10: Fred Scott, BBC cameraman

Admittedly some of the people in the top ten are underappreciated for their contributions to science, arts and society in general. Others though I would say are very well known, and some, well some shouldn’t even be on a list of people who are supposedly “heroes”.

Apologies to people of a nervous disposition, but I have to get something out of my system before I continue.

BALDRICK is a fictional character you FUCKING CRETINS!

Sorry about that.

The rest of the list is a strange mixture. As I’ve said I agree that many of the people mentioned on the list are deeply underappreciated by the public. The news was recently filled with the demand that the British Government apologise for basically hounding Alan Turing to suicide after the Second World War. His contribution to the fledgling art of computing and cryptanalysis during the war cannot be overstated and I believe he rightly belongs near the top of the list.

Midge Ure however is a world famous musician and responsible for a good chunk of the organisation of Band Aid, and the Band Aid Trust charity. I don’t see why was he chosen over the heads of other worthies such as Sting, Fish or even, dare I say it, Bob Geldof who was the more visible partner in Band Aid. I suppose at least Midge managed to do more than spend his life riding along on a one hit wonder band and thumping tables at charity gigs.

Another odd entry is Fred Scott the BBC cameraman at number ten. He’s the award winning cameraman who was filming when John Simpson and his Iraqi translator Kamaran Abdurrazaq Muhamed were caught in a friendly fire incident during the Iraq war. Kamaran was unfortunately killed when a US warplane bombed the convoy of Kurdish vehicles they were travelling in. Simpson was left deaf in one ear as a result. It was an important moment in the media coverage of warfare. I wouldn’t go as far as to rank Fred as high as 10 on this list, but I wouldn’t do him the dishonour of ranking him lower than FUCKING BALDRICK.

The more I read this list the more I begin to wonder if the people who voted for it were even aware of whom many of these people were. To me it reads like a list of people that young, trendy eighteen to twenty-four year olds have vaguely heard about from various sources and they picked them out of the hat. The inclusion of people like Stephen Merchant who co-wrote The Office seems like it was thrown in by some insane fan and the inclusion of the FICTIONAL CHARACTER of Jeeves the butler from the Jeeves and Wooster short stories strains credibility. Why not replace Jeeves with P.G Wodehouse himself? He’s not exactly well known now as he was when he started publishing stories.

I’m going to lie down in a dark room before I decide to go all Dr. Evil and try to put end to this farce we call society once and for all.

The Manifold Fears o Men

Published on May 26, 2009 in Celebrity, Humour, Langauge, Videos and Youtube. 0 Comments

I think it’s fair to say that few actors have quite as interesting an on-screen presence as Christopher Walken. Nobody can quite pull off creepy, psychotic villain or unsettling anti-hero quite like him.

Equally I think it’s fair to say that few writers approach the Gothic menace of Edgar Allan Poe when it comes to prose and poetry. Now imagine if you will the Frankenstein’s Monster of aural pleasure that would come from a combination of these two elements.

In fact, imagine no longer! Tremble mortals as Christopher Walker reads The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe…

If you’re in need of something to calm you down after that, then have a look at this sketch by Anthony Ahern from an Australian comedy sketch show called The Wedge.

Many thanks to Herr Makdowall for pointing this one out to me.

RIP Dom DeLuise

Published on May 5, 2009 in Celebrity, Mortality, Movies and Nostalgia. 0 Comments

Some sad news today: Dom DeLuise has died at the age of 75. If you don’t instantly recognise the name you might remember him from one of the many classic movies that appeared in over his career.  He’s probably most famous nowadays for appearing alonside Burt Reynolds in The Cannonball Run, but he’s worked hard and consistantly for years as a character actor. I really liked him in many of the films that he appeared in. He was one of those “larger than life” actors in the vein of John Candy, Chris Farley and John Belushi who was blessed with comic timing and could make you smile without even uttering a word.

Rest in peace Captain Chaos. The world is poorer without you.

Goody Goody

Published on March 25, 2009 in Celebrity, Illness, Media, Mortality, News and Ranting. 1 Comment

I’ve never had any time for the late Jade Goody or the rest of the idiots that have come bubbling to the surface with the rising tide of so called reality television that infests the schedules. The vast majority of these so called stars are untalented, feckless idiots with few redeeming personality features and even fewer scruples. I’m therefore totally mystified by the sudden, and very manufactured, outpouring of national sorrow over Jade’s death at the weekend.

The papers are full of news about who will or won’t be attending her funeral. There’s full page photo spreads of the mountain of floral tributes, thousands of column inches devoted to her life and achievements and the great and the good are coming out of the woodwork to say how much of a shame it is that she died. Now I’m even writing about the whole affair in my blog and her mother has even started comparing the public reaction to the frankly baffling mass hysteria that followed the death of Princess Diana back in 1997. I can’t wait for the song that they chose to bring out in memory of the peoples latest princess.

Might I suggest this one?

Now don’t get me wrong here, Jade’s death was as tragic as the death of any human being, and she chose to embrace the media rather than shy away from them. I do however take issue with the relentlessness with which the press, and in particular the tabloids, have pursued the subject. Jade’s health has been front page news for nearly three weeks and has successfully squeezed out nearly anything else that’s happened in the world during that time. You know, little things, things like the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global financial meltdown and the murder of two soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland. I would have thought that they would at least have backed off a little when it became apparent that her death was imminent. I get the impression that the paparazzi would have been sitting round her bed ready to catch a snap of her last breath if they could have. Someone out there has been making a fortune off the back of Jade Goody’s misery, but I doubt it was her two young sons, I wonder who it could have been?

