Tough Love

Wired For Sound

2005-12-29T19:09:00.000Z

Well, 2005's heading off to that Great Dumper in the Sky. You know the place - it's where Rachel Stevens songs go to die.

But anyway, before we toddle off to kiss goodbye to the Noughtie's halfway point amid the company of square-jawed and icy-hearted German boys, here's our thorough, unadulterated and 100% non-biased round-up of the year's best music.

And no, we're not being paid to endorse any of these products (it's not Myspace, you know). But if you'd like to offer, answers on a postcard to good ol' Tough Love Towers.

Happy 2006 to all who can be bothered to read this gubbins.

Goldfrapp - Supernature
After an all-conquering summer, the Goldfrapp backlash seems to be kicking in already, with accusations that this third album is a retrograde step compared to Black Cherry and Felt Mountain. Balls. A nakedly commercial album, yes, but one that shows lesser, lazier pop acts how it should be done. Every song a gem precision-designed to sell thousands without ever losing its cool or sense of fun.

Roisin Murphy – Ruby Blue
Never having been much of a fan of Moloko, who – a few singles aside – always seemed a bit self-consciously weird, I didn’t expect to like this much. I was wrong. With collaborator Matthew Herbert on board, Murphy has turned out an album of skittish, left-leaning electro jazz which charms and impresses but never intimidates. It was marketed stupidly as a pop album at the time and seems to have sunk without trace. Let’s hope she picks a smarter label next time.

The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Forget the muso bullshit about this being a ‘post-rock affirmation of life in the face of death’, this album’s nowhere near as boring as the praise it generates. Listen instead to the spine-tingling Bjork song Bjork never wrote that is In The Back Seat; the way Tunnels managed to sound like a gospel choir covering a Talking Heads song with a gypsy band in the background. An exceptional album.

Girls Aloud – Chemistry
Perhaps the group’s swansong, but certainly a calling card for Xenomania as songwriters at the top of their game. This is a ‘manufactured’ pop album that sounds like it’s been assembled by artists rather than clueless marketers. Chemistry fizzes with energy, ambition, innovation and imagination: a concept album on what it is to be a young woman cast adrift in Generation Heat. A witty, sassy pop album that pushes, but never strains, the boundaries of pop’s vocabulary.

Antony And The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
Antony Hegarty’s rapid rise from the fringes of the avant-garde to near on universal adoration has been one of 2005’s most unexpected and pleasurable developments. A Julie Burchill-lookalike borrowing Nina Simone’s voice may not sound like a pop phenomenon, but that reckons without the fragile, yearning beauty of songs like Fistful Of Love and Hope There’s Someone. Music that tastes of rich red wine: dark, heady and intoxicating.

Madonna – Confessions Of A Dancefloor
Why is Madonna like Mark Twain? Because rumours of her demise are greatly exaggerated. She may have got a tabloid battering for everything else: her side projects, religion, marriage – but still she managed to pull another accomplished, effortless comeback out the bag. An album of unreconstructed disco hits, it takes Madonna back to her roots and many thousands more back on to the dance floor.

Saint Etienne - Tales From Turnpike House
Another in 2005’s growing list of notable concept albums, Tales From Turnpike House takes Pete, Bob and Sarah’s trademark indie loser pop sound into lusher territory. Beach Boys harmonies; lyrics about middle-aged disappointment rather than young love; pop music that lifts and punches you at the same time. Take out the exceptionally bad David Essex collaboration and you have a near perfect album for a summer day.

Patrick Wolf – Wind In The Wires
Wunderkind Wolf wowed the emerging nu-folk scene back in 2003 with his drum n bass influenced folk album Lycanthropy. Back in February 2005 with Wind In The Wires a more mature, less tricksy album the comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush began to bear fruit. Songs like Teignmouth and Ghost Song suggest an elemental, wilful artist determined to please himself and drag us along with him.

Seth Lakeman – Kitty Jay
A spiritual cousin to Patrick Wolf, albeit one who lives on a diet of real ale rather than absinthe. Lakeman’s album turned out to be another surprise seller after being listed for The Mercury Music Prize. Kitty Jay is a spirited album of brittle, beautiful folk songs evoking the landscape of Lakeman’s home in Dartmoor.

Jose Gonzalez – Veneer
Expect to be sick of this album by the end of 2006 – but in a good way. Gonzalez’s album of wispy yet never insubstantial vocals and spidery flamenco guitar is a thing of loveliness. Crosses sounds like sunbeams slanting across a cathedral; his cover of The Knife’s Heartbeat turns an android love song into a bittersweet ballad. David Gray: start planning your retirement now.

Rufus Wainwright - Want Two
The second part of Wainwright’s Want project brought us a darker more difficult album than the first, but one that rewarded repeat listening. It may have nothing as poppy as I Don’t Know What It Is but it has The Art Teacher: a sparse, angular song that is quite possibly the best he’s written yet.

Kate Bush – Aerial
It was always going to be good to have her back, and while she didn’t innovate with Aerial, she didn’t disappoint either. Who else could put a washing machine into a paean to a hypnotic love song, or give Rolf Harris an unembarrassing cameo? Proving she’s still up there among the best living songwriters, Bush delivered something very rare along the way: an example of domestic bliss made solid and available for £12.99.

Keren Ann – Nolita
She’s big in France and Belgium but don’t let that put you off. Another singer-songwriter, this one with her roots in jazz, Ann’s Nolita is a languid pleasure: half in English, half in French, but 100% listenable.

Ladytron – The Witching Hour
After two albums that failed to quite deliver on the hype, electroclash’s poster children made good with their third album. Eschewing the electro-Puritan sound that made their name in fashion magazines, the band emerges from the freezer with a surprisingly touching album that occasionally verges on the shoegazey.

Martha Wainwright – Martha Wainwright
It’s taken her a while to step out of her brother’s rank of backing singers, but younger Wainwright Martha has delivered a bruised, country-folk tinged debut which shows great promise. It’s selling fairly well for something put out on a label so small it’s practically microscopic too.

So there we go. A few things to buy in the sales. Now go on, be off with you. Shoo! Have yourselves a lovely New Year.

meh-meh

2005-11-21T11:59:00.000Z

1) My mother once: tried to tell me and my brothers off while wearing a mud mask. It didn’t do much for her parental authority.

2) Never in my life: Have I played ‘Pooh sticks’. Some things are just too twee, and I always preferred Paddington Bear anyway.

3) When I was five: my favourite hobby was intimidating my Witch of a teacher.

4) High School was/is: A living Hell – except hell is warm and the people are interesting.

5) I will never forget: * Choir * “Where I’m coming from”. Sorry, the Take That boxset’s bringing in all back.

6) I once met: Sir Ian McKellan while pissed and only *just* resisted the temptation to recount the funny story about the ex-boyfriend we share.

7) There's this person I know who: aspires to the condition of Jewish motherhood. He has the wrong plumbing for it, but would look great in an Orthodox wig.

8) Once, at a bar: Is how most of my anecdotes begin.

9) By noon I'm usually: Embroiled in a guerilla war over washing up with our office manager.

10) Last night I: made scones, soda bread, roasted a chicken and made soup from the stock. My middle name’s only two letters away from Nigella too.

11) If I only had: that recipe again. Knew I should never have left that cake out in the rain…

12) Next time I go to church/temple: I’ll burst into flames.

13) Terri Schiavo: Is??

14) I like: booze, books and boys, in no particular order.

15) When I turn my head left, I see: Someone in the early stages of a nervous breakdown, but that’s offices for you.

16) When I turn my head right, I see: our office manager breathing fire. She and evening primrose oil are as strangers.

17) You know I'm lying when: my nose gets even bigger. Oy vey!

18) In grade school: I was an obnoxious know-it-all twat. Not much has changed.

19) If I was a character written by Shakespeare: I’d use lots of long words, and have most of my lines cut in modern productions.

20) By this time next year I: will be weeping at the inevitable break-up of Girls Aloud – and possibly playing mournfully with my Nicola doll.

21) A better name for me would be: Louis Theroux – but that’s another story.

22) I have a hard time understanding: My ex, which is a very LONG story.

23) If I ever go back to school I'll: Still be crap at football, but be fabulous with it.

24) You know I like you if: My eyes don’t glaze over 5 minutes into our debut conversation.

25) If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: Cher, for being an inspiration to us all.

26) I hope that: Rachel Stevens is sent to Hollyoaks rather than Doctor Who. She’d be more Adric than Elizabath-Jane.

27) Take my advice: and neither the blue nor the red pill. The Matrix was shit.

28) My ideal breakfast is: soya-yoghurt-based – the breakfast of lesbians.

29) A song I love, but do not have is: Mariah Carey’s infamous ‘Laryngitis Sessions’. Oh, the blissful, blissful silence.

30) If you visit my hometown, I suggest: You review your decision to own sportswear.

31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips & track stars: Tulips to brighten up a room; character flaws cause I have more of them than a dodgy Ming vase; microchips bring us MP3 players and hence the chance to blot out awful people on public transport; track stars for upper body definition and endurance, of course.

32) Why won't anyone: Put us out of Linda Barker’s misery with a bag of upholstery nails?

33) If you spend the night at my house: You may get a night of passion, but you might also get a night of Radio 4.

34) I'd stop my wedding: if the bridesmaids refused to wear the Ugly Sister costumes I have in mind.

35) The world could do without: Twiggy, and possibly Lulu.

36) I'd rather lick the belly of a roach than: Work in a call-centre again.

37) My favorite is: black kittens with big ears and bushy tails. Or, failing that, Ben Cohen giftwrapped in a pair of festive boxer shorts. (Hint hint Father Christmas).

