The businessman who needed a poo

In the style of Amanda, I have decided to write about something I witnessed the other day and found amusing. Anyone who follows me on Twitter may already know the story as I was live-tweeting as it occured.

I was on my way back from a gig in London on Thursday and I got on the train at Waterloo. I managed to get one of those single seats next to the toilet and decided to try and have a bit of a snooze on the way home as it was a schoolnight and I had to be at work at 9am the next day.

Sat opposite me was pretty much your stereotypical businessman, wearing suit and tie and holding an umbrella even though it had not been raining at all that day. I would like to think he had a bowler hat on as well, but that is a detail that I have probably embellished for my own amusement.

The toilet door was locked and it was obvious that the businessman needed to use the facilities. He tapped on the door with his umbrella a couple of times, getting no response he used his umbrella to push the open button but the door remained closed.

I don't know if you're familiar with the new toilets on South Eastern trains, but essentially there's two buttons on the outside which will be lit up if the toilet is vacant and able to be used. These buttons will open the door and then once inside, there are buttons to close and lock the door.

So the businessman obviously waited patiently for a little while to see if someone emerged from the toilet. When they didn't, he tried knocking on the door with the umbrella and pushing the button again. Again nothing. He tried this repeatedly for the next half an hour until we got to Tunbridge. I'm not sure what he was expecting to happen after getting no response the first few times, but the other 84 times he tried it annoyed me as almost every one awoke me from that nap I was trying to have.

By this time I was imagining that a golgothan would emerge in due course.

At Tunbridge, the man waited impatiently for the doors to open before running one way down the platform and then the other, clearly attempting to find a toilet.

Just as the man gets off, a woman walks onto the train, pushes the other button on the door and walks straight into the toilet.

I will not grow up

It is my birthday next week. I am going to be old. But I will not be grown up.

Earlier this year, I got my dad to dig out some old bits and pieces that I could use for my brother's best man speech. He found this little gem that was in our local newspaper, which I have scanned and uploaded.

Essentially, it says: My name is Stewart, I am 8. I like football and Batman.

My name is Stewart, I am about to turn 33. I like football and Batman.

Sometimes it amazes me how little I have changed. Okay, so if you read the excerpt from the newspaper in full, it also says that I support Liverpool which as I have discussed on Unbelievable Jeff is no longer the case.

It also says that I like swimming which whilst true, is something that I have managed to forget how to do. It's not like riding a bike. I have over the course of the last 3 years or so tried to learn again but I get the feeling that if I really wanted to, I would have done so. Partly my lack of progress is down to Dan Johnson trying to teach me and being mean and making me put my head under the water all the time. Anyway, I digress. I'm talking about growing up.

There are times in my life when I've been keen to grow up. When I was about to leave primary school and when I wanted to get a job where I had to wear a suit are two that predominantly stick in my mind. What I have found is that once I have grown up, I slowly become more and more child-like again. Which personally, I think is wonderful. I wrote last month about how I thought that this was influenced largely by Roald Dahl and his general kids vs. grown ups philosophy and how I am glad that I can still class myself on the kids side of the fight.

Dahl writes in Danny, the Champion of the World: "Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets." And I think this is true. Grown ups often feel that there's things they can't tell children because they wouldn't understand. I think that grown ups underestimate the power of children to assimilate anything into their world whether t be fact or fiction.

The thing about being a grown up is that you have lots more responsibilities, lots more stress, lots more worries and lots of social dilemmas. Children have none of this. They don't think more than a couple of hours ahead and any arguments and problems are quickly resolved. We could probably learn a lot by being more child-like in our approach to the world.

Grown ups are often world weary, whereas children will see things with a sense of wonder all the time. One of my favourite things to do when I go on holiday is stare out of the taxi window on the way from the airport to the hotel. Not only does this make me feel like I'm in a movie but I am always interested in looking at the little things that make that place different from any others.

The places that I enjoy going on holiday are those which are quirky and unusual and different and exciting. I can't stand going to the same place over and over or having the same beach holiday just in a different location.

I am proud that the things I like now are the things I liked when I was a kid. It makes me feel that even though I'm getting older that I'm still not one of the dreaded Grown Ups.

Rule Number Two: Don't be a dick

I used to live with a hippy (Hi Ben!) who would protest against things that would damage the environment and that sort of ilk.

I admired greatly his dedication to causes and his motivation to actually make a stand about things as it's something that I have never done but that I feel I should do. However, were I to protest about something, it would be something to do with getting people to stop being dicks to other people. The charities I support are those which fit in with this philosophy - Amnesty, Shelter, NSPCC etc. - as I feel that until we stop this, we will struggle to make significant advances in other areas. I also feel that eradicating dick-ism is much more important for our growth as a species.

With that in mind, I have compiled a list of my current top 5 dicks so that we can learn from their behaviour and evolve.

As a side note, it annoys me that our society will get overly excited about cat bin lady (not that she didn't deserve to be scorned) whilst at the same time ignoring examples of ongoing great dickishness.

1. Jimmy Saville

I am not going to get into a discussion about whether or not the allegations against him are true. Partly because it is irrelevant to my point but partly because pretty much the entire light entertainment industry has admitted that they are true.

As such, this is an example of double dickism - first by Saville and secondly by everyone who sat by and did nothing about it. Now, there are some, such as Janet Street Porter on last week's Question Time, who will say there is nothing they can do about it. Which I feel is a dickish statement.

Satre wrote everyone has a free choice, even a prisoner. He said "The prisoner is free because he controls his reaction to imprisonment: he may resist or acquiesce." People can react against situations that are wrong. If they don't like them, they can say something. If they don't get a satisfactory response then the ethical thing to do is to resign and have no part of the wrong-doing.

Street-Porter is therefore an honourary dick by association. And because she's really fucking annoying.

Saville's dickism is clearly obvious to anyone who has seen the news over the last few weeks. He takes the spot as top dick because his TV show fixed it for kids wishes to come true. After extensive internet research I have been able to find no stats on this, so I am going to make one up. Exactly zero per cent of children wish to be molested by a geriatric peadophile.

It's like... seriously... did no-one stop and think: hang on a minute, we shouldn't be allowing this to go on. These kids are going to be fucked up for life. We should put a stop to this. It's almost enough to make me want to boycott the BBC but unfortunately they have the excellent Sherlock and I bloody love Sherlock Holmes, and so my willpower may not be enough to follow through with this.

Saville conducted the ultimate abuse of power and for this (and the fact he never fixed it for me to play at Wembley), he is King Dick.

2. Robert Mugabe

Mugabe is an evil evil evil man. Like, he's a proper evil tyrant. Like Stalin or Hitler. And he's currently in power, in Zimbabwe. And he has been for the last 32 years. 32 years in which he:

- slaughtered 20,000 in retribution for earlier uprisings
- imprisoned and tortured another 3,000 "trouble makers"
- instructed police to act violently and aggressively against protests
- outlawed anti-government protests
- allowed veterans of the civil war (taken very loosely as some of these veterans were 18 and the war had finished 20 years before) to forcibly take land from white people
- censored the press
- rigged the last two presidential elections

In those 32 years, the US has been involved in wars in Libya, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia and the Sudan. Britian has been largely involved in the same wars as well as fighting Argentina in the Falklands war. We clearly have an appetite for sorting shit out and imposing democracy on others,  and some of the shit going down in these countries was less bad than that in Zimbabwe so why have we not just marched right in and stuck a bullet in Mugabe's brain?

Earlier this year, there was that Kony thing that I hated. I can't believe that people are getting all worked up about that when Mugabe, even at 88, is continuing to be President Dick. Come on people, get this fucker out of power!

3. Lads

A generic one this but I think you know who lads are. The ones that go out drinking and being laddish and engaging in "banter." The ones who intimidate women with sexually suggestive acts or behaviour and generally lower the bar even further than it has sunk before. Swearing, drinking, shagging.

You know the ones. "Lads! Whey! Beer! Birds! Come on luv, gittcha tits out fer the ladddddds."

Like... what the fuck? We are a country that has produced Shakespeare, Dickens, Newton, Brunel, Churchill, Lennon... and now we've got Mike Skinner and Lee Fucking Nelson?! If anyone makes me feel like I was born into the wrong era, it's Lee Fucking Nelson.

And now we've sunk to this. The sort of culture that seems to basically encourages these lads (whey!) to essentially sleaze their way into women's thongs, probably often not completely invited but it's acceptable because well you know, she was dressed like a slapper and was drunk and up for it and that.

FUCK!

Like... I can't even begin to describe how little I have in common with these people - with the probable exception of liking football - that I can't even begin to comprehend why they think it's a good way to live.

The bar just keeps getting lower and lower. Dicks.

4. Chris Brown

Now I have never knowingly heard one of Chris Brown's songs and have absolutely no desire to. Yet I know that his a prime dick.

His dicknosity is due to the fact that he did this to his girlfriend Rhianna. Not only that, he is clearly not remorseful in the slightest as he got this tattoo of a beaten up woman on his neck.

Like... what? What part of any human being can think that is in anyway acceptable?

The worst thing is that for some reason is that somehow his music career has blossomed since all of this, as if millions of R&B fans are complicit in his dickness.

The best thing about Chris Brown's entire existence is that fact that he inspired this beautifully scathing review of his latest album which is definitely worth checking out.

5. Adam Fillary

Music promoters are generally quite nice people. They are people who want to put on music they love for others who they hope will enjoy the same music. It can sometimes be a bit frustrating getting everything to come together but from my experience, not something that will make you act like a dick.

