Money's Too Tight To Mention

Whilst enjoying a cut-price sub at lunchtime, I heard mention over the radio that Gordon Brown is effectively soliciting the world's better-off nations to pour more money into the IMF, to help out countries affected by the credit crunch. It's the international equivalent of a bleary-eyed student gadabout calling their dad at 7am for a fat sympathy loan, having blown all their dough on, I dunno, joss sticks and cans of 20/20. The most remarkable thing, of course, is that the West is asking the rest of the world to help them out. China and the oil-rich Gulf states are richer than us. A lot richer. This surely marks the beginnings of a new economic age for the world we live in.

But wait a minute - who cares about that nonsense? After all, it's only been dominating the news for 18 months. Who can even think about the turning of the global economy when a quite funny comedian and a quite unfunny chat show host have been insulting Manuel's granddaughter on a late-night radio show? The monumental storm in a tiny, plastic play teacup that Brand and Ross have created is like complaining to your landlord about an ants' nest whilst an elephant lurks furtively in the middle of your lounge. I admit that I wouldn't particularly relish finding the 4 messages in question on my voicemail, but the fact that Sachs' sainted granddaughter currently earns a living in a performance ensemble known as the Satanic Sluts might suggest that allegations of sexual activity may not have been the libellous sucker punch we're led to believe.

If we're all trying to ignore the clouds of doom circling just behind a certain prank-calling fop, what chance of the little people affected by the credit crunch getting their turn in the spotlight? Well, the BBC are trying to address this imbalance by listing a few quirky professions either benefitting or suffering as a result. One profession I'm particularly pleased to see doing well is the humble art of cobbling. This is because on Sunday, I saw our local cobbler shutting up shop at midday and wondered to myself how on Earth a South London shoemaker could weather the financial storm when airlines and multinational banks are going under. Thankfully, people are now getting old shoes repaired rather than buying new ones, so I can stop considering taking my weather-beaten old Converse shoes in for a patch-up.

As the West looks to the East for guidance and the odd sly tenner, one idea being put forward is that Islamic financial systems could be used as a model to rebuild Western economies. While Russell Brand at least will be delighted, as it might mean he finally gets a break from being on the cover of the Daily Mail, it does make financial sense - many Islamic financial systems forbid the paying and charging of interest, as well as speculation (that's when some cocky City boy tosses your savings around the stock market like a 3-year-old playing Monopoly). It could be the way forward, and is something that a lot of financial folk must be considering, while Andrew Sachs considers changing his phone number, and seeing if his granddaughter needs financial assistance to facilitate a change of lifestyle.

Across The Pond

<< U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

With the U.S. elections fast approaching (well, not that fast - can you believe they've only been in an official race for about 6 weeks?) and the NFL entertaining 83,000 slightly confused and fidgety punters at Wembley Stadium yesterday, this post looks at our neighbours over the water, with a series of half-truths that will shed little to no light on their situation.

For starters, he may be the owner of a traditional American occupation, but bad actor Keanu Reeves isn't American - he grew up in Toronto. This may finally explain his jerky movements and wooden demeanour after all these years. From non-Americans pretending to be American, to Americans pretending to be French - McDonalds, an institution so American the golden arches should be on the flag (incidentally - golden arches? It's a yellow M, surely) is the fat, greasy face behind extortionate cosmopolitan eaterie Pret A Manger. The fact that Pret A Manger is French for 'ready to eat' was a bit of a giveaway really.

On Friday I consulted Empire's 500 Greatest Movies, a list likely to infuriate and inspire in equal measure (The Matrix above Vertigo? Fuck off) and discovered that in the U.S. Army, toilet paper is known as John Wayne paper - because it's 'rough, tough and don't take shit off nobody'. Say what you like about the American Empire's amoral foot soldiers - they know how to craft an amusing film reference. These witty bastards have been pivotal in U.S. elections in previous years, namely the great election swindle of 2000.

It feels a bit embarrassing to start braying about the rigged election like a shop steward in the corner of a dusty pub, but come on, it was, and nothing was ever done about it, which is just insane. I guess it's easy for me to say - like Keanu, I'm non-American, so I can't be accused of being un-American. It seems unlikely that their postal votes will count for much this time, as forecasts predict a clear victory for Obama. All I'm saying is with the neo-cons around, it had better be beyond any doubt. One swing state where Obama is focussing his efforts is Ohio, the 11th most-populated state in America, and a place described as a microcosm of the country as a whole. This is apparently due to its mix of rural and urban, blue-collar and white-collar, and a dose of Springsteen-soundtracked 80s prosperity slowly stagnating as the 21st century dawned. Another way of looking at this is that, hell, if Barack can win here, he can win the whole election.

