Sunday 30 January 2005

Media Terrorist or Media Genius?

Chris Morris in The Observer. A wee tidbit or two about Nathan Barley, but mainly it covers the usual ground as pieces on Chris Morris do.

Wife Swap

Here's a bit in today's Sunday Herald about comedian Jo Jo Sutherland's experiences on Wife Swap. When she played a gig with Fizz and I back in December she was telling my pal Moira all about it.

Tuesday 25 January 2005

The Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations have been announced, and we've already kicked off the speculation. The Best Avtor award looks interesting, though I can't see past Jamie Foxx.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Don Cheadle - HOTEL RWANDA
Johnny Depp - FINDING NEVERLAND
Leonardo DiCaprio - THE AVIATOR
Clint Eastwood - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Jamie Foxx - RAY

Jamie Foxx also nabs a best supporting actor nomination. The last person to do this was Al Pacino in 1992 for Scent of a Woman and Glengarry Glenn Ross.

Kate Winslet is nominated for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Charlie Kaufman gets an original screenplay nomination for same.

Nice to see Laura Linney be nominated again although the interesting on in the Best Supporting Actress category is Sophie Okenodo for Hotel Rwanda.

Scorsese and Eastwood go head to head for Best Director. Be nice to see Marty get one, but if Goodfellas couldn't beat Dances With Wolves...

I'm pleased to see Super Size Me pick up a nomination in the Best Documentary category. My McDonald's ban has been well worth it.

Finally for fun fact fans today being Burns Night in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Million Dollar Baby is one Paul Haggis.

Monday 24 January 2005

You're a Pro Writer - Really!

Big news in the Fizzy and Tom camp as it has been confirmed that we have our first pro writing gig.

Radio Scotland have apparently picked up the sketch show we wrote some stuff for well over a year ago and will be looking for 12 episodes in total.

The exciting process has already begun, with Tom having just got off the phone to the production office after being told our contact is "out to lunch". Wow, the big time or what?

Check back here for regular updates on our first foray into the world of broadcasting comedy to folk waiting for the fitba to come on.

Arrested Development

When I did raise my head yesterday I caught Arrested Development on BBC2. I think that was only the second time I've seen it from beginning to end, but it's very funny. It has a very Simpsons quality to it. When it comes out on DVD I'll be sure to snap it up.

Yes, More Champagne for Me Please

You've had a haircut while at a party, by a woman pished out her nut, eh? Naw? Yeah well I did. It doesn't look as bad as it sounds. The party was at the home of the guy behind this club. I was attempting to 'network' but the drunker I got the less well that worked out. Let me tell you now that beer, champagne, tequilla numerous cocktails and various other things don't all go down that well. Sunday was more or less a complete write-off. I'm still not feeling too clever now.

Johnny Carson 1925-2005

The Amerian broadcasting legend Johnny Carson died at the weekend. In stand-up circles Carson was like a god, as an appearance on his show could launch a career. Jerry Seinfeld for one has spoken of never wanting a man's approval so badly. In fact if you watch Comedian you can see Seinfeld and Garry Shandling talking about appearing on his show. Once you got there the next step up was being asked to take a seat next to him. Steven Wright's career was launched when he managed to chat with Johnny on his debut performance, practically unheard of.

Retiring from The Tonight Show in 1992, he never went back to showbusiness. There's an interesting book and TV movie about the bitter Leno vs Letterman battle to replace him 'The Late Shift.'

Friday 21 January 2005

Believe I'm Stompin'...

It's thanks to Tommy for this. You have to go over to Nina Gordon's site and play her cover of Straight Outta Compton. Genius.

"I Want to Teach"

He's a great actor, but Richard Dreyfuss also appears to be losing the plot slighlty.

Thursday 20 January 2005

Who Invented the ATM?

Ever been waiting in the queue and wondered who invented the ATM? Of course you haven't. However, there does seem to be some debate on the subject. Two Scots James Goodfellow and John Shepherd-Barron both lay claim to the title. However ATM Machine dot com have several other contenders. It is a more interesting subject than it seems.

Orny

Having just seen Comedian, Tommy was talking to me about Orny Adams. If you've seen it you'll know that Orny is a bit of a dick. Takes himself very seriously and isn't as funny as he would like to think he is. However we both thought a few things from his notebook were quite funny.

Tuesday 18 January 2005

What Do They All Have in Common?

Singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro
Actor-director Kevin Costner
Country singer Mark Collie
Actress Jane Horrocks
Comedian Dave Attell
Actor Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order
Rapper DJ Quik
Singer Jonathan Davis of Korn
Singer Samantha Mumba
Former Newcastle United footballer Peter Beardsley
And me

Well the only suggestions appear to be that they are all "bent as fuck." Nice try Fizz, but wrong. No, the answer is that today is their birthday.

