Real Cruelty in Imaginary Gardens

Is real. Thanks to the majesty of Virgin One, the genii that brought us the documentary about mechaphiles, essentially grown men who wank off on rusted bonnets, we get to see an actual documentary about a woman who is fully and completely in love with the remnants of the Berlin wall and the Eiffel Tower. And not in some half-hearted, uncommitted fashion – this lady was quite happy to publicly hitch up her smalls and rub herself damp upon the horny steel rivets of Paris’ most famous landmark. And there were kids present and everything.

Any kind of rationality for such activity was explained through through the woman’s admittedly hideous past of sexual abuse perpetrated on her as a child. But she could have at least had the decency to become a serial killer or something. Formulating sexual relationships with structures is just weird. Not in my name.

Any sort of sympathy that might exist when considering someone who is clearly desperately mentally ill was dissipated after her visit to the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin, where she deemed it acceptable to compare her own personal suffering as something of a pariah to a level beyond that of the entire East German population stuck starving behind the wall for almost half a century.

It is a uniquely American form of narcissicism that brings a person to such a bizarre place – the American Dream dictates that anything is possible, including shagging buildings. It is a fallacy; the promise is that anyone can do anything, whereas in reality hardly anyone can do anything. And at the end of the day, it’s a fucking tower made out of steel.

I’m off to give Centrepoint a rimjob.

It was absolutely no surprise whatsoever that Manchester United brushed past Southampton this afternoon, reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup, with the ease of someone smearing some snot on the back of a seat on a bus. In the run up to the St Mary’s meeting, Southampton fans and the media had eagerly adopted the revisionist tactics employed by, amongst others, Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds, and most of England in 1996 and steadfastly ever since. People derive comfort from past glories, no matter how distant and increasingly irrelevant, as if consistently concentrating on the past will make the future turn out better. It’s the same principle as trusting psychics – anything is possible if you believe in bullshit.

This time around it was lowly Southampton FC’s admittedly rather extraordinary victory over the Red Devils at Wembley in 1976 that had everyone gazing back through time misty-eyed. That time, a young Bobby Stokes banged in an offside winner to send the Cup down the M27 for the first and only time in history. Could, pundits and idiots asked furiously, that happen again in 2008, albeit in the third round? Of course not. While a division seperated the teams in 1976 as well as today, the Saints are a team in free-fall, while Manchester United, albeit facing a tough title battle, have Dimitar Berbatov, Wayne Rooney et al on their books. There was only really ever one outcome.

Having said that, Southampton found themselves significantly hamstrung early on (not just because of not being as good as their opponents) after striker Matt Paterson was sent off for a two-footed tackle on Vidic, and then Mike Riley awarded Man Utd a dubious penalty, claiming David McGoldrick had handled in the area. So the young team got schooled, and it finished 3-0, with Berbatov taking a lot of time to get his bum out and slap it in the face of the Saints defence, in football terms at least.

The youth of their team is one of several vast problems facing Southampton. Today’s first eleven had the combined age of 260, with only Chris Perry and goalkeeper Kelvin Davis being over thirty. Now, having a team essentially made up of kids works well if you’re the Goonies, or the Lost Boys, or the Mighty Ducks, or the fucking Breakfast Club, but not when you’re a team mired in a dirty great relegation barney. The astoundingly hopeful predictions made by the local Southampton press, idiots fans and precisely no-one who knew anything, that the young team, under the “Total Football” leadership of affable but out-of-his-depth manager Jan Poortvliet, would be challenging fro promotion this season now sound nothing more than the babbled lunactic visions of madmen. Which they were.

And, of course, January brings with it the flinging open of the transfer window. And this means any of the Saints squad with a modicum of talent and ambition will be hightailing it out of St Marys and onto pastures new. The desperately cash-strapped club will be forced to scrape together any pennies they can before shuffling off miserably to the corner shop for a can of special, before repeating the sorry cycle all over again.  Although it’s looking increasingly likely this repetition will be taking place in League One.

The decline of a team who were once one of the longest serving in the top flight, who cheated death (well, relegation) thrillingly for many seasons, before looking like stabilizing in mid-table and then suffering the inevitable crash into the Championship, can be traced to the opening of St Mary’s in 2001. Leaving behind the beloved Dell, where I had sat in the front row level with the centre circle for five happy years, where I had seen the Saints put six past Manchester United, where I had seen Patrick Colleter end Gustavo Poyet’s career and where, somehow, I had seen both Francis Benali and Carlton Palmer score goals, the Saints relocated to their new 32,000 capacity new digs. Digs that they have never filled, and probably never will. With the team prostrate at the bad end of what is basically the second division, St Mary’s has become a tired, tumble-weed strewn financial mistake. You can find dozens of these brick-built errors in the run down parts of medium-sized cities across the country. Just ask Derby.

The future looks bleak. The squad clearly needs experience in order to survive, but the club needs cash in order to survive. And that’s the way it will go. Things look, er, fucked. Perhaps revisionism is the best option after all. I did watch Matthew Le Tissier lob Peter Schmeichal once, after all. Yeah. Fuck reality. I’m off to watch the first five minutes of the Le God documentary “Unbelievable” – it’s a montage of his greatest goals set to “Unbelievable” by EMF, and it’s the greatest three minutes and thirty seconds that exist in the world today. And as a Southampton fan, it’s all I’ve got left. So pity me.

On a lighter note, during the commentary of today’s match on Five Live, jolly farmhand pundit Ian Holloway did, talking about Dimitar Berbatov, say that “if the ball was a girl, she’d love to go home with him tonight.” Which did then conjure the image of the Bulgarian genius plunging joylessly into the matchball whilst snorting a line of coke off its withered, leathery back.

War, earthquakes, assassination, global financial catastrophe, kidnapping, subterranean rape, corruption, broken magnets, mis-judged phonecalls and Chinese Democracy. It’s been one hell of a fucking terrible year (apart from Chinese Democracy. And some fella called Obama).

Enjoy yourselves.

JANUARY – Hollywood wunderkind Heath Ledger dies of an overdose in a hotel room. This fact is made much worse because of the fact that Ledger was undoubtedly The Greatest Actor Of Our Generation. A posthumous Oscar is instantly suggested for his portrayal of The Joker in “The Dark Knight”, released later in the year. Fomer Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in an explosion. This fact is made much worse because of the fact that Bhutto was undoubtedly the The Greatest Former Prime Minister Of Pakistan Of Our Generation. It is a fucking bleak month, cheered up only by the emergence of a new Portishead album. Oh, hang on…

FEBRUARY – The annual Oscars ceremony manages to cheer everyone up slightly by adopting the audacious tactic of not being a massive load of old bollocks. The masterful “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country For Old Men” pick up the big gongs, while the worthy enough “Juno” snatches Best Original Screenplay for former stripper Diablo Cody, who has a name like a disturbing sex toy. Prince Harry is withdrawn from active service in Afghanistan after details of his deployment are leaked by an Australian newspaper. He returns to the UK, but everyone breathes a sigh of relief that the army actually had the tin nuts to send him out there in the first place, rather than leave him behind because the Taliban said they’d try and kill him, unlike all the the other soldiers, whom they regularly try to trombone ragged. The New York Giants win the Superbowl, and every single person in Britain gives a shit.

