JC's Collected Musings, Thoughts, Opinions and Rantings

Aldi Diary - Day 1

2009-01-27T15:47:00.002Z

I am going to only buy food from Aldi for an entire week, as I am becoming a food snob. Check here for progress reports.

Day 1 highlights

At lunch I first ate a Deliciously tasty Chicken & Sweetcorn sandwich. Only 99p so one can't really complain on the basis of value. A rather bland concoction, not unsurprisingly, a hint of lemon, or anything for that matter, wouldn't have gone a miss. Not enough sweetcorn for my liking. But altogether an unsurprising and forgettable concoction. I also bought a Deliciously gourmet Cheese & Flame grill Vegetable Wrap. At £1.18 it was a totally different animal; somehow more stodgy than the sandwich, with a slightly putrid cheese flavor which came and went like a smelly dog. The aubergines were too big and the peppers were too small. A bit of a mess really, although unusually filling for a wrap. There is a worrying trend underlying these sandwiches, however. I'm not one to callorie count whatsoever (many of you may remember my joy at finding an entirely red wheel of health), but these sandwiches had 16.4 and 31.5 grams of fat and 449 and 591calories respectively. Not a great start to my Aldi experiment - I will have to spend the money I saved on swimming.

How to complain when you aren't sure what about

2008-10-29T08:13:00.006Z

It seems a bit odd how 10,000 people have now complained about a Russell Brand radio show. It seems odd because, firstly, I can't imagine anyone actually listening to it. Its on at Saturday night at 9 PM; not exactly the school run breakfast audience who were offended by Ali G on the Sara Cox breakfast show. How many complaints did they receive from the public after the live show? Um, two. Yep. Andrew Sachs’ agent also complains however. Russell Brand presents his show the following Saturday as usual.

A week later, the Mail on Sunday runs a story about the whole sorry affair. Naturally, as with any other subject, their readers are outraged. Over 10,000 complain. Maybe with good reason. But it is safe to assume that none of them actually heard the show, save the two who already complained, or else it would not have taken a week to get their letters of outrage in the post.

Err, is that how regulation is supposed to work? An incident occurs unnoticed, until it is flagged up by some lazy journalists, at which point everyone decides to be outraged. Bit like how Stonewall went on a tirade a couple of years ago to sack Chris Moyles, despite the comments they were protesting against being several months old.

Why was the BBC so slow to react also? In commercial radio it seems common to be instantly suspended for making an offensive comment, al la Tommy Boyd on Talk Sport. But it took the complaints to start flooding into the BBC before they suspended the pair.

That said, Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter seem to be confused also. He says (in somewhat confusing third person. “They apologise to me and they say how awful for Mr Sachs, but nobody has offered any apology to my granddaughter. I replied to Jonathan Ross and suggested that is where he should direct his attentions. The real focus should be on the harm they have done to her.” However she said; “What’s funny about humiliating a lovely old man who has never harmed anyone in his life? My grandfather is really upset and says he wants the whole situation to end. It has been awful for him”. They should really have a chat. Kinda sweet really.

So no one knows who to blame, what to complain about, or who was offended. We all have to look to the Sunday Mail for guidance.

Russell Brand, who is an idiot, doesn’t seem to be handling it at all well, though. Jonathan Ross sent a nice letter and a bunch of flowers. Lovely. What a nice man. I forgive him. Brand however, commented, on his own radio show (which it is clear no one listens to), “I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a personal Russell Brand apology to Andrew Sachs, the great comic actor who played Manuel, for a message that Jonathan and I left on his answer phone, but it was quite funny. But! Sometimes, you mustn't swear on someone's answer phone and that's why I'd like to apologise personally.” No, Russell, that’s not how to apologise. In the post, not on the radio.

What a sorry situation indeed.

Bloody Football

2008-09-09T15:55:00.001Z

What's the deal with football? I don't understand. Why oh why is it
so 'important'? When any other form of entertainment is marketed,
exactly how 'entertaining' it is would be stressed. A film might take
you on a journey; make you laugh, make you cry, make you think. A
museum may make you knowledgeable on a given subject. A book might
paint vivid and stimulating pictures in your mind. Art makes your
brain think 'oh, how pretty'. Or modern art just makes you think.
Hopefully.

But what does football do? Well, in any marketing for it, the
importance is usually stressed. The subtext is that is a life or
death situation. But they never suggest that you will actually enjoy
it, that it would bring you days and nights of endless pleasure, that
it might make you a better person, that there is something you should
aspire to. It doesn't have any pretence that it will either educate
nor inform you. And it doesn't seem to pretend to entertain you
either. Maybe some people look upon the amazing players of the ball
with envy, wishing they could one day be amongst them. I doubt this
somehow. It is just somehow essential, necessary and almost
ritualistic that one watches it. The fear of the consequences seem or
paramount importance. If Aston United looses, then they will be going
down. Woo. Or boo. That is the question.

Why do we care how they perform, though? They are just a business.
Most people work for a business, and I bet you don't give a flying
fudge how your company performs in the financial year. Why are you
bothered about how a company you don't even hold a financial interest
in performs?

The other problem with football is that it is a constant. It's never
ends. A film ends. A book ends. Your mortgage ends. September
ends. Therefore we must pay attention to them before they all end.
If we miss them, then they will no longer be there. As I have just
said however, football never ends. If you miss a match, someone will
tell you the result, and your beloved team looses, then it doesn't
matter that much, football will prevail and there will be another game
next week. Forever.

I wonder how many people actually like football. Not that many, I
recon. Lets work it out. I have no evidence, so I will estimate.
Lets say no women are interested, and about half of men are
interested. So therefore only one quarter of people like football.
Also, people often say the most popular sport in the world is fishing,
therefore making it more popular than football. And when was the last
time you, or one of your loved ones, went fishing? Never, I bet. At
least you get something out of fishing; a fish. So there we have it,
I have conclusively proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that football
is only enjoyed by a small minority of idiots, who just want an excuse
to stab people, and they get nothing out of it.

So don't watch football, stab a fish instead.

Getting Old

2008-05-29T20:18:00.001Z

I have been getting old for quite some years now. Many years, one could say. I have been getting old for many years. If I actually were old, I would have started this article by proclaiming my age to the world; “I’m one hundred and seventy two…”. Better yet, I could have started by stating a given activity, and how long I have been doing it. “I’m seven hundred and I’ve been using the Internet for fifty two years now”, would do nicely. I don’t know if such a statement would automatically add merit to whatever precedes it, a tone, an authority, to distance myself from you, the younger, less learned reader, who would then look up to me as a father figure, hanging on my every word. Is there a cut off for when people should start using such phrases? A day you wish to begin announcing the tenure of your relationship with a particular product, activity or service? To add authority to your otherwise feeble or unquantifiable argument perhaps?

Whatever topic is being discussed, and no matter how long ago we are reminiscing about, here seem to be two striking universal truths about the past. The first is that it was much better. Most goods and services could be purchased for a penny. A bus journey, a book of stamps, a night in a seaside hotel, a loaf of bread, a two bed terrace house, a Roman-Catholic Cathedral? Whatever. It would always a penny, not the extortionate amount it does today. I imagine all shops were one penny shops, like pound shops, but 100 times better, where all the items would be carefully weighed by a surly shop keeper, but it wouldn’t matter as they would all end up costing 1p each anyway. Life was also better in terms of: service, quality, friendship, durability, intellect, safety, life fulfilment, green space, packaging, education, products being made domestically – yes, every measurable element of life is immeasurably superior. However, the second universal truth about the ‘old days’ is that although it was better, it was also much, much harder. One would work the day in the mine, then go fight a war, collect a rationed cup of tea from 30 yards away, ride a mule home, self educate one’s children, all before having a small offal sandwich and blowing out the gas lamp. All the while one would have to manually move the hands of the clock around to the accurate time with a wrench. As clocks have yet to be invented.

So there we have it. Life was better, as nothing has been invented, yet harder, as everything is yet to be invented. If there was a negative element to the past, it would never be ‘worse’, that would be admitting defeat. Having no food was no ‘worse’ than these days of plenty. It was ‘harder’. It would never have been easier in the past either. Not having to learn the many complexities of a computer was not easier. It was better, because you could spend time working out everything yourself. Thus they came out of it as better people.

