The TV Times

India With Sanjeev Bhaskar, Monday, 9pm, BBC2

You know when you’re in the pub with someone you don’t know very well and they say something ridiculous, and you shoot your friends a look that says “okaaaay - weirdo”? You know the look. The one with the raised eyebrows. That’s it. Well, India With Sanjeev Bhaskar is exactly like that look, except it’s directed at an entire country, across an entire series.

Our host, basically a middle class white man from Islington trapped inside an Indian’s body, swaggers around the subcontinent royally taking the piss out of everything, only managing to temper things slightly by being ‘fascinated’ and ‘amazed’ along the way.

It’s the sly nature of Bhaskar’s mockery that grates. Meeting the Maharaja? Be nice to him in person, then make a ‘wry aside’ to camera about his stupid castle. Spending time with camel herders? Don’t forget to make them look stupid: ask them questions like “how long have you had a relationship with this camel?“, and make witty comments into your microphone about their stupid, shitty milk.

Then it’s the actual, raised-brow, ‘DID YOU SEE THAT, TELEVISION?’ looks to camera that Bhaskar gives when someone does something really stupid, like, say, offers ritual deference, that really become annoying. You can see the mischievous glint in his eye every time someone who isn’t as posh, educated or just plain English as him comes within fifteen feet. ‘Pfft, see that guy? Bowing before me he was, PILLOCK! Am I right, eh, viewers? Yeah.’

To be fair to the rest of the production team, the programme is beautifully shot and does offer some insight into the crazy, magical, colourful world of India. Interviews with locals, when not interspersed with Bhaskar’s inane ‘quips‘, reveal stories full of history and humour. It really is an amazing excursion. Which makes it more of a shame that the tour guide is such a twat.

Lessons in Speech Presentation #1

This time courtesy of The Sun.

Headline on the back page, referring to Steve McClaren:

Fergie: I heard the anguish in his voice.

Actual quote from Alex Ferguson:

“It’s a bad blow for England and I’m disappointed for Steve McClaren. I spoke to him about it and I could sense his disappointment. They have got September matches against Israel and Russia but they should be able to cope without them.”

Good work lads.

To be serious for a minute...

I’m normally a bit of a flippant sod about most things, but this website moved me.

It’s a tragic, insightful and ultimately upsetting illustration of the effects Schizophrenia can have on a person.

If you ever thought it was funny to laugh at folk who think their TV talks to them, you won’t after reading this.

Click here.

A Special Report

The Rules of Facebook

These days, merely maintaining a real-world existence (doing things like going to the shops and talking to people in the pub) is not enough to be considered a complete person. For that, you need a strong online presence as well. Gone are the days when a telephone and a pair of legs were all you needed to stay in touch with your friends; if you don’t have an online networking profile in 2007, you might as well not exist at all.

One of the most popular places to get an online profile is Facebook, which in the past 12 months has gone from being the reserve of students and the undersexed to being the word on everyone’s lips, thanks largely to the site opening up membership to literally the world and his wife (anyone with an email address) in September 2006.

Getting a profile on Facebook is fairly straightforward and can lead to many joys, not least the joy of finding out that the people who bullied you at school are still more popular and better-looking than you, or finding out that ‘Michael Swift and Simon Johnson are now friends’ or ’Helen Stott is no longer listed as single’ at 4.30 in the morning.

However, with the joy comes a whole new set of rules, unlike those you will previously have encountered. We all know the do-and-don’ts when it comes to everyday life: pay your taxes, vote, try not to kill anyone; but Facebook is an entirely different kettle of html, where normal societal rules are replaced by web-centric ones…

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour’s Friends
Unlike the friend-grabbing frenzy of MySpace, Facebook isn’t about making as many online acquaintances as possible. People here tend only to ‘add’ friends that they know - or have at least met - in real life. So going around Hoovering up all your friends’ new friends, ‘because they look cool’, is not an option. Neither is a friend count in the thousands, unless you’re Stephen bloody Fry.

Thou Shalt Check The News Feed At Least Every Half Hour
At first you’ll be sane about things and only look at the news feed when you log in, but when Facebook takes its wicked hold, you won’t be able to do basic things, like leave the house or use the toilet, without first getting a fix of ‘news‘ (usually nothing more significant than one of your friends joining the On The Buses Appreciation Society or something).

Thou Shalt Not Drunkenly Send Messages To People You Fancy
It always ends in tears.

