My iPod? I want it Brown

The proud owner of an iPod and, lo and behold, he knows how to use it!

What an up-to-date, ordinary chap. That grabs the headlines, Gordon Brown wakes up to the Arctic Monkeys and he's one of us.

And that should be a vote grabber, shouldn't it? You know what, I was torn with doubt but now I'm gonna vote for him. Power of the iPod. Nevermind the economy, foreign policy and the rest. Stooping low?

Three times dented

It's often said that Tony Blair would be obsessed with the idea of leaving his legacy when he finally shoes off after ten years as PM. Rest assured, Saint Tony, you're leaving your legacy all right. The push for the renewal of Trident, the £20bn-plus UK nuclear submarine system, is another nail in the coffin for a party of glorious history but who's at serious risk of remaining unelectable for the next couple of generations.

Blair has made sure that millions of people would be put off politics, and Labour in particular, for a long time. The list of broken promises and embarrassing u-turns is too long to mention and the 1997 gabble about nuclear disarmament is only the last of a long list to strike the battered chord. Fact is: Blair's blowing a two fingered raspberry at the non-proliferation treaty. All the more hypocritical and contradictory as the West is in the throes of a balancing act to talk Iran out of their own nuclear programme. And who could then blame any other nation for saying "we're under threat, we require nuclear weapons"?

In his usual sanctimonious I-can-understand-your-concerns-but-still-I'm gonna-do-it-my-own-way style, Blair said that in an uncertain world it would be "unwise and dangerous" for the UK to get rid of its weapons. It's true that the danger of terrorism is at an all-time high. But it's unclear how a £20bn-plus (£16.8m per missile) nuclear fleet is to protect the population from suicide bombers blowing themselves up on a bus. The days of Red October being thankfully over, wouldn’t those huge resources be better employed according to the strategic needs of today?

But how was the vote in the Commons secured? Like with Iraq (the flimsy 'Road Map' vow, whatever happened to it), foundation hospitals and tuition fees, it took peanuts to buy the loyalty of a handful of 'rebel' MPs. So principled was their stand that they toed the line with Blair's mere 'promise' to perhaps maybe try and cut by a fifth the operational nuclear warheads on Britain's Trident submarines, from 200 to 160. Seriously, that was enough to put a damper on the 'rebels'. Besides, needless to say, the Tories had no hesitation in backing Blair. Nice to know that when zillion-worth arms contracts are at stake, the consensus New Labour- Conservative is as firm as ever. Then they say there's no more certainties...

"Yob Nation"

A review of Francis Gilbert's new book


Although the author's guilty of thinking that Stone Island is spelt Stone Ireland, it's about time someone attempted an insightful look into what's happening to Britain without the crassness of tabloids or the opportunism of Labour and Tories. Is yob culture just a chav-confined phenomenon? How did the country switch from the sadness of having low social classes trying to emulate posh affectation and posture to the tragedy of the other way round? Why does UK social life revolve around getting pissed until you vomit on the pavement and your privates itch with clap of uncertain origin? Why aren't streets, buses, trains safe anymore? Or, if anything, why has the perception changed?

Francis Gilbert, an experienced schoolteacher who knows a thing or two about parents calling round to deck you for having told their scally kids off, does it all with knack. His book is a brave and well-researched trip around the country, trying to decipher chavs and yobs without the traps of mocking or patronising. No nook is left unexplored. From bullying in the army to the City of London, from ASBOs to gangland, from tabloids to the ClubRep-like joke that UK universities have become, Gilbert nails it on the head with his meticulous search for cause and effect behind a truly disheartening picture. Were it left to the reader, I'd guess tabloids would have a thing or two to answer for, given how influential they can be in the wider culture. To get the gist, one only has to think of the 1999 The Sun campaign against paedophiles escalating into paediatricians being attacked or The Mirror's absurd anti-German goading that marred England's campaign at Euro 96.

As if the task wasn’t complicated enough, Gilbert doesn’t do himself any favours with his force-fed parallelism with Westminster politics. Laudable though his intention may be (and sure enough there's a bone or two to pick with Alistair Campbell and the wreckers of the Labour Party), those abrupt and constant links are tenuous at best and artificial at worst and, frankly, the book's weakest link. Otherwise, back-to-front reading is ensured.

Made by the press, undone by the press

The critics are outraged by Jade Goody: as if they were not expecting the very notion of dumbed-down, cheap, voyeuristic TV to backfire at some point

For years we were helpless witnesses of the plague-like mushrooming of celebrity programmes and their satellite-magazines. All we could do was frown and stand on the back-foot while the body snatchers got their pods into gear and took over the world. Big Brother, 'Celebrity-island', 'Celebrity-this' and 'Celebrity-that', along with scores of Paris Hilton (and clones)'s pictures on each copy of each magazine, simply, seemed unstoppable. Until, that is, this week.

