I like to think I keep up with the news but it would appear that during my hibernation period between Christmas and new year, the world's number one golfer was revealed as having locked up a young girl in his cellar for three years, forced her to have his children and then ritually diembowelled them all.
Or is it just that Tiger Woods' serial philandering has driven the commercial world into a moral frenzy?
The latest commercial entities to distance themselves from Woods include AT&T and Golf Digest, which has, and I quote a news report, 'pulled Woods' column' - "they weren't the first," insisted a colleague, before nipping off round the back of the bike shed to have a quick fag.
Surely enough is enough? The bloke's been a pillock, a knob, a complete b*****d if you insist - but he hasn't killed anybody. Why are people treating him as a moral leper?
Many other high-profile figures have done far worse and received far less condemnation.
Some have retained their advertising deals and continue to prosper.
Nobody has a higher profile in this country - apart maybe from those funny-haired twins on X Factor or Susan Boyle - than the royal family. Both the Prince of Wales and Princess Di had affairs - one will still be king and the other will 'always be the Queen of hearts' according to royalists.
David Beckham admitted to an affair - the country still loves him. There are constant rumours of the serial philanderings of more than one well-respected tv presenter, yet contracts still come their way despite their employers knowing of their dalliances.
Let's draw a veil over it now. Tiger Woods slept around OK? He's been a fool. He's not to be trusted when it comes to women. But he's no Warren Beatty - not yet, anyway.
But he is a fantastic golfer and for those of us who enjoy golf, he will be sorely missed all the time he has to go into hiding while this media circus ("Woohoo circus!" - Homer Simpson) continues.
Let's get on with our lives and allow the Woodses to get on with theirs, whether together or apart. There must be something else about which we can get on our soapbox. Doesn't that ice-dancing crap on ITV start again soon...?
Showing posts with label x factor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label x factor. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Monday, November 16, 2009
More moans about reality TV
I'm really losing the will to live. This morning, over breakfast, bloody GMtv was talking about X Factor and I'm a Non-Entity...
For God's sake, is there nothing else happening in the world that's more important than that shallow pile of *****?
And before you tell me I can always turn it off. I can't; I'm outvoted.
BTW I believe the big-breasted bimbo, Katie Price, is in the jungle. Didn't she do one of these dreadful programmes before and found herself a husband? Anybody would think she was looking for another man or something.
Perhaps Ant and/or Dec are starting a new vehicle: I'm a vacuous bint who flaunts her t*ts and am in need of more publicity and another husband to show off, so get me in there...
I don't know about X Factor, I think hundreds of people have, not just X.
For God's sake, is there nothing else happening in the world that's more important than that shallow pile of *****?
And before you tell me I can always turn it off. I can't; I'm outvoted.
BTW I believe the big-breasted bimbo, Katie Price, is in the jungle. Didn't she do one of these dreadful programmes before and found herself a husband? Anybody would think she was looking for another man or something.
Perhaps Ant and/or Dec are starting a new vehicle: I'm a vacuous bint who flaunts her t*ts and am in need of more publicity and another husband to show off, so get me in there...
I don't know about X Factor, I think hundreds of people have, not just X.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Griffin-watch part two
Apparently last night's Question Time was the third most-watched programme of the day.
It came in behind BBC1’s EastEnders, which had 8.7m (39.6 per cent of the viewing public) between 7.30pm and 8pm, and ITV1’s Coronation Street, which had 8m (32.5 per cent) between 8.30pm and 9pm.
So more people were interested in learning about the progress of Killer Tony and Maria's engagement and dozens of Cockneys yelling "you slag!", than the policies of the BNP.
And we wonder why the guy got elected. This country...
I was heartened though by a guy in the QT audience who was interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme this morning - although I didn't agree with his opinion that Nick Griffin should not have been allowed on.
He added that the upside to giving Griffin the oxygen of publicity was that the very people likely to vote for him were unlikely to be watching a programme of the calibre of Question Time. They were, he said, "more likely to be watching X Factor".
There's a man after my own heart.
It came in behind BBC1’s EastEnders, which had 8.7m (39.6 per cent of the viewing public) between 7.30pm and 8pm, and ITV1’s Coronation Street, which had 8m (32.5 per cent) between 8.30pm and 9pm.
So more people were interested in learning about the progress of Killer Tony and Maria's engagement and dozens of Cockneys yelling "you slag!", than the policies of the BNP.
