Festive Democracy

I have found my Christmas spirit. Thanks for asking. It came to me just before 7pm last night when Rage Against the Machine became the Christmas number 1. Whatever the reasons that people bought the single, it's a very unsubtle "fuck you" to Simon Cowell, ITV, Cheryl Cole and the whole complacency that they had the Christmas number 1 tied up and bound. I've seen a lot of people say that "they're on the same label, so Sony will profit anyway" and "Simon Cowell will have made more money due to people buying more copies of the X Factor single". Utter bollocks. It doesn't matter whether they did or not. He was always going to make money, as were Sony. Those people have missed the point. Having a bland, insipid ballad karaoke cover version at number 1 is not what those people wanted. The singles market is a mere fraction of what it used to be. 50,000 more people bought Killing in the Name than Joe McWotsit, most of whom wanted to make a point. The choice of song is largely irrelevant; it could have been any guitar-based song with a high tempo. The point is that music fans were reclaiming a once fine tradition, and it has set a precedent. Next year, perhaps The Pogues, Slade or Wizzard could get to number 1. Perhaps even The Darkness, who are the last people I remember actually attempting a proper Christmas song. I've also seen some people (famous ones at that) claim that it was cynical, mean-spirited and snobbish, and that people have mindlessly bought it, being likened to sheep. This is humbuggery of the highest order, and is a slight against the purchasers of said song, not to mention a sweeping generalisation. I bought it in protest against the complacency of bland pop. As I said, it could have been any song (within reason). I downloaded Killing in the Name not just because it was a real threat to Cowell's machinations, but also because it is a great song. If the alternative was something like the Spice Girls, I would not have bothered. I would probably have gone for a 'proper' Christmas song instead, but ah well. There's still time to get this to number 1 for the New Year:

Anyhoo, onto other stuff. This:

... has nearly ruined my Christmas. I am sick of the sight of Coleen fucking Nolan and her budget hors d'œuvre platters, sold to us on a wave of lowest common denominator variety show ITV fodder musical terror. One thing that baffles me slightly; they sacked Kerry Katona, yet hired Jason Donovan. They seem to have an obsession with former or current smackheads.

Do you know who else is getting on my tits this Christmas?

"He's always doing that!" chirrups Ant. Or Dec. I'm not going to analyse it too much. Suffice to say that these adverts fill me with bile and anger, as do its cheeky little fuckwits, the popular bastards. I'm now in the mood for watching a clip of Byker Grove. The one where PJ (or Duncan, I forget which) gets blinded by paint. I shall watch it over and over.

It has been a pretty poor year for ads, though. If there wasn't this:

...there was this:

Christ, I hate that man. He has a Wikipedia page about himself. I can only assume that he or his mum set it up. He is described as a 'comedian'. His influence is listed as Russell Brand. The other really annoying thing about these adverts (aside from, well, every fucker in them desperate for a bit of exposure on the telly at the cost of whatever little their souls fetched from Satan's coffers, and the fact that they are actually worse than the old patronising confused.com adverts, which I would never have believed possible until I saw this twat) is that nasally "tadaa" at the end of each one. The inept buffoon that compiled these 30 second Greek tragedies actually thought that they would take that one little soundbite from the hundreds of clips uploaded by YouTube non-entities and apply it to every single advert. It's singularly horrible.

These, coupled with the Glade Poo At Paul's advert, have made it an all time low year for advertising. No wonder ITV's in trouble. Plus, if I have to hear Beyoncé warble that "diamonds are a girl's best fwend" one more time, I'm going to punch a wall.

I'm starting to distance myself from Feckbook slightly of late, too. I am sick of the endless Mafia Wars/Vampire Wars/School of Wizardry invites, all of which I have now blocked. But it doesn't stop there. These things keep getting advertised on the side:

Don't click there. I've disabled the link. I wouldn't want you downloading anything from Zwinky on my watch. You'll never be able to get rid of it. It's reputed malware. Anyway, not much of a fucking likeness, is it? Day in, day out, these bits of dumbed-down flotsam float onto my page. Aside from Feckbook changing its layouts every five fucking minutes, these things are making it entirely unpleasant.

Speaking of unpleasant things you can't get rid of, Peter Kay was on The One Show the other day, promoting... well, himself, really. Every little thing he said, no matter how mean-spirited, everybody laughed at sycophantically. He used to repeat his material ad nauseum with a smile on his face; on this appearance, he wore the expression of a man assured of his own greatness, fully expecting his adoring audience around him to fuel his ego. I really enjoyed Phoenix Nights when it was on (I know it's unfashionable to say so right now), but really, how much longer can he peddle the same jokes and catchphrases? If nothing else, it's just indicative of how the British public are happy to fall into patterns and stick to them rigidly, which is why it ruffled so many feathers when Rage Against the Machine got to number 1. I mean, how dare they disrupt the pattern with their political rock music? That Miley Cyrus cover version (pause. Just think about that for a second. A fucking Miley Cyrus cover version. In what way does that even deserve to be number 1 of anything other than on a list of criminal charges?) should clearly have beaten them, obviously. How dare they spoil that Joe McDoodah's dream. He'll now have to work his arse off like every proper musician and band that haven't had the backing and exposure of a powerfully corrupt mogul, an ITV emotion-trawling pantomime and an unpleasant former karaoke show contestant. If his 'dream' is to actually be a respected musician/singer-songwriter, he'll have to graft, rather than have it handed to him on a plate. Here's the start of a song for him. In fact, here's a song for us all, each and every one. Sing it in a Geordie accent for full effect.

Two little dickhead bores, sitting on a wall.

Fuck you Cowell. Fuck you Cole.

I'm getting this out of my system so I can enjoy Christmas in fucking peace. One final thing; you've probably heard that Brittany Murphy died at the age of 32. I fully expect Jan Moir to cover that in a balanced way in the coming days. Let's not forget the lesson she taught us all: a healthy person in their early 30s doesn't just drop dead like that.

Have a lovely day. Sincerely. If you're suffering from the weather, stay safe.