I’m being cruel to old people. We are just as bad. As soon as possible we all start to reminisce. Remember the Spice Girls? Much better than today’s muck. Remember when computers had 12mhz, 1mb of ram and a no hard drive? We had it so hard waiting for the to load. Eee, the 1st Gen iPod. What about Starburst? It used to be called Opal Fruits, don’t you know? Rainbow, now that was quality children’s TV. Not like now. There wasn’t a Starbucks here last week. I DON’T CARE. Why must humans insist on talking about the past? Its because its by far the easiest thing to talk about. It requires no analytical skills, no learned knowledge, and no understanding. Face it, its far easier to talk about what sweets we used to like than how to deconceptualise French art house cinema. People don’t even need to be right, so long as it seems plausible. I suppose that’s why to announce your age before you state something. To give you authority before you spew a load of spurious guff about how much better and harder it was in the past.

Timbaland's Threat to Grammar

2007-08-08T09:31:00.000Z

Looks like my hypothesis on Rihanna directly causing the rain has rung true. For the fist time in a generation there is a new song riding high at the top of the popular hit parade, the considerably more sunny Timbaland Ft Keri Hilson with the feel good sunshine mega super hit "The Way I Are". Timbaland spreads himself about too thinly for my liking. In fact if I hear a record which doesn't involve Timbaland in some respect I now feel somewhat cheated. And he always puts those Timbaland beats behind everything – do you think he is listening to one of the few records which he hasn’t produced at home, Adelina Patti perhaps, he just adds his beats to it for his own gratification?

Having a weather-neutral song at the top of the chart might avert the floods, but if number one records are quite so influential to national events, with "The Way I Are" currently the country’s most popular song I do now feel the need pray for the nation's grammar.

Why are we so pedantic with grammar, yet so bad? Signage, which one would imagine would be carefully constructed and often cross checked is a prime candidate for criticism. The number of times I have seen adverts for 'cake's' and the like. Still, its about getting the message across really. I think we could all benefit from being a good deal more fluid with such things, so as to make everything as easy to understand as possible.

What puzzles me more is our obsession with pronunciation. When talking about the popular Spanish rice dish paella, we fall over ourselves backwards to say ‘pie-ae-a’ rather than ‘pie-ella’? Yet I wonder what the capital of France is? Just Paris, not 'Parrie'. And we would always say ‘France’, not ‘Franc-ae’. If you want some hard cheese on your bolognaise, please ask for 'Parm-is-an', not 'parmizagno reggiano'. Thanks.

I doubt Timberland is too concerned about the endemic he may cause with his slap dash attitude to naming records. I just hope no one sings a song about Foot and Mouth.

Rihanna, Umbrellas and Tyrrells

2007-07-23T19:38:00.000Z

You may remember many moons ago: Tony Blair used to be prime minister, I was at university, the UK hadn't seen any major floods for fifty years (see my facebook note), the sun was shining, forecasters were predicting the best summer on record, and a song called umbrella by a little known Rihanna and Jay-Z was riding high in the charts. Oh wait, some things never change. Despite the fact that we clearly now live in an unrecognisably different country, that sodding song about a rain accessory is still at number one in the popular hit parade. Ten weeks it has been. Ten weeks. Just think about it. Who would go into HMV in late July thinking "I wonder which record I should purchase today?". They might consider it for a minute. Then, after a moment of pondering, a moment of realisation may occur. "I know, I think I will buy that song which as been number one for over three months - Umberella by Rihanna. Yes, that's definitely the record for me". Why would you not have bought it earlier? Surely you would have realised you liked it after it had been number one for two weeks and Urchin FM had been playing it every half hour for five weeks, not thirteen? Maybe the children born due to the joyous heat wave of April 2007 have grown up quicker and are wearing mini skirts sooner than ever, and have now bought the record they were conceived to on iTunes.

But what else used to happen in the pre-historic times which we fondly refer to as April 2007? Oh yeah, I used to write a blog. This one. I haven't really kept it up to date, but then I never said I would. But do I have some updates? Yes I do. You may remember that I wrote a letter to my preferred mainstream supermarket (Sainsbury's) to request that they sell my preferred brand of premium crisps (Tyrrells). Sounds like a marriage made in heaven. Their response is shown below (click the picture).

Basically, although I addressed the letter to the 'Product Team', it was intercepted by the 'Customer Response Team', who correctly identified that Tyrrells aren't stocked by the UK's third largest grocer. They did say they would pass the suggestion to the 'Buyers', who probably won't buy it. A glimmer of hope is given in the sentence "If enough customers want to see a particular item on the shelves, we will certainly do our best to provide it". Maybe I should organise a campaign. On the packaging, Tyrrells now claim not only to be low in fat, but also are sutable for vegans and coeliacs, and to top it off also have a low carbon footprint. Has there ever been a crisp which more perfectly fits the place, time and mood they existed in as much as this? I think not.

Maybe they ought to just stock up on water instead. However, I imagine the majority shoppers, not to mention panic buyers, just want to buy their copies of 'Umbrella' by Rihanna and Jay-Z and be out, though. And when that single ceases to be number one, the clouds will open and the floods will clear.

You Laughed Me Into Bed

2007-04-12T23:59:00.000Z

I was watching an ancient episode of The Frank Skinner Show with Kylie on it the other day, and she claimed that Frank could probably ‘laugh women into bed’. What a load of crap.

Every single top ten list of the ‘sexiest men’ has George Clooney and Brad Pitt as the top two. David Beckham is usually in there too. These are not funny men. Peter Kay, Johnny Vegas, Jimmy Carr, Jack Dee, Ken Dodd, Ricky Gervais; these are funny men. Are they ever in sexiest men lists? No. Men can not laugh themselves into bed.

Women are so obtuse with their rationale for liking men. Firstly from a physical point of view they sometimes say they think that a man is ‘too good looking’. What is that supposed to mean? I find it endlessly difficult to pin point exactly what sort of men women will find attractive.

Secondly, women do quite clearly seem to be attracted, at least sometimes (note the sometimes Lizzie), by fame and money. Rod Stuart isn’t a very good looking man, as far as I can work out, but he does not seem to have to resort to lonely heart columns to find himself a girl. Peter Stringfellow, Hugh Hefner, any high flying business man – they really don’t seem to have trouble picking up chicks, no matter how grotesque they are.

I suppose it might be deeper than this – women are going for winners, as opposed to the actual amount of money these people have, but it still seems like a pretty bizarre way to choose yourself a husband.

Men are much easier to pin down – they just like endlessly beautiful women. We are hopelessly shallow. We discust me. At least there seems to be some logic to men, though. Money doesn’t seem to come into it at all, I suppose maybe men would actually feel quite threatened by the power of a women earning more money than she is.

But men can not laugh women into bed. Frank finds the chloroform sorts that out.

Primark

2007-04-11T23:59:00.000Z

The centre of Manchester is mixed – the east is pretty up market these days, with Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, the north is still quirky with botiques and sex shops, but the south really has some catching up to do. Primark is the main attraction here, and it is a pretty sorry place. It has taken up almost all of what was Lewis’s (nothing to do with John) since 2001, and does a roaring trade. It is pretty massive, but so is its client base – single parents, the terminally unemployed, the tight, old people and students. That seems to be about everyone. You have to fight your way around, past maddening crowds of angry mums with bleached blonde hair and at least an inch of their roots on display.

I assumed it must be a northern thing – former industrial workers and old people who still think the war is going on probably think it is their only option, where as the south would be far to civilised for such things, with their ‘Cook Shop’ and Krispy Kream donuts. My trip to the Hammersmith Primark affirmed this view – it was calm, small and almost verging on pleasant. No one pushed past me, and the woman at the checkout even greeted me with a friendly ‘hello’. That is approaching customer service. However, apparently I am wrong – London has its share of these nutters, desperate for some cut price crap too.

Joy of joys, there is now a Primark on Oxford Street, which combines the two worst shopping phenomenon going. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of these northerners who just hates everything in the south by default; far from it – aside from the: prices, transport and lack of hills, London is great, with so much to do and so many places to explore. I do hate Oxford Street, though. Why does anyone go there? It is so busy you can hardly walk down the pavement and all the shops are just the generic chain stores you find in every city, with some awful discount t-shirt shops mixed in. The only shop I can think of worth the trip is Selfridges. If you want chains why not just go to a shopping centre? It would be much more pleasant and easy to get around. And now there is Primark.

