Eastenders – 10.12.08

Eastenders bosses saw sense, eventually. Rather than drag out the paedophile story until Christmas day for a freaky, festive finale, they opted to have Tony leg it a couple of weeks early. They also spared child-of-the-damned Lauren from his sneaky clutches, mercifully. Not sure how, but Lauren manages to be a realistic character, despite the fact the girl who plays her is somewhat dead around the eyes. Saying that, having your Dad cheating on your Mum with a girl less than half his age and then having your Uncle shack up with Mum as soon as she’s separated, dated an ex-squaddie half her age and tried to bury Dad alive in an urban forest, I suppose your senses might be a little numb.

Tony went out with a bang in an episode focused on Pat’s house. For one of the poorest threads in Eastenders history, it was surprising that the game was upped and the revelation episode was, in fact, genuinely affecting. If you didn’t see it, you won’t believe it, but Patsy Palmer – that shouting, rust-headed, walking mardy put in a bravura performance for once in her life. Bianca and Whitney’s interactions were horrifically believable, and Tony’s blank-faced nastiness went down well too.

I say ‘went down well’, but that’s hardly the right phrase. The thirty minutes left the audience nauseous as Bianca had what was occurring spelled out to her multiple times. When Tony’s amusing attempts to wriggle free failed (causing a cheer in my house), Bianca ran to the toilet to vomit copiously, just as I popped a roast potato into my mouth. Don’t they realise this is tea-time telly?

When Bianca pleaded with Tony, asking her to reveal if he’d touched little Tiff, he stalled when asked ‘why not?’. I can’t have been alone in wondering if he was going to specify the girl’s hair colour as the reason for his not advancing on her. It was even possible that he might have used the ‘Paedogedden’ reason given by Simon Pegg on Chris Morris’s Brass Eye special that he simply ‘didn’t fancy her’, but he left it, vaguely, at ‘that wouldn’t be my style’.

Making light of it is easy, so I’ll stop as this was actually a moving episode. Bianca’s character reacted exactly as the audience has come to expect – at first entirely selfishly and then, ultimately, believably sympathetic. It reminded us why she’s got such a strong role in a leading soap.

Tony was chased off at the end after making a crucial but mistimed return to the scene of the crime to pick up his passport and it’s genuinely good to see the back of him. At first the whole plotline was little short of comical, before turning more credible as Tony began to ‘go off’ his young prey as he watched her mature.

Despite Chris Coghill’s good showing, I’m glad we can move on from the era in which Eastenders became Beastenders.

All that revolting conversation at a time when me and the missus are settling down to dinner. What kind of time’s that to be airing such nastiness?

It’s a bloody disgrace.

NewsGush: No Posts Today Shocker

No posts today – apart from this one.
Sorry.

Take That Come To Town

The Take That documentary they showed a Christmas or two ago was a successful little slice of television. It managed to turn around the flailing careers of all ex-Take That stars whose surnames weren’t Williams whilst simltaneously banging the final nail into Robbie’s career-coffin.

Fundamentally, the doc demonstrated, these four blokes were always nice, professional chaps. The public were finally persuaded that Robbie’s distortions of the truth were only his version of events and bought into the TT reunion package.

Robbie might also have been a nice bloke, once-upon-a-time, but he lost it in a stupendously big way. His neurosis made him leave the band and embark on a solo career curve which he now languishes at the bottom of, in a pile of money but without the critical acclaim he needs to keep his egocentric personality turning out his trademark cheeky-chappie gurns.

So the public were persuaded to finally wave ta-ta to Robbie and, through endless four-nice-bloke branding, they accepted Take That back into their ears. Barlow wasted no time. He immediately set about writing those songs he used to create. The ones where you hear them and think:

‘Hang on, I know this! Isn’t this that George Michael song? Or is it Elton John? That bit sounds like Abba playing the Beatles.’

And then the hook is in your head like a parasitic worm. And it won’t leave. And it’s laying eggs which’ll hatch when you least expect it. You’ll be waiting for a lift (or walking up some stairs, for those in the north) and all of a sudden…

LET IT SHIIIIIIIINE! Let it SHINE!

And then, instantaneously, the lads are a visual memory – all dressed up in M&S urchin chic, and you wish death on them, slow lingering death, whether they’re nice blokes or not.

So Take That Came To Town last night, and they bought half of Cirque De Soleil with ‘em. They also bought clowns, dancing girls and their middle-aged fans who screamed violently at every word they uttered.

I lasted 25 minutes and here’s what happened in that time:

• Gary sang an opener in which he promised that this could be the greatest night of our lives. I’ll leave you to wrestle with the use of the word ‘could’.
• Mark sang the aforementioned Shine, a serious virus of a song, whilst ladies dangled from wires. A huge jackinthebox also sprang out of nowhere.
• They did that ‘Rule The World’ song and I noted that, despite Howard having the ‘we can rule the wooooorld’ line, his voice was so low in the mix it sounded like autotuned interference.
• Jason, looking for all the world like an awkward gay teenager roped into organising an overpriced kid’s party, led a chatty bit where all involved mocked Barlow. They’re allowed to now, it seems.
• They all said they were ‘enjoying getting to know Robbie again’ – which is good, as without him the next stage of the comeback will be redundant. The Take That Reunion Mark2 is reliant on Robbie’s desperation, after all.

