Paul Morley, what is he good for?

Pop, What Is It Good For (BBC4, last night) was kind of the centrepiece of BBC4’s Giant Month O’ Pop and it was a rather interesting beast. Obviously an hour of Morley expounding on music is unlikely to be a bad thing, he’s one of the few journos who can really do public speaking in the same way he writes and only seem slightly ludicrous, but, certainly for anyone who read Words and Music, there was little new. I got the feeling that we weren’t the core audience though, that it was aimed at people who hadn’t read W&M, people who would be surprised at the programme starting with 15 minutes on Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and, although it covered similar ground, there were some new twists and turns, mainly added by the range of interviewees.

The six tracks he concentrated on (and then spun off from to talk about All Pop Ever) were:

CGYOOMH - Kylie
Ride a White Swan - T-Rex
Lola - The Kinks
This Charming Man - The Smiths
What Do You Want - Adam Faith
Freak Like Me - Sugababes
… read on …

BBC Exceeds Recycling Targets!

One of the rounds of last night’s Mock the Week (itself recycled from old bits of Have I Got News For You, Whose Line Is It Anyway and leftover Radio 4 panel quizzes) asked the comedians to suggest “Letters That Would Never Get Read Out on Points of View”.

Straight to the front of the stage was Hugh Dennis, a glint in his eye. Before he moved his lips I knew what was coming, and he didn’t disappoint, although Meg was rather surprised as I joined in rather too loudly:

Why, oh why, oh why IS THE STRUCTURE OF MY CHROMOSONES!!

This, to my knowledge, first appeared in a Mary Whitehouse Experience sketch about Points of View, when MWE was still good on Radio One*, almost twenty years ago, well done Hugh, no need to waste resources. I look forward to forthcoming jokes about Henry Kelly (what a Henry Kelly), f3ltching and david baddiel being funny again rob newman being sexy again over long agatha christie based skits (BABABA BAAAAAM).

*quick plug for No Rock & Roll Fun’s Radio One More Time which hasn’t yet mentioned the comedy half hour, but top reading none the less.

The Freaky Trigger Top 100 Tracks Of All Time: No. 53: Wham! - Wham Rap

They rly don’t make ‘em like this any more. Boy bands singing about unemployment? Mentions of governmental departments in choruses? Comedy rapping? OK, there’s still comedy rapping.

My “best of wham!”, which features the 12″ mix of wham rap (all 6:46 of it!), credits the song to michael and ridgeley, I’d kind of always assumed it was written for them, otherwise why is the george michael “character” so very far from the different corner/careless whisper big girls blouse GM we grew to love (and which was clearly much more commercially successful)? In terms of early 80s english rap singles, it’s probably the best though (not that there was a lot of competition). It does kind of capture the Chic groove that eg rappers delight has, and is arguably no more lyrically niave, why shouldn’t essex boys do rap? I think it works because they’re singing about what they know, what three million people knew at the time (although I doubt whether dole money stretched to buying singles, which might explain why this was their lowest charting proper single). Interesting that the lyrics on the 12″ version include the wonderful line “i choose to cruise”, but this is excised from the single version, Tom Watkins’ idea not to raise suspicions perhaps?

The Freaky Trigger Top 100 Tracks Of All Time: No. 55 DAVID BOWIE - “Suffragette City”

Wham bam, thank you mam, well quite. Having just looked up the lyrics (having sung them phonetically all these years), is this like bowie trying to be bolan or summat? The other thing is I seem to spend most of the time thinking about other songs whilst trying to think about SC. If it’s not surfin’ usm it’s rock & roll suicide (now i no longer listen to alBUMs this very rarely happens with new tracks, but i have played ZS&TSFM once or twice over the years). maybe it’s the way the wham bam thank you mam bit (the most memorable bit of the song) drags you to the end before you’ve sung the beginning to yrself, thus leading you into the next track on the alBUM, or it being the sample makes you think of the other song (see also cloudbusting vs the u-u-utah saints). … read on …

Where is Serious Pub, Who Really Aims POOL?

Last night I visited the Cock & Lion on Wigmore Street behind Debenhams, a nice little pub with four ales on (including Black Sheep, quite unusual in London).

However, the main reason for my visit is that I wanted to play pool with some friends, but this was somewhat scuppered on finding that the upstairs room that used to have two half decent tables in it has been transformed into YET ANOTHER “dining” room…

This put me in an unusual position. I used to play at least a frame or two every week before I moved to London, so could tell you in fine detail of the pool tables of Cheltenham and, to a lesser extent, Oxford. But I had only one vague feeling of where else I might find a table in walking distance of where we were. … read on …

Let’s Make Glastonbury Better!

It’s amazing how ideas come to you sometimes. There I was, surrounded by mud and rain and more mud, cursing the lack of urinal at the top of the New Band Tent (call it by it’s name) Field when it suddenly struck me. All the issues I had with Glastonbury reminded me of something, see if you can spot it:

1. “Father knows best” autocratic owner increasingly getting in to bed with commercial interests that seem to have only negative impacts on the punter

2. Said punters being treated like cattle with little thought for our comfort or welfare

3. Increasing costs and declining facilities

4. Being constantly told by media/controlling interests that you’re part of the best festival in the world, when you can clearly see the cracks round the edges

5. The complete lack of feedback mechanisms for us to get our views across to those in charge

Yes, being at Glastonbury is exactly like being a football fan, and what have football fans done about this? Formed Supporters Trusts, by the hundred! … read on …

I can’t get all the news I need from the weather report

So GlastoWeatherWatch has left us a little in the lurch this year (congratulations on your wedding though :)). OK, so there’s Glasto Festival Forecast attempting to fill the gap, but they look like they’ve jumped into bed with THE MAN, how can we have a reliable forecast from just one company, eh, eh??? … read on …

Just go and read it in Smiths or something…

You can’t really blame them for not having an on-line version of the magazine, so I urge you all to track down a copy of this month’s When Saturday Comes with Jose on the front, and read the Match of the Month column by Ian Plenderleith. You might think that Darlington vs Lincoln isn’t the most thrilling of matches to cover but the article is a perfect encapsulation of the indignities and general rubbishness foisted on lower league away supporters. Also the author is really quite rude about lying, tax-dodging, safe-breaking idiot George Reynolds, which is always a bonus.

In other news, camp sites to get supporters trusts!

Eurovision Song Contest Semi-Final

OK, quite a lot of spoilers if you are intent on remaining unknowing until Saturday, but without giving too much away, tonight was a TRAVESTY (hahaha, i was on the internet in minutes, registering my disgust!), and there are three songs that RLY RLY should have got through. One more little comment before the cut though. Dear BBC, if you are going to put subtitles on the programme, please to be translating the non-english songs into english first!!! I need to know if the words in foreign are quite as dreadful as some of the ones in English, innit.

Hear all the songs/watch the videos on the eurovision website
… read on …

Pointy Beer!

Random commenter “im borat” brought this old post of Pete’s to my attention, and reminded me that our badgery friends at Hall and Woodhouse have a new seasonal ale to take over from Hopping Hare. It’s called STINGER, it’s an organic beer brewed “in conjunction” with Huge Furry-Wishing-Stall and the River Cottage and IT HAS NETTLES IN IT!!!

I’d imagine a dandilion and burdock chaser is recommended to go with it…