The most hateful things about the 'Three Lions'.....

• Steven Gerrard made his professional debut in 1998. Before that he played in many youth teams from an early age. Since then he has played in hundreds of football matches and must have watched hundreds more. In thee 12 years since he made his professional debut he has had the benefit of playing alongside many great players and has been schooled by many great coaches. So why is it that he still thinks that the only option available to him when he recieves the ball 25-40 yards of goal is to punt the ball towards goal? Does he realise the men wearing the same clothes as him, running around on the same pitch as him, are team mates that he is by all means permitted to pass to? After all, giving the ball to said team mates may present an opportunity for someone else to put the ball in the back of the net from a more feasible distance that 40 yards away. Its always welcome to see someone leather it into the top corner at 90 mph, but my God I wish 'Stevie G' would occasionally take a second to look around and assess the situation around him before harumphing the ball into row Z like a fucking glory-hunting cretin.

• Adrian Chiles needs to get the fuck off of my TV, like, right now. I'm sick of this hideous freak staring down the camera like a drunk trying to rouse himself from a deep coma. What the fuck is up with his face anyway? He looks like Quasimodo via an unfortunate in-womb trauma. What was wrong with Des Lynam or Steve Rider? Yeah, they didn't gurn down the lens like a moron or try to act like they wanted to be your best friend, but they had dignity and warmth and bought a sense of calm and realism to proceedings. Chiles, on the other hand, seems intent of painting a scene of utter depression and abject disaster. In the 15 minutes half-time analysis although with this being ITV, it was more like 13 minutes of adverts and 3 minutes of intelectually-challenged hyperbole) not once was the more than decent performance of Algeria mentioned.

• Clive Tyldsley (wrong spelling probably, I don't give a shit), the ITV commentator, is a fucking moron. After (along with all of the English media) years of acclaiming Fabio Capello's strict rules regarding disipline in the squad, crediting it as the reason England have played so well in the lead-up to this World Cup, this reactionary brainless fucktard is now blaming England's bad performance on..... Fabio Capello's strict rules regarding disipline in the squad. Apparently, not having slaggy mahogany-coloured bitches in South Africa with them and not allowing the players to video themselves porking a page three models has created "bad harmony within the squad." I'm unsure what evidence Mr Tyldystyyeldedly has of this being the root of England's problems in this one game, but I reckon it has something to do with being more interested in sound-bitey, sensationalist bullshit that actual tactical analysis.
  

• Emile Heskey should be thoroughly ashamed of himself. He must be brain damaged. He must be. What does he do????? He is just SO FUCKING AWFUL. I can genuinely say I have never seen a professional footballer so inept at everything he does. He can't pass, he can't shoot, he can't hold up the ball, he can't run, he can't control the ball, he can't head the ball, he can't cross, he can't do anything. Except fall over his own clown feet. Or take up a spot in the team for footballers who can actually run and control a football simeltaneously. A minute ago, he recieved the ball. He stood still which gave the defender time to advance towards him. He then attempted a stepover which richoched off his own calf and shin. He then shanked the ball out of play while attempting to cross the ball into the box. It's just Emile Heskey personified, in one passage of play. Where is the evidence that Heskey's prescence helps Wayne Rooney play? When have they linked up in this match? Rooney is having just as bad a game as any of the other imbeciles in white tonight.

• I don't usually agree with booing your own team, but I feel like this gaggle of gaping arseholes deserve it on the back of this utterly pathetic showing.
  

What did Missy Elliott ever do to you?

I've developed a slight obsession with an album on Spotify. It's a Missy Elliott album, in a way. Have you ever walked into a £1 shop and heard the music they tend to play? It's well known music, but re-recorded by some tone-deaf cretin for tedious copyright reasons. Well, this Missy album is basically just that. 'A Tribute to Missy Elliott' is the name, and although it is intended as a tribute it's difficult not to think that Missy has somehow wronged these people and this butchering of her finest musical moments is their unintentionally hilarious form of petty revenge.

