The Miseducation of Cheryl Cole

"Nope, ah divvna hav a cloo waat 'at is, tell uz man...oh, Smells Lieke Teen Spiret? Ah've nivver herd o' it pet."

It came to my attention over the weekend, and I’m sure many of you also, that “national treasure” Cheryl Cole doesn’t know squat. About anything. Each week on The X-Factor, at least one person involved gets a little over-excited and says something they’ll regret and get hammered for in the press. Last time around, it was ageing mental-case Louis Walsh describing Paije as “a little Lenny Henry” when everybody knows that nobody could strive to be as unfunny as Lenny Henry.

This weekend, Miss Cole let slip after Paije’s performance of Elton John classic Crocodile Rock that she wasn’t “familiar with the song.” Let me get this straight, Tweedy. It’s The X-Factor. You are a judge. It’s Elton John Week. All judges know beforehand who is singing what so you can, y’know, judge it. And you didn’t bother to listen to the original?

I can understand this. I mean, it’s not as though she says much when most of the performers are done anyway. She has barely said a thing about any of Wagner’s performances for example, instead deciding to offer a snide comment before just giving up and looking away. I think a little constructive criticism would be great from all involved – it doesn’t matter if the guy can’t understand English. Or Geordie.

Unlike the Lenny Henry thing, I don’t think any of the major papers or celeb media outlets have bothered with this revelation, which again I can understand. I guess many in the X-Factor audience would not have heard a lot of Elton John – they’re too busy screaming in One Direction’s general direction 24 hours a day. They have plenty of time to grow up and scope out real music. Cheryl though, has not had that luxury. She was placed into a manufactured girl “band” when she was 19, and has been in the media glare ever since.

She’ll have had her own Girls Aloud pop shoved down her ears so much in the following years that she wouldn’t have wanted to listen to anything else, to give said ears a break. Then, of course, young Ashley probably serenaded her all the time (well, when he wasn’t busy) with something from the London grime scene. Or some garage, dancehall or ragga jungle perhaps. I don’t know what Ashley Cole listens to but I bet it’s fucking awful.

So, I’m glad she’s not been knocked too much over this whole “I don’t know about real music” thing. She has missed out, and so we should help her out. So here I have picked a few songs I assume she’s never heard. She should try and make the time to listen to them.

No. 1: The Beatles – Help!

A nice and simple one to start off with Cheryl. These are THE BEATLES. Yes, that’s how you spell it. I hope the lyrics are suitable for you. Word of warning though: don’t go publicly confusing them with Oasis or anything, or you might be the one having to defend yourself in a club toilet somewhere.

No.2: Elvis Presley – Blue Suede Shoes

Elvis wasn’t just an actor or a fan of burgers you know. Watch this video, Cheryl, and pretend this is The King’s X-Factor audition. Now I know his legs and face don’t shake about as violently as Aiden Grimshaw’s, but at least he gives it a good bash here. Enjoy.

No.3: Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven

I know what you’re thinking, Tweedy. “A singil oot ats eeeight minats lang?! Ah havven a scooby hoo yoo cud av an attenshun span at lang, pet! It’s nit woath it like.” Now I think about it, I’m seriously about 100% sure she’s actually never heard this before. ‘Sake.

No.4: N.W.A. – A Bitch Iz A Bitch

Surely, surely, Cheryl Cole has heard some rap, right? And I don’t mean Cher Lloyd rap. That doesn’t count. Maybe Cole has kicked back in her fly crib and chilled out to some Eminem, or Jay-Z. Most likely, hopefully. She probably wouldn’t know the Wu-Tang Clan if they came up and stabbed her in the face. Going back, she’s perhaps never even enjoyed the delights of Rapper’s Delight by the Sugarhill Gang. Shame on her if she hasn’t. Ultimately, I think that Cheryl should definitely get out some N.W.A., and so I’ve given her the gift of this song. The lyrics are sublime:

“You can tell the girl who’s out for the money, she looks good and the bitch walk funny.”

“Are you the kind who think you’re too damn fly? Bitch, eat shit and die.”

And so forth.

No.5: Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze

This is where I start feeling sad. Because if Cheryl doesn’t have the time to go through Elton John’s back catalogue when it should have been part of her bloody job to do so, I’m pretty sure she’s never bothered with Jimi Hendrix, one of the greatest musical performers in the history of the universe.

