The White Elephant in the Room

Both sides of the Alternative Vote debate have used anti-BNP posters in their respective campaigns. This has subsequently given the BNP free publicity. The BNP get so much of this from debates and news coverage that I think it may be time to turn this disgusting side of British politics into the white elephant in the room.

Since Nick Griffin went on Question Time, an edition which saw the program’s ratings quadruple, the BNP have been a main stay in the media. Politicians point at them to say “at least we’re not as bad as them” and the majority of the public shake there heads and tut at how despicable these people are. Britain loves a hate figure, after all.

The problem is there is a small pocket of the population, disaffected and usually poorly educated, who are easily manipulated. This group of people may see the BNP as the party who speak for them, and with that they will switch from being someone who usually would not be remotely interested in politics to part of the BNP’s ever-growing vote share.

You may think I’m doom mongering and am jumping to conclusions. But shortly after the Question Time episode my friend found a particularly disturbing Youtube channel. It contained several webcam rants praising the BNP and their politics, and the person ranting just happened to go to school with us.

He was younger than me and I didn’t know him at all, but I was aware of who he was, and that he was bullied and had learning difficulties. These are, unfortunately, exactly the types of people who the BNP attract. It is exploitative, yes, but this is not helped by the amount of exposure they get. And it is even worse for politicians to consistently point out just how awful they are. Don’t get me wrong, if one political party had to be bullied it should be the BNP, but it is bullying. Just look at that edition of Question Time. Some people, possibly like the person from my school, can identify with that.

So drop the beating and just ignore. The world will be a much happier place if we didn’t have to hear about Nick Griffin and his ugly politics. Let him pay for his own publicity.

A Man That Makes Me Want To Grow A Beard

On his Screenwipe program a few years ago Charlie Brooker had a wonderful running segment called “The 10 Biggest Cocks in Advertising.” I’ve posted some links below, and I would like to make a late edition to the list.

Gillette have had issues with advertising ever since “the curse”. Having paid Tiger Woods. Thierry Henry and Roger Federer amounts of money that would make Donald Trump blush to advertise Gillette products the company found itself in a bind after they all had a rather spectacular fall from grace. Woods cheated on his wife repeatedly and, for a bizarre couple of weeks, was the biggest news story in the world. Thierry Henry handled the ball deliberately in a world cup qualifier to cheat his team to victory. Roger Federer, well it wasn’t so much a fall from grace, he just lost a couple of tennis matches. It was definitely time for a rebrand.

Unfortunately they employed a man to advertise their new ProGlide range that is so irritating it beggars belief. He makes you want to put Mika on full volume just to drown him out. The man enters a random bathroom with a camera crew and an infuriating “whoop!” before accosting a man mid-shave. After the shaver complains about his current razor, the new Gillette ProGlide is presented to him by the cocky asshole, and, by Jove; the new razor is only bloody better. The horrible man has saved the day, and he proudly proclaims that the new razor will turn “skeptics in to believers.” It’s a bloody razor! The only time I’d be skeptical is if it was made out of wine gums, or had a severed ear next to it or something.

Most annoyingly of all, the advert is on roughly 7,000,000 times a day. Gillette ProGlide man, congratulations! You are my biggest cock in advertising.

And for the record, I quite like Mika.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiwmYjk9ARA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik7bDGQ4uO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS5TikydXgM

Shameless Plug Alert!

This blog post is a bit of a cheat, as I’m not writing anything new, just shamelessly plugging stuff I’ve already written. Think of this post as the Dave channel or UK Gold. If you like this blog, get yourself over to http://thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress It’s an online satirical newspaper, which I have recently started writing for. Here are some of my stories. Enjoy!

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=2980

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=2973

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3046

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3039

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3098

http://www.thehaddock.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3101

The Rise of the Smug and Bored

This week a group of activists, led by the Taxpayers Alliance, announced they would be holding “The Rally Against Debt” on May 14^th. The demonstration is for showing the government support over their public sector cuts, and is a direct response to the TUC organized anti-cuts protest, which saw around 500,000 people descend upon London.

