Impending Death and Shit Britons

Yesterday, I took one step closer to death.

I stopped celebrating birthdays when it was deemed socially unacceptable to go around to children's houses and eat cake, so turning 33 (AKA "7 years away from 40" and "practically one third of a century") was never going to cheer me up. Especially when I was working a ten and a half hour shift in work which finished at 10pm. Still, thank you for the dozens of birthday messages on Feckbook and Twitter. You made an old man very happy. Would anyone like a Werther's Original?

Apologies for not being around much lately, a combination of crazy shift patterns and problems with my pension (one of which is true).

A few weeks ago, I promised the results of Shit Britons via podcast. I did make a podcast, but it suffered from a technical problem. Technically, it was utter shit. The more I listen to it, the more I hate it. The main problem is that it's just me on my own. If I had somebody to banter with, it might be slightly interesting, but as I don't, it ain't going to happen.

So then, the results of Shit Britons 2010:

Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote, it's much appreciated. Absolutely tonnes of entries; if nothing else, it does show what a raft of cunts this country has produced, and that we're really good at doing just that. Something for us to be proud of as a nation, I feel.

Some surprises, not in terms of who received votes, but mainly who didn't receive votes. No votes at all for Margaret Thatcher, Myra Hindley, Ian Brady, Peter Sutcliffe, Jack the Ripper... some of the biggest cunts this country has produced, yet not one single vote. So, who do you, the voters, think is worse than Jack the Ripper?

The also-ran list was great; lots of people I hadn't considered or had forgotten existed. People voted for:

All the Big Brother housemates

Lewis Hamilton

The Duchess of York

Rodney Morgan

Emil Heskey

The Krankies

Working class hero Lord John Prescott (aka Baron Prescott, of Kingston upon Hull in the County of East Yorkshire)

Pat Sharp

Black Lace

Maureen from Driving School

Natasha Kaplinsky

Fiona Bruce

Chris Tarrant

Kerry Katona

The bloke from the Go Compare ads

Jeremy Clarkson

Richard Littlejohn

That one from Loose Women with a face like a BSkyB dish (thanks, @Scriblit)

Jamie Oliver

Otis Ferry

Vernon Kay (but not Tess "Tickle" Daly)

Peter Kay

Davina McCall

David Cameron (who can be proud of the fact in the short time in office, he has exactly the same amount of votes as Tony Blair)

George Osborne

Paul McCartney

Chris Moyles

Jonathan Ross

Christian Bale

Andy Murray

Paul Daniels

Phil Collins

Jim Davidson

Michael Winner

Alan Carr

Wayne Rooney

Chris De Burgh

Amanda Holden

Russell Brand

Ant

Dec

Katie Price

and Simon Cowell.

So, the top spots...

In 3rd place....

It's a tie between Jeremy Kyle (a kind of Matthew Wright-esque parody of a man with the sneer inverted, whose distorted sense of principles and opinionated nonsense could be attributed to his own apparent troubled past. Or it could be, as many Shit Britons voters have decided, that he is, intrinsically, a complete shitgibbon), and Nick Clegg (who can be proud of the fact that he's officially a bigger twat than his boss, despite nobody being aware of him six months ago. His placing in the Shit Britons voting is testament, no doubt, to his remarkable ability to stab an entire country in the back).

In 2nd place....

Piers Morgan. Pudding-faced, monotone-friendly, ego-monster, media whore, truth-distorter Piers was a very popular choice, mainly due to his ironic position of talent show judge, but one must also consider his dreadful talk show, his books, the fact his name is an anagram of "A Grim Person", and his self-assured mono-expression dough-faced curmudgeonism. Which isn't a word. However, going further back in an undeservedly blessed career, he used to be the editor of The Daily Mirror, and was rightfully sacked for publishing fake photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British troops. Regardless of your stance on the Iraq war, it is fun to brand Morgan a traitor. Going further back, he used to write the showbiz column, Bizarre, in The Sun, shamelessly name-dropping wherever column-inches allowed the room for his ego, foreshadowing his future career, and acting as a template for all future contributors. He paved the way for showbiz journalists to be self-serving camera-muggers, and though I don't condone violence in most instances, there can be no staircase high enough to push him down. Or perhaps an escalator, since you can do it over and over again. All hail Piers Morgan, figurehead of the unforgivable, out-of-control state of affairs in today's celebrity-driven cuntfest.

Now we reach the top spot.

Taking all of Britain's history into consideration, bearing in mind we've had a colourful past, where cunts have emerged through socio-political events or out of necessity, or simply due to being utter bastards by nature, who do you rate as the worst person to ever emerge in this septic isle? 

The worst person this country has ever produced, ever, as voted by yourselves, is...

James Corden.

In a rollercoaster career, very little has changed...

Being a reasonable actor but poor comedian, his ego has gradually filled out to the point where it could maintain a small village for a year. I can't completely admonish him; Cruise of the Gods was a wonderful piece of television (due to get remade as a Hollywood movie), and Gavin and Stacey is competently written (though how much of that is down to Ruth Jones is in question), despite having a poor, lazy, hasty ending to its final episode. However, when you draw the disastrous Horne and Corden orgy of dull oh-look-I've-got-my-belly-out-again-look-and-laugh-at-the-devil-may-care-boisterous-fat-man gags, Lesbian Vampire Killers, and his recent attempt at upstaging national treasure Patrick Stewart at the fucking Glamour Awards into the equation, you can see why he's such a popular choice this time around, though I suspect it's largely a recent-memory thing. Perhaps events like this will spike his ego; we'll see how he does next year. I hate to say that he was okay in his recent Doctor Who appearance, though it was a joy to watch the Eleventh Doctor headbutting him twice in succession. 