Which makes Adam Fillary's behaviour perplexing. Adam is a local promoter and from my 10 or so years in the local music scence, I can't recall either a) anyone having a good word to say about him or b) anyone complaining about a promoter as much.

I asked Facebook for examples of his behaviour earlier today and here are some examples:

- booking a covers band to play a battle of the bands and telling them they couldn't play covers
- pay to play shows. No musician should EVER have to pay to play a gig. In fact, no musician should ever have to do a gig unpaid (with certain exceptions). At gigs, the bar staff, the sound engineer, the security staff, the cleaners all get paid so why oh why should the musicians - the stars of the show - be asked to do it for nothing?
- he exploits naive young musicians to this purpose
- he does so little research he attempted to book another promotion company thinking they were a band
- he considers himself a business man but also whines about how little money he makes out of it
- he tries to charge people who are on the guest list which caused one band members girlfriend to boycott the gig out of principle (I don't know who this is but if you do, please high five her from me)
- his security staff once tried to stop a musician taking an instrument into the venue
- he books up venues and gig dates with no bands booked and then will email around with these amazing "opportunities" for bands to fill the slots

My only personal experience that I recall involves my band getting booked to play at the Zebra Bar in Maidstone which for us was around an 80 mile round trip which would have required at least 2 vehicles as there was eight of us in the band. We were booked to headline after some band who were supposedly the next big thing because they'd recently supported some decidedly average famous for five minutes indie band.

This band were allowed to overrun their set so that we had to cut ours short to around four songs and then when I asked for some money to contribute to our petrol we were told that they were asking everyone on the door who they came to see and no-one said they came to see us which is a blatant lie as we brought at least 3 people up with us. Eventually I managed to negotiate the entry fee to give back to our friends who came all that way to see us play for under 20 minutes.

Why would you book someone to headline that far away from where they are from and expect them to promote it enough to get people to come along to see them, especially if you (apparently) seem to consider the band on before them to be a bigger draw? Also, promoters that expect bands to publicise the gig for them annoy me. Their job is to promote. The clue is in the fucking name.

All of this and he will continue to send ridiculously long emails claiming that his company, Rock Matrix is essentially single handedly keeping the Kentish local music scene running.

No one person or group can engineer and entire scene, no matter how big your ego may be.

I have gone to several amazing local shows. The scene is there without him. The scene is better off without him. I for one will be pleased when Rock Matrix finally stops putting on gigs later this year if it is true. Several times before their emails have claimed that because no-one is supporting the scene (bullshit) that they will stop doing. I have my fingers crossed in the hope this isn't a hoax. Dick.

Conclusion

Now, we have examples of what dickishness is, we need to make sure we stamp them out wherever we see them and evolve the human race onto the next level. Please, let's all be nice to each other and that, yeah?

Consider other people's feelings. Consider other people's thoughts. Consider doing actual nice things for other people.

---

A honorary mention goes to Sepp Blatter who narrowly missed out on making the list.

Thanks to Ant and Lee/Brad for some of the great stories used above.

Prague: An idiot's guide.

I went to Prague last week. I also want to be a Bill Bryson/Michael Palin type, so here are my thoughts on Prague.

Travel

Prague is small. Like, not the size of Folkestone small, but still quite small.

Despite the fact that it took me over an hour to find a metro station on my first day and then even longer to find one that would sell me the ticket that I wanted, this is more due to the fact that I lack a sense of direction than any problems with the public transportation service.

I think because I'm used to London, the fact that I could and often did - occasionally on purpose - walk pretty much anywhere I wanted to seemed incomprehensible upon arrival. I thought that I would need transport passes that would allow me to travel on the metro, trams and funicular wherever and whenever I wanted. I was wrong.

The price of these all-day or multi-day tickets is over 100 crowns a day, but individual tickets that last half an hour are just 24 crowns. I would advise you to go for these individual tickets as I don't think I made enough journeys to warrant the cost on any of the four days I was there.

These tickets are also only available from certain 'information' stations. So by the time I'd eventually found a metro station on the first day, I was told that I'd need to go to another one to get one of these tickets. I had managed to walk past one of the information stations about 5 minutes walk from my hotel and so adamant that I wasn't going to pay more than I needed, I walked to the next one. The metro seems to work on an honour system though, as not once did I have to present my ticket. Had I known this, I probably would have just bunked the tube to the next station.

The metro is really easy to use. There are just three lines which interest at three transfer stations. This makes it extremely easy to work out which route to take and which platform you need. Compared to the London Underground, it's a right doddle.

I didn't try using any trams as I didn't have any need to but from the map it looks like between the metro, trams and buses pretty much the whole city is easily accessible.

It seems that the taxi situation is slightly less praiseworthy. There are two taxi firms - AAA and 111-  which are guaranteed to give you a fair rate and these are the only ones allowed to park directly outside of the airport and at certain 'Fair Price' taxi ranks. These taxi drivers are very good. I accidentally tried to get into the driver seat - cars on the continent have driver's seats on the other side, who'd have thought it? - which made him chuckle and then he amusingly had a go at me for taking my own suitcase out of the boot as he said that was "my job". He got a tip.

On the way back to the airport, the hotel called a cab for me which ended up costing around £5 more on the £15 fare that I had paid to get there. The driver also kept swerving two and fro about the road, making me feel like I was going to die. This driver did not get a tip. It looked as though you could have pre-booked one of the fair price taxis for the return trip to the airport at half the price, which in hindsight is something I wish I had done.

Food and Drink

Traditional Czech food seems to largely consist of meat. As I don't eat meat, I didn't taste any of this traditional cuisine.

I didn't find any problem getting anything to eat though. A personal preference was to try to find restaurants which were slightly off the tourist trail and less crowded which seemed to pay off as service was generally very quick and friendly. The prices of food were a lot less than I expected. I ended up paying between £3 and £7 for a main meal, generally at the lower end of the scale.

As you'd expect for a capital city, there are a lot of restaurants with different cuisine. I tried something at an Austrian restaurant which I was expecting to be something new and exciting but turned out to essentially be macaroni cheese. My favourite restaurant was Hombre del Monde which I heartily recommend as they have the most amazing quesadilas (anything with a lot of cheese basically suckers me in, though)  and is literally right outside Andel metro station.

Beer was also quite cheap. You'd be looking at around £1.50 a pint. Even though a quarter of the pint would be head, you're still getting a good deal.

I arrived in Prague a few days after a ban on alcohol over 20% came into effect. Some might say that they had heard I was coming, especially as the ban is due to be lifted a week after I have left. As such, I didn't get my hands on any absinthe. There were a large number of shops which appeared to be specifically absinthe stores which seemed to be practically closed. A number of places were selling 'prohibition cocktails' but I didn't try any of these. It was a bit odd to see all these businesses which would have been fully operational just a week or so before almost being pushed out of business.

The guide book also told me that there was a pub which sells banana beer among other unique varieties. Unfortunately I didn't manage to make it there, but if you do, please tell me what it's like.

Attractions

I had bought the Lonely Planet pocket guidebook which I disagree with in some respects. Some of the things they said weren't very good (e.g. The Museum of Communism) were some of my favourite parts of Prague, and some of the things they said were top sights (e.g. Loreta) I found rather dull. On the whole though, the guidebook was rather useful and one of the cheaper ones on the market. Although obviously after reading this, you probably no longer need one.

I'm not going to lie - Prague castle was the big selling point when I was deciding where to go and I spent around 5 hours there. I could easily have spent more if it wasn't getting a bit too crowded and I wasn't getting so hungry.

At noon each day, there is a changing of the guards which I found slightly comical. The music for some reason made me think of Thunderbirds. Then they push each other away. Then they do a silly Monty Python-esque slow walk. It's definitely worth checking out. There's quite a good video on YouTube here if you want to see it beforehand.

I bloody love castles. I've not worked out why. I think I want to be a knight, really. But they just hold a fascination for me. However, by far the best thing at the castle was in the guard's tower on Golden Lane where you can pay money to fire a crossbow. I was so immensely rubbish at it but it was by far the coolest thing I did the whole time I was away.

It probably won't surprise you that I also checked out Vysehrad castle which is south of the river. It's awesome that you can see one castle from the other and this one did have it's little treats such as a little playground with exercise equipment which I especially enjoyed (I am just a big kid) but if unlike me, you don't have the patience for two castles, check out the main one on the top of the hill. It'll be more crowded, but probably more enjoyable.

As with any capital city, there are a lot of museums. Some more enjoyable than others. Of the ones I visited, I thought that the Museum of Communism and the Kafka Museum were the best.

The Museum of Communism gives you a great sense of the recent history of the Czech Republic and makes you proud of the people there who stood up for what they believed in, especially Jan Palach who burnt himself alive to protest the Russian invasion - a memorial to him is at the top end of Wenceslas Square in the form of a wooden cross in the pavement which looks like it has suffereed a small very localised earthquake.

The Kafka Museum was a great and surreal experience which reflects the authors work. I've not encountered something that so accurately reflects the work of the person it is playing homage to. I don't want to say too much more as it might ruin the experience, but it's something I highly recommend.

