Friday, December 22, 2006

THE STREETS ARE IN DISTRESS


I may be presumptious in writing this, but I wanted to comment on the terrible journalism surrounding this Ipswich prostitute murder case. Specifically after the arrest of the first man, whose name I believe is Tom Stephens.


Anyway, I read in the Star, and more pointedly the Metro, their personality analysis of this man, by looking at his Myspace page. As a myspace regular, the level of ignorance here was higher than I have ever witnessed in my life. Now excuse me if I don't get the quotes exactly right, but I am little hungover and am writing from memory. The first point one of these papers made was that they highlighted that Mr Stephens was a loner who used social networking sites. He was on the site for friends and 'serious relationships'. AS IF IT WAS WHAT HE WROTE. It's an option you put down. Some people see it as a dating site. Some people go on there for a laugh to see what will happen. The picture painted was that by going on an internet social site made you a weirdo. Anyway, the next point was that they said he described himself as 'athletic'. AS IF IT WAS WHAT HE FUCKING WROTE. It's an option. They also said that he called himself 'The Bishop'. Granted, he did write this. But nowhere di he say that his name was the Bishop. His name is Tom and under the photo it says Tom. In the area where you write a quote, he put 'The Bishop' presumably because he's into said comic character.


Deep breath. It was also said that his hero is Hong kong Phooey, and it made out that this was a loner's answer, because who could possibly have a cartoon character as their hero. What irks me most about this is

a) he's now been released, probably completely innocent and their hard investigative work is in vain but most importantly

b) all the fucking Daily Mail readers (I didn't read the Daily Mail's coverage but it probably all but crucified him for ever having sex with a prostitute) now think that anyone with a Myspace page is a pervert and borderline serial killer. Jesus, you look at anyone's page and they say something stupid about themselves. If I was arrested and they looked at my page they would probably say' this man is a deranged loner who delusionally sees himself as the living embodiement of David Niven'.


It reminds me of an Eddie Izzard bit where he goes into a newsagent tv'd up asking for a packet of crisps. 'What, you eat crisps? I'd thought you wanted to shag them'.


Small mindedness pisses me off, and I have now cancelled my Daily Mail.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

PRAYERS

Apologies if that video doesn't work too well

YOU EVER HEARD A STORY OF MISTER FADED GLORY


Not a proper post, just an excuse to put the Bloc Party video up here. Initially I thought it was rubbish, but now I really like it.

Christmas is coming. I see ITV have pulled out all the stops by showing the first Harry Potter film on Christmas Day, the same film BBC showed 2 years ago I think.

Thank god Ray didn't win the X-Factor. He really is the most odious little goblin I have ever seen in my life.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

LOOK AT ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE




The time has come, because it's December, there doesn't seem to be anything else being released this year and I'm ill and bored, to compile the best albums of 2006 list. This is a tricky one as the mind is usually skewed towards records released in the latter stages of the year, records which are fresh in the mind. To compensate this, I will trawl my iTunes for items added this year (and released this year too).

So in no particular order:

Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
The Young Knives - Voices Of Animals And Men
Rise Against - The Sufferer & The Witness
Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
Minus The Bear - Menos El Oso (but this may have been last year)
matt pond PA - Several Arrows Later
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Tool - 10,000 Days
Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

I think that's it.

Tracks of the year is a different matter. It's far too difficult to think about that, so here are the most played songs on my iTunes that were (perhaps) released this year and are not in the album list:

Sean Lennon - Dead Meat
The Kooks - Eddie's Gun
65 Days Of Static - Radio Protector
Imogen Heap - The Walk
Audioslave - Revelations
Mogwai - Friend Of The Night
Taking Back Sunday - Spin
The All-American Rejects - Move Along
DJ Shadow - This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)
Josh Rouse - It Looks Like Love

A good ten track album.