Cheers to Iain and Jo, the only folk who weren't at the birth who remembered. Hurray for me, stuck, as I am, in my pish nothing job on this pointless occasion.

Monday 17 January 2005

Closer

I went to see Closer at the weekend. It was pretty much as I had anticipated. That was to say so-so. The characters were all quite unlikeable and I didn't much care about their stories.

However the Foreign Press Association says otherwise as Clive Owen and Natalie Portman both won Golden Globes for the film last night.

Nip and Tuck in the Fantasy League

With the madness that is the festive fixture list out of the way, the league is now closer that ever. With 5 teams in genuine contention, it’s going to be nip and tuck from here on in.

Back at the top after a so-so Xmas period are my own Big Fanny Failures.

A brilliant weekend for me with Chelsea’s win over Spurs racking up the big points. Goals in La Liga from Eto’o and Maxi Rodriguez saw the Fannies leap from third to first like a big footballing salmon. With four German players yet to come back from winter break, things are looking good for the European Championship double winners.

Just six points behind are Tom’s Serenity Now, with only his Juve backline’s failure to keep a clean sheet and Damien Duff’s substitution v Spurs keeping him off top spot this weekend. Tom’s blend of youth and experience coupled with his willingness to change things around should see him there or there abouts come seasons end.

Dropping to third are Xmas pacesetters The Von Brauns.

Dealt a costly blow by John Terry’s booking this weekend, Ronnie has a quandary, not for the first time this season. Should he use his one remaining transfer to ship big scorer Thomas Gravesen now he’s moved to Madrid, or should he bank on the Dane to make his mark on the Bernebau faithful?

Ronnie’s ability to stay with the leaders in spite of losing his manager, playing the first quarter of the season a man short and now the Gravesen dilemma surely suggests that he will remain a force to be reckoned with throughout the campaign.

Moving up to forth are Lokomotiv Sausages, who have benefited from Milan’s recent resurgent form. A mid table struggler for most of the season, Lokomotiv may just have timed their charge for the line to perfection.

Dropping down a place are West Bam, although Karen is unlikely to be too worried considering she has a transfer left and a whopping £1.8 million in reserve for fresh talent. Having fought tooth and nail to get this far, only a fool would write West Bam off now.

Nicola’s CSFPG’s look to have taken a huge step towards avoiding relegation with an excellent month so far. Racking up 108 points has allowed CSFPG’s to pull away from the drop zone in some style with Newcastle striker Shola Amiobi finally repaying the faith shown in him.

Well below and well out of it are Keith’s Do You Smell Gas. Unable to access the league at his draconian place of work, Keith has obviously decided that the ignominy of languishing in second bottom spot is preferable to taking time out from his busy schedule of pubbing, clubbing and tugging his wire to bother trying to salvage things on his home PC. He may have a point, as his team are packed with more haddies than your local fishmongers.

Propping things up are Neltic FC. Oh deary, deary me. Hampered by the same work access problems as Keith, Neltic have clearly chucked in the towel, with several players either out of the league altogether or out through long term injury. With 2 mill in the bank and a full compliment of transfers, something may yet be done to turn round a disastrous season so far. The question is, can Neltic afford Terry Venables?

Friday 14 January 2005

Chappelle

Thanks to Tommy I have just finished watching the first season of Chappelle’s Show. And very funny it was too. The blind KKK leader who doesn’t know that he’s black. Tyrone the crack addict who goes into school on drug awareness day. The Wu Tang Clan Financial Services. The History Channel’s documentary on gang wars. The fabulous ‘pisstake’ of R. Kelly. The list goes on genius stuff all. Can’t wait for Tommy to pick up the second series in a week or two.

Nathan Barley

All right so Nathan Barley is Chris Morris's new project. A sitcom for Channel 4. Here are some photographs from on the set. A feature on it from the BBC. A press release on the Warp Records site. Some Nathan Barley wallpaper. Finally there is this sourced from the original home of Nathan Barley on the TV Go Home website.

Is that enough for you?

Let's Have a Thought-Scatter

Ronnie touched on this the other week, over on 160676, but it was only in the comments so I'll mention it here. I bumped into his wife Claire last night. Claire works in the mental health industry and she was telling me that her bosses have dictated that they not use the word 'brainstorm' for fear of offending anyone. In its place they must use the made up word 'thought-scatter.' What sort of nutter do you have to be to think up this stuff? They also aren't allowed to refer to black bin bags as black bin bags for fear of offending, God knows who.

Wednesday 12 January 2005

Hooptedoodle

I was thanked for passing on Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing today. I thought I should properly link to it here. So there ya go. Interesting and take from it what you want.

Sing Fat Lady, Sing!

Will the uproar about Jerry Springer - The Opera ever end? Now a BBC producer has resigned after saying it offended his Christian beliefs.

