Punishment, part II

Damn! You know what I forgot in my inexhaustible round-up of awful music-related puns? I forgot those damn Libertines and associated stupid drug freak bands. OK. I can see that you're unimpressed, as well you might be. After all, you've been fooled by the media's love for all things Libertines. Then you listened to them, and were so unimpressed you were inclined never to believe anything anyone told you ever again. Yes, musically, they're uninventive. Lyrically, they're as poor as a sixth form and an equal number of typewriters. Facially, they look like pasty indie urchins who haven't experienced the joys of vitamin D for some time.

But.

They are abusers of not just the heroin, but also the written word.

OK, here we go, but don't blame me if you never want to see the the English language again. The Libertine's debut single was called 'What a Waster'. The puns were kept under control after that, until Pete Doherty's drug and play-on-words habits got too much, and he left and formed an offshoot band called 'Babyshambles'. Whose first single was called 'Killamangiro'. Christ. Who know's what they'll do next. The one thing for certain though is that the media coverage will be entirely disproportionate to the listenability of the records.

Jamie Cullum

Right. People hate Jamie Cullum. This isn't (just) prejudice; I've got cast-iron anecdotal figures to back me up. As a young metropolitan gadabout, I have cause to use the Underground (on which, I'm reliably informed, the only two coffins to be transported are those of William Gladstone and Dr Barnardo). Given the vast spending power of the bored and alienated commuters, poster adverts are affixed to many of the parts of the Tube. In my broad and majestic experience, not many of these get vandalised. I've seen a few "Esso eat babies and have never cried human tears" stickers stuck on the posters of large corporations, but nothing has struck me as much as the level of permanent marker-based abuse meted out to cheery young piano-thumper Jamie Cullum.

He's pictured, grinning like an ecstasy-befuddled Jehovah's Witness at the final reckoning, leaping as a taurine-addled salmon would high above a gorgeous sunset (pictured below in its comparatively rare unvandalised state and at a daring angle because I had to leap off a Victoria Line train in order to take it, and was understandably self-conscious about being seen to jump off, brazenly take a photo of a Jamie Cullum poster and then scurry back on, looking all too excited. Worse still, I couldn't shake off the nagging fear that JC himself was seated further down the carriage, saw the whole thing, and decided to interpret it as justification to carry on his career, which he had hitherto been considering abandoning in order to do something worthwhile with his time):

I'm not exaggerating when I say that on the majority of these posters, someone has taken advantage of the expanse of light plain areas to scrawl demeaning-to-Jamie-Cullum comments speech-bubbled from the frolicking Jamie Cullum mouth. "I'm a twat", "Punch me", this sort of thing. Others, I'm sure, can vouch for this.

Now, I already hold the answer to this question, but in the interests of all things fair, what is it about JC that has so driven the normally law-abiding, if common-decency-flouting, tubegoing public to pick on Cullum so?

[Note: This post has been scanned for even the slightest trace of anti-Cullum sentiment, and as such has been passed as commendably impartial by the Society for the Impartial Treatment of Jazz-Mangling Twats]

Near-Immediate Catchphrase Update: Wobs and IPCGM

Near-immediate update: Google currently has me listed as the 3rd most important person to be wishing people a 'merry wobs'. Get in on the ground floor, and overuse the expression until you seem like a pathetic twenty-something trying desperately to cling to the disappearing hooded top of youth, as well as annoying all those who love you, and baffling and alienating those who might.

As someone who constantly tries to gain worth from comparing themselves to his peers, I note that I'm better than a Belle & Sebastian fan, but less good, in the all-seeing eye of google, than someone called Liz.

Happier news, however, for lovers of neologisms comes with google's assessment of IPCGM. Google only lists its use in two places in correct context, so in your frantic and rather sad attempts to be hep and with it, you can at least be truly one of the pioneers. Use it in an email or forum post today, people. The top google entry for IPCGM can be discounted as a genuine use I think, unless some obscure coder working on an inventory maintenance programme really does think that a sub-routine he's written is political correctness gone mad.

Oh, and those of you with jobs. Yes, you. I have a task for you. If you do anything that is official, carries weight and prestige, then I will give purpose to your snivelling little lives. When you drag your mince pie filled arse back to work whenever that may be, make it one of your priorities to use the word 'cadaverous' in an officially published capacity, be it newsletters, webpages, signs, posters, inserted at random into a book you're publishing, unfurled on a giant banner at a conference or used in context in a piece you're writing for the Guardian. It's a good word, and doesn't get its due. Right this wrong! Let me know how you get on, and you'll make me beam paternally.