Apparently on the day it opened two staff had to be taken to hospital, despite the presence of fifty security grads. There wasn’t even a discount, so all this was to avoid a short trip down the Piccadilly line. No one should be shopping at Primark anyway – the quality is just crap. Sure, it might be cheap, but for less than twice as much you can buy something which will last more than twice as long. It will also have the added bonus of actually fitting, so you won’t feel the need to injure yourself again when going back to Primark.

There is a special name for these people, who will needlessly push past their advisories to get clothes, and then buy them even though they don’t fit, without even trying them on, just because they are 50% off. The name for these people is ‘women’. I have honestly known women to buy shoes in the wrong size just because of the wonderful bargain they are getting. You aren’t actually going to wear these, so it is thus a complete waste of money. Not only that, what a waste of resources – it is hardly doing your bit for the environment. But there is just something in women’s mentality which attracts them to bargains. I mentioned a while ago that women only make themselves look good to impress other women, so I assume this is the case for bargains too. “Do you know how much these shoes cost? I got a really good bargain at the Primark sale. They don’t fit, but they only cost 50p”, at which point other women will look impressed and launch into tales of how little their ill fitting clothes cost. I despair.

On Oxford Street there is also a man with a megaphone who tells us that we are all going to die because God wants us to. Hopefully if I have to go to Primark again God will do the kindest thing and finish me off. But not before I have had time to get three t-shirts for a fiver.

Primark Update - I have been told that the Oxford Street Branch is one in one out

Why Can't I Get Any Work Done

2007-04-10T23:23:00.000Z

I have not left the house for days now. I have essays to write. It isn’t that I just have such an unbearable amount of work that there just isn’t enough time in the day. Quite clearly there is – my degree probably is no harder than anyone else’s, and it would be unrealistic of the university to expect one to spend all day working. It is just that little pangs of guilt choke my brain every time I do something which many would consider ‘fun’.

Instead I stay in, and fill the day with tasks such as drinking the amount of water recommended by nutritionists to keep one’s brain active. It doesn’t help in this respect, but it does make you go to the toilet more, which is a nice excuse to stop working for a bit. Maybe get bit of cake, and a glass of water? It will make me work harder. Maybe I should just cut the crap and have lunch. Even though I have already had one. Mmm, maybe some hummus would go well? Why use pre made when you can make your own, it will only take 20 minutes?

Going to the library may appear to remove such distractions, but it doesn’t really. 'I ought to brush up on my current affairs', I think. So after reading the paper cover to cover, including that scary bit in the middle where Carol Smiley is sitting on the bonnet of a car with a fan of money, trying to offer you a loan. Carol, I don’t want your clean and alluring fan of cash – I have an excellent credit rating. By this time it is 11 o’clock. Wow, aren’t I a good little worker, I have been in the library all morning, so I deserve a coffee break I am sure. Finding someone to go with is hardly a struggle – by the time you are in third year a quick walk around the library is bound to provide someone you know, who will be in the same situation. The day continues in such a fashion until about 4, when I will do about an hour’s work, then it is time to go home.

Still, this isn’t as bad as when you have nothing to do at all. You would have thought that when one is unemployed there would be an infinite amount of time to indulge in endless hobbies, never mind easily complete day to day administrative tasks. But for some reason, tasks seem to expand to fill the time one has to do them. Writing a letter, which is something working people don’t have trouble doing, can take a week if you are unemployed. Monday will be the writing of the letter. Tuesday will be taken up with summoning of the energy to put the letter in the envelope, and copy out the address. Wednesday will mostly be consumed with getting around to going to a post office to buy a stamp. Thursday will see the stamp attached to the envelope, and the letter will be put in the hall ready for posting. Friday will mark the trip to the post box, where the letter will be posted. It will probably get lost in the post, though.

This is human nature; to do the least possible to gain the greatest reward. Some people are not like this - Simon Cowel, Chris Evans, Stephen Fry spring to mind, who just seem to keep on working regardless of if they need the money or not. Woody Allan is another one - why must he keep on making films where he (or his protege) is irresistible to the charms of a series of teenage girls? Surely he can't enjoy it that much? Once you do anything often enough and impose deadlines it starts to feel like work. I don't think I would get my film made, after I had read the paper, drunk five glasses of water, made some pesto and checked Facebook a few times it would be time to go home.

Album Review - Mark Ronson - Version

2007-04-08T18:25:00.000Z

I have decided that I might as well try a number of forms of writing for this sodding Blog Challenge, so today I have decided to review an album.

Despite producing a plethora of well known acts, Mark Ronson came to fame in 2003 with his debut album Here Comes The Fuzz, with the popular hit Ooo Wee. It was a funky R&B rock and roll sort of rap album, which sampled many tracks and vocalists. However, Ronson’s Follow up four years later, ‘Version’, is an album of covers of a wide range of artists, from The Supremes to Kasabian but again has a variety of guest vocalists and instrumental interludes, this time generally band front men and singer song writers as opposed to rappers. The whole thing is more styalized than Here Comes The Fuzz, with a kind of Motown sound, for want of a better word, with extensive use of brass, big beat drums and jazz organ.

The album kicks off with a pacy ska style instrumental of one of my favourite Coldplay tracks, God Put a Smile Upon Your Face. Coldplay always sound a bit wet, which is hardly an original observation, but its true. Ronson Fixes this, by making it bouncy and pretty high tempo, but not hugely original. That sets the pace of the album; fun, groovy, novel, competent but not particularly groundbreaking.

The Lead Single is the more emotional version of Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before mixed with a teeny bit of You Keep Me Hanging on. Phew. It works very well indeed, so much so I imagine most won’t even know it is a cut and shut of other peoples’ songs, and it doesn’t matter anyway as it sounds better than both of them. It also achieves the rare feet (for a cover version) of getting popular radio airplay, which ensures the album’s success. Lilly Alan is used to great effect to achieve the considerably easier task of making a bad song better (The Kaiser Chief’s Oh My God); it isn’t even particularly annoying here, with the strength of Lilly’s voice making the crap lyrics sound almost as if they mean something. They don’t, she still rhymes ‘name tag on it’ with ‘plate tectonic’, but I do like her voice a lot.

What other highlights are there? The track which surprised me most was Apply Some Pressure. I am not a fan of Maximo Park – they are one of those bands which seem to have perpetuated into being popular, not due to their music, or even image. There are always just a few bands which people are ‘allowed to like’. At the moment it includes: Bloc Party, The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire – you know what I mean. I have nothing against these bands, but I often think people say they like them because it is some sort of ‘right answer’, drawing a blank if you will. I also think people just say they like them without actually being familiar with their music or after only hearing one song. I think Maximo Park are one of these bands, and I don’t particularly rate them. I think my issue is Smith’s vocal, which is quite sharp and cutting. However, the vocal remains on Ronson’s version, but a ska beat and brass (mostly) replaces the annoying clangy guitar sound (just how much longer will this be popular), which is its self replaced with some wonderful orchestration, which really lifts the song to a new level. It has that sort of nostalgic discordant sound, created with layered strings harmonising with much sharper sounds. Smith’s punky angular voice really works here, similarly to Ian Brown or Richard Ashcroft. It is kind of like the Madchester / baggy / early 90s electronica stuff, where a collection of sounds somehow come together which really shouldn't. That is how you make something beautiful - completely perfect music is shallow and meaningless, with no point of reference - there has to be elements of inperfection, and Smith's voice provides this. Take note Maximo Park; maybe you should consider ditching the disposible twangy guitar sound for something more layered and gushing. Sadly I can’t be so positive about LSF, which hasn’t been improved much from the half baked Kasabian original, complete with the original vocals. It just goes to prove that you can't polish a turd.

Valerie is good, but is a pretty pointless addition to Version, as it sounds almost exactly like something from an Amy Winehouse album. That shouldn’t surprise you as it features Amy Winehouse, and Ronson produced most of Winehouse's Back to Black album. More like a Live Lounge cover, this. The Only One I Know features Robbie Williams. I don’t know if Ronson went off Robbie half way through recording, because he is almost completely lost in the mix, to almost a frustrating extent. I have sometimes thought that the charm of The Charlatans comes from their distinctive production as opposed to their songwriting, and this rather flat re-working seems to affirm my view.