Cheryl, it’s real simple….

LISTEN TO SOME JIMI HENDRIX FOR GOD SAKE, YOU GOD DAMN IGNORANT BITCH!!

You’re welcome, Cheryl.

5 Days On

 

National Novel Writing Month: It’s ridiculous, but I don’t care.

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do this, but I needed something to distract me from writing essays and reports. Some of you may have heard of something called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. Every November since 1999 the organisers have invited anyone and everyone to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I first heard about it last year but declined to take part because I had no story ideas or characters.

But this year was different. I have more than enough stuff outlined to at least give it a bash. So that’s what I’m doing. I didn’t reveal this right away incase, a couple of days in, I realised it wasn’t going to happen and I wouldn’t stick with it. I still felt the same yesterday. But here I am, on day 5, and I am just under a fifth of the way there already.

There are plenty of reasons not to do it – there is no real prize but personal satisfaction, it’s distracting me from university, and at the end of November all I’ll have is 50,000 (hopefully) words of utter crap. Quality, however, isn’t the aim of the game. It’s like scribbling out a terrible first draft of something which could be useful in future, in some form or another. It would take a long, long time to turn it into something worth showing people, but it’s something. The website is great for linking you up with people in your area who are doing the same thing. You can choose to go to arranged meet-ups, or write-ins as they’re called. To be honest I probably won’t do that. That’s just more distraction, isn’t it?

The main reason I’m doing this is that it’s amazing practice for writing in general, and under extreme deadlines. In the past I’ve been very picky and fussy over my writing – I have to go edit as I go along and changes things here and there. You’ve little time to do that here. Just get your head down and write, write, write. It averages out to 1667 words a day, but I’m aiming for 2000 a day because, let’s face it, I won’t be able to do this every day of the month. I have a girlfriend, uni assignments, work, and spontaneous nights out to contend with.

So there we go. It’s about time I challenge myself to do something like this, even if it is a little weird and, frankly, stupid. If you want to be able to write lots, there’s nothing wrong with just sitting down and churning out 50,000 words. Even if they make no sense to anybody but me.

They’re Here!

A new planet has been found!

Check out the headline in today’s Telegraph:

‘The chances of alien life existing on a newly-discovered Earth-like planet are 100 per cent, scientists say’.

It was revealed yesterday that a team of geeks headed by Prof Steven Vogt had discovered two planets, one which they have dubbed Gliese 581g, after the star it orbits, Gliese 581. This planet is situated in an area the geeks like to call ‘the Goldilocks zone’ as it orbits at a perfect distance for liquid to exist on the surface. The crazy prof has gotten a little excited and stated that, although half the planet is drowned in darkness 365 days a year, they don’t know what type of atmosphere it has, and they don’t even know if any liquid is even there anyway, he’s adamant that the chances of life on this planet are ’100 per cent’.

This is perfect Telegraph website fodder, they love this alien/space stuff.

So, there you have it. There ARE aliens out there! They may still be tiny and a little retarded and perhaps only talk like the Teletubbies, but the Telegraph and the geeks have confirmed it. We are not alone. For sure. 100 per cent. The headline says so! And it’s not even a tabloid headline!

So why isn’t this the top story of the day then?

*UPDATE*: Since I posted this, the main headline has been slightly toned-down for their home page. Good for them.

New Generation, Same Old Balls

Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck YUCK.

What a miserable day indeed it is outside, in the real world. Screw autumn – winter is here folks. We didn’t even really get a summer, did we? Some things never change.

And you can say the same about what’s on the television. I’m convinced X-Factor never actually ended, it’s just one long-running manipulative karaoke contest. Two And A Half Men just WON’T GO AWAY. Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington are not only on every TV channel but also on every bus stop and billboard in the WORLD. And of course Coronation Street is fifty years old in December. Bloody hell.

Also on the telly, and I’m sure you’ve all been paying attention, is the Labour party conference. It’s not quite as riveting as watching the Pope fall asleep as he is forced to listen to days of fairytale gibberish but it’s up there. The Labour party has a new leader, Ed Miliband. He had been competing against four other contenders, one which included his own big brother, to get the gig and he won fair and square. The candidates all said that, whoever won, the party must unite behind the new leader, and move on from the squabbles of the past. No more lies, no more “soap opera” – just honesty and using the best team possible to tackle the coalition government of the Tories and Lib Dems.