38) Paper clips are more useful than: An evening spent at home watching ITV1.

39) And by the way: That top with those arms? I don’t think so.

40) The last time I was drunk: Was at a professional awards do. I was spotted copping off with another ‘Gentleman who has opinions on soft furnishing’ in the loos by a client. Naturally I have no memory of this.

41) My grandmother always: Was the finest tragic actress never to have graced the British stage. Her Lady Macbeth would have been amazing – shame she was such a horrible woman.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2005-10-24T10:05:00.000+01:00

Spotted in Euston station last night:

Kate Ford (Tracey Barlow) and a drunken shag from the Orange Catalogue - in the space of one minute.

Back soon x

Breaking news: Bible not true shocker!

2005-10-05T13:51:00.000+01:00

Now we’re not big fans of organised religion here at Tough Love Towers. In fact, if Christians ever tell us “But Jesus died for your sins!” we have to fight the urge to reply with “And did he ask permission? No”. Hell it is then, but preferably business class.

Mind you, a Catholic education does have its uses (they tried to make us do GCSE guilt but we failed the oral). A working knowledge of the Bible works wonders when faced with ill-informed doorstep evangelists. Also, when a Jehovah’s Witness offers you a copy of The Watchtower, take it. It’s the funniest read this side of The Onion.

Anyway, it looks like The Catholic Church has finally done something worthwhile. They’re on a really aggressive PR push after a horrendous past few years – Step AWAY from the altar boy, right now, etc – and this is what they’ve come up with…

(From The Times – click here for the full story)

“The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.”

Well, a big wooo for Cardinal Cormac Murphy ’Send the kiddy-fiddler-to-another-parish-no-one’ll-notice’ O’Connor. As far as blows against the corrosive influence of the religious right go, it’s a weak one, but at least it’s a step in the right condition. Now see if you can do something about that Emmanual College in Gateshead (a very well respected school in the North East) – that mad place where they put creationism on the science syllabus.

And just because we can’t let an opportunity to blaspheme pass us by…

This is one of the Bible passages British bishops would have us take literally:-

Exodus iii, 14
God reveals himself to Moses as: “I am who I am.”

??

MISSING!

2005-09-07T17:18:00.000+01:00

One bubbly yet down-to-earth Northern barmaid. Cunningly replaced (in cartoon TV series manner) by an evil doppelganger with permanent eyebags, agoraphobia and unacceptable taste in nightwear.

Seriously, Les Producers de Corrie, what have you done? As the lot of you are card-carrying homosexuals don’t you love strong women? Don’t you want to see them triumphing against adversity and feckless Northern men in leopardskin? You know the drill, ever with a cocktail in their hands and a cheap son in their hearts?

So what’s up with Shelley? Not so much Elsie Tanner as Lisa from East-“We Hate Women”-Enders. Yes, we like a joke (and more excuses to see Charlie with his manly chest out would be gratefully accepted – can’t Jack’s pigeons steal his collection of tight white t-shirts or something?). But this is beyond one.

We want Old Shelley back. Remember her? She used to say things like this: -

In the back parlour in the Rover’s. Fred, Kieran and Shelley. Fred’s in butcher’s mufti, Kieran in a brickie’s Saturday night shirt, Shelley in some asymmetric top that makes her look like a bag of suet with an elastic band round the middle.

Fred (To Kieran, defending his right to wed a Thai bride): You’ve been around the world, and dallied with ladies from every Continent. Why can’t I have my taste of the Orient?

Shelley: Why can’t you be happy with sweet and sour pork like the rest of us round here?

See, that’s what we want back. Sweet and sour pork Shelley. Not joyless All-bran Shelley with added pain, misery and madwomen in the attic.

So come on, get Bev to fuck Charlie to death in a bizarre accident or something and send the actor over to our house for re-education.

And while you’re at it, enough with turning poor Clur into Deirdre already. Send her to Specsavers. Maybe she’ll see sense and realise Ashley looks more like the tall one from Cannon and Ball with each passing day.

Somewhere over the Rainbow Flag

2005-09-02T17:24:00.000+01:00

These....

Have just been stolen from a Museum in America this week. The police are looking for the thieves.

It's probably safe to say they've narrowed their search to people with a lot of Kylie and Madonna records in their collections.

In fact, if it came to an identity parade, perhaps it would be easiest to throw a ball at the assembled line-up and shout "Catch!"

Have a good weekend.

Even More Slang!

2005-09-01T10:58:00.000+01:00

Here are the latest terms making us titter into our vodka and Horlicks over in Tough Love Towers

H&M – No, not the purveyor of cheap tight t-shirts beloved by The Gays. A H&M is a (H)igh (M)aintenance homosexual. You know the type. You go on two dates with them and they’re wedding ring shopping in their lunch hour at Elizabeth Duke. And God forbid you should forget to reply to a text message instantly.

JIN – This isn’t a misspelling of Mother (Mary’s) ruin, gin either. Nor does it refer to an exotic fire spirit of Arabic pre-Islamic mythology. It’s actually a cunning anagram used to describe the pulling criteria of indie-pulling gays like ourselves.

You see, there is such a thing as TOO indie. This, again, is easy to spot. TOO indie types spend a little bit too much of their time thinking about Sleater Kinney B-sides for their own good. They can also look a bit – well – extreme and/or have disappointing stomachs or self-mutilation issues.

Like Goldilocks snaffling the Three Bears’ (snigger) porridge, you need to find a balance. Hence JIN, which stands for

(J)ust
(I)ndie
e(N)ough

Dougie McFly is, for example, just indie enough, despite really being a pop kid. Yum.

Right, time to crawl back under that stone where we belong…

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2005-09-01T10:26:00.000+01:00

Kate Bush has announced a new single, King Of The Mountain, and a double album, Aerial, with a release date of 2nd November.

This is Kate’s first album since The Red Shoes which was donkey’s years ago now. How unreasonably excited are we at this? La Bush ranks highly in our mental Top Ten Divas list, and you really don’t want to see the dance/flail we end up doing to Wuthering Heights when it gets played at discos.

We’ve heard a number of unfounded rumours about this album. Apparently: -

1. It’s two separate albums, one of which was recorded ages ago and then shelved.

2. A few years ago Kate asked her record company round to see “what she’d been working on”. They promptly creamed their Diesels (they’re like that in the music biz, dontcha know) and rushed round en-masse for a look. Kate then blithely led them to her kitchen and plonked a tray of cakes down on the table. “This,” she said, “was what she’d been working on”.

3. It’s a double concept album based on the aftermath of an England laid to waste by an alien invasion.

All three rumours point to the enduring aceness of Kate, but they also raise the thorny issue of quality control. Albums that have taken *this* long to produce have a habit of raising expectations only to dash them. We only hope that Kate hasn’t lost the ability to make concept-driven music that works. And let’s face it, who wouldn’t love a cross between the second half of The Hounds Of Love and War Of The Worlds?

We also heard a high-larious rumour about Kate smoking and eating like a trooper when she’s in the studio. Given this album’s lengthy gestation period, it’s only to be hoped she’s not 21 stone and sounding like Barry White.

And now for the ridiculous….

CSI New York the other night (we know, we know) was about amputee fetishists. Ew. Have the writers been reduced to surfing esoteric porn sites for new ways to kill people off?

This is without going into the pee drinking for youthful looks episode we talked about a few weeks back. Some people....

Gimme a ‘C’, Gimme an ‘S’, Gimme an ‘I’

2005-08-15T16:26:00.000+01:00

Ah, CSI

Crime Scene Investigation

Or should that be…

Completely Silly (Yet) Irresistible ?

Yes, thank you very much Skip’s Acorn Treasury. Now not only do we have a Lost habit to service but thanks to your efforts we now have a growing CSI addiction. This for someone who used to come out in hives whenever mentioned the words ‘Channel Five’.

That said, Saturday’s edition was particularly choice. About plastic surgery. In Las Vegas (we’re thinking Showgirls, we’re thinking Siegfried and Roy). Can you imagine it? The Blonde Beloved by the Gays got very sniffy about the plastic surgeon with a sideline in ‘Watersports for Beauty’ (and we don’t mean scuba diving either). High-larious for a woman who should have won the prize for ‘Most Prominent Use of Collagen Injections in US Network TV’ for the past squillion years.

Yet the fun didn’t end there either. No sooner had everyone’s favourite Studley Beefcake, Nick expressed bafflement at the time and effort women devote to their beauty treatments at The Blonde Beloved than this happened.

Blonde: Flex me a muscle.

Nick: (Gurn, grin) What?

Blonde: Flex me a muscle.

Nick: Okay. (Rolls up sleeve, flexes bicep)

The Gays: (Swoon, reach for smelling salts) No, don’t stop there Nick.

Blonde: (Cops a good old feel)

The Gays: Lucky bitch! We bet you’ve felt him from Lost up as well.

Blonde: So how much time and effort have you put into this. This is what? Five nights a week at the gym, low carb, low burn diet…

The Gays: We always had you down for a muscle chaser, honey. No better than you should be, that’s what you are . . .

Nick: (Grins) My arms are big.

You get the picture.

Arsehole of the world

2005-08-15T15:59:00.000+01:00

We had to wait for a train at Stoke-on-Trent today.

We rather thought we’d put Stoke behind us since divesting ourselves of the ex. It’s a funny place. Well, not so much a place as five open sewers strung loosely together with dual carriageways. The only thing it ever had going for it was our ex’s family and that was, like his emotional state, basically a cross between a car crash and a room full of broken mirrors.

