Over the weekend I did a lot of characteristically small-town rural things. I visited family. I drank wine in front of an open fire. I had a roast dinner. I drank in a Wetherspoons. One thing I did that might be worth mentioning though, was the fact I went to see a burgeoning new house act play in a student club in Lancaster.
Going to see bands, artists or "acts" in small towns is often a bizarre experience. Despite Lancaster's huge student population, the nightlife in the area leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from a handful of smaller clubs dealing with late night binge drinkers with typical enthusiastic aplomb, there are scarily few places to go where any music outside of the charts might be played.
After years of visiting the same nightspots in the city - it's my hometown, I've been a veteran drunk there since the summer of 2005 - there seems to be little the bars and pubs can do to encourage the growth of any kind of independent music scene, despite many heroic past attempts by well-meaning students and businessfolk alike to change the face of Lancaster's late night scene.
Short-lived electro nights and breakbeat shows came and went, rock nights burnt out, visiting musicians became more and more obscure. The die-hard followings of various club nights was no match for the ever-changing young population of Lancaster. There may be locals but the vast majority of paying punters are set to leave in four years max. You can't expect a much-loved local lad or lass to continue DJing at Cuba after they graduate. It's selfish. People move on (to Manchester, usually). You eventually get over it.
With the graduating musicians goes their hard-earned clubnight branding. The nights of flyering comes to a stop, the bar loses money, it eventually closes. This sad story isn't singular to Lancaster, but its more telling there than in other areas. Even larger clubs like Toast (now "Lost" - a stolen name from a rock night that once flourished there - no rock is played now, oddly) and Liquid rebrand every 18 months or so, desperate to keep it fresh for the perpetual influx of freshers, forgetting about the locals who potentially have more money to spend if the theme, music, even the atmosphere was right.
Pubs that were once six-deep at the bar now struggle to hold on to patrons on pound a pint nights. Nights that were legendary amongst an entire cross-section of local society have been stopped due to a lack of interest and the simple fact that promoters don't want to put their time into these sorts of ventures anymore. I don't blame them. There are other things to do.
Why would a club sort out its disgraceful toilets and rude bar staff if its still making money from people who don't care where they drink? Why would a clubnight want to book a guest DJ in if ticket sales would barely cover their costs? Why would bands and DJs want to play in a town that has forgotten what real live performances are about?
That's the atmosphere I was met with on Saturday - a crowd who had lost their way. Aside from my initial delight that in quite a large club the drinks were less than £5 each, it was clear the people inside weren't here to see the act in question - they were here for some music. They were here to see anyone. The sheer fact that these young DJs were national names, that they were playing music that wasn't on the Capital FM playlist made it more exciting. It was confusing to see hundreds of people dancing to tasteful, poppy, Disclosure-esque house the way they'd dance to Knife Party. It was hard to see whether people were enjoying themselves or if they were just excited to be given something else to do.
The guys on stage weren't bad, and they played a couple of really great tracks. What I was left with wasn't an impression of them though. It was an impression of small town nightlife. There's nothing to do because people don't know what they want. Or perhaps they won't pay for it. Either way, it's hard to explain that going out isn't all goldfish bowl Sex On The Beach, broken toilet door locks and clubs that smell of straw and disinfectant. The cheesy music I can cope with, the disgraceful state of the venues I cannot.
If club owners want to leave their properties to fall in on themselves, that's their choice. When it reflects badly on an entire area, that's when it becomes a problem. When discussing where to go on a Friday night comes down to where is less disgusting, you know there is a serious issue at hand. With no real choice, these places are packed regardless of whether any changes are made. This turns promoters off from creating new and interesting clubnights, it stops larger acts from coming in and generating much-needed revenue from ticket and drinks sales, and it stilts the growth of what could be an area of serious cultural growth and activity.
Lancaster isn't a backwater town. It's a thriving city with a very diverse cross-section of society living within its boundaries. There's no need for it to act like a post-depression mining village in the throes of a moonshine epidemic. If you're going to own all the clubs in an area, perhaps think about the ramifications this investment has on the scene of the town as a whole, and not about how much more money you could make by letting underage drinkers in on the sly.
