Culture and culling

I love the way Ticketmaster, 3 download and the like have some sort of cultural filter/compression device going on, with all bands levelled out to equal status [One Market Under God].

"Don't miss Kaiser Chiefs"
trumpets the Ticketmaster email update. Well, if they'd just hold still...

If you want a picture of the future...

Cabinet reshuffle. Jack Straw. Minister of Justice. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And where are they cloning these Milibands? Milibank Tower? Gah!

Never mind the "Here's your new leader, everyone - rejoice!" pictures yesterday.

"Woah, did I miss an election?" "GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN!!!"

A number of items

Previously, on slalom-speaking...

For the first time I posted something and then just took it down... it wasn't that bad, just a bit pointless and bitter. Anyway, I'm sick of writing about stuff I think is cack in such passionate tones. [It was about the Kaiser Chiefs, 'everything is average nowadays', a chance hearing of which was multi-layered and multi-faceted in its revulsive qualities. Let's move along.]

I happily discovered that someone who posted a comment on a recent post is actually my oldest pal [by which I mean in terms of service [be quiet, do]] and we continue to converge in most matters of culture.

'Going forward' I am only going to write about things that make me write enthusiastially and well. If I'm just sniping fish in barrels then it makes me sound mean-spirited and does nothing to suggest the trillions of galaxies of better worlds I imagine every day before I even break my fast.

With regard to the last bit of the above sentence, I want more Holmesian circumlocution in my quotidian utterances. Taking a cigarette of tobacco, etc.

Finally, from the spam files:
Did you know that 76% of girls prefer guys with a descent ramrod?

'Is that not some sort of mining equipment?' 'In a sense.'

Here endeth the mini-manifesto.

'Mis-pronounciation'.

Listening to 'The Only Chart That Counts' - although obviously it needs to use fingers and toes, and perhaps remove some clothing as well - this afternoon revealed something called 'Umbrella' to be selling well. [To be read in the voice of a bemused high court judge asking 'What is a Gazza?']...

Maybe it's the rap superstar combining with cutie; maybe it's the the sexed-up video, featuring Rihanna cavorting with umbrella... ['Jay-Z, mate? You just stand over here. Cheers...']; maybe it's the download it NOW dynamism of the pop economy... I am, as usual, more concerned with something else.

Neil Tennant, Pet Shop Boy and former music journalist, once remarked in interview, a propos of nothing: 'Can I just say - Elton John's 'Sacrifice'? "It's no sac-er-i-fice." There are three syllables in sacrifice.' Likewise, there are three syllables in 'Umbrella'. Umbarella. Eh-oh!

I'm not that bothered, obviously. It's just my imagination running away with me.

Band name generator spam

'We bet you wouldn't mind to become a super hot bedstar for your non-satisfied girlfriend!'

Indeed no. Super hot bedstar though! In at number seven...

Too many protest singers

I saw a 'news item' [man bites dog, etc] last week, but I couldn't be bothered acknowledging it. It's a slow day at work.

Where, as I have observed on occasions prior to this, to even begin? 'Horrific ordeal'? Well, nobody made you do it, you stupid cunt. And what kind of animal rights protest involves eating dead animals? And a corgi, at that? This has to be one of the most annoying 'protests' I've ever seen, and all I'm doing by talking about it is giving this publicity hound the Winalot Prime of attention he's yapping like a fucking annoying lapdog for.

His next project is, it says here, to be buried in a box under a mountain of mashed potato - in Dublin. He doesn't say why, but given his 'taste' for the obvious in his symbolism, it'll probably be something to do with the Potato Famine. What a shit-for-brains. Perhaps after that he'll turn up at a succession of supermarkets, naked, in a styrofoam box covered in shrinkwrap, standing in the fruit and veg aisle nodding obviously at the pre-packaged products.

I'd quite like to see him turn up outside his own house toting a giant replica of a tube of Preparation H, pointing it at his arse and pantomiming a pained expression.

Dog-eating wanker.

Infospam

'The corpora cavernosa are the two bodies of erectile tissue on each side of the penis.'

I can't say I learned nothing at work today, anyway. The most informative email subject yet!

Charmless mag

Something must be amiss when the Sunday papers no longer afford anything in the way of enjoyment, instead only goading my sensitive cultural antennae into a quivering fury of cognitive dissonance and disgust. Reading the hard copy of the new look Independent on Sunday has resulted in a world record number of utterances of the word 'gah', narrowly pipping the last time I watched an episode of Big Brother.

The front cover announces 'Everything you need on a Sunday. Nothing you don't.' Apparently I need stories about Jude Law, articles announcing that spending £650 on a bag is acceptable behaviour, Juliette Lewis promoting Scientology. And the acme of annoyance, 'The New Review' coverstar Alex James, in an extended puff for his autobiography 'Bit of a Blur' [and before I get stuck into him, see that hyperlink? Works online, not in the paper. Loads of articles with underlined phrases in a different colour ink. If they're left in deliberately, it's a stupid affectation. If they weren't left in deliberately, it's an editorial oversight and further proof of slap-dashery and smug complacency.]

So, Alex James. 'They were the fresh-faced art students who changed the face of pop nearly 20 years ago, and only last week they were voted the world's greatest band.' Whaaaaat?! Changed the face of pop? That was The Stone Roses, surely? I'm sure they've done very well for themselves, there were a few good records, but the 'country house' embarrassment... Fat fucking Les, I fucking ask you. To read the article you'd think they personally invented 21st Century music. If I want self-aggrandising bullshit from wordy bass guitar players, I read slalom-speaking.

Damon 'the significant composer of the past 20 years'. Again, whaaaaat?! Fucking 'The Good, the Bad & the Queen', lachrymose one idea Manu Chao knock off. Wigwam, thanks for letting us know Betty Boo was still alive, now stop it. Former drummer joins the Labour Party, who today announced that under new leader Brown [don't we get a say? Oh, just asking, sorry, carry on] they are committed to spending billions more pounds on 'anti-terror measures', while the trains of Britain stink of piss, and crawl through crumbling suburbs, overfull and slow, the buildings of Lewisham, Ladywell and New Cross [where Goldsmiths students still work, rest and play] falling to fucking pieces. Don't let anyone terrorise us, we're busy looking on in pride as our infrastructure disintegrates and millionaire popstars write about their great removed life in a very big house in the country.

Meanwhile deep in the blank pools of their eyes in the photo of Fat fucking Les, Keith Allen's daughter cavorts in her finery with Rhys Ifans, Alex James' children 'Geronimo and twins Artemis and Galileo' - I'M SERIOUSLY NOT MAKING THIS UP - milk his goats and Damien Hirst's multi-million pound diamond skull grins blankly shiny from the mantelpiece...

We are watching the decline and fall. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Time for something different.