Ronson has skilfully crafted a fun and credible album, which doesn’t have any gaping weak spots. It has a huge ‘kitch’ novelty, not least with a Britney Sprears cover. The trouble is that people are always spouting out albums like this – Hayseed Dixie, Richard Cheese, Weird Al Yankovic etc. cover the novelty front, and there are plenty of ‘serious’ covers albums which even reach the mainstream such as Joss Stone, plus there are also plenty of pointless cover albums out every week of Radiohead, Beatles and Bob Dylan songs which the fans just lap up. So why does Mark Ronson, a producer who can clearly make decent material of his own, feel the need to make such an album? And just how much longer does he think covers are going to be novel? Well, he knows how to make music sound good, so you just want to turn it up and jump up and down. And isn’t that what music is all about? Putting you in that special place? And besides, it breaks up the tedium of much of the music played on the radio at the moment. People have been making new versions of old songs forever, such as reggae standards which would have the order changed and new lyrics applied. Why stop now?

To be honest Version isn’t half as good an album as Here Comes the Fuzz, but it works. Putting songs by tin pot acts such as the Kaiser Chiefs in makes this album firmly targeted at the UK audience, but even the songs I am not familiar with are still listenable. The trouble is, every time you listen to a song it is hard not to constantly compare it to the original, rather than as a work in its own right. With such lucrative production credits, Ronson, lets be honest, doesn't need to make his own seminal albums. Although he probably could.

6.5/10. Released 16th April 2007

Dull Questionnaire

2007-04-06T16:44:00.000Z

I am really getting sick of this blog and want the challenge to be over. Damn you Daniel. Therefore today I have done this super un creative survey which is doing the rounds on various blogs.

1. What Curse Word Do You Use The Most? Does crap count? If not shite.

2. Do You Own An iPod? No, I have a Creative Zen so I can listen to the radio and download music with DRM. And be a bit different. I admit that iPods are best for most people, though.

3. What Person On Your MySpace Top 8 Do You Talk To The Most? I never use MySpace really, but Olly. Not on MySpace, though, in real life.

4. What Time Is Your Alarm Clock Set To? At the moment 8:23 - 8:20 would be too early, 8:25 is close enough to half past to make me feel like a slacker.

5. Do You Want To Fall In Love? If it was reciprocated, of course.

6. Do You Wear Flip-Flops When It's Cold? No, not even when it is hot.

7. Would You Rather Take The Picture Or Be In The Picture? Taking it - not only because I hate looking at myself, but also because I like playing with gadgets such as cameras.

8. What Was The Last Movie You Watched? I think it was The Usual Suspects a couple of weeks ago. It was good but I generally feel guilty when I am supposed to be working.

9. Do Any Of Your Friends Have Children? Not any close ones, no. A couple of people from school have got kids now.

10. Has Anyone Ever Called You Lazy? Not that I can think of, except my piano teacher. I tend to say it myself more, I am a harsh critic.

11. Do You Ever Take Medication To Help You Fall Asleep? I tried once, but it didn't do much. I am pretty good at sleeping anyway. There is a good way men can get off to sleep, which I will leave to your imagination.

12. What CD Is Currently In Your CD Player? I don't have designated CD player at the moment, it seems to be all digital for me at the moment.

13. Do You Prefer Regular Or Chocolate Milk? I enjoy regular milk (preferably full fat) and chocolate in different situations. I can't say I actually drink regular milk all that often, though, so I will have to go for chocolate.

14. Has Anyone Told You A Secret This Week? Yeah, loads. Not interesting ones, just practical stuff which is bloody annoying.

15. When Was The Last Time You Had Starbucks? Never! Actually, I did have an orange juice from one in an airport, must have been in 2002. I sat in one with a friend a couple of months ago but didn’t buy anything.

16. Can You Whistle? Not really. I used to be desperate to do those really loud ones with your fingers in your mouth, but I imagine those are quite unhygienic.

17. Do You Have A Trampoline In Your Back Yard? No. If only.

18. Think People Talk About You Behind Your Back? I would be amazed if they didn't. I try not to think about it.

19. Did You Watch Cartoons When You Were A Kid? Oh yes, mostly Hanna-Barbera ones on the Cartoon Network. I still love stuff like The Simpsons now.

20. What Movie Do You Know Every Line To? None, I have a memory like a sieve and only watch films once.

21. Have You Ever Done The Dirty In A Field? I guess that means sex? No.

22. Is There Anything Wrong With Girls Kissing Girls? No more than anyone kissing anyone else. So long as they don't have any disease.

23. Do You Own Any Band T-Shirts? No, I like my clothes unblemished by writing.

24. What Is Your Favorite Salad Dressing? Mmm, I love salads, a classic French Vinaigrette has to be the ultimate one really.

25. Is Anyone In Love With You? No.

26. Do You Do Your Own Dishes? If at University yes (with assistance from the dish washer), at home I do what I can and my mum does the rest. Thanks mum.

27. Ever Cry In Public? Not of late. I would if the mood took me.

28. Are You On A Desktop Computer Or A Lap Top? Laptop. It is a bit screwed but I love it. I am building a Linux desktop as a bit of a plaything.

29. Are You Currently Wanting Any Piercings Or Tattoo? No. No plans either, I am not really confident enough.

30. What’s The Weather Like? Beautiful, hot sun, a nice breeze. And it is only April.

31. Would You Ever Date Anyone Covered In Tattoos? Um, I suppose. Well, I wouldn't rule it out.

32. What Did You Do Before This? I went for a cycle just outside my village. It was very nice. I miss the Sheffield hills when I am not here.

33. When Was The Last Time You Slept On The Floor? Just before Christmas at a house party.

34. How Many Hours Of Sleep Do You Need To Function? Seven. I can do as little as three as a one off, but I need loads the next day to make it up.

35. Do You Eat Breakfast Daily? Yes, unless I am feeling particularly lethargic. Porridge usually, I can’t be doing with pork so early in the morning.

36. Are Your Days Full And Fast Paced? Absolutely not. I don't know what I do with my life.

38. Do You Use Sarcasm? Yeah, although I try not to, it is quite annoying I know.

39. Have You Ever Been In A Fight? No, I am very bad in conflict.

40. Are You Picky About Spelling And Grammar? In some respects - I hate txt language and people saying things like 'cake's for sale'. I can tolerate poor spelling, though.

41. Have You Ever Been To Six Flags? I don't know what that is, so I think the answer is no. It sounds like a park or something.

42. Have You Ever Gotten Beat Up? No.

43. Do You Get Along Better With The Same Sex Or The Opposite? Probably slightly better with women, but I don't find much difference. Judge each individual on their own merit.

44. Do You Like Mustard? Love it. I find it difficult to eat Coleman's strait, though, I am quite impressed how people do.

45. Do You Sleep On Your Side, Stomach Or Back? My side mostly, sometimes on my back. I imagane winners sleep on their backs.

46. Where & How Did You Get One Of Your Scars? I have a sort of scar on my chin, from when I ran down some steps and slipped on some wet leaves. Rock and roll.

47. Who Was The Last Person To Make You Mad? This woman gobbing in the Daily Mail which I was reading in the hair dressers. I wasn’t really mad, though, just a little irritated.

48. Do You Like Anybody? Yes, I think I like everyone these days. With three exceptions. Want to know who they are? No.

49. What Is The Last Thing You Purchased? 14 Sausages from my village butcher. Mmm. They won a silver award, apparently.

Disabled Toilets

2007-04-05T21:54:00.001Z

When I worked in BT, things were terribly inefficient. We didn’t get laptops for two weeks, despite the fact our jobs were based on computers. Instead we had to bring our own from home. They didn’t run a criminal record check for eight weeks. They also didn’t check we were even doing degrees until this point. I have no idea what they would have done if I was actually a terrorist with no GCSEs trying to bring telecoms down from the inside, who actually enjoyed a good lynching of telephonic engineers in my lunch break. However, possibly the least efficient thing they did was send entire teams to ‘off sites’, which involved paying expenses of everyone who needed to be in a meeting. Not only was this expensive travel wise, it also meant that most of a day’s productivity was lost, when a meeting could have been held in an eight of a time in London.

I was sent in one such ‘off site’ in Newcastle, which had a lovely little building but had one major issue. The only disabled toilets in the building were on the top floor, which was only accessible by stairs. Completely incomprehensible. Presumably if you were disabled you had to either a) hold it until you got home or b) go in the Tyne.

But this got me thinking – is there therefore no one who is allowed to use this toilet at all? That would save cleaning. I have always assumed that disabled toilets are reserved for the disabled, in much the same way parking spaces are. But is this true? Anyone can sit on a disabled seat on a bus, so long as they willingly give it up if necessary. Are disabled toilets exclusively for the use of disabled people, or are they just equipped for them? And why the hell not make every toilet accessible for the disabled? This would be good and politically correct. I don’t know the answers to these questions, I would genuinely like your feedback.