The Chief organizers for the event are Matthew Sinclair, one of the directors of the Taxpayers Alliance, and Annabelle Fuller, a former aide to Ukip leader Nigel Farage. The guidelines for the march, as outlined on the rally’s website, say "Any visits to Fortnum & Mason's by protesters will only be to marvel at their selection of quality goods and perhaps make the occasional purchase. Bonfires will be strictly forbidden: it's out of season anyway. Trips to see Vodafone and other high street chains will result in congratulations to the company for providing jobs and growth in the UK." This was a hilarious nod to the minority protesters who caused trouble at the TUC rally.

First things first. Why would anyone in their right mind want to publicly back the cuts? If you are in favor of them then surely you can be in favor of them in private. To march in support of them is rubbing it in the faces of the thousands of people who are going to lose their jobs over the next year.

Since when have there been demonstrations supporting what the government is doing? Surely the whole point of staging protests is to oppose something. That’s why they’re called protests! For this demonstrations you might as well have the cabinet be driven around on an open top bus through London, throw in some cheerleaders and some flags and call it a pep-rally.

The people organizing are not the most appetizing people. The Taxpayers Alliance is a ridiculous organization, which in no way incorporates all UK taxpayers. In fact one of their directors doesn’t even pay tax as he lives in France. Ukip is a political party who are short on actual policies, mostly they just don’t want to be part of Europe anymore.

The fact is that they are being deliberately antagonistic. The people who participate in this march won’t have been affected by the cuts, don’t like the TUC, they are clearly rather delusional and want to force the other side in to confrontation. This is why their rally was announced so far in advance. They want anti-cuts protesters to come out, for some of them to get violent as they did last time, which will lessen the credibility of the anti-cuts movement. A movement which is being roundly ignored anyway.

These people just seem to me to be smug and bored. They’ve got nothing better to do with their weekends then to get behind a cause which means absolutely nothing. The rally is pointless.

So if you support the cuts then that is fine. Just don’t shout about it.

April Fools!

April Fools Day has come and gone, with some absolutely cracking pranks being conducted by the media.

I, too, participated in the joy. I sent a text message to my housemate saying that our council tax was going to be doubled. He wasn’t a happy boy, but caught on to the joke a day later.

I reported on Facebook that I was moving to New York in 3 weeks. A couple of people almost bought it, but generally I just got abuse with my personal favorite comment being “I hope this is true. Good riddance.”

My final prank was the riskiest. I e-mailed my Dad telling him I had got a stranger pregnant. This really backfired as he sent me the nicest e-mail in the world back reassuring me that everything would be fine etc. I doused the flames very quickly with the rather pathetic response “I feel awful now. April Fools!!!!” I don’t think he’s forgiven me yet.

Anyway, here are a few of my personal favorites from last Friday.

http://www.rfu.com/News/2011/March/News%20Articles/310311_Plane_kicking.aspx

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/8419754/Wasps-to-fly-the-flag-for-St-George-for-charity-game-against-Bath-at-Twickenham.html

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/04/01/coalition-plans-tax-on-fresh-air-to-help-improve-environment-115875-23029434/

Don't look directly at The Sun

On a day when there were two civil wars being fought, one of which Britain is directly involved with, still the possibility of a nuclear meltdown following a tsunami in Japan, debates about the controversial NHS reforms, further cuts to the MoD being announced and an ongoing murder investigation going on in Wiltshire, The Sun on Monday opted to go for the front page headline “I’m three times the size of my twin.” That’s right. The front page of the newspaper with the highest circulation in the UK went with a hard hitting real life story about a twin who has a condition which makes her fat on a day when all those other things were happening.

I think it might have been the twin thing which swung the decision. I mean no one wants to see an individual person with a glandular condition on the front page of their paper. It’s all about the juxtaposition you see. One twin is fat despite eating healthily, and one twin is thin despite apparently gorging on cakes and chips all day.

