www.paulcoia.com
God bless the British public and John Sergeant. The great armchair telephone jury stuck two fingers up at the BBC, and their show Strictly Come Dancing, by refusing to vote off the lumbering bear who has the rhythm of granite and the balance and grace of a sperm whale handstanding on Nelson’s Column.
Week after week, despite pleading from plastic poseurs on the judging panel, the former TV political correspondent became a returning favourite with his blend of wounded elephant and infirm Chewbacca until last week when, under pressure, he resigned. Like an unlucky Catholic his rhythm method may have let him down but, before departing, Sergeant triumphed at blowing a huge hole through the format that is Strictly Come Dancing.
Don’t underestimate how bad this is for the BBC who sell this programme around the world and make local versions in places like America and Australia. Apart from having to refund viewers who voted, BBC heads are having to accept that their cash cow has an almighty tummy bug and that Sergeant’s popularity and style - less Fred Astaire more Stenna Stair - showed up something no one had noticed till now. Formats have to be tested to destruction before getting on air, but the Quality Assurance people went AWOL here.
I accept that if you run a dance competition then the best dancer should win, but if you ask the public to vote, and take money off them for the privilege, you have to accept whatever they give you, even if they keep blowing raspberries at your format by voting for the one who makes them laugh. It means the idea is flawed, a bit like getting a brand new, safety tested, car and finding the seat belts are made of elastic.
Even the new series of I’m A Celebrity faced revolt when contestants threatened to walk off unless conditions improved this week, so another weakened format and another triumph for people power over media execs at the Groucho Club.
In this new spirit of spotting flaws and speaking up for what the common man wants, can I this week start a backlash of my own and ask you to join in? I’m forming a movement called BBOOB, which stands for Bring Back Our Old Bond because, right now, Daniel Craig and the producers of Quantum of Solace are making a pig’s ear out of it.
I was watching the actor Jason Statham on NBC the other night and he told a story about driving through Hollywood in a beat up old banger when a shiny, chauffeur driven car pulled up alongside and his old mate Daniel Craig wound down the rear window and shouted something rude. Statham mouthed “Shut up, Mr Bond”, and drove on. I loved that story for many reasons but mainly because it shows Daniel Craig is human and just may be able to have a laugh – something lacking in his James Bond outings where irony, humour and fun have disappeared along with the gadgets and decent theme song.
At the risk of sounding like the little boy in the crowd who shouts “The king’s in the buff”, especially when so many are saying that it’s good to get the films back to the style of the books, let me shout as loudly as I can as the king goes past that the books must have been flippin’ hopeless. And anyway, I enjoy my choc ice and popcorn at the movies not the library.
Every two years the new Bond film was an event I looked forward to, a big red circle on my calendar. The various actors brought their own, individual, take on the icon with Connery as the original, Moore as a more comic creation, Brosnan as an ironic, sassy, agent and now Craig plays him as if troubled with diverticulitis where any sudden movement may mean M getting a bill for a new pair of pants.
He doesn’t even have to think on his feet as the director goes so close to the action, and cuts so quickly, that no one knows what’s going on as his enemies fly through the air and disappear for no reason, unless perhaps it’s because of boredom. Craig’s lack of personality is matched by the baddies. Another Goldfinger? Jaws? Scaramanga? Oddjob? This new lot have a water fetish and will be remembered about as long as the new theme song which is called …er…. something or other by …er.... those two Americans.
There are two female leads in this movie. One looks to be a woman, the other like she’s just stepped off a hockey pitch and is on her way to sit her A level exams dressed in her mum’s Sunday best. Guess which one he seduces? Yep. Bond has become a dirty old man.
Expecting the famous Bond guitar theme to play during the chases? Forget it. Waiting for lines like “shaken not stirred” or “the name’s Bond. James Bond?” You’ve come to the wrong place. Wanting Bond to appear in his swimming trunks again? Well, our Daniel takes himself very seriously and didn’t like the attention last time so there’s no room for that. Just as there’s no room for a memorable stunt before the titles. Where once we got thrilling ski chases followed by Bond flying off a mountain wearing a Union Jack parachute, we now get yet another car chase with the punchline being him opening the boot of his car. I can do that in Wimbledon rush hour.