Thou Shalt Use Your Status Update As A Means Of Bragging
As important as it is to let the world know that you’re tired or home from work, nothing beats the thrill of using your status update to brag about things and generally laud it over people in a way that would be unimaginable in real life. Promoted? Do a status update! Seeing the nice young man from HMV? Status update! It won’t be long until you’re able to change your status to ‘…is better than you, just face it‘ and have done with it.

Thou Shalt Start To Think About Your Life In Terms Of Status Updates
As a by-product of having to think up new and interesting ways of getting around the grammatical inflexibility of status updates, you will start to describe all your experiences in the third person, present tense. This won’t worry you too much, until one day you’re quite happily sitting on the bus, when all of a sudden ‘…is on the bus’ will pop into your head, and you’ll get off the bus and go for a long walk somewhere green.

Thou Shalt Set Thy First Status update to ‘…is really confused by Facebook lol!’ Or Some Other Variant.
You will. You really will.

Thou Shalt Engage In ‘Poke Wars’
Poking people is fun - unless you do it on the Tube in which case it’s a bit weird - but poking people ON THE INTERNET is probably the most fun you can have on a computer without going to court. Beware though, if your pokee reciprocates, you might find yourself embroiled in a ‘poke war’, which is basically a mouse-clicking variant of tennis, that tests patience, stamina, and willingness to adhere to the Second Commandment of Facebook, to the limit. Until one day the other person doesn’t return your poke and you get miffed with them for ignoring you, and then get miffed with yourself for caring.

Thou Shalt Not Clutter Your Profile With Applications
In an ideal world, there’d be a limit on the number of applications a person could add. And they’d have to be useful. None of this food fight business. Not even MySpace had a bloody food fight.

Thou Shalt Make Sensible Use Of Groups
One of the best features of Facebook is the ease with which it allows you to find and join fan clubs and groups, instantly aligning and giving yourself ease of contact with thousands of like-minded people around the world. This seems fine when it’s bands and television shows you’re joining up to talk about, but not so when you get a request to join the “PARTITION 2 SHUT UP KEV BAXTer lol” group, or one of those “If 100 thousand people join this group I will murder my family and film it” ones.

Thou Shalt Always RSVP
Picture the scene, your friend is having a party, to which, via Facebook, you’ve been invited. But you don’t bother clicking on a reply to the invite, knowing that it’ll be fine for you to just turn up and that they’ll be pleased to see you. A couple of days later you see your friend in the pub. “Hey”, they say, “are you coming to the party?” Yes, you reply, it’s going to be great. “Oh…” Oh? “Yeah… it’s just… you’ve not confirmed it on Facebook…” But I am confirming it with you now, in person, you say. “Yeah… it’s just… if you click it on Facebook we’ll know exactly who’s coming, and…” But I am telling you, right now, TO YOUR FACE, that I am coming to your party. You still want me to confirm it on Facebook don’t you? “Please”.

This is literally unbelievable

From here. (You need Java to make the thing work).

Yet more amazing comedy

Q: What is the hastiest country?

A: RUSSIA!



:(

A Restaurant Review

Fifteen Cornwall
Watergate Bay nr. Newquay

Fans of eating and beaches are in for a treat at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall, the latest branch of his ‘paupers are people too’ restaurant chain. Situated above Watergate Bay beach and with HUGE windows, the eatery is ideal for those who enjoy looking at vast swathes of nothingness (ie. the sea) while they dine.

I should point out that I haven’t actually eaten in the restaurant - I’m not made of money - but I have seen the sign and I have also looked up at the windows, so I feel fairly able to give a balanced review.

The sign is a nice sign. Importantly, it is both illuminated AND bright pink, meaning it fits in beautifully with its natural surroundings. It is clearly visible from the road, and indeed, from most vantage points within a two mile radius.

The aforementioned windows are also nice. Like all the best windows, they are clean and massive, making them perfect for seeing through. This is beneficial for lunchtime diners, who get to gaze upon a beach full of sunburnt fatties while tucking into their lobster starter.

Evening diners can watch the sunset and marvel at fishermen camped at the shoreline; fishing long and hard into the night, destroying their marriages with every futile cast of the hook, painfully unaware that supermarkets have been selling fish for a good few years now and that if they do not go home and eat said store-bought fish with their wives, they might as well stay out all night or for the rest of their lives.

The menu at Fifteen Cornwall is slight but varied, with the best dish being (and this is where Oliver’s fat-handed mockney influence becomes apparent) the ‘Wicked Fish Stew’. Yes, the Wicked Fish Stew - Claridge’s, this is not. Then again, that place is full of what can only be described as the worst people in the world, so it’s probably for the best really.