Hope You All Had a Happy Wobs

I had a perfectly pleasant one that involved the usual amounts of getting up late, finding out that most of my presents were composed of chocolate and rejoicing in that, drinking from noon, eating too much, wearing a paper hat, going for a jog out of sheer novelty value, competing with my family over who could make the most outrageous comment about the Queen (the winning entry being unpublishable, and the winner currently applying for asylum in France), watching the Will Smith endorsement-whore-a-thon I, Robot, shaving my head completely for the first time (a surprising amount of effort, but less blood that I'd feared), forming a ceilidh band with my father and aunt, and producing a working of Whisky in the Jar that has rather more Latin-jazz whistles, cow-bells and hi-hat than any I've heard, courtesy of my aunt's marvelously retro keyboard and my ceaseless quest for experimentation (coupled with an attention span that can only be measured at the atomic level). In the keyboard stakes, my aunt's still falls into distant second place behind the one currently in my flat that allows us to pretend that we live in a Seinfeld episode via function 66, 'Slap Bass'. To further add to this illusion, I have recently taken to wearing a jacket with jeans, and I own a very white pair of trainers, but modesty prevents me from doing the whole thing too often. Added to my housemates' appalling taste in clothes and haircuts, the illusion would be complete if it weren't for my near pathological aversion to the tucking-in of t-shirts.

Bearing in mind that I'm obviously suffering somekind of withdrawal symptons, I'll leave you with the following links, while I go and brush up on my highly synthesised slap bass technique:

Want to play the apalling bass riff from Seinfeld, but can't bring yourself to listen to it that many times to work it out?

Tell me, source of all wisdom, who composed and played the theme? If you can't give me a full answer, give it your best shot, eh?

What about a site where I can download various audio clips of the Seinfeld show, and a MIDI file of the theme tune giving naffness a whole new sub-definition in the dictionary? Cheers!

Now, I'm not normally one to angle for gifts, but this poster would brighten up any flat, as well as add dignity to its owners.

Nerds, eh? Where would I be without them? Oh, popular and well-adjusted, that's where I'd be.

Anrgriest? Not by a long chalk

Well, it's official. My URL is nothing but a sham of a fraud of a fake of a hoax. I'm not the angriest man. I'm not even the angriest Jim. A short perusal of Angry Jimmy should tell you that. Also there's Broadway Jim, who's NSFW, but who the hell is at work now? Additionally, this joker has stolen my Deadpan Conversations with Shop Sales Staff, invented a time machine, gone back to 1998, and had far more interesting conversations to boot. He's probably made them up though. Having been on the receiving end of some New York service industry people, however, I'm not so sure. When you have a barman look you in the eye and say, 'you're not Jewish, are you?', before they embark on a joke or anecdote, you've got to worry about them and the state of their country. IPCGM!

On the brighter side, there's Angry Jim who's quite a good graphic artist, all things considered.

However, it's too late for me now. I'll either have to become Very Angry, which will probably mean thinking about My Life Story (Click here to see a picture that should have you baying for blood. I'd put it on the main page, rather than link to it, but I respect your right to keep your breakfast down. Only click on that link if you don't mind seeing a glimpse of depravity and ugliness that even your most tranquil meditating monk would smack across the face. Please, don't hit your monitors - it's not real) more than is healthy, or just accept my place in the pecking order (currently Slightly Peeved Man in Crouch End).

Anyway, as the predictive text on my phone has it, have a very merry wobs. If anyone can explain to me what a wobs is, and why it's more important to my phone than xmas, please do. Do mobile phones gather together to share the secrets of their SIM cards at the annual Wobs celebrations, laughing uproariously at the ill-advised photos taken on your cameraphone of you, cross-eyed and bloodshot, with your arm around someone who looks like the Gurning Champion of Norfolk, and deleting those important voicemails while they loll around drinking mulled wine? I think I may have seen that Carphone Warehouse advert with the walking, talking mobile phones one too many times.

Punishment

OK, I've held it off for long enough. I've tried to present myself as something that I'm not. Sorry internet, I've been dishonest. Now that we know each other a bit better, it's time to come clean.