Just a thought.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Out of the Loop
Do you know how hard it is to get back
into the loop of something you were barely in the loop of to start
with? I'll tell you – it's really freaking hard.
I rely on my PC to work so that I can
work. I feed it the occasional bit of memory here and there, it opens
browser windows and files for me. It's a simple arrangement that has
got us through our Great London Famine of Jan-March 2012, the
incorporation of hashtags into the common parlance of the
bantersaurus rex and the end of the world.
It was to my complete and total horror
then that late one night in early December, my PC decided it had had
enough of being my Wordpress slave and kicked it. I say “it”. It
kicked my frivolous freelancing dream right in it's flabby, impotent
ballsack.
All it takes in this precarious
business is a couple of weeks of inactivity and your Klout score is
fucked. Sure, you can tell yourself you'll update via your
smartphone, but without the glare of a reproachfully empty word
document open in your face, not a lot will get done. Go on, tell
yourself this is the age of mobile devices. Try and write a thought
provoking article on 90s RnB on your iPad. YOU CAN'T CAN YOU. YOU'RE
JUST WATCHING HOMELAND AND LOOKING AT YOURSELF IN THE BLANK BLACK
SCREEN WHEN IT LOCKS. This is what I'm saying. It is futile. You are
fighting something you will never overcome.
I gave into this malaise for a bit. It
felt sort of nice you know; a week or so off from my gmail account. I
learned how to play “Hounds Of Love” on the guitar. I watched all
of the original “Yes, Prime Minister” (recommended). I downloaded
countless games on my phone thinking that I would “get back into”
gaming. Because that's what real gamers do, they play Temple Run for
16 hours and never get a score higher than 46,240.
I stopped thinking in Tweets. I stopped
knowing what tracks were “dropping” soon. I stopped caring about
what producers were saying was their favourite studio beverage. I
became scared of checking my Soundcloud account because it had been
so long since I last did so I was sure fifteen genres had been
invented since my last login and I might get laughed out of our Solar
System for not knowing about things first anymore.
Somebody told me about Justin
Timberlake's new single with Jay-Z. Somebody had to tell me about it
and I had to genuinely say “oh, really?”. I am not myself.
I now have a new computer and I don't
know what to do with it. I have forgotten everything I knew before.
In fact it is much worse than that because I actually know less than
I did before about music because during my Amish holiday I only
listened to records and most of those are by Killing Joke and The
Cult and INXS.
I can't stay in this slump forever
though. My four tumblr followers need me. I must get back on my
synthy rollerblades of freelance rejcection and glide wobbily onto
the bassy promenade of self-regarding, 'serious' dance music.
If I don't write something about
someone soon, somebody else will do it.
That just about sums up my worries.
Now. Isn't that a motivating way to sum up the life of a freelance
music journalist?
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
The Lowest Common Denominator
Note: I’m sorry if I have taken something you’ve said to me
out of context but I’m talking generally about this phrase. Please don’t take
this as a personal attack, it is an exploration of my blurted-out opinions,
nothing more.
Lowest common denominator.
I want it said here and now that I utterly despise this
phrase. I will not use it. Saying something which appeals to the masses is “lowest
common denominator trash” or implying that it is somehow beneath your level of
evolutionary progress makes you elitist. Whether you're describing music, art, literature, entertainment or sport (or indeed anything else) it makes me disregard what you say
about popular culture, about society, about everything. I am going to explain
why.
Class is not something I talk about with any level of
sincerity at any given moment. I joke about being working class and how this
makes me different from others from time to time but in a lighthearted way. I
truly believe that no matter your background, in this day and age you can rise
above whatever box you were brought up in and chase your dreams. I do also
admit fairly frequently that I am naïve, gullible and starry-eyed, so perhaps
that clouds my judgement.
I get upset when people who I class as my peers; who’s
opinions I respect; who I often will look to for clarity, guidance and debate,
when these people waste their well-processed arguments in one fell swoop by their
use of lazy snobbery.
By forcing, in your mind, a certain group of people into a
group of lower intelligence, morals and values you are oppressing them. I can
see we are moving into cloudy and frankly unsavoury territory here but please
do bear with me. I want you to understand how I see it for a second.