Fifteen is worth a visit for those looking to add an authentic seafood flavour (ie. the smell of rotting seaweed) to their dining experience, and indeed anyone who enjoys eating good food near a beach. You will have to book early because the waiting list is approximately two weeks long, but when you do get seated and eated, you will most probably not be disappointed. Just watch your wallets around the waiters.

40/50

Fifteen Cornwall

PJ-oh-yay

More Popjustice review goodness, this time for Nelly Furtado's snoozeworthy new one, 'In God's Hands'.

Have a read here.

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Jokez

Here we go again...

Q: How did the drug dealer stay in touch with his clients?

A: He used e-mail!


Yaaaaay!
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Review-me-do

I've got some new reviews on Popjustice. They are:

Timbaland - The Way I Are

Kate Nash - Foundations

Interpol - The Heinrich Manoeuvre

Hurrah!
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Lookalike Corner

For some reason there was a freed CD/advert for beer with this weekend's Guardian (it was an Unlistenable Taster CD, FYI)...

All I could think of, apart from how truly useless the 'music' on the disc was, was that I had absolutely no idea Pete Doherty was Brazilian.

Another 'joke'

Somebody better ring up Comedy HQ and tell them they're all fired...

Q: Why did the tightrope-walker never put on any weight?

A: BECAUSE HE HAD A BALANCED DIET!!!


OMG x 1 million.

"Who said 'Do the dance'?"

No one, you prick.

That Fearne Cotton interview technique in full…

Following on from her insightful contribution to the BRIT Awards, which basically consisted of her telling various bands that she quite liked them, viewers of Sunday’s Concert For Diana were treated to two more weapons from Fearne Cotton’s armoury of investigative zingers.

Question #1:
“You have just played Wembley Stadium”.

Question #2:
“You are going to play Wembley Stadium”.

Add those to “I think you’re amazing - do you agree” and you will see why Sir David Frost is literally shitting into his tiny cotton shreds right at this very moment.

The Band Age

‘Bands’ are what people who are neither good-looking nor creative enough individually form when they want to sell records. Examples of popular bands at the moment include Kaiser Chiefs, Muse and “Arctic Monkeys”, all of whom play regularly to literally dozens of people.

There are also ‘new’ bands. These are defined as being bands who have never had a hit, or who have not yet “punctured the mainstream consciousness”, whatever that means. This lack of success can be quite ironic, since new bands are often a lot better than the tired old ones already out there, eg. Razorlight. If there’s one thing life teaches us, it is that shit ALWAYS rises to the surface.

I have been listening to some new bands recently and have compiled my thoughts on them below.

Modernaire
Modernaire are from Manchester, which is a good thing, and they make offbeat pop music, which is a fucking brilliant thing, but the best thing about them is that as well as making music that is entirely amazing they are also very generous - offering to send me a multitude of pictures and mp3s when I added them on MySpace.
Special Features: Smart lyrics; songs about Manchester, ‘melodramatic popular song’.
Best tune: ‘Bloodshed In The Woodshed’
Link: MySpace

Daggers
I saw Daggers completely by accident at the end of May and they were brilliant. They supported The Whip (“by basically filling the dancefloor for them”, as a blog not a million miles from here noted) at the Roadhouse and were so good that I didn’t have to bother staying sober for the headliners.
Special Features: Amazing skyscraper-sized tunes; at least half the band are stunning.
Best tune: ‘Money’
Links: Review, MySpace

Dragonette
Not technically new , Dragonette are nonetheless currently lacking the chart recognition they so richly deserve. They are very good, and not just because they show that it’s possible to mix guitars with pop music without it all turning to shit (Miss Clarkson, take note). Most of their lyrics are mind-numbingly brilliant.
Special Features: Songs about infidelity, lyrics about razor blades.
Best tune: ‘Take It Like A Man’
Links: Review, MySpace

Hadouken!
Few new bands are being talked about quite as long and passionately as Hadouken! are. What could so easily have been laughable has become a phenomenon as Hadouken! have taken the country by storm, leading the charge of the (neon) light brigade who had their brains frazzled by Klaxons twelve months ago. Already NME coverstars, the band find themselves pitched between those that love it (most sane people) and those that don’t (mostly overweight and lonely people) in a way not seen since Marmite or Napoleon Dynamite. You wouldn’t mind having their poster on your wall, either.
Special Features: EVERYTHING.
Best tune: ‘Liquid Lives’, ‘That Boy That Girl’, ‘Dance Lesson’.
Links: Review, MySpace

Other new bands:

Foals
JOON and Darke Horse
The Tigerpicks
The Whip
Milke

Furnished with brilliance

A while back now I managed to unearth some lyrics written for a song which didn't make the final cut of the 411's classic debut album, 'Between The Sheets'.