So, please join me in BBOOB. You need a cause to rally round now that John Sergeant’s gone from the dancing show and perhaps we may even ask for John to become a baddie in the next Bond movie. Or maybe he will sing the theme song. Or, even better, replace Daniel Craig.
At least Sergeant knows how to get a laugh.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A Boy Named Sue
www.paulcoia.com
My middle name is Giacomo, which is Italian for James and is, I believe, a fine name if you want to write opera or dabble as a dictator, but I rarely dust it off and use it. Plain old Paul Coia seems to do the job just fine and leaving out my middle name makes things shorter, a mix of the common and the Latin, while not taking up too much of anyone’s time.
But when I was very young, for reasons I now forget, I thought my name was perhaps a bit too common and would typecast me, taking me in to the hairdressing profession, which was not what I wanted at all. Maybe in Glasgow all hairdressers had Italian surnames and that influenced me, or perhaps all our local barbers were called Paul, the way all Jimmy’s tend to be cab drivers, all Chloes work on perfume counters, and people with no vowels in their name end up working in Starbucks.
Whatever the reason, I believed back then that my name was going to be a handicap if my conversation was to progress beyond the “something for the weekend sir?” that I used to overhear when getting my short back and sides. I hadn’t a clue what those freshly shaved customers actually got in their brown paper bags and assumed it might be tickets for a football match one week, a hymn sheet for Sunday Mass the next.
I knew that if I went in to hairdressing I wouldn’t cope with constantly coming up with new surprises for customers every weekend in their Lucky Bags so my young brain used to run through loads of new names I could adopt to save me from sweeping hairy floors, eventually settling on one that I felt was rugged and would lead me to fame and fortune rather than rinse and blow dry. It had to trip off the tongue and sound pleasant, while being strong and virile, so I took Clint from Mr Eastwood and Carson from an actress in Coronation Street.
At night, in bed, I used to dream of what Clint Carson was going to grow up to be and eventually he settled in to an exciting life as a land based member of International Rescue who used to save people from burning houses during the day but at night played his latest top ten hit live in clubs. In my dreams each night Clint was so good he had even managed to talk the Beatles in to reuniting to play as his backing band.
I didn’t quite get to the obsessive stage of practising Clint’s autograph but I’m sure there’s a famous Clint Carson out there somewhere, though Googling his name led me to someone in Indianapolis who works in the dairy business and another one who is a fictitious rogue in a book called Antiques Roadkill. So, not a pop star or superhero amongst them.
Names are important, as that great philosopher Johnny Cash told us in A Boy Named Sue, and when I had a long chat with the great Australian author, poet, critic and TV presenter Clive James this week, he told me that Clive is not his real name. He couldn’t wait till he was old enough to change the name his mum and dad had given him and, as soon as he could, he raced to the registrar. Good, old, solid Clive was actually born, wait for it, Vivien!
Today I was reading the newspaper and found that more and more people seem to have really ridiculous names caused by this post Eighties craze for joining father and mother’s surnames together rather than opting for one or the other. A sad article told the story of a student called James Wentworth-Stanley. Another, by Alison Smith-Squire, concerned a lady named Ella Samoles-Little and her quest for plastic surgery. I read this, incidentally, hoping to God Ella was trying to get a surgeon to amputate one of her names when, disappointed, I turned the page to find another piece about someone called Clare Milford- Haven.
This double barrelled thing is getting out of order and is becoming the fungus of the nomenclature world, growing everywhere. And where does a name like Milford- Haven come from? It sounds like a new town with helpful ring roads so the rest of us can avoid looking at its ugly roundabouts and factory outlets. Perhaps this will catch on and we may find future generations adopting the place of their birth. Maybe a John Milton- Keynes will appear, or a Penelope Market-Harborough, or perhaps even a George Shepherds-Bush.