MARCH – The Queen opens the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, which is a massive and unqualified success.  Heather Mills McCartney proves herself to be the inevitable huge twat we all suspected during her grim divorce with The Fireman. She is awarded £24 million pounds and irritates everyone, which apparently then means that it becomes perfectly acceptable for wankers on “Mock the Week” to take the piss out of her for having one leg. People trying to wrangle a laugh out of Simon Weston’s face or Stephen Hawking’s amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are given shorter shrift. Something weird is going on to do with banks…

APRIL – In a bumper bonanza of a month for concepts of family solidarity, Austrian Josef Fritzl admits to imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth in a basement for 24 years and fathering her seven children. Fritzl claims that he was “born to rape” (incidentally also a Springsteen B-side) and blamed it on Hitler. It is one of the few things that have ever happened of which Hitler is almost entirely innocent of. In the UK, Karen Matthews is accused of kidnapping her own daughter, and stashing her under a bed with a gameboy, in order to snaffle the reward money later on. It is perhaps the worst plan ever conceived, enlivened somewhat by the fact that Matthews’ boyfriend, Craig Meehan, is subsequently accused of possession of child pornography. He turns up to his court hearing with a baseball cap, a Manchester United away shirt, and a massive erection. Action star Wesley Snipes is sentenced to three years imprisonment for tax fraud, in by far the greatest news story of the year. Albert Hoffman, the supposed inventor of LSD, thinks he can fly and jumps out of a window to his death. Actually, he dies of a heart attack. He is 102.

MAY – Genial TV buffoon Boris Johnson is elected the Mayor of London, despite arguably being a corrupt racist, causing everyone to squint a bit and go “what?”. His first act once in office is to trip over a stage. In a solid month for political corruption, Silvio Berlusconi becomes the Prime Minister of Italy for the fourth time, despite being a demonstrable gangster, and in Zimbabwe actual despot Robert Mugabe refuses to recognise a democratic election voting him out of office. His opponent, Morgan Tsvangarai, contests, and receives death threats. An earthquake in Chinese province of Sichaun kills more than 60,000 people. It is a shitty month.

JUNE – In a more light-hearted month, former England football superstar Paul Gascoigne is sectioned. For the second time. Sales of hilarious fake tits plummet. Illinois senator Barack Obama wins the Democratic Presidential nomination. It proves to be a mistake; Obama vanishes without a political trace. Al-Qaeda bomb the Danish embassy in Islamabad, still banging on about those cartoons that were printed ages ago, reminding us all just how much of a bunch of fairy-tale believing cunts they all are. In the UK, the period of preventative detention without charge under anti-terrorism legislation is extended to 42 days. The number of bullets that armed police are allowed to shoot into the heads of innocent Brazilian plumbers is also increased. Robert Mugabe strongarms his way back to power in Zimbabwe. 

JULY – “Missing canoeist” John Darwin and his wife are jailed for six years apiece for deception, after their plan to fake Darwin’s death and flee to Panama with the insurance payout, turns out to be based upon an obviously made up lie worthy of the Matthews clan, but with less light-hearted Disney charm. Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer in a nail-biting Wimbledon men’s blah blah blah. Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic is arrested. He now has a lovely beard and a thriving alternative therapy business. A nearby tanning salon owned by one Pol Pot is also shut down.

AUGUST – Georgia takes the bizarre step of flexing its puny military muscles and having a pop at the Russian territory of South Ossetia. Strangely enough, the Russians overreact slightly and pound the Ossetian Georgians into dust. All out war is avoided; although no-one really knows why. The Russians come out of it looking like vicious cunts, the Georgians come out of it looking like stupid vicious cunts. The Olympics begin in Beijing with a dramatic opening ceremony, that turned out to have involved a miming child and some CGI fireworks. Idiots get their knickers in a twist about this, clearly forgetting that China might have slightly more to answer for than an upset young girl and some colourful imaginary explosions. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt effectively flicks the v’s at the entire world by scoffing some chicken nuggets and then shattering the world records for the 100 and 200 metres, even though he slows down at the end to glance contemptuously at those eating his dust. The rest of the Olympics is boring bullshit, although it is nice to see a fourteen year old diver called Tom lose miserably and get slagged off by his older diving partner, who really should have known better. Celebrity paedophile Gary Glitter returns to the UK after serving a jail sentence in Vietnam for indecently assaulting minors, causing the Facebook faithful to spend their days concocting elaborate ways in which to torture him to death. The noble tabloid paparazzi follow him all over the country, presumably in case he starts raping children willy-nilly. The same consciencious paps track the every move of Barry George after he is finally cleared of the murder of TV newsreader Jill Dando in 1999. They take photos of him eating a kebab and going to the shops, presumably in case he starts shooting celebrities in the head on their own doorsteps in what look suspiciously like contract killings ordered by Serbian warlord nutters called Arkan willy-nilly.

SEPTEMBER – The Fins attempt a shot at America’s high school shooting crown after a gunman kills 10 students at a school in the town of Kauhajoki. He posted a video of his threats on YouTube days earlier, proving the website has a use other than looking at the evolution of dance and women falling over. Finland has the third highest private firearm ownership in the world, after the United States and Yemen. And no other distinguishing features. Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher is pushed over on stage in Toronto, causing millions to punch the air in happiness, before watching the footage and realising that he almost got fucking killed. The Large Hadron Collider is switched on at the CERN labratory in Switzerland. They are searching for the Higg’s Boson, which will prove the existence of God or something, and is not simply the second string quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. However, the LHC has to be switched off after it inadvertently creates a black hole which destroys the universe. And only Bruce Willis can stop it. Something weird is DEFINITELY going on with the banks.

OCTOBER – Two twats phone up an old man and the country goes absolutely fucking insane. “Manuelgate” does, however, cause newsreading uber-fitty Emily Maitliss to say, on Newsnight, that “my pussy is haunted”. Causing everyone to reason that, well, they probably definitely still would. A brutal civil war erupts in DR Congo, but everyone is far too distracted by the plight of an actor and his idiot granddaughter to care. That and the fact that DR Congo looks like the name of a racist witch doctor character in a sit-com from the 1970s set in the colonial West Indies, based around the repeated failed attempts by said doctor to light-heartedly sexually assault the plantation owner Colonel Silverspoon’s flighty daughter Fannietta. Or something.

NOVEMBER – In possibly the only genuinely good news of the year, Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States of America, the first ever half-white commander-in-chief.  Scenes of unbridled joy across the nation and the world are tainted only by the knowledge that George W Bush still has seventy days left in charge. Lewis Hamilton wins the Grand Prix championship, in what turns out to be the most boring event that has ever happened, anywhere, ever. After thirteen years and as many million dollars, dreadlocked madman Axl Rose finally releases “Chinese Democracy”, which is correctly regarded by all and sundry as The Greatest Album Of All Time. Hang on… The James Bond franchise proves that Axl doesn’t have the monopoly on disappointment by releasing “Quantum of Solace” which is an interminable load of boring old shit. It turns out the banks have been fucked for ages and the planet is mired in global recession for the foreseable future. If only someone had mentioned it.

DECEMBER – Beloved UK purveyors of tat and sweets Woolworths announce they are to shut down as the financial crisis displays absolutely no Christmas spirit whatsoever. OJ Simpson is imprisoned for 15-33 years for obviously and definitely being a murderer. Sorry, I mean a robber and a kidnapper. War erupts in the Middle East; Israel completely boss the Palestinians, while in a bizarre and unexpected move the US condemns the democratically elected Hamas party. Channel 4 demonstrate just how fucking edgy and subversive they are by having their alternative Christmas message delivered by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a man who leads a regime under which homosexuals and rape victims are put to death. Nice one, Channel 4. You massive, massive cunts. Alexandra Burke wins X-Factor with a version of Leonard Cohen’s pop dirge “Hallelujah”. Her mentor, Cheryl Cole, is now the nation’s sweetheart, with everyone seeming to forget the time she punched a black bathroom attendant in the face and called her a “jiggaboo” because she tried to stop the Girl Aloud stealing some lollipops from a toilet. The banks are proper fucked. 2009 looks decidedly bleak.

Happy New Year!

It’s election night! And I shall be following it, along with the BBC (which stands for Badly Behaved Cunts, as of recent events), for your delectation. In terms of calling states, the BBC are taking the lead from ABC. All times are in GMT, because I’m a stone cold British fucking patriot.