Because a person enjoys entertainment that isn’t wholly educational
does not make them a lesser being. I see it more and more every day, the geeks
(like myself) ganging up on people whose only crimes are to be slightly
ignorant or incorrect or interested in other things. Are you really the sort of
person who still looks to separate people into groups ranked from highest to
lowest? Whether through wealth or intelligence, pushing people apart like this
is, in my humble opinion, wrong and I won’t stand with you while you do it.
Separating ourselves from “them” whoever “they” might be
makes us weak. In times like this where even the most tolerant of citizens
(aka. Me) are beginning to feel a daily dose of rage against the current
injustices in our society, surely we should be looking to work together? I don’t
want to start preaching about politics as it’s not my place and I certainly don’t
know enough about the subject, but what I do know is that squabbling amongst ourselves
makes us easier to control.
You may not agree with your fellow people, you might even
think they are morons quite a lot of the time. That’s your prerogative. Quite
honestly a lot of the time I do believe that I’m the best person and everyone
else is an idiot, as I’m sure you do too. I think what I’m trying to say is
that if you truly believe there is a class of people below you who only deserve
to be loathed and ignored; you’re as bad as Cameron.
Take a look at the people you’re sneering at and admit that
every once in a while, you are one of them. Unless you live in a state-funded
townhouse you are part of the general populous which gives you the same perceived
flaws as the rest. Doesn’t feel nice to be despised, does it?
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Angus, Thongs and COME BACK INTO MY LIFE GEORGIA I MISS YOU
A book series I used to love as a teenager involved growing up, being a girl, dealing with boobs and g-thongs and boys and dancing and cats and baby sisters. It described terrible dates, horrific first-snog scenarios and unhappily-pregnant Siamese cats.
There were mid-life crisis-ridden parents, bad Frenglish euphemisms and silly walks. There was spying, stalking and prostitution (well, male prositution. For snogs.) There was beer and nights out and cool bands; dressing up like a French person, dressing up like a Stick Insect, dressing up as an olive...there was all of that usual teenage girl stuff.
In case you are beyond the Valley of the Confused and treading lightly in the Universe of the Huge Red Bottom, firstly, you should probably wash your hands, but secondly, I am talking about Louise Rennison's seminal book series featuring the heroine of every slightly odd teenager's dreams, Georgia Nicolson.
Georgia Nicholson explains in no small detail exactly what it's like to be a teenage girl. Like, right down to the cat dressed as tinkerbell and the baby sister pooing in your wardrobe. She's pretty good at school but she prefers messing about and being hilarious with moustaches and berets and is perpetually cught in a love triangle from book two onwards with a fellow called Dave the Laugh and a chap called The Sex God (or "Robbie" to his mother).
I was just doing "down dog" when Libby burst in and started playing the drums on my bottom, singing her latest favorite, "Baa, Baa, Bag Sheet," that well-known nursery rhyme. About a bag sheet that baas. "Baa, Baa, Bag Sheet" has replaced "Mary Had a Little Lard, Its Teats Was White Azno," which she used to love best.
Perhaps you're wondering why anybody would want to read such cringeworthy books. What about Judy Bloom? Surely she covered all this earlier in the 90s?
No. Judy Blume sucks.
And despite the odds, they AREN'T cringeworthy. Teenage girls like me (okay, like who I used to be about 8 years ago) don't want to read about awkward sex and periods. We want to hear about ace exchange students with silver trousers, mum's with doctor crushes, wild cats wearing curlers and eyelash extension mishaps. We/they want to hear about hockey violence and wearing black clothes so you have to pay more to get on the bus. Most importantly, we/they want to be laughing so hard it actually hurts, even when it's just a passage about a school assembly.
I'm not kidding, they are that funny. I re-read "It's Okay, I'm wearing really big knickers" recently and I cried laughing. I'm 24.
“I couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable, that's why. My face was like a frozen fish finger. All rigid and pale. (But obviously not with breadcrumbs on it.)”
The thing about Georgia was she had in-jokes with you. You knew what she thought, but not in a conspirational way. You were mates. You hung around with Radio Jas and Rosie and that lot and felt like you knew each other. That's important in young fiction. Jaqueline Wilson used to be able to do that too before she started recycling her other characters to fit Modern Issues.