Within mere days, that aim is unravelling before our very eyes.

Ed’s big brother David, who was expected to win the contest, is understandably angry and is tipped to dump his brother and his party and walk away from it all. That’s desire and determination for you. Ed Balls, who is a prick of the highest order (which admittedly makes for a half-decent politician), has slated big Dave before he’s even made his decision on whether to leave or not. Balls said he wouldn’t have competed against his own brother. Balls has twisted the knife into supposed friends, he did it with Gordon Brown and he’s doing it again already.

Harriet Harman, the acting leader between Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, voted for the war in Iraq, yet yesterday changed her tune as soon as a new leader announced that he wasn’t that fond of that decision, actually. What does she stand for then? Or does she just go with the flow and make stuff up as she goes along?

Andy Burnham, another Labour leader candidate, was on stage today making a speech about the NHS. However, the used the last half of his time to rip into the Coalition, which he still likes to call the ConDem government. Har har har. How grown-up of him. Burnham began slating Nick Clegg and calling him a Tory in a yellow tie. For fuck sake, Labour lost the election and the other two big parties joined together to sort out the mess, WHAT’S SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT? Did you expect Clegg and the Lib Dems to say: “Nah, actually, y’know, lets just not step up to the plate to show what we can do. Lets sit back, look like a bunch of nobs and let all the wee parties like the Greens, SNP and the Welsh lot cobble together the worst government in history with Labour, who lost the election. I think that’s a GOOD idea, what do you think?” If Ed Miliband wants to change how Labour works, he can do with less of Burnham talking the same old shit.

To top it all off perfectly, that disgusting woman at the top is Hazel Blears. She was one of the unfortunate souls who had to backtrack on TV in regards to the expenses nonsense. Blogger Guido Fawkes posted this video earlier, which explains it all. Blears says one thing, denies it, then gets caught out. In short, Blears, as part of the ‘New Generation’ Labour Party, is still a lying cow. What can Ed Miliband do to change that?

Like I said, some things never change.

Movie Confessions

I don't fancy either of them and I know what happens so I don't need to waste my time, right?

You know those conversations you might have had with friends, in which you discuss films – more specifically, films you’ve never gotten round to seeing before? Well I’ve had a couple of them, and I’ve never been bothered about letting people know what I haven’t seen because there’s usually a simple reason: I have no interest in it. I’m not one for Hollywood epics – over-long, sweeping stories with bland, cheesy dialogue and formulaic plots. Like Avatar, which unfortunately I did sit through. I haven’t watched Titanic, Pearl Harbor or Gladiator and have no intention to.

I also hardly ever rush to the cinema to see the next big thing and if it turns out a movie gets a sequel or two before I’ve seen the first one, it takes me an age before I can be arsed trying to get through the whole series. So I don’t feel embarrassed when I say I’ve never seen a Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, X-Men, Spider-Man or Saw movie. In fact the only one of those I’m remotely interested in viewing is the X-Men trilogy (and maybe, just maybe, the Saw films). I’ve not seen The Godfather Part II or III because I was forced to watch The Godfather at college so much for a film module I still just want to avoid anything to do with it. I can also happily admit here – maybe just to confirm that I’m not a geek at all – that I have never, ever sat through an entire Star Wars movie. Even when I was a kid and they were on TV all the time at Christmas or whatever, I just never had the time for it. I love space and all that shit, and I think Spaceballs is one of the funniest parody movies ever, but I don’t want to watch Star Wars. In 2010, do you really need to? I know the plot, the characters, and the twists (and I’m sick of all of them) without having to sit through hours and hours of film.

Then there’s something I seem to do quite often – if nearly everybody I know insists something should be seen or done, I’ll avoid it until the hype dies down. For some reason I can’t get into films if I’m forced to sit down and watch the whole thing and get told it’ll be great regardless of what I think. Case in point – the Kill Bill two-parter. They were released in late 2003 and early 2004, yet I think I went almost two years without watching them. Somehow I even stayed away from spoilers – I had no idea what happened in either film until I watched it which I thought was pretty good. I watched them in my own time, when I wanted to, and I think I was better off for it.

