The Gulf Between Generation X and Generation X-Factor

This weeks blog is a bit of a rant im afraid. It's okay, normal service will be resumed next week but here is something that I just want to get off my chest. Here we go.

I have two sisters, one is sixteen and the other is almost ten. They are just the right age to be influenced by what they see and what they hear on television and on the radio and the everything that was wrong with the noughties. Reality TV such as Big Brother, obsessions with celebrities in the media and music which lacks originality and where commercial value means more than the sum of it's parts. Put all of this together and what do you get?

The X-Factor and other talent searching shows before it are surely the most degrading and worst thing that has slopped onto our TV screens since the turn of the millenium. Now Iknow that I am sadly a member of a growing minority but I really hope the world sees sense and one day people who do actual jobs such as those in the Armed Forces and Nursing, not to mention the everyday jobs that have to be done get paid better than some of the tits who subject us to such tripe. It's incredibly tragic to see judges who have all the talent of a pie to break the dreams of a poor member of the public who then is comforted by Dermot O Leary, who only shows compassion because it's great tele. Theres nothing that would make me more tempted to jump off a cliff than be comforted by that guy, who so manipulated he should have the word 'tool' tatooed on his forehead.

I'm not sure what it is, maybe its age or maybe a sex thing, but there is a growing gulf in the interests of those around my age and teenagers. Maybe were on the right side of Twenty and we are not as influenced by what we see and hear as much as used to be. For instance, most of the music my sister listens to is as irritating as a choir of nits climbing into your brain and singing 'Angels' at the top of the'ye tiny voices. I can see nothing of interest in Big Brother, OK Magazine and Jordan on ITV2 so i ignore it like a deaf Grandad sitting in a chair in the corner of the room ignores modern life.

Another show that really gets my goat is Britains Got Talent. Well the judges certainly haven't. The only thing Amanda Holden is fit to judge is an unhappy marriage. Piers Morgan, who has the charm of a wet biscuit, is slightly gormless and has the kind of smile which would make toddlers simultaniously busrt into tears all over the country.

Then there is Simon Cowell, who will stop at nothing until he is King of the World. His watermark for talent is so high you either have to sing like Beyonce or sell your children just to get through to the next round. Then again he is such a shrewed buisnessman that he could probably sell you your own hand. I'd like to think that the millions of people who watched that Youtube clip with Susan Boyle noticed the Judges almost dismiss her as a joke before she opens her lungs (not literally) and stuns the room (although that would be some talent if you could live after, i'd watch it, fickle much?). The only problem is that just as soon as she proves herself you can almost see the pound signs in the whites of Simon Cowell's eyes. Welcome to the machine, Ms Boyle.

So, to keep in the traditions of the evictions we have no interest in from these poisonous programmes, lets have a vote. It it an age thing or is it the views of people who need to get with the times because this is where the world is heading? You decide

P.S To see Simon Cowell dressed up as the dirty dog he is, watch this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Ym3GH5oBE

Things That Go Bump In The Ad Breaks

Hello again bloggers, I thought I might restrict myself to one blog a week as to not exhaust both you and I with a wealth of words and useless shite that I spout about. This week, its CREEPY ADVERTS...WOOOO!!! Whoops sorry for that.

On a break I had from work last year I stumbled upon (joke for the cybergeeks out there) a blackhole that pulls you in and doesn't let go, a Youtube trip! In my immensely bored state of mind, I started searching for clips of things I remembered from my childhood, but as what frequently happens in this quicksand of the world wide web, I kept searching until I stumbledupon (there it is again) on an advert of Kinder Surpise that was shown (and apparently banned) in the mid 1980's.

Now first let me say that I am not normally frightened by horror films or similar programmes set out to shock or scare you. But the next three commercials I am going to talk about are just too weird and far too fake to make me want to eat chocolate or popcorn or even buy myself a dolly of a laughing child, this was probably Gary Glitter's shopping list before the day he got caught.

The 30 second clip consists of an all too convincing Humpty Dumpty character enticing the viewer into buying his chocolatey treats. Humpty's possibly far to realistic to come across as a cuddly child's character and this was probably one of the reasons it scared littl-ans shitless back in the day. It manuarisms are far too chilling and real which gives it a slightly sinister edge.

Which brings me to my next commercial. In 2007, American popcorn tycoon Orville Redenbacher appeared in an advert promoting his number one selling product. I watched this advert in a compilation of these clips and straight away noticed that something was not right with our host. It was only when a caption appeared on the screen saying that this man was dead, that I genuinely had to turn it off. Redenbacher had indeed been dead for the last 13 years when the commercial was released and this was a sort of weird CGI zombie telling the viewer about what he likes to pop in his mouth! The only thing that could be creepier is to share a sleeping bag with a hologram of Michael Jackson.