23.05 In Pittsburgh, two fat fucking idiot DJs called “Bubba” and “The Tank”, complain about how the West Coast are a gang of pinko communists, whilst eating omelette sandwiches. Then a McCain campaigner confuses “abortion” with “infanticide”, whilst working hard to ensure that the US maintains it’s massive murder rate. Pennsylvania is a state that voted hard against Obama in the Democrat primary, thus McCain is somewhat pinning his hopes of an upset on winning it, as Democrats who ain’t down with Barack could potentially switch to a Republican ticket.

23.15 Maureen O’Dowd and a re-animated corpse from the Washington Post point out that let alone being President, barely fifty years ago Barack Obama would have been water-cannoned back down the freeway even for daring to venture below the Mason-Dixon.

23.21 The BBC is one hell of a priapic orgnaisation tonight, as they deploy their vast resources out across America. Jeremy Vine has a digital backdrop, David Dimbleby is commander-in-chief and a pretty Irish reporter is in Times Square with “a team of bloggers”. This is like the future. And, essentially, this is a future that is going to be boring until the results start rolling in… Polls close in 32 minutes.

23.33 Rupert Murdoch is worried that Obama will bring back “protectionist laws that will be very damaging to the whole world”. Yet another reason to vote Democrat, and stick it to the Antipodean misery practitioner. The AP report that officials estimate a 75% turnout. Which is only slightly less than the percentage of UK based dickheads who vote for wailing idiots on The X-Factor. Probably. 32% of the electorate voted early.

23.39 In the national exit poll, 90% of people say that the candidate’s race is not an issue. Which essentially means that 10% of those polled won’t vote for a nigger. Or possibly a honky. John Simpson reckons between a million and half a million people will turn up to the rally in Grant Park, Chicago – “people feel that history will be made this evening, before their eyes”.

23.44 Arnold Schwarzenegger firmly believes that John McCain can win. But then he also firmly believes in robot assassins from the future. And that body-building is good. So fuck him. Polls close in 15 minutes.

23.50 In a coffee shop in Culpeper, Virginia you can have an Obamaccino or a McCainmocha. Problems arise if you’re a Republican but you hate mocha, or a Democrat and hate, um, ccino. This feeble joke has just proved that coffee-based analogies are bullshit. The “Key Battleground” of Virginia is a tough call; none of the Culpeper residents seem either sure or particularly hopeful of either candidate. It’s been a Republican stronghold since that ludicrous civil rights movement nonsense, but it’s been steadily turning into a Washington DC suburb in recent years, so it could go either way. Thanks, Jeremy Vine. Polls close in ten minutes.

00.00 Polls close in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia. Apart from Vermont (which is only famous for Ben and Jerry), all are “safe” Republican seats. Projections: McCain takes Kentucky. Obama takes Vermont. McCain 8, Obama 3. Business as usual then. The evening’s first thinly-veiled Obama/MLK comparison arrives, from a journalist at Morehouse College in Georgia, MLK’s alma mater.

00.15 Laura Kuenssberg is the pretty Irish reporter in Times Square, looking for all the world like she has stumbled in from a kids TV show. They are having their “very own party”, with special guest Ricky Gervais, who describes Sarah Palin as a “gift to comedy”. And David Brent would vote for Barack Obama, just in case you were wondering.

00.17 Oh, Christopher Hitchens. Why will you not just fuck off? Luckily, footage of people running through Grant Park like they’re headed to a Glastonbury headliner does make him, for a while. In fact, the man does make some salient points, but none of them can detract from the desperation to wrap a shovel around his smug, dangling chops. Even though he is bang on the money for having a go at Sarah Palin for believing in witches. In fact, if he keeps this up, I might be converted. Meanwhile, Grant Park is most certainly the place to be tonight.

00.30 Polls close in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. Dimbleby looks a little crestfallen as they can’t call any of the three as of yet. West Virginia is a surprise – everyone assumes a quick call for the Republicans, but it’s not forthcoming. Jeremy Vine tells us that Ohio is a “microcosm” of America, and it’s certainly very important, holding as it does a healthy 20 Electoral College votes. A lot of Ohio voters went for Clinton in the primary. Fox and CBS call West Virginia for McCain, but the BBC ain’t down with that shit. They only take their orders from ABC. Take THAT, Murdoch. So we wait…

00.40 McCain, backed by his cadaverous pornstar wife, gives an interview on his plane that seems to suggest he knows he’s beaten. But this could very easily be because he is a 72 year old man who has been on an incredibly hard campaign trail for almost two years, and might understandably feel a touch jaded. You can’t help but feel sorry for him (unless he wins, of course. Then he can fuck off). Senator Joe Lieberman stands behind him – a senator that the pundits think could have spun the election dramatically had he been installed as VP. Actually, they seem to think virtually anyone (including me, and you, and your mum) would have been a better choice than the snarling hockey mom. Dimbleby is concerned about the lack of results coming through. The pundits tell him that the networks are being careful, and to get back in his box.

00.47 In New York, we get to speak to the “expert bloggers”. This seems to mean “two overly made-up middle-aged women who know how to use a search engine”. They tell us some dull statistics that anyone could have found in about a second on Google, and one of them uses the term “blogosphere”. Tells you all you need to know about that, perhaps. Fidel Castro is backing Obama.

00.50 Eight to ten dollars per head has been spent on getting people out to vote. In Virginia, 51% of people were contacted personally by the Obama campaign. This is “unprecedented”.

00.52 A projected McCain win in South Carolina. McCain 16, Obama 3. Everyone’s cards are buried firmly in their chests, including the inexplicably sinister Justin Webb’s.

00.58 Sixteen states close the polls in two minutes, and Pennsylvania is where it’s at. The journalist is obsessed with two cardboard cuttouts of McCain and Palin. Florida and Missouri are also big dogs.

01.00 Projected wins for Obama in: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and, significantly, Pennsylvania. McCain takes Tennesse, South Carolina and Oklahoma. McCain 34, Obama 103. I can’t keep up. But it’s beginning to look like Barack’s got this by the nuts. If McCain loses Indiana or Virginia, we might start to make assumptions… Florida’s up next, and Jeremy Vine’s projections are thoroughly banishing any memories of the 2000 debacle. Democrats up four in the Senate.

01.17 Senator Elizabeth Dole, fucknut wife of scumbag Bob, in North Carolina is gone, despite her marvellous eleventh hour strategy of claiming her opponent wasn’t a Christian. She is “toast”. Fuck her. In Phoenix, Arizona, a boy’s choir thoroughly fails to cheer up a despondent Republican gathering. Which probably would have still happened, even if they’d won. Dimbleby is “assuming” that Obama is the new president, which is starting to look fair. There are some smart Republicans out there though – they point out that as an executive, Obama is a thoroughly unknown quantity. Fuck that though. He was great on “The Daily Show”…

01.28 A replay of the airborne McCain interview is even more depressing – this really looks like a man off to the political gallows. Footage of probable Vice-President Joe Biden casting his vote in Delaware, in his first appearance of the evening. Shockingly, no-one gives a shit. Arkansas and Alabama projected for McCain. McCain 49. Obama 103. Grant Park looks steadily more ace. John Simpson does a line of coke off the camera lens, unable to contain his excitement.

01.42 In the Culpeper coffee shop, things “aren’t looking so good” for McCain. Republicans blame it on the fact that Obama has “a lot more money”. Which is a touch ironic, him being a communist and all. Fox and NBC call Georgia for McCain. Again, the BBC pull down their pants and slap their arse in the face of such Mickey-Mouse networks. Jesse Jackson has six-inch grey sideburns and points out that if Obama wins, then there’s nothing an African-American or Latino man or woman can’t achieve worldwide. The man makes a good point, even if he did recently say he wanted to cut Obama’s “nuts out”. Sexy.