That fifth fact came from today's Evening Standard, so I'm on fresh, and slightly, shaky ground in that I'm taking my learning out of chronological order. The two things I learnt this weekend sadly didn't fit the theme, so they're left out in the cold, like Keanu Reeves at a 4th July street party. Firstly, stars make noise - clearly, not a noise that is especially audible to you or I, but it's been picked up on, y'know, that thing. Secondly, you have sinuses under your eyes as well as above them. Nothing to do with America - except of course, that the Stars and Sinuses was the original name for the U.S. flag. I know it wasn't really - but I'm claiming it. I own this blog - what are you gonna do about it. It's the American way.

Encore

<< Elvis Presley & Sarah Silverman: One of these performers can get away with not doing a proper encore

At the weekend, I went to see Sarah Silverman play at the Apollo in Hammersmith. If you've picked up the review section of a broadsheet in the last couple of days (nobody, then) you'll know that it didn't go all that well. There has been a bit of journalistic licence applied to the night's events, so here's how it seemed from my rather sweaty seat at the top of the arena. First of all, the build-up was a shambles - two men who I believe earn livings as comedians, namely Matt Berry & Rich Fulcher, came on to announce that Silverman's support act couldn't make it, but had recorded a video message. Who cares? He's the support act. I say, there's two comedians on the stage, there's your support act. Instead they just sauntered off, we saw a weird, disconnected webcam video diary on two tiny screens, and then a collection of clips from Sarah Silverman's U.S. TV show. It's tacky enough to show bits from your sitcom at a live show, but why didn't they just show a whole episode? The £45 entrance fee was starting to play on my mind at this point.

Sarah herself then came on, and contrary to some press opinions, was pretty funny throughout her set, and had the crowd on her side. She did seem a bit apprehensive, however, and made an odd remark about not "crashing and burning" just before her set came to a close. Little did we know that there was still time. She left the stage after 45 minutes, and the audience response was not, at least from where I was sat, completely aggressive - not yet, anyway. A lot of people starting heading for the exits - I didn't really think anything of it as I'd assumed there would be an encore. I had forgotten the golden rule that separates music from comedy - bands play encores even when no-one cares, and comedians don't, even when it's painfully obvious that it'll be expected. She really wasn't planning on coming back out, and in the end, had to shuffle back on in post-show slippers, blinking at the audience, illuminated by the house lights. At least, we thought, she came back out. That's better than just walking off and not coming back. How wrong we were.

To be honest, she seemed a bit pissed off that the audience expected more for forty-odd quid, launching into an awkward Q & A session which featured hecklers, and Silverman responding to them, by repeating what they said, but in a silly voice. Oh dear. I had witnessed this kind of encore meltdown before, at Portsmouth Guildhall last year, when Russell Brand, having been consistently hysterical for a full 90 minutes, decided to unmask his creepy alter-ego in the denouement, propositioning 18-year-old girls, his libido nearly bursting from within himself as the rest of us reached for our coats and made noises about having an early start the next day. The final disaster was a YouTube moron hollering for a song she performed on her TV show, then having to tell her all the words, with the audience laughing at him like he came up with it himself. Perhaps if she had remembered her own song, this whole embarrassing scenario would never have occurred - and perhaps, with maybe 15 minutes of new material, she could have delivered a brief but entertaining show, rather than a performance so truncated that the audience assumed an encore. In total, the whole thing was an hour, but with a final quarter I would have paid £45 not to have seen.

Silverman's slightly arrogant, yet ultimately unfortunate, mistake was to misjudge the audience she was playing to. A 45-minute set at a small comedy club would've been fine - but this was a 3000-seater venue. The whole confusion that exists around the encore issue doesn't help, either - there's been many a time I've looked at my watch as a band have 'finished' playing and calculated that the set is too short without an encore, but will be too long with it. Then there's the interminable 'newie', sandwiched in at the start of the encore, always slow, always sketchy, forced upon paying punters as they wait, knees aching, to hear the one song they came for. Playing your best song in the encore is a moot point too - Radiohead finishing with Paranoid Android at their gig this year was exactly what I had hoped for, but didn't fit at all with the mood of the rest of the performance - from being completely, obtusely Radiohead, it was like they were attempting to transform into Bruce Springsteen belting out 'Born To Run'. On the other hand, I remember seeing Pulp knock out 'Common People' a third of the way through their festival set, and being wracked by confusion - did the band hate the song, or was it not their 'best' song (they played 'Babies' to close the set)? Either way, I felt my love of the song slightly diminished. I have only ever seen one act, musical or otherwise, not play an encore at all. It was The Strokes, and they claimed it was because false encores are 'bullshit'. While this stance is admirable, their 11-song back catalogue probably had more to do with it.

I think the rules around encores need to be changed. The tradition began because an audience requested more material from a performer, so why not go back to this? Bands shouldn't save their best two songs for the encore, assuming that the audience would rather watch them than catch the end of Match of the Day - but all performers should have something in their locker for audiences that want something extra. Sarah Silverman really ought to have been able to give a crowd that she had impressed to the extent that they asked her back something better than fart noises and disintegrating songs. She could have done 'Born To Run', for god's sake. Or, if nothing else, she could have brought out a big suitcase stuffed with cash, and let everyone have half their money back. Of course, the other option, one which would have at least spared Silverman the derision of angry punters, would be to abolish the art of encores altogether. One performer is noted for never playing an encore, and as performers go, he was pretty successful - for he was the King himself, Elvis Presley. Elvis' manager encouraged him to never play an encore, to keep the crowd wantin' more (there were no Gs on the ends of words in the rock 'n' roll era). Hence the phrase 'Elvis has left the building' - this was announced over the PA to inform the crowd that the King was solid gone, paving the way for whichever poor sap was on next, clumsily trying to remember the chords to 'Jailhouse Rock' in the dressing room.

Anyway, if you started reading this post while Sarah Silverman took to the stage on Sunday night (impossible, but just go with it) she'd already be on the plane back to America by now, so that's all from me, thanks, you've been a terrific audience.

(Hurries back onto stage as the crowd shrug and head for the exits)

OK, I've got one more for you crazy kids - the phrase 'whistlestop tour' comes from the U.S., where politicians, most famously Harry S. Truman, would board a train and deliver a speech from their carriage at several rural stations, without getting off the train. It was seen as the most effective way to reach key voters quickly, and it won Truman the 1948 election when he had looked to be well out of the running. Please, nobody let John McCain get on that Greyhound bus, we're so close now. Yeah, that's right, a bit of politics thrown into the mix. Edgy material now i've won the crowd over. To close, I'd like to point out that Sarah Silverman may have screwed up her encore, but she's a master of the whistlestop tour - her entire European tour lasted just 45 minutes. Ifangyoo. I've been questing for knowledge, you've been fantastic, cheers, goodnight.

(Boos ring out across the venue - security step in to restrain feral punters)

Do My Job For Me

OK, here's how it is: It's been a week since I posted anything, but I've got sniffles and I need to sit through Talladega Nights so I can send it back to the rental people. So here's five facts, which I'll invite you, the readers, to arrange into a barely coherent, fleetingly amusing article. The best entry wins nothing. For there will be no entries.

Wednesday: Yosemite National Park is only 125 miles from San Francisco.

Thursday: Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall all shared an apartment whilst trying to break Hollywood.

Friday: Spaniels are prone to hallitosis.

Saturday: Those executive toys where there are five silver balls, and you clack the end one onto the next one and the one at the other end moves, is known as Newton's Cradle.

Sunday: The bridge in Battersea that is permanently lit up like a Christmas tree is Prince Albert Bridge, and not Battersea bridge.

Over to you - I'm going back under the duvet.

Light & Shade

<< Chris 'The Miss' Iwelumo was meditating on the pillaging of Mother Earth at precisely the wrong moment

Up and down. Yin and Yang. Little and Large. This crazy world is all about opposites; polarised forces working against each other to create harmony from chaos. As Darwin put it - two steps forward, three steps back; we come together 'cos opposites attract. The world feels like a pretty shady place at the minute, and the latest crop of facts aren't going to help matters, so I've taken into my own hands to shine a little light onto each day's findings.

We begin on Saturday, when I learnt that deforestation is costing the Earth more financially than the banking crisis - that's not to mention the not exactly inconsiderable environmental consequences. On the light/shade spectrum, this news is darker than Clapham Common at 2 in the morning. I don't even want to think about it - so I won't. The nation's papers certainly aren't - this story has earnt barely a whisper, whilst the misery of Chris Iwelumo is lighting up back pages everywhere. Admittedly, Chris' tale isn't funny for everyone (namely himself) - a 30-year-old lower league football, given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to represent his country in a crucial game, our Chris came on for Scotland against Norway in the second half, and just minutes later, found himself with an open goal to aim at. This is what happened next. I'd like to thank Chris, who has probably scored the goal 3000 times in his mind since, for making me forget about the forests, if only for a few hilarious seconds. (NB In the video, have a look at the linesman on the far side, who runs off having assumed the ball had gone in. It hadn't. Also, look at the picture above. Just look at the poor guy's face).

Moving on, Sunday brought the revelation that Nelson Mandela, one of the world's greatest living politicians, spent his sentence on Robben Island being forced to wear shoes that were too small for him. Thankfully, this news was packaged in a Peter Kay medley with segues so clunky they eased the pain of the great man's suffering to the extent that I was singing "Free Nelson Mandela-ela-ela, eh, eh" for several hours afterwards.

Before it was ingeniously connected to Rihanna's summertime smash, "Free Nelson Mandela" by the Specials was a protest song against, well, I think you can guess. On a Specials compilation my Dad had, it had been changed to "Nelson Mandela" because he had already been freed, which always seemed a touch pedantic to me. The protest song is part of a fine British tradition of free speech and nonviolent action in the support of a better, fairer world. Thank goodness that such principles hold firm, even in such certain times. Except, well, I think you see where I'm going with this.

The right to demonstrate has been taken for granted in the UK for several years, but is now under serious threat. It's already a bit of an issue demonstrating within a mile of Parliament Square (presumably as this would be a fairly effective place to protest), and now even regular events such as the Critical Mass bike ride in La'hn Tahn are being clamped down upon. Critical Mass has been going for 15 years without any problems, but participants have recently been subject to a much-increased police presence, in an attempt to force them to pre-arrange demonstration routes and times. The key loophole for the rebel riders is that as the event takes place regularly, it cannot technically be called a demonstration. That may well change in the near future, unfortunately, but for now if you've got a bone to pick with The Man, you'd better pick it on a weekly basis. London is a city with its mardy face on at the minute, and restrictions on demonstrations are hardly going to help it recapture its freewheeling, bohemian vibe. One brave citizen is doing her bit, however, spreading a few rays of light amongst the smoggy gloaming. Amy Winehouse has been holding 'Coke Candy' parties at her house, where she gives out cocaine and candyfloss to residents. If there's a more tangible example of light and shade than being given free cocaine and candyfloss, I've yet to hear about it.

And so to today. Following a classic good-and-evil England performance on Saturday, Fabio's boys have flown out to Belarus for a game that will no doubt be described as a 'potential banana skin' by some arse at some point. It either is or isn't a banana skin - the potential is whether England fall upon their arses as a result of its presence. A bit metaphorical for football punditry, but there you go. Belarus has been described as Europe's last dictatorship, a troubled outpost where tyranny reigns supreme. It is also the only nation in Europe to still uphold the death penalty (I bet their left backs are a bit more careful with backpasses than ours). As I've reiterated ad nauseum throughout this post, it is all about light and shade today, so I don't want to give the Belarussian nation a wholly negative write-up. I will therefore include that the manager of the national side has assured the world's press that Minsk, epicentre of the tyrannical executive superstate, is very clean. Hurrah!

Popular Misconceptions

<< He may have only been 12, but by God, Kowalski had earned that damned cigarette

Three more facts for the file - all loosely connected by the fact that they overturned some kind of misconception in my mind. The first, revealed whilst staring at a sign during what felt like an eternity at a kiosk queue, was that it is now illegal to sell tobacco to under-18s. I don't remember that age being bumped up; the situation now is that you can get married, have a kid, join the army, get shipped out to a war zone, come back with half your original legs intact and still have to wait a year before you can have a cigarette.

At least being in the army pays well - even if you're one of the specially selected few who are deemed just too valuable to send into the proper army, and who spend their weekends running through derelict council estates on 'drills' - that's right, you even get paid to be in the Territorial Army. No wonder we're running out of money...

Speaking of which, the banking crisis continues apace, with the U.S. markets falling by 12 gazillion points, before rallying by 3.8, only to plunge a further 900 trillion in the next 5 minutes. It's something like that. It also now appears that keeping your money in a shiny multinational bank might soon be as safe as withdrawing it all, stitching it together to make a money suit and strolling around a town centre in it all night. The UK banking system used to be the safest in the world, but it's now about the 45th safest, about level with the U.S. and Germany. The banking crisis is affecting pretty much every Western country - except Canada. It still has the safest banking system in the world, probably because it only has about 13 citizens, but still, good effort...

Eight Days of Woe

<< A stock trader checks the chart - it's not exactly good news

It's been a long eight days - at the start the UK was part of a super-rich, glittering and fully developed world, imperialist privileges well and truly intact. Now we're locking ourselves in our offices to stop getting the sack, money is literally disintegrating in our hands and the entire City of London is worth roughly 17 Ugandan dollars. Sadly, as I've discovered, there are plenty more reasons to not be cheerful...

First up, way back last Monday, whilst lying in a bath full of money, I watched a horrible film called Jesus Camp, where a group of evangelists in North Dakota managed to convince a group of kids that they could speak in tongues and that God was moving through them. It's hard to believe it's a trick, what with under-10s being so wary of new ideas and wholly not gullible. The film revealed that there are 80 million people in the U.S. who consider themselves to be evangelists. Now I appreciate that the people in the film are about as close to Christianity as fundamentalist Muslims are to the heart of their own religion, but the fact that there are even 3 people prepared to exploit children in this way is miserable enough.

If you're feeling sorry for the suggestible kids of middle America, spare a thought for the sizeable Korean population of New Malden. New Malden is the most densely populated South Korean area outside of South Korea itself. Having been through New Malden on the train, I can only imagine that the residents of this enclave must be wondering when they can come out of the bunker and get on with their lives. No offence...

Moving a few miles down the road, we head into leafy Surrey, where you'll find considerably less enthusiasm for ethnic diversity, and the epicentre of the most recent foot-and-mouth outbreak. Foot-and-mouth was, of course, one of the first nails in Gordon Brown's leadership coffin, which now resembles something a circus performer would attempt to lie down on. Perhaps the signs that we were all heading back to the Dark Ages came with this latest outbreak of a bizarre agricultural plague - admittedly one that hasn't affected humans since 1966. Although knowing Gordon's luck at the minute, you wouldn't rule it out.

America are also facing the inevitability of a new guy in charge (though thankly not a greenwashing moon-faced prick) - either Barack Obama or John McCain. Hopefully and probably it will be the former, unless they ditch the votes and go for a 'Nam style endurance test where both are locked in a cell deep in a rainforest until one of them cracks. It's really quite galling that America, who have frankly not been the best at picking presidents, seem to be on the verge of electing a guy who appears to be a half-decent politician and person. Fast forward eight years, however, and once that tricky loophole has been taken care of, it could well be Arnie's turn. America love actors in charge, and Arnie is technically just that - even if he did only have 17 lines in The Terminator, and was generally cast as a giant slab of Teutonic smoked beef rather than a solid character actor.

From a guy who can't act who could one day run the world, to a woman who can't write a half-decent book who earns £5 a second - need I tell you it's JK Rowling. Before you all write in, I know there's a lot of Potter fans out there, but I've got four words for you. I. Don't. Get. It. Incidentally, the K in her pen name is made up - she doesn't have a middle name. So by the time the working week was done, I'd already learnt about bovine disease, overrated artists, trapped Koreans and an awful lot of evangelists. Surely it couldn't get any worse. Then came the news that Rizla papers have more harmful chemicals in than tobacco. This one bothers me primarily because I am virtually certain it is untrue; however when you forget to learn anything until 5 to midnight, this is what happens.

Clearly by this stage, I was losing the will to learn even the most trivial of truth. Luckily on Sunday, whilst watching the end of The Goblet of Fire and thinking about that £5 per second whilst grinding my teeth down to a series of smooth yellowed domes, I learnt that Alnwick Castle, the setting for Hogwarts (such a stupid name - god don't get me started, I beg you) is the second largest inhabited castle in the U.K. The largest is Windsor Castle - which is owned by the Royal Family. It looks like imperial privilege is still alive and well. Finally, to round off a truly joyous week of learning, I discovered that 30% burns is enough to finish you off - even though you'll feel fine for a couple of weeks, before the scorched skin uses up your body's water reserves. Delightful. Thankfully I didn't learn this from personal experience, but from a bizarre work conversation which reminded me why I don't usually look up from my computer when colleagues are in the office.

This brings us to today, where the papers piled up at Earlsfield station greeted me with a rapidly descending line and the words "how low can it go?", as if global share prices were some kind of giant financial limbo dancing contest. They could be, to be honest, for all I know. Inside the previous day's trading had been labelled as Meltdown Monday, in the billionth attempt thus far to come up with the next Black Monday. I didn't know Black Monday happened in 1987 - the one that happened in the early 90s must have been a similar desperate attempt at spinning a nifty soundbite from a desolate landscape of financial misery. In an attempt to get in on the act, I'd like right now to patent Manic Monday, Fucked Up Friday, Worldwide Weeping Wednesday, and Third World Thursday. More later in the week, when I at least don't have to go to work - so there is one positive guaranteed...