I think it might just be me, but this isn’t really news, is it? This is the kind of thing you’d find in the true-life story section of Take a Break magazine, right? As touching as the story is, how on earth is it headline worthy? Even the whole pointless furor about Wayne Rooney swearing at a camera would be better.

I hate the way The Sun takes itself so seriously. If you’re going to fill you pages with lies, tits and casual racism at least have the decency to admit to it. Don’t pretend you’re a real newspaper. It’s like the Radio Times suddenly proclaiming the magazine to be the home of investigative journalism just because Brian Tru-May said stupid, newsworthy things in an interview with them.

This is the publication that proudly proclaims to have won elections for David Cameron and Tony Blair by backing them. How arrogant and self-important do you have to be to make these claims?

The worst thing about The Sun, and there are many more bad things I haven’t mentioned, is how it treats it’s readers like idiots. They carefully explain each story in the way a parent explains to a toddler how a toilet works. It’s patronizing beyond belief.

This underestimation of the audience is why The Sun got stick for their story about Gordon Brown misspelling a dead soldiers name in a letter of condolence to the parents. The Sun thought the readers would lap up anything anti-Brown like thirsty dogs. The readers, however, thought ‘well that was an incredibly nice of him to take time out from running the country to write a personal letter. Plus, he only has around 30% visibility so misreading things must be commonplace for him. I’m not buying this.’

What I do like about The Sun, however, is the little text box at the top of page 3, which usually says something like “Becky, 19, agrees that the no-fly zone is a good idea. “On the whole, if it has the back of both The Arab League as well as The UN then it is only right that it is imposed. Gaddafi should not be allowed to slaughter and maim his own people any longer.”” Becky said that! The one with her breasts out!

But everything else I truly despise.

The Debt Generation

Watching the student protests was a breath of fresh air. It has been a long time since the British public has showed such blatant animosity towards the powers that be. Who can blame them for getting a little anarchic? The 3 biggest protest marches of the last 10 year; the countryside alliance march, the anti Iraq war march and last weekends anti cuts march, have been completely ignored by the respective governments.

I was comparatively lucky with the cost of my education. I managed to do my bachelors just before Labour introduced the first top up fees. Therefore my entire 3 years costs slightly more then a single term will cost at Oxford shortly. Even the MA I’m studying for only costs a little over £4000 for the 2 years. I’m in roughly £10000 worth of debt so I can understand the sheer frustration younger people must be feeling over the fact they will owe 5 times as much.

I think the hardest thing to swallow for young people about the top up fees, and to an extent the cuts in general, are the generation that are handing the ruling down. The “baby boomer” generation went to University for free, had grammar schools to support the brightest amongst the poorer classes, had a much better housing market that made it easier for them to purchase a property and they had a much freer job market.

They’re the same generation who caused the financial meltdown, which the younger generations are going to have to pay for. A meltdown, which has consequently collapsed the housing market and has forced the government into massive cuts in the public sector, as well as 100’s of business’s going under in the private sector. The outcome of this is that our generation are seriously going to struggle in the housing market, and getting a job is going to get more and more difficult. No wonder the student protests got violent.

It is unfair to bundle an entire generation of people together, and it was obviously very difficult to foresee this outcome. It is just a little hard to swallow for us young folk. If our generation is as careless again then this will happen all over again, and it will be even more difficult to get back. There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of young people, and perhaps lumbering them with £50,000 worth of debt before they’ve even got started seems ridiculous.

My New Least Favourite Person

Whilst doing research for a recent piece of work I had the sever displeasure of reading 5 opinion pieces by Daily Mail nut-job Richard Littlejohn. Now it is hard to articulate my utter disdain for this man, so what I’ve decided to do is publish the short hand notes I took whilst reading his work. The piece I was working on was a parody piece written by a Littlejohn style writer. Here’s what I came up with. Please excuse the language, I got a little angry.

· Start off sympathetically. End up criticizing what you were being sympathetic towards in the first place.

· Accuse whole nations and groups of people of things with absolutely no proof e.g. calling the Japanese “militantly racist” despite saying you know nothing about their culture earlier in the paragraph.

