Paul McKenna – I Can Make You Thin

I was always pretty much indifferent when it came to hypnosis, until a friend started training to become a clinical hypnotherapist. When he told me about the training he was undergoing I enjoyed using words like ‘piffle’ and ‘mumbo jumbo’ as he recounted the details. He took it with good grace, and we agreed to disagree.

Then recently, I read Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind in which, in his signature style, he discusses the subject very frankly and gives an insight into the techniques involved. I tried a couple of the rudimentary examples he gives and found that, on a basic level, they work. As he recommended, I continued – purely out of curiosity – to read up on the subject, trying at all costs to avoid the more commercial end of the market. There are, after all, clearly hypnotists out there who are as interested in lining their pockets as they are concerned for helping people out.

Then I decided to give up smoking and got my hands on an eight minute mp3 of Paul McKenna which guaranteed it could help to cancel cravings. Essentially, in this little transmission, it simply forced you to create an association between the craving and something you personally find horrendous. I chose turds with all hairs sticking out. Seriously.

It worked, for a week. I’d never given up for more than 24 hours before this little revelation – and the only reason I got back on the smokes again was because a life-changing event happened the following week, making me lose focus. Impressed, I got hold of more of McKenna’s stuff (hiding it from everyone, as it’s all got a self-help stigma following it about like a nasty smell), but with all of his other programmes, possibly because I don’t need them, I found them overlong and cheese-ridden.

McKenna’s main problem is that his techniques are all grounded in proven clinical methodology, but these alone aren’t commercially viable. To get around that, he dresses one or two simple directives in so much marketing blabber (an easy bedfellow of the suggestive language of hypnosis), that it begins to feel like he’s not only trying to change a habit – he’s also trying to make you sign up to McKenna LTD.

I was surprised that Living TV wasn’t showing his ‘I Can Make You Thin’ on a subscription basis. Again, tuning in out of  curiosity,  you find more of the same.  If you want to lose weight (I don’t, particularly), this programme will probably help and save you the expense and hassle of Atkins style crash diets.

That said, it’ll cost you in other departments. In the one episode I’ve seen, one technique – the negative association craving-buster I mentioned before – was demonstrated over the course of an hour. This took around 10 minutes. The rest of the hour was concerned with testimonials, case studies and non-stop, advertising blather.

McKenna sells techniques that work very well, but his real strength is in selling himself. The show is like some weird, apolitical rally. It’s like you’ve walked into a bizarre, born again Christian sermon, in which only 5% of the content is actually discernible – the rest being a confusing spectrum of superficially pleasing waffle-bollocks.

I preferred it when he was making people cluck like chickens on ITV.

America’s Next Top Model

Something interesting happened on America’s Next Top Model on Monday night.

No – seriously.

In amongst all the usual shit, a sparkling moment of clarity. The truth outed itself for one instant, but then vapourised without leaving its mark. But for that tiny, shining moment, the grotesque absurdity of the whole franchise was called into question – and it came from the most unlikely of sources.

The important folk on ANTM refer to each series as a ‘cycle’. Not a ‘series’. Not a ‘season’. A ‘cycle’. When you dwell on this, the logic holds up. The girls all come from nowhere and end up back in sweet obscurity – so ‘cycle’ it is.

This cycle, we have the usual bunch of warped, seven foot in-breds doing walking, then doing standing still whilst under the scrutiny of a bunch of complete and utter cocks, headed up by the contemptible, neurotic bundle of blabber they call Tyra Banks.

Among the contestants this cycle, the only candidates of any interest are Marvita and Fatima. Marvita is an amazonian shit-kicker who’d eat you for breakfast. Looking like Chris Partlow‘s older, more aggravated sister, she talks through her history of abuse as though she’s reeling off a shopping list. Her cold, dead eyes are supremely likable for some reason.

Then there’s Fatima (pronounced ‘Fah-TEE-mah’, apparently – though I prefer the ‘Whitbread’ phonetic of ‘FATTY-mah’). Fatima is an out and out bitch who, in episode one this bicycle dropped the bombshell that she was circumcised at birth and suffered genital mutilation. Which is horrible, and we all feel for her. The first time she says it. By the time we’ve heard about it for the fourth time in 40 minutes, the goodwill sadly starts to diminish to the point where we forget about her campaign and realise she’s using it as sympathy-leverage so she can be this unicycle‘s wind up merchant, starting cat-fights like there’s no tomorrow. 