I think I can imagine what BT might have liked to do, however; send anyone who wants to go to the toilet to a specific off site toilet in another city. That way everyone would spend all day travelling and not do any work at all.

Official Letter Day II - Wilmslow Road

2007-04-04T23:59:00.000Z

I have decided that Wednesday will be the official letter writing day for the JC’s Four Week Blog Challenge. Last week I wrote a letter to Sainsbury’s, suggesting that they should stock Tyrells Crisps. Sadly it looks like the letter must still be circulating around the desks of various executive in J Sainsbury HQ, but I am sure taste will win the day and all ten million odd Sainsbury’s customers will soon be enjoying the authentic crispy goodness which can only be achieved via the medium of Tyrells.

I have been trying to think of an equally important world issue which I could try to solve with my skills of correspondence. I can’t, but the issues addressed in the letter below are still quite prominent in my life. I will let you know how I get on.

Town Hall
Albert Square
MANCHESTER
M60 2LA
UK

05 April 2007

James Collins

Blah blah blah blah road
BL1 1BLA

FAO the department in charge of roads, bus lanes and parking

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am a regular user of Oxford and Wilmslow Road, and I enjoy the excellent range of shops and traffic calming measure on offer.

However, I am somewhat disappointed by the design of the lanes in the Rushlome section of the street, as despite this being the busiest section of the road, it filters into a single lane. I can not see the logic in this, as it would surely ease the traffic flow considerably if a bus lane was constantly present in both directions.

I also find it puzzling as the extra girth of the road which is not utilised to traffic is not given to pedestrians, but instead a combination of car parking spaces and bizarre traffic calming measures. The aforementioned stationary cars cause danger, as they are not only a hazard whilst manoeuvring into a single lane of traffic; they also create havoc as their doors are carelessly opened onto cyclists and drivers.

The number of parking spaces provided relatively small, especially when compared to the number of persons who could enjoy an extra lane of traffic or a widened, ‘boulevard’ style footpath. Bentham would surely not enjoy Wilmslow Road, as the greatest happiness is not being achieved for the greatest number.

I hope you consider making these changes to your otherwise excellent road.

Yours faithfully,

James Collins

Kwik Save

2007-04-03T20:44:00.000Z

Kwik Save are in deep trouble. Since the early 90s, it has lost over 80 & of its stores due to a series of sales and mergers, and it has now virtually disappeared from the grocery market. I am not surprised really; some people suggest it is because it almost completely ran out of stock a couple of weeks ago, but I think it is because of its name. Kwik Save? What the hell is that? The ‘Kw’ bit is just horrible, like the noise you make when someone is performing the Heimlich Maneuver on you. What is wrong with a good old fashioned Qu? Not only does it sound more graceful, but it is very pleasing on the eye. You have the gentle rounding of ‘Q’, with its elegant sweeping tail, then the popular and gentle ‘U’ as opposed to the angular vulgarness of a K. If Kwik Save was a human, it would be a smelly boy called Waz, who drinks Carling, reads Nuts, eats all his meals with ketchup and still lived with his mum.

Although spelled correctly, the ‘Save’ bit of the name isn’t much better than the ‘Kwik’. Firstly, people like to say they are going to X’s, for example: Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer’s – these all work and have all been pretty successful recently. You can’t really say Asda’s very easily, which is why they are not doing as well as they were. You can’t say “I am going to Kwik Save’s”; it just sounds wrong. People who were planning to go to Kwik Save probably change their mind and go to Tesco’s instead, as they can tell their friends more easily. Only loners and the mute can get away with shopping at Kwik Save, as they don't have to announce it to anyone. Secondly, people think all supermarkets are pretty cheap these days, because they are, with only a 0.5% like for like difference between the top four companies. They like to remind their customers of this, with all supermarkets currently having at least some adverts based on price. And come on, no one is going to name their supermarket ‘Slow Squander’, or ‘Slow Skwander’ perhaps. Thus it is pointless putting the word ‘Save’ at the end of their name, as they can’t realistically be much cheaper than their competitors. For what it is worth, all supermarkets are about equally as quick (or Kwik) to use – I am not aware of any initiatives Kwik Save have made to make the shopping experience any quicker than any of their rivals.

Kwik Save do not just have a misspelled and meaningless name, they do not have a good slogan, which is necessary for a successful supermarket. Tesco has ‘Every Little Helps’. Brilliant. The genius of this strap line is that it can be used, not just for food, but in any situation – Club Card Points, Computers For Schools, recycling, expanding to Poland, administering tetanus jabs, anything really. It doesn’t matter which wildly successfully whim Tesco’s Management choose to go on next, they can always make a decent argument for it by suggesting ‘Every Little Helps’. Sainsbury’s have the less universal but much more inspiring ‘Try Something New Today’. That is fabulous because it taps into the UK’s recent interest in more diverse food, but still sounds dynamic and young, which it achieves by not asserting some stuffy meaningless message about quality. It might not be as enduring as ‘Every Little Helps’, but it is properly aspirational and gels wonderfully its excellent long running Jamie Oliver adverts.

So where does that leave Kwik Save? It can’t focus on the exciting high mark-up food or non food service unless it makes them super cheap and unprofitable, as it is lumbered with the name Kwik Save. It can’t use a meaningful slogan, because its function is already incorporated in its name. It now also has only 229 stores, which is a sticky situation for a retailer. People universally blame Sainsbury’s loss of its number one position in 1995 on being too brown and expensive, and having terrible stock control. These are indeed the reasons it stopped making decent profits, but even in 2004, the companies worst ever year, it was still serving more customers than its best ever year, 1993. Its problem with market share was quite simply that it didn’t, and still doesn’t have enough floor space in terms of stores compared to its rivals. Tesco must have outbid it on new developments, whilst John Cleese was too busy telling us about ‘Value To Shout About’. Kwik Save are in an even worse situation, as all of their decent stores were converted to Somerfield before they were sold.

Saving isn’t dead, but it is just so obvious that there is almost no point mentioning it. Being quick is still quite popular too, but maybe being Kwik will soon be dead.

Celebrity Wife Swap with Paul Daniels, Debbie McGee and Vanessa

2007-04-02T12:55:00.000Z

I know this doesn’t make an awfully original subject for a blog, but I watched Celebrity Wife Swap yesterday, which is somewhat too important to ignore.

Vanessa Feltz was the first wife in question, who has always been somewhat a figure of loathing for myself. She is particularly annoying, especially when she interrupts the otherwise jaunty and silly BBC Breakfast News with her spitting jowling head, spouting on about how she will be on the radio talking about rape later. Porridge is spat from my mouth as I try in desperation to change the channel. Somehow she has found a man stupid enough to marry her – a man called Ben Ofoedu. You probably have not heard of him, because he is best known for being what I presumed was the front man of Phats & Smalls, who had a single hit, Turn Around, in 1999. I have Wikipedia-ed that, and found he wasn’t even in the band, but actually just guest vocalled on the single version of this track. He is working on new material, though – a hilariously awful ditty for his wedding. He wears sunglasses indoors whilst hanging around with stars of a only a slightly higher calibre than himself – Shane Lynch from Boyzone. He is not really an a-lister, then, just a faded session singer with a fat trollop of a girlfriend. This does not really seem to harm his self perception, though, as he was amazed that Debbie McGee had never heard his song. I suppose that is surprising to a man who for the past eight years has sung the same song in clubs every night – how could anyone not have heard it? I am not joking – he would go into a club, get in the DJ booth and what would he do? Yeah, sing Turn-a-bloody-Round. I am actually being unfair, he is a pretty decent bloke, who could probably get along well with most people.

Sadly I can’t say the same about his counterpart, Paul Daniels. He is so bloody odd. Apparently he and Debbie don’t read any newspapers or watch contemporary TV (as they don’t trust journalists); they instead while away the hours by: being silent, looking out of the window and really pushing the boat out by watching repeats of Inspector Morese. How the hell could you live like that? People chat, we are social animals, that is what we do. Personally I don’t really find it much harder than not talking at all. But Paul only talked about himself, and does most of his communication through magic tricks. He just doesn’t seem able to communicate on any other level. I bet him and Debbie never actually have sex, Paul just pulls various things from behind his ears all night long, with a few card tricks as foreplay. And how can you not use any media at all? You must loose all concept of space and time, with every day effectively being the same as you only see one person and don’t even bother chatting to her.