A remarkable comeback, courtesy of an own-goal from Jade Goody, one of the most poignant interpreters of this world of nothingness. A Frankenstein of fatuous 21st century TV. "A perfect monster of televisual incestuousness- on telly for having been on telly" noted Howard Jacobson on Saturday's Independent, the only journalist who actually talked a bit of sense amongst the inches of columns wasted on the free-for-all of Jade's "appalling-hideous-bigoted-racist" behaviour.

An ironic case indeed, as if they were not expecting the very notion of dumbed-down, cheap, voyeuristic TV to backfire at some point. The cult of celebrity-for-the-sake-of-being-celebrity has now bizarrely turned on itself. All the while Channel Four is accused of failing to perform the same self-censorship tabloids could do with. Lord, if they could.

You promote cheapness and vacuity; you champion the Jade Goodies of this world; you fill your pages with their oh-so-outrageous inanity, be it turrets or inability to spell; you titillate your readers/viewers with tits-out and sex scandals…and now you play knocked for six cos Jade Goody on Celebrity BB says that "Indians cook without washing their hands"? Get over it.

P.S. Cue from the Jade Goody/Shilpa Shetty affair. Whiney though it may be (and don’t we all continentals like a bit of whine), I'm yearning for the day the tabloids act all repulsed -and rightly so- at their own pisstake of "frogs", "krauts", and annexed mocking of their accent…

Lacking jaffas; G.W.Bush

The most inept US administration in history has managed another masterpiece: by taking Saddam Hussein to the gallows they handed him the dignity he'd never had in his lifetime. Sparing him the death penalty would have required some real jaffas, but I suppose that's telling. The Bush government doesn't miss a blip when it comes down to taking decisions that aim at inflaming tension. I guess it'll be all "mission accomplished" in the White House tonight. Hurry up quick, November 2008...

The Scrooge appreciation society

Christmas gets on a lot of people's nerves. I'm one of them.

That bloody word, Crimbo. Oh doesn't it get on my tits.

The mental queues that could piss over the maze in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Think HMV Oxford Street on 22 Dec without doubt the biggest queue ever seen in my life. Along with any underwear section as you get elbowed left, right and centre by the hordes who are checking out y-fronts, socks and trunks for the second cousin's boyfriend that they briefly met in 1999.

The only time of the year in which no shame is there towards the most amazing waste of money ever - especially on paper, cards, useless decoration and clutter.

The unprecedented smothering of feelgood ads and crap TV programmes, expectations of how great and merry Christmas time should be, how it's all perfect with our wonderful families and friends and you're fucked if your having a hard time in life. Step in the growing army of those 'non-privileged' poor sods who have to work round Xmas time i.e. puke cleaners in pubs, shop assistants or NHS staff.

The saccharine music, the jingles, the overpriced reissues of trite Xmas compilations. As naff as anything humans could ever come up with since the olden days of Jurassica. And the bells are never enough to fill the air, and the cliched kids choirs are never high-pitched enough as you irately scramble for the remote control or towards the nearest department store exit. I suppose it simply brings my social ineptitude to the fore...And yet...

The artificial, rammed-down-your-throat, association with people you have nothing in common with -at best- or you despise -at worst. Which cunting masochist decided that extended family gathering have to take place at Christmas? There's got to be some bleedin' reason if you never otherwise spend time with those folks at any other time of the year ever??!!

All that solemn gift-unwrapping bollocks as your body get on painted-smile-mode cos chances are it's something crass, inappropriate or utterly useless you're unwrapping in front of embarrassing, scrutinising eyebulbs. And viceversa, hoping that your customary gift to the unknown characters you've seen about twice in your adult life is not gonna be deemed worthless. But can you blame them?? You've got to do it for Xmas.

And the moment the door shuts one bit of the family bitches on the other bit of the family...and the rows...and the wasted money...the showing off...the guilt-trips...the social ineptitude...and the whining grannie with the achey joints and the tension-spawn cooking that could -incidentally- feed the entire population of Ethiopia, forget Live 8 and Live Aid and Band Aid put together. And they all talk about pressure, stress and unwinding...

Oh aren't I bitter...Well, don't say it too loud, I know I'm not alone here...

