Well Christmas happened, with almost no input from Sir Cliff Richard, so that has to be a good thing.
Sir Cliff Richard, 268 year old ‘Peter Pan’ of pop has sold his soul to Mephistopheles in order to keep his warm leatherette face from disintegrating.
Lord Cliff has recently said in an interview with The Daily Mail (who else?) '….I don't want to lose my dignity. I know when I have sung badly and if it happens once or twice, I will recognise that and say to myself that this could be the last time.'
Insight? Nah……
The Marquis of Cliff is responsible for the following crimes against humanity:
Hamsters are rodents belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae.
The name hamster is of Iranian origin, hamaēstar meaning "oppressor".
Behaviour can vary depending on their environment, genetics, and interaction with people. Hamsters believes that the restoration of Rodent law will set things right in the world, and that all other ideologies must be opposed. Hamsters also seek to eliminate the state of Israel, and "reject the immoral acts of fornication and homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury."
Hamsterologists believe that Hamsters are immortal spiritual beings (or thetans) which have lived many lifetimes. The most controversial aspect of Hamsterology beliefs is the idea that thetans lived among extraterrestrial cultures before becoming trapped in bodies on Earth. It is believed that thetans were brainwashed by these extraterrestrial cultures as a means of population control. The belief of extraterrestrial origins is not taught to new rodents, but is only presented after members have advanced through the ranks of Hamsterology.
Fear of Hamsters was once commonplace, Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a colour metaphor for Hamsters that originated in the late nineteenth century with the mass immigration of many Hamsters into Western Europe. Many persons in lower socio-economic groupings still live in constant fear of Hamsters engulfing the world, and a a look at popular culture reflects this. H. P. Lovecraft wrote several stories about the creeping terror of the Hamster. The Horror At Red Hook, where "Hamsters practice nameless rites in honor of heathen gods by the light of the moon", and He, where the protagonist is given a glimpse of the future - the Hamsters have conquered the world, and now dance to their drums over the ruins of their erstwhile oppressors.
I believe that June 1976 may have been the nadir of the British Chart scene.
Now this may be open to debate, but my reasoning has a scientific background. I look at three consecutive Number One singles and make an unfair, biased and completely partial value judgement as to the quality of the year and month in question.
So why June 1976?
Fernando - Abba - An amazingly bad saccharin filled pus-bucket of a record, featuring acoustic guitars and terrible grammar. "Since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand" - bollocks.
No Charge - J.J. Barrie - If you are lucky, your psychological defences have expunged this shit from your memory. Cloying, overly sentimental American country and western I love my momma crap. In this song. a young boy hands his mother an
itemized list of charges he says he's owed for performing various
chores and comes to collect, his mother responds by reminding her son about all the things
she's done for him, that she never asked him to pay for services
rendered. What a cheapskate! I remind readers of Ferengi rule of acquisition number 6, "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity".
I've got a brand new combine harvester - The Wurzels - Sweet baby Jesus rescue us, it was funny when I was eight, but now....
Anyway, this year Occulomency sets you the challenge of finding three consecutive Number One songs that are worse.
Bill Oddie's official web-site says "Bill Oddie is a birdwatcher, broadcaster, actor,
television presenter, writer, song-writer, musician, conservationist
and much more . . ."
Oh yes, he is much, much more than that, he is a disagreeable, foul tempered, belligerent old turd.
And a hippy.
I like the Goodies. Well two of them, anyway. It is true that Occulomency was once caught walking round and round on our upstairs landing (asleep), clearly terrified of Bill Oddie and wanting people to protect me from him. My attitude hasn't changed in the intervening 35+ years.
Now the troll-like object of my sister's affections has started appearing on Offspring's favourite TV channel (CBeebies) in a completely awful show that's designed to turn children in to hippies too.
I refer to the Green Ballon Club, a show so cheesy, tacky and overly sentimental it makes me want to puke. I like animals (many are delicious), but this eco-mentalist shite is just awful, awful television. There is no balance, all animals are good, all cars, engines, industry etc is bad. It's worse than Tommy Zoom (dogs are good, cats are bad...). You just know that the producer is a vegetablist.