Vanessa has far too many issues for me to discuss here. She said at one point ‘nature sucks’. No it doesn’t, you silly fat woman. You suck. Nature is wicked, with all its water and albatrosses and the like. She likes being in dirty London and going to clubs apparently. Can you imagine, if you have just decided to spend a night out in London, and have probably paid £7 for your last drink but you just don’t care because you want a wicked night out largin’ it with your mates, pickin’ up chicks. You have just got dancing, when you spot this vile heffa of a 45 year old woman, with her big heaving breasts spilling out at you, waddling in your direction. Then you look up to see that it is Vanessa – could your night get any worse? What should you do exactly? I think I would ask for a refund, and perhaps some therapy. I shudder when I think about it. I bet she spits as she talks, and has little bits of food between her teeth. Just imagine her having sex with Paul Daniels – he would be trying to perform magic tricks whilst she lunged in his weedy little direction, like a cow falling off a cliff, with little bits of spit and food dripping out of her mouth.

To illustrate the cynicism of the programme, Vanessa’s daughter, who seemed lovely, was scarcely shown at all. Also, both wives had the task of changing the house rules for their husbands, but this was a bit contrived as both husbands were roughly as lazy as each other. To play the game both wives made their adopted husbands cook for them, provoking Paul Daniels to call his mum for assistance. Debbie McGee is the only person who comes out of the programme with any credibility, as she seemed quite nice and managed to work Ben out rather well. She even did Vanessa’s radio show and went to Ben’s club nights.

But I shouldn’t criticise the programme, nor should anyone else, it was pure entertainment of the highest quality. 5/5. The show after on E4 wasn’t so good, but never mind. It made me realise just how lucky I am – not to be married to either Vanessa Feltz or Paul Daniels. I could probably cope with being a session singer for Phats & Smalls, though.

Clothes shopping

2007-03-30T17:00:00.000Z

“Your shoes are worn out, we need to get you some new ones”. Of course what my mum actually meant was that “you should go out and buy some yourself”. I agreed; they were supposed to be a matt finish, but due to several months of wear, as I only have one pair of trainers, they had become shiny, and were grubby from a cocktail of mud and beer. I diligently headed down to M&S, when to my delight they still stocked my incumbent style. ‘Great’, I thought, ‘I don’t even have to try them on’. So I went home, with a new version of exactly the same shoes. I probably should have stockpiled a few more, for future years.

If only all clothes shopping was like this. When you go to the supermarket, you probably don’t go around trying desperately to avoid products people have seen you buying before. When you go to work, you don’t desperately try to avoid roads you have been down before. When you go to a pub you probably don’t try your very hardest to find some obscure drink, like Filfar or Zoco; you will probably just have the same thing as last time. Basically, humans are by their nature very unadventurous, which is perfectly rational – it helps us deter death as we are less likely to discover something dangerous.

So why oh why do we have it drilled into us that we must be so bloody fashionable? I just do not care in the slightest. There are just so many variables. Thinking of getting some jeans? Tight ones might make you look like a ‘townie’ or ‘chav’, or possibly ‘gay’. Baggy ones make you look too fat or thin or something, so you have to get ones which are just right. Maybe a shirt is what you are after? A pink one might make you a bit effeminate, black would make you look like a goth, blue might not bring out the colours in your eyes, stripes the wrong angle might make you look fat. Then you have to think about which brand you want to affiliate yourself with, and consider exactly how affluent you want to appear. You are pretty much paying to advertise a given company, so choose wisely, as you might look like a scally, or perhaps infer that you support third world child labour.

‘Welcome to The Gap’, some woman will crow. That instantly puts me on the defensive. She really has the upper hand now, as there isn’t really a comeback to that. What should you say – ‘thank you, pleasure to be here, thanks for having me’. I henceforth avoid any eye contact with these cretins of the management, and walk around very purposefully, trying to give the impression I know exactly what colour t shirt will match my eyes, and exactly which jeans will distance myself from ‘pikeys’. I get utterly flustered, much like when I was 14, when some cute girl with heaving breasts and strait blonde hair starts asking me ‘do you need any help?’. See, when you look (and dress) like me, such forward advances just doesn’t happen outside the environment of a clothes shop, or possibly a strip club. So naturally I blush, then assert my masculinity by shakily blurting out ‘I’m fine’. What else could I say? ‘I want some clothes because my mum told me mine are worn out’?. Maybe I should just say ‘what should I buy so I don’t look like a pikie or chav? Please be quick, I really want to leave this hell hole and go to Waitrose instead.’, which are my true thoughts. Normally when people approach me to ask if I have Talk Talk or want to donate to Oxfam, I just say I already enjoy the product they are purveying, even if I don’t actually use it. For market research I pretend I haven’t got time. Neither of these excuses works in the clothes shop situation. If possible I would prefer either no staff at all, or motherly old ugly ones, who won’t judge me for being in a state of panic, sweating profusely and breathing deeply.

And what is with the shops themselves? Why do they categorise the clothes by style / brand / range? Surely, jeans for example would be most logically arranged by size, so you can then choose between styles? It baffles me. Not only are they not very easy to navigate, they are very unpleasant environments, with horrible florescent lights, clinical white walls and bare floors. Worse still, there are big windows so the passers by will see my blushing panic stricken mass rushing around the shop as fast as possible, leaving a trail of nervous sweat behind me.

I have found the best solution to my problem is to just go to M&S once a year and buy the entire range in medium. I know it will last, the sales assistants stay their distance, and I probably will look more like an old man than the dreaded chav – something I am far more comfortable with. And hopefully it will stop my mum nagging me.

Colds

2007-03-29T23:59:00.000Z

I am extremely ill. I have a runny nose, a sore throat, a nasty hacking cough and every few minutes my eyes fill with water: all the ingredients you need to make a convincing Lemsip commercial for the television. So of course all you women out there will now expect me to claim that I have flu. But I don’t. I have a cold.

Flu, I’ve always thought, is a working class invention designed specifically as an excuse for not going down the mine that day. “I’m not coming to work today because I have a cold,” sounds a bit wet and homosexual. Saying, “I can’t come to work because I have flu”, sounds more manly and butch.

But you may as well say you aren’t coming to work because you’ve caught cancer. If you have flu, the American navy will come round to your house, inject you with plasma and take samples of your liver to their biochemical warfare centre in Atlanta.

And when they’ve gone away, men in nuclear spillage boiler suits from our own Ministry of Defence will want to know if you’ve had any contact with Chinese chickens or Vietnamese swans or German soldiers. And then, when they’ve gone away, you will die. Flu is nasty and claiming you have it when all you have is a cold makes you look ridiculous.

Mine, of course, is the worst recorded cold in the whole of human history and I am defying medical science by being here, at my computer, writing this column. Technically I am dead.

Legally you would be allowed to remove my organs and give them to a poorly child.

And as I sit here, shivering and tense with a headache and a tickly cough, I can’t help wondering why there is still no cure. And whether or not we might be on the brink or creating one . . .

For hundreds of years people thought the cold was caused by being cold. “You’ll catch your death out there,” people in 18th-century blizzards would say.

It was in the 1920s that we understood the cold to be a viral infection, a nasty little blighter that invades your body, multiplies and then causes you to sneeze so that millions of its brothers can shoot up the noses and through the eyes of everyone within 5ft.

Since then, we’ve been to the moon, invented the personal stereo, devised the speed camera and created the pot noodle. But still no one knows how to keep the cold virus at bay.

Aids came along and within about 10 minutes Elton John had set up his charity and was rattling the ivories from Pretoria to Pontefract so that now, while there’s no cure, there is a raft of drugs to keep the symptoms and effects at arm’s length. But the cold? Not a sausage.

In 1946 the British government began something called the common cold unit, based close to Porton Down in Wiltshire. It conducted endless experiments until in 1989 it was shut down. And sitting here with two bits of kitchen towel rammed up my nostrils, I rather wish they’d kept it going.

The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an immensely well funded organisation. It’s here that they work on ebola and proper flu and all the really nasty viruses that could wipe out the world if they ever got on an aeroplane. And do you know what advice they have for those who don’t want to catch a cold? Wash your hands with alcohol.

I’m beginning to wonder if the sort of scientists who might have been engaged in defeating the cold are now being swallowed up by the exciting and glamourous green movement; that the very man who might have developed a cure for the cold is, as we speak, sitting on an ice floe off the coast of Canada watching bloody polar bears.