And then I switched over.

Temporarily swept up by the glitz and those nagging, incessant tunes, my right mind suddenly dragged me back to sensibility and I returned to the land of the living just about intact.

It’s going to take weeks to shift those bloody songs from my brain.

The Friday Question: Where were you when…?

After JFK was perforated by a disputed number of shooters back in the 60s, the popular question of the day was:

Do you remember where you were when you heard?

In the last 10 or 15 years we’ve had a few news events which have been worthy of the same question, in that you’ll probably never forget where you were when you were told, or when you first caught it on the news – be it televised, on the radio or online.

Throughout the day, this post will be updated with a fresh news event every couple of hours. Check what the event is then cast your mind back to where you were when you heard about it the first time.

Maybe you were playing a lament on the mandolin? Perhaps you were eating an iced lolly and reading some Proust? Or, more likely, perhaps you were playing with your nub on a soiled mattress until all goo came out of the buttonhole.

We’ll kick off with:

Where were you when you first heard that Princess Diana had died in that tunnel in France, then? Eh?

10.30 update:

Where were you when you heard about the London bombings on 7/7?

NewsGush: Leotards on!

 

He’s back!

This January, GMTV is stepping up to tackle Britain’s growing obesity problem with the UK’s biggest ever health challenge. And helping the breakfast TV station is a familiar face – Mr. Motivator is back and he means business.

I can’t contain myself.

I must check if my all-in-one spandex bodysuit is still at the bottom of the wardrobe. I can’t wait to tackle my weight, get back in motion and shift this enormous paunch with the help of Mr. M.

Imagine him doing a sex on Mad Lizzy…

Phwoar!

Quantum of Solace

Youtube clip nicked off Joe Cornish of Adam & Joe

The beginning of the new blonde Bond movie is dead exciting. People fall through roofs, Daniel Craig survives slow-mo explosions, a hot lady cracks a safe, planes crash, buildings explode, Judi Dench calls him a renegade – it’s a non-stop medley of action and drama and it is relentless!

Then the adverts end and Odeon have their inexplicable three minute lights up moment.

We’ve been in the cinema 20 minutes, the trailers haven’t even started and already we’ve seen the best bits of the film and heard the theme song numerous times. Make up. Drinks. Phones. Laptops. Televisions. This isn’t a movie, it’s an orgy of advertising – a quantum of synergy slowly destabilising the image of action heroes and brand association across the world.  “They have people everywhere.”

Movie begins; car crashes, rooftop chases and hundreds of extras all feature in a ballet of action – shot (as is the current trend) as if the camera were handled by five year old child with ADD. It seems insulting, employing all those stuntmen to perform daring acts of doing and then hiding them behind camera movements that look like they’re covering up budget defects, but I suppose that’s the style these days.

The plot revolves around an evil SPECTREesque alliance of bad guys called QUANTUM – which makes the title null and void since we were all told it refers to Bond trying to find moments of peace following the death of Eva Green in the last film. In fact, they actually forget about most things pretty early on with the potentially interesting idea of a faction of uber-villains operating without governmental knowledge being abandoned and instead focus on a very boring and sneery Frenchman who’s buying up land for some utterly pointless movie reason.

Remember when Casino Royale came out and a brave new beginning was announced? Daniel Craig was taking the character in a whole new direction and things were going to change, they said. Well that time was over pretty quickly – Quantum of Solace is a blueprint Bond film with all the trademark exploding buildings, casual fucking and overcomplicated plotting, except this time (because he’s, like, y’know, updated and everything) he feels guilty about most of it – which kind of steals all the fun out of the movie.

Pierce Brosnan’s reign of terror may be over and for that I’m thankful, but the producers are clearly terrified of abandoning the forumula that did them so well so they’ve made the same movie as always, except with some solemn faces and kudos casting. I give it one more film before they reintroduce Q as played by Ray Winstone and he’s flying around in invisible cars once again.

It’s a shame, because Casino Royale is a genuinely good film and it deserved a sequel that did it justice. All we have instead is a substandard Bond movie with all the crap nobody missed last time around put back in so it can be distinguished from the Bourne films. You get the feeling that they wrote the film around the product placements and required quota of action, employed a respected director with an indie-standing and then refused to let him do anything interesting lest the Bond brand be tarnished by deviation.

The opening says it all – a tough movie punching for realism while naked ladies dance in silhouette around Coke cans. Or was that the adverts again?

The X Factor – Quarter Final

And so the longest advert in history trundles on, destroying all that might dare to threaten the global dominance of Cowell et al. The contest itself is an irrelevance, a deus ex machina of neccessity in place to guarantee the further financial obliteration of all rivals and to homogenise the music industry so that it can be controlled by one man and his Blackberry.