It is now widely regarded as POP FACT, that had this track made it onto the album, the 411 would never have been dropped and would probably, at this moment, be bigger than Coldplay.

Sadly, it was never meant to be. The song was cut, the album flopped, the band dropped. Apparently some of them work in catering now, but that's largely unconfirmed rumour.

Still, it'll teach them to name their band after something COMPLETELY un-google-able, won’t it? Yes it will. Now, without further ado, the song.

'Please Help Us Furnish Our Home' by the 411.

Porch and patio,
lemon wallpaper.
Entrances -
arches?

Stairways,
exits.

Heated tiles,
envelope-catcher on the door.
Lounge - theme?
Pots, pans and porcelain things.

Upstairs, downstairs,
so much to do, so much to do.

Porch and patio,
lilac wallpaper?
Entrances -
arches.
Stairways,
exits.

Sources say it had a kind of hip-hop beat to it that was too soft for the US market, but too harsh for the UK one. “They ended up dumping it halfway in between”, remarked one record company insider. What a wag.

What is the point of life?

That’s not a rhetorical question or a case of the boo-hoos; I genuinely don’t know.

We’re all familiar with the story: you’re born, you live, you die. Some things happen in between.

But what is the point of it all?

Most of the things we do, we do for a reason. We boil a kettle to get hot water. We take drugs to get high. We say “I love you” in the hope of hearing it back. We do things that we know will have an outcome. But what ‘outcome’ is there to life itself, besides dying? Surely we can’t live just to die. There must be a reason.

Of course, having a reason to live is different to knowing the point of life. Lots of people have one or several reasons why they keep going: children, loved ones, religion, alcohol. But how many people actually know the reason they were born in the first place? Or what they’re actually supposed to do while they are alive? How many people can say they know exactly why they’re here?

There is an idea that one day, in our autumnal years, we will be hit with a startling revelation. BANG. A moment where everything falls into place; where every single thing we’ve done or had done to us suddenly makes sense.

Is that the point? To live long enough to reach that day? If it was, wouldn’t some old people have told us by now? And what if that day never comes?

We can’t just stumble through life, enduring everything it throws at us in the hope that one day we might find out why we’ve actually been doing it. That would be like taking part in a competition where you don’t know the rules, in the hope of one day winning an unknown prize that you aren’t even sure exists. That would be… pointless.

I hope that there is a point and that we just don’t know it. I hope we all have a unifying raison d’etre, beyond being part of the ecosystem and reproducing. And I hope that one day we’ll all find out what we‘re here for and why. The other possibility is just too horrible to contemplate.

You Compile Me

As anyone who has ever had the ‘pleasure‘ of listening to one will tell you, compilation CDs that are given away free with magazines are completely fucking rubbish. They only ever come in three stultifying flavours:

1) Impenetrable Mix CD
These promotional mixes are ‘put together’ by Soulwax, DFA, or whichever trendier-than-thou act the magazine has decided to pay in order for them to lend their name to the sorry spectacle. Invariably these mixes will feature countless songs you’ve never heard before as well as some that you have, sadly remixed beyond all recognition by truly woeful Dutch producers (eg. ’Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To? - Max von Rust’s Rustpumper Dub’).

2) Unlistenable Taster CD
Compiled by devastatingly on-the-pulse journalists, who have most definitely scoured the genre/label/country in question for the very best new acts it has to offer and NOT just stuck a load of shit bands on a CD because the record company PR told them to. Usually made up of bands who make a worse sound than that of your own family being brutally murdered by a marauding sex lunatic, the only upside is that none of them will ever become famous.

3) Disappointing Festival CD
Hit singles! Bands you’ve heard of! Choruses! But wait… what’s this? ‘B-side’? ‘exclusive album track’? ‘previously unreleased’? The front of the CD might scream big names and summer anthems, but the back tells a different story. Devoid of hit singles, or indeed anything that would interest anyone but the most ardent fan of the bands involved, these compilations often provide little more than:

:: a Kaiser Chiefs B-side
:: the token dance track
:: the worst song off Oasis’ last album
:: a frankly-quite-embarrassing American rock song
:: countless indie dirges
:: something ‘esoteric’
:: a ‘previously unreleased’ song by a semi-popular band

Previously unreleased. Two of the most misleading words in the language. Sure, if it’s a rare Dylan recording that’s been sitting around in some virgin’s garage for thirty years, by all means pop a little sticker on it and tell the world. But if it’s a piss-poor demo by some two-bit Shoreditch indie merchants, perhaps the words ‘TOO SHIT TO SELL’, in bold capital letters, would be more appropriate.