To scruff like myself, these double barrels seem an affectation and a stab at conning us lower orders in to believing they are really from the aristocracy. Would I be able to skip to the front of queues and get in to clubs free if I brought back Giacomo and gave him a hyphen? And what happens when these people marry? If a Roberts-Smythe and an Eden- Scott get hitched and carry on this silly tradition, their son Adam will have a name that reads like a rugby team sheet - including the reserves. And it’s not as if Adam Roberts-Smythe-Eden-Scott can ever simplify things by just using his initials.
I’m finding this, new style, posh name calling is even coming to my door and affecting me now. Debbie, the Miss Right in my life, was giving me a hard time this week about road directions or something similar and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I couldn’t help reflecting that she is now set on scrambling up the social ladder.
I think, from now on, my wife wishes to be known as Miss Always–Right.
My middle name is Giacomo, which is Italian for James and is, I believe, a fine name if you want to write opera or dabble as a dictator, but I rarely dust it off and use it. Plain old Paul Coia seems to do the job just fine and leaving out my middle name makes things shorter, a mix of the common and the Latin, while not taking up too much of anyone’s time.
But when I was very young, for reasons I now forget, I thought my name was perhaps a bit too common and would typecast me, taking me in to the hairdressing profession, which was not what I wanted at all. Maybe in Glasgow all hairdressers had Italian surnames and that influenced me, or perhaps all our local barbers were called Paul, the way all Jimmy’s tend to be cab drivers, all Chloes work on perfume counters, and people with no vowels in their name end up working in Starbucks.
Whatever the reason, I believed back then that my name was going to be a handicap if my conversation was to progress beyond the “something for the weekend sir?” that I used to overhear when getting my short back and sides. I hadn’t a clue what those freshly shaved customers actually got in their brown paper bags and assumed it might be tickets for a football match one week, a hymn sheet for Sunday Mass the next.
I knew that if I went in to hairdressing I wouldn’t cope with constantly coming up with new surprises for customers every weekend in their Lucky Bags so my young brain used to run through loads of new names I could adopt to save me from sweeping hairy floors, eventually settling on one that I felt was rugged and would lead me to fame and fortune rather than rinse and blow dry. It had to trip off the tongue and sound pleasant, while being strong and virile, so I took Clint from Mr Eastwood and Carson from an actress in Coronation Street.
At night, in bed, I used to dream of what Clint Carson was going to grow up to be and eventually he settled in to an exciting life as a land based member of International Rescue who used to save people from burning houses during the day but at night played his latest top ten hit live in clubs. In my dreams each night Clint was so good he had even managed to talk the Beatles in to reuniting to play as his backing band.
I didn’t quite get to the obsessive stage of practising Clint’s autograph but I’m sure there’s a famous Clint Carson out there somewhere, though Googling his name led me to someone in Indianapolis who works in the dairy business and another one who is a fictitious rogue in a book called Antiques Roadkill. So, not a pop star or superhero amongst them.
Names are important, as that great philosopher Johnny Cash told us in A Boy Named Sue, and when I had a long chat with the great Australian author, poet, critic and TV presenter Clive James this week, he told me that Clive is not his real name. He couldn’t wait till he was old enough to change the name his mum and dad had given him and, as soon as he could, he raced to the registrar. Good, old, solid Clive was actually born, wait for it, Vivien!
Today I was reading the newspaper and found that more and more people seem to have really ridiculous names caused by this post Eighties craze for joining father and mother’s surnames together rather than opting for one or the other. A sad article told the story of a student called James Wentworth-Stanley. Another, by Alison Smith-Squire, concerned a lady named Ella Samoles-Little and her quest for plastic surgery. I read this, incidentally, hoping to God Ella was trying to get a surgeon to amputate one of her names when, disappointed, I turned the page to find another piece about someone called Clare Milford- Haven.
This double barrelled thing is getting out of order and is becoming the fungus of the nomenclature world, growing everywhere. And where does a name like Milford- Haven come from? It sounds like a new town with helpful ring roads so the rest of us can avoid looking at its ugly roundabouts and factory outlets. Perhaps this will catch on and we may find future generations adopting the place of their birth. Maybe a John Milton- Keynes will appear, or a Penelope Market-Harborough, or perhaps even a George Shepherds-Bush.