So we don’t have many fond memories of the place. The meal on the barge that was so bad we swear it was a bad joke or an abandoned pilot for a new series of Beadle’s About. The various trips to Stoke’s one gay nightclub (imaginatively called ‘The Club’) where the music policy fossilised in 1993 and a drag queen called Fame flicked beer at us. The dinner at the (now former) mayor of Stoke’s house where he threw up on the back doorstep while his scally shag (new-plucked from the Orange Catalogue) announced “I don’t care who’s in charge as long as I get my social…”

No, we do not miss Stoke.

And if a smidgeon of us ever did, two minutes on the station platform put paid to that. The locals were out in force. Hard-faced girls in tracksuits with scraped-back hair smoking over their newborns, unemployed boyfriends looking on ineffectually.

The whole place is an object lesson in why Thatcherism was a bad idea. Disenfranchise the working class and what do you get ten years later? The chav.

It all seems a big price to pay for shoring up Burberry’s share price.

Saucer of milk

2005-08-03T16:16:00.000+01:00

Well well well. According to everyone's favourite brand of cut-price toilet paper, The Sun, Atomic Kitten are getting back together. Now what do we think of that?

Silence

Silence

*Tumbleweed rolls past*

Life can be cruel to put-out-to-pasture popstrels. Mind you, life can be infinitely crueller to people bringing up three kids single handed on a Council estate, so forgive us if we're less than sympathetic about the failure of Jenny Frost's high-larious collaboration with The Wu Tang Clan. (Incidentally, what were The Wu Tang Clan smoking when they agreed to that one?)

So, in a move shamelessly nicked from two of our favourite bloggers in the world...evah, Glitter For Brains and Skip's Acorn Treasury, let's sum it all up in a fabulous letter.

Dear The Atomic Kitten,

You know what a female kitten is when it grows up, don't you? A queen. Take this as a word of warning and go back into hiding now, please.

And yes, we do know that Autotune's share price dipped when you announced your 'break' but we have Rachel Stevens for that now, thank you.

Don't let the door bang your arses on the way out - we've just had it painted.

Lots of love,

The Gays XX

Concerning Primark

2005-08-01T11:46:00.000+01:00

Yes, we all know what it is. The place where decent people buy socks and ‘emergency’ pants and umbrellas.

And yes, it’s very cheap. Cheap as Charlotte Church after five cheeky Vimtos and a sneaky Silk Cut, in fact. But remember, there are rules to shopping in Primark. Not obeying them could lead to inexcusable social faux pas, so read on and take note. This post could save you from mortal embarrassment!

1. One Should Never ‘Give’ Primark
Primark is not a suitable place to buy a present – even for a common and unloved relative. Fork out the extra fiver and go to T K Maxx.

2. One Should Never ‘Receive’ Primark
Getting a Primark-branded present from someone is an acceptable reason for striking them off your Christmas card list. In fact it’s right up there with them calling your Gran a whore or being sick over your sheepskin pouffe during a cocktail party.

3. One Should Never ‘Subject’ Primark to another
Or to put it bluntly: never shag between Primark sheets unless: -
i. You’re paying – in which case you can have them in a hammock with an Instant Whip since it’s your money
ii. They look a bit Primark anyway – see our earlier entry on the words ‘Gammon’ and ‘Bacon’ in relation to men.
iii. You don’t love them anymore

4. Primark Should Only Ever Be Consumed Alone
Yes, it’s necessary and occasionally it’s shameful. A bit like masturbation then.

Home on the flange

2005-07-27T15:42:00.000+01:00

After a few months of Salford-based living next to a couple of very minor celebrities with an R&B affliction it seems that the location of Tough Love Towers will have to move. It was inevitable really. After all, what is the point of a mystery third housemate when she uses her room solely to store old clothes and Buffy videos (which we stole to watch when drunk)?

So we face the prospect of rousing ourselves from our hangovers on Saturday morning to househunt. Ugh. It wouldn’t be so bad (turning our noses up at other peoples’ soft furnishings is listed in the hobby section of our CV) if we didn’t have to deal with letting agents. A vile breed. The kind of person who failed the personality test for becoming a recruitment consultant or traffic warden.

Of course one of the biggest challenging facing brittle suburban professionals like ourselves is deciding where to live in the first place. Basically we can’t decide and these are our options. Why don’t you pick for us? Pictures of prospective flats / sniffy comments on stained avocado bathroom suites will be supplied upon request.

Hulme

If Hulme had a strapline it would be “Where the Homosexuals Go” – like Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are but with a heavier reliance on haircare products.

Pros: New build area and lots of nice flats.

Cons: Dicey public transport and a relatively high proportion of scary drug dealers. This would be useful were we a hideous K-guzzling club bunny. Which we are not.

Chorlton

Hampstead for lesbians but in the North. For some reason everyone who works at BBC Manchester lives here if they don’t live in Cheshire.

Pros: Fairyland suburbia with easily accessible mung beans. Nice bars, pubs and restaurants.

Cons: Nice bars, pubs and restaurants colonised by hideous squalling children called Hugo and Jocasta. ‘Mature’ parents, being wet BBC employees, have no concept of child supervision. Plus, Chorlton’s like that village Patrick McGoohan got trapped in in The Prisoner – no one ever leaves. Except in this case it’s not a huge balloon but rubbish night buses that trap the locals.

Didsbury

A bit like Chorlton, but shot through with realism and lawyers. Where we used to live before the hideous break-up beckoned us to Salford.

Pros: Lovely area, handy for town though you don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. Good local amenities, including the Tesco Express that sells booze up until 10.30pm on Sunday nights.

Cons: Horrendously expensive for what you get, possible return to the ridiculous commute of yesteryear. Night buses after an evening out on the lash (shudder!) ‘Didsbury couples’ – the last word in pretty, smug and self-satisfied people incapable of talking in anything other than the first-person plural. “Oh, we went there…” Hate hate hate.

Salford

Manchester’s twin city (right, yeah). Home of the scally and the ASBO, cheap housing and another thriving gay ghetto – though this one is more likely to shave its head than slather it in fibre moulding putty.

Pros: Cheap, handy for town, being able to say you live in Corrie-ville and spot the inspiration for Yana out walking six kids in one double buggy.

Cons: The scallies, the ASBOs, the semi-scary walk home at 4am. Having to say you live in Salford to Didsbury couple types. You should see their expressions. It’s all we can do to stop them making up a food parcel for us there and then.

So there you have it. We're stumped, though the flats in Hulme still look temptingly well-appointed. We'll start stocking up on Fructis in preparation now.

Meat-aphor

2005-07-11T13:30:00.000+01:00

The latest instalment in our tireless quest to fit the world into ever more tiresome and semi-facetious sub-categories.

Men, what are they like? Well, if you want to look at them as pieces of meat (and if it was Chris Evans of Fantastic Four fame, who wouldn’t want a nibble), why not extend the meat-aphor?

Therefore . . .

If men were available from a butcher’s near you, what would your ‘type’ be?

Egg – An unhatched chicken (see below). Not recommended for consumption - raw or otherwise - unless you fancy explaining your conduct to the police. Brings a whole new dimension to the term “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

Chicken – Young, tender man-flesh. Frankly a bit ubiquitous and bland

Pheasant – Like chicken but richer. Best enjoyed well-hung.

Duck – Like chicken but fatter

Beef – Meaty, satisfying and most enjoyable when served in well-muscled chunks. Also rare unless you prefer…

Shin beef – As above but older, stringier and requires more work. Only if you have strong teeth and patience

Veal – Young beef. Softer, pinker, milkier. Don’t believe it if anyone tells you it’s cruel. They love it really

Venison – Like beef but richer. Make sure you get a portion when it comes into season

Lamb – Young and springy, but unlikely to age well…

Mutton – Lamb but older. Tastes a bit funny and you can quite escape the thought “If only I’d got in there sooner”.

Scrag end – For consumption only when poor and/or desperate

Pork – A touch on the plump side, but still enjoyable

Belly pork – Built to bouncy castle proportions. An acquired taste.

Gammon – Builder. Popular, if only because we believe the gays like that tell-tale meaty, salty taste.

Bacon – Like gammon but scrawnier: scally / chav / pikey (whatever your underclass poison might be). Often teamed with egg.

So there you go. We think we've got most bases covered, but any other suggestions are gratefully accepted. Please comment here, or suggestions to the usual address.

Yet another fabulous new definition

2005-06-30T11:25:00.000+01:00

The Orange Catalogue – A fabulous new euphemism for shopping in that Grattan catalogue of weird fetishes and badly lit cock pics that is gaydar.

And here are a few reasons why surfing gaydar is like flicking (ahem) through a mail order catalogue.

i. You can’t remember precisely why or when you subscribed to it, and yet still you look. (The major difference here being you never get stopped by an old biddie in a shopping centre asking: “Excuse me, sir, but do you need some hot cock?” Or maybe we’re just going to the wrong shopping centres,)

ii. Nothing in either ever looks like its picture.

iii. You end up sending far more back than you keep.

iv. You can pay in instalments (if a course of antibiotics counts as instalments).

v. There’s an awful lot of artificial fibres on display in both.

vi. They both refuse to believe that male swimwear has moved on a lot from the days of high leg Speedos.

vii. They’re both full of pictures of vapid looking men in their pants. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

viii. One way or another, you end up seeing an astounding array of bad soft furnishings.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go check our messages. It’s like staying in to wait for the postman, except junk mail rarely has a picture of someone in a sling bearing the legend “gr8 pic, m8”. *Shudder*

Go straight to Hell Part II

2005-06-30T10:13:00.000+01:00

Go directly to Hell. Do not pass ‘Go’. Do not collect £200.

Yesterday, developers in New York unveiled the new plans for Freedom Tower, to be built on Ground Zero. The plans have been changed to make it ‘safer and more secure’.