Like I said, I have no qualms about telling people about some of the box-office smashes I have never decided to watch. When I was younger I could only sit through comedies (Back To The Future and Ghostbusters being among my favourites), but now I’ve seen most of the movies I want to. I’ve seen more than my fair share of classics – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption (another one I can’t view anymore because of college), Taxi Driver, The Terminator, GoodFellas, Alien, Rocky, Schindler’s List and so on. I’m more into watching or reading the news these days – if I do watch anything on DVD it’ll usually be long-running TV shows such as House, Six Feet Under or The X-Files.

However, and I’m having trouble getting to it, there is one – just one – film out there that I have somehow avoided, for no reason whatsoever, until last weekend. It was released in 1999, when I was 16 and perfectly capable of watching it with everyone else, and I had tucked it to the back of my mind for so long that I just accepted that I was the only person my age that had never sat through it. In these movie-watching conversations I never mentioned this one. I couldn’t. I just pretended I had seen it – I mean, what was there to know? You can get around anything with a nod and a smile. Mates would sometimes have it on during house parties or whatever but I’d be more interested in hanging out and making friends with the booze in the kitchen. I’d like to pretend that it was part of some long-running experiment to watch a famous film over a decade after its release to get a different perspective but I don’t think that would fly with anyone.

So yeah, I’m talking about The Matrix. Did you see that plot line coming?

It’s hard to believe I know, but up until a couple of days ago all I knew about The Matrix was bullet time, Keanu Reeves playing Neo (or “the One”), and Rage Against The Machine being on the soundtrack. I had no idea Teddy and Natalie from Memento were in it. I had no clue that Damien from Home & Away played the part of a little mouse-boy. I hadn’t avoided it on purpose – I just wasn’t fussed. I told my girlfriend and she made me watch it almost immediately, caring soul that she is!

I’m of the opinion that Keanu Reeves has only been good in two films, and in both he played Theodore “Ted” Logan (or Ted “Theodore” Logan, as he preferred to be known). They say that Reeves was perfectly cast in the likes of The Matrix and The Day The Earth Stood Still remake because of his blank-faced, personality-drained, “non-acting” tendancies. It went well with the latter because the rest of The Day The Earth Stood Still is a pile of garbage. But with The Matrix, I can’t help but feel the movie needed a lead character with a little more charisma.

"You've never watched The Matrix before, dude?! ...Whoa."

I quite enjoyed The Matrix, actually – I’m not going to start slating it at all. I think everyone by now already knows the flaws in the film and just take it as it is. But having waited so long to see it in full I almost feel a little disappointed that I didn’t end up watching something I’d love and want to see again and again. Throughout the film I was waiting for the main villain to show up, not realising until near the end that Agent Smith was the main bad guy and not just a side-kick for an even higher power. Cypher was disposed of too easily and too early for my liking. I didn’t need two different people at different times to say “He IS the one” for me to figure it out. There were almost too many references and influences from other films, books and philosophical mumbo-jumbo for it to all mesh together coherently. I thought the introduction of the Hong Kong stuff was almost laughable and didn’t fit in with the atmosphere of the film at all.

I’m not quite sure why they needed Bill & Ted-like phone boxes to get out. It wasn’t a confusing movie at all but I don’t get why Neo was so crap at fighting and jumping and all that the entire time, until he was shot “dead” and came back to life simply thanks to a kiss. Trinity fell in love far too easily – I don’t buy it. It’s not like Neo was wearing skinny jeans or donning vampire fangs or anything. Also, the bullet time was one of the obviously memorable parts of The Matrix yet I couldn’t believe I didn’t know that when Neo slowed down and ducked back to avoid those bullets he still got caught by them!

Anyway, it was still fun to watch and that was the main thing. I really liked the Agent Smith and Morpheus characters, and of course even today the visuals were still pretty stunning. A lot of stuff was packed into The Matrix. But yeah, you lot know all this already. You probably already know what happens in The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions. But will I bother to track them down, or should I? I have not yet decided.

You can mock me for this revelation all you want, bring it on. It’s only film. I may not know any of the great lines Russell Crowe gets to spew out in Gladiator but at least I know how many people are drowning in Pakistan right now. What’s more important…?