Oh heavens.
It’s Rock Week on The X Factor. Well. Er, “rock” week. So far nobody really seems to have grasped the concept of rock music.
But you know the music industry is in a bad state when a member of Take That tries to explain to a member of N-Dubz what rock is…
Ahem.
…defining it as:
It’s not a pop song with a guitar stuck on it.
I can hear a lot of turning in graves going on right now.
Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t find me within a mile of a TV set showing The X Factor or one of its similarly idiotic clones.
I say “under normal circumstances” because, although I passionately despise mass-produced pop music and the artificially made pop stars that generally serve as a vehicle to its producers, with the start of this year’s X Factor series, special circumstances seem to have arisen:
Janet Devlin.
Janet Devlin at her X Factor audition (before that awful makeover where some idiot stylist smoothed out her beautiful hair)
It’s a shame, really, that she’s having to try to get signed via the Simon Cowell machinery which – should she win – will probably land her captivating voice on an album full of soul-less production-line pop songs that will be heard and forgotten as soon as the Christmas sale is over. Because this incredibly talented, elf-like and utterly likeable young woman deserves a career of making her own music and being her own, beautiful self.
I sincerely hope that, no matter what the Cowell Commercialisation Cult churns out this time, Janet will be able to “get there” and be a successful artist on her own terms.
Check out the audition video and you’ll see what I mean.
And due to these special circumstances, I’m now spending my Saturday evenings watching a programme I’d vowed I would never support, and spending 35p a week on text vote.
Well. I’m a sucker for a good voice.
Spotted this morning on the train, in some women’s magazine (a weekly of the celebrity / gossip kind I would guess from the tasteless design) in a young woman’s lap.
On the left-hand page of a spread: Advertorial recipe feature promoting luscious-looking cupcakes.
On the right-hand page of the same spread: Huge red headline for the crash diet feature “Lose 5lb in one week!”
I’m not even going to go into the whole screwed-up body images and imposed beauty norms kind of stuff.
But still, I’m just as puzzled by the question how any editor with a shred of integrity can sign off such a spread as I am amazed that there are actually thousands of women out there who are willing to pay money to put themselves through the self-imposed emotional torture that these magazines promote.
It’s time for another round of book reviews. Same idea as before. In the second half of the year, I’ve moved on from reading mostly Moore and Pratchett to some American classics (and some that will certainly find their place among the new classics), some randoms, and – okay – some more Pratchett.
So, here’s the bookshelf from June to August. I’m determined to go through with this until the end of the year, so there will probably be another round or two later on. Some of the books I read recently have reminded me how much I used to love American literature. So expect some more of that. And feel free to make recommendations in the comments.
Mort
by Terry Pratchett | amazon (UK)
The idea of a mortal young man becoming Death’s apprentice / holiday cover and getting himself into all sorts of supernatural trouble certainly makes for an entertaining story. The style is very Pratchett, which is always a good thing. Sadly, aside from Death (who totally rocks on any appearance throughout Discworld), the characters just didn’t get to me. I didn’t massively care about their fate, which also means I wasn’t too bothered about the outcome of the story. Maybe it’s because of the main character, Mort, who’s just not very interesting. I had a similar problem with the male protagonist in The Truth – they’re both all right, but they’re just a bit flat. In contrast, all of Pratchett’s female characters I’ve come across so far have been multidimensional and complex, with contradicting good and dark sides, and very distinct quirks and attitudes. It seems to me as if Pratchett is putting a lot more attention into the creation of his female characters, embellishing their personalities with a massive amount of those feminine kind of details you don’t necessarily expect to ever even cross a man’s mind. Mort is still a good book though, just not one of those that I will remember for a long time.
Read it? Depends on how big a Pratchett fan you are.
One easy step: http://pausefacescully.blogspot.com/
I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I was to find this blog. Not because of the images – I have at least 10 screenshots of Scully from every episode*, and better ones too. But it’s quite reassuring to know that I’m not the only nutcase out there who stops and screenshots her X-Files DVDs every few minutes purely for the enjoyment a trademark Agent Scully Face.
Click here to view in its full glory size
Now stop looking at me strange. Everybody is entitled to a little obsession in life. Or three.
* Or at least I had, until some fucktard junkie broke into my flat and stole my laptop along with everything else that was worth a penny…
Gregg Wallace and John Torode do the Buttery Biscuit Base rap. Because we all know that in the end, it all comes down to the pudding, really.
I think this is actually my favourite new song of the year.
I like lists. I like to keep track of things. I hate it when somebody asks me which books I have read recently, and I know that there are some great titles somewhere at the back of my mind that I could shout out – but when I try to remember the author’s names, the covers, stories and characters, my fuzzy brain mashes everything up into a big blob of literary goo while I try to get hold of any one title that I could pull out of the mess.
Therefore I have embarked upon the attempt to remember all the books I’ve read this year and write down a few thoughts about them. Just to keep everything neat and organised. Of course this is only part one becuase there’s a whole lot of year left, and I have got a load of books on my wish list for the second half of 2011.
Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade
by Patrick Dennis | amazon (UK)
My little darling! Auntie Mame is one of the most dazzling characters I’ve ever come across in literature. Spreading her charms at the centre of this fictional memoir of a boy raised by his rich, eccentric aunt in 1920s New York, Mame is a socialite slightly ahead of her time, who turns her nephew’s life into a mad fairground ride with one outrageous adventure chasing the next.
Told in the author’s sarcastic, down-to-earth voice, Mame’s airy, naively radical ideas and attitudes turn into comedy of the finest kind. But Dennis’ very detailed observations of the fashion, the mindsets and the manners of the time add a distinct shine to the slapstick, sweeping you up in a sensation of the glamour and luxury of an era that you’ll find yourself struggling to step out of again. This book is an exquisite treat – it’s that feeling of eating a whole box of fancy chocolates that you know you can’t afford.
Read it? Yes, yes, yes!
I just had a dessert that featured all of the following:
I was going to tweet about it, but my dessert is so big, it beats twitter by 67 characters.
Which is why you are reading this.
Last year’s Eurovision live tweet / blog review was mostly a result of watching the final partly out of boredom and partly in protest against a) my granny hanging up on me mid-conversation so she could watch it and b) my general annoyance with the event and everybody being all excited about it. And it turned out to be a lost more fun than I’d thought. Mostly because the entertainment factor was greatly enhanced by the integration of twitter into the viewing experience.
So this year I’m actually quite looking forward to watching the final. (Boyfriend looks less than thrilled.)
And here we go.
Seeing the presenters brings back painful memories of watching TV at home. Anke Engelke (the one in the dress that looks like she slaughtered a flock of swans and then rolled around in their blood-soaked feathers) was pretty much our first successful female comedian on TV. Which was enough for her to become famous, without actually being funny. And Stefan Raab, the butcher-turned-TV presenter who at some point started to consistently write / sing / produce the most appalling music, and yet somehow managed to become incredibly influential in the country’s music scene. The blonde – no clue. But she must be wearing at least twenty rolls of aluminium foil.
Anyway. Here are my thoughts while watching the 25 acts in the final, taken straight from my twitter timeline.
Watch this. It’s. Fucking. Awesome.