The performers on show give the impression that they had no idea about what rap music actually is and are trying to pick it up as they go along. Seemingly, they've taken the assumption that rapping is basically just talking in an accent, which is obviously not the case. Speaking of accents, there are some utterly bamboozling dialects on show here, such as on the reimagining of Missy classic Gossip Folks, with a majority of the verses being delivered in a bizarre sort of Jamaican patois/Home Counties hybrid. Or on The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), when on the line "Beep Beep! Who's got the keys to the jeep? VROOOOOMMMMM", the VROOOOMMMMM being delivered with all the gusto of a narcoleptic trapped in a pyramid scheme seminar. The rap in One Minute Man, originally performed by Ludacris, sounds like the kind of thing that might be churned out on some sort of documentary where a white, middle class MP visits a group of black youths in Hackney or New Cross in which he makes toe-curling attempts to be 'down wit da yoof' by trying his hand at being an MC. My absolute favourite moment occurs on Work It, arguably Missy's finest moment and arguably the finest moment of this so-called tribute. Those familiar with this song will remember the moment in the chorus where Missy promises to "Put my thang down, flip it and reverse it" which is followed by this line repeated in reverse. In the Missy Elliott tribute edition of Work It, the recording budget seemingly did not stretch to playing a 2 second section of the song in reverse, so instead what is heard is a literal interpretation of what it kind of sounds like in reverse. "ISSYOURFLIPANIPPAEVNERMEPPA" is literally what she blurts out, like some kind of demented psychopath.

If this is a tribute, I'd hate to think what would have happened if Missy had actually pissed these people off. Here is a link, in the rare event that anyone reads this/wants to listen to it. [You'll need Spotify on your computer to listen].

Kelis - Flesh Tone

Kelis' latest alum, Flesh Tone, is completely and utterly fantastic. It sees Kelis entering the unfamiliar world of euphoric, poppers o'clock dance music, complete with corny as fuck piano hooks which bring to mind N-Trance's mid-nineties anthem Set You Free and other such shit. As a recent divorcee, one would be forgiven for expecting a new Kelis album to be an endless barage of heart-broken ballads, or perhaps a return to shouty hate-fest Caught Out There, but rather than wallow in divorce-inspired misery Kelis has taken inspiration from the birth of her son. This decision to celebrate rather than comiserate has helped create an album of genuine warmth. Lead single Acapella broods and throbs on a combination of Donna Summer-esque beats and Kelis' breathy vocals and forthcoming single '4th of July (Fireworks)' features a throbbing bass hook which would more than stand its groud on the dancefloor.

Yay for happy Kelis! With the whole of pop music simeltaneously turning to the world of electro house for a sure-fire hit, Kelis and producer Will.I.Am have done extremely well to create an album which stands out so clearly among its peers.

Charity Shop Soundsystem - Update 11/06/2010

Today I picked up four new additions to my bargain bin CD collection, courtesy of a charity shop in Hackney. This outlet's quite vast selection featured such names as Clock (Abhorrent 90s Europop outfit responsible for awful guff such as "Whoomph! (There It Is)" and a cover of Blame It On The Boogie) and dad-rock legends Toploader. I decided to leave these two abominations on the shelf and pick up these four instead.....

• IKARA COLT - CHAT AND BUSINESS

I picked this up because I'm sure someone in the not too recent past has recommended this band to me. Ikara Colt were a London four piece specialising in jerky lo-fi art-punk and pretentious album covers which double up as mini sticker albums. They released two full-length LP's before disbanding in 2005.

• KANO - HOME SWEET HOME

One of the brightest lights in the world of UK hip-hop, Kane Robinson's 2005 debut is an experiemental take on the genre, in which Kano samples Black Sabbath classic 'War Pigs' and gets all soulful on Mike Skinner-featured 'Nite Nite' on a CD which plays as the mischevous younger brother to Dizzee Rascal's genre-defining debut Boy In Da Corner. "You can take me out of the hood, I'll still act like a criminal" vows Kano on 'Typical Me', a line which perfectly sums up the attitude of this album.

• MS DYNAMITE - A LITTLE DEEPER

Mercury Prize-winning debut from Ms Dynamite, who was a bloody big deal for a few months back in 2002. Featuring irritating nonsensical single Dy-Na-Mi-Tee and female liberation anthem Put Him Out, Dynamite never reached anything near the success of her debut CD, instead forging an alternative career as a rent-a-celeb on the reality TV circuit, although she did recently make a musical comeback of sorts as the vocal talent on DJ Zinc's 'Wile Out'.

• THE VINES - HIGHLY EVOLVED

Australian garage rockers The Vines recieved all kinds of acclaim for this, their 2001 debut LP. The Vines found themselves lumped in the lo-fi garage rock scene of the early 21st century along with The White Stripes, The Hives and The Strokes. The grunge vibe running through the album brought inevitable Nirvana comparisons, which is none more obvious than on 'In The Jungle' which almost sounds as though Kurt's passing was all a big misunderstanding and he has been moonlighting in an Australian rock & roll band all this time.