And thats the trouble with these both of these adverts. They both revolve around a man-made central character or figure which has been made to look convincing but looks far too synthetic and flawed to come across as being genuine. And for that reason it sends a shiver down your spine because you know that although they both are not real, the quirkiness is what makes them slightly un-nerving.

The third and possibly most frightening advert I watched was a commercial for the American doll Baby Laugh A Lot from 1971, which when you pressed its stomach, laughed hysterically for about a minute. One clip I found suggests that the voice mechanism used was of a man's laughter and not that of a small girl as used in the advert. Whichever way you look at it, the creators of Child's Play and Bride of Chucky must have been taking notes. Im seriously convinced that Tony Soprano and other mafia types should have used use this product on squealers by tying them down to a chair, turning the lights off and shining a torch on it as it laughs its victims into a state of utter horror to get the information they needed. It would have worked.

In conclusion, I am pleased I am not an LSD casualty or these would have probably been the kind of nightmares I would be subjected to all the time. All the more reason to channel hop during the commercial breaks I think.

Kinder Suprise Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxWxjEr6F8
Orville Redenbacher Creepy Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn4p213Zg8
Baby Laugh A Lot Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44e-Y08_B-0

TV Shows I Bloody Love Part 2

A brief guide into my favourite programmes and the reasons why the shelf with my DVDs on it is at breaking point.

Life On Mars - There is a recurring theme throughout this list of programmes which is they have hit their peak somewhere in middle of their lifespan and slowly the quality has gone down hill as rapidly as John Leslie's career. Life On Mars, however, is the exception. Funny, hard-hitting, The Sweeney and Quantum Leap all rolled into one big ball of nostalgia. The double act between time-traveller Sam Tyler and his old school show stopper superior Gene Hunt was electric and theere wasn't a single duff episode in the shows two series run. I hope that in 10 years Life On Mars is celebrated as much as some of the other names in this list, in some cases it derserves more praise than a few of them. It rode a crestwave of magic that never came back.

Blackadder - The most cunning character in British sitcom history, Blackadder ran for 4 series, three specials, and 400 years (pretty impressive eh?) Undoubtfully one of the best comedies we as a country have ever produced, it stills makes you laugh even after being shown for decades, one of the reasons being the fantastic performances of (support!) cast Hugh Laurie (House) and Stephen Fry (Quizmaster). The show definetly peaked at Blackadder the Third, but the melancholic Blackadder Goes Forth, set in the trenches in Flanders in 1917, is equally funny and melancholic in the same line as Blackadder bemoans the doomed destiny of he and his comrades while displaying the stiff upper lip of Britshness, especially in the last 10 minutes of the final episode. The whole series is a case study into the pointlessness and madness of war, and surely every viewer heart sank during THAT final scene. When is a comedy not a comedy? When it tuggs on your heart strings in a way not even some drama's can.

Only Fools and Horses - For my money the best comedy in this list, It went out on a high in 1996, when over 20 million viewers watched as Del Boy, Rodney and Uncle Albert walked off into the sunset as 'millionaires' after years of ducking and diving, whealing and dealing, then it came back for three christmas specials and then limped off again. But it was in the late 80's that the show really hit it's peak and no matter how many times you've seen Del fall through the bar or the bus blow up, there always just as many brilliant one liners and moments that keep you laughing, seven years after the show was finally laid to rest. OFNH also had the power to make you cry to with moment such as Grandad's funeral and Rodney getting married certain to make your eyes moist in the right mood.

Scrubs - Remember what I said earlier about Life On Mars staying constant throughout? Well sadly the same can't be said for Scrubs, which just refuses to die and go to TV Heaven. The first five seasons were definetly the best, as the daily life of a hospital intern seen through the eyes of (originally) likable dweeb J.D and his and his best friends rise up the ranks in the Sacred Heart Hospital and dealt with both the extreme highs and lows of the responsibilites of their jobs. The problem was that by season 6, J.D had become an unlikable teenage buffoon who seemed to base his whole personality on the running joke of his mentor Dr Cox (best character by far) calling him girls names which just made him more and more irritiating like the attention seeker in class at school who annoys you so much you just want to shut his dick in his lunch box just to shut him up. Then he leaves, then he comes back, then leaves, then comes back again (arrgg make your mind up Zach Braff!) Ah the memories of a once great sitcom.....

TV Shows I Bloody Love Part 1

A brief guide into my favourite programmes and the reasons why the shelf with my DVDs on it is at breaking point.