· Pretend to be representing Britain with your opinions. Critical patriotism idiocy.

· Use only negative language. Never mention anything positive.

· Criticize modern Britain as much as possible e.g. our “ghastly cult of sentimentality.

· Refer to the left as often as possible, and refer to them as a single, evil entity

· Anything non-Christian is pure evil. Especially Islam.

· Refer to Daily Mail readers who have written in. Use their points of view to confirm your argument, despite people who write into the Daily Mail being equally as fucking crazy.

· Trivialize tragedy.

· Make claims, but don’t bother to check facts. Achieve this with language like “I may be mistaken”.

· What ever you’re writing about, always come back to how it affects Britain, even if it’s irrelevant.

· False accusations are always fun. Especially if you make them seem substantial with things you’ve made up.

· Always, in every single bloody piece, use the term “political correctness gone mad”. Its good to have a catch phrase.

· Most importantly: SENSATIONALISE EVERYTHING.

So if these qualities in a writer are up your street then get over to the Mail website and check him out. Personally I am debating whether to pack in my job, say goodbye to my loved ones and spending the rest of my life trying to make Richard Littlejohn’s life a living nightmare. I think I’ll start with acquiring planning permission for a mosque to be built on the street he lives on.

The man is an eyelash away from inciting racial hatred, yet he writes for a paper with one of the highest circulation rates in the country. The man must be stopped.

For more information on Richard Littlejohn fast forward to 4 mins 50 on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

Who Killed the Kings?

It was just one of those perfect gigs that will stick in your memory forever. A beautiful summers evening and Kings of Leon, Second to last on the bill to Razorlight, troop on to the stage to play to the biggest crowd of the weekend. The opening chords to Black Thumbnail reverberate through the speakers and the crowd goes suitably insane.

Fast forward 2 years and Kings are back, but this time headlining off the back of a couple of huge radio hits, which won them a whole new fan base. This should be a crowning moment for the band, but something has changed. They’re met by stony faces and polite applause. The whole atmosphere is awkward, and this winds the band up so much they have a hissy fit and storm off the stage at the end of there set. A guitar even goes flying into the crowd. So what has changed?

Kings of Leon used to be one of the coolest bands in the world. They had a modest, but steadily growing group of fanatical fans. They managed to headline Glastonbury without ever having a top ten hit. Then the song Sex on Fire came out and everything went crazy in the world of the Kings.

There is no denying some hardcore music fans are irrationally fickle. At my university there was a group of musos I knew who would dance to a band one week, the band would get some radio play, and the next time the DJ played them they would stand resolutely at the side of the dance floor waiting for the song to finish.

The less fickle fans, however, just find it very difficult to share. It is a strange thing experiencing a band you’ve loved since their humble beginnings being played on Capital FM 37 times a day. Bands you ironically spent 10 years telling anyone who would listen how great they were. With people like this there is an acceptable level of success. I saw Arcade Fire playing the O2 in November. “It’s strange. We’ve sold out this ginormous arena for 2 nights and we’ve never even had a hit.” Said front man Win Butler towards the end of a wonderful gig. And in there lies the secret to keeping your fan base.

Kings of Leon are now one of the biggest bands in the world. They sell out stadiums and sell records by the truckload. Yet they’ve lost most of the fans that propelled them to a position to take over the world. It’s not their fault they came up with such an excruciatingly catchy song. Its not there fault the whole world loved it. You cannot begrudge them their success. But I miss the little band that only a couple of people had heard of. I wish that song had never happened, but it did. Sometimes you’ve just got to let them go.

TV Snobbery

I’ve found myself increasingly isolated recently. As I add more and more television programs to my list labeled ‘avoid at all costs’ my friends seem to be going the other way. Even a friend who’s taste I thoroughly respect has admitted an addiction to My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

I really don’t mean to be a snob; I just don’t see why I should sit through One Born Every Minute when there is so much quality visual treats around at the moment. Since the arrival of Sky Atlantic my Sky+ box has been groaning under the strain of series linked heavyweight dramas and groundbreaking comedies. But I have no one to talk about them with. Hardly any of my friends have even heard of Treme, let alone know enough about it to have a boring conversation with me about it’s wonderful portrayal of post Katrina New Orleans over a pint.