The reason for this post is this: I want Louise Rennison to create some more Georgia Nicholson books but based now. I want to read about Georgia as a twenty-something. I want to know what she did at Uni and where she works and what's going on in her life now.
Make it happen, please.
There were mid-life crisis-ridden parents, bad Frenglish euphemisms and silly walks. There was spying, stalking and prostitution (well, male prositution. For snogs.) There was beer and nights out and cool bands; dressing up like a French person, dressing up like a Stick Insect, dressing up as an olive...there was all of that usual teenage girl stuff.
In case you are beyond the Valley of the Confused and treading lightly in the Universe of the Huge Red Bottom, firstly, you should probably wash your hands, but secondly, I am talking about Louise Rennison's seminal book series featuring the heroine of every slightly odd teenager's dreams, Georgia Nicolson.
Georgia Nicholson explains in no small detail exactly what it's like to be a teenage girl. Like, right down to the cat dressed as tinkerbell and the baby sister pooing in your wardrobe. She's pretty good at school but she prefers messing about and being hilarious with moustaches and berets and is perpetually cught in a love triangle from book two onwards with a fellow called Dave the Laugh and a chap called The Sex God (or "Robbie" to his mother).
I was just doing "down dog" when Libby burst in and started playing the drums on my bottom, singing her latest favorite, "Baa, Baa, Bag Sheet," that well-known nursery rhyme. About a bag sheet that baas. "Baa, Baa, Bag Sheet" has replaced "Mary Had a Little Lard, Its Teats Was White Azno," which she used to love best.
Perhaps you're wondering why anybody would want to read such cringeworthy books. What about Judy Bloom? Surely she covered all this earlier in the 90s?
No. Judy Blume sucks.
And despite the odds, they AREN'T cringeworthy. Teenage girls like me (okay, like who I used to be about 8 years ago) don't want to read about awkward sex and periods. We want to hear about ace exchange students with silver trousers, mum's with doctor crushes, wild cats wearing curlers and eyelash extension mishaps. We/they want to hear about hockey violence and wearing black clothes so you have to pay more to get on the bus. Most importantly, we/they want to be laughing so hard it actually hurts, even when it's just a passage about a school assembly.
I'm not kidding, they are that funny. I re-read "It's Okay, I'm wearing really big knickers" recently and I cried laughing. I'm 24.
“I couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable, that's why. My face was like a frozen fish finger. All rigid and pale. (But obviously not with breadcrumbs on it.)”
The thing about Georgia was she had in-jokes with you. You knew what she thought, but not in a conspirational way. You were mates. You hung around with Radio Jas and Rosie and that lot and felt like you knew each other. That's important in young fiction. Jaqueline Wilson used to be able to do that too before she started recycling her other characters to fit Modern Issues.
The reason for this post is this: I want Louise Rennison to create some more Georgia Nicholson books but based now. I want to read about Georgia as a twenty-something. I want to know what she did at Uni and where she works and what's going on in her life now.
Make it happen, please.
Monday, 25 June 2012
SP4M: The Amazingness of Electronic Explorations
I'm not really sure if my love for EE has endured for so many years because of its importance in the growth of my musical knowledge and consumption, or that as a ground breaking musical podcast it has managed to remain relatively satisfyingly unheard of. Not in that shit trendy way, but in a "we're so nerdy everyone left the party an hour ago and we didn't notice cuz we were playing with the Moog I got from a car boot sale out in the hallway?" sort of way. There's also the fact that it's linked (in my head, forever) with one of my most favourite places in the world, Ambleside. The Lake District + techno? I'm 100% in.
The Electronic Explorations compilation is out on the 1st of July and you can pre-order it here: http://electronicexplorations.bandcamp.com/
You definitely should. If you like dance music at all and you're thinking that you might not bother, quite frankly, you're a fool. Pay more than £5 for it if you can. Why? Well I'm about to show you seven reasons. So shuuuuuut uurrrrrp.
The following are my top seven favourite Electronic Exploration podcast shows of all time. Why seven? I was going to do five but I couldn't cut it down enough. I listen to all of them at least once a month each, and they have taught me more about what I think electronic music is and should be than anything else I've encountered.