The Jewish Museum recently surpassed the castle as most visited tourist attraction in the city. It's not actually just one museum. It's several museums based in various synagogues in the Jewish quarter. You can buy a ticket that gets you entry to most of them or a ticket that gets you entry to all of them. I went for the first option and I was glad I did so as after visiting them all, I was all museumed out. Especially as the first one I went in, The Pinkas Synagogue, was easily the most moving. With several rooms lined wall to wall with the names of the 70,000+ Czech jews who died in World War 2, it really hits home just how many people lost their lives and it's even more moving when you realise that this is only around 1% of the total who died.

The other museum I visited was the Mucha Museum which I found interesting enough but it didn't bowl me over. It was the only art museum I visited (aside from various rooms at the castle) as the The Museum of Cubism has been mysteriously shut down.

Other sites I visited that I wasn't overly impressed by was the Bethlehem Chapel  which is an old chapel which has been refurbished but which is basically just a room with some chairs and a pulpit. Loreta I felt was just a church. It has some nice treasures and sculptures but it wasn't worth the 30 minutes I spent trying to locate it and seemed overpriced for the size of it.

The astronomical clock is one of the most well known attractions in Prague and is slap bang in the middle of the city. However, if you want a good view of when it chimes hourly, you probably have to go early in the morning as I went at 2pm and the crowds were so big that I could barely tell what was going on.

The city is littered with a bunch of random surrealist artworks, mainly by David Cerny. The Piss Scuplture being the most famous. They are enjoyable to stumble upon and if you're nearby I would pop and have a visit but I wouldn't go especially out of your way to see them. And I definitely wouldn't go out of your way (which you have to literally do as it took me a while to locate it) to see the cubist lamppost unless you have a particular interest in art.

I would recommend checking out the Memorial to the Victims of Communism which is at the bottom of the east side of Petrin Hill and is rather haunting - apparently more so at night. It can mark the start to a trip up the hill on the Funicular railway and to be honest, who wouldn't want to travel on a train that's got fun as part of it's name?

The hill itself has been romanticised in the works of Milan Kundera such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which is about girls, right?). I didn't find it too interesting though. It would probably be more pleasant on a sunny day on a romantic date with a partner but it didn't really have much to hold my attention. I was particularly not fond of the lookout tower designed to be like the Eiffel Tower. I refused to go up it on the grounds that it was ugly and ruined the landscape.

Entertainment

Prague is a very English-friendly city. As I was travelling on my own, I decided to plan lots of evening entertainment to keep myself entertained after a long day of sightseeing and it was pretty easy to do so.

Being a cultured type, I obviously decided to go watch an opera. There are a few opera houses - I ended up going to the State Opera which is just off Wenceslas Square because they were showing an opera by Antonin Dvořák as I wanted to see something Czech.

The opera I saw was Rusalka which is based on the same myth as Disney's The Little Mermaid. It was much easier to follow than when I watched La Traviata in Russia as there were both English subtitles and the performers were moving around. I enjoyed the performance and managed to get my ticket for £6 including booking fee by booking the cheapest available ticket in advance from the internet. There were lots of empty seats though so I don't think you'd have a problem if you turned up on the day.

The following night I went to see a performance of Wonderful Circus by Lanterna Magika which is non-verbal performance art so that it can be understood by speakers of any language. This cost around £25 booking in advance but again, there were plenty of empty seats so buying when you are there could be considerably cheaper.

The performance was enjoyable enough although it seemed to be quite a lot of the same idea repeated with a poorly flowing narrative and little development. Obviously this is slightly limited due to the format of the performance, but to be honest I expected it to be better than it was.

One thing I noted about Czech theatre from these two performances is that they seem to like the use of video backgrounds where the characters move between video and real life. I don't know if this is a trend throughout all performances but I thought it was unusual as I've not seen it anywhere else before.

On my final night, I went to the cinema. There's a cinema which again is just off Wenceslas Square called Cinema Svetozor which specifically tells you on their website which films are 'English Friendly' due to either being spoken in English and subtitled in Czech or vice versa.

It cost £4 to go to the cinema which struck me as ludicrously cheap as you'd be paying at least twice that in England. I decided to try to watch a Czech film rather than something like Expendables 2, so I ended up watching The Greatest Wish which I actually found really moving and would recommend you try to check out if it is ever released in your country.

If I was to go again, I'd go and see some Black Light Theatre. The Lanterna had elements of it but a full show would be interesting to watch. That and I had no idea what it was until I got home and saw a bit on YouTube

Also, there seem to be a lot of casinos in Prague. I managed to find 3 before I'd found a metro station. So if you fancy returning home with no money, that's also a possibility!

Conclusion

I liked Prague. I had a great time. I have been trying to work out if it's because it's an amazing city or because I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do. I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B. Being able to do exactly what I wanted in Skegness definitely wouldn't have been as enjoyable. I therefore think it is a lovely city which I would recommend.

I was there for 5 nights which I think was just about long enough, although I did rush around quite a bit. If you're not worried about seeing absolutely everything and just want to get the best bits, then 3-4 nights is probably adequate. If you want to completely take in the whole city at a nice relaxing pace, then I'd recommend a week.

There, done. Do you think there's an opening for the next Bill Bryson then?

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men

Apparently today is Roald Dahl day. I did not know this beforehand but I shall be using it to watch my all time favourite film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tonight.

Anyone of my generation surely must have read at least one of his books growing up and almost certainly would have loved it. If they didn't then we can safely assume they are a robot.

I have just discovered that there is actually way more of his books that I haven't read than I thought, something I shall definitely be working on rectifying.

My favourite book when I was a child was George's Marvellous Medicine. I lost count of how many times I read it, but it must have been at least a hundred. I still have the book today. The cover is held on by Sellotape and some of the pages are falling out, but the story is just as great as it always was.

Earlier this year, I read one of Dahl's two books for grown ups - My Uncle Oswald. It just felt wrong.

Dahl's books are for children. His books, to me, tell children that it's alright to be children. It's okay to be silly and have a lot of fun and enjoy stupid things and have secrets that grown-ups don't understand.

More importantly, though, I think they taught me how to enjoy life and to always look upon it with a sense of wonder. This spirit is something that I am not ashamed to say I haven't lost as I've become a proper Grown Up and I hope I never do.

P.S. It's my birthday next month and if anyone wants to buy me a ticket to see Matilda the musical, that'd be ace!

The future's not what it used to be

Do you remember when you had to turn a record over to hear the other side, and you had to look for the little line to pick out the start of a track you wanted to listen to?

Do you remember when you had to rewind the video back to the beginning before you took it back to the store?

Do you remember when you had to plug a cassette player into your computer and wait for five minutes for it to load before you could play a game?

All of these things can now be done at the click of a button if not automatically. It's just not the same. I'm not being nostalgic - I think it's amazing. I love technology.

My life has been enhanced in so many ways by technology. For example, if it wasn't for the fact that my iPhone has a built in map facility, I'd still be driving around Somerset trying to find my way home from my visit last year.

The rate of progress has been phenomenal. Many of the things we saw in the sci-fi movies of our youth are starting to look possible. You can now get contacts that send a computer feed straight to your eyes like the Terminator. Even hoverboards look feasible, although probably not in time to catch with when Back To The Future promised.

The sci-fi writers are going to have to come up with more and more ideas for what humanity will think it needs to invent in the future.

I am excited by our constant progress. My mind really boggles at how men who used to live in caves and hit animals with clubs to survive have managed to send a machine to the big red planet next door.

It doesn't seem possible when you think about it in the grand scheme of things. I mean, dolphins are supposed to be the next most intelligent species on the planet and they've not even invented the wheel yet.

If I'm lucky, I'll live another 40 years or so and I can't wait to see what has been invented by the time I die. I fully expect the world to have changed almost beyond recognition. When I was in primary school, for a project, I once envisioned a system that would allow me to view TV programmes when I wanted not just when they are on. Around 15 years later, this was released to the public and is something I now couldn't imagine living life without. Yet at the time, when I had an 8-bit computer, it seemed like something that would be invented in the year 3000.

I am also frightened by technology advancements. Partly because I'm scared the machines will rise up and enslave us (although as soon as I realised we just need a really really big EMP that fear subsided somewhat) and partly because I know that at some point I will struggle to adapt to the new technology. I know that there will come a time where there will be something I just don't get how to use.

We all remember how our gran struggled to work out how to program the video recorder. I have seen my own parents get confused by their laptop when the solution to the problem seems self-evident to me.

There will come a time when they invent something amazing but which am confounded by. As someone who considers themselves adept with technology and embraces it with open arms, that is terribly frightening.

I used to be in a ska band

This is me rocking out at the reunion
gig mentioned at the end of this blog.

I've been thinking about writing this for a while and as there was recently a petition up on Facebook to get us to reform*, the time is probably right to do so. This is probably quite self-indulgent and I don’t expect anyone who wasn't in the band to understand it all. My apologies for that but I want to get all of this out so I remember it when I go senile.

What's in a name

Once upon a time, there was a band called Penfold. Penfold fucking rocked. However, it turns out that other bands had also named themselves after Dangermouse’s sidekick and so Penfold decided to change their name.

They emailed a bunch of their friends to ask them what their favourite from a bunch of ska-based pun names which included Rootin’ Tootin Skamoon was. Battleska Galactica was by far and away the most popular so that became their new moniker.

On the subject of names before I ramble on about something else, there was a band called Battleska from Cambridge. They got a little bit annoyed because they thought we had stolen their name and apparently (even though they never came anywhere near Folkestone and we never went anywhere near Cambirdge) people were turning up to up gigs thinking we were them. Having listened to some of their songs, I can only conclude that these people were glad they did so.