Or perhaps he was thinking about taking up medical research but thought that rather than spend his life in a chilly lab in Cardiff with nothing but a pot of viruses for company he’d be better paid and happier if he went to Soho instead to be an ad man for Lemsip.

I worry about this in the same way that I worry about the loss of Concorde. It has not been in man’s nature to just give up on a project, but we really do seem to have given up when it comes to the cold.

Scientifically, it’s not that hard to beat. Back in 1999 British researchers worked out a way to stop the viruses infiltrating human cells in a test tube. But when it came to replicating the tests in the human nose, they all seem to have given up and gone off with Greenpeace to drive rubber boats at high speed round Icelandic whaling ships.

There is, however, some hope because apart from the Groucho club, where people have colds in the summer, most people only catch a cold in the winter. So what we need to do is get rid of it and that, thanks to global warming, does seem to be happening.

In the last weekend of October I was sitting outside in the sunshine wearing nothing but a T-shirt. Only now that the wind is coming from the north have the viruses invaded my nostrils.

If, therefore, we can push the winter so far back that by the time it comes along we’re already into the spring, all should be well. To cure the common cold we simply need to get rid of its breeding season. This means producing as much carbon dioxide as possible. Yup. The cure for the common cold may well turn out to be the Range Rover.

In case you can't tell by the disparaging references to the working classes and tenuous mention to Concorde, I didn't actually write today's blog; I actually stole it from Jeremy Clarkson's column in the Sunday Times. Yeah yeah yeah, plagiarism and all, but I have been busy. Also, even though the rules state that I have to blog 100 words a day, no one said I had to write them myself. Most people just seem to get something from the newspaper and post it in their blog anyway, so why not just wholesale plagiarise it? And this bit of rubbish has been words 108 anyway, so don’t complain.

Crisps

2007-03-28T20:09:00.000Z

I love crisps. They are great. I especially like how crisps are becoming higher in quality by the year. The best crisps in the world, in my opinion, are made by Tyrrells in Herefordshire. They are just unspeakably good. Walkers Sensations miss the mark somewhat, getting a thin cheap crisp and dowsing it in seasoning. Kettle Chips are much better, but have the opposite problem of being a good quality crisp with inadequate seasoning. Tesco Finest / Sainsbury's Taste The Difference are both better than these, but are no where near as good as Tyrrells. Imagine how much I hate the Veggie Cafe, turn that hate into love, and that is about how good Tyrrells are. Sadly Tyrrells are not available from mainstream stores, with only Waitrose, Selfriges and a selection of coffee shops and pubs selling them. This is not good enough, so today I decided to take matters into my own hands Andrew Jackson Style, with a letter to my supermarket of choice, as stated below. I will let you know the results.

Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd

33 Holborn

London

EC1N 2HT

27 March 2007

James Collins

Blah blah blah blah road
BL1 1BLA

FAO The Product Team

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am a very loyal Sainsbury’s customer, and I enjoy the products and shopping experience of the Sainsbury’s Archer Road Sheffield store very much.

However, I am somewhat disappointed with the premium range of crisps on offer in your stores. I feel your offer in this area would be increased greatly with the introduction of ‘Tyrell's Potato Crisps’, which are an affordable yet very high quality product. They are currently available at Waitrose and Selfridges, so I imagine the scale of production is high enough to at least sell them in larger stores. They are priced at under £1.50 for a 150g bag.

They are available in a wide range of flavours, with my personal favourites being Sweet Chilli, Salt and Cider Vinegar and Thai Curry. I can not begin to express how delicious these crisps are, as they are a thicker cut and with real flavourings, which makes them unbelievably authentic. They even claim to be more healthy than regular crisps, due to their thickness. There is also a root vegetable variety available, which I believe would be popular with the health conscious market.

I can assure you that I am in no way affiliated with this company, I am just passionate consumer. I hope you will look into stocking these products in the near future.

Yours faithfully,

James Collins

Vegetarianism

2007-03-27T21:05:00.000Z

I have nothing against vegetarians, I just would rather not be one myself. A bit like loosing a leg, contracting shingles, having gay sex, etc. – fine for others to do in private, so long as I don’t have to suffer. According to this 'scientific' pro vegitarian website, a vegetarian male can live five years longer than one who eats meat, but I imagine that such people are much more likely to treat their bodies more carefully anyway. And even if they do make you live five years longer, its not like they add five years to the beginning of your life when you are having fun, it is the five miserable years at the end of your life when you are too busy wallowing in your own shit to notice how good the quality of Quarn synthetic meat has become. I really don’t understand why vegetarians eat such products, which are designed to look like meat. I don’t much like the idea of eating a cow, so I don’t go and construct my beef in a cow like shape.

The worst bit about being vegetarianism is the food. Obviously. Vegetarians are always complaining that their choice is compromised when going to a proper restaurant, which is fair enough. Therefore when they set up their own gaff you would imagine they would provide you a wide range of meat free dishes. But instead of the two veggie dishes on offer in any normal restaurant, the Veggie Café at the University of Manchester, much like every other veggie café, offers just two dishes. What’s the point of that? And if you only concentrate on two dishes you would have thought that you could make them to perfection? Seemingly not. They get a small slab of lasagne or ladle of hot pot, re heat it in the microwave, then serve it with some bland cheap salads (think iceberg). You are then dazzled by an astonishing range of oils and dressings, but you then realise that there are actually only three, just multiple bottles of each. The ‘Veggie Café’, or ‘Herbivores’, as they are officially called doesn’t really offer a premium dining experience either. It has all the luxury and style of a road side greasy spoon, without the luxury of grease. You are greeted with the aroma of decaying dust, which is about as warm and friendly as the staff and light fittings (fluorescent). The tables are covered with a thick layer of lino, presumably to make them easy to clean when people die on them. There are pictures of horses on the walls, which just makes you wish you were eating one of them. Fancy a drink to go with your lettuce? A glass of water the size of a thimble may quench your thirst, if you are a quail. The food won’t fill you up either, which is a shame, as it costs £4 a throw. What terrible value for money – for 50p less you can get the largest and finest meal the refectory has to offer. For 21p less you can purchase a whole foot of Subway, which will keep you full for ages. For 49p more you can indulge in all of the Pizza Hut you can eat. For a pound more you can have all the Chinese you want. For just over twice as much you can have a massive two course lunch at the very chic Obsidian. I can’t think of anywhere in Manchester which provides worse value of money.

So when you leave feeling hungry and thirsty, you have to respect the veggies and what they do for their cause. I once tried it for two weeks, but gave up when the vegetarian option available in my school cafeteria was the bun from a burger (complete with meat juices). I made the decision to eat the whole burger and die five years earlier.

Television

2007-03-26T23:09:00.000Z

Eee TV is great. Which other medium can make you laugh, cry, can educate you, tell you a story, move you, and shape your opinions of the world? Quite a few I suppose; books, radio, newspapers, music.... OK, that was a bad line of argument. But all of these require vast acres of effort. As you might remember from my blog about the theatre, the arts haven’t always been kind to me. But TV on the other hand, requires you to simply suspend some disbeliefs (quite easy) and let it wash over you. The internet comes quite close, but you still have to work quite hard to actively filter out all the crap, such as when your friends keep on forcing you to watch ‘hilarious’ videos on You Tube. They are never funny.

And England does indeed seem to have some of the best TV in the world too. I am not being patriotic here; just go to France or Austria or Germany or Spain or Australia or Luxemburg or just about anywhere else for that matter, to really appreciate it. They just seem to have about seven channels, called stuff like TFR SIX, with one five hour long show every evening, which is invariably hosted by an idiot in an orange suit, with parlour games, singing, dancing, shouting and a whole variety of crap. There will sometimes be dancing girls, with the highlight of the entire being the size of bikini allowed at primetime. This theme is then taken to the next level, with a plethora of soft core porn after 11. That was quite fun on school trips, but these days it just seems a bit depressing that so much of the world lives this way.

And TV really has changed the world. My aunt didn’t see any TV until she was 20, so she consequently didn’t understand a word the American customers said at Butlins said when she worked there. I read an article once (which I can’t find for the life of me) which described crime increasing several fold in after television was introduced in an Indian state (please tell me if you know about this). We read books about TV and base the plan of our living rooms around it. Where exactly would our sofa point otherwise?