Do you know what else? They are all free. FREE! Fucking hell, mate. You can go on the site right now and get hundreds of amazing mixes and record recommendations for absolutely zip-fucking-all. Rob Booth is providing a public service. I said last year I owed him a cake for how many times EE has helped me out of a particularly terrifying hangover, I think by now I owe him an entire cake factory. A world made entirely of carrot cake. Hm.
Anyway. Here they are. The best seven EE shows that have ever happened in my opinion, ever. Please, by all means, feel free to leave a comment adding your own favourite :)
7. The Black Dog
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=1515
Slick, "intelligent" bloody wonderfully intricate techno. Is that a thing? Well, I think so. At least, that's what I could hear when I gave it a listen. Please give this a go even if you don't think you like techno. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
6. King Cannibal
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=king-cannibal
It took a while for Dylan to go and do an EE show and it was jolly well worth it. I'm not going to say how great he is because he'll probably read it and that's really embarrassing when that happens. Just download it now, exxxxxxpecially if you like techy bits and filthy bits and just generally thinking "this is dark, so why is it fun?"
5. Loops Haunt
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=loops-haunt
I don't think I could possibly say how much I love this entire show, and Loops Haunt's mix is just nuts. He quite literally doesn't care what he uses, he just likes making a noise. I love it. Thanks to this show I discovered Emika, Al Tourettes and Cloaks.
4. Akkord
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=%CE%B4kkord
An absurdly secretive episode for Akkord, a group that definitely doesn't include Synkro. So good though, worth overcoming that feeling that maybe you just can't be bothered with it if they don't want to tell you. That's totally how I felt. I was wrong.
3. Bop & Ghosting Season
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=bop
I've been following Ghosting Season on twitter for ages now, and they are just great. I mean, really. You know to trust me now, just go and find out some more about them. Bop, as you probably already know, is Med School's crowning glory, and this mix he did for EE is just so amazingly beautiful I couldn't really believe it, to be honest with you.
2. Author
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=author
No tracklist - Set recorded live from DMZ / Exodus (Leeds) in November 2011.
So fucking amazing I said "woah" until I went into a coma. True story. According to my Winamp I have listened to it 47 times, but that's not accounting for all MP3 renditions. Quite honestly, I believe it's a perfect mix, and I want everyone to listen to it to hear how beautiful dubstep can be.
1. iTAL tEK
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=ital-tek
Obv.
The Electronic Explorations compilation is out on the 1st of July and you can pre-order it here: http://electronicexplorations.bandcamp.com/
You definitely should. If you like dance music at all and you're thinking that you might not bother, quite frankly, you're a fool. Pay more than £5 for it if you can. Why? Well I'm about to show you seven reasons. So shuuuuuut uurrrrrp.
The following are my top seven favourite Electronic Exploration podcast shows of all time. Why seven? I was going to do five but I couldn't cut it down enough. I listen to all of them at least once a month each, and they have taught me more about what I think electronic music is and should be than anything else I've encountered.
Do you know what else? They are all free. FREE! Fucking hell, mate. You can go on the site right now and get hundreds of amazing mixes and record recommendations for absolutely zip-fucking-all. Rob Booth is providing a public service. I said last year I owed him a cake for how many times EE has helped me out of a particularly terrifying hangover, I think by now I owe him an entire cake factory. A world made entirely of carrot cake. Hm.
Anyway. Here they are. The best seven EE shows that have ever happened in my opinion, ever. Please, by all means, feel free to leave a comment adding your own favourite :)
7. The Black Dog
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=1515
Slick, "intelligent" bloody wonderfully intricate techno. Is that a thing? Well, I think so. At least, that's what I could hear when I gave it a listen. Please give this a go even if you don't think you like techno. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
6. King Cannibal
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=king-cannibal
It took a while for Dylan to go and do an EE show and it was jolly well worth it. I'm not going to say how great he is because he'll probably read it and that's really embarrassing when that happens. Just download it now, exxxxxxpecially if you like techy bits and filthy bits and just generally thinking "this is dark, so why is it fun?"