Is that a sink plunger they’ve plonked crookedly on top? We can’t help but think they’ve accidentally put it in the wrong place.

There. That’s better.

The first person to read this and think ‘Exterminate’ wins a special Club-class ticket on the same flight to damnation we’re booked on.

Back from the dead (Part Two)

2005-06-27T13:38:00.000+01:00

With a set of fabulous new self-definitions to live your life by...

We’re currently recovering from a weekend in which we lurched from one extreme to another.

For instance, Friday night saw us accused of turning into a lesbian. Apparently liking all things lentil and mung bean-shaped, eating soya yoghurt and wanting to own cats are unmistakable symptoms. Hmmm. How expensive are property prices in Hebden Bridge again?

On Saturday night, however, we were told in all seriousness that we were “a player”. Now this is surprising. For one thing, we never fully believed such a thing existed outside of R&B videos. Also, how can someone who gets mistaken for Louis Theroux on a weekly basis ever be bracketed in (albeit loosely) with Calum Best?

"playa"

"playa?"

(Incidentally, having now scientifically compared Calum Best to the huge majority of highlight afflicted hairdressers clogging up Canal Street. He may be straight but he certainly doesn’t look it.)

That’s enough digression, though – let’s get to the point.

Dating in today’s post-modern, internet-ready world is a tricksy place. Often you can find yourself in romantic (or just plain sleazy) situations you have no vocabulary to describe. Never fear, however. Here are a few new handy words and phrases to help you on your way.

Hojo – The state one reaches where one’s desire to slut around is matched (or exceeded) by other people’s desire to do rude things with you.

Example: “I don’t want to go out tonight. I think I’ve lost my hojo.”

UCAS Dating – Now this only makes sense. When applying for University, it is highly inadvisable to put all your eggs in one basket and just write ‘Oxford’ down on the form, isn’t it? Common-sense dictates that you apply to a number of Universities that sound nice/good etc and then make a firm decision based on visiting the campus, interviews and who makes you an offer. So why should dating be any different?

Just as one University that looks nice on paper (we’re thinking of you, Bristol, and your uppity ways) can turn out to be a stuck-up little madam who doesn’t return your calls; others (Manchester, for example) though a little rough round the edges, are so keen they offer to go all the way at the first opportunity.

Translate this into dating and it looks like this. Why should you sit around waiting for Mr Bristol to decide you’re not posh enough when you could be taking advantage of Mr Manchester at the same time? And as long as you don’t commit to anything too soon, it’s a guilt-free solution. The living embodiment of “try before you buy”. With UCAS rules allowing you to apply to up to 6 institutions simultaneously, however, we do advise caution. Terminal exhaustion is a very real possibility.

There’s also another downside – the chance that all your first choices will tell you to get stuffed, leaving you in the state otherwise known as . . .

Clearing – Basically, what happens in night clubs after 2am if you haven’t already pulled and stopped being fussy two Cheeky Vimtos ago. (Health Warning: Last-minute decisions can result in disappointment or crabs – or both.)

So there you go. If you’re very lucky we might do a simultaneous review of Antony and The Johnsons and Banarama’s new single tomorrow, thus proving that is physically possible to go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Blasphemy . . . Blasforyou

2005-03-25T11:59:00.000Z

It’s Good Friday and as we’re Godless heathen swine over here at Tough Love Towers we can’t let this one pass us by without a sly dig. So here are some little known facts about the Christian calendar’s most self-important festival.

1. The curse “Jesus H Christ” comes from the fact that Jesus looked a bit like H from Steps.
2. We all have our own Cross to bear, but did you know you can get folding ones now from Black’s Outdoor?
3. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday. Little did he know, the donkey had a lucrative sideline making adult videos for the Babylonian market.
4. At the Last Supper, Jesus broke bread and drank wine. And drank wine. And drank wine. It’s a little known fact that when he said “Do this in memory of me”, he was actually stealing a traffic cone from the Temple Mount.
5. Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. If he’d gone to a Cash Converter he could have got a Playstation 2 as well.

We’re off to burn in Hell now. Enjoy your fish supper and see you in the flames!

Oi!

2005-03-02T16:50:00.000Z

Shouldn’t you all be out buying this?

Wind In the Wires by Patrick Wolf

We know we’ve posted about Patrick before, but make no apologies for doing so again, as he’s one of the most exciting musicians working the UK and Europe today.

Wind In The Wires is Patrick’s second album, the successor to the 2003 underground sensation Lycanthropy, and it’s utterly marvellous.

Nominally part of the folktronic (what an awful tag – thank you, Mr NME) movement that’s brought us the likes of Bright Eyes and Sondre Lerche, Patrick is in the vanguard of redefining what we think of as popular music. His work seeks to unify the musicianship of the traditional folk artist with the sophistication of modern classical composition and pop hooks. It’s no surprise in that case that he cites artists as various as Stockhausen and Kate Bush among his influences.

But just in case that all sounded a bit too worthy, read on for something a little simpler.

Basically, Wind In The Wires is a folk-pop record written by a laptop wielding genius. It opens with The Libertine, a nagging stab at living in the mediocrity that attends living in an over-legislated, under-imaginative world. It also, in the shape of the lines: -

“And all our heroes lack any conviction.
They shout through the bars of cliche and addiction.”

Buries any comparison with scag-twat Pete Doherty which the choice of song title may have otherwise inspired.

From hereon in, the album continues on a journey which is by turns both dark and uplifting. Songs such as Teignmouth, This Weather and the title track evoke the Cornish landscape Patrick lived in while writing the album. Seething with nature imagery, they are beautifully overlaid with his trademark simple yet somehow lush viola and ukulele arrangements.

In an added bonus, This Weather also has the honour of being the only song we’ve ever heard which pays tribute to the sonorous, semi-poetic pleasure of Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast. How esoteric – and marvellous.

Elsewhere, songs such as The Gypsy King and The Railway House act as a counterfoil to those casting nature as an inscrutable beast. Essentially pastorals, they speak of an imagined life in the country in the nearest the album gets to straightforward folk.

The last third of Wind In The Wires – billed as a ‘Ghost’ section – takes it into harder territory. Tristan, its most direct answer to Lycanthropy’s drum’n’bass influenced Bloodbeat, may well prove to be a dancefloor filler in 2005’s more forward thinking indie discos. Meanwhile, Eulogy, Patrick’s tribute to his late grandmother, and closer Land’s End take us on through to the end of an exhilarating journey.

So, for those few of you who’ve actually managed to negotiate through to the end of this drivel, why should you buy this album? Here are a few good reasons.

1. Talents like Patrick Wolf’s are rare and precious. We have too few Kate Bushes, Bjorks and Rufus Wainwrights and they need your support to continue recording. Man cannot produce music by illegal download alone.

2. It’s a brilliant, beautiful, important album. Why should you not want to own that?

3. If he does get big, he will do so very quickly. Get in at the ground floor – it makes you look cooler.

We should just add here that we’re so excited about seeing him at the end of this month that we may wet ourselves.

Right, that’s us done. Normal service (ie blogging about slightly camp nonsense) will resume shortly.

I've seen a Gay-r-age

2005-03-01T13:39:00.000Z

Now that we have your attention...

This one’s our little homage to fellow Manchester-based bummers the Rubbish Gays.

A new phenomenon, recently observed and defined by a friend of ours over at Tough Love Towers.

Gay-r-age: (noun – abstract) A creepy sensation. Usually triggered by seeing someone with vaguely recognisable features on the street / in a bar / whatever. You then spend the next few minutes trying to work out who they are and how you know them before realising . . .

. . . You don’t know them at all. But you do remember their picture from their gaydar profile.

Ah, the post-modern world of fleeting liaisons and connections, woven together by the magic of the world wide web.

Or a load of sex-crazed slappers hawking their arses like they were close to the sell-by date meat. Take your pick.

Personally, we’re off to join manjam. We hear the totty’s better.

*Dusts off digital camera*

Toodle pip for now.

Something to love

2005-02-24T10:33:00.000Z

Heartbeat by Annie – out 28th February

Let’s spare a moment’s silence now for all those singles saddled with the dubious fate of being ‘growers’. You know the sort. One listen leaves you lukewarm – that’s alright you think, and then get on with your life. Then, after one or maybe two more listens something about it starts to nag at you. Maybe the way the beat changes in the middle eight; perhaps the chorus begins sticking to the inside of your head.

Whatever it is, the song suddenly makes sense and you can’t stop playing it. Indifference has turned into love. The long-lasting kind. You know, the kind Feargal Sharkey ruined his career over.

Now imagine trying to forge this kind of relationship with Chris Moyles interrupting the song every few seconds to comment on how hungover he is.

Like we said, let’s spare a moment’s thought for all the ‘growers’ out there. Those which never grew because mainstream music radio policy is decided on by people who care more about their ‘ironic’ ringtones than their playlists.

This song is a grower. Heartbeat, by Annie, the Norwegian popstrel who brought us the peerless Chewing Gum (another grower – dammit) last year.

But while Chewing Gum was a slice of knowing bubblegum pop with its tongue (and gum) planted in one cheek, Heartbeat is a much more heartfelt record. Poised somewhere between Kylie’s better work and Saint Etienne’s poppier output, it’s a deceptively simple song in which girl meets and dances with boy at a party.

It’s the chorus that makes it. “Feel my heartbeat…” with Annie swooning in her teenage girl voice over a sparkling backing track. A near perfect imitation of the rush, the shiver you get when you realise for the first time that you might love someone.

And, wonderful as it is, people writing blogs better than this effort will also wax lyrical over the song. Critics will wank over it and in ten years time new artists will cite Annie as one of their major influences in interviews. Yet no one will buy Heartbeat, because it’s a grower.