And we wonder why the guy got elected. This country...
I was heartened though by a guy in the QT audience who was interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme this morning - although I didn't agree with his opinion that Nick Griffin should not have been allowed on.
He added that the upside to giving Griffin the oxygen of publicity was that the very people likely to vote for him were unlikely to be watching a programme of the calibre of Question Time. They were, he said, "more likely to be watching X Factor".
There's a man after my own heart.
Monday, October 19, 2009
It makes me soooooooo angry
X Factor apparently got a record 14.8 million viewers last night – am I the only person in the country who detests this sort of show?
I can honestly say I’ve never watched a whole episode of X Factor, Britain’s Got Chavs, Pop Idol, How Do We Solve a Problem Like Maria?, I’m a Pillock Get Me Out of Here, or Big Brother.
Nor do I watch Come Dine With Me, How Shit is your House?, Wife Swap, Holiday Showdown, Honey I Should Have Shown the Kids Some Discipline or any of the myriad ‘reality’ tv shows the current channels seem intent on shoving down our throats.
They don’t need to shove them down my throat, as they already make me vomit.
On the occasions I have been forced – generally by She Who Must Be Obeyed or one of the kids – to endure five or 10 minutes of society’s flotsam and jetsam, I’ve generally had to leave the room to prevent myself launching into a foul-mouth tirade or throwing an expensive nick-nack through the screen of a not-inexpensive television set.
Andy Warhol obviously foresaw the parlous state of tv in the 21st century when he said: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
The trouble is, people aren’t even that ambitious. They’re quite happy to be seen on tv for just fleeting moment. With numerous video recording devices, and YouTube and Facebook upon which to publish them, an appearance of just a few seconds can be preserved for ever and regurgitated whenever the individual wants to make people think “what a knob!”
What will these people do with these clips? Will they really sit their grandchildren down on their knee in 50 years time and say “look at this Kylie, this is Grandad on Britain’s Got Talent; wasn’t I a complete ****?”
Yes Grandad. Yes you were. And there are thousands like you; and millions more who perpetuate the myth that it’s good to be a **** by watching you and laughing at your lack of intelligence.
One can only hope there is an afterlife and that when we arrive there St Peter tops up the number of such shows we have watched during our lifetime, calculates the hours of precious life we have wasted and punches us in the face once for every hour needlessly lost.
And I hope he’s got an arm like Mike Tyson’s…
I can honestly say I’ve never watched a whole episode of X Factor, Britain’s Got Chavs, Pop Idol, How Do We Solve a Problem Like Maria?, I’m a Pillock Get Me Out of Here, or Big Brother.
Nor do I watch Come Dine With Me, How Shit is your House?, Wife Swap, Holiday Showdown, Honey I Should Have Shown the Kids Some Discipline or any of the myriad ‘reality’ tv shows the current channels seem intent on shoving down our throats.
They don’t need to shove them down my throat, as they already make me vomit.
On the occasions I have been forced – generally by She Who Must Be Obeyed or one of the kids – to endure five or 10 minutes of society’s flotsam and jetsam, I’ve generally had to leave the room to prevent myself launching into a foul-mouth tirade or throwing an expensive nick-nack through the screen of a not-inexpensive television set.
Andy Warhol obviously foresaw the parlous state of tv in the 21st century when he said: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
The trouble is, people aren’t even that ambitious. They’re quite happy to be seen on tv for just fleeting moment. With numerous video recording devices, and YouTube and Facebook upon which to publish them, an appearance of just a few seconds can be preserved for ever and regurgitated whenever the individual wants to make people think “what a knob!”
What will these people do with these clips? Will they really sit their grandchildren down on their knee in 50 years time and say “look at this Kylie, this is Grandad on Britain’s Got Talent; wasn’t I a complete ****?”
Yes Grandad. Yes you were. And there are thousands like you; and millions more who perpetuate the myth that it’s good to be a **** by watching you and laughing at your lack of intelligence.
One can only hope there is an afterlife and that when we arrive there St Peter tops up the number of such shows we have watched during our lifetime, calculates the hours of precious life we have wasted and punches us in the face once for every hour needlessly lost.
And I hope he’s got an arm like Mike Tyson’s…
Monday, September 28, 2009
Get 'em off! (ooer missus)
My one-man crusade to get gmtv taken off air continues.