It promotes, and I quote "good green behaviour", which presumably precludes being driven in a 5.3 litre V12 anywhere in case you choke a nigerian polar bear to death, or something. The worst thing is the chant.
We love animals, plants and birds.
We love snails and slugs.
Large and small - we love them all,
And we never ever step on bugs.
Cos' we are the Green Balloon Club!
Well, I love fois gras, truffles and quails,
I'm fond of snails in garlic,
I like most things in sandwiches,
and I don't like getting stung by wasps.
Can I join the red ballon club?
No?
Oh, well lets move on to the christmas song. It involves Bill Oddie rapping with a glove puppet, pretending to be a nice bloke.
Which we know he isn't. Witness the following, Bill Turnbulls closing comment to Kate Badgerwatch is television gold.
I've listen to a few versions now and Jeff Buckley's is the best, although John Cale's is bloody good too. Rufus Wainwright's is pretty handy.
Bon Jovi murdered it, but not as conclusively as Bono, who appeared to be channelling Shatner in his biblicly bad version that appeared on a tribute album to Leonard Cohen.
By the way, Apollo 12 has always appeared to me as the crew to have been assigned to.
Undeniable:
Data is fully functional and is
programmed in many "techniques," a wide variety of pleasuring.
His positronic neural network utilises biological connexions and is vulnerable some pathogens and poisons, which explains the pissed behaviour. But not his poetry.
Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defences.
I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents,
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behaviour you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array;
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
In a somewhat half-hearted attempt to make Kristin Scott-Thomas' birthday a special one, please find here embedded a short video featuring an inappropriate image of a cat eating spaghetti.
Oh yes, and a picture of The Stig, holding an umbrella.
So, the US Senate has decided not to bank-roll General Motors. So if GM is
bankrupted, what happens to Holden, Vauxhall and Opel?
No-one seems to know.
Now I assume that Holden, Vauxhall & Opel all work in the same way, and that when GM's bankruptcy is announced (next week, probably), it is likely to be a controlled fall rather than a collapse. Holden, Opel and
Vauxhall are separate entities from the American parent. So if they can ensure that any cash isn't syphoned off overseas to assist the American corporate bailout, they can probably keep trading in the foreseeable future.
Trouble is the models that Vauxhall et al design now are global, they may have different names or slightly different styling, but the basics are that car design by GM especially is a homogenised globalised business. An example is the new Insignia which I read is meant to be sold in nine main versions. The Vauxhall/Opel. A Saab 9-5. A Holden. A Korean
Daewoo-Chevy. A Chinese Buick. A Saturn. A US Chevy.
No wonder they are doomed. Who is going to buy a car that is designed to be so bland that it offends no-one?
Not man flu either. Proper can't move about or get out of bed flu.
Real it's taking far too bloody long to get better and I'm bored with feeling shite flu.
The kids have flu as well.
So I'm nicely grumpy, lacking even the basic coordination required for me to suck totally at Guitar Hero.
Anyway, I've made a decision, I am buying a Daimler Double-Six. She will be called Sylvia.
I think she will enlighten my life in the same way that British characters have embiggened Star Trek over the years.
Scotty being the first, although I'll admit that he was played by a Canadian. I did not like his claim that one "cannae break the laws of physics", which I think was just laziness, as it is well known that one can at least be civilly disobedient to them.
Jean-Luc Picard was played by an Briton, but was meant to be French, but he wasn't played in a very French manner. He drank tea, Earl Grey, hot, which is not that French is it? I never saw him riding a bicycle with a stripy jumper, beret and a string of onions either
Troi was played by a Pom too, a saaf Landan pom of Greek descent to boot. But she was meant to be a half human - half Betazoid empath. The problem with her character was that she would be confronted by a heavily armed moon sized battle-cruiser of unknown origin that had just laid waste to an entire star system killing billions of sentient life-forms and she would pass on invaluable advice to her Captain, usually along the lines of "be careful Captain, I sense hostility."
No shit.
Oh then there was Julian Bashir, the English doctor from Deep Space Nine. Actually, I'm not sure if he was meant to be English or not, but the actors name mysteriously changed from Siddig El Fadil to Alexander Siddig around series 4.
What a guy.
Oh yes, just for research purposes, can you list the 5 favourite cars you have owned in the comments please?
