lastmanineurope

Blogface - two blogs in the same week, how lucky are you? (that’s not a universal you, it’s the ‘you’ as in – the one or, at a push, two people that read this blog).

I have a few things on my mind that I’d like to write about and I’ll start with my vegetarian “adventure”. So far it’s going quite well. I don’t really crave meat at all and am finding it very easy. Unfortunately, the “eating fresh” part of my new diet is really not going well at all - Its cheese sandwiches all the way at the moment. Three nights in a row I’ve had a cheese sandwich for tea. I find it difficult to be motivated to make anything “proper” when I’m just making for myself and also when I’m busy and off out at night. Making a cheese sandwich is too easy and tasty to not bother with! That’s not to mention that I can’t cook and have never made anything more challenging than a pasta or salad. Poor show to be honest…

Last night I caught some of the Brit Awards. Firstly, the nominations were pretty terrible and I wish I had placed a bet on all winners in all categories…it was all extremely predictable. I don’t understand why so many average artists are put on such a pedestal. Everyone was jizzing all over Mark Ronson (metaphorically you understand) who basically rearranges songs with trumpets and suddenly he’s a genius. He is the white Jay-z it appears – he produces songs and collaborates with everyone under the sun. Onto one of his main collaborators - Amy Winehouse. She has been all over NME etc, once again everyone spurting their love juice everywhere at the idea of her playing the Brits. She sang Valerie with Mark Ronson and also one of her own songs. Both were completely dire – she looked a complete mess in physique and persona and her voice was terrible (Janice from Friends anyone?) yet the crowd went wild for her. I just read some of the Metro paper and surprise surprise, all the fuss is about her “flawless” performance. Please piss right off. Am I missing something or are people taking this “she’s a tortured genius” thing too far? If she wasn’t fucked off her face on drugs, I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t be quite as popular which is a shame as it’s magazines like NME who glamorise her lifestyle. NME obvious deny this – on NME.com they have a section called “Tabloid hell” which they seem to think is some kind of semi-ironic take on the general media but no, YOU (nme) are telling us the news and you can coat it in what you like, you’re turning into the Heat magazine of the music industry. The NME cool list confirms this.

This also reminds me that I’ve been rewatching some episodes of the brilliant Brass Eye – a satirical look at today’s media. Brasseye’s 2001 Paedophilia special was ground-breaking TV and was obviously going to be controversial from the start. If you read the following passage from Wikipedia, the reaction to the show is exactly what Chris Morris satirises in his shows:

"Around 2000 complaints (and approximately 3000 calls of support) were received regarding the show, and some politicians hastily spoke out against Morris. Beverley Hughes described the show as "unspeakably sick" (while admitting that she had not seen the programme) and David Blunkett said he was "dismayed" by it. Although she did not criticise the show, Tessa Jowell was reported as asking the Independent Television Commission to revise its rules to allow such a controversial show to be prevented from broadcast [5] even though she hadn't watched the actual episode of the show. There was also a vociferous tabloid campaign against Morris, who refused to discuss the issue. The episode went on to win a Broadcast magazine award in 2002 and the complete series, including the 2001 special, was released as a bestselling DVD later that year.
The show caused a furore among sections of the British tabloid press. The Daily Star printed an article decrying Morris and the show next to a piece about the then 15-year-old singer Charlotte Church's breasts under the headline "She's a big girl now" [6][7]. The Daily Mail featured pictures of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who were 13 and 11 at the time respectively, in their bikinis next to a headline describing Brass Eye as "Unspeakably Sick"[7]. Defenders of the show argued that the media reaction to the show reinforced its satire of the media's hysteria and hypocrisy on the subject of paedophilia.[7] This episode has been shown 3 times even though controversy was caused each time."


The part about the tabloids calling for Morris’ head next to the risqué pictures of famous youths is pretty much in line with NME’s ethic – ‘we’ll denounce all the tabloid rubbish, but report it anyway’."

From the Brits to the US and more importantly, the election. After 8 years under the realm of the dumb tyrant George Bush, it is time for a change and thank god the Americans agree. 9/11 was a terrible terrible event but it did wake America up and prove the vulnerability of this “Super nation”. However, action needed to be taken but Bush got it completely wrong. Setting up the product “The Axis of Evil™” allowed the Bush administration to scare Americans to death and more importantly to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq. The attack on Afghanistan was perhaps justified – to be honest I was quite young and never really knew what happened so can’t really comment. After a while, Bush decided to go after Saddam Hussein instead and pulled his men out of Afghanistan and put them in Iraq (even though Al-Qaeda is a much bigger threat to his country than Hussein??). You can talk all you want about oil and WMDs but the Iraq war and how manipulative the government and propaganda through media (boom, there it again!) but it’s time to move onto the now.

The presidential campaign is pretty much a three horse race between Obama, Clinton and McCain. The Republican corner will almost certainly be headed by McCain and come the election in November, I don’t think he’s likely to be a great contender – he’s in his 70’s and his policies are completely outdated and he thinks we’ll be in Iraq for the next 100 years. 100 YEARS! No one from the West should be there in the first place! So really, it’s down to Obama and Clinton and it looks like Obama will head Democrat party and then go on to be president. And good on him! Obama and Clinton have very similar policies but Obama will (hopefully) give a fresh view on the world and will be a very likable president. It’s hard to say at this stage – he might be a bare faced liar – but America needs change and Obama should be the man to take them forward. Besides, Clinton keeps crying in her campaigns and who wants a weak president? Somehow I can’t see her being able to hack G8 summits et al. But once again, the only way we can hear of anything on this matter is through the media and knowing how manipulative it can be, who knows what to believe?