A lot of people do bits about Jesus and God in comedy. Generally I object to that because it's been done a lot in the past, but in this case of this guy, at least he watched the broadcast and he was willing to give something up in his protest, as opposed to the halfwits that stood out in the street complaining without having seen it.

Having said that, it seems that he was quite happy to work for a company who put Jim Davidson on the telly regularly of a Friday evening. So racism, xenophobia, sexism and homophobia is fine, but portray Jesus in a nappy and you're off down the brew?

I'm Back Baby!

Sent via email this morning after reading Tom's last post:

Dear Waterstones,

Just a quick note to say that I will never set foot in one of your stores again.

By firing Joe Gordon for the kind of mild critical banter we all engage in with regard to the workplace you have helped contribute to the current pervading culture of pointless petty nastiness in the workplace, and struck a blow against common decency.

It is difficult to fathom the kind of mindset one would have to be in possession of to fire an employee for joking that his boss is “evil”.

Is it not bad enough that retail staff in this country have to put up with long hours and appalling wages without having to fall victim to the egos of the kind of talentless, vindictive, self serving cretins you generally find in management positions up and down the country?

We have come to a point in this country where companies such as your own are routinely employing the kind of people who tell you can’t have your birthday off just because they can, school bullies with a clipboard, as incapable of motivating without the use of fear and intimidation as they are of getting people to touch their private parts.

As a result of Waterstones policy of employing such sub-standard people, your company’s claim to be a champion of freedom of speech will, in due course, become a national joke.

I would suggest that by lightening up and not taking yourselves so seriously you may live longer, but that would hardly do for the rest of us. You are after all only a book shop, really, think about it, you are just a book shop.

What you have done to Joe Gordon is rotten. Think about that. You know it’s rotten and you also know it’s no way for adults to conduct themselves.

I will never buy anything from Waterstones or any associated firm again, I will not allow my daughter to do so and will encourage my wife and everyone else I know to boycott your stores until Joe Gordon is reinstated and provided with a full apology for his treatment.

I kind of feel as if you owe me an apology too.

Blogger Bagged

Here's a story from today's Guardian about the first blogger in Britain to be fired after writing about his work. The beautiful irony is that he didn't work for a fast food restuarant or in an office but for champions of free speech Waterstone's. Here's the blog in question.

Tuesday 11 January 2005

In the Name of Art

I always seem to find something Doug Stanhope said in relation to most topics. His summing up of PETA was basically that they were so ‘tits gone’ with the animal rights thing that they turned him against something he would ordinarily be for. “You’re stuck in traffic for two hours, because these nitwits are out trying to get lobsters the right to vote. Makes me want to just grab a fuzzy bunny and crrrrk…’

However Tommy sent me this link earlier on. PETA are naturally up in arms over The Wetterling Gallery in Sweden displaying ‘artwork’ by a woman named Nathalia Edenmont that features animals that she has ‘humanely’ killed herself. I found myself firing off an e-mail asking the gallery just what they think they’re on. I found myself becoming more incensed after I read their justification for it. Let’s see if they get back to me. I still think it might be some elaborate joke.

Hello

I’m led to believe that a current exhibition at your gallery featuring the works of Nathalia Edenmont includes real dead animals. Surely this cannot be the case. No art gallery can support the pointless killing of animals in order that they be represented as ‘art’. Please tell me this is all some hilarious joke and that modern artists are still using the tried and tested phoned-in method of putting a bus ticket in a frame and calling it ‘Untitled.’ As opposed to chasing cats and mice round the local dump armed with a meat cleaver. Because seriously, that’s just wrong.

You say ‘We think that art is of vital importance.’ Don’t be so flippant and indeed stupid. You do a fair job in your newsletter of making it sound like killing animals is some visionary thing to do, thought provoking and beautiful, as I remember it the kid at school who ended up in borstal did something similar. Shame your PR guy wasn’t on hand to give him a suitable spin on the ‘thoughts and questions’ his microwaving a cat provoked.

I love the idea that if her artwork was rubbish it would have been different. But because you deem it ‘beautiful’ it’s okay.

Yours slightly baffled

Tom Brogan

PS Did she use the cat to catch the mice first? Seems like that would have been the sensible thing to do.


It's only now, a few hours later that I realise that this exhibition took place exactly one year ago. So perhaps my rage should have subsided in this time. Shame, cos I was impressed that I got so annoyed about animals being murdered. Though maybe I just hate pointless art students. Perhaps they'll think in Sweden that these things just take time to reach us in Scotland.

It's Not Over Until the Fat Man in Diapers Sings

The Jerry Springer Opera furore rolls on. Have a look at what the Chrisitian Voice nutcases are saying. Building's loss is obviously Christianity's gain.

The BBC are surprised at the level of critisism. And Stewart Lee has seen his stand-up comeback become something much more.