While I wake up to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on my radio alarm, because I’m second down to the kitchen every morning, I am forced to endure the banality that is gmtv.
I have nothing against Ben Shepherd or Andrew Castle, who both seem decent chaps, but I admit to an intense dislike of Emma Crosby*, who is so far out of her depth she should now be over the horizon; nor am I too keen on Penny Smith, who seems to be more concerned with self-promotion than anything else.
Yet, as difficult as it is to ignore personalities, particularly with a tv programme that insists on perpetuating the cult of personality, I’m going to try to concentrate on issues.
The 7am news on Today informed me that election-winning German chancellor Angela Merkel was now in a position to ditch her coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), and move towards a coalition with the right-leaning, pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
Not surprisingly, for a radio station with decent journalistic values, a German government moving to the right, in however small an increment, was considered newsworthy.
Not so on gmtv though. I waited and waited, but the 7.30 bulletin finished with the market-crashing news that an act in the equally banal X Factor had been disqualified because one of the members of the band had lied about her age.
After my darling wife had cleared up the bowl of Golden Nuggets I stole from our youngest and hurled in the direction of the grinning Penny Smith, she decided to take me to task over my sudden interest in German politics.
My wife and I often have heated discussions on politics – in general that is, not just those in Germany. She comes from the side which would have accused Adolf Hitler in the 1930s as being part of a loony-left conspiracy, while I, wearing my social conscience like a badge of honour, purport to be a socialist, while being happy to enjoy a comfortable middle-class lifestyle and not even purchasing the occasional copy of the Big Issue.
She asked why I thought voters were moving to the right. She believed it was because they were fed up with the ‘socialist’ government of Gordon Brown – I use the inverted commas advisedly – while I suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that maybe they intended to annex the Sudetenland, omitting to point out the obvious flaw in her argument: that Brown was not in the German government.
This led on to a debate about whether the current New Labour government – or indeed party – was left-wing in any way, shape or form.
By the time I’d finished my socialist diatribe against Blair and Brown’s shift to the right, she and her two sons had already departed the family home, leaving me to contemplate my high blood pressure, a cold cup of coffee and soggy piece of flaccid toast.
But at least I could now turn over to Sky Sports News for my own helping of mind-numbing gossip.
*Apparently this vacuous bint is on £120,000 a year. And yet we still harp on about MPs’ expenses…
While I wake up to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on my radio alarm, because I’m second down to the kitchen every morning, I am forced to endure the banality that is gmtv.
I have nothing against Ben Shepherd or Andrew Castle, who both seem decent chaps, but I admit to an intense dislike of Emma Crosby*, who is so far out of her depth she should now be over the horizon; nor am I too keen on Penny Smith, who seems to be more concerned with self-promotion than anything else.
Yet, as difficult as it is to ignore personalities, particularly with a tv programme that insists on perpetuating the cult of personality, I’m going to try to concentrate on issues.
The 7am news on Today informed me that election-winning German chancellor Angela Merkel was now in a position to ditch her coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), and move towards a coalition with the right-leaning, pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
Not surprisingly, for a radio station with decent journalistic values, a German government moving to the right, in however small an increment, was considered newsworthy.
Not so on gmtv though. I waited and waited, but the 7.30 bulletin finished with the market-crashing news that an act in the equally banal X Factor had been disqualified because one of the members of the band had lied about her age.
After my darling wife had cleared up the bowl of Golden Nuggets I stole from our youngest and hurled in the direction of the grinning Penny Smith, she decided to take me to task over my sudden interest in German politics.
My wife and I often have heated discussions on politics – in general that is, not just those in Germany. She comes from the side which would have accused Adolf Hitler in the 1930s as being part of a loony-left conspiracy, while I, wearing my social conscience like a badge of honour, purport to be a socialist, while being happy to enjoy a comfortable middle-class lifestyle and not even purchasing the occasional copy of the Big Issue.
She asked why I thought voters were moving to the right. She believed it was because they were fed up with the ‘socialist’ government of Gordon Brown – I use the inverted commas advisedly – while I suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that maybe they intended to annex the Sudetenland, omitting to point out the obvious flaw in her argument: that Brown was not in the German government.
This led on to a debate about whether the current New Labour government – or indeed party – was left-wing in any way, shape or form.