02.00 Polls close in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Obama projected to take Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Rhode Island and New York (Dimbleby reckons Times Square looks like “downtown Tokyo”. Mainly because he can’t stop thinking about vending machines selling the soiled underwear of Japanese schoolgirls). McCain takes North Dakota. McCain 52, Obama 175. The Republicans fucked up by leaving Michigan early, according to the pundits. Fox projects Obama to win Ohio. Dimbleby gives Fox the BBC finger.

02.05 Georgia projected for McCain. McCain 76, Obama 175. 97% of black voters in Georgia turn out. Dimbleby finally comes out and says “Fox News is not good enough.” High five for that shit.

02.11 Randomly, Jay McInerney turns up at Laura Kuenssberg’s Times Square party. He doesn’t bring any class As, but unsurprinsgly plumps for Obama, whilst looking like a child’s drawing of an ageing spaceman. It’s a “new era” for America. The “expert bloggers” tell us that Elizabeth Dole has lost her Senate seat. Which we knew an hour ago. Nice one, the blogosphere.

02.22 Shazam. Obama takes Ohio; the next key state to fall to the Democrats after Pennsylvania. Essentially the only way for McCain to win now is if he takes California. Sorry, old chap, but It’s beginning to look wrapped up. McCain 76, Obama 195. Oprah Winfrey has been “pulsating all day” and she’s now “in full vibrational mode”. I’ve got an erection. For several reasons.

02.31 West Virginia and Louisiana projected for McCain. McCain 90, Obama 195. In the studio, Simon Schama and various journalists argue with a child’s toy version of a station master from the 1940s called John Bolton. The Republicans now seem to be desperate to pretend that Obama is not a centrist.

02.38 New Mexico projected for Obama. McCain 90, Obama 200. Schama turns up his “smug twat” dial to eleven and calls Dimbleby a “wuss” for not calling the election for Obama. He might have a point though… McCain takes Texas. McCain 124, Obama 200. The Texans clearly remembered that not only was both a Muslim and Satan (which doesn’t make sense, by the way. Or maybe it does), but that he also hates families. But it’s starting not to matter.

02.49 A stockbroker form Sarasota would rather have a better country and a better world than vote for John McCain. There’s hope for us all. With 60% of precincts declared, Obama stands at 51%, McCain at 48% and wankers at 1%.

02.51 Polls in Iowa, Montana, Nevada and Utah close in nine minutes. Iowa has eight pigs for every resident. Draw your own conclusions.

02.57 Mississippi projected for McCain. McCain 130, Obama 200.

03.00 Obama takes Iowa (including all those pigs), McCain takes Utah (including all those Mormons). McCain 135, Obama 207. Mormons… oh, do grow up.

03.04 Laura Kuenssberg ‘s Times Square party, which is rapidly becoming the Heat magazine of the BBC’s election coverage, has grabbed hold of Eddie Izzard. Staggeringly, he’s an Obama fan. “Slavery just disappears,” Izzard claims, possibly going over the top, which isn’t like him at all, before leaving to pretend to improvise some uber-successful comedy about butterflies. Probably.

03.11 Things are getting nasty. Rajesh Mirchandani has a stupid verbal cage-fight with a fat Republican in Colorado, and John Bolton, the toy station master, demands his immediate sacking. In an related incident, Rajesh Mirchandani phones up John Bolton and tells him that he fucked his granddaughter. The Republicans are fundamentally involved in duck-and-cover right now, as the vultures circle. They know it’s lost, but they don’t want to hear it. Schama says the Republicans have “shrivelled back”, and he is bang on the money. John Bolton refuses to hear it, and throws his toys out of the pram so hard they go through a wall and into space. It is a wonderful thing to see.

03.21 A clearly inebriated Nick Robinson stumbles up outside of No. 10 to hurl eggs at the door. He sways around quite impressively, whilst drawing fatuous and entirely impartial comparisons between Obama and David Cameron, because they are both “novices”. Fuck off, you ant-faced twat. Dimbleby says “the moment of victory is near”. Grant Park is still where it’s at.

03.28 John and Cindy McCain are watching the results flood in, in Phoenix, Arizona. If ever a man needed a cuddle, it would be the Republican candidate right now. Unfortunately, his wife is fashioned entirely out of bone, so it’s out of the question. Although it hasn’t officially happened yet, there’s no way not to feel sorry for a man losing such a huge election. He takes Nebraska, albeit only 3 out of the 5 Electoral College votes, with the rest to be decided, but it’s probably scant consolation. McCain 138, Obama 207.

03.40 The Democrats retain control of the Senate. McCain takes North Dakota. Or possibly South Dakota. By this stage it really means nothing. I’m losing track… McCain 141, Obama 207.

03.59 This is it.

04.00 Polls close in California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Obama takes: California and Washington. That’s enough. Welcome to the Presidency.

I don’t want to write anymore. I just want to see Barack Obama step up.

Good job, USA.

There’s something quite important going on tonight. Not quite as important as tomorrow, obviously, because that’s Bonfire Night and some fireworks are more interesting than changing the world and shattering the old epoch. But anyway, America (almost 70% of them if certain polls are correct) if off to the voting booth to elect someone that isn’t George W Bush. Although it’s not as simple as that, of course, as, again, if the polls are accurate, the USA is on the verge of electing its first black President, and a Democrat candidate promising genuine “change”. Either that or its first woman Vice-President and some old bloke, and it’ll be the same bullshit for another term. If that happens, at least we’ll probably get global warming and the end of the world over and done with a bit quicker.

But let’s not be pessimistic. After all, the last time there was this kind of political anticipation – albeit over here in the UK – Tony Blair got elected. And that worked out really well.

I jest. This is far more exciting and important than the 1997 election. This is America. This is the country of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Bill Clinton’s cock. This is the country of the Constitution. This is the country of the red, the white and the blue (that’s France as well, but shut up). And these colours don’t run…

IN THE RED CORNER…

JOHN SIDNEY McCAIN III. Ageing war hero and former incumbent of a Vietnamese prison camp, McCain was rescued by John Rambo in a daring solo assault directed by George P Cosmatos in 1985. After that, he spent one Christmas killing terrorists atop the Nakatomi Tower, before deciding to run for a Republican presidency, an idea very possibly hamstrung from the start by the antics of the previous administration. However, this is not to say that a McCain victory is out of the question – there shall be no complacency on MY watch – and it has certainly not always looked like such a shoe-in for the Democrat ticket, especially with the arrival of:

SARAH LOUISE HEATH PALIN. Be-lipsticked, vaguely corrupt pitbull woodswoman from the bleak wilds of the Alaskan tundra, Palin’s sickening “hockey-mom” bullshit momentarily seemed to have thrown a pro-life shaped spanner into the Democrat works, before everyone grew up. But while she may currently be slightly less popular than the SNL Tina Fey version, we all still definitely would.

IN THE BLUE CORNER…

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II. Based on Matthew Santos from “The West Wing”, the senator from Illinois is both a Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer. Oh, and also the walking embodiment of Lucifer on Earth. If you believe Revelations 19. Which you don’t. Obviously. And even if you did, you’d probably vote for him. Especially when his back is so thoroughly got by:

JOSEPH ROBINETTE “JOE” BIDEN, Jr. “Hi. I’m from Delaware.”

AND IN THE POINTLESS CORNER…

RAPLH NADER. Perennial time-waster, who should really be spending his money on building an ivory space-station or something. Or at least on crack and whores.

And that’s about the size of it.

It’s Halloween!