Sob.

Anyway, her album Anniemal is out on March 7th. Go buy it and listen out for the song Richard X wrote for her about Geri Halliwell. In the mean time, keep loving the Ann and we’ll keep you posted.

It’s a New Year

2005-01-11T16:00:00.000Z

Yes, it’s a bit late, but we never pretended to be less than rubbish, did we?

Anyway, it’s been all change at Tough Love Towers. We’ve been promoted, declared ourselves single and were given a spice rack for Christmas. We’ve also had probably the first conversation about cake recipes ever to take place over gaydar’s private messaging service.

We’re also moving. So if anyone knows of a nice three bedroom place going in South Manchester we’ll thank you kindly for the information.

(N.B. That’s thank you kindly, not ‘in kind’. Not that we’re going to get offers, mind. Only we could sign up for the sluttiest website in existence and end up being invited to a gangbake instead of a gangbang.)

But to the point, it’s 2005! No doubt you’ve all been making resolutions you won’t keep and have been scouring the Sunday supplements for tips as to what’s going to be big for the coming year. Well, forget predictions for Rooster, Jamie Scott and geometric jewellry. Here’s the official Tough Love guide all things trendy about 2005.

1. Hilda Ogden scarves

Nelly’s been wearing them backwards for years and must be getting bored of it by now. We predict that he’ll be wearing fetching floral print rayon numbers knotted under his chin by November. They’re Clog-tastic!

2. Socks in sofa adverts

Again, the out-of-work actors (and Linda ‘Fucking’ Barker, but we’ve blotted her out) have favoured ‘soulful’ bare feet and/or trendy sandal combinations for a number of years. Expect to see the return of black work socks with holes in the toe and thick white towelling numbers borrowed from the gay porn stars on the next set.

3. Celebrity Death Squad

A TV format that combines. the nation’s love of celebrity with its Daily Mail fuelled hatred of all paedophiles/ asylum seekers / people who are a bit funny-looking, like. Anne Widdecombe, Caprice and Roland Rivron are kitted up with lethal weapons and night vision goggles. They then travel round the country hunting down and killing hate figures nominated by local rabble rousers - sorry, community groups. See the UK’s murder rate soar for a good cause.

4. The Conservative Party

Only joking.

5. More middle-class pop stars

We have Jamie ‘The Jazz Pixie’ Cullum, we have Katie ‘Call off the Mud guitarist, please!’ Melua and we have Will ‘Harder, harder!’ Young. Can we have some more please? Ad executives up and down the land are crying out for wishy-washy pseudo soul to fill up the aching spiritual emptiness of kitchen adverts. A&R men want round vowels, good nutrition and concrete evidence you once went to a garden party with a minor Royal.

So come on down to Camden, all you ya-yas. Jobs in the City are so twentieth century.

6. Exciting new foodstuffs that taste ‘a bit like chicken’

Because they always do, don’t they?

7. Cybercooking

Following on from our experience . . . (This is what journalists do, isn’t it? Have one conversation at a dinner party in Hammersmith and call it a trend) . . . it’s official – Cybersex is over. This year, the UK’s internet perv community will be eschewing cam wanks in favour of live demonstrations of soufflé-making techniques.

Look out for spam email saying “Watch Lola whip the egg whites into soft white peaks”.

8. Patrick Wolf

This one’s a serious one, folks. One of our latest discoveries – thanks going to the people over at Popjustice and Life Itself for alerting us to his general fabulousness.

A young songwriter of potential genius who references werewolf folklore, Virginia Woolf and the dilemma of being young and underpaid in London. Drum ‘n’ bass beats mixed with recorders, accordions and an unaccountably sexy voice. Buy his first album Lycanthropy now! His second album The Libertine is out next month too, so that’s two consecutive months of alt-music pleasure.

We’re personally hoping he turns into the new Kate Bush (who incidentally is bringing a new album out in March – yet more good news!), and that he tours to Manchester very soon. So if you’re reading this, Patrick dear (yeah, right) you’ve been told.

Thank God it's her, instead of Chris Martin

2004-11-25T10:02:00.000Z

Continuing our Band Aid20 dissing theme from last week, here's this week's news.

Actually, we're not going to talk about that jizzrag of a record cause it's not worth it, instead we're going to talk about a real good cause.

This is 80s Australian pop megastar Collette. We've never heard of her before (sorry), but are reliably ensured by the lovely Alyson over at CFBgoespop that she is/was aceness in a fetching top hat.

Now, in an effort to spread the word about her loveliness and do something for a good cause at the same time, Alyson has promised to do something. If 20 websites mention Collette, she has promised to sponsor a child in Africa. This means that if we and nineteen other surfers/bloggers/students/people with dossy jobs write something about Collette, a child in Africa will be clothed, immunised, fed and guaranteed a better future than they might otherwise expect.

So, Collette: we've never heard you sing, but your bumfreezer/box jacket and studded belt combo is something we're hearting right now. Your cunning clothing customisation is also bringing back nostalgic memories of 'fun foam' pens, pin badges and Blossom (remember her, the mini-Streisand). This means we like you already. You can stay.

FEED…THE…WORLD’(s publicity machine)

2004-11-17T09:41:00.000Z

We were planning to write something nice and fluffy about how wonderful singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright is, but instead we’re going to have a rant. Possibly a long one, so make sure you have coffee and biscuits to hand, as you could be here a while.

Here goes: -

Live Aid III? What the fuck is all that about (Alfie)? Well, we know what it’s about: Chris Martin getting his knickers in a twist because he hasn’t had his smug public schoolboy with a conscience face in the papers for five minutes. Edit: sorry, Chris Martin getting het up because people are starving by their thousands in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Or is it? Sorry to say this, Chris m’dear, but the problem is not one of the aid not being there, as your woefully simplistic thinking implies. There is more than enough food aid and medicine available to save these thousands of lives and chances are it will get there in the end, whether or not you and your ‘celeb’ chums sing “Feed the World”. The problem is a political one, in that the Sudanese government is compounding the refugee problem by refusing to condemn or take action against the Islamist insurgents who are basically performing a land-grab in the north of the country.

So what does this mean, I hear you ask. Surely our efforts should be going towards putting pressure on our government to make sure UN action is taken against the Sudanese leadership’s astonishing dereliction of duty? Surely we should be condemning this situation as a failure of the rule of law rather than harvests?

But no, that doesn’t make sense, does it? Instead of doing all these things we’ll get that vampire toothed Kiss tribute band reject Justin Hawkins, Dido and Chris frigging Martin (surely the Linda Barker of indie) to sing a pop song about it. Because releasing a charity record is going to solve the world’s problems, isn’t it? Not that the only thing it’s likely to do is raise a few measly million quid (small change in the global aid stakes, folks) and give some third-rate popstrels another mention in Closer.

Of course, we wouldn’t mind anywhere near as much if the song itself was marvellous, albeit in a cynical and manipulative way. But Christ, oh m’Jimmy Boab, if Band Aid III isn’t the biggest steaming pile of wormridden llama shit to have graced the nation’s airwaves since . . . well, since Call on Me, actually, but you must be getting our drift by now.

It gets off to a rum start with Chris Martin and frankly the whole project fails to lose the smell of Coldplay worthiness from this moment on. The backing track has “We’re going to play our instruments like proper musicians, yeah” written all over it in boring muso letters three feet high. Then, just to compound the misery, Dido follows on and does her customary trick of singing way behind the beat, thereby ensuring the song loses what little impetus it has in the first place.

Even Bono, who managed to make a good job of the rather trite line “Well thank God…” in the original version manages to underwhelm here. He makes a half-hearted stab at the line which only underlines how much of his upper range he’s lost over the last 20 years. And at least Cher’s had the decency to cover up a similar degradation with increasingly outrageous costumes and plastic surgery.

All this, however, pales into insignificance beside the horrors that follow: the rap and the guitar solo. Both of these encapsulate the worst of the present music scene, in that no pop song is considered complete without some cack-handed rap and that the only way to credibility-ville is apparently via guitars.

Dizzee Rascal’s rap sounds horribly out of place in a song structured 20 years ago by Midge Ure and Bob “Grumpy Old Man” Geldof. In terms of sonic shock, it’s roughly equivalent to tuning into Radio 3 to hear an announcer say “And next here’s Chas and Dave”.

But the guitar solo. It goes on for four million years for a start, and we have The Darkness to blame for it. May they burn in a hell stoked by The Who’s trashed guitars for their crimes against rock.

Finally – and we mean finally – they get to the chorus, which comfortingly enough sounds like the celebrity cats’ chorus we’ve come to expect. Shame you can’t hear much of it thanks to the FUCKING Darkness, mind.

So in short, pledge the £3.99 to charity, buy the new Girls Aloud single (because if they get a No 1 their management might let them actually wear some clothes and it's getting cold) and give this a wide berth at HMV. It deserves your contempt, good intentions or not, so show your support for the cause by supporting it, not Chris pissing Martin.

Things we are hearting

2004-11-12T16:43:00.000Z

This week we are mostly *hearting* this – Kelis and Andre 3000’s Millionaire.

Now we’ve always liked Kelis. She was a sassy lady from the start, and Kaleidoscope is one of the few R&B albums we can listen to without getting crushingly bored halfway through. When she came back with Milkshake though, we did get a bit worried. As good as the song was, it seemed to our eyes that she’d traded in her sparkiness for typical oversexed R&B slush diva status.

Millionaire, however, turns out to be rather nifty. This may have something to do with Andre 3000’s presence here. The man can’t seem to put a foot wrong at the moment, and he certainly lords it over this particular single. So much so that it might be more appropriate to call it Andre 3000 feat. Kelis rather than the other way round.