What they will talk about is the ‘good fun’ Take Me Out, or the ‘hilarious’ Jersey Shore. I get a lot of stick for being a snob so I decided to give these two a go. I managed to get through twenty minutes of Take Me Out. I really tried to get through it but it just made me so very angry. It is essentially a poor mans Blind Date, and Blind Date wasn’t exactly a tour de force to start with. Take Me Out was better than Jersey Shore though, that made me want to give up on the human race altogether. I had to switch over to Wonders of the Universe to remember just how insignificant the idiots on Jersey Shore really are.

I really don’t look down on these programs, or the people who watch them. On the contrary I really wish I could share in the enjoyment. They’re just really not for me. I do have guilty pleasures like the occasional X Factor series, or my frankly unhealthy obsession with Eastenders. But, in general, I think I’ll stick to being a snob.

Ticket Touts

There has been talk in the last few weeks of capping the amount you can charge for event ticket re-sales to 10% more than they were purchased for. As a keen live music and comedy fan I am all for this, I just really can’t see it working.

The most I’ve ever paid over the odds for a ticket was £200, which was roughly a 116% mark up, for Reading Festival the year Rage Against The Machine returned. It was definitely worth it, but obviously a 10% mark up would have been preferable. The problem was that there were virtually no tickets on eBay, and absolutely zero being sold by the touts outside, due to the popularity of the event.

Would this cap mean that a first come first served policy being used on resale now? Where does it stop? What if you bought the tickets on eBay but couldn’t go yourself? Could you then charge and extra 10% percent? And how exactly would you enforce this rule on touts?

Don’t get me wrong, touts drive me insane. I’ve been ripped off too many times to pretend it’s not a dirty, dishonest business. But they are clever, and they would find a way around the 10%. What else are they going to do? Become used car salesmen?

You’ll notice at this point that, in true blogger form, I am not offering any sort of solution, just complaining about a problem. This is due to lack of intelligence and expertise in the event industry. I’ll pop out to the library and get back to you.

Injury on the Tube

I recently injured my ankle football. I’d love to tell you it was the result of a heroic last-ditch tackle, which won us the game. In fact I just stood on it awkwardly after around 70 seconds of play. I consequently had to travel around on crutches for a couple of weeks.

When you are on crutches Londoners show themselves in a whole new light. They were amazing. In those few weeks I had people holding doors open for me, people giving up seats for me on the tube, TFL workers helping me through the gates, I even made eye contact with a few people! One woman became so incensed with a man pushing in front of me to get a seat on the tube she properly told him off. I felt like the most loved man in the city.

A couple of weeks later I ditched the crutches, but my ankle was still in an awful lot of pain. The problem; is how do you make other commuters aware of this? On one journey I had been stood up for 20 minutes and my ankle was excruciating. A seat became available and I shuffled into it ahead of a couple of other people. One women looked at me with such severity that I might of just spat on a close relatives grave. I tried readjusting my ankle support whilst contorting my face into a permanent grimace, but the damage was done.

So my advice to anyone who suffers from a leg injury and lives in London; keep the crutches with you until you are able to stand for a full journey or suffer the wrath of the angry commuter stare.

The Great Census Debate

Last week the British public was subjected to the 2011 Census. The penalty for not filling out your form is supposedly £1000, although less than 100 people were fined back in 2001. There have been a lot of complaints about the forms, and I’m not at all sure why.

Some say it is too intrusive. I wholeheartedly disagree with this. It doesn’t ask you about your sexual preference, your wage, your lifestyle, whether you smoke or drink, your hobbies and commitments, how you spend your money, hell, even if you’re a Satanists you can abstain from answering the question about religion. It asks very general questions about your health, your work and your living arrangements. You don’t give anywhere near enough information which the evil powers that be can use to exploit you.