The Jarvis Cocker Album

How we've missed him

A review of Jarvis' solo debut

If you're a Pulp fan no doubt you've sometimes endured the sad 'high fidelity'-like game of how-you-rate-Different Class against His'n'Hers, This is Hardcore and the sorry We Love Life. Few would be ready to dispute that the sensuous Different Class remains unrivalled and always will, put out -as it was- amidst the galvanising swirl of 1995. Yet Pulp fans need not despair. There's no actual need for the band to reunite and hark back to the glory days. The new entry The Jarvis Cocker Album would easily have a fair crack at a Champions League berth. Jarvis solo may be short of a killer-single (though the portrayal of today's UK "Fat Children" comes close, eye-winking as it is at Cockney Rebel's vintage brand of glam rock), but the tunes, the arrangements and the lyrics are absolutely spot-on, an indication of a massive return to form for the finest vignettist of his generation.

"Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" is Jarvis' way of starting with a bang. It could be T-Rex all over again until that pleasantly familiar voice kicks in, last heard as inspired circa 1997. True, a hand and a half is gracefully lent out by guest star guitarist and fellow Sheffielder Richard Hawley. Funny how the British press spent the best part of the last 20 years navel-gazing for Johnny Marr's heir apparent. Well, he's sitting right in front of them now. With a subtle guitar work that sounds nothing short of sublime, tasteful and discreet at once, Hawley's contribution to The Jarvis Cocker Album is just "the dog's". Or, for want of a better word, vital.

Jarvis' solo debut is music for grown-ups, testament to the fact that turning 40plus, a hubby and a dad is not always to the detriment of edge and inspiration. Lyrically as engaging, cynical and scathing as ever, the Jarvis Cocker of 2006 sounds all but content. For one, he takes on today's make-believe pampered world of telly and reality pap; "how come they're called Adult movies when the only thing they show is people making babies filmed up close", he protests on "Disney Time", the subject so depressing a platform that the dark sense of drama of the song wouldn't go amiss on Pink Floyd's The Final Cut. Except that Jarvis' tongue-in-cheek doesn't let him down, placing the track on a league of its own.

The aptly titled "From Auschwitz to Ipswich" beautifully sums up the post-9/11 sense of fatality and us-and-them paranoia: "They want our way of life/well they can take mine any time they like", he shrugs off, "like the Roman Empire fell away/let me tell you we are going the same way". "Big Julie" is possibly the most beautiful track on Jarvis. If you're insensitive to its vocal performance and its poignant arrangement, strings and piano then you may as well top yourself. A dark tale of a misfit, a solitary schoolkid who's well ahead of her peers, she knows "sex is just for when you've run out of things to say" and will have her own back one day, against a bleak backdrop of "stupid kids", "sweaty lads who get her down " and pervy "Sunday school teachers". Track 10 "Tonite" is a perfect exercise in genius musical arrangement, with Richard Hawley's swooping slide and pedal-steel guitar licks standing out beautifully.

As he puts out his darkest yet most accomplished album to date, Jarvis seems to invite us all to a mind-broadening exercise and finger-wagging at the nostalgicomics of "Common People". Not the one for you if you're looking for a student-union-anthem in the style of 94-95. Otherwise, great to have you back, finest bespectacled Yorkshireman of all.

Scissor Sisters, "Ta-Dah"

The New York glamsters' second album

A review

World stardom can't be easy to juggle. For over two years, you'd look up the word ubiquity in the dictionary and read Scissor Sisters, as they shifted three million units with one of the unlikeliest debut albums of all times. Forget camp, Scissor Sisters wore their sexuality on both sleeves, turning out catchy tunes and kitsch galore. After years of greyness, Scissor Sisters brought a welcome change, miles more colourful than any bored-looking popstar who'd make you scramble for the nearest sicknote in search of life.

That was 2004-2005. How they'd handle that 'difficult second album' was anybody's guess. And what a sturdy piece did they manage. Ta-Dah arguably contains the catchiest pop songs ever known to man. Ooh, in particular, with its wah pedals and funky beats is absolutely infectious at a glance, a hymn to putting back 'guilty feelings' and 'them blues' when you 'got magic in those dancing shoes'. Not to mention the bizarrely titled Paul McCartney, it'd go down a treat on any dancefloor anywhere in the country. And no doubt you've heard first single I Don’t Feel Like Dancin' about a million times already.

But here's where the praises end. I suppose many a band would bank on what are possibly the most annoyingly catchy tunes. They won't mind getting on people's nerves as long as that happens two minutes after they've bought your record. That's exactly the marketing ploy. And the Sisters are positively gifted at that. But I swear, a week after you buy Ta-Dah there's no better way of defining it than to say it's just TOO MUCH. How many Bee Gees-like falsettos and Elton John-esque honky-tonkying can you get away with before you objectively do people's head in?

You're bound to hear them non-stop as you zip your trolley round at your local Tesco, and they're destined to sell bucket-loads again. But something tells me within five years they'll be guilty-pleasure-material, as passé and dated as Level 42, Simple Minds or Bucks Fizz. And your kids will look at their folks' CD collection, spot Ta-Dah and take the piss.