To scruff like myself, these double barrels seem an affectation and a stab at conning us lower orders in to believing they are really from the aristocracy. Would I be able to skip to the front of queues and get in to clubs free if I brought back Giacomo and gave him a hyphen? And what happens when these people marry? If a Roberts-Smythe and an Eden- Scott get hitched and carry on this silly tradition, their son Adam will have a name that reads like a rugby team sheet - including the reserves. And it’s not as if Adam Roberts-Smythe-Eden-Scott can ever simplify things by just using his initials.
I’m finding this, new style, posh name calling is even coming to my door and affecting me now. Debbie, the Miss Right in my life, was giving me a hard time this week about road directions or something similar and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I couldn’t help reflecting that she is now set on scrambling up the social ladder.
I think, from now on, my wife wishes to be known as Miss Always–Right.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Elected
There’s been only one topic of conversation this week, of course, and it’s been that big, life changing and epoch making, election. All over the world everyone is talking of a time for change, a new bright future, the restoration of pride and of history being made. Yes, the Glenrothes By Election was some event.
Actually no one at all is talking about the Glenrothes by election, not even in the town itself, as it all seems small beer compared to the Obamarama Ding Dong which saw Obama and McCain cross a continent addressing millions while, here, our politicians crossed the Rothes Road for two pensioners gossiping on a street corner. In Glenrothes, where old ladies are the real big hitters, two or more parked shopping bags constitute a rally and if McCain were running here he’d be the young pin up, fought over by grappling grannies leaving teeth marks, and indeed their teeth, in opponents legs. Last election, the Scottish Pension Party polled more votes than the Socialists or Independents, and this time the Senior Citizen's Unity Party have come fifth out of eight. Toasting their success with, er, toast and warm milk, they keep changing the name of the party as they forget what it was called last time, so expect a fight from The Bus Pass Coalition next time. Probably.
But it’s not exciting is it? Unlike the States I can’t see a movie in it because, basically, politics is boring here in the UK while Obama’s story seems to have captivated people from all over the world. An acquaintance of mine stayed up on American election night last week ringing over two hundred people in Florida and urging them to get out and vote. He made the calls, at his own expense, from his house in London, preferring American designer democracy to our own crumpled charity shop politics.
Now that our Monster Raving Loony Party is more or less history, we don’t seem to have the amount of fun here that they have in the States, especially for women, where every new ‘Mama For Obama’ remembers four years ago when bikini waxing salons carried the slogan “No More Bush”. They even have better anagrams. “Sarah Palin Vice President” magically rearranges in to “Perhaps Is Devil Incarnate”.
I can’t pretend to be as committed as my friend but, despite being politically agnostic, I confess I have been an activist in my time. In fact twice; both times on the side of the underdog who, with my help, won few votes, loads of humiliation, and lost their race by a wider mile than a Moroccan Olympic Ski team.
So why did I do it? Was it love of democracy? Help for the underdog? Well, on one occasion it was because I got a free badge, and on the other it was because my mum and dad told me I had to. I guess, having admitted that, I’ll have to turn down my invitations to enter the House of Lords and join the other great cerebral swimmers in the government’s political think tank.
My first brush with politics came at school when a class mate appeared one day wearing a smart blue pin, and when I asked if he could get me one, I was directed to the SNP offices down town. I popped in with my contact details and received my badge, followed days later by large pictures of the party’s logo which had one crucial wow factor. They were bigger than my Clapton poster and covered more of my peeling bedroom wallpaper.
Of course political parties don’t leave it there and soon I had to take delivery of leaflets and flyers that I was supposed to deliver round the neighbourhood - a high price for a lapel ornament. My details were also passed to a neighbour who was active in the party and, despite never having said a civil word to me since I knocked on her door asking if I could get my Action Man parachute back from her garden, she declared herself my new best friend and I was invited in for tea and biscuits. I declined, though it was a close thing as she had those chocolate marshmallows with jam at the bottom.
The next time I was politically active, my mum and dad had become friendly with our local doctor whose mother in law was running as local Lib Dem MP and my brother and I were given hundreds of leaflets and asked to deliver them, which we did. Well, up to a point. The first few nights were OK but then we got bored with democracy and delivered the remaining bundles to the rear of a hedge.
