Monthly Archives: February 2009

It’s Monday! Video Time!

It's Monday!

Kenny Loggins is great. He’s the singer of some of the greatest movie songs ever (Danger Zone from Top Gun; I’m Alright from Caddyshack; and Footloose from, er, Flashdance). He has a gorgeously impressive beard. And he can slam a car door at the same time as an important drum beat. (See the video.)

Typical 80s-ness here – the actual storyline is a little puzzling, but at least the song is supreme. The middle beat makes me want to body pop down and alleyway with Kevin Bacon.

The general moral of the video seems to be that bespectacled geeks can help with all your problems.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORYIaKiD_4]

It’s the BRIT Awards!

Award Ceremonies, Bad Behaviour, Music,

The BRIT Awards kick off in just under an hour, and I am LITERALLY excited about this fantastic awards ceremony!

Wow
Wow

Having said that, don’t the BRIT Awards always somehow seem a bit poor? Compared to American awards ceremonies, I mean. To be honest, that’s not really fair, mainly because America seems to big these ceremonies up so much that they’re advertised and promoted as the greatest and most respected awards ever, and any other country that dares hold their own music/acting/theatre/sports contests etc might as well not bother because they’re only going to be at the same level as a Prettiest Pig Contest in a small Suffolk village.

But you know what the Brits (that’s the nation of people, not the awards ceremony) do waaaay much better? Bad behaviour. This is really why anyone bothers to watch the BRITS – they want to see a repeat of Jarvis Cocker mooning Michael Jackson, or Brandon Block challenging Ronnie Wood to a fight, or something similar to the Sam Fox/Mick Fleetwood presenting disaster, or Chumbawumba tipping water over John Prescott. Actually, scratch that last one – we don’t really want to bring Chumbawumba out of the woodwork, do we? (Or John Prescott back to prominence, for that matter.)

So, this year’s BRITs will be presented by James Corden and Matthew Horne (off of Gavin & Stacey) and Kylie Minogue. Hmmm. I can only imagine the inclusion of Kylie is to make sure the J & Matt don’t get too naughty.

Duffy and Coldplay are the jointly most nominated acts. Hmmm. Can’t imagine either of those two flashing their bits or getting so drunk they start wrestling members of the crowd.

And…Scouting For Girls are nominated in three categories. Hmmm. Or, not “hmmm”, more like “zzzzz”.

On the plus side, Robbie Williams is rumoured to be reuniting with Take That tonight, so he might kick something off.

And David Hasslehoff is supposed to be presenting an award. And where the Hoff goes, good things happen. Or drink. Yes, drink happens.

It must be great to be Madonna

Film, Madonna
News reaches me that Madonna wants to play Wallis Simpson in a new film about the Duchess of Windsor. According to the Daily Mail,

The popstar is rumoured to have her heart set on starring as Wallis, whose affair with King Edward VIII – the Queen’s uncle –  sparked a royal crisis after he abdicated his throne to marry her.

Madonna reportedly ‘sees similarities’ between herself and the twice-divorced beauty as they were both from the U.S. and married Englishmen.

This is – to use a…word – spectacular. It must be fantastic to be someone like Madonna, to get an idea in your head, and then to just go out and do it. And it must be especially awesome to to want to do something which, in many ways, is so similar to your own life. I mean, the Daily Mail only specify that both Madonna and Wallis Simpson were from America and both married English guys. They didn’t go on to point out that both were women; both have the letter ‘a’ in their first name; both have been to France; both married into British royalty; and both have dated Dennis Rodman. [Note to self: fact-check the last two points.]

This leads me nicely into the fact that I have my heart set on playing Susan in a remake of Desperately Seeking Susan. Susan, of course, was played by Madonna. I see similarities with Madonna, as we both want to star as other people in movies.

Madonna, with friend, as Wallis Simpson
Madonna, with friend, as Wallis Simpson

Because, and only because, I have my heart set on making my own version of Desperately Seeking Susan, production on the movie with commence next week.

It’s really that easy, folks. Follow your dreams.

It’s Monday! Video Time!

It's Monday!

Oh, did you read that study that came out last week? You know, the one about Music History, undertaken by Important Scientists from the Univerisity of Clever People? In which it was scientifically proven that this is the best song in the history of music ever made EVER…?

You know they’re right. You know I’m right. You know you’re right. We’re ALL right.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip1zsUIosoA] 

Can you go away now, please?

Celebrity Kids

No no no, not you. Or you. You’re certainly very welcome here! *winks* Nor you. That thing you do with your ear kind of annoys me but, err, I guess you can stay.