This didn’t stop Battleska from Cambridge from getting angrier and angrier over time and at one point posting a message on their message board with the title “Battleska Galactici-fuckoff” saying that they were going to go to the musicians union and then run home and tell their mummy who would tell on us to our mum.

An even more amusing name based story surrounds the publicity over our first final gig when Lewis gave an interview to the local paper who ask him if we could supply them with a photograph to accompany the story. He tells them to get one from the internet and I can only assume that the journalist Googled ‘Battleska Galactica’ and took the first photo that came up, as when the article came out the following week there was a picture of some people we’d never met before. After a little Googling ourselves, we discovered that it was actually a picture of another band called Battleska Galactica from Wellington, New Zealand.

We didn't make a fuss about them having our name though because we're not dicks.

Getting from A to B

One day a short while after Battleska Galactica became Battleska Galactica, I was round at Luke and Jason’s flat and it turned out that they didn’t have anyone to take their equipment to their gig that evening and Luke offered me some money and hugs to do so. I did so. This is how I became a roadie for the band.

I was the band’s roadie for several gigs, most notably when they played at the Tunbridge Wells Forum with some band who at the time were going to be the Next Big Thing. I wouldn’t know as I never got to see them as I was guarding my car at the time. The hydraulics that hold up my boot failed when it was opened and the boot slammed shut with the glass windscreen going right through a bass drum. The Next BigThing were quite nice about it but I did spend the entire Battleska set sat out by my car on my own listening to muffled versions of their songs.

A while after this, I was asked to join the band when they wanted to make the sound bigger. I think they probably felt guilty about the windscreen incident and also having to ask me to drive them everywhere. This way, they would surely feel less guilty.

Transportation was to continue to be an issue through all of the BSG years. There was at least one occassion when we had to call a gig off due to lack of transport. We even tried to hire a car for one. Me and Lewis got on the train to Ashford and went to a hire car place to find out that we couldn’t hire a car for some reason. So we just went to McDonalds and came home. That must be the most expensive Maccy D’s I’ve ever had.

We also had one gig that we played somewhere up Norfolk way when Kirsty’s mini broke down on the A-road some distance away from the venue. We ended up having to leave our brass section there and played the gig as a four-piece. I can’t remember if we were humming the brass lines or not but I definitely remember there being a discussion about doing so.

It was earlier on that journey that we invented inter-car charades, which was later to become a Battleska favourite. Without the invention of mobile phones the game would have never have been possible. Another BSG car game was our own unique version of I Spy. Essentially it was a drawn out version in silly voices where you got extremely excited and passionate whenever anyone offered a stupid or correct answer.

Other traffic related stories involve me managing to reverse Galactica One, our minibus into a car belong to the Filaments two days after acquiring it. Having to then play a gig they were at was very awkward. I did give them my number but never heard anything about having to pay for any repairs. If you are out there Ms Filaments, I’m still really sorry.

Galactica One could actually hold an infinite amount of equipment as long as you managed to arrange it in the right order. One evening after a gig in Birmingham, our touring buddies, Reason 69, asked us to take their equipment onto the next gig for them, which resulted in me and Paul spending about twenty minutes playing the minibus equivalent of Tetris.

Driving back home from gigs made me an expert at staying awake and driving late at night. On long journeys home, someone would inevitably shout “STEW! WAKE UP!” during a lull in conversation. I’d respond with “I’M AWAKE!” Comedy gold. They didn’t need to worry though, I’d be half full of adrenalin from the gig and half full of Red Bull and wouldn’t be able to sleep until an hour after getting home.

What goes on tour stays on tour

I mentioned the tour we were on with Reason 69. It was actually the only time we properly went on tour and in true Battleska style, it was pretty poorly organised. A couple of the gigs fell through but it was still one of the most enjoyable things we did.

This was when the infamous “Luke peeing in a Pringles can” story occurred. We were driving around Birmingham on a seemingly never ending ring road trying to find some vague indicator about where the venue was. This was in the days before mobile phones had internet facilities on them, and so Luke had to phone up a friend who had gone to uni in Birmingham and try to get them to direct us over the phone.

Somehow it worked but it took a while to do so and Luke whose bladder resembles a Lidl’s bin bag – able to hold a lot but not for very long – was so desperate that he needed to go while we were navigating around the ring road. With nowhere to stop, his only option was the recently emptied Pringles can. This would not be the last time he would urinate in a moving vehicle.

I had bought a book called something along the lines of “1001 days out for Children” and we used this to find us a campsite called the Billing Aquadrome. We used this as a base for our tour and where we had many fun adventures.

As well as fairground rides and a quiz, it was essentially heaven on earth.

We had a frisbee and we were playing Olympic Frisbee when it went into a lake where some ducks were doing whatever it is that ducks do. Unfortunately it was too far for any of us to reach in and get it. Quick as a flash, I shouted “Someone! Get me the bread!” and using nothing but the power of my ingenuity, I strategically threw the bread so that the ducks nudged the frisbee back to us. This was one of the prodest moments of my life and resulted in me earning the nickname ‘Duckman’.

Two other moments of the tour that stick in my mind are based around when we went into towns to find something to do. The first is when we went to a bowling alley and discovered that the computers were recording how fast you were throwing the ball as well as how many pins you’d hit. This then resulted in us all trying to throw the ball the fastest. Luke won because he is great at smashing things with the power of a thousand exploding suns.

The other was when we went to the swimming pool. I don’t swim so I can’t vouch for the validity of this but the others informed me that the water slide was amazingly named the Cosmic Fantasy Whizz Tube. This tickled us pink and I was quite annoyed when the others didn’t go for calling our final EP ‘Cosmic Fantasy Whizz Tunes’.

I hate camping, though and so I ended up sleeping in Galactica One.  On the first night that we stayed anywhere, we were driving around for some time trying to find somewhere to camp (this was prior to our Aquadrome discovery) and when everyone was getting tired, we just decided to stop up by what appeared to be a deserted field.  Most of the guys set up camp in the field only to discover in the morning that they had camped in a horse’s paddock.

Having been driving and sleeping in the bus, I was quite keen to get an early start back on our final day at the Aquadrome as we had a gig in Canterbury that evening. Everyone else seemed to be faffing in the way that was common of Battleska members and I was grumpy so I thought I’d try and help pack up the others tents while they were faffing. This resulted in me ending up breaking one of Kirsty’s tent poles which made the drive home a little uncomfortable.

Gigging in the rigging

Going to places where no-one has heard of you before is always an interesting experience. People are either not going to care and make you have a crappy time or they’re going to really get into what you’re doing and you’re going to have an amazing time. We were fortunate enough that we’d receive the latter reaction more often and I was always amazed by how much merchandise we would sell at gigs.

Often the others would say they couldn’t be bothered with getting the merch box out and hawking it around but being an accountant I would insist that we did so.  I seem to remember that we actually sold out of t-shirts when we played at Rock’n’Rant – a music/comedy mash up – when we were expecting to sell nothing. That was easily one of the most polite crowds we ever played for.

Some gigs are obviously much more memorable than others.  A couple of my favourites are when we played in a field in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. We’d played earlier that evening at the Gulbenkian in Canterbury and all made the journey to this random location where some kid had booked us to play at a festival in a field that his parents own for his birthday or something.

We were due for quite a late stage time but by the time we eventually took the stage – it was delayed as everything was running late – it was probably around 2am and the entire crowd were entranced. Luke got them to all sit down at the start of My Brother Thom whilst the drums started the intro and getting everyone to jump up when the instruments kicked in.

This was also the gig when I did the most dickish rock star thing I’ve ever done.  We were only about half the way into our set when the kid who was organising it told us we had one more song. This happened several times but the fact that we’d made a big trek to get there, had our stage time  repeatedly pushed back and the crowd lapping up everything we did made me a bit annoyed about it.

So I grabbed the mic or got Luke to announce (I forget which in my old age) that we had been told we could only play one more song and asked them whether they wanted one more or two more. As they were loving it all, the response was that they wanted two and so we over-ran but I don’t think the organiser was actually too annoyed by this fortunately.

This contrasts sharply with other gigs when we pretty much played to no-one except the soundman and our other halves. They could be quite demoralising. The worst was at the Tap’n’Tin when we played with a local band but were on after them. Their entire crowd left when they finished and left us in a deserted room.

Some of our songs had the odd rude word in them and when we’d get booked to play more family type shows – church fetes, open air gigs at the ampitheatre and the like – Luke and Lewis would often be singing along and realise what they were about to sing and substitute it with a “Woo!”

There were other things which occurred on a more regular basis which generally just served to make them funnier. Kirsty had a trumpet solo for the intro to Festa di Carne part 2. It was pretty much guaranteed that if you could catch her attention in any way that she would burst out laughing, so we used to try to invent more and more amusing ways of putting her off.

One common feature of the gigs when Motown was in the band was that he would either play faster or slower  depending on which specific intoxicating substance he’d imbibed. It made it interesting for the rest of the band to try to keep pace.

Motown’s final gig was at Stripes but either the promoter or manager of the bar got annoyed that we had overrun and literally cut the power. A bit annoyed as it was a special moment, someone in the crowd shouted ‘Drum Solo’ which resulted in Motown playing for what could have been 10 seconds or 10 minutes whilst everyone bowed down.