The life of Jade Goody should serve as a warning to a generation of fame hungry young people around the world. She managed quite successfully to live the dream that thousands of self centred arseholes around the world are desperate to emulate. You only have to watch some of the cringe worthy outtakes from the deluge of reality shows to get an idea of how self deluded some of these people really are.

I often wonder how many truly great artists that have remained undiscovered over the centuries simply because they never had the forum, opportunity or support to be recognised for their gifts. I think fame used to be like life in the wild, only the strong and truly determined manage to survive. It took determination, talent, guts and no small amount of luck to make it to the top. Nowadays however the whole process is broken and backwards. You don’t need talent to go on Big Brother you just need to be a preening self centred arsehole and hope that you manage to stay just the right side of the media to stay on the show and win the prize. There’s no talent in that, I could get a similar thing by locking a bunch of jakes in a static caravan and dropping cans of super lager in through the roof.

Now before someone comes crashing in here ranting on about those glorified Butlin’s talent shows like Pop Idol and Dancing on Ice I will admit that some shows do promote people with genuine talent, but they do it in such an arrogant and showboating style that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Prime example of this would be anything with Simon Cowell on it. The show pretends that it is about finding Britain’s Next Top (blank) or making an ordinary person a (blank) idol, but let’s be frank here: The real stars of these shows are the judges who are even more conceited than the fools that appear on the shows, and the real benefactors aren’t the hapless simpletons that win: it’s the production companies that make an undeniable fortune out of the public phone and text voting on each episode.

Far from supporting the argument that you need genuine talent to succeed on these shows I think it just highlights the sheer number of deluded fools out there that think they have that talent. Just take a look at some of the failed auditions that I was talking about. These people really believe that they have some talent you know, and worse their family and friends have probably been feeding their narcissistic delusions.

Now I’ve gone off on a rant about reality television shows, but that notwithstanding any of this I think we need to remember that behind all this crap there’s only one truly important fact: a woman with a young family has died. I think everyone should take a deep breath, say that’s terrible, and then FUCK OFF to leave them alone so they can grieve in peace.

Don't Ask #8721

Published on March 10, 2009 in Celebrity, Photoshoppin, Pictures and WTF!?. 0 Comments

hidethegypsies

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250 Years Lang Syne

Published on January 25, 2009 in Ayrshire, Celebrity, Festive, Scotland and Writing. 0 Comments

I suppose as an Ayrshireman it would be remiss of me not to mention Rabbie Burns today of all days. Just on the off chance you’ve missed all the Scottish Government tartan flag waving that’s going on: today is 250th anniversary of his birth. Everywhere across the world folk that don’t know a damn thing about Robert Burns will be getting loaded up on Whisky and Haggis in some dingy hall and giving it laldy at a few of his more socially acceptable works. (Don’t mention the drinking, womanising or the masons.)

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not claiming that a celebration of the life of Rabbie Burns should be kept for folk from Ayrshire alone. In fact it’s fair to say that the closest that he ever came to the Irvine Valley was when he dropped off the manuscript for the Kilmarnock Editions. From there he more or less jetted off into high society in Edinburgh before retiring to Dumfries and Galloway where he died in aged only 37.

Burns really didn’t have much impact on my part of Ayrshire, but his story and a few of his more famous works are taught in primary school there just the same.  Like almost everyone that ever did anything of note he sort of bypassed it on the way to fame and fortune. Even Darvel’s most famous son did a runner as a teenager. As a result I’ve never really felt the weird sense of possession that a lot of people in Ayrshire feel towards him. I enjoy a lot of his work, and a lot of it remains as relevant today as it was during his lifetime, but his prolific works never really get the airings they deserve.

Burns was a prolific writer throughout his life with hundreds of poems, sonnets and songs to his name. Yet how many do people actually know? It’s very painfully obvious at times that nobody takes the time to appreciate his works. The worst example of this is probably Auld Lang Syne which half the world belts out at midnight on Hogmanay but I guarantee only the tiniest fraction of people even come close to knowing all the words. Tam O’Shanter and Holy Wullie’s Prayer often get an airing, and more rarely nowadays it’s possible to hear Scot’s Wae Hae.

So on this auspicious occassion I ask that you do the ghost of auld Rabbie a favour, and take a look at all his works. You might learn a thing or two from Ayrshire’s most famous son.

Happy birthday Rabbie Burns,
You son of Ayrshire by the turns,
Who wrote in verse in ages past,
Your words and lines are bound to last,
Down dusty corridors of time,
Till all our lives are gaun lang syne.

RIP Tony Hart

Published on January 18, 2009 in Celebrity, Mortality and TeeVee. 0 Comments

It’s a sad day today. Children’s TV legend Tony Hart has died at the age of 83. I used to love watching his shows as the man was undoubtedly a talented artist. I have to admit though I mainly watched to see the car wrecks that sometimes made it into the famous gallery sequence. That was a rare occurrence though. Most of the pictures displayed an incredible level of skill and talent; especially given the ages of some of the artists.

One thing I liked about Tony was how different he was from the shows around him. His shows were slow paced and never talked down to the audience. He was like an old time art teacher that enjoyed his subject and dressed like a grand old Tory country gentleman. ITV was busy ramming Neil Buchanan’s Art Attack down our throats with its bright spangly colours and ten second segments. Tony meanwhile was content to show us how we could all do art from his studio set that looked like an actual artists loft.

Rest in peace Tony Hart.