Monday, January 09, 2006

CURMUDGEON

From Simon Hoggart's unfailingly entertaining column in the Guardian on Saturday:

My favourite letter this year comes from quite a well-known biographer, who would probably be happy for me to print his name, but I have a strict rule about that. Anyhow, his four-page letter is monumentally, magnificently dyspeptic, from the first line: "Another spirit-crushing year. Criminally underpaid and underemployed, derided by the critics, betrayed by friends, disrespected and humiliated - the usual stuff."

He soon cheers up at a Francis Bacon exhibition.

"What a useless painter Bacon was. He had one idea - to paint people inside out ... the slaughterhouse screams are adolescent."

He is utterly unmoved by Live8 and Bob Geldof. "As regards food shortages, you try getting a fresh lemon in the Co-op on a Sunday night when all that matters is a gin and tonic. In giving my donation I will just ask for the Swiss bank accounts of the African prime ministers. This will save on postage ..." But this cheery mood soon evaporates when he goes to his son's girlfriend's 18th birthday party.

"I nearly had a heart attack when, on going up to the bar, and asking for a large red wine, the barman said: 'That'll be £4.95.' This was a new experience for me, paying for drinks at a private party ..."

Saturday, January 07, 2006

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE POPS HIS CORK

Poor Charles Kennedy. You'd think the British electorate would have taken a piss artist to their hearts, what with their recent deification of George Best. And isn't the affable Scottish drunk one of those hackneyed national stereotypes we're meant to adore? Given the choice between that and a coke-addled posh spaz with all the political gravitas of Tim Henman, I know which way I'd turn in a time of national crisis...

Poor Graeme Souness. Another Scottish stereotype made flesh (this time the 'fierce disciplinarian'), he too could be shown the door due to an invariably losing mix of arrogance and ineptitude. This is the man who inherited the most successful team in the history of the football league and bestowed upon it the calamitous footballing triumvirate of Phill Babb, Jason McAteer and David James. Whilst manager of Southampton, he also famously brought on a player with no professional footballing experience on the dubious basis that he claimed to be George Weah's cousin.

Both men must be cursing their luck. If only they'd be handed their P45s a few weeks earlier, a place in the new series of Celebrity Big Brother would have been a dead cert. As it is, George Galloway gets to do battle with Dennis Rodman over who cops a blow job from Jodie Marsh in the Big Brother diary room. Oh, and Michael Barrymore's in there too. Better hope Preston from the Ordinary Boys doesn't meet an unfortunate end in the Jacuzzi...

Sunday, January 01, 2006

YOU SAY YOU WANNA RESOLUTION...

New Year's Resolutions...

- To read more novels
- To go to more gigs
- To abandon posturing cynicism (as distinguished from healthy cynicism of the sort which might reasonably be applied to politicians, reality TV shows and the forthcoming Nicky Wire solo album)
- To write the first Wrong Angle meisterwerk
- To drink less coffee
- To have a 'healthy' relationship with alcohol
- To stop laughing and start worrying about David Cameron
- To not slip so complacently into the cosy self-parody of disaffected Gen-Xy dilettante I have sub-consciously cultivated on this blog
- To blog at least once a week
- To do enough interesting things to justify me blogging once a week
- To not just listen to the same seven songs on my iPod Nano
- To write a follow-up to my Gary Glitter Greatest Hits musical "Another Rock 'n' Roll Christmas" in time for next Christmas
- To ignore Razorlight and hope they go away