Another Stripes moment I’ve just remembered (this is getting quite ramble-y as I think of more things to add) was the day that Luke handed in his final piece of uni work. He was more drunk than usual before we took to the stage. The floor at Stripes was always either sticky or slippy and Luke managed to fall over a significant number of times (I couldn’t tell you how many as I was busy rocking out), actually playing a large amount of the gig lying on his back.

Take 37

Gigging – when it went well – was the most enjoyable thing about playing in a band, but I also enjoyed the more creative side of things, in writing and recording. It’s always great when you can come up with that one little bit which makes the whole song click.

Many of our songs had in jokes or references that no common listener would be likely to get. This always made it feel a bit more personal and a bit more special. For example, My Brother Thom was named as such because of the fact that I picked my brother’s middle name when he was born. He was named after Thomas the Tank Engine because I was a cool kid.

My brother was to play a part in the band. He managed to get a writing credit on Songs From The Crypt. We were sat around at work one day when we used to work together and I showed him the lyrics to Skank Away Your Heartache that I was working on at the time. Over the course of the working afternoon when we were slacking off, we completed the lyrics together. Dan can take credit for the invention of the word ‘poonfest’ which I’m sure will be in the Oxford English Dictionary one day soon. Unbenownst to me until now, Poonfest is actually a national holiday in Canada.

There is a line in All About The Mary Celeste about ‘Captain Ben’. My housemate Ben thought this was about him but it was actually a reference to Captain Benjamin Briggs of the Mary Celeste. However, when the song evolved to have a more political meaning, it could be said that it then morphed into in some way. It was more fun to think we were singing about him anyway.

These little things are the bits of songs that I like most. Not just our songs, but any songs. Ben Folds is great at really personalising songs and taking them from a regular song to something which seems to have a bit more meaning because it is more personal. Anyway, I digress.

All About The Mary Celeste and Vito were originally going to be part of a concept album which the rest of the band poo-pooed. It would have been amazing though, I think. How many ska bands have done concept albums? From a quick Google it would seem to be about 3 or four. It was going to be about a guy in a mental home with multiple personalities and all of the songs would reference each other. It would have been brilliant but unfortunately no-one shared my vision.

Recording was always an interesting experience. I love how stuff comes together when you layer it over the top of other stuff but I am also not the best musician and so getting something down can be quite a long and frustrating experience. I remember one time wishing the ground would literally swallow me up as I had played the same simple riff wrong about 10 times and everyone else was getting frustrated with me.

I wasn't the only one to mess up. On the album version of Sexual Walking, we noticed that Luke had played the middle 8 poorly and as the album was essentially recorded live, it wasn't possible for us to redo it. The name Sexual Walking comes from the wrestling computer game Smackdown where it is the name of one of the taunts. We managed to accidentally find a piece of wrestling commentary that was the exact same length as the middle 8 and layered it over the top to hide the mistake.

On at least two occassions I had to either call in sick or turn up late for work in order for us to complete some recording or mixing.  I felt a little bit bad about it at the time but I obviously didn’t care too much as it didn't weigh on my mind for too long. Perhaps I felt I had to do it to make up for all the time I wasted playing things badly.

Talking of wasting time, the intro to Skank Away Your Heartache features Lewis blowing on some big jars that we’d filled with water. Not in itself a waste of time, but he did spend 15 minutes of paid recording time tuning the bottles by adding and pouring out the minutest bits of water until he got the note he was after.

Getting our equipment to recording sessions was often a tricky task. At the time, I was the only driver in the band and just had a Rover Metro. Our greatest accomplishment was managing to fit four people, a drumkit, a bass, two guitars and a bunch of leads into it in one time. It probably wasn’t very comfortable but as I was driving, I wasn’t affected by this.

I’m proud of the music we produced. Even Household Name Records said we were “cool.” Although they did point out that they thought we had ripped off Lightyear. On listening to it closely, it did appear as if we had done so. For once, this was unintentional though.

When we posted the copy of Will Skank For Cash to various labels, Luke would kiss every envelope and say/wish “10 million dollars!” with each one. Unfortunately it never came true. Sometimes I felt that maybe we could have made it to a higher level, but it was never to be for various reasons.

You guys are a joy to watch

One of my favourite things about being in a band was the fact that you get to see other bands for free and getting to meet and hang out with them. We met some awesome people in other bands this way. Far too many to list fully, but it was always good to find out that musicians you respected were also lovely people.

There are two bands I do want to mention, though. The first is Army of Juan who later changed their name to Let Our Enemies Beware.  We played them in a battle of the bands at the Beacon Court. They were a three piece with 2 guitarists and a drummer and they blew me and Paul away. Their main guitarist ended up breaking his guitar in two. We ended up beating them and felt bad about it because they were so incredible. Chatting to the guitarist afterwards he was one of the nicest guys ever and instead of being all rock’n’roll about having broken his guitar he was actually a bit sad about not being able to use it again which amused me.

The second is Lightyear. These guys were heroes to us and we supported them at the Concorde 2 in Brighton. I had no guitar tuner so I shyly went up to Nelb to ask if I could borrow his which he very graciously lent me. After the gig Ian who was clearly quite drunk by that point was insistent on telling us that he enjoyed our set which was really nice to hear.

At the same time though you would get booked to play with some horrid and rubbish bands. The rubbish bands, I didn’t really have any problem with. They were generally young kids learning how to be musicians and I’m sure that some of my early gigs weren’t any better.

I never understood why some bands would be dicks to other bands, though. You have to deal with each other on a regular basis, so why try to make problems for yourself? Some promoters were the same which made even less sense as you rely on the bands for what you do.

Another battle of the bands at the Beacon Court, we played against a band who were basically just ripping off Rage Against the Machine. They were obviously annoyed about losing as the next time we went to the venue, one of the bar staff showed us that they’d had to put a poster up in the toilets to cover where the band we beat had carved the c-word into the wall.

I'm gonna be a big big star

Whilst I played guitar, there were occassions when I would have to fill in on bass. The most notable of these was when we were playing at the Purple Turtle in London and despite setting off about 2 days before he had to be there, Jim managed to be late for the gig. So late in fact that he didn’t turn up until the final song of the set. I had to persuade the bassist from the band before us to lend me his bass. He was very precious about it and it took some time. Being left handed, I then had to play it upside down and make up the basslines as we went along. Fortunately we picked our simplest songs but it was still not an experience I would recommend.

Jim wasn’t the only one to turn up after our start time. Pierre once arrived 5 minutes after our stage time when we were supporting Fandangle at their album launch show (which turned out not to be their album launch show as the CDs weren’t ready) in Islington. We were preparing to somehow work out how to play an acoustic-style set on electric guitars when finally he showed.

These sorts of occurrences may have had some bearing on why we didn’t end up with 10 million dollars.

Band rehearsals could sometimes be quite taxing. We were one of the laziest bands that has ever existed. And sometimes one of the grumpiest. We would turn up on a Tuesday and run through our 30 minute set once. We’d then have a break and then we’d have a discussion about whether we needed to rehearse any further because we all knew the set anyway.  This may also have had an affect on why we didn’t make it any further than we did. 

We did become famous enough to get a tab for Will Skank For Cash on several websites. However, it is inaccurate, so I e-mailed some of these sites offering the correct version but none of them seemed to care.

There is nothing quite like having people sing your songs back to you and playing a hometown show was always a bit special. Our final gig was special for that reason but will always remain in my mind as one of the worst I’ve ever played as pretty much everything that could go wrong with my equipment did go wrong. My favourite bit was when Paul and Motown who had both left the band got back up on stage and shouted the chorus to Cheer Up Linkin Park into a mic. It provided a nice ‘full circle’ kind of moment.

Reunion

I got a text message one day after we’d split up which asked if we’d like to support the Voodoo Glow Skulls. The Voodoos were a band that had inspired a few members of our band and we decided to reform to play the show.

We had a couple of rehearsals and I managed to persuade Trev to give me and a few other members of the band a lift to the gig in the Kingskin van. This resulted in me and Lewis finding some alcoholic cola shots which were a pound each which we had a significant number of before the barman pointed out that we could buy the bottle for around £15. Which I did and distributed it amongst the band and those who had come to see us.

I have never been so drunk for a gig but it was such amazing fun. For once when I played the solo to Cheer Up Linkin Park wrong it was due to being unable to remember how to play a guitar rather than to being unable to remember how to play the song.

As for the prospect of another reuninon show? Well, it’s looking like a possibility. Most of the band are keen to do it but one of the problems we had before was our poor organisational skills so we’ll have to wait and see. Watch this space.


* The petition had a 5 week limit on it which was a complete impossibility due to Luke being on honeymoon for three weeks over this period and for some reason it was taken down only about a week after the band was made aware of it.

Boys Don’t Cry

I cried on Friday. And then on Saturday.

I am not the sort of person to cry very often. Mainly because I don’t have feelings. 

Even more I’m not the type to go around telling people that I cried.

The reason for my emotional episodes is the death of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch of the Beastie Boys. I am not the sort of person to be too bothered by the deaths of celebrities. I can only remember one other celebrity death that really affected me (Elliott Smith, if you’re interested).

However, The Beastie Boys have a special meaning for me. Not only are they one of the best bands I have seen live but if it were not for them, my music tastes would be extremely narrow.

The first Beastie Boys song I heard was Sabotage on MTV when MTV used to actually play music. Not only did it have a kick arse video, but it combined rock and rap in a way that I hadn’t thought possible. Until that point I would pretty much refuse to listen to anything that was not rock music.

