Ten Revelations
Jul 7th
Every year, me and my friends have a fake Christmas day about a week before Christmas. It’s pretty much exactly like Wham’s Last Christmas video. Last year, I was in charge of entertainment and took this opportunity to pioneer an exciting new game, called Share A Shocking Revelation. One by one we went round the table and admitted something shocking (“I hate Disney”; “I’ve been to 11 Boyzone concerts”; “I have a fear of walking over three drains in a row”) and we all felt much better for getting it out in the open. So, Internet Following, shall we play? I’ll start – with 10 revelations:
1. I hate cartoons.
According to my mum, as a child I refused to watch cartoons “because they are not real”. This has continued into adulthood where I still believe there is nothing worse than the bit in Mary Poppins when it becomes a cartoon. Why couldn’t they have got a load of real animals and made it look like they were singing?
2. I don’t think Ross and Rachel should have ended up together in Friends.
I love Friends, but the last episode was pretty rubbish. Made all the worse by the fact that at this point in the series Ross had become a caricature of himself and him and Rachel hadn’t bothered dating for at least six seasons. So when they suddenly got together at the end of the last episode it just didn’t feel real. Like cartoons.
3. I think Diana Vickers is the best thing to have come out of the X Factor.
Yes, better than Leona. I know, I know, she can’t sing as well but I love her quirky pop and even the claw. Watch, for example, this amazing video where she acts out the whole of her song with the claw, including being stabbed by an arrow just before each chorus.
Does it matter that I only understand three words in the song? No.
4. I think Build Me Up Buttercup is the worst song of all time.
Yes, worse even than Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping”. There’s something about “Build Me Up Buttercup” that sums up every rubbish night out I had at university spent in a club I didn’t really want to be in, dancing to rubbish music with groups of people alternating between inappropriately snogging each other and crying. Those introductory bars are enough to make me shudder.
5. I spent 26 years of my life believing that Wolves were not real.
When during an important work meeting I announced that wolves weren’t real, but were in fact mythical beasts, I genuinely believed it.
6. If it had been an Andy Murray & Andy Roddick Wimbledon final, I would have supported Roddick.
Shocking, I know and completely unpatriotic. But it’s very much my rule in sport that everyone should win at least once and Federer was a bit selfish last year when he beat Roddick when he’d already won five times before. So I felt it was Roddick’s year. Plus Roddick has really nice eyes.
7. I think ice-cream is too cold.
I also think generally it’s a waste of time. Bring me a bowl of custard instead any day.
8. I often secretly watch Price Drop TV.
I find these programmes sickly addictive and am getting increasingly persuaded to nearly buy things. Like these amazing vacuum-suction storage bags I saw on the other night. They look amazing! Really good value too.
9. I once went to a Boyzone concert (just to support the friend who’s been 11 times) and got so drunk I was sick on the tube on the way home.
In my defence, the tickets were free and we had a free box at the O2. There is nothing to excuse the vomiting on the tube or the fact that I know all the actions to “A Different Beat” (a song that incomprehensibly rhymes “Africa” with “Niagara”).
10. I find Derren Brown attractive
Maybe everyone does and that confusing TV show he did where he predicted the lottery results was actually full of subliminal message around his attractiveness? Maybe.
There we go Internet Following. Now please share some of yours. So that I feel less humiliated.
X Factor: Week 7 Results (George Michael & Wham week)
Nov 22nd
- Have I become desensitised or was the group performance of “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” not utterly hideous? It had all the ingredients of being so, but somehow hovered around bearable.
- Taking my cynical hat off for one bullet point, I like that Reality TV has meant someone as unlikely as Susan Boyle now has a chance at a music career. Even if it also gave her a nervous breakdown. [EDIT: With further thought I'd disappointed. How much better would it have been if she'd have come back with a "Bleeding Love"/"Bad Boys" instead of that cover.]
- I think we’d have all preferred it if Mariah Carey had sung “All I Want For Christmas”. In fact I’d quite like it if she re-released “Fantasy/Dreamlover” (double A-side) every summer and “All I Want For Christmas” every December. Mariah had everything for her performance: the golden waterfall, the halo light, a gospel choir, indoor fireworks. It’s just a shame she doesn’t have the songs these days to match her voice. I refuse to acknowledge that she was miming and instead insist she can actually sing that well.
- Can I ever forgive her for the below remix (and video) though? Why is her eye sideways?
- My shocking mathematical formula was spot on! Sod my flawed instinct. I’m all Derren Brown.
- Why on earth did Twin Peaks choose “No Matter What” as their desperation song? Did they genuinely pick this? A song with singing and leaps between notes? Is it paranoid to suggest the Puppet Masters made them do this to ensure they’d go this time and save the show a small amount of credibility/believability/relevance?