Big Brother as it happens.

9.04pm - So here we are. The end of an era. The last series of the parade of screeching, obnoxious, fame-hungry, desperate, thick imbeciles shitting away the last dregs of diginty for three months so, the end result being a smattering of PA appearances in low-rent nightclubs. Should be a rollercoster ride.

9.06pm - Davina introduces the gaggle of idiots hoping to take up residence in the house.

9.09pm - Davina has entered the house. The diary room chair is modelled to resemble angel wings, and is a vulgar as it is cheap. In the garden sits a bizarre wooden egg. Davina is impressed by the pretty unicorns and fairies.

9.12pm - A strange cutaway segments documents the story of a tree which is now a chest of drawers, which was far too uninteresting to elaborate on.

9.13pm - the first housemate is.... JOSIE! A 25 year old blonde who sounds and looks like Soccer AM's Helen Chamberlain. She seems to like animals and grew up on a farm. She seems to be on the good side of ditzy. She enters the house by screaming repeatedly and jumping around like a lunatic, which should stand her in good stead for the series. She seems vaguely likeable.

9.17pm - Next is STEVE! Now, I noticed him sat in a wheelchair right at the start and said to myself "he's going in the house" and I've been proved right. The cynic in me can't help but think BB chose him because of his disability. I missed the bulk of his intro, but I think he said he lost his legs at war. A beefy, tattooed 'geezer' type, he seems like a genuinely nice fella, as he enters the house in a side door via the diary room. It's unclear whether Josie started screeching like a banshee upon Stephen's entrance or if she hadn't stopped screeching in the five minutes since she entered the house. My money is on the latter.

9.24pm - Adverts. That Carling ad for the World Cup is so horribly trite.

9.28pm - I've just missed the intro for BEN! but what I see is an impossibly posh toff bastard RAH RAH RAH. I'm suprised Ben is available to appear in BB because I was under the assumption he was LITERALLY IN BURMA. Davina just asked some bellends in the audience what they thought, they responding by hollering like morons.

9.30pm - Number 4 is BEYONCE! Not really, it's Rachel. 15 seconds after I wrote that, she revealed she is infact a Beyonce impersonator, although I think she would have more success as a double for Miquita Oliver. She recieves the expected chorus of BOOOOOOOOO!, as most attractive people entering the house usually do.

9.34pm - NATHAN! is next, a dour looking northen monkey who describes himself as a "Jack the Lad", whch automatically makes him a massive prick, which his intro confirms. His crowning glory seems to be the width of his forehead. The thick working class moron gets cheered by the crowd of thick working class morons.

9.38pm - Ads again. It's as to be expected so far, the usual gaggle of airheaded floozies, inspiration stories and pampered poshos who have been selected for the specific goal of creating as much conflict as possible. I just spotted Mr T in the group of hopefuls. I pray to god he doesn't get in because he is clearly a cunt.

9.42pm - Here comes DAVE!, whom I assumed was a lesbian female until he opened his mouth. Oh my God I hate this man. Apparently he used to be a deadbeat druggie mess until he found the man upstairs. He keeps giggling in a really fake way, the kind of giggle people do in sitcoms when the crazy laughter turns in an instant to sobbing uncontrollably.

9.46pm - "I have a huge hunger to be successful" says walking pair of tits CIOMHE!, whose name could well have been chosen by her parents mashing a typewriter with an open palm. Upon admitting she flirts with girls, the BB producer conducting the interview shoots her down superbly, decreeing her an "attention seeker" which she denies. She seems like a dullard.

9.48pm - GOVAN! looks 12 years old. He looks genuinely mortified at his boast of having "a big dick" as he enters the house at quite a speed which is because he is dying for a piss, running to the bathroom before he's even said hello to his housemates.

9.54pm - No one stands out in the irritating bastard stakes yet. Of course, this will not last.

9.56pm - Another one I saw earlier and thought would be selected, SHABBY! is like Oliver Twist and Angus Young's ADHD-riddled lovechild. Shabby because she "looks like shit", she brags about getting "loads of poontang." There be the source of conflict in the house, I reckon. Her general personality, not her lesbianism.

