Month: February 2002

The last time I heard them I was probably about ten, maybe eleven. My dad used to play them in the car. He only had this album, ABBA’s greatest hits and The Carpenters. He was not the coolest man in the world, it becomes clear to me… Anyway – obviously I’ve bought the ABBA and Carpenters album since, but never before have I heard the classic songs from the other album, until now… And I can tell you with complete honestly that Neil Diamond is as cool today as he ever has been!… “Forever in Blue Jeans”, “Song Sung Blue” – now that’s proper music!

If you’re bored of an afternoon and fancy some entertainment, I can more than recommend methylsalicylate. Brooke will help you differentiate your fat mice from your firearms. What more could you ask?

So Davo sends me an article from the BBC about Irritable Male Syndrome which explains how particularly stressful circumstances can make your testosterone drop which could lead to moodiness and foulness. I ask him what he’s implying. He replies that I know very well what he’s implying and to stop being so bloody irritable….

You have to love Michael Moore, you really do. I mean he’s just so on the money most of the time:

MOORE: Yes. I don’t — look, I don’t know what the percentage should be, but I certainly believe, and I’ve you heard you say the same thing on the show, that you don’t think a company like Enron should go, you know, for four years without paying any taxes.
O’REILLY: No, it’s ridiculous.
MOORE: Right?
O’REILLY: It’s true.
MOORE: I mean, that’s wrong, right?
O’REILLY: And a company like Andersen should not be able to split off their Andersen Consulting, move it to Bermuda and set it up there as…
O’REILLY: Right, but those aren’t Americans. Those are villains, OK?

Evidence, if evidence were needed, that Sparky not only appears to have found himself a bloke, but that he also has very fine taste in men. Even if the guy in question does also look like the lead singer of James.

It’s the fight that would not die – Penguin Books versus Katie.com – the latter site is still fighting about the book that Penguin published about sexual abuse and harrassment over the internet which decided to name itself after her site. I first wrote about this a year and a half ago, but I think it’s important that it gets some more press – so spread the world – this could happen to any of our sites – and I don’t think we’d have the slightest recourse to the law…

Another day, another review for the BBC, this time for the film Basquiat: “In Hollywood movies, the lives of the great creative geniuses all follow a pretty similar path. From humble origins our hero will struggle and nearly give up. Then they will find themselves a supportive girlfriend or mentor and have some kind of transformative breakthrough. And then finally they become alienated from their friends and experience some kind of ‘Great Big Crisis’.” I mean, we’ve all been there, right?

An e-mail regarding 8bit at nerve.com: “I think that 8bit bloke is full of shit. But tell him that if he is ever in need of a woman to bear his children he should give me a call.”

Another fun morning – today’s entertainment includes two months notice (along with my flatmates) to vacate my flat, a letter from the bank explaining that I’ve gone over my overdraft facility and a nice happy bill from Barclaycard.

Impressions of late-night TV: 1) three people of very different life positions watch an episode of Sex and the City where four people’s very different life positions push barriers between them, 2) George Michael goes Blade-runner as a Sexual Freak in the closest thing to a homo mid-life crisis that you can put on screen for even an obscenely stupid amount of money, 3) an acting coach says to one of her model pupils, “You know what you’re really saying is that you want to be…..” – the student looks blank, then resigned. “Fucked….?” – there is much nodding and wild-eyed agreement – and perhaps the tiniest tear runs down her face. Another model looks like Wes Bentley.