5. Loops Haunt
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=loops-haunt
I don't think I could possibly say how much I love this entire show, and Loops Haunt's mix is just nuts. He quite literally doesn't care what he uses, he just likes making a noise. I love it. Thanks to this show I discovered Emika, Al Tourettes and Cloaks.
4. Akkord
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=%CE%B4kkord
An absurdly secretive episode for Akkord, a group that definitely doesn't include Synkro. So good though, worth overcoming that feeling that maybe you just can't be bothered with it if they don't want to tell you. That's totally how I felt. I was wrong.
3. Bop & Ghosting Season
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=bop
I've been following Ghosting Season on twitter for ages now, and they are just great. I mean, really. You know to trust me now, just go and find out some more about them. Bop, as you probably already know, is Med School's crowning glory, and this mix he did for EE is just so amazingly beautiful I couldn't really believe it, to be honest with you.
2. Author
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=author
No tracklist - Set recorded live from DMZ / Exodus (Leeds) in November 2011.
So fucking amazing I said "woah" until I went into a coma. True story. According to my Winamp I have listened to it 47 times, but that's not accounting for all MP3 renditions. Quite honestly, I believe it's a perfect mix, and I want everyone to listen to it to hear how beautiful dubstep can be.
1. iTAL tEK
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=ital-tek
Friday, 22 June 2012
Gary Barlow Is A Twat (Probably)
Gary Barlow is in the news for tax avoidance. Bloody everyone is in the papers or having snarky web designers make comments about them on Twitter for tax evasion at the moment, because people don't like it when rich folk don't pay their taxes. Why should they? We all have to pay them, it's unfair.
Gary Barlow is a good one though, because he's the sort of toff you want to dislike. My feelings for him have fluctuated over the years - at first I loathed him (as a 7 year old I used to make puke noises every time a Take That song came on the radio), then I decided as a pretentious teen that his songwriting was far superior to that of the usual pop balladeer. Then I forgot all about him; years later he showed up out of the blue on a talent show looking like an angular Nord with the steely, quietly violent eyes of a vengeance killer and subsequently I fancied him quite a lot (and even had a dream where we did it on the royal train out of Bollywood preposto-action romp Dhoom 2). Then I read loads about him being a massive Tory and went off him loads and now here we are.
This morning, "Back For Good" came on the radio and I realised what an entitled bastard he truly is. Here is my analysis of one of the most popular 90s ballads ever, and what some people use (totally inapropriately) as their main wedding song.
I think what pisses me off the most is how he simply assumes they'll care about how sad he is. Note how he's not totally heartbroken, he's just a bit mopy. He hasn't done the washing up. He's clinging to the fact that deep down, he still thanks whatever happened is his ex-partner's fault.
The last line really gets me.
"I guess now it's time, that you came back for good".
Which in other words means: "Yes yes, you've made your point and I'm very sorry (for whatever it is I was supposed to have done that clearly you took totally out of context and made into a big deal for no reason), now why don't you take your silly head back to my place and I'll make it up to you with a Sharwoods Thai Green Curry and a £6.50 bottle of wine? Hm? Come on. I forgive you for being mad at me you little cutie." *moves remote control from beside him and pats sofa*
Am I projecting? Probably. Still, you see what I mean, eh? Eh? He's been a cunt all along, we were just blind to it because of the nice harmonies!
How many more popstars are actually horrific dickwads? Stay tuned.
Gary Barlow is a good one though, because he's the sort of toff you want to dislike. My feelings for him have fluctuated over the years - at first I loathed him (as a 7 year old I used to make puke noises every time a Take That song came on the radio), then I decided as a pretentious teen that his songwriting was far superior to that of the usual pop balladeer. Then I forgot all about him; years later he showed up out of the blue on a talent show looking like an angular Nord with the steely, quietly violent eyes of a vengeance killer and subsequently I fancied him quite a lot (and even had a dream where we did it on the royal train out of Bollywood preposto-action romp Dhoom 2). Then I read loads about him being a massive Tory and went off him loads and now here we are.
 |
| "Oh come on, I said you *looked* fat, not that you *are* fat. You're being ridiculous you stupid pig." - Gary Barlow did not say this. |
This morning, "Back For Good" came on the radio and I realised what an entitled bastard he truly is. Here is my analysis of one of the most popular 90s ballads ever, and what some people use (totally inapropriately) as their main wedding song.