9.59pm - Next up is IFE!, a singer/dancer/performer who spends most of her intro bragging about how successful and beautiful she is. Little Miss Beyonce looks genuinely offended at every female who enters.

10.03pm - Walking Topshop mannequin JOHN! now, who flew for 23 hours from his homeland of Australia to audition for the show. He thinks he looks like David Beckham, which is false. I'm predicing that this hunk of beef will spend 93% of his time walking around with no shirt on, and the other 7% spent lifting his shirt off. Like Beyonce, Ben has a face like a slapped arse every time someone walks in the door.

10.06pm - Preposterously named SUNSHINE! is hateful in a thousand ways. Her whole life seems to revolve around convincing everyone how WACKY! and ZANY! and KOOKY! she is in order to compensate for how bollock-achingly dull she is, hence the vow that she will never eat a kitten, her favourite pasttime of sticking shiny things on her possesions and indeed the name Sunshine. A genuinely crazy person would have changed their name to Juggernaut or Vaginismus or something. Contemptible bitch.

10.10pm - CORIN! says she is 28, which she is not. A mahognay skinned Jordan-alike with a voice that only a deaf person could love. One also suspects that is not her natural skin colour, unless mahogany sideboards and leather saddlebags have discovered a way to copulate.

10.13pm - Davina just hinted at A SHOCKING TWIST! which will probably not involve anything shocking whatsoever. There is a disgusting pink & black cybergoth cunt in the crowd that shouldn't even be allowed to leave her own house, nevermind enter this one.

10.18pm - OOOHHHH! A TOMBOLA. BB, YOU'VE SURPASSED YOURSELF! I reckon it'll feature the names of ex housemates, as the rumours have suggested. Davina just made a terribly unfunny pun about looking at balls. Fuck off Davina.

10.19pm - Oh, I was wrong. Out of the tombola came the name MARIO, a guring excitable imp who looks pretty bewildered at the whole event. "Hello, whoever you are!" says Big Brother, a moniker he should get used to. Mario has been given some tedious mission involving being a mole, the announcement of which was generally drowned out by whooping idiots. And Davina.

10.26pm - Mario is a mole, which naturally means he has entered the house dressed as a mole because otherwise the task would not have been clear enough for viewers.

Fin.

Makes you proud to be British.....

Today I literally had a "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" moment whilst watching the news on ITV1. As is to be expected, the majority of the news centered around small villages in rural Cumbria, the area where, for the benefit of those who dwell under large rocks, a previously-nondescript middle aged man went apeshit and drove around shooting strangers and ex-colleagues in the face with a hunting rifle. All seemed normal thus far, the presenters rambling on in a soft, hushed monotone as they do when a tragic event has taken place. There was the usual roving reporters stood in the village square or in front of a police cordon telling of a community still in shock over what has happened. There was someone from the local community such as the vicar or a victim's cousin's friend's pet hamster being asked to describe the mood of the local community. This is all par for the course and is to be expected in such an event. What i didn't expect, or think was in any way a good idea, was to have a nine year old boy who had the misfortune to witness one of the victims get shot in the head go in front of ITV's cameras and be asked to recall his memories of the incident. Am I the only person who thinks it is blatantly exploitative to ask a small child to relive such an event for the sake of entertainment? And you've got this soulless heathen of a reporter goading this child into revealing more gory details to the point where you half expect him to ask how many pieces the victim's skull fragmented into upon impact. But this is the way the news is nowadays. The news isn't the news anymore. Like with any movie, any CD, any book, any TV drama series, any soap, we select whether we watch BBC News, ITV News, Sky News or CNN based on which station offers the most interesting narrative or the most outlandish statements. For example, if BBC News are saying things like "Derrick Bird was a quiet but friendly chap with no history of mental illness" and Sky News are saying "DERRICK BIRD TRIED TO CHECK INTO MENTAL HOSPITAL NIGHT BEFORE KILLINGS!" naturally you are going to gravitate towards Sky News' coverage because it is more interesting, more exciting, more entertaining. And that what TV news is these days. Entertainment. Look at all the fancy title sequences, look at how any two-bob celebrity is shoehorned into a news report to give their view on a subject they know fuck all about. It's all about who can say the same thing in the most entertaining way. And the eyewitness report of a nine year old boy is more entertaining than the thoughts of a fuddy-duddy old priest.