Doctor Who - Simply the most inventive, inspirational and amazing thing I have ever seen on Television. Even the old episodes from the classic series still stand up story-wise to anything US imports have tried to eclipse in recent years, although seeing Jon Pertwee chased by a piece of tinfoil with a face like George Galloway is not a scary as it used to be...or is it? Best episode in recent years was Blink, which barely featured the Doctor and managed to be scary and engaging for all ages throughout.

The Simpsons - Okay, so the last six seasons or so have been as funny as watching England crash out of the World Cup on penalties, but even daily never ending repeats on Channel 4 are still ten times better than anything else being shown that night. Best Episode is Season 4's 'Last Exit to Springfield' in which Lisa needs braces and Homer becomes Union Leader in a bid to keep the 'dental plan'. Simply brilliant.

Top Gear - Picture the pitch, three middle aged men shouting at each other about cars for an hour then invite a celebrity to drive around their test track really fast and challenge each other in tasks that most of the time involves 7% about actual bloody cars. Why does it work? God knows, but the banter between Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May is reminisent of any debate we've all had in a pub about who is the greatest band of all time. The challenges are the best part of the programme and then of course there is the Stig, some say that he excretes toast through his pancreas...

Red Dwarf - A cult comedy series for some, it took influences from films as diverse as Casablanca, The Odd Couple, Alien and even Pride and Prejudice and stuck it all in a spaceship 3 million years from Earth. One minute the crew (populated by the last human, a hologram of his dead bunkmate, a creature that evolved from cats, a domestic droid without a penis and a floating head) would be running away from a curry monster, the next stuck in a cowboy video game fighting for their lives then erased from time altogether. Their adventures were silly and fun, something wihch is missing from all sitcoms today. Plus it gave us the word 'Smeghead' a word so funny it had the power to blow snot from the nose of an eight year old whenever they mentioned it.

Family Guy - Cancelled twice by Fox, the laugh out loud adult version of The Simpsons (come on, look at the similarities, a dunse of a father, an outcast for a daughter and secondary characters who are just as funny if not funnier than the main family) Family Guy doesn't care who it offends with cut away jokes which poke fun at any Hollywood celebrity or politician worth ridiculing and loving spoofs of cult movies from the 80's, comic genius and anarchist Peter Cook would have loved it. It can be as abstract and outrageous as it likes and the storylines can still be plausible within the Family Guy universe, someting maybe only South Park can do as convincingly.

Pills, Thrills and Headaches

So here it is, the weeks most anticipated and long awaited moment since Pingu 4: Lets Get Flappy - its my weekly review! I have just returned from a lovely weekend staying around my girlfriend's house to a world of job searching and daytime TV which poisons my last tatters of independent thought.
I had been so bored last Thursday afternoon that I decided to borrow my sisters DVD of Skins series 3 that I bought her for Christmas and was determined to sit through all 10 drug full, sex fueled angst ridden episodes. I had deliberately missed this series when it was originally shown on Channel 4 last year on the grounds that I was then hurtling towards the Thrilling Twenties and out of my Turbulent Teens and no longer thought the programme was aimed at people like me - and for once I was right.
The first two series were funny, thought provoking, entertaining and dark, but was always over dramatic to keep the viewers attention, and to do this they stuff the hour long episodes full of bright mesmeric colours, annoyingly repetitive electronic music (although to be fair most of the melancholic accoustic soundtrack is fantastic) and mindless destructive behaviour that would have been easily remanisant of an anarchic edition of Playdays, in which Why Bird takes an E, shags Peggy Patch silly as Dave Benson Phillips voyeurs through a crack in the cupboard while injecting heroin into his penis. That or a youth amateur dramatic society performing Platoon.
I am sure that most young people watching can see similatities in themselves and one or more of the characters, but this series is choca block full of the most repulsive and irritating characters, it is difficult to pick out a single character to even remotely like. The most likable character is the asperger sufferer, airfix enthusiast JJ, who comes across like how James May would have been in his teens if his parent had taken acid daily throughout the sixties. He is on so many prescription pills to kerb his problems his probably amazed that the world he lives in exists at all.
The main narrative focus is a love triangle involving JJ's best friends, the lanky reserved Freddie and his destructive, volatile mate Cook who are battling it out for the affections of Effy, the younger sister to Nicholas Hoult's character in Series One and Two.
The young actor playing Cook seems to be playing his way thorugh a biopic called Shane McGowan: The Early Years, is the most unlikable TV character I have seen in years, excluding anybody from Eastenders who are forever trapped in a bubble of their own doom preying fro the apocalypse to come. Each of the central characters play mainyl to conventional sterotypes, the ditsy blonde (Pandora), the shit (Cook), the no nonsense activist lesbian (Naomi), the bitcht slapper and her doormat of a twin (Katie and Emily).
Maybe I've missed the point, I don't know, but one things for certain - BRING BACK FUN HOUSE!