We weren’t quite the Partridge Family in our house but mum and dad did like to occasionally have friends over with guitars, so Molly, the MP in waiting, asked them to write some jingles for playing through loudspeakers as she toured the district. As we all had to sing in to a tape recorder, over and over again, I still remember the words of those jingles even to this day. Poor Molly looked bereft when she lost the election but still had the decency to invite the grown ups to a thank you party while I stayed at home, praying she’d never find that hedge, and learning an edgy guitar riff from Wishbone Ash instead. My last brush with political campaigning was over.
Perhaps this is why I find UK politics so boring, having been spoiled with spectacular lack of success at such an early age. But, with interest in our Parliament at such a low, I was thinking this week that I should maybe drag myself out of retirement and get back in to the political fray. Just think, if Obama had called a few weeks ago and asked me to do some jingles for him, I could have changed history.
McCain would have won.
Actually no one at all is talking about the Glenrothes by election, not even in the town itself, as it all seems small beer compared to the Obamarama Ding Dong which saw Obama and McCain cross a continent addressing millions while, here, our politicians crossed the Rothes Road for two pensioners gossiping on a street corner. In Glenrothes, where old ladies are the real big hitters, two or more parked shopping bags constitute a rally and if McCain were running here he’d be the young pin up, fought over by grappling grannies leaving teeth marks, and indeed their teeth, in opponents legs. Last election, the Scottish Pension Party polled more votes than the Socialists or Independents, and this time the Senior Citizen's Unity Party have come fifth out of eight. Toasting their success with, er, toast and warm milk, they keep changing the name of the party as they forget what it was called last time, so expect a fight from The Bus Pass Coalition next time. Probably.
But it’s not exciting is it? Unlike the States I can’t see a movie in it because, basically, politics is boring here in the UK while Obama’s story seems to have captivated people from all over the world. An acquaintance of mine stayed up on American election night last week ringing over two hundred people in Florida and urging them to get out and vote. He made the calls, at his own expense, from his house in London, preferring American designer democracy to our own crumpled charity shop politics.
Now that our Monster Raving Loony Party is more or less history, we don’t seem to have the amount of fun here that they have in the States, especially for women, where every new ‘Mama For Obama’ remembers four years ago when bikini waxing salons carried the slogan “No More Bush”. They even have better anagrams. “Sarah Palin Vice President” magically rearranges in to “Perhaps Is Devil Incarnate”.
I can’t pretend to be as committed as my friend but, despite being politically agnostic, I confess I have been an activist in my time. In fact twice; both times on the side of the underdog who, with my help, won few votes, loads of humiliation, and lost their race by a wider mile than a Moroccan Olympic Ski team.
So why did I do it? Was it love of democracy? Help for the underdog? Well, on one occasion it was because I got a free badge, and on the other it was because my mum and dad told me I had to. I guess, having admitted that, I’ll have to turn down my invitations to enter the House of Lords and join the other great cerebral swimmers in the government’s political think tank.
My first brush with politics came at school when a class mate appeared one day wearing a smart blue pin, and when I asked if he could get me one, I was directed to the SNP offices down town. I popped in with my contact details and received my badge, followed days later by large pictures of the party’s logo which had one crucial wow factor. They were bigger than my Clapton poster and covered more of my peeling bedroom wallpaper.
Of course political parties don’t leave it there and soon I had to take delivery of leaflets and flyers that I was supposed to deliver round the neighbourhood - a high price for a lapel ornament. My details were also passed to a neighbour who was active in the party and, despite never having said a civil word to me since I knocked on her door asking if I could get my Action Man parachute back from her garden, she declared herself my new best friend and I was invited in for tea and biscuits. I declined, though it was a close thing as she had those chocolate marshmallows with jam at the bottom.
The next time I was politically active, my mum and dad had become friendly with our local doctor whose mother in law was running as local Lib Dem MP and my brother and I were given hundreds of leaflets and asked to deliver them, which we did. Well, up to a point. The first few nights were OK but then we got bored with democracy and delivered the remaining bundles to the rear of a hedge.