Yes, it’s you – Peaches Geldof – that I’m talking to. So, after six months of marriage, you’ve decided to get a divorce. Wow. I’m not surprised, horrified, pleased or experiencing any kind of dramatic emotion upon hearing this story. I’m just rather puzzled that the fact that you got married made the news a while back and the fact that you are now divorcing has made the news too…and inbetween you’ve given countless interviews about your married life too.

Hello, Sir Bob? Theres something else I need to tell you...
Hello, Sir Bob? There’s something else I need to tell you…

You and your darling hubby issued a statement over the weekend announcing your split. Reasonably well-written (so probably written by your husband), it said:

After much soul-searching we have made the mutual decision to end our marriage and have agreed to go our separate ways. Our parting is amicable and both of us still respect and care about each other immensely. There were no other people involved in this decision and we both look forward to a future as good friends.

Now, in fairness to these two, this seems to be a standard statement issued by any celebrity couple when they split up. Celebs probably have it installed as as a “Press Statement: Divorce” template in Microsoft Word.

What I want to know is a) why do all celebrity statements like this involve the term “soul-searching”, and b) how does one issue a statement to the press? Can anyone do it? Is it done by email? Could I email the Daily Mail know with my statement:

After much soul-searching, I have made the decision to take a break in the next 15 to 20 minutes to have a cup of tea. No third party was involved in this choice and I remain committed to all other aspects of my life besides making a cup of tea. This does not in any way affect my respect for other beverages and I look forward to imbibing them as well at some point in the future. I would please ask the media and the public to respect my decision in this difficult time.

New and innovative type of broadcasting from ITV

Crazy, Sport, TV,

Way, waaay back in March 2007, I commented on the news that ITV had obtained the rights from the BBC for terrestrial FA Cup games. Warning everyone that the coverage would “suck” (to use a technical term), I told people that they should expect:

…piss-poor presenting, annoying commentry, average analysis…oh, and ad breaks, of course.

Little did I know how much the coverage would suck…and, in a rather suprising move, that ITV would decide to do all of the above at the same time. Like this week, when they decided to switch to an ad break during extra time of the Everton – Liverpool FA Cup fourth round replay, missing the only goal of the game.

But maybe there’s something positive to take from this cock up; perhaps ITV have actually stumbled across a new type of broadcasting. People’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter these days and, although there’s lots of channels to choose from, getting from one to another to start watching something else involves…pressing a button. That’s hard. So why not just show lots of programming at the same time? Start by showing Dancing On Ice, then just cut to the middle section of the news, then to Phillip and Fern giggling for a couple of minutes on This Morning, then Loose Women gabbing on about some old crap, and finish it off with a bitchfight on Corrie, before going back to someone saying their goodbyes on Dancing On Ice because they’ve just been voted off.

Alternatively, they could always just interrupt their ad breaks with live goals.

Here’s the football/ad break mistake, “as it happened”:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qUx3RPdlcM&feature=related]

So, this is our Eurovision entry… *whistles*

Eurovision

So, over the last few weeks, Eurovision 2009: Your Country Needs You has been running on BBC1 – a show to find the UK’s entrant for this year’s Eurovision…of course…after a few utterly dismal years where the UK came low down in the rankings, or last, or finished with negative points, or something. So this Eurovision 2009: YCNY thing would find a brilliant singer (or singers) and then give them a song composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and written by Diane Warren. The former I’m not overly excited about – sure, Sir Andrew has composed some good stuff, meh, whatever – but the latter, wow! Diane Warren is a prolific songwriter, having written some of the greatest hits of the last few decades, including all kinds of Grammy and Oscar-nominated songs. AND songs that haven’t been award-nominated but obviously should have been, including:

  • If I Could Turn Back Time – Cher
  • Don’t Want To Miss A Thing – Aerosmith
  • How Can We Be Lovers – Michael Bolton
  • Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now – Starship

So, this led me to believe we’d get some hair metal/80s-style song – awesome! Alas, we are left with this (performed by the Eurovision 2009 winner, Jade):

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eADt1lFpmCA&feature=channel]

*sighs* Kind of boring, huh? And Jade’s clearly a good singer…but we already have Leona Lewis, we don’t really need another one. Bookies are already offering odds on her coming last in the Eurovision Song Contest. Maybe we should have gone down this route:

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y1oUDuH627A]

And all Jade would need to do would be to cut a few holes in her catsuit (see article below) and put on a leather jacket. Easy!