My tastes were extremely narrow and I was very close minded. After hearing Sabotage, I managed to find a copy of Some Old Bullshit in our local library which I took out and then somehow I acquired Ill Communication on tape shortly after (I think it might have been left in one of my dad’s company cars).

From that point on, I was hooked. Whenever I would get into a conversation about who the best rapper on the planet is, while others reel out Dre or whoever, I would list my favourites as Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D (followed later by Mos Def and Snoop) . This always seemed to shock people but I still maintain that they’re the best I’ve heard. Anyway, that’s probably a discussion for another time.

The Beasties have such a diverse back catalgoue, jumping from style to style effortlessly and at the same time brilliantly. Without them, I’d probably still be listening to Guns ‘n’ Roses and Def Leppard.

Whilst I get annoyed at mass ourpouring of grief over celebrity deaths, I don’t feel  hypocritical at crying at the death of one of the men who widened my horizons and probably had more of an impact on my musical tastes than anyone else.

I am still ashamed of crying on Saturday though, as it was when I was watching the Coldplay cover of ‘Fight For Your Right To Party.’ I hate Coldplay. With a passion. The fact that it got to me emotionally made me realise I must be getting old and liking old people music. Where has my youth gone? It’s enough to make a man cry. 

Invisible Children: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Jump on the Bandwagon.

So, that viral Kony 2012 documentary that has started doing the rounds is pretty darn emotive, isn’t it? Made me want to get up out of my seat and go hunt the bad man down myself.

One of the few things that I have retained from my philosophy degree other than how to argue pretty much any point (if you ever need anyone to play devil’s advocate, then I’m your man) is a degree of scepticism.

When I watched the Invisible Children’s piece of propaganda, I couldn’t help but think that there must be more going on than what they have presented. And I was right. I spent probably as much time watching the video reading articles about their activities and the goings on in Africa.

Invisible Children want to raise awareness of what Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army are up to. Which is a brilliant aim. This is an evil man doing evil things and hurting thousands upon thousands of people and forcing thousands more to live in fear.

People should be made aware of him and discussion should be had about the best way to stop him hurting people.

However, it’s not like the world’s political leaders didn’t know about him. This has been going on for 20 years. And it’s not exactly been a secret.

This viral video presents a very one-sided and simplistic view of the situation. I’m not going to attempt to go into the details fully because much more intelligent, well informed and eloquent people have done so and I have provided links at the end of this for you to read.

And I really hope you do read them to make you more informed about the situation. If you still want to go ahead and support this campaign, then that’s great. I love your enthusiasm and dedication to putting the world right. I wish I was more like you at times, in fact. And I love the fact that the film makers seem to be wanting to do that at well. 

Deep down, I really just want everyone to get along. Whilst I tease my friend Ben about being a giant hippy, it's partly because I am one myself. 

But before you jump on the bandwagon, please please please please make sure you are informed about what you are doing.

Sometimes it is actual possible to do damage by attempting to do good and one thing we should have learnt from recent history is that when the Western world goes into the non-Western world and attempt to change things by force then we can sometimes make things worse.

I am saying this predominantly because of the way that social networking works and how the video has gone viral today.

It would be entirely possible for someone to make a similar video and get people all angry and riled up about someone who doesn’t exist, for example. Please don't just have a knee jerk "we must fix this now!" reaction. 

Invisible Children’s stated aim is to make people aware of Joseph Kony. As I’ve said, I think this is a great aim, but don’t just make sure you are aware. Make sure you are informed. Please read these:

http://justiceinconflict.org/2012/03/07/kony-2012-the-invisible-children-advocacy-campaign-to-catch-kony/
http://www.thabusiness.com/2012/03/kony-2012/
http://whitthef.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/kony-2012/
http://www.wrongingrights.com/2009/03/worst-idea-ever.html/
http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com.nyud.net/
http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/
http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/6586/2010-06-02.html

A person of no faith

Dear Rachel Reeves MP,

I got annoyed watching Question Time this week.

This isn’t an unusual occurrence, it actually happens most weeks and I’ll just go into a rant on Twitter about and forget about. However, this week it wasn’t to do with some fundamental disagreement on a political matter, or annoyance that the Tory was the most sensible politician on the panel although this is happening a scary amount of times as I get older.

The thing that annoyed me most was when you used the term “people of no faith” to describe non-religious people.

Now, I am a devout atheist (more on that at some point maybe, although possibly not as I don’t like to force my opinions on others) and so therefore I would fall under your  classification of “people of no faith.” However, I feel that this is a very misleading term.

Ok, maybe militant atheists might get offended at the term faith and openly embrace the idea of being someone without faith. I am not one of those people.

I may not have a religion – although saying it like that makes it sound like I am lacking something which I feel I am not – but I have a lot of faith. However, my faith is not faith in someone or something that you cannot see. I have a great faith in humanity. Sometimes, I wonder why, but other times mankind can show itself to be the most wonderful and beautiful thing.

The London riots last year showed me both sides of this. Initially I started to despair at what had happened to humanity but when everyone started to get together for the clean up action afterwards, my faith in people was increased.

I have faith in that people are underneath it all, generally good, moral and generous beings.

I also feel that this faith is stronger than many people’s religious faith as the object of it is tangible. The results are visible. But now is not the time to get into an argument about who is right or wrong on the matter of the big G.

In these days when people get offended by the silliest little slight on themselves or their beliefs and we often have to tip toe around issues, I call for greater acknowledgement and respect of my kind of people as we respect you and your kind (I'm talking about religious people not politicians as clearly politicians rarely get any respect from the public).

So, Ms Reeves, I am not a person of no faith. I am a person of strong faith, just not the kind of faith in invisible people who live in the sky. Please acknowledge this in future.

Many thanks.

Valentines day kettle love

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I love my new kettle

More than I do you

I was going to write a blog about Valentines day being rubbish but then I realised that the majority of people probably think that way too. Or if they don’t, they probably don’t want me ruining their lovely romantic day by pointing out how silly it all is.

So, instead, I have decided to write about my new love.

We met on Sunday. It was my sister’s birthday and we went out to lunch at the Harvester. My sister is very much like my mother and enjoyed pointing out all the vegetarian options on the menu that I was able to have (All three of them, just in case I’d missed one. It was very helpful).

I had a go on one of those machines you get in the arcades where you try and grab a toy out. For the first time ever, I managed to actually make the grabbing device grab something. It picked up the Wario doll that I had my heart set on, moved it across to the left and then towards me.

I was already celebrating. My family and friends were looking at me with a look that said “you’re 32. Even 8 year old kids don’t get that excited about this.”

Unfortunately Wario is a bit bigger than I had anticipated and is he got to the hatch that he was about to be dropped into, the barrier knocked him out of the grabbing device.

I was distraught. Resolute, I had another go at getting him out but only succeeded in standing him on his head. “No problem”, I thought. “I’ll come back and win him after lunch!” Waiting for the bill, I was very impatient and as soon as it was dealt with, I rushed off to the machine. I was made distraught again to discover that some pikey kid had stolen my Wario toy.

“The only thing to do, “ I thought to myself, “is to go home and have a cup of tea,” because as everyone knows, there is nothing that cannot be fixed by a cup of tea.

I then remembered that my kettle had broken. Fortunately there was a Sainsburys nearby so I stopped off there* and looked at kettles. Within my budget range, there was a black Sainsburys own for £15 or the Presitge 1.7l cordless in sexy white which claimed to light up when boiling for £20.

Anyone who knows me well will know that this was a no brainer for me. Anything that has promises a flashy additional gimmick for a small additional charge will be bought, no questions asked.

Upon getting her home, I noticed not only how well she fits in with her surroundings (see image). She also boils quickly and efficiently, and best of all, when she does, she provides me with her interpretation of the Northern Lights (see below video). She knows how much I want to go see them but also how poor I am and so unlikely to be able to afford to go in some time.

She also makes a damn good cup of tea. I don’t think there’s anything more that I look for in a woman.

So, Presitge 1.7l cordless, will you be my valentine?

* The order of these events has been altered for dramatic effect. I actually bought the kettle before lunch. It was a Sunday and Sainsburys would have been shut by the time we had finished eating. I apologise for any harm caused by this.

I hate running

I hate running, I really do. I’ve never really seen the point. It’s just transporting yourself from one place to another.

I'm happy to put in the effort to run if I'm playing a sport but on it's own... I just don't get it.

OK, when I was a kid, I wanted to be the fastest in my class. There was something cool about that, like you had a super power or something. The best I achieved was third in what I assume was about a fifty metre sprint on sports day in primary school. When I went to big school and realised that about 50% of the other kids there were better than me, I lost all interest.

But running now, as a grown up, I just don’t get. Why would you get all excited about going out in street and letting everyone see how unfit and out of shape you are?

So the fact that I have signed up to run three miles for Sports Relief might confuse you. It certainly confuses me.

I’m a walking paradox.

I think it’s partly because I know that other people – some of whom I think are less fit than me – can do it. Another thing I am is very competitive. I don’t like thinking that other people are better than me.

I think it’s partly because I am still the least fit member of my football team even after two years of playing and training. I have been putting this down to being the oldest outfield player but that excuse doesn’t really wash when you see players like Ryan Giggs still playing at the highest level.

Ok, I might not be quite as good as him but the fact that he can keep playing at the very top level when he is six years older than me puts my levels of fitness to shame.

For a while I have been saying that I want to do a big run to challenge myself and to prove to myself that I can do it. And then a few weeks ago my friend called my bluff.