Congratulations on your win, James, you moderately talented bastard. You are officially the biggest cunt this country has ever produced, as voted for by Dystopian Fuchsia readers. It's nothing personal.

Actually, it kind of is.

I do hope your public persona is an act, and that you really don't believe your own hype. Hell, even Winston Churchill made some devastating errors and bigoted statements throughout his career, really poor and tragic choices, and he had a state funeral. Do you want a state funeral, James? STOP PICKING ON PENSIONERS. You're too early in your career to square off against Knights of the Realm in a tacky, low-key awards ceremony that you clearly thought you were too good to host. I'd better stop now, before I anger myself too much thinking about your reprehensible behaviour. Christ.

...

So, there we go. Thanks for your patience. I wonder how different the voting will be for Shit Britons 2011. I hope that James's public perception improves a tad; as much as I agree with his placing, I can't bring myself to completely hate him. I've always had a problem with that self-aggrandising attitude that some people thrust into the limelight develop. I don't remember him being like that three years ago. Maybe it's just a phase.

Okay, I'm off. I'll end up posting here soon-ish. Loads to tell. Particularly the tragic death of my PS3.

I suppose when you get to a certain age, you expect your friends to drop dead around you. Time to read the Obituaries.

I'm still alive.

I've been to my first ever festival.

Sort of, anyway. I saw one band. But I was there.

Hard Rock Calling at Hyde Park on June 25th; the line-up wasn't too great overall; the Gaslight Anthem and loads of people you wouldn't have heard of. But Pearl Jam were headlining, and, since I've been a fan of them for nigh on 18 years, it was about time I saw them.

So, festivals, then. My wife and I turned up fashionably late, as we only wanted to see Pearl Jam, after enduring weeks of her inappropriate comments about Eddie Vedder. We narrowly missed the opportunity to throw bottles of piss at Gomez, unfortunately, but there's always time for that. Following a lengthy trek from Cardiff, we were a bit peckish. I'd heard the stories, but decided to buy a festival burger and some drinks. Approximately twenty five quid down, we made our way towards the stage. Well, sort of.

There were thousands of people there. Thousands. I completely forgot to factor in the General Public. Bah. How dare these people come along and get in my way, damn them?

My wife was determined to get as close to the front as possible, which meant pushing through. We got as far as the midway point, and I got the full festival effect. People taller than I directly in front of me and unwilling to move, and a gentleman stood directly behind me shouting half-remembered lyrics which were louder than the gargantuan speakers. Yes, I paid all that money to listen to a drunk, tone-deaf man. 

I don't know what happened, but he was finally silenced. I could hear the band. And they were amazing. Here's some clips I found on YouTube:

I've seen hundreds of live bands over the past 15 years. Sepultura (with Benji from Dub War/Skindred on tribal drums), Marilyn Manson (believe it or not, in a thoroughly disappointing less-than-half-an-hour set), Queens of the Stone Age, Therapy? (three times, no less), Mike Flowers Pops... All paled in comparison to Bad Religion at the Astoria in 2004. Pearl Jam have just joined my favourite band at the very top of the list. They were flawless, sounding equally as good as, if not better than, they do in the studio. Eddie Vedder remains an extremely charismatic, energetic frontman, and Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Jeff Ament and Matt Cameron work together perfectly. In fact, Matt Cameron's presence is probably the closest I'll ever get to Soundgarden, since each time I was due to see them, Chris Cornell cancelled with a sore throat. Bugger.

Pearl Jam have hundreds of songs, so it was inevitable that some of the stuff I was looking forward to was omitted; no Rearviewmirror, Animal, Leash or, bizarrely, Jeremy, but we did get fantastic renditions of Once, Black, Do The Evolution, Even Flow, and, within the two encores, Alive (of course) and Yellow Ledbetter. It was heartwarming to hear their tribute to Joe Strummer with a cover of Arms Aloft in Aberdeen from his final album with the Mescaleros. Ben Harper joined them on stage for Red Mosquito, and I now wish I'd arrived earlier so I could see him too. Great musician.

I only wish I hadn't been as far back as I was. I kept wondering who the children were on stage. Thank Christ for the big monitors, eh?

Then came the fun of actually getting out of Hyde Park, since the police decided to block off most of the exits whilst their horses shat everywhere. Hurrah! Whilst watching a drunk man having a disagreement with a tree (he lost), I couldn't help noticing the hundreds of identical (and very brand-new looking) Stickman Alive t-shirts. I'm glad I wore my United Federation of Planets t-shirt so I don't look like some sort of loser. 

My vintage Alive t-shirt was folded up in my drawer at home.

Anyway, it was a great experience. I urge you to watch some of the better quality clips on YouTube. 18 years is a long time to wait to see a band. Most bands I like don't tend to last that long (apart from Bad Religion - 30 years now).

And if you ever do go to a festival, don't buy anything. Starve if you have to. It'll be the best money you'll never have spent.