I think what pisses me off the most is how he simply assumes they'll care about how sad he is. Note how he's not totally heartbroken, he's just a bit mopy. He hasn't done the washing up. He's clinging to the fact that deep down, he still thanks whatever happened is his ex-partner's fault.
The last line really gets me.
"I guess now it's time, that you came back for good".
Which in other words means: "Yes yes, you've made your point and I'm very sorry (for whatever it is I was supposed to have done that clearly you took totally out of context and made into a big deal for no reason), now why don't you take your silly head back to my place and I'll make it up to you with a Sharwoods Thai Green Curry and a £6.50 bottle of wine? Hm? Come on. I forgive you for being mad at me you little cutie." *moves remote control from beside him and pats sofa*
Am I projecting? Probably. Still, you see what I mean, eh? Eh? He's been a cunt all along, we were just blind to it because of the nice harmonies!
How many more popstars are actually horrific dickwads? Stay tuned.
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
How Evil is Fast Food? Oh...I dunno.
I have a love/love relationship with junk food. I love eating it, and that's about it. I don't hate it, because it's not the food's fault that it makes me get thunderthighs or clogs my arteries. That's my fault for eating it. That's like saying it's the dog's fault when a kid gets mauled by a pit bull - its only doing its job. It's the owners and the breeder's fault. Do you see? I take responsibility for my health in the same way that I take responsibility for my work; if I don't act responsibly the only loser is going to be me. As a result, yeah, I eat far too much junk food, but I also do a helluva lot of exercise, drink ridiculous amounts of water and eat green veg every day. I'm not a fatty, though not through lack of enthusiasm. My mum says one day I'll realise just how disgusting MacDonald's is. I doubt it - I'm 24 now for goodness sake, and I still haven't learned.
Alright, so I think that the cheapness of junk frozen food is an absolute disgrace (given the low income and long working hours of the majority of the people living in the UK today, it's often the only real option for families) and that there should be an age limit on buying fast food (ie. if you're under 12, you should be with an adult - I see so many kids walking home from school eating fried chicken every day and it makes me worry) it is still a viable food option, and I can't deny that. I've been extremely poor for the past few months now, and what I've learned is that although yes, in theory you could grow your own veg, head down to the farmer's market, buy straight from the producers and create healthy cheap meals for pennies, in-between working two jobs and living in the city without my own transport has meant it's bloody HARD WORK and often I just straight can't be bothered. Does this make me lazy? Hugh F-W (my hero) would probably say so.
The thing is though, three pieces of chicken and chips, and a can of juice (and sometimes a bread roll, if the guy at Maxin's is feeling generous/particularly sorry for me) is £1.99. How? I don't know. I often wonder if they are a money laundering operation, but on days where my tips have been scarce, this has been a bit of a lifesaver. Now multiply this by the amount of people living under or on the official poverty line in the UK, and you can see how this poses a problem.
Again, I'd like to stress that this is not the fault of fast food shops - they are providing a service people are willing to pay for. The problem here lies with low wages/unemployment and the high cost of healthier foods in supermarkets. In an ideal world, everyone would skip gaily to their local Saturday market to pick up root vegetables still rustically smattered with dirt and pop them into their wicker bicycle baskets, but this is not Trumpton, ladies and gents. Knackered and skint, it is far more likely that the breadwinner's hunt for food will be done begrudgingly on a Saturday morning in Morrissons (or Tesco, or wherever you usually go for convenience rather than quality) where the striplights and queues dispel any lingering notions of food excitement that were dreamed up on the bus on the way there. You can buy 24 chicken nuggets for £1, because it's buy one get one free on a bag of 12. You can get a head of broccoli for £1. How many meals can you make from each? It really is as simple as that.