Yes, you’re right – nobody cares. Apart from frail, lonely widows barricading themselves in for the night, and fuck them anyway. Even teenage psychopaths aren’t interested in Halloween anymore. It’s bullshit. But it does force the TV stations to cram the schedules full of horror films (and, this year, Charlie Brooker’s marginally effective but ultimately slightly underwhelming zombies VS twats gore-fest “Dead Set”). But because, in terms of films, what we mostly get are repeats of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (do you get it? That’s because today is… Oh, never mind), and Channel Four’s “Most Often Repeated Bits Of Films”, starring Jimmy Carr and a jerry-built script, I feel it’s time to let you know what the ten scariest films of all time are. Well, some of them. Definitively. And no arguments. But lots of, as they say on the internet, “spoilers”. If you don’t agree, you’re not only wrong, but should resign your position at Radio 2, with immediate effect…

(I appreciate this is another list of stuff. And that I only moments ago had a pop at TV list shows. But then, everyone loves lists. That’s why they’re called “lists”).

1. DON’T LOOK NOW (Nicolas Roeg, 1973).

Easily one the classiest and most bloodless horror films ever made (well, bloodless until the nutcase conclusion), “Don’t Look Now” works simply by applying some things that are obviously deeply terrifying to the psychogeography of city that has canals instead of roads and is consistently deserted at night. These things are – dead children, churches, psychic blind women, Donald Sutherland’s haircut in the 1970s, Julie Christie’s nipples and a murderous mutant dwarf in a little red mac. Oh, and a deep-seated, pervading sense of psychological horror and chilling, inevitable dread.

In Nic Roeg’s (whose other masterpiece, “Performance” should probably be on the list), sumptuous adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier novel, Sutherland and Christie hot-foot it to Venice after their daughter drowns in a pond, to try and patch up their marriage, which has become, understandably, somewhat structurally compromised. While Donald dangles helpless from scaffolding inside various old churches, Julie hooks up with a couple of psychic old dears who claim to be able to speak to the dead, including, luckily, Julie’s dead daughter. And then loads of deeply creepy stuff happens. Very, very quietly. It’s a remarkably subtle film that makes you feel ill throughout, without the use of riot weaponry (see IRREVERSIBLE) or shock tactics. Until the final frames of course, at which point you will stare at the screen in bewilderment, your mouth as wide open as Donald’s severed carotid artery, when it all comes together to make absolutely no sense at all. In a brilliant way.

2. A L’INTERIEUR (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, 2007).

Proving, along with “Haute Tension”, that the French are the masters of recent horror, I will refrain from giving anything about A L’Interieur away, unlike other films on this list, because after a rather slow and unpromising first fifteen minutes, it suddenly takes an unexpected detour down mindfuck alley and stubbornly stays there until the very last frame. Depp-wedding hottie Vanessa Paradis’ very pregnant sister is home alone on Christmas Eve, coming to terms with the death of her husband in a car crash and waiting patiently and uncomfortably before she can drop the kiddie. Then a mysterious woman arrives at the house unbidden, a woman who knows her name. And from there on in, the film goes absolutely balls-out, shit-your-pants fucking mental. Possibly a film that approaches the apex of the slasher genre, this is one that you’ll watch in genuine disbelief, and one that you certainly won’t forget in a hurry. And don’t bring those scissors anywhere fucking near me, ever again.

3. SUSPIRIA (Dario Argento, 1977).

The oldest film on the list, and it’s barely three decades old. But, if you’re one of those people who think that older horror films are sharper and more effective, and you think that “Nosferatu”, while certainly being brilliant, is scary, then you are plainly a chump and later I will throw eggs at your house and then burn it down with fireworks, whether you give me candy or not.

Anyway, “Suspiria” is the story of a young American ballet dancer who pitches up at a ludicrously menacing ballet academy during a thunderstorm. The opening sequence is accompanied by THE most terrifying soundtrack to any film, anywhere, ever. I am far too inarticulate to do it any justice with words; you’ll just have to track down a copy. But you’ll understand what I mean when you hear it. And it’s by a band called The Goblins, which plainly makes it even better.

And you won’t be disappointed with the rest of the film either. Something evil lurks within the school, and it’s really not afraid to get stuck in – within the first half an hour a madman is dragging girls out of windows, someone is slung dramatically through a stained glass window, and a girl walks through a door into what she reasonably assumes is merely another room, but is actually a pit filled with razor-wire. Schoolboy error. And then there is an extreme close-up of someone getting stabbed in the heart.

It transpires that the school is a hotbed of witch activity – and not some sub-Shakespearean, warty, broomstick wielding, unthreatening idiot witches. Oh no. These are some sadistic, undead, grim-faced sick bastards all right. They are about a hundred times worse than the Wicked Witch of the West, and she was already really scary. Anyway, our ballet student heroine must battle against these evil forces. As well as nailing a perfect fucking Arabesque.

Only Argento could pull off the mixture of generally baffling horror logic, rather feeble acting and an extraordinarily vibrant visual style, and turn it into something monumental. And he was no slouch when it came to keeping the mythology of the film going – it’s part of a trilogy along with “Inferno” and the recent “Mother Of Tears”. Both of which are ace, but not quite as good as the one that kicked it all off.

4. THE MIST (Frank Darabont, 2007).

Adapted from a Stephen King novella, this is a director thankfully and thoroughly distancing himself from heartwarming prison dramas and turning his hand to King’s darker stuff. And not before time.

Sorry. You might think that “The Shawshank Redemption” is The Best Film Of All Time, but it’s not. Don’t believe The Internet Movie Database and their lies. Anyway, “The Mist” stars “Deep Blue Sea” action failure Thomas Jane as an author who’s town is enveloped by an unexpected mist, rolling in off the lake, after a huge storm. He hightails down to the local store to buy some fags and porn (or whatever) with his son. While they’re there however, the mist closes in and it becomes apparent that there’s something slimy and hungry within it. Again, I find myself loathe to disclose anything further about this film, because, after the slimy shit has established itself (mostly through the medium of distinctly ropey CGI), the film really moves up a gear. Suffice to say, things inside the store go really, really wrong. And it’s not just because of the tentacles out in the mist. Ultimately, this is a big old monster B-Movie from the 1950’s, with a extremely classy cast (Andre Braugher (Pendleton from “Homicide: Life On The Street”), Toby Jones and Marcia Gay Hayden acquit themselves remarkably well, and imbue the film with a gravitas that initially seems incongruous – until the sencond half). And wait for the conclusion – “The Mist” has an ending so audacious, remarkable and bleak, that it sets the whole film aside as a genuine horror classic, rather than a monster movie cash-in knock off. As with “Saw”, below, it’s an ending you won’t see coming even if you know it IS coming. And it’s an ending that’ll probably make you smother your entire family in their beds, just to spare them the inherent nightmare of suffering from the pointless human condition in today’s world.

Or you might just go “Wow, that was a bit bleak. What’s for dinner?”

5. SAW (James Wan, 2004).

A film whose reputation has been horribly derailed by the behemoth of a franchise that sprang up around it – films that became progressively and inexorably worse as the sequels were churned out – the original Saw is actually a shocking, reasonably intelligent (in a ordeal horror kind of way, at least) film that will scare you rigid. Even though everyone, whether they’ve seen the film or not, is aware that there is a twist of monumental proportions at the end of it, it doesn’t matter, as you will never figure it out in a million years. And if you think you will, I’m going to make you tear your own eyes out, or something. Although perhaps not quite as meaningful as it would like to think it is, “Saw” is nonetheless an excellent, nuts-and-bolts horror film. And it’s got Danny Glover in it as a mad cop, proving yet again that he is nothing less than really terrible in every film he’s in, but we all love him anyway. This is Roger Murtaugh, after all…

Forget about the sequels – “Saw II” is nastily effective enough, but after that the whole business becomes desperately pointless, especially when you introduce power-tool brain surgery and liquid pigs. But in terms of the first one, the final twist, and the opportunity to watch Westley from “The Princess Bride” cut his own foot off, are things that are beautiful to behold.