But there is a good reason for this: Millionaire is slow-burning aceness. A pop R&B track that tips more than a wink to drum n bass, it’s offset beautifully by Kelis’s understated and slightly plainitive vocals. It also has a clever, if a tad misogynistic, rap from Andre and manages to be one of those rare songs that ends before you want it to.

But one final thing. Kelis, dearie: enough with the hair straighteners already. They make you look a bit like Wesley Snipes in Too Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar. And that’s not a good thing.

Land of the Free, home of the Knave

2004-11-03T10:05:00.000Z

As one of the most depressing election battles of this generation creaks to an uncertain close, here's the cartoon we think best sums up the unpalatable choice facing America.

Of course this still means that Bush is still a blindfolded, culpable, neocon-buttboy, craven, lie eating, small minded, Godnut, pretzel chewing, monkey mating, windowlicking, freedom-hating simpleton with a baseball instead of a cerebral cortex. He's also a distant cousin of John Kerry, so it appears.

Which proves conclusively that the US is the place where you can be born into nothing* before rising to greatness on your own merit.

*Nothing - More than $100 in liquid capital, extensive family connections and a place at a prestigious Ivy League College (New American Dictionary: 2004 edition (revised)

Fangs for the memory

2004-11-02T11:27:00.000Z

Hallowe’en round our way (South Manchester if you give a fig) is usually more of an occasion for anxiety rather than American popculture influenced ‘scary’ fun. Most of the kids nearby don’t need to dress up as the spawn of Hell – it’s their natural state. Although admittedly, a Magnum 45 pointed in your face is a whole lot scarier than a werewolf mask, so they’re technically getting into the spirit of things.

We’d blame the parents, but hey if you’re not old enough to smoke yourself, what right have you to tell your offspring not to set fire to someone else’s doormat?

All of which made us almost thankful for moving to a mould-infested basement shamehole with a concealed entrance. If nothing else, it kept the cast of Bugsy Malone (without the blanks) away from our front door, which meant we could watch a film in peace.

It’s just a shame the film we chose was Van Helsing.

Now we did choose it for a couple of very good reasons. Firstly because we’d force ourselves to watch Mad About Alice if it had Hugh Jackman in it; and secondly because we saw the trailer at the flicks and thought “This looks mildly diverting, but only on DVD”. It was only when we paid the rental fee that we wondered whether the stirring trailer music may have affected our judgement. By then, however, it was too late.

And oh Christ m’Jimmy Bob, isn’t this a silly film. (So much so that we mean silly in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail “Camelot is a silly place” sense.) The feature film equivalent of one of those dreadful Cheshire / Essex women who’ve had every cosmetic, beauty and makeover treatment known to man and still look a cocker spaniel with highlights. A severe case of too much money, not enough taste.

The plot (which in modern blockbuster style is something the film has both not enough and too little of at the same time) goes something like this. Hugh Jackman is Van Helsing: monster hunter extraordinaire. A man without a past thanks to amnesia (another one of them roles, eh Hugh? Time to sack the agent, perhaps?) he works for a secret branch of the Catholic Church.

After a wince-inducing Paris-bound first scene, where Van Helsing squares up to a bad CGI Mr Hyde, he returns to Rome from where he’s sent to help a doomed family of aristos vanquish Dracula from Transylvania. Said aristos are played by a Kate Beckinsale (sporting a pair of unfeasibly large tits and the worst Mittel European accent we heard since Aaliyah said “I vont for you to kill her” in Queen of the Damned) and some random bloke who died in the third reel. Of course if there had been a God then Kate would have copped it and the random bloke would have spent the next hour gaying it up with Hugh, but this is Hollywood. Here disembowelment is morally preferable to a same-sex blow job.

Anyway, this being blockbuster nonsense you know the score from here. Van Helsing struggles and triumphs against the Dark Forces, nearly getting turned into a werewolf on the way. All standard stuff, I hear you cry. Why get so worked up about a mediocre American ‘event film’ – they’re two a penny?

Well, it’s like this. It’s too much. Way too much. In fact, we seriously believe that the first script conference for this movie went something like this: -

Producer: Okay folks, Van Helsing. Mysterious supernatural superhero squares up to the world’s Dark Forces. What are we going to do in it?

Drone Writer 1: We could have Dracula. The punters expect him. But if we have Dracula we have to have the brides too, don’t we?

Producer: Sure. A bit of tit and ass never did a family film any harm.

Drone Writer 1: But does this mean we have to have some pointless CGI monkey-business where the Brides grow wings and go a bit ‘lumpy-vampire-head-from-Buffy’ on us?

Producer: Only if they’re a bit shit and talk with silly accents.

Drone Writer 1: Thanks.

Drone Writer 2: I think we should have Frankenstein.

Drone Writer 1: As well?

Drone Writer 2: It’s post-modern, you clutz.

Producer: No, no, I like the idea. The more the merrier.

Drone Writer 1: In the same film? Have you seen Alien v Predator? Oh well, if it’s going to be a dog’s breakfast why don’t we have werewolves as well?

Producer: You know, that’s a very good idea

Drone Writer 2: How about Jekyll and Hyde? We don’t even have to cast anyone for that. We can do it all by CGI.

Producer: That’s a great idea.

Drone Writer 2: Oh, and how about a comedy monk to be Van Helsing’s sidekick. He can start off being all brainy and Q from James Bond like but then gradually turn into Norman Wisdom’s religious second cousin.

Producer: I like it!

Drone Writer 1: Are you both insane? It’ll be horrible and no one will get any screen time because we’ll have to spend so much time explaining away the new characters.

Producer: I don’t think that’s a problem.

Drone Writer 1: I give up. If it’s going to be like this, why not make Van Helsing something dark and mysterious called ‘The Left Hand of God’ or something which is revealed at the end and never explained?

Producer: Hey, are you a fan of John Nathan-Turner era Dr Who as well?

So rant aside, this film epitomises everything that’s wrong with Hollywood at the moment. Scripts written like a game of Consequences by writers / producers / directors convinced their audience are incapable of sequential thinking. Actors who can’t act because they’re too busy trying to work out what’s grappling with them on the blue screen. CGI papering over the cracks, even though it’s only ever 80% effective.

But Hugh Jackman is fit. And you get to see him in his pants at the end. He’s been working out. Ooh.

See. All better now.

And the winner is

2004-10-20T11:09:00.000+01:00

Alan Hollinghurst has won the Booker Prize for his latest novel, The Line of Beauty.

Now this surprised us when we rolled in last night half-cut and put Radio 4 on (Alcazar was a bit much to cope with at 12.30am on a schoolnight, and the Marianne Faithfull torch songs too maudlin). We were rooting for David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas on the basis of his previous novels being rather ace.

In fact, much as we always say “Ugh, the Booker. Does anybody actually read the novels they pick or do they just put them on their bookshelves and base their dinner party conversations on them on the synopses on Amazon?” we might actually buy this one. It’s certainly nice to see Alan Hollinghurst seemingly return to form after a dodgy-ish third novel, The Spell, which was widely criticised for being lycra thin in substance if not execution.

For those not in the know, Hollinghurst is one of the seminal (seminal?) figures in British gay literature. His first novel, The Swimming Pool Library, was greeted with a storm of publicity and controversy when it was published in the late 80s. An ambiguous, occasionally amoral story about the exploits of a gay aristocrat in the last halcyon days before AIDS hit London, it hit the shelves just in time for the worst of the epidemic and the Section 28 furore.

Widely (and rightly) acclaimed at the time, it helped kick-start the sub-genre of literary gay writing in the UK (we’re less happy with some of his inheritors but let’s leave it there). It also positioned Hollinghurst as a writer somewhere between the French tradition of writing filth with a literary bent (see Genet) and the far-more buttoned-up, observation led world of the traditional English novel.

And Lord, wasn’t The Swimming Pool Library a bit dirty? Certainly not the kind of thing you can read on the bus comfortably, though we did anyway and had to think of Nicholas Witchell when our stop approached. As a novel, it’s also an effective eye-opener on the pre-AIDS gay mindset, as well as a good starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the history of British bumming.

After this, Hollinghurst seemed to take a fair few years over his second book, a far more muted affair than its predecessor, The Folding Star. And although it was listed for the 1994 Booker, it’s easy to see where the author has been overtaken in parts by the dreaded ‘second novel syndrome’. Here the conscious urge to get away from the kind of narrative voice that made The Swimming Pool Library such a success makes a far more amorphous, sometimes directionless result.

Essentially the story of a mid-30s gay man in Belgium’s obsession for his seventeen year old pupil, The Folding Star is a rewarding read, but one which can upset and unsettle along the way. Not in the least because the narrator’s ‘chicken’ love carried worrying moral overtones which the novel never really deals with. Its very structure, which aims for a degree of the same circularity Hollinghurst achieved in The Swimming Pool Library, also makes it read like a series of dying falls rather than climaxes. Perhaps in the end it’s appropriate that it should have been named after a line in one of Milton’s quieter pastoral poems.

So now (skidding quickly over The Spell, which is rubbish) we have The Line of Beauty, where Hollinghurst returns to a depiction of the Thatcherite era of the type that earned him his first praise. Only here he looks at the age with 20:20 hindsight, taking a more satirical view – apparently. It definitely looks interesting, though we’re curious to know whether the hesitancy Hollinghurst has acquired over the years (age, wisdom or too much time spent alone in front of Microsoft Word) will have affected the directness of his writing again.

Benefit of the doubt it is then, but only in paperback.