TV might look like the lowest rent medium there is. The media equivalent of a house plant or fish tank instead of a dog or war zone. But once you realise you are dragging your sofa ever closer to it and ordering up a fresh batch of narcotics (now with a wheel of health), you might realise you should restore your disbeliefs. At least during the adverts.

The New News

2007-03-23T23:42:00.000Z

News is a funny old thing. The supply of it is highly erratic; sometimes weeks go by and nothing much happens except some idle speculation about Tony Blair standing down, and other weeks so much happens all such thoughts are buried in the deepest recesses of our collective mind. The demand, however, stays the same, with a finite amount of news space in the papers and room for the same amount of stories on TV. It’s not like they ever decide to publish a supplement because there is too much news to fit in the main paper, and there is seldom an extended 10 o’clock news on BBC, cutting into Jonathan Ross. Another funny thing is how they manage to churn out a full paper on a Monday – what the hell happens on a Sunday worth commenting on? But when I buy the Guardian (my paper of choice on a Monday, due to the Media bit and G2 ‘review of the reviews’) there is always lots of news about a speech Gordon Brown will make about something nothing to do with the economy, or about some radical new plan to shake up immigration.

Does the news matter? Not really. When you are on holiday and don’t read any of it do you feel any worse? I suppose it gives you something to talk about in job interviews and during long days in the workplace. It also informs you of where wars are, so you don’t organise your next human rights convention in Chechnya. Most people seem to use the news as material for their blogs, but I can’t really be bothered to research mine, so I just rant on pointlessly, like this. Generally news is just a bit of a soap opera for us to voyeur over really. Saying that, I don’t know what I would do without it. Get into East Enders and go on holiday in Azerbaijan probably.

A Trip to the Theatre

2007-03-22T10:59:00.000Z

What is the point of the theatre? The whole point of such performances are surely to move you in some special way, but you are always far too far away to actually become involved in the characters. I just seem to struggle to get past the fact that there are two people on the stage, pretending to be other people. You really are not going to get truly lost in the story line. Even worse are comedies, which either have to be over acted so much you loose any subtlety in the acting to force the laughs out, or worse still are ones which require audience participation. I really hate audience participation – you pay to see a performance then realise that you have to chip in to make it work, so if you pick a bad night the crowd you have been lumbered with can ruin it. And by god do you pay. To go to the theatre in the West End in London will cost you £50 for a normal ticket and £4 for a half time drink (necessary). So for a no frills trip to the cinema for two will cost you at least £110. Then you have to pay to get there, which costs about a billion pounds. For such money you expect to have one of the best nights of your year, but you probably won’t because ‘it was a bad audience’ or you were ‘sitting behind a pillar’.

There are no such worries if you to see 300 at the IMAX, where an actor’s eye lash was about as big as an entire West End stage. It was too big in all honesty; you really have to move your head in order to move from one side of the stage to the other. This wasn’t helped by the fact we were late so had to sit at the front. The sheer bigness wasn’t awfully kind on the blue-screen special effects, so if I were more of a nerd I am sure I would have had a field day. As I was leaving I over heard two such people discussing how the seats should be shifted backwards (sensible) and the screen should be made bigger (moronic). The film it’s self is probably my new favourite film set in the past (which I don’t generally like) but it was a bit over gay in its use of tight pants and lack of tops on males. It also had rubbish music – it was shot in a kind of cool modern action film way but set in the past, something I haven’t seen before, but had the traditional generic dramatic score you get on all such films.

But yeah, better off going to the cinema then and due to the virtue of living in Manchester I only paid £5 for the privilege as opposed to ten times this for the theatre. And thank god 300 required no audience participation.

Clubbing

2007-03-21T23:59:00.000Z

Clubbing is a bit of an odd thing really. We pay loads for it - seriously, think about it, we stand in the supermarket thinking about which pasta will save us 17p over a week, then go and down £20 before even getting to a club. We have to do so, as going sober would be a bit weird. I have tried it. Getting drunk involves finding a bar which is so busy and expensive that you have to stand up. That is the first rational thing you do I suppose, as it gets you used to the experience for when you get there. Once you are sufficiently pissed to pay even more money (which could have been spent on that more pretty twirly pasta to mix your tuna / ragu sauce with) its time to leave. And if there are girls there, you have to get a taxi, as their hair goes funny in the rain. Which brings me onto my next point, why exactly do women spend so much time doing themselves up? It must be for the sake of other girls, as men really don’t care. Be honest, if a girl is showing any cleavage what so ever, or eluding to the fact that she has breasts, or a bum, or any such organ, blokes are not really going to be looking at her nails. The entirety of the following day has to be spent talking about exactly who went to the toilet when, who went home with who, how awful we all feel etc.

Sorry that was such a crap blog, by the way, I have been busy today and had to write something quickly before I went to bed. But it is over 100 words so I am still on course for my challenge of wring a blog every day for four weeks. Yay.

That Old Excuse

2007-03-20T10:27:00.000Z

People love excuses. We ‘don’t have the time’ to read the news, only like Take That ‘because it is nostalgic’ and don’t buy free range meat because ‘we can’t afford it’. Just admit that you don’t care about current affairs or animal welfare and only like pop music. Then be happy. There is just something about making an excuse which inherently makes us feel better, even if the excuse is little better than the truth. As wee young kids we suggest ‘I lost my homework on the bus’ doesn’t really make you sound like a much better rounded person than ‘I didn’t do my homework’. It makes us look worse in fact – blatant liars. But somehow obscuring the truth by whatever means possible is always preferable to being open about our failings. I am one of the worst at this, frequently excusing myself from the negative feelings associated with not doing much work by sitting on computers at uni all day, where work is done traditionally done. But I just write blogs and stuff.

The worst case of excuse making seems to be when people feel like getting pissed. Seldom do people say ‘I just felt like getting absolutely leathered last night’ but instead it will be their not very good friend’s birthday, which was absolutely necessary to celebrate. The only groups of people who seem to be realistc about drinking are busy city workers, who ritualistically go for a drink after work, and students, who just don’t have anything better to do.

Which brings us on to today, the biggest excuse of a non event for non drinkers drinking – St Patrick’s day. No one carse about saints, I can not see how it could be argued that you do. Firstly, no one carse about religion any more, at least in the UK. Seccondly, any saint which we actually celebrate is absolutely crap. St Patrick rid Ireland of snakes did he? Well if wiping out an entire species isn’t justification to wear green and a funny hat, what is? But he isn’t half as annoying as St George. Many accounts place him as Turkish, having never even been to England. And he killed a dragon, which obviously was never real. Imagine if it were how amazing that would that be – a big fire breathing dinosaur would certainly spice up London Zoo. The only saint who seemed to be nice to animals was St Francis, and I doubt even he could redress the havoc St Patrick and St George could inflict.

So yeah, live a shamefully boring life, make an entire species extinct if you want to be made a saint and drink as much as you can – that seems to be my moral of the day.

Tap Water

2007-03-19T16:21:00.000Z

We have developed a number of silly habits over the last 10 years. Most of which seem to link to two causes - consumerism and health. In the past we would have been happy with a nice cup of Nescafé and it tasted fine because we did not know any better. Now consumerism, however, has somehow taught us that that we must drink only freshly ground coffee and having instant would make you mightily uncultured. This sounds awfully inconvenient, but consumerism quickly provided the answer – lots of coffee shops, with crossing the street just being too much of a stress for many. Starbucks have tapped into our demands particularly well, according to The Guardian – “if you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks”. Brilliant. But I don’t really care that much, as I don’t like coffee and everyone has been banging on about this forever. Sorry to be the last.

Water is somewhat a different kettle of fish. I bet fifty years ago in some meeting someone suggested bottling water and everyone else laughed. You know, bottling that stuff which comes free from the tap. However, we have somehow engraved it in our psyche that we need to drink huge amounts of water. But not any old water – bottled water. What sort of evil genius is that – consumerism and health both rolled into cheap to produce package which no one could possibly object to. It’s just water – how could you not like that?

Until today I thought that I was getting around this problem by simply taking my existing water bottle (not a flask or I would look insane) and filling it up from a tap. I know there are often signs saying ‘don’t drink’, but I just dismissed them as a conspiracy to get you to spend £1 on a bottle of water. I tried to ignore people such as my good friend Amy Jones as merely being too easily influenced by the propaganda attached to the tiles above each sink. However, Ruth, my lovely coffee lady, has suggested that the water in the Dover Street Building at The University of Manchester is checked monthly, and routinely contains legionnaire’s disease. Bummer.