6. IRREVERSIBLE (Gaspar Noe, 2002).

Not a film to be taken lightly, this is clearly the best film on this list, if the most difficult to watch. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the most gruelling cinematic experience available at present – unless you have young children in the porn industry, I would imagine. Anyway, the film tells the story of a couple – Marcus and Alex – who’s lives are destroyed after Alex is horrifically raped – and Marcus and his friend Pierre go on the rampage to find the perpetrator. Which they don’t. Although people do die.

It’s all told in reverse, which means it’s a film which begins with what is virtually a literal descent into hell – Marcus and Pierre burst into a desperately horrible Parisian fetish club looking for the rapist – and ends with the blissfully happy, and pregnant, Alex contemplating the rosy future to a Beethoven soundtrack. And in between we get some of the rawest horror imaginable, all grounded firmly in reality – the fire-extinguisher scene, the general gut-churning knowledge of what is to come, Thomas Bangalter’s (of Daft Punk fame) extraordinary score, utilizing tones used by the French police to dispel riots, and, of course, the infamous rape sequence in a subway. A ten minute, unwavering one-shot take of utter monstrousness, punctuated only by the arrival half-way through of a silhouette at the back of the subway, who watches for a second, and then leaves well alone. It’s a heart stopping moment in a film that is utterly mesmerising whilst being the most horrific thing you’ve ever seen. Don’t watch it for fun, and don’t watch it with anyone else. But do watch it.

7. HELLRAISER (Clive Barker, 1987).

Sorry, after such a serious interlude, let’s get back to a film that’s about perverted bondage demons. Essentially anything dragged out of the truly deviant brain of Clive Barker is going to be, depending on your persuasion, either something akin to genius or a great big sack of interminably sexualized bullshit. The good news is that Hellraiser manages to straddle both camps – it’s clearly nonsense that takes itself a touch too seriously, but it also manages to be engrossingly disturbing, as people grow out of floorboards, get torn to shreds by razor-sharp chains, wear other people’s skin and, most foolishly, open Chinese Puzzle Boxes. The plot finds a murderer brought back to life (nominally) by such a box, who then requires human sacrifices to complete his transformation so he can some lay some pipe supreme on his brother’s creepy wife. After that, the Cenobites, led by the famous Pinhead, turn up on a concerted mission to “tear your soul apart” and get everyone massively off by torturing them horribly for all eternity. A bit like your mum.

Quite badly acted and suffering from the 80s school of animated “fire” effects, “Hellraiser” is nonetheless a disturbing, graphic and filthy little fucker of a film that will certainly leave it’s mark. (By the way, Hellraiser might not be perfect (and it clearly isn’t), but Clive Barker’s short story “In The Hills, The Cities” is just about the best horror story I’ve ever read. It’s in his “Books of Blood”, if you can find it. And you should try.)

8. EDEN LAKE (James Watkins, 2008).

While this may indeed look the sticky wet dream of the Daily Mail – nice middle-class couple, played by upcoming Inglorious Basterd Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly, are terrorized (REALLY terrorized) by pikey youths – that misses the point. “Eden Lake” is only another addition to the “outsiders VS mental locals” horror sub genre – see “Deliverance”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Straw Dogs” and a million other movies. But what makes Eden Lake special is just how tough it is. Not that those other films are slouches in that department, but they certainly didn’t have a scene in which a young boy gets necklaced. And then there’s the tongue/stanley knife interface. Goodness me, it’ a gruelling business, but it’s fucking ace and extremely well acted (as well as the two leads, Jack O’Connell is great as the leader of the feral gang. He’s not just a psychotic cypher, but he’s certainly not your mate, either).

And as for the ending? Holy fucking shit. I though “The Mist” was grim…

9. ALIENS (James Cameron, 1986).

Obviously the biggest, shoutiest and most expensive of the list, and ostensibly an action movie above all else, “Aliens” is still clearly the best of the increasingly moribund franchise, and demonstrates that, despite all his failings, over-paid technology fetishist Jim Cameron really knows how to put an exciting film together. And it’s easy to forget quite how tense and scary it is – it’s only once Ripley finally sucks the alien queen out of the airlock that you realise you’ve barely drawn breath since they touched down on LV 426. “Aliens” manages to include some of the best lines in action cinema (“Have you ever been mistaken for a man?” “How do I get out of this chickeshit outfit?” “Punch it, Bishop!” – the list is endless), as well as sticking unwaveringly to the mythology of the characters and the monsters. And they pull off giving a large amount of screen time to a small girl, without her becoming annoying. Which is a difficult fucking feat to achieve.

The story, if you don’t know (and if you don’t know, you should be thoroughly and desperately ashamed of yourself) finds Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) leading a team of space marines back down to the planet in which she initially encountered the alien in, er, “Alien”. Much to everyone’s surprise, the mission goes spectacularly tits up, meaning we get an extended face-off between humans and aliens of such immaculately sustained badassery, that it’s impossible to come away from the film with anything but a huge smile on your face, and a potentially fatal heart-rate.

10. LOST HIGHWAY (David Lynch, 1997).

Obviously, David Lynch films are scary. That’s a given. I think that “Eraserhead” is virtually unwatchably terrifying. But it’s “Lost Highway” that stands out, maybe because it looks so good, maybe because the soundtrack is spot on, maybe because the cast are so uniformly excellent (and in a cast including Bill Pullman and Balthazar Getty, this is something to be proud of), and maybe because Robert Blake is quite simply the scariest man in the world. The scene at the party – “as a matter of fact, I’m there right now. ” – is just fantastically creepy. Obviously if you haven’t seen it, then this means nothing, but trust me, when you become aware of what’s going on (in a way), it’s time to jettison all logic and just embrace the horror.

It’s not quite as good as “Mulholland Drive” (Lynch’s masterpice), but it is deeply disturbing and, unlike the truly impenetrable “Inland Empire”, it is satisfying in a way that only Lynch can pull off, when you’re dealing with something that essentially makes no sense whatsoever.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005). Proving beyond all doubt what we already knew – that anyone who thinks going potholing is a good idea deserves to get murdered and eaten underground by a load of blind albino mutants.

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975). It may well have been instrumental in initiating modern cinema’s current state of lacklustre blockbuster diarrhea, but it’s also an unstoppably perfect horror adventure. And there is no-one on the planet who doesn’t shit themselves when that dead body drifts out of a hole in a boat.

Haute Tension (Alexandre Aja, 2003). Again, the French prove themselves better than everyone at everything – this time slasher horror. Want to see someone’s head get pushed off with a piano? You’re in the right place. And the ending has yet another killer twist – and this time it involves an angle grinder, so we’re all happy.

Shutter (Banjong Pisanthanakun, 2004). Part of the group of “ooh, really scary horror from the east”, including the overrated and slightly rubbish “Ring” sequence of films, that Hollywood are priapic about re-making, “Shutter” at least has the common decency to feature a zombie woman climbing down a ladder upside down. And if that’s not scary…

Night Of The Living Dead (George A Romero, 1968). Proving without a doubt that zombies were much scarier when they couldn’t run, this may well be the greatest horror film of all time. It’s only familiarity that dulls its power, but if you’re not disturbed by a zombie schoolgirl stabbing her own mother to death with a trowel, or the bleakest of bleak endings, then, essentially, do one. You prick.

And there we are. Go and watch one of these (or more) on this chilling Halloween evening. But always remember, perhaps the greatest horror of all is that you’ve sat here reading this drivel, and that time you shall never recover…

Because civil wars in Africa and a worldwide recession are rather boring, it’s lucky that two men left some inappropriate and ill-judged comments on another man’s answer phone. Otherwise I’d really have nothing to get worked up about, apart from the sustained menace of the Polish and the fact that Roger Moore was by far the best James Bond, although no-one seems to care anymore. I for one am glad that a torrent of filth was unleashed by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on Brand’s BBC Radio 2 show (I forget the date; it’s probably not important though). It’s a torrent that I would have never considered listening to, obviously, but there’s nothing that gets me angrier than cruel but essentially meaningless prank phone-calls broadcast on the radio. I don’t listen to the radio mind you (apart from Jon Gaunt on Talksport, obviously), but luckily other people do, and they tell me about it in the press, usually a week or so later. To be honest, I like to leave it a while before I get angry about something. I mean, you can’t really be sure of anything in this life until the Daily Mail has confirmed the details and ironed out any doubt. That’s when it becomes time to make a stand. Fuck you, context, rationality and perspective, you overrated scum.