Monday 10 January 2005

This is the End of Music

While I was asking Marceline to submit to 90 for the 90s a few weeks ago, she told me about a project that her pal was doing and having now taken the time to have a look at it, it is quite an amusing one.

This is the End of Music asks you to compile from your own record collection a CD compilation of the most unlistenable rubbish you can find. It's an interesting exercise when you consider that you must have at one time purchased the songs included. Be it something you bought on a whim or while drunk or a terrible song on an otherwise good album. Go on and give it a go.

Hooray for Exeter

You may remember my post from a few weeks ago about the Man United fans successfully having a ban imposed on Exeter players celebrating a goal against them by imitating a plane. So well done to Exeter for almost bringing the sight of a goal about on Saturday and for their remarkable achievement of gaining a no-score draw. Although Man U put out a significantly weakened side, any footballer picking up a paypoke with the words 'Manchester United' on it should be superior to anyone playing non-league football. So hooray for Exeter and get it right up you Manchester United fans. Maybe with the big boys now travelling down to Devon the Exeter fans can dictate how Man United players can celebrate. Should they be lucky enough to score.

With the BBC now set to show the replay live this means that Exeter will have pulled in £750,000 from the two ties.

Jump the Shark

Most people came across this site several years ago, but I had cause to be on it earlier today so thought I would link to it for the benefit of any reader who has never seen it before. Basically it allows people to vote for the moment where their favourite TV show 'Jumped the Shark.'

"As a Good Christian"

Did you watch Jerry Springer - The Opera? I think even if I wasn't interested in it I would have watched it on gneral principle after seeing some of the protests on the news. I was baffled by the number of idiots prepared to stand outside BBC television centre. "Don't talk to them!" I pleaded to the reporter, but nah of course he did. Their argument for why a show that they hadn't seen shouldn't be broadcast centred around 'I am a Christian' and 'I pay my licence fee' along with 'I don't need to see it.' Funny how these good people can be propmted into protest by a rag like The Sun.

For a beautiful example of what fools The Sun are have a look at this story about the broadcast on Chortle and then look at The Sun. Notice also how The Sun have actually increased the viewing figures by 100,000. They also still seem to be sticking to their made up swear count, which I can only put down to them attempting to multiply every word by 30 since the chorus sang all the words. Which by that rationale means that every football ground in the country features upwards of 50,000 swearwords every weekend. Try banning football Sun readers, eh, let's see how far you get. I'm much more concerned by the fact a national newspaper can print an article that is grossly incorrect and have people happily accept misrepresentation as fact.

As for the actual show itself. I really enjoyed it. It was very funny and offended me not in the slightest. But then I'm not 'a good Christian.'

Friday 7 January 2005

"Have You Any Idea How Long it Would Take to Sing 3,168 F-Words? "

I'll be watching Jerry Springer The Opera tomorrow night when it airs on BBC 2. I've been a fan of Stewart Lee for several years and saw his stand-up at the festival in about 1998 when he was hilarious without having the need to say much that was funny. Anyway you may have noticed the huge hyperbole about it in the newspapers over the last couple of days. Stewart Lee had a quiet rebuttal at the beggining of the week, which calmly shoots down the daft critisism. It's a shame he'll be in Germany when it airs as I'd love to see him go toe-to-toe with the Mary Whitehouse guy.

God?

You'll note that Fizz and I have neglected to make any mention of the tragedy in Asia. A woman once said to me, "Tom, I'm not much of a comedy girl, I'm more of a tragedy kind of girl." Well of course we are more comedy boys, so I for one will leave it. However over at Squander Two's blog there's a really good debate on whether the Tsunami proves or disproves the existence of a God.

Wednesday 5 January 2005

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Here's a mainly political interview with Sean Penn, centred around his new film The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

Heavy Sedation

I've been waiting ages (well a couple of days) for something to blog about, but now I have it. Tommy is back with Heavy Sedation. Blogging and links. It'll be worth visiting if only to keep you away from your real job for a little bit longer. It's named after a line from This Is Spinal Tap. In't that right Tommy?

Monday 3 January 2005

The Tears

I was a big fan of early Suede, so I was quite intrigued by the news that Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler have got back together again. I always thought that Butler was the best guitarist of his generation. Through a combination of fallings out and bad luck (Creation went tits up just when his second album was released on the label) he never really became the kind of guitar legend he could have been. Then again, now I think about it, neither Johnny Marr nor John Squire really had the success their talents indicated since they left The Smiths and The Roses respectively.

Anyway The Tears have started touring and there should be an album in March of this year. The official site isn't very good, so you're much better to look at one of the fan sites that have already sprung up.

Happy New Year and Welcome Back

Happy New Year...I suppose. I've hardly stopped partying, but back we come with plenty more pish for us to talk this year.