However, there is a fourth type of free CD. A rulebreaker. A maverick. This is the type of CD that while listening to it you realise is actually quite good and which makes you wonder about how much you would be prepared to pay for it, hypothetically (obviously the name for this type of CD is a bit long-winded compared to the others, but it will have to do).

CDs that you realise are quite good and which make you wonder how much you’d be willing to pay for them (must work on that) are very rare, only appearing every few years or so. There was one given away with Arcade magazine, way back in the 90s, that really set the standard. It was a 27-minute promotional mix comprising the entire soundtrack for the game WipEout 3 (FYI, the ‘E’ in the game’s title was capitalised for hilarious “It’s the nineties!!!” drug reasons).

It might not sound like much now, but at the time it had everything: a nice concept, big name artists (pretty much every top dance act going had tracks in the game), good tunes and it was a neat bit of promotional tat to play around with. Better than a fucking ’console skin’ (read: big messy sticker) anyway, which was the free gift given away to promote the previous WipEout game.

Then the NME did a CD in 2001, called ‘The Soundtrack to the Summer’, which was brilliant because it came during one of the paper’s biggest-ever identity crises, meaning it featured music by, amongst others: Squarepusher, Sticky Fingaz, Oxide & Neutrino, DESTINY’S CHILD and The Strokes. Sadly, this brave “let’s rate music on the basis of whether it’s any good rather than who it‘s by” approach didn’t go down well with NME’s largely-Luddite readership and normal service was resumed, at least for the next couple of years.

The NME has just this week done a covermount ’compiled’ by Muse (hmm). It’s got songs by bands you haven’t heard of, live versions and album tracks by bands that you have, a ‘previously unreleased’ song, a tune that sounds like a band pretending to be a car (or something), SOME ACTUAL CLASSICAL MUSIC and no fewer than two - TWO - spoken word tracks… and yet somehow it still manages to be completely brilliant.

Probably because most of the songs - whether live, unreleased or sung from the mouths of nobodies - are as good as they are utterly bonkers. Daft primal rock (Death From Above 1979), recent electro (Does It Offend You, Yeah?), Far-Eastern beatboxing (Bjork) - this mix is a heavily-sagging bag of tricks. Even the previously unreleased track, by Muse themselves, is much better than being ‘too shit to sell’ - it’s a brilliant bit of Alien vs. Cowboy Wild West surf rock, and at least worthy of being an album interlude.

The spoken word tracks, by Lord Buckley (“he basically invented rap”) need to be heard to be believed. Even then you won’t believe them. Amazing, in a weird and slightly worrying kind of way. How many of the people who buy this week’s NME will actually listen to them in their entirety remains to be seen, but if you’ve got any sense, you’ll be one of them.

Is this real?

Either way, it’s very apposite and quite brilliant.

It also got me thinking which other mediocre soap stars could name their autobiography after how they are known to 99% of people (because who actually knows the real name of anyone in these ’continuing dramas’? Not me that‘s for sure.)

Why not see if you can guess which soapstars these book titles might refer to?*

:: The Comedy Manc off Corrie
:: The One from Coronation Street Who Was Gay and Kissed Adam Rickett
:: The Wheelchair Guy Off Emmerdale
:: Eric Pollard
:: I Was In Doctors For Six Months
:: I Used To Be In Hollyoaks But Now I’m In Emmerdale

It even works for real celebrities too:

:: The Film Director Who Married Madonna
:: The Ginger One Out Of Girls Aloud
:: That Guy Who Spent Fucking Ages In Prison For No Reason Whatsoever

Amazing.

*because you’ve got better things to do, remember.

Olympics go fluoro

Gimme a two!
Gimme a zero!
Gimme a one!
Gimme… another two!

What have you got?

2012, goddamnit; you’ve got 2012!


The logo for the 2012 Olympic games has been revealed, much to the disgust of boring people everywhere, and it’s amazing for two reasons:

1) It’s pink.
2) It forgoes all that bollocks about somehow representing “the notion of sport” and the host city in favour of getting on with the very basic and important business of being pink.

There are other good points too. A quick glance at the logo means one can:

:: MARVEL at the angular design!
:: GASP IN SHOCK at the lower case text!!
:: WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENDORSE the pink and yellow colour scheme!!!

How very modern, I hear you say! How very ‘edgy’!

How very… 2007.

Better start hoping that current trends in fashion and design stay exactly the same for at least five years and that this ‘new rave’ thing turns out to be more than just a fad, eh?