I know that three miles isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, when other people are running 26 in one go and there’s a dude I just read about called Dean Karnazes who can literally run forever.

But for me, this will be a great achievement. I tried road running a couple of years ago but struggled as I kept getting shin splints and therefore I concluded that I was never going to be able to do it and gave up. I could just about manage a mile before I had to give up.

Now, my body is a bit better conditioned due to playing football and I have managed to overcome this. I am still physically unfit though, and three miles is a challenge to me. I can manage it on a treadmill but basically fall down dead afterwards however every small milestone brings with it an amazing sense of accomplishment.
This is something I really wish I’d done sooner.

Although that’s partly because I would have a younger body and it would therefore be easier for me.

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I also hate asking people for sponsorship. It’s obvious that you’re going to do whatever I’m sponsoring you to do with or without my money. Well I am anyway. So I feel uncomfortable just going up to people and asking them to give to my charity of choice. But should you wish to sponsor me in my attempt to drag myself along Folkestone seafront without dying, you can do so here.

I wish I was Sherlock Holmes

When I was a kid I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes. I still do.

It was only after watching the first series of the BBC’s Sherlock in anticipation of the second series which aired earlier this month that I was reminded of this. I then subsequently downloaded the Complete Sherlock Holmes onto my shiny new kindle (only 77p on Amazon – bargain) and started re-reading some of the stories that they were based on which really hammered it home.

I had never struck me before how much of an influence over my life he has had. I always wanted to be as smart as him. I’m not sure I have come anywhere near close but his pursuit of knowledge - albeit in a very specific area - and the truth probably had some factor in my choice to study philosophy at university.

My second favourite board game as a child was called 221B Baker Street: The Master Detective (my favourite being Monopoly because I was born to be an a capitalist). The game is essentially Cluedo but with actual clues rather than a process of elimination. My brother dug this game out a couple of years ago and we became obsessed with it again for a short period of time. I also became extremely competitive and refused to acknowledge his victory when he got one tiny detail wrong. Well, Holmes wouldn't have got anything wrong.

In my mind, it is a vastly superior game to Cluedo because of it’s intellectual requirements that I didn’t play Cluedo again until a few months ago round a friend’s house. My desire to be Holmes led to me taking extensive notes on who appeared to be showing whom which card so that I could not only win but reveal to everyone else that I knew exactly which cards they had. Unfortunately my powers aren’t quite up to Holmesian standards and I didn’t win. I did have fajitas though which I consider a sort of victory.

Holmes embodies everything that I value.

He has a Stephen Fry-esque encyclopaedia of knowledge and incredible powers of observation (which I totally lack as my concentration span is basically non-existent). He has a good sense of right and wrong although he isn't afraid to bend this on occasions for the greater good - a sense of utilitarianism which is something I developed during university. He is a master of disguise and I love dressing up and make pretend (yes, I am still a child - more on that at another time).

On top of this, Holmes is able to hold his own in a fight and is a keen boxer. This is not me at all. I used to go kick boxing. I threw up for the first two weeks and then on the third week they told me to take it easy. I didn't go back. I still wished I'd been good at it tough. Excitement and adventure is also never far away for Holmes and I love seeing and experiencing new things.

Along with the fact that he gets paid for doing something he loves, this makes him my hero.

He has had a profound effect on my life. More than I realised and possibly more than anyone else outside of my immediate family.

My favourite five bands you’ve probably never heard of*

I like to think that I've got awesome music taste. Actually scrap that. I know I've got awesome music taste. Sometimes the best music isn't the popular music. And a lot of the time, the popular music isn't the best music.

I used to be a bit precious about "my" music and didn't always like it when it became popular and wasn't as special any more because everyone liked it. However, feel privileged that today I have decided to share some hidden gems with you. These are my favourite five bands that only a handful of people have probably heard of, how I discovered them and why you should like them.

1. Evil Superstars

I'm an undercover pedestrian, spreading the love germ

Evil Superstars are the third best band to come out of Belgium in the last twenty years and hold a special place in my heart. I was writing a music column for our local newspaper almost 14 years ago and randomly got sent the single for B.A.B.Y. I was blown away. Bands of the time weren't making music like that. This was a time when the Manic Street Preachers were turning mainstream and when boybands and girl bands were the flavour of the month.

I remember the exact time when I first listened to the song. A friend from school had popped round to pick something up and I'd just put the single in. It was just so dirty and completely unlike anything else I'd heard in a while - dirty both in the sounds of the music and lyrically.

Not all of their songs are like this. Like their contemporaries dEUS who I can't help comparing them to, they are also able to produce beautiful music. Singer Mauro Pawlowski now plays guitar for dEUS and I was fortunate enough to interview him on the phone after the release of Boogie Children-R-Us. He sounded like a man who genuinely loved making music and realised how lucky he was to be able to make a living from doing so. He promised me he would make music "until I fucking die."

2. Quasi

Love was a problem for our ancestors, it's not such a problem any more

 Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss show the White Stripes what ex-husband and wife two pieces should sound like. In fact, I'd go as far as to say they're the best ex-husband and wife two piece that has ever existed. Although I have just discovered that they now have a full time bassist, so I should probably change the tense in that last sentence although I can't be bothered to do so now.

I saw them when they were supporting Elliott Smith. Sam and Elliott used to be in Heatmiser together and Elliott occasionally helped out by playing bass for Quasi. Janet was the drummer in Sleater-Kinney and it seems that these along with some of their other projects were always due to overshadow Quasi.

Sam plays a rocksichord - an instrument so rare that I remember something happening to the one Sam used to play with (either stolen or broken) and him struggling to find a replacement for it.  It makes the band's sound completely unique, especially with the way Coomes jumps on and clings off his instrument.

With intelligent lyrics and poppy melodies, Quasi should be way more popular than they are although with so many side projects, the band's releases and touring schedule is quite sporadic.

3. Freedom For King Kong

Des maux contractés à force de trop marcher, même les poètes en ont mal aux pieds

When I first visited Paris, I went into a couple of record shops while the girl I was seeing at the time did some clothes shopping. My French has been poor ever since I somehow scraped a C in my GCSE but I did manage to work out where the ska-punk section was and randomly picked up a couple of compilation CDs.

On one of these there was a live version of song called Babylone by Freedom For King Kong. I'd struggle to call it ska-punk but I was hooked. In fact, I have often struggled to define the sound of the band. My attempts usually end up something like "electro-rock.... awesomeness with a guy rapping over the top.... in French" but the band's Myspace (remember that?) has them down as Alternative/Metal/Rap so we'll go with that.

The band went on a permanent hiatus in 2007 are so obscure now that even their own website doesn't appear to work any more.

Having just translated the lyrics to this song through Babelfish, it appears to be about dreams in dreams, so the band also have a good case for having written one of the most lauded films of the last few years.

4. The Pecadiloes

You say you've lots and lots of money, I'd get down on my knees to get some

The Pecadiloes are another band that I got sent a CD of when writing for the local paper. They qualify as the most obscure band on this list by virtue of the fact that they don't have a website or a Wikipedia page. They are however mentioned in passing in the first chapter of the novel Kill Your Friends by John Niven which I read last year. That made me excited to read the rest of the book but I wouldn't bother if I was you - it's just American Psycho uprooted and dumped down in the music industry.

I missed the chance to see them when they played at the Penny Theatre as I had no-one to go along with as I hadn't convinced anyone else how awesome they were which I have always been a little bit disappointed about, especially as the band seemed to split after just the one album - Caught on Venus.

Again, they sounded different to anything at the time, so I can see why their label found it not to be commercially viable to keep them around (I am assuming that anyone making music this amazing wouldn't split up of their own accord after just one record) but it has always made me a bit disappointed that the record industry revolves around sales rather than talent.

5. Ed Harcourt

If you need to kiss me then you'll most definitely miss me when I'm gone. God you make me sing funny things about you.

Ok, so technically, Mr Harcourt isn't a band but his music is too beautiful to leave off this list.

I first saw him at V2001 and then saw him for only the second time at Glastonbury 2010. Both times I just stared in awesome. He's got an incredibly unique voice and uses it to great effect crafting lovely melodies over lovely music.

I can't really say anything else without just repeatedly gushing and using the words "beautiful" and "lovely" over and over again. All I can say is check him out and thank me later.

*Unless I’ve forced you to listen to them or your tastes are as awesome as mine.

The Only Way Is Stereotypes

As a scientific experiment, I spent the afternoon of New Year’s Eve watching an episode of each of the following shows: The Only Way Is Essex (henceforth known as TOWIE), Made In Chelsea, Geordie Shore and Desperate Scousewives. Coincidentally, this was also one of the worst afternoons I spent in 2011. The idea was that I couldn't criticise these sorts of shows without watching them. That’s the sort of attitude which really annoys me when I set it in others.

Now, I don’t claim to be terribly up to date on modern television and it’s been 14 years since I studied media studies, so please forgive me for any inaccuracies in what follows although feel free to criticise my views.

I would liken all four shows to being stuck on a bus with some annoying loud people with an accent which varies depending on the show being unable to avoid their inane conversations about who has recently fornicated with whom.

Common Themes

There are some common themes which can be seen in all of the shows and a few – but not a significant number of – differentiating features. This was actually the thing that annoyed me most, that after a while they sort of blend into one show.