I don't have a family to provide for, so a lot of the time I (admittedly foolishly) sacrifice quantity for quality. In layman's terms, I often eat less in order to eat better, which makes me hungry, but makes me feel less guilty. Is this a healthy way to live? Probably not. (By the way, this guilt is often totally nutritionally unfounded, and has a lot to do with my own snobbery - chorizo is ridiculously unhealthy, yet I'll happily choose that over processed low-fat ham.) Our relationships with food are twisted and formed by how we eat as children, what we learn as we grow, what we like, and what we can afford. It's dangerous to tell people what they can and can't eat, because it makes food out to be evil when it isn't. It's irresponsible for the government to push the 5 a Day campaign when there's no real ramifications if you "only" eat two or three portions of fruit and veg each day. Do we need to feel guilty about eating food? Can't we just eat the right amount of whatever we want and do exercise, and not have to sit and listen to thousands of people telling us that fast food should be banned? Doesn't that make you feel patronised? Don't you feel like you know what you're doing by now when it comes to eating your dinner?
I've finished ranting now, but as a sort of side note I'd like to point you towards this experiment that got me to write this blog post. It's about the 12 year old Big Mac and how demonising junk food isn't really doing anything apart from making well-meaning healthy eating campaigners look a bit mental.
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html
Alright, so I think that the cheapness of junk frozen food is an absolute disgrace (given the low income and long working hours of the majority of the people living in the UK today, it's often the only real option for families) and that there should be an age limit on buying fast food (ie. if you're under 12, you should be with an adult - I see so many kids walking home from school eating fried chicken every day and it makes me worry) it is still a viable food option, and I can't deny that. I've been extremely poor for the past few months now, and what I've learned is that although yes, in theory you could grow your own veg, head down to the farmer's market, buy straight from the producers and create healthy cheap meals for pennies, in-between working two jobs and living in the city without my own transport has meant it's bloody HARD WORK and often I just straight can't be bothered. Does this make me lazy? Hugh F-W (my hero) would probably say so.
The thing is though, three pieces of chicken and chips, and a can of juice (and sometimes a bread roll, if the guy at Maxin's is feeling generous/particularly sorry for me) is £1.99. How? I don't know. I often wonder if they are a money laundering operation, but on days where my tips have been scarce, this has been a bit of a lifesaver. Now multiply this by the amount of people living under or on the official poverty line in the UK, and you can see how this poses a problem.
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| Scrumptious or Shameful? DECIDE, GO ON |
Again, I'd like to stress that this is not the fault of fast food shops - they are providing a service people are willing to pay for. The problem here lies with low wages/unemployment and the high cost of healthier foods in supermarkets. In an ideal world, everyone would skip gaily to their local Saturday market to pick up root vegetables still rustically smattered with dirt and pop them into their wicker bicycle baskets, but this is not Trumpton, ladies and gents. Knackered and skint, it is far more likely that the breadwinner's hunt for food will be done begrudgingly on a Saturday morning in Morrissons (or Tesco, or wherever you usually go for convenience rather than quality) where the striplights and queues dispel any lingering notions of food excitement that were dreamed up on the bus on the way there. You can buy 24 chicken nuggets for £1, because it's buy one get one free on a bag of 12. You can get a head of broccoli for £1. How many meals can you make from each? It really is as simple as that.
I don't have a family to provide for, so a lot of the time I (admittedly foolishly) sacrifice quantity for quality. In layman's terms, I often eat less in order to eat better, which makes me hungry, but makes me feel less guilty. Is this a healthy way to live? Probably not. (By the way, this guilt is often totally nutritionally unfounded, and has a lot to do with my own snobbery - chorizo is ridiculously unhealthy, yet I'll happily choose that over processed low-fat ham.) Our relationships with food are twisted and formed by how we eat as children, what we learn as we grow, what we like, and what we can afford. It's dangerous to tell people what they can and can't eat, because it makes food out to be evil when it isn't. It's irresponsible for the government to push the 5 a Day campaign when there's no real ramifications if you "only" eat two or three portions of fruit and veg each day. Do we need to feel guilty about eating food? Can't we just eat the right amount of whatever we want and do exercise, and not have to sit and listen to thousands of people telling us that fast food should be banned? Doesn't that make you feel patronised? Don't you feel like you know what you're doing by now when it comes to eating your dinner?
I've finished ranting now, but as a sort of side note I'd like to point you towards this experiment that got me to write this blog post. It's about the 12 year old Big Mac and how demonising junk food isn't really doing anything apart from making well-meaning healthy eating campaigners look a bit mental.
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html
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