Health health health darling

2004-10-06T16:07:00.000+01:00

We wasted £3+ of our hard-earned (well, PR, so that statement's a moot point in some quarters) cash on this last night

And it wasn’t just for the buff specimen on the cover either, though if they were to offer him free with a discount subscription it might make us get our credit card out. We bought it for the health hints and tips – honest.

Now we don’t like magazines as a rule. We know how these things work, and frankly you as a reader come way down a magazine’s list of priorities somewhere behind the advertisers, the publisher’s bank balance and the journo’s freebie hit-rate. This means the latest ‘must-have’ product is usually best described as the latest ‘one they handed round to everyone in the office except the tea lady’.

However, if like us you go to the gym and are a bit too chickenshit to ask the instructors there for help, these things should be a lifeline. Especially since they always splash lines like ‘Get a Six Pack using two bits of wire and a spoon!’ over the front page. Lies. Open them, however up and what do you find?

1) At least 33% of the content is made up of adverts for products like Jaguars, chronometer watches and flash designer suits which only City Bankers or consumer-credit junkies could ever afford

2) Eating plans that would reduce any normal individual to tears of boredom within hours. (Precisely how much is a ‘cup of green beans’ anyway, and ‘water-packed tuna’?)

3) Sound-bites such as ‘less sugar, more raw almonds’.

Then, once you have flicked past the lifestyle pages, the bits giving hints and tips to make ‘her scream with pleasure’ (do they realise how many gym-goers are puffs? Perhaps there’s a gap in the market), you may just find the exercise pages. And dearie me, if they don’t read like the Hayne’s manual for an obscure Eastern European hatchback. They make working your dorsals sound more complex than changing a carburetor.

So we’re no further forward then. Consequently we may well be reduced to trapping that cute instructor we’ve been secretly lusting over behind the lat pulldown and asking if he’ll help us with our glutes. Whether we’ll accomplish this without blushing or accidentally phrasing the request as “Can you help me tighten up my arse?” is another matter entirely, however.

Places to go . . . people to see

2004-10-01T10:34:00.000+01:00

We’ve been doing our level best to lead a double life at the moment. Basically this amounts to alternating between Alcazar and Radio 4 (the station, not the band) in the kitchen and trying to keep up with the trendy kids.

Which is why we’ve spent the last two Friday nights here and here, as part of our time-honoured tradition of only catching onto something (sometimes it’s loafers, other times electro) just as the moment is starting to pass. And a jolly good time we had nevertheless, even though the fact that we danced hardest to Annie, Jentina and Girls Aloud of all the songs played at either night proves that our Rubbish Gay pop-love continues unabated.

(We were there, but we didn't hear The Libertines. Blame the offer on Carling)

Nevertheless, we did manage to see a rather good band at Club Suicide. Kinky Disco, a Brighton-based girl-singer, male knob twiddler (no sniggering at the back) duo, are what we like to think as the missing link between Yazoo and The Rapture.

There is something unmistakably retro about watching a band whose thing consists of woman singing/shouting, bloke standing there doing an impression of the one with no eyes from the Pet Shop Boys, but this works. This could have something to do with the fact that, along with the Candi Staton samples, Kinky Disco have a few good songs up their sleeve. We even heard and liked them despite the criminally bad acoustic in Charlie’s, Club Suicide’s delightful venue of choice. (We *heart* it for its failings: the social club wallpaper, Chinese Elvis impersonator barman and the dodgy toilet attendants with the handsoap, but you can never – no matter what – hear the lyrics.)

Namuka Bay, with the aforementioned Candi sample, is a great electro pop song, as is Run Away. They even get away with basically changing the lyrics to House of Jealous Lovers and calling it Shake It Up. And, apart from one anonymous trip-housey track which sounds a bit like Olive (remember them?) and a Richard X-esque ‘experiment’, their CD (available here), Pleasures Unknown is jolly good too.

Oh, and just in case the Joy Division reference is putting you off, they sound nothing like them, and clearly own no Tindersticks records either. This can only be a good thing to our ears.

Of course, now the fact we're being sentenced to a month in Hemel Hempstead for work means we shall miss Pink Grease next week, but you can't have everything. Well, you can try but your room service bill will end up huge and be rejected by the company credit card.

Ah go on, go on, go on

2004-09-22T15:31:00.000+01:00

More Guilty Pleasures.

Sometimes good taste just wants to be offended. In fact, were Good Taste a girl we suspect she’d own quite a few Sonic Youth albums and green tea, when all she really wanted to do was down a few Bacardi breezers and tit around to Dancing Queen.

So, in the spirit of liberating Dame GT from the grind of her Observer Music Monthly existence, we’ve been drinking the dregs from the pop culture bottle for her.

And this is what we like: -

Jentina – French Kisses

We got the promo version of this for 50p, so even if it had been shite in three minute form we wouldn’t have minded. Thankfully, however, it’s fabulous (and not just for the high-larious PR puff on the label which refers to Jentina’s “rapping nouse” – sic).

You’ve probably seen this girl mumble her way through a few interviews. You know the kind: the ones that make you cringe, change channel or at the very least think “Who’s this clueless bint and why is she clogging up my telly?” Either way it’s a safe bet you haven’t bought this, because the poor lass seems to be as popular as smallpox.

This might have something to do with the image. Being the self-confessed ‘pikey-popstrel’ is not too bright an idea in ChavScum’s heyday, nor is having a management company who shove you out into the spotlight way before you’re ready.

But for all this – French Kisses, wow! Touched by the hand of Cathy ‘Toxic’ Dennis (why she could never write this kind of stuff for herself is beyond us), it’s three minutes of Arabic rhythm-inflected perfect lust-pop. A simple story: girl sees boy on dancefloor, girl proceeds to practically rape the poor lad there and then. True enough, there is a rubbish rap tacked on to the end and the chorus does sound a bit like the middle-eight from Dirrty, but what are you waiting for? Buy buy buy. The girl needs to get herself a new caravan, bless her.

Never mind the quality, feel the pain

2004-09-20T14:34:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. We’re going to a Writers’ Group tonight and don’t know how good an idea this is. Yes, we do have pretensions to becoming a proper writer (and we have the MA and the first draft of the first novel mouldering away on our hard drive to prove it), but is it worth the pain and frustration?

And we’re not talking about getting published there either. The publishing industry is indeed a barrel full of poisonous snakes but it can’t compare to the hotbed of mutual jealousy, recrimination and bitterness that is your average Writers’ Group. They make the average Tory Party leadership challenge look like a Methodist barn dance.

We admit they do have their uses. Plugging away, writing for no certain audience on your own and with no one but the (also fictional, seeing as your tenancy agreement has a ‘no pets’ clause) cat for constructive criticism is hard. Keeping your focus on something as diffuse and open-ended as a novel is infinitely harder. Consequently, a group of people offering to keep you on track sounds like heaven.

(If only it was like this - at least James Last is worth looking at)

Unfortunately, this reckons without the politics and group dynamics these things run along. In fact we suspect there’s a quota system tucked away somewhere in the archives of the Ministry for Culture, Media and Sport. This requires each Writers’ Group to contain the following: -

i. A HUGE Goth girl who always waits until she has two roots of (usually blonde) regrowth before dying her hair auburn / black. She will expend her creative juices (urgh) on either poetry or attempting to hijack Anne Rice’s career.

ii. A disappointed poet / middle manager, with beard and pronounced Croydon accent, who has lost the urge to write but not to ‘manage’. He will therefore turn up every week in order to run the meeting as though he’s getting an update on the filing system.

iii. The bore. Again, usually a poet. More often that not a poet who writes poems about how difficult it is to write poetry, and then wishes to discuss them at length. If not poetry, non-fiction which goes into great detail on how the truth is “an unattainable quantity”, or somesuch other undergraduate drivel.

Of course you may wonder why, given that our prejudices are so strong, we bother in the first place. This isn’t easy to answer. The best we can come up with is that even criticism that’s one step away from drivel is better than nothing, and few things motivate us more to write than irritation at bad writing. So if it’s a choice between the Group and a diet of Jeffrey Archer or Dan Brown (he may be popular, but he’s not any good, you know) novels, we’re plumping for sitting next to the Goth Girl.

Moreover, watching (from a distance) while people tussle for supremacy, shag each other’s partners and diss each other’s work can provide an inspiration in itself. We are dubious, however, if anyone would want to read a novel about a writers’ group. Other than people who go to the things, but that’s a circular argument we can’t be bothered getting into.

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb / Isn't that long a stay

2004-09-14T16:07:00.000+01:00

Fred Ebb (1933 - 2004)

Musical theatre-lovers the world over (so this means 90% of the gays) are or should be in mourning this week. Fred Ebb, the lyricist in the Kander & Ebb partnership, has died at the age of 71.

Kander & Ebb are/were one of the greatest musical writers of the post-War era. They brought us Cabaret; they brought us Chicago; they brought us 85% of Liza Minnelli's listenable output. This makes them great. Fred Ebb also wrote the lyrics for Ol' Gangster Face Eyes' schmaltz-fest New York New York as well, but everyone's allowed an off-day, aren't they?

But seriously, his death (along with Stephen Sondheim's, which can't really be that far away) effectively marks the end of an era for Broadway and the West End musical scene. Kander & Ebb were one of the few surviving exponents of the hit bespoke musical. By which we mean they looked at a show from the perspective of "What story can we write songs and lyrics for", rather than "What story can we fit a load of reheated pop hits around?" (Thank you for that Ben Elton, may you burn in a hellfire stoked by your own novels.)