There was a time when asset-stripping was a tactic reserved exclusively for the hardnosed Gordon Gecko’s of the world, but Cowell has admirably stepped into those shoes – cherry-picking the elements of art, music and culture that will make him the most profit and willingly discarding all that is extraneous and unnecessary. Even the songs the contestants perform are fractured into two thirds of their original length, just in case the audience become bored or there’s not enough space left for tie-in adverts, painfully repetitive VT autocues and phone number announcing.

It’s hard to blame the contestants here. Each have genuine talent and see the show as an opportunity to become recording stars. They naively believe they’ll be the ones to defy the curse of Cowell-meddling that will see them reduced to bargain bins and further reality show humiliation over the next few years.

It’s sad to think that, not only does that man resculpt the still growing identities of a number of teenagers to further his swelling bank account, he also does it under the guise of concern and consideration. He’s an evil soul – not the pantomime villain he plays – but the face of corporate greed, pummelling and psychologically bullying all in favour of a third house in Barbados.

The X-Factor didn’t used to get to me too much in the years past – it was always an ignorable piece of fluff that didn’t matter much. I’d watch the auditions for a laugh and then abandon the show as the remaining contestants were whittled down to the least offensive, most bland nadir and then roll my eyes at the woeful Christmas release that inevitably followed.

This year I’ve stayed with it all the way through – mostly at the bequest of my lady – and I’ve found my eyes opened to the summit of evil that the show really is.

The music industry is, by and large, a hugely corrupt and morally bankrupt industry. The X-Factor manages to represent that far better than any sharply-worded critique or snappily dressed indie anthem ever could. From the fawning faux-praise of the grown up Martin Prince that is Louis Walsh, to the bought-and-paid-for ‘controversies’ in the newspapers, this is not a television programme – it’s a vertically integrated business model that’s found a legally allowable method of advertising during the period in which networks are meant to be broadcasting content.

This week was Britney week. The overproduced pop princess decided to bestow a rare UK miming event upon us and so, as a result, we were forced to watch a clinically depressed redneck being forced to pretend to sing her latest vocoder-featuring single while a bunch of semi-talented amateurs all murder her previous hits by occasionally alternating the intonation on a couple of words.

Actually, scratch that, it wasn’t Britney week – it was Disney Cross-Platform UK Tween-Push week as the show also featured, inexplicably, an appearance by Kevin Federline fuckee-in-waiting Miley Cyrus and a ‘spirited’ performance of a High School Musical number by the shows resident dashboard-nodding grandson fantasy, Eoghan Quigg.

And yes, Britney – poor, poor Britney. If ever there was a warning shot across the brow of the contestants it’s Britney. Brought in to stumble across the floor, forget which lyrics to lip-synch to and to display no knowledge of what show she was on – she was a walking / talking advert for the destructive nature of fame. Still the contestants blithely waffled on about how fame and money were their dreams. It was like watching smackheads looking at an ODd corpse and not being able to make the connection.

Dead-eyed Britney was the low point of a show that has plumbed the depths more times than I can count. I wouldn’t object so much if it acknowledged its fakery, but it insists on ploughing ahead, repeating the lies enough times to be heard as truths – it’s about the artists, it’s about music, it’s about making people’s dreams come true.

It’s none of these. It’s about making money – huge, unimaginable piles of money – and may God have mercy upon whatever singers, songs, impressionable children and cultural legacies get in its way.

Iceland Christmas Advert 2008

We live in a world where atrocities occur each and every day. Whether that be the systematic rape and imprisonment of children, the genocide of entire races of people or the false imprisonment and torture of ethnic minorities, few can deny that the world can be an ugly and brutal place.

Despite knowing of the depths of man’s inhumanity to man, despite being aware of the full capacity of evil that exists within human beings it’s still hard to imagine anything – anything – worse than the prospect of having to watch the Iceland Christmas advert again.

When the final city falls, the last creature dies and we are visited by alien beings eager to learn the tragic circumstances of our downfall (much like the ending to Steven Spielbergs A.I., in fact) they will look upon this moment and realise that everything can be attributed to the release and distribution of this advert.

As the souls of the damned burn in eternal hellfire they will be forced to watch this medley of frozen foods, Christmas carols and ITV stalwarts in ear piercing 3D futuroscope. On an endless loop, it will pierce their retinas and they will begin their unanswered cries for mercy, knowing that only an appearance by Christopher Biggins could deepen their pain.

It’s a distant and terrifying world for me; the world where frozen pepperoni kebabs hawked by fake-tittied junkies, self-hating right-wingers and formally famous pop stars can be considered appealing. These are the dregs of the celebrity world; end of the pier daytime TVers more famous for their lives than their talents – yet somehow their endorsements are seen as encouragable.

The planet may be bleeding terror and dying from environmental collapse, the soul of humanity may well be killing itself and bringing destruction upon itself and the capitalistic system may be bringing us to the edge of a societal implosion but real evil – deep true evil, the kind Buffy used to battle – is reserved for inside the cathode rayed nipple in the corner of the room, the glowing box which bears the names Katona, Nolan and Donovan.

Fear them, for they will destroy us all.