Some have said it is too long and time consuming. I can confirm that I’ve spent twice as long on this blog thus far, which probably says more about me than the contents of my Census form.

It is wrong that they got arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin to help with the logistics however. It seems like a bizarre choice and should probably be explained properly by the people involved.

On the whole, though, I like the Census. I like the idea of a little snap shot of British history being taken. So I’m happy to do it, and I look forward to doing it again in 10 years time. Oh, and I didn’t put my religion as Jedi.

Twitter is 5

Twitter is 5! In a week when so much real news is happening, this story is getting an awful lot of play. Am I the only one who really doesn’t get its appeal?

I’m addicted to Facebook, as much as I want to hate it. It’s like National Rail or the iPhone; as much as it can drive you insane and wish that you didn’t use it so much, you can’t live without it.

But Twitter, to me, just seems to be for self-indulgent celebrities and media types who can’t be bothered to do any proper research. I have tried using it but I just couldn’t get in to it. Maybe if I had more than 15 followers, the vast majority of them being naughty lady types trying to get me to join naughty websites, I’d like it more. But so many tweets are so dull and pointless it just annoys me. I don’t think people really have any interest in what I’m doing, and if they did I’d be a little freaked out.

There are some quite funny tweeters. I’m a fan of Tim Key’s 140-character poetry, and the Bronx cobra amused me this week. But the majority of it seems pointless.

I don’t care what’s trending, I just want to talk to my friends and post snide little in jokes to them. Therefore Facebook is all I need.

I will inevitably be a hypocrite and start using it again at some point, but for now I will remain ignorantly perplexed by the world of Twitter. Happy Birthday!

I'm Going to WrestleMania!

I have a confession to make. I do this at the risk of alienating friends, causing panicky phone calls from family members and most likely never receiving any female attention ever again. I, a 24-year-old man, am a huge fan of WWE wrestling.

I know what you’re thinking; this is pretty rich coming from someone who wrote a blog about being a TV snob, but I can’t help it! WrestleMania is on this weekend and I’m so excited I might cry.

I started watching it again when I moved to London after university. I was very poor and didn’t have many friends in the city, so my flat mate and me would religiously record Raw (WWE’s weekly show) and watch it when we got home from work. We also paid rather a lot of money on pay-per-view events.

Most people, including myself, grow out of it around the age of 15. You give it up to watch ‘proper sport’ or to chase girls. But watching it as an adult you see it in a completely different light.

Firstly it is like Hollyoaks for boys. However instead of the usual Hollyoaks slagging matches the wrestlers beat the crap out of each other. What’s not to love? Okay so the story lines are absurd, but that’s what makes it charming. The WWE are better at creating instant hate figures than Big Brother, and that’s saying something.

Secondly you have to admire the wrestlers athleticism. We all know that it’s fake, but these guys put their bodies through hell every night of the week. Imagine jumping off a 10-foot ladder right onto your back every single evening. Compare that to the footballers, who need to be rested for midweek games and tell me who the real athlete is.

Finally, and most importantly, it’s the nostalgia that I love. This Sunday Hollywood movie star The Rock is back in the ring, as is Triple H, The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It excites the 14-year-old inside of you and makes you forget about the unbearable realities in your life.

So judge me if you like, but I am not ashamed. Roll on WrestleMania!

Junk Mail

A word of advice to anyone living in London: Don’t bother putting a “no junk mail” sticker on your letterbox. It will only encourage them.

Junk mail delivered to my house this week includes 3 Indian restaurant menus, 1 leaflet from the conservative, a local gym directory, a farm foods catalogue, a car insurance leaflet, an advertising postcard for a landscape gardening company and 2 local papers. Perfect for a person who doesn’t particularly like curry, who is a liberal, who doesn’t exercise much, who has no need to buy food in bulk, who doesn’t drive, who is not the homeowner and only has a communal garden and who is virtually illiterate.

There was a leaflet from the local constabulary though. Nice to know they’re there. I think I’ll keep hold of that one.

Oh, and for any tutors reading this, I’m not illiterate really.