- Having said that, Cheeky Chappy was quite out of tune too. And yet despite this, I still prefer him leaps and bounds to “very in tune” Joe and “normally in tune but occasionally wildly off tune” Danyl.
- In previous years, a winner has never been in the bottom 2 before. Which means, according to maths (which is my sole guide now), the winner is either Joe or Stacey. Please god let it be Stacey. Please. If Joe wins it will mean we’ve learnt nothing since 2001. Nothing! It would invalidate everything that the important victory of Will Young over Gareth Gates symbolised. Don’t let it happen people!!
- I now have a mint tea and am calm.
-I love Dannii. She’s getting rebellious against the Cowell. I think he might fire her, but still. I love her attitude.
X Factor: Week 7 Live Show (George Michael & Wham)
Nov 21st
I was distracted from writing tonight’s Blog by Katie Price and Kim from How Clean Is Your House eating kangaroo anus. Who would have predicted ten years ago that this would be common Saturday night TV? What kind of brainstorm in ITV’s boardrooms produced it? Maybe I should blog about that in my so far neglected Overarching Narrative.
Anyway, I was excited this week to discover a new but important way of assessing performances: whereas last week we were concerned if peoplej were “authentic”, this week they must be – new buzz word – “believable”.
Meanwhile, Cheryl Cole increased her believability by dressing as Mini Mouse.
The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):
The best thing about this performance was the audience’s awkward silence as they struggled to understand what Dannii meant when she complimented Lloyd’s falsetto.
The Puppet Masters often put the act first that they want out. However, Lloyd only sang one note very out of tune and has a new hair cut. He’s safe.
Stacey:
“I Can’t Make You Love Me” is George Michael’s best song lyrically [edit: he covered it, but is still the best song he's sung lyrically]. But a subtle song with intelligent lyrics from a little known double A side is perhaps not the best song choice, Danni.
After last week’s emotional powerhouse of a performance, Stacey let me down. This week’s VT showed the singing coach telling Stacey it was OK to cry when singing if she liked and I longed for maybe one or two perfect tears at the end of her performance. Instead, she committed the ultimate sin of grinning a bit at the beginning of a song which is all about realizing your partner doesn’t love you. She was also pitchy (less of a sin).
For the best ever example of crying on the X Factor, see below. This was a seminal X Factor moment for so many reasons. You have to watch from the beginning to the end:
Stacey’s big notes at the end had soaring power, but she needs to make sure the rest of the song is as good too.
Twin Peaks (John and Edward):
I found myself wondering if their Choose Life T-shirts were a kind of complicated ironic way of making us realize that voting for them meant some kind of musical death.
They may be vulnerable: their performance was just not horrific enough. I am, however, still fascinated by their twitching; watching it gives me the same feeling I get when I watch Nicola from Girls Aloud. I can’t take my eyes off the awkwardness.
Jedward’s parents still look broken.
Danyl:
Danyl started well with an interesting stripped down version of “Careless Whisper”. He then rapidly destroyed it by removing all subtlety and proceeded to aggressively shove massive notes in our faces. He also pointed to his feet when he sang about them being guilty which ruined everything (see Olly later).
Now merge over the top Danyl with under the top Stacey and you have something potentially great (Leona Lewis maybe? I hoped by merging their faces (my new favourite thing) I might in fact get Leona but instead got this):
I think it has a hint of Joe.
Cheeky Chappy (Olly):
Was each act encouraged to sing the first two lines in an entirely different key?*
Cheeky Chappy finally showed us he was contemporary by singing a song released over 13 years ago. It verged between being quite good to excruciating (mainly when he tried to look seductive by squinting, whilst singing a bit out of tune).
His real crime, however, were the actions he started doing towards the end of the song, like the phone hand when he referred to cupid calling him and the driving motion when he mentioned the BMW (please note Olly, when George sang “why don’t we make a little room in my BMW babe”, he’s not planning on driving in it).
Somehow I still like him.
Joe:
My Primary School Choir was ahead of it’s time: we did “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” too. How relevant/authentic/believable of my Primary School. Next week one of the contestants will be doing a song from the musical we did about a chicken farm.
Back to Joe, and for the first time he conveyed some oomph and emotion whilst singing very in tune. It was a great Musical performance. Why is it that every year the judges claim that the boys could be the new Michael Buble? Joe is nothing like Michael Buble. Did you know that the average release date of the songs Joe sings is 1980? That’s how relevant/believable/authentic he is. Can you believe that I actually worked that out?
Bottom Two:
I sadly predict Stacey (not as good as last week + got OTT judges praise = always a bad combination) and Danyl (partly because this kind of bad PR is ramping up once again). With Jedward hovering around their too. But it’s cheating to guess three so discount Jedward.
[Mathematical Formula says Olly and Jedward. That'd be a shocker]
*The Boyfriend informs me that George often sings in a tricky key and proceeds to give me a hearty performance of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On me”.
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