And finally in this brief round up, until last night, there was Kimberley. An unremarkable, plank-thick blonde with nothing to say for herself – last night she became a fleeting heroine as, when asked to step forward before they ripped the shit out of her photo on judgement day she said (and I’m forced to paraphrase):

‘Y’know – I don’t really like fashion much’

She went on to explain how she thinks that high fashion is stupid and that anyone who pays $2,000 for an outfit is an idiot and, sorry, but this whole thing just wasn’t for her.

The judges’ faces dropped. As they sat there with jaws on their laps I hoped that, even if only for a millisecond, they felt humbled by the logic of a nobody – suddenly realising that the show they’re working on is a fatuous, risible and futile mess that creates absolutely nothing of any meaning or value. Unlikely, but maybe she hit her point home for a fraction of a moment.

Kimberley – I salute you.

Britain’s Next Top Model

I got sucked in while the missus was watching this and, with shame and misery overwhelming me, absorbed the flipping lot. I’m dripping with self-disgust. This review is my only hope of purging slime from my contaminated braincells.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll end up watching next week, then the week after, till the whole series has somehow passed through my brain-filter and left me an expert on all the back-stabbing, plank-thick idiots who populate it.

The girls were introduced one-by-one, as is the way with this sort of thing, all declaring their beauty, their ability and their personal variation on charm. Stefanie, a latino temptress with smoky eyes, let herself down the minute that trapdoor of a mouth opened. Blah blah blah, she went on, with not word registering as in any way interesting. Aaron, despite having a boy’s name, reckons she’s got ‘the whole package’. Sophie‘s a gibbering wreck, making little sense and looking like she’s coming down from a particularly hedonistic indie disco. Catherine looks about 12. Musayeroh is the black girl who won’t win because these sorts of shows are all inherently tokenistic. Lisa reckons she’s quirky, but is actually just a dreadful bore. The rest waft past, pretty and pointless, like air-freshener or pot pourri.

The fact is, they’re all attractive and have basic intelligence, but they’re so young and not yet fully formed that it’s unfair to create a fair opinion on them. They’re little kids who’re being put through the digital TV mangle for our entertainment in the hope of winning a title which could see the producers crushed by the Trade Descriptions Act.

Britain’s Next Top Model? Do me a favour. A one-off cover shoot on Company magazine isn’t exactly knocking Moss from her pedestal is it? It’s hardly Vogue. It’s the Razzle of fashion mags. Or so the wife tells me.

They all troop straight into a big hall immediately upon arrival for task one and are forced to take some questions from a really questionable bunch of people who all look extremely odd. These people might be fashion students, but I don’t recall the coiceover actually telling us who the fuck they are. One of them is wearing a red balaclava with only one eye slot and is painted black, despite obviously being white. One of them is in drag. If they’re fashion students, they haven’t got a hope. They all have worrying facial tics. It’s alarming.

Aaron fucks up, apparently, by saying she doesn’t think she’ll win. Nice – I like a bit of modesty – attractive in a girl. A couple of others do the same, and all three are reprimanded by Lisa Snowdon for their lack of belief later on. She’s ‘insulted’ by their humility, it seems. The berk.

How did Snowdon get the job anyway? Apart from a bra advert in the 90s, has she done anything of note? I’m waiting for an answer on that one.

Later on they have to split into teams of two and take polaroids of one another’s best feature. One particular little twat (I think it was Alexandra) opts to take a shot of Aaron’s eyes. Now, Aaron does have lovely big sparkling eyes but Alexandra reveals her reasons for taking this shot. It’s to highlight the fact that, without make up, a scar is visible that covers part of her photography partner’s eyebrow. So she’s picking this one tiny flaw out and amplifying it to get rid of the competition in a demonstration of just how superficial and idiotic this shit is.

The later task is to split into pairs for topless shots. While most perfrom quite well, Sophie looks blankly ahead like she’s been beaten about the head with a kilo of smack while Stefanie and Alexandra go for a Zoo magazine-sponsored shot. High class. That’s the pic at the top of the article. Quality soft porn – but not really Tatler.

Sophie goes, leaving a trail of grey matter behind her after being voted out by a twat in a hat, the once-upon-a-time-Z-list Snowdon and the living dead. The latter is fucking terrifying. As she passes judgement she lurches around like a reanimated sloth and slurs away in an icelandic accent. If you allow something like to judge you, then you deserve to be judged.

Then it ends. Like passing an enormous, uncomfortably dry turd, it’s finally over and you’re left a tiny bit satisfied, a little bit raw and too dirty to sit still any longer.