By the time I’d finished my socialist diatribe against Blair and Brown’s shift to the right, she and her two sons had already departed the family home, leaving me to contemplate my high blood pressure, a cold cup of coffee and soggy piece of flaccid toast.
But at least I could now turn over to Sky Sports News for my own helping of mind-numbing gossip.
*Apparently this vacuous bint is on £120,000 a year. And yet we still harp on about MPs’ expenses…
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Just cut it out
I’ve just had my hair cut and it was a tortuous experience.
The woman to whom I normally entrust my greying locks was shut “due to illness and holidays” the notice said, though of course that should be “owing to” not “due to”.
I resisted the urge to take a permanent marker to the window and change the wording, but it already had me on edge as I found another hair stylist.
Once the operation actually started I was reminded why I normally patronised the other stylist despite her grammatical shortcomings. I’m not good at small talk. Despite not knowing that due is an adjective and therefore must modify a noun, Tracey is very adept at cutting hair and doesn’t engage me in small talk.
I have no issues with the way this second female chopped and shaped my follicles, but I struggled to avoid tedious conversation.
She managed to establish that I WAS on my lunch hour; I DID work locally; and that I did not watch much TV because my wife enjoys X Factor and soap operas. Apparently all “us girls like watching stuff like Peter and Katie”. I resisted the urge to tell her that even my wife draws the line at such tripe.
I also struggled to resist the temptation to join in the conversations her contemporaries were having with their clients, in much the same way she joined in.
In just a 15-minute session I learned:
• The credit crunch is all the fault of the immigrants
• Swine flu is on its way back and its worse than ever
• ‘They’ don’t test vaccines properly
• The first swine flu inoculations affected people’s brains so badly that they’re now in wheelchairs
• And that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the moon
I was pretty sure most of them were incorrect and knew damned well the first and last were. But I resisted.
After my hairdresser had ascertained that business was picking up at our firm she actually made me feel personally responsible for the laying-off of two of my colleagues earlier in the year. She was only just able to prevent herself from accusing me of bringing down Lehman Brothers. Or so it seemed to me.
At that point I decided I would say nothing further despite the ridiculous assertions which had been winging their way around the salon and stated as 'fact'.
My last words were “please can you trim my eyebrows?” and “thank-you”.
I have decided that in the event of Tracey being in ill in future, I will simply let my hair grow to avoid having to endure the sort of banal chit-chat that almost compelled me to throw myself on to a pair of long-handled hair scissors.
The woman to whom I normally entrust my greying locks was shut “due to illness and holidays” the notice said, though of course that should be “owing to” not “due to”.
I resisted the urge to take a permanent marker to the window and change the wording, but it already had me on edge as I found another hair stylist.
Once the operation actually started I was reminded why I normally patronised the other stylist despite her grammatical shortcomings. I’m not good at small talk. Despite not knowing that due is an adjective and therefore must modify a noun, Tracey is very adept at cutting hair and doesn’t engage me in small talk.
I have no issues with the way this second female chopped and shaped my follicles, but I struggled to avoid tedious conversation.
She managed to establish that I WAS on my lunch hour; I DID work locally; and that I did not watch much TV because my wife enjoys X Factor and soap operas. Apparently all “us girls like watching stuff like Peter and Katie”. I resisted the urge to tell her that even my wife draws the line at such tripe.
I also struggled to resist the temptation to join in the conversations her contemporaries were having with their clients, in much the same way she joined in.
In just a 15-minute session I learned:
• The credit crunch is all the fault of the immigrants
• Swine flu is on its way back and its worse than ever
• ‘They’ don’t test vaccines properly
• The first swine flu inoculations affected people’s brains so badly that they’re now in wheelchairs
• And that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the moon
I was pretty sure most of them were incorrect and knew damned well the first and last were. But I resisted.
After my hairdresser had ascertained that business was picking up at our firm she actually made me feel personally responsible for the laying-off of two of my colleagues earlier in the year. She was only just able to prevent herself from accusing me of bringing down Lehman Brothers. Or so it seemed to me.
At that point I decided I would say nothing further despite the ridiculous assertions which had been winging their way around the salon and stated as 'fact'.
My last words were “please can you trim my eyebrows?” and “thank-you”.
I have decided that in the event of Tracey being in ill in future, I will simply let my hair grow to avoid having to endure the sort of banal chit-chat that almost compelled me to throw myself on to a pair of long-handled hair scissors.
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