I mean, seriously. This is fucking Manuel we’re talking about. Yeah, maybe it was thirty years ago and a bit racist. But come one. When he said “Que?” to a deliciously misanthropic Basil Fawlty, we fucking fell about. He said it A LOT. And we knew what was coming next, didn’t we? Oh yes. Some kind of japery escalating out of all reasonable control, no doubt. And what about that bit when John Cleese hit him on the head with a spoon? Legendary. I mean, really. If we can’t show utter, fawning, sycophantic deference to an elderly actor from a sitcom (who, by the way, is clearly a doddering old fool with no grasp on reality, cowering devastated in bed, afraid to leave his home because of the crushing nightmare thrust upon him by a nationally broadcast telephone call. Patronising? No way. We’re his bodyguards), then where will it end? I mean, who’ll be next? Nicholas Lyndhurst? Chris Barrie? Richard Briers? That darkie from “Rising Damp”? God forbid.

And after leaving it a week for effect, my newspaper of choice has made a stand against this vile, unacceptable sort of behaviour. And luckily enough, the British Broadcasting Corporation base their editorial policy on the ill-considered recommendations of a tabloid rag; so these monsters Brand and Ross have been cast from the airwaves. I believe that Brand has resigned his position. Good. It’s our licence fee that pays this slime’s wages, and I for one want to see it put to better use – a second series of “Coming Of Age”, for a start. And while we’re at it, how about a lucrative cross-channel contract for the always insightful Loose Women (especially the fit one), and a brand new ten part series in which Robert Peston and Duncan Bannatyne travel to the sites of infamous railway disasters and repeatedly fist each other whilst talking about how interesting money is. And look, if we really need something edgy to keep the kids happy, let’s just repeat a load of old episodes of “Mock The Week”. I especially like that bald one, who is by no means a massive smug prick.

I mean, think about what we’re dealing with here. A comedian telling a joke at the expense of someone else? NOT IN MY NAME.

I’ve always thought there was something deeply shifty about that Brand character. Talk about sex in public will you?

(Luckily, the Daily Mail knows how rightfully taboo such a subject should remain in polite society. That’s why they have been endlessly printing pictures of Manuel’s entirely blameless and publicity shy granddaughter in her smalls. This happily allows me to indulge in a guilt-ridden, hellishly skin-burning cry-wank out in the shed while the wife stumbles gin-sodden around a “craft-fayre” selling some jam made out of a turnip. And once I’ve my squirted my stale racist seed over a cheaply printed photograph of Georgina Baillie’s distraught, heavily made-up face and bulging tits, I feel I’m ready to sit down and compose a strongly worded letter to the BBC, demanding for the immediate sacking of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. After that I usually make a nice cup of tea, put on my slippers, settle myself down into my favourite easy chair, and think about the most effective way to kill homosexuals.)

Now, I’m aware that some people might say that while the misguidedly broadcast comments could clearly be construed as offensive, and probably did upset Manuel (I forget his real name), the outcry generated by the press, and latched onto by utter wankers like me, is jaw-droppingly out of proportion. I’m aware that in previous radio shows Russell Brand had repeatedly made reference to the fact that he had slept with Georgina Baillie, that she was a member of the “Satanic Sluts“, and that she was Manuel’s granddaughter, and as such it probably wasn’t a good idea for Manuel to go anywhere near an interview, given Brand’s well documented style of broadcasting. I’m aware that if the controversial comments hadn’t been made by two of the nation’s most successful and visible broadcasters, no-one would have batted a fucking eyelid. I’m aware that Ms Baillie is milking this whole business like a calf in a drought. I’m aware that when it comes to matters of moral superiority, the Daily Mail has not a fucking leg to stand on (if you are unaware of quite how much of a leg they don’t have to stand on, check out the Mail’s harridan-in-residence Melanie Phillips describing how Barack Obama is out to destroy Western civillisation as we know it).

I’m aware of all these things. But luckily I’m far too busy developing a weeping erection based purely on misinformed moral outrage to care. Thank the lord for my opinions.

Here’s to idiocy.

The world is in the grip of financial catastrophe (although the markets are stabilizing). In the US, it looks like the Republicans, led by a baffled Vietnam vet, who should really be staggering around on a New York corner, playing a casio for pennies and sympathy, and his nature-despising, uber-milf sidekick, might take the Oval Office come November (although maybe Obama is all about the long game). In Pakistan, a suicide bomber takes out half a hotel and 51 people with a truck loaded with grenades (although the keystone cop terrorists strike again – the truck can’t get through the gates, and the PM and President of the country, who are due to be at the hotel, aren’t. Stick that up your Jihad, wankers).

And I live in Somerset with my parents and without a job (only until November mind, I’m not sad. The Somerset bit, anyway), getting continually and comprehensively rejected for future employment via email. But there’s always a brightside. And here are some things that I have been enjoying over the last couple of weeks, when not participating in an extended stay at the self-pity motel, just off miserable bastard turnpike.

So put on a happy face, and find something from the list below that you might like to try to cheer yourself up, and get involved. For as Richard Wagner said: “Joy is not in things; it is in us.” And he was Hitler’s favourite composer, so think on…

(By the way, this is certainly the closest that this particular blog has come to telling you about what I had for my fucking breakfast or my seven favourite things about anal bleaching. Or whatever.)

1. Will Young’s new song, and his massive gay chin and face. I think Will Young is alright. His new song “Grace”, that I heard on Ken Bruce’s Radio 2 show (bring the noise) this morning , is excellent, and if it had been recorded forty years ago by Smokey Robinson, everyone would love it, and not just immediately assume it’s a load of old tat spewed out by a Pop Idol-winning homosexual farmhand. In fairness, he did record that truly terrible version of “Light My Fire”, but that song has always been exceptionally shit and overrated anyway. And at least the Will Young version didn’t have Ray Manzarek wanking away on his keyboard for five endless minutes, while Jim Morrison no doubt got pissed and pranced around the studio being “The Lizard King”. And by “The Lizard King” I of course mean “a cunt”.

2. Going to the beach. I went to the beach with my mother and ate a crab sandwich. And it was very pleasant. And that’s not a euphemism, you sick fucks.

3. “Revolver” by Guy Ritchie. When this film came out in 2005, it was gang-raped by the critics, and left in a cellar wearing a sack over its head, endlessly repeating the phrase “Worst Film Ever”. But it’s not. Granted, it’s not exactly “good” in the usual sense of the word (meaning something that is essentially, you know, alright and stuff); it does think that wholesale twist thievery from both “Fight Club” and “The Usual Suspects”, perhaps two of the most visible films of the last fifteen years, is both acceptable and won’t get noticed (or guessed by the audience within five minutes of the start of the film), and it does feature Ray Liotta’s naked arse rather too much. But it looks pretty, is well put together technically, has quite a good central performance from Jason Statham (if you discount the stupid voiceover), is mildy engrossing in a “this is mildly engrossing pretentious nonsensical bullshit” kind of a way. And it has an extended sequence where loads of fat, old mafia executioners get killed. And films that have extended sequences where loads of fat, old mafia executioners get killed are alright by me (see also: “The Way Of The Gun”, “Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai”, “Running Scared” and “The Boondock Saints”). Even if they’re a bit shit.