I have a weakness for puns. Plays on words. I'm not proud of it. As part of my therapy, I offer you a warning. Below are some of the worst album titles ever. Bearing in mind that these things needed to be approved by chains of important people, from the band through to beancounters working out how it will play with key demographics, it's amazing that these ended up on our record racks.

The Vinyl Countdown: Album Titles Pun-ching Above Their Weight

Public Enemy (1994): Muse Sick in Our Mess Age
Ouch! It's almost painful to look at, but let me, a soul made of sterner stuff, take you through it. Music and Our Message - yes, they're a political band with things to say, through music. Good so far. But they've been at it for a while, PE, and things haven't got any better: hence 'Mess Age'. That's fine. It's a pun, and both of the double meanings make sense. But, carried away on the power of the pun, they go too far. Music/Muse Sick. Yes, they sound the same, but they've just said, in the title of the record no less, that they're creatively bankrupt, they've run out of ideas; their MUSE is SICK. Too far. They've hoist themselves with their own pun-tard.

Smashing Pumpkins (1995): Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Right. You're a band of goths, you're doing ok out of having lived longer than some of your peers. You've decided that, prog be damned, you're going to release a double CD album which, for some reason best only known to yourselves, is by and large rubbish. You'll have made sure that the only tracks worth listening to have a number in them (Zero, 1979, and stretching credulity, and assuming that you are Prince, 2night, 2night). Now, not forgetting that you're a goth band, what are you going to call it? Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness? Yes, that sounds appropriate, you bald weirdo. What do you mean, it's spelt 'Melon Collie'? A type of fruit and a type of dog? Why, for the love of all that is decent and pure, why? Is it because you're the Smashing Pumpkins? Who knows? It's just a good job you've surrounded yourselves with craven yes-men, who wouldn't dare criticise a sequence of incredibly stupid decisions, eh?

Various: Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins
This one has been committed by the great and the good. And by My Life Story. Talking Heads (the great), started the ball rolling in 1991, by reforming and writing a track called Sax and Violins for a Wim Wenders film. A nice low-key pun there, that might just escape attention. Then came Sparks in 1995 (the good) with their extended version of the pun, the album Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, which is acceptable, but it's been done before, lads. Still, I can accept this from the only man in the western world who persists with the Hitler 'tache. What I can't accept is My Life Story (the unclassifiably bad). For those who can't remember: you're lucky, lucky people. It was the heady days of Britpop, and the fine Divine Comedy were doing ok with their brand of orchestrated aphorisms and loucheness. Then, the unbearably smug Jake Shillingford, who, if you ever get to meet him, is owed a smack in the face from me and anyone who's ever had to listen to one of his records, tried to reproduce the formula, but taking out the charm, good music and human qualities from the mix. Their fanclub (or possibly they called it an information service, aware of the difficulties the word 'fan' might represent) was called 'Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins', and this was around '96, '97. Ugh, I feel sullied.

OK, in my very brief round-up of the genre, which has thus far only included records I've listened to, we come to the final entry:
Westlife (2004): Let Me Be Frank
It's a covers album of Sinatra songs. Supressing... urge... to kill... Westlife... Those pug-faced little stool-dampeners. I'll leave it at that - I'm wasting no more potential RSI on the little twerps.

Anyways, in the season of goodwill to most men, what album title has had you roll your eyes, bite your lip, contort your face and bawl like a baby?

Thought for the Day

The Right Reverend Angriest speaks from the BBC's Religious Affairs studio in Cambridge:

The Chrismas carollers were singing in Crouch End this evening. They went, "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight". Well, that set me thinking. What are my hopes, and more importantly, my fears for 2005?

My fears

1. That all of my opinions and tastes will be matched perfectly by Mojo Magazine, as I become increasing old and conservative. So what if I choose to spend my valuable leisure hours reading a 24-page article slavering over Ringo Starr's solo career?

2. That Donkey from Shrek won't get his own spinoff film, and I'll have to endure Mike Myers' Scottish-ish accent in yet another film (c.f. the Austin Powers films, So I Married an Axe Murderer, and I suspect Wayne's World but I can't remember, and imdb doesn't have a section on outrageous accents, which is an oversight, I think). Think I'm the only one who values the Donkey role as Eddie Murphy's finest hour? Wrong.

3. Becoming the object of Michael Howard's affections, and daily receiving a single red rose with the card bearing stanzas of Michael's explicit love poetry.

I live in a constant state of fear, don't I?

Proof...

...if proof were required that my time off work is being well spent: