One Thing, Leading To Another

Clement Freud is Sigmund Freud's nephew. Freud (Sigmund, that is) wrote a paper on Paranoia and Obsessive Neuroses. Paranoid by Black Sabbath is so popular in Finland it is requested at gigs no matter who's playing - in the same way 'Freebird' is called out at U.S. concerts. Finland are a nation which enjoys a friendly rivalry with its neighbour, Sweden, primarily driven by people confusing Finnish traditions with Swedish ones (e.g. the sauna). This is a problem also experienced by New Zealanders, who everyone thinks are Australian, despite the 2 nations being thousands of miles apart. Any event involving Australia and New Zealand is known as Trans-Tasman. This derives from the countries' location on either side of the Tasman sea, which like Tasmania is named after explorer Abel Tasman. Enfield in North London (bear with me) is also named after an individual - its name means 'Eana's land'. The first ATM cash dispenser in the world was installed in Enfield. Germany currently has more ATMs than any other country in Europe, but Spain has the most per habitant. Spain also has the best football league in Europe, whatever Sky bloody Sports says. League chiefs are doing their best to put the kibosh on this, however, by forcing all teams to play the 'Big Four' (in a league where the Big Four does change occasionally) in a row. The run of fixtures, nicknamed the Tourmalet after a mountain in the Pyrenees, requires each team to play Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla and Villarreal in a row twice a year. Only Valladolid, a team I have actually seen play in the flesh, have even won a game in their 4-game stint. The game before the Tourmalet might be seen as an hors d'oeuvre - except in Spain it would be called a Picadita, or perhaps more recognisably, tapas. In Hawaii, hors d'oeuvres are known as puu-puu. Hawaii is 2000 miles away from the U.S. mainland, but became a state in 1959, mainly to prevent exploitation of labour by granting Hawaiian citizens full voting rights. Another equally distant colony, Greenland, which lies 2200 miles from Denmark, has recently voted for greater autonomy from its rulers. Greenland is the most sparsely populated territory on Earth, with a population of 57,564 people spread over an area of 2,166,086 square kilometres. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Tooting being given the entirety of Mexico to set up home in. It's pretty roomy up there.

Bohemian Like You

Prague is the most bohemian city in the world. Before e-mails start flooding in from rival toursit centres (I'm sure they will), this is on a technicality. The region of Bohemia makes up the western half of the Czech Republic, and Prague is it's largest city. London, meanwhile, has more Facebook users than any other city on Earth - which surely makes it the least bohemian city in the world. Possibly behind Swindon.

To be fair, there are things less bohemian than Facebook, which does at least encourage social interaction, even if it doesn't involve actual human contact, and demands you to give out your personal details without conditions attached (not cool, man). Tax returns, for instance. Jeremy Clarkson. Owning shares. Nazi Germany. To be fair, I think Nazi Germany is pretty much the pinnacle of anti-bohemianism (although this is perhaps not its greatest crime). To name but one thing, scientists in Nazi Germany developed methadone to control the spread of opium around Europe. Anyone who's seen the inside of an opiate user's flat is aware that it don't get much more bohemian than that (if you can call spartan, grimy and unrelentingly grim bohemian in essence). The prescription of methadone, designed to ease heroin users into a drug-free lifestyle, can instead maintain their existence without the bohemian edge of intravenous drug-taking. For shame. It would never happen in Prague.

Sunday Supplement

<< By this point, Janet was convinced that there was no TV guide in there to begin with


Today being the Lord's day, you'll most likely have followed one of only a few possible paths for a Sunday. You have either (a) attended church, washed the car and built a conservatory; (b) woken at 4pm with your head full of molten lead and staggered to the bathroom, where you have remained ever since; (c) trudged aimlessly around Sainsbury's wondering how you can get out of work tomorrow, or (d) woken up at 10am full of vigour, strolled to the shop to purchase a Sunday paper, returned home for a roast dinner, and promptly fallen asleep at 1pm full of gravy, only a vast diaspora of uninteresting supplements covering your indignity.



By the way, I chose (c), but I've been known to dabble in (b) and (d) as well. Sunday papers are a curious thing - for me, they symbolise the huge promise and intense disappointment that Sunday brings. Collecting the bursting bundle of knowledge from the corner shop is the highlight of the whole Sunday broadsheet experience. By the time you've disassembled the thing, you realise that the sport magazine is entirely about the Madagascan basketball league, the business section appears 3 separate times, and the fucking TV guide is missing. You will also discover that to read the entire tome will take at least 4 years, and to read any articles you can actually understand will take 15 seconds. And so you shuffle the whole sorry mess into a makeshift duvet and kiss another Sunday goodbye.



Anyway, if you haven't had the privilege of a Sunday broadsheet experience today, allow me to oblige, as I convert 11 pieces of information into a sweltering column of news before your very eyes.



In the Politics Section:
Barack Obama is the first president to take over during wartime since World War 2. Turn to Fashion Supplement B, p. 337 to learn how to get his look for just £10,000. Obama has also been given the code name Renegade by security services in America. What's your code name? Have a look at our CIA Code Names book, featuring the code names of every human being alive, free next Sunday.


Cornwall is effectively recognised as an independent nation by the EU. To celebrate, get your free pasty by taking this voucher to any branch of Greggs.



In Sport:
Non-UK nationals are eligible for the Sports Personality of the Year prize, with Irish boxer Barry McGuigan the only non-UK winner to date. Turn to the solar plexus of the supplement to find our Sports Personality pull-out, which will give you the tantalising yet doomed hope that Lewis Hamilton might not win.


F.C. Sevilla have the largest network of football scouts in the world. In second place - the makers of Football Manager. This fact is revealed in a piece on Football Manager in which the writer will pretend to be above ever playing it, yet repeatedly betray an unhealthy obsession with the game.


Finally, Barack Obama supports West Ham. Check out our Obama wallchart, which contains all 9,000 articles about the president-elect from today's paper in a handy 8-yard wallchart. It's Obamalicious.



In Fear:
Germany is the world's largest exporter - but is now in recession. As we soon will be. And then you will have nothing, my friend, and will be forced to root through the bins behind Asda for your fix of Sunday news, plus a torn, sauce-stained pictorial selection of extortionate furniture you could barely afford in the first place.





In Cocktails (that weird section that seems oddly specific and is alternated on a weekly basis):
Martini is a type of glass as well as a drink; Margaritas contain demi-sec and tequila. Fancy mixing your own cocktails to jazz up your suffocating middle-class existence? Well work it out yourself. We can't help you to do absolutely everything.



In Things You Are Ashamed Not To Have Known:
There is a London Bridge in London - next to London Bridge tube station. Want to know where to get the best bagels if you're in the area? Pick up your free Bagels supplement, which replaces Cocktails, next week.



On The Cover of the Magazine: Do Nosebleeds Give You Psychic Abilities?
The Actual Gist of the Article: Nosebleeds are used in science-fiction to indicate that a person has psychic abilities.





Please recycle this article, once you've scraped it off your saliva-coated chin, having been woken by the Antiques Roadshow music.

It's All About... You Know, That Guy

<< "Who's the Prez?"

Hello and welcome to the History of the World, Part 2. A man of mixed race with the name Barack Hussein Obama will take the keys to the White House from George W. Bush in two months' time. I have for you today a bevy from facts from a time long ago, that scarcely seem relevant now - except that they can all be linked back to yesterday's seismic events across the Pond, in highly tenuous fashion in some instances, but let's be honest, today it's all about Obama. I, like many around the world, never seriously believed that America would elect a non-white candidate to the Oval Office until last night. I'm still in shock and thoroughly delighted with the removal of the Republicans and the installation of a guy without privilege who seems genuinely interested in restoring the fortunes of his citizens.

I am slightly concerned about a possible Tony Blair factor, in that voters have found the candidate to fit the change they desired like the UK did in 1997. We thought we were getting a fresh-faced, motivated, left-leaning PM - instead we got the most amoral, despicable person imaginable. One thing that Blair was, of course, that Obama is not, is a white guy from a well-off background. Whatever lies ahead, and President Obama faces some huge challenges in making his presidency the success we're all hoping for, it's hard not to get misty-eyed listening to elderly African-Americans recall not being allowed to use drinking water fountains, and sitting at the back of buses just 40 years ago, now seeing an African-American become their President. Even Sarah Palin may have felt the odd sensation of human empathy coursing through her last night. Anyway, here's some facts from the before time, the long long ago, that are really all about the new Prez who will save us all by not being George W. Bush...

Manchester City are the seventh most successful football club in England. Both City and Obama, though ostensibly not at all similar in any way, have become contenders through a windfall of cash. Barack earned his by asking millions of hard-working voters to dig out $5 a time to build a better America. City just went cap in hand to an oil trillionaire. Bet Obama wishes he'd thought of that.

Graham Fellows, the man behind comic character John Shuttleworth, is the brother-in-law of Ainsley Harriott. Ainsley recently found out in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? (which really should have been renamed What Are You Like? on this occasion) that he is descended from slaves and slave-owners, as is Michelle Obama - a fact revealed during one of her husband's key speeches in turning the election in his favour. Going well so far.

The sun comprises 99% of the mass in our solar system. In other unfeasibly high percentage based news, 97% of African-Americans who voted in the U.S. election voted for Obama. Obama also pulled in young and female voters, whilst older males were for some reason drawn to calcified Action Man, John McCain.

The 'devilhorns' hand gesture means 'I love you' in American sign language. Just don't tell Metallica, for god's sake. Barack and Michelle preferred an affectionate and admirable contemporary 'fist bump' gesture, which Fox News, apropos of absolutely fuck-all, tried to insinuate was a 'terrorist fist jab'. The right-wing media somehow managed to insult the intelligence of working-class Americans during this election with all manner of craziness like this - in the end, they went so far they forgot to remember even basic policies, like rich people get even more money and more guns and things like that.

The Tussauds Group own Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures. They do also own the disappointing central London attraction that is Madame Tussaud's, which features waxworks of the rich and famous, including from today, Barack Obama. Models of both candidates were made, and John McCain will now be melted down (the model not the man) possibly still humming "Bomb Iran" as the ovens are fired up. Why don't they just buy the guy himself? He's not the most flexible of men, and it's not like he's gonna be busy.

I guess the most amazing thing about Obama's rise to power is that he started from nothing, and was a massive outsider just a year ago. He has clearly always been ambitious, having already been a lawyer and senator, and also published two memoirs, before his bid for the presidency. The fact remains, however, that he is an inexperienced politician from a demographic not exactly used to strutting down the halls of power, and he has been elected on nothing more than his own charisma, idealism and incredible skill at uniting the electorate. I cannot recall a president being elected in any nation who symbolised such an incredible sea-change in the hearts and minds of their citizens - the fact that it has happened in America just makes it all the more incredible.

It seems that, where others have used family connections and personal wealth to gain power, Obama really has achieved the American Dream. Maybe he reached out to the electorate in a way no others have considered - the guy wrote on his blog in between accepting McCain's concession and walking out to an adoring crowd in Chicago. Maybe, as The Onion suggests, there is a simpler explanation for America finally electing an African-American president. Or perhaps the $900 bill he ran up with his local Domino's Pizza branch has helped cement his acceptance amongst the American people. Whatever the reasons, politics will surely never be the same again. Here's today's fact: Barack Obama is the 44th president of the U.S.A. I literally can't believe it, and for the first time since I was about 10 years old, I actually wish I was American.

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)