4. The fact that I like drum and bass again. Mainly due to getting hold of three High Contrast albums. They’re all ace, and have helped dispel somewhat the hideous memories of the last time I went to a proper drum and bass event – “Summerfest” (in September of course; good call dickheads), a sub-Homelands dance abortion in the Norfolk Showgrounds, just outside Norwich: the dance festival so good that they never did it again. One-way ticket to Pillsville mate, population me…

No. It was truly tragedy – my hat got stolen (from off my fucking head), it was populated almost exclusively with cunts wallowing in happy hardcore, and fourteen year olds more interested in going on fairground rides and then vomiting up their ketamine than dancing, you weren’t allowed to bring chewing gum into the “arena”, and had to buy it in there at £2 a packet, the drugs were rubbish anyway, supposedly “legendary” DJ Erick Morillo thought it would be a good idea to end his set with “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, which is a song incredibly effective in rapidly hastening the end of any fun you might be having, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, let alone when you’re trying to dance to funky house with some East Anglian transvestites on stilts. And the drum and bass “tent” was not so much a tent, as more of a barn. So it sounded like shit. Leaving the whole thing (very early) with similarly disheartened friends, feeling like Colonel Kurtz watching a snail crawling along a razor blade, I seemed to have made the conscious decision not to listen to drum and bass for several years. And I have generally stuck to that decision, except at parties, until now. But no longer. Go listen to High Contrast.

5. Piers Morgan’s book “The Insider”. Good lord, Piers Morgan is a cunt. The world he portrays in his book is essentially a vision of hell; Dante reworked for the Two Pints generation. “The Insider” is hopefully a work of mad fiction, scribbled down by candlelight by an insane warlock in a Cornish turret in a thunderstorm. But I fear not; I fear it is a mirror to the world around us. The world presented here is one in which grotesque, ageing, charlatan falsehood pimps (Rupert Murdoch and Max Clifford, to name but two) rule over a cowed and broken population from behind barred windows in ivory towers – towers crammed to breaking point with gold and bewildered whores, who have had been blinded with pokers and had their tongues torn out, so they may never escape or tell of the atrocities they have been party to – sending down their lies and filth through the conduit of willing, drooling lackeys, priapic with diamond-hard greed (Piers Morgan and Kelvin MacKenzie, to name but two). It is a world where life, reputation, career, idea, relationship, joy, love, spirit and hope are crushed mercilessly under the jackboots of the armies of the night, armies made up of godless mercenaries wearing the flayed skins of their victims on their backs and gorging themselves with flesh torn from the brittle bones of their victims’ still-living children. It is a world where a blowjob – delivered by a painted jezebel privateer (man or woman – I make no distinction) through morally gritted teeth, while desperately fingering the anus of fiscal renumeration, before being flipped over and suffering gladly but painfully the gangbang of avarice, and ultimately ending up on the receiving end of the bukkake of fleeting, transitory celebrity, before licking up, weeping, the semen of spiritual shame and self-hatred from the floor, while the grand-wizards and their jackal lieutenants look on and masturbate frantically with their scaled claws – will get you forty grand and a front page. It is a world where the corrupt, the shameless and the evil prosper, wallowing in vats of loot and cruelty, causing incalculable damage to the psyche of the human race, while good men die like dogs in the dust, and are left to rot beneath a doomed sun.

It is a world without hope. But it’s a fucking ace book.

6. Trying to get a van driving job in Yeovil. This really should be easier than it is proving to be. But, when you live in a village where letters literally take a week (all seven days of it) to be delivered, because the postie has to go to work on a mule or one of those eagles from “The Lord Of The Rings” or something, I still haven’t managed it yet. And my application forms are floating around somewhere. Still, at least it leaves me time to do things like…

7. Smoking cigarettes. Come on, it’s just fucking brilliant and you know it.

8. The fact that my Dad shares a birthday with Henry VIII-surviving diplomatic mechanism Anne of Cleves, refined, jolly-faced, uber-tactician Arsene Wenger, terrifying gothic visionary genius with his own statue Nick Cave, “Don’t tell him Pike!” milking, Captain Mainwaring-being Arthur Lowe, militaristic rock n roll-loving vegan Joan Jett, jail-bird rapist, extortionist and New Orleanan rapper Mystikal, gap-toothed own-tongue swallower and Brazilian footballing legend Ronaldo, Bugsy Malone and Chachi off “Happy Days”-being Scott Baio and wide-faced prostitution enforcer Billie Piper. It’s today, by the way.

9. James Delingpole’s book “How To Be Right”. James Delingpole is the rock critic for the Daily Mail. I’ll let that sink in. If there ever was a job description that exclusively required a massive twat to fit it, it was that one. Luckily, James Delingpole is a massive twat. So it works out nicely for everyone. But James Delingpole doesn’t stop at slagging off Led Zeppelin (why I oughta…) for the worst newspaper in the world. He has found time to jot down all his nasty little right-wing bullshit ideas in a book called “How To Be Right: The Essential Guide To Making Lefty Liberals History”. I found it in a discount bookshop in Poole for £2. A thoroughly embarassing thing to buy, but the nice lady in the shop put it in a grubby brown paper bag for me, like I’d bought some child pornography or something. Which is ironic, because if you actually buy child pornography in Poole they give you a certificate, a little hat with a propeller on it, and a ticker-tape parade.

Anyway, James Delingpole’s book is a hilarious list of things he hates about modern Britain, and it’s PC-gone-madness. Hilarious mainly because he is so totally the aforementioned massive twat. I’m sure you can imagine the sort of thing James Delingpole hates, but here are selected highlights anyway: David Aaronovitch, wheelchair access to public buildings, the teaching of Diwali in British schools, allowing foxes and baby seals to remain alive, that bit the BBC used to run before programmes with the dancing wheelchairs, bendy buses, Black History Month, Tony Blair (obviously), the NHS, rights for diasbled people, gypsies, dropping world debt, the environment, the EU, the UN, fair trade products, Greenpeace, human rights, immigration, Germans, not being able to hear the word “nigger” used in the film “The Dambusters” on a Saturday afternoon on the BBC, organic food, the Polish, people who think that maybe Thatcher and Reagan weren’t that nice to the poor, the NSPCC, the RSPCA, the RSPB, PETA, social workers, speed cameras, the Tate Modern, the welfare state, wind turbines and Benjamin Zephaniah. Amongst other things. James Delingpole basically thinks of himself as a slightly better educated version of Richard Littlejohn, or a more refined version of Jon Gaunt.

He is neither of these things. He is just a massive twat. And at weekends he goes to a secluded car-park somewhere in Essex with Jeremy Clarkson and Robert Kilroy-Silk. They park their Range-Rovers, headlights on, engines running, in a circle and, bathed in the golden xenon glow, have anal sex with each other atop a pile of dead disabled immigrant children.

10. The imminent arrival of Quantum Of Solace. The trailer is fantastic, as is the theme song, which Jo Whiley didn’t like, making it exponetially better. I can’t wait.

11. Slaying prostitutes with a shovel.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

– Albert Camus

“AIDS, you say? Well, chin up. There’s a light at the end of this particularly poorly tunnel. A couple of these lovely vitamin pills, a couple of times a day. Job done. You’ll be smoking fags, having unprotected sex and surviving colds in no time. What? A method of treatment using a carefully controlled combination of scientifically tested antiretroviral drugs that could extend life expectancy by thirty years after contracting the virus? Grow up, mate. Have some vitamins. Sorry? Making shitloads of cash off the back of lying to AIDS victims and sitting back on a huge pile of gold while they die? Don’t know what you’re on about. Hand over the money, eat your vitamins and fuck off.”

(You can watch an amazing documentary by Stephen Fry about HIV and AIDS here. The subject of this post, lying scumbag misery-pimp Matthias Rath isn’t in it. But he has just abandoned a libel action against The Guardian. The cunt)