It also made me smile in a depressed, resigned kind of a way that, after the reports on this shooting had ended the next item on the agenda was the bombshell that England captain Rio Ferdinand had twonked his knee and was out of the World Cup, the news of which was delivered in the exact hushed monotone I mentioned earlier, the kind of patronising softly-softly voice which usually accompanies stories such as the one above. It says so much about the society we in Britain exist that the news of an athlete on wages of over £100,000 per week has picked up a recoverable knee injury is delivered in the same anguished way as the news that twelve innocent people have been murdered for no good reason.

In Anticipation of 'Maya'.....

After a year spent looking after her newborn baby, Anglo-Sri Lankan controversy magnet Maya Arulpragasm, otherwise known as M.I.A, is to drop her new album, the name of which I think is Maya but is spelled in some bizarre stylized manner which makes pretty much no fucking sense. Two tracks from the album have been released to differing receptions.

Recent single XXXO seems to be another significant step on Maya's journey from underground guerilla-dance oddity to bona fide popstar, the tribal drums and piercing synths combine with her distinctive vocals to create a sound which would not sound out of place on a Britney Spears release. "You want me to be somebody that I'm really not" she hollers repeatedly on a chorus which after a few listens will stamp itself onto your brain and refuse to wash away. "All I know is you leave me wanting more" pines Maya, while also finding space in her story to plug household names such as Twitter, the iPhone and Quentin Tarantino.

Unlike XXXO, Born Free came complete with an accompanying video and in true M.I.A style, courted all kinds of controversy for its depiction of fatties having sex (oh, the humanity!) and the wanton torture of ginger children. For those who haven't viewed it, the video documents a group of hardcore military types rounding up young men of redheaded persuasion and dumping them in a remote desert, where they are ordered to sprint across a minefield. The video's biggest point of contention revolves around the consequences of one boy's refusal to comply with the orders, his punishment making for genuinely shocking and difficult viewing in a time when something genuinely shocking is hard to come by, what with the availabilty on the internet of, amongst many other things, videos of terrorists beheading innocent people in cold blood. Aurally, Born Free is as difficult to listen to as the video is to watch, it is a disorientating mix of marching drums, scattergun vocals and reverb-heavy riffs which seem to intertwine perfecty with the chaotic nature of the video. The fact that it sounds nothing like an M.I.A song is exactly what makes it an M.I.A song. Here is a musician who has never been afraid to experiment and throw something unexpected into the mix and Born Free ticks those boxes perfectly.

I was intending to embed the video, but I've just spent fifteen minutes searching for it and nowhere seems to have an embeddable version of it. Ah well. Here is a link to M.I.A's website where the video can be viewed in its entirety.

The new album drops on July 13th, but this date has changed frequently over the past few weeks so don't be suprised if this turns out to be bullshit. Producers on this album include Rusko, Diplo, Switch and Blaqstarr, which means that this promises to be some of Ms Arulpragasm's best work yet.

Check out M.I.A on Last.FM

Blood and Fire by The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster

The last we heard of psychobilly weirdos Eighties Matchbox, they had unleashed four-track EP In The Garden on an unsuspecting world, a short-but-fantastic package of rip-roaring garage punk which suggested that the band's next LP would have more in common with the frantic psycho-rock of 2002 debut Horse of the Dog than 2004's more calm and considered follow up The Royal Society.

Highlights are album opener and lead single Love Turns To Hate is an impressive starting post, featuring TEMBLD staples such as Guy McKnight's sinister vocals coming across like Nick Cave's evil dead twin, as he growls over snarling basslines and howling guitars. Mission From God opens with two seconds of gloriously screeching guitar and deathly drums before settling into the kind of disorganised chaos TEMBLD do so well. Under My Chin rumbles along as if posessed by Marilyn Manson, and Monsieur Cutts sees McKnight do away with singing and instead proceeds to howl like a psychopath for two minutes, a semblance of order restored by ferocious drumming. McKnight is clearly having the time of his life on Man For All Seasons, every line sounding like it is being uttered with an evil grin. Album closer Are You Living almost enters Arctic Monkeys territory with its indie-pop riff, until motorcycle engine guitars show up to provide the song with the kind of snarling angry chorus the band seem to conjure up so effortlessly.

Overall this album is a triumphant return, and is more of a relative of Horse of the Dog than of The Royal Society. Although it does sound slightly too polished in parts, it generally has the moody swagger to appease most TEMBLD fans.

Overall Rating - 8/10