This is probably why each of the shows will have captions pop up to tell you the names of the characters on a regular basis. They don’t trust the viewer to remember who the characters are, what their names are or in some circumstances what their relationship is to the other characters. We are told at least twice in the episode of TOWIE the name of Arg’s nan and their relationship.

This is an indicator of the lowest common demoninator marketing strategy for the shows. The language in the shows is also very simplistic and I think any 8 year old watching the show shouldn’t need to grasp for a dictionary at any point.

All the shows appear to have a focus that looks being more important than personality. In Geordie Shore, it is claimed that “looking this good is a full time job.” Desparate Scousewives has several shots of people preening themselves before a night out although there appeared to be less discussion of appearance than on the other shows. This is made up for with the presence of a fashion blogger who was critical of a “local celebrity”’s appearance at an awards show.

As a consequence of this, fake tan features predominantly throughout the shows. In Geordie Shore one of the characters claims that it’s “Geordie law... you gotta have a tan.” The only show that appears to contradict this is one of the characters in Made In Chelsea saying “fake tan is probably the most offensive thing in the world” but there is still at least one character with a fake tan.

This emphasis on appearance and tans is obviously the sort of forced fashion agenda that is usually the realm of women’s magazines and I would imagine that the markets for the two products overlap somewhat. It’s obviously not a great message to be putting across and could be a negative influence if children grow up with the impression that what matters is how they look.

The shows also promote a lack of individuality. In Geordie Shore, one of the men who just wanted to be himself was was excluded from the group, although all he wanted to do differently from the others was not spend all his time in the gym working on his six-pack. He still had in general the same attitude towards women and life as the other male characters. He was finally accepted into the group when he jumped into a fight that one of the other characters had got themselves into.

The shows have a tendency to claim to be the authority on the area which they represent. I can’t work out whether the characters in TOWIE believe that Essex is the name of the town they live in or whether it is generic so that they don’t offend the residents of any one part of the county. I also can’t work out how they've managed to turn Essex into a verb. I Essex, you Essex, he/she Essexes, we all Essex. I can’t imagine it’ll be long before that somehow wangles it’s way into the OED.

This is most predominant in Geordie Shore when one of the characters expresses the xenophobic statement “if you’re from Middelsborough then you might as well be from Mars.”  They are adamant that Geordie’s must do this or that otherwise they don’t fit in. This ties back to the lack of individuality that the shows seem to prescribe.

I would be interested to know what people from the areas depicted in these shows feel about the way that they are represented. I know people from all of these areas except for Chelsea (I’m not that posh) and they are nothing like the people on these shows. Obviously the producers have handpicked these people to be on the shows to be the most entertaining but they also seem to have picked them for their lowest common denominator appeal. I’m sure there must be doctors, lawyers or nuclear physicists from all of these towns but for some reason they are not represented. I would like to hope that it’s because they don’t want to be on the shows rather than that they are being excluded but I feel it might be both.

With the exception of Geordie Shore which is more fly on the wall, the shows all have high production values. But the image they attempt to convey varies slightly. Desparate Scousewives is attempting to give itself an Americanised glamour image for example, and Made In Chelsea appears to use a filter to give itself a different look to the other shows.

In general, these shows appear to have forced conversations due to the semi-real situations that are engineered for the benefit of the show. It’s obvious not “real” because some of the scenes have 3 or 4 cameras in use which would be in shot if it wasn’t being acted out. The thing is, these people aren’t trained actors, so they are often stumbling over their improvised words aware that whatever they say might be broadcast, which can make look like a primary school nativity play at times.

Unique Selling Points

The main differenc e in the shows is the focus of the characters. In Geordie Shore, the focus is hedonisitc and the characters rarely talk about anything that is not in some way directly related to sex. One of them describes being a Geordie as “going out, getting trashed, not caring about what people think of you.” When asked to do some simple promotional work handing out leaflets another states that she is “still not overly thrilled about having to work at all, like.” Anything that takes them away from their hedonistic lifestyle is an annoyance.

In TOWIE, the focus is more on the relationships of the characters, whether two characters are going to get together, whether an ex will be an issue and problems of that ilk. The characters in TOWIE also seem to have jobs although in the episode I watched this was not obvious which I assume was due to it being a Christmas episode. The representation of the characters seems to fit in with the traditional Essex stereotype of regular but dim-witted people.

Made In Chelsea is a much more aspirational show. This can be seen even before the program starts when advertisers Rimmel tell us we should “get the London look.” The characters are keen to emphasise how high class they are as one character mentions he went to Eton and then in the same breath tells us that “Top Shop is a turn-off.” To be caught at the wrong place or in the wrong outfit seems to be the worst crime that one can commit.

The language used is also less common. I was shocked when the word “suitor” was used. It’s not uncommon but after having watched the other three shows my brain had switched off and I had to reboot it to remember what it meant.

The characters – or at least some of them – are shown not to be as highly educated as they claim to be when one of them says “Charles Dickens wrote Winnie the Pooh. No, Pride and Prejudice. Dickens wrote Victorian books like Pride and Prejudice.” Thus it can be inferred that by and large, what the characters are trying to get across to us is just a facade. Had the show discussed this and tried to investigate why this is, it would have been a much more interesting viewing experience.

In Chelsea, there is also a higher level of discussion about relationships. Two of the male characters discuss what to text a girl in order to give the right impression. This might not seem like much but again, after watching the other three shows, it was a breath of fresh air.

There is also more facial hair. I don’t know what the significance of this is but as a bearded man, I’d like to think they are conveying the message that facial hair represents intelligence and style.

In Desparate Scousewives, they claim to be “loud and proud” although this is in a much more refined way than the characters from Geordie Shore. In the opening sequence, they claim that Liverpool invented music but I couldn’t pick out any Liverpudlian bands in the episode I watched. I do remember hearing Oasis (Manchester) and The Cure (Crawley). If you’re going to make these sorts of claims, you should follow through on them.

As I mentioned earlier, it is attempting to give itself an Americanised glamour image right from these opening titles to the mini-sequence just before the ad break which features half a dozen ladies all dressed up and walking towards the camera in front of a view of the Liverpool shoreline that appears to be trying to pretend to be Manhattan.

It also appears to be the most liberal or metropolitan of all the shows with 3 openly gay characters whereas there were none in Geordie Shore and just the one overly camp chap in TOWIE. I thought there was one in Made In Chelsea but he was dating a woman so I assume he must be one of these “metrosexuals” I’ve heard so much about.

Desperate Scousewives also has sections where the characters talk directly to the camera in an attempt to enhance the impression of the reality of the show.  As an artistic measure I can appreciate this as it gives us an insight into the characters thought process, however I do think that in this case it makes the representation of Liverpool that the show portrays even worse. It is attempting to present the show more as a documentary than as a semi-scripted show which therefore might lead the viewer to believe that Liverpudlians are as this show presents whereas they are obviously an exaggerated version of reality.

Who can we blame for these shows?

Back in the day when MTV still predominantly played music videos, there was a documentary show called The Real World. This is credited as launching the modern reality TV genre although was itself inspired by a 1973 documentary called An American Family. The Real World featured about 8-10 young adults who haven’t met living in a house share for a period of time with cameras following them around this whole time.

This seems to be an obvious inspiriation for Big Brother where a similar number of people move into a house for a length of time but are not allowed to leave (in The Real World the participants were just getting on with their lives) and are given challenges to earn rewards. Big Brother is more of a divergence from the route of the shows that we are considering here and instead leads us down the path of shows such as I’m A Celebrity.

As an aside, Peter Bazalgette, one of the men responsible for the creation of Big Brother received a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list. A knighthood! For a man who locks people in a house! We generally give people who do that prison sentences!

MTV’s Jersey Shore is an extension of The Real World but is location and ethnicity specific and it is from here that I think the current crop of shows takes its lead. MTV has a wide range of reality shows including The Hills, Cribs and Pimp My Ride. So I think we can place the blame on the fact that some wise guy at MTV decided to ignore what the letter M stood for.

Why are these shows popular?

I really struggled to find anything within these shows that would keep me watching beyond the episode. They are obviously popular though, otherwise they wouldn’t keep spawning imitations.

I can only think that they are the modern equivalent of soaps for the iGeneration. At least they’re not as depressing as Eastenders. We can just thank our lucky stars that as we all pay for the licence fee, at least the BBC remains exempt from shows of this ilk. At least for the moment.

Soap operas have often been heralded as a good form of escapism which allows people to relax, learn from – when Eastenders and Brookside introduced homosexual characters it could be said to help them gain acceptance in society – and to reflect on their lives in some way by comparing it to those of the characters in the soap.

I am not a fan of soap operas as they often keep creating more and more exciting storylines to keep the viewers entranced and I think this undermines the sense of realism that is created. Soap operas are also open-ended and I like stories which have a beginning, a middle and an end as I feel they are in general better crafted than a soap which is written on a rolling basis as the writers will inevitably not know where they are eventually going with their characters.

Having said this, I can understand why shows such as those I have discussed above are enjoyable to some in the same way that soap operas are. However, I feel that the messages portrayed in TOWIE et al are more damaging that the positive messages that generally run through traditional soap operas and I hope that these are addressed in the future to make them more of a positive force in the lives of their viewers.

Bibliography:

For the first time, I feel I can legitimately have a bibliography on a blog. This makes me feel like a pro.

The Only Way Is Essex – The Only Way Is EssexMas
Geordie Shore – Season 1, Episode 1
Made In Chelsea – Season 1, Episode 1
Desperate Scousewives – Season 1, Episode 1