The partnership will no doubt be best known over the years to come for Cabaret and Chicago. And deservedly so, as both are black diamonds of shows: dark, glittering and decadent. Also, all the more remarkable for musicals whose success rests on their theatricality (Cabaret constantly references Weimar era German cabaret, Chicago vaudeville variety theatre) they were both turned into successful feature films.

At their best, Kander & Ebb succeeded in turning the sentimental view of musicals on its head. Accompanied by John Kander’s unnervingly sharp ear for musical pastiche, Ebb’s equally incisive lyrics could skewer ideas far bigger than a simple “I love you”. Chicago in particular presents a view of a shock-celebrity obsessed world that Rebecca Loos would recognise as much as Roxie Hart.

Similar themes were carried over into their less well-known work, some of which has unfortunately been eclipsed by Cabaret’s and Chicago’s success. Kiss of the Spider Woman is a witty, gothically camp adaptation of the Manuel Puig novel (its original soundtrack also sports a cracking performance from Chita Rivera – the original Velma Kelly). Seventy Girls Seventy, a more eccentric piece involving a group of clapped-out showgirls, a retirement home for vaudeville entertainers and a bank heist is frothier, but just as satisfying.

Kander & Ebb’s biggest brush with the stars, however, had to be with the one they made: Liza Minnelli. Their first full-length show, Flora The Red Menace gave the trademarked Queen of Gays her breakthrough role. They also went on to write the signature tune of her early career, Liza with a ‘Z’ before writing her two additional numbers for the Cabaret movie that transformed her from stage to movie star in one leap.

Their collaboration didn’t stop there either. The Kander & Ebb early 80s musical The Rink (another neglected classic) was written for Liza and Chita Rivera, as was the theme tune for Liza’s last real film hit, Stepping Out.

Of course, Fred Ebb’s death now rules out the juicy possibility of another Kander & Ebb / Minnelli vehicle. Which leaves us wondering “What does Liza do now?” (this may well turn out to be the rhetorical question of our time).

So let’s leave it at this. Fred we’re sorry to lose you, but you left us plenty to enjoy along the way. As for you Liza, well, Rufus Wainwright’s number can’t be too hard to come by.

2004-09-13T14:58:00.000+01:00

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Sand Gets in Your Eyes

2004-09-13T13:11:00.001+01:00

We've just got back from a weekend of dedicated Rubbish Gaying in Wales. Well, Shell Island to be exact: Europe's biggest campsite, which is 'famous for shells' (funny that) and in possession of what must be the world's windiest nudie beach.

Friday

Now we don’t want to start making spurious remarks about hurricanes seeing as people in the Caribbean might accuse us of lacking perspective, but Lord it didn’t half blow a gale there. So much that it cruelly exposed the Rubbishness of our tent, which turned out to have age-related erectile dysfunction. The merest suggestion of wind was enough to make it need a lie-down.

We were, however, thankful to have been out-Rubbished by our travelling companions in the following ways: -

Travelling Companion A: Who awoke at 3am feeling a bit cold only to find his tent was stuck in a tree 100m away.

Travelling Companion B: Who was officially named as Britain’s most middle-class camper. His attempts to cook a two course dinner (plus cheese and olives) in the pitch black and on a one-ring camping stove were incongruously delicious. And it’s true what they say – balsamic vinaigrette really does taste better in the open air.

Saturday

Wind, wind and yet more wind. This time with sand in it: nature’s natural exfoliant.

Saturday took us to Barmouth in search of a tent that didn’t spend more time on its back than a call girl with ME. For the uninitiated, Barmouth is a Rubbish seaside resort: heavy on antique shops, short on the end of the pier delights (usually some refugee from Bad Boys Inc in a 70s revue on roller skates) designed to placate tourists temporarily starved of ITV light entertainment programming.

We even had our own brief encounter with cult TV the same day, as the nice ladies who gave us a lift to the pub revealed they had driven all the way up from Reading to see Most Haunted: Live, which was being filmed nearby.

Now this surprised us. As far as we thought, no one sane was going to drive five hours to watch Yvette Fielding tighten her cardigan and say: -

“No, you’re right Derek. It definitely has got colder in here."

But how wrong we were, seeing as the roads were thronged with cars and the pub full of the overspill who’d arrived too late to get seats.

Sunday

Colwyn Bay . . .

Is very quiet on a Sunday. At least Hell is warm and the people are interesting.

"You'll have someone's eye out . . ."

2004-09-10T10:13:00.000+01:00

This book: -

Is quite possibly one of the freakiest things we've read all year.

It's a memoir about a boy (Augusten Burroughs) who spent his late childhood and adolescent years being brought up by his mother's psychiatrist. Following his parents' (an alcoholic maths professor and southern belle chainsmoking would-be poet) divorce, his mother suffers a series of breakdowns and comes to depend more and more on her freaky hippie Santa Claus shrink, Dr Finch.

Then, when his mother embarks on a series of lesbian affairs and decides she no longer has the 'emotional space' to cope with Augusten, she makes Dr Finch his legal guardian. So he moves more or less full-time into a house where there are no rules, no one cleans and the children play with the old electroshock therapy machines in the basement.

The critics called this book 'The Brady Bunch on Viagra'. We'd say it was closer to 'The Addams Family on PCP, valium and Freud for Dummies'. The part where Augusten loses his virginity at the age of 13 to Dr Finch's 33 year old adoptive son, and finds the relationship accepted by the Finches and his mother made our skin crawl. Then there's the passage where Dr Finch begins to divine the future using his own faecal matter. And a scene involving a six year old called Poo and a dog . . . The list goes on.

Needless to say, this book is funny, disturbing, moving and the kind of car crash read that will keep you turning pages well into the small hours. Plus, like most American stories it has a wilfully happy ending, to reveal the (blackly funny) bleakness, so what more can you ask for? And it's in Waterstone's 3 for 2 offer at the moment too.

How do you start a blog?

2004-09-09T15:39:00.000+01:00

Now, given that there's little more tedious in this world than reading / listening to / enduring a writer whinge about how difficult it is to get down to business, I'll make this brief.

Welcome to Tough Love.

I'm not totally sure what it's going to say for itself yet but hopefully we'll find out soon. You never know, in time it could become an interweb renowned repository of sage wisdom on the subjects of art, literature, music and why Olympic athletes should go the whole hog with the retro look and perform in the buff . . .

Or it could end up just being me moaning about hangovers and Virgin trains.

We'll see.

Is it 'cos it's wrong?

2004-09-09T15:13:00.000+01:00

Life is full of guilty pleasures. They can range all the way from watching Sunset Beach repeats in bed to getting post-coital love bites from a miniature stallion, just like that man with the David Lee Roth hairdo we saw on a C4 documentary a while back.

Thankfully, liking music you shouldn't isn't quite as shameful as either of these, though try telling that to someone who's had to buy a Jamie Cullum album (as a present, honest).

A few examples of some songs we're loving in spite of ourselves.

The Thrills - Whatever Happened to Corey Haim

.

We know they're a tad dull, and that basing an entire 'noughties career on two Crosby, Stills and Nash albums and the few non-crap bits on the Byrd's Greatest Hits is neither big nor clever. This song, however, still manages to get under our skin.

It's bright, breezy and has a nice string arrangement. It could also have done with being released a month and a half ago now that autumn's on its way, but there you go.

Incidentally, this song also shows up the fact that The Stills guys are clearly technologically illiterate. Anyone who's spent any time online in the past two years would know that Corey Haim has ended up as some sort of Celebrity ebay sadcase, selling his hair and toenails to keep body and, erm, habits together. Which makes us think there's enough of Corey Haim floating about out there to make several Lost Boys-themed voodoo dolls. So, Corey, consider yourself warned. Next time you get a bid from an ebay user with a screen name like dr_santiago, run the hell away.

(Plus there is the added bonus of the lead singer being quite fit, though in an indie not fitting into normal fanciable parameters way.)

2. Mousse T feat. Emma Landon - Is It Cos I'm Cool?

This should have been so very very wrong. After all, Horny was every Greece Uncovered obsessed slapper's late 90s theme tune (and we could never work out which of the singers was 'Hot' and which was 'Juicy', as billed). Moreover, Sex Bomb was also the song which revitalised Tom Jones' reputation as a viable sex symbol. (This proved our theory that he is the music biz's equivalent of Mr I-may-be-X-million-years old-but-I've still-got it Ick, Sean Connery.)

Nevertheless, Is It Cos I'm Cool manages to rather marvellous despite its questionable pedigree. One of those jumps all over the place songs that mixes strings with a dodgy guitar solo and comedy lines such as "Is it cos I'm fly?", it never fails to induce a smile. Yes, that's even in Kasabian fans, and we've seen the proof dancing in front of our eyes last Saturday night.

Tough Love

Wired For Sound

meh-meh

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Breaking news: Bible not true shocker!

MISSING!

Somewhere over the Rainbow Flag

Even More Slang!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Gimme a ‘C’, Gimme an ‘S’, Gimme an ‘I’

Arsehole of the world

Saucer of milk

Concerning Primark

Home on the flange

Meat-aphor

Yet another fabulous new definition

Go straight to Hell Part II

Back from the dead (Part Two)

Blasphemy . . . Blasforyou

Oi!

I've seen a Gay-r-age

Something to love

It’s a New Year

Thank God it's her, instead of Chris Martin

FEED…THE…WORLD’(s publicity machine)

Things we are *hearting*

Land of the Free, home of the Knave

Fangs for the memory

And the winner is

Health health health darling

Places to go . . . people to see

Ah go on, go on, go on

Never mind the quality, feel the pain

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb / Isn't that long a stay

Sand Gets in Your Eyes

"You'll have someone's eye out . . ."

How do you start a blog?

Is it 'cos it's wrong?

Things we are hearting