We weren’t quite the Partridge Family in our house but mum and dad did like to occasionally have friends over with guitars, so Molly, the MP in waiting, asked them to write some jingles for playing through loudspeakers as she toured the district. As we all had to sing in to a tape recorder, over and over again, I still remember the words of those jingles even to this day. Poor Molly looked bereft when she lost the election but still had the decency to invite the grown ups to a thank you party while I stayed at home, praying she’d never find that hedge, and learning an edgy guitar riff from Wishbone Ash instead. My last brush with political campaigning was over.
Perhaps this is why I find UK politics so boring, having been spoiled with spectacular lack of success at such an early age. But, with interest in our Parliament at such a low, I was thinking this week that I should maybe drag myself out of retirement and get back in to the political fray. Just think, if Obama had called a few weeks ago and asked me to do some jingles for him, I could have changed history.
McCain would have won.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy
www.paulcoia.com
You can tell Christmas is on the way, can’t you? Go to the shops just now and it’s all cut price Terry’s Chocolate Orange and Michael Jackson’s mummy kissing Santa Claus. But the real giveaway that Santa’s getting the soup stains out of his beard and gearing up to whip the elves in to shape is that every shopping mall walkway is overrun by adults with their barrows, trying desperately to shift crystals and hair ties that even eBay wouldn’t touch.
I went to our local mall this week and had to run an assault course of guys wishing to rub sea salt on my elbows, women who wanted me to buy hair straighteners, odd looking hippies selling perspex cubes with holograms of Jesus, barrows buzzing with vibrating cushions and then the sad sight of three adults sitting on trikes and going round in circles while imploring us to stop and buy. The embarrassed looks on their faces were replaced by tsunamis of sweat and a look of job hunting gone very wrong two hours later when I passed again to see their wacky races still in progress and, judging by the stock on view, not one single sale made.
What bothered me more than any sympathy I felt was the builder’s bum showing on each one of them as they cycled by, bums topped, of course, by the usual tattoo. Now regular readers know I would rather drink maggots melted in goat’s sick than get a tramp stamp tattooed on my posterior, but these were different. One had a bar code, as if she was scared of losing her bum and might get it handed in to a check out later, and another had an arrow marked “this way down”. I almost wanted to buy a trike just to get a closer look.
A church of England vicar, Jim Mullen, says he wants gays to be compulsorily tattooed on their bums with the message “sex can seriously damage your health” which is a great idea for all of us but, for those whose romances are conducted with lights out, perhaps they could use luminous ink. Maybe also do it in Braille just to be helpful to all minorities. Married men who stray could get one on their appendage saying “Property of…” to avoid any infidelities and if there’s not enough room then perhaps just the wife’s name. Or, in my case, initials.
Carrying on through the shopping centre I went past someone selling orthopaedic sandals, another with pillows that massage your head, a crazed looking woman selling calendars and then I bumped in to a woman who really had it sussed. She was selling pots of honey and jam and had a queue of men buying furiously. The reason is that she had her blouse unbuttoned and her ample chest pushed up with some sort of industrial hoist till her cleavage could be mistaken for a cleft chin.
Looking at these guys who had suddenly discovered the joys of jam I was reminded of that line from Notting Hill where Hugh Grant confesses that he can’t see what all the fuss is about regarding women’s breasts. “After all, half the population have them. Slightly more if you count Meatloaf”.
Having just come back from a week in Portugal, I was exposed to these celebrity magazines you only buy on holiday because they usually have a free Cadbury’s Flake stuck on the front. Magazines like Ok and Hello don’t normally fill my reading hours although I did like the cheek of a now defunct Scottish version called Hiya. Of course it had to be short lived as, once you’ve interviewed David Tennant and The Proclaimers, there are no Scottish celebs left. Anyway, this week there were photos of Kerry Katona who was pictured topless with her hands cupped around her bare breasts, looking like she was trying to gather in pounds of bread dough before they slid to the floor. Liz Hurley appeared in a red dress with her cleavage hoisted up and squashed like two big stress balls and the irony that she was appearing at a Breast Cancer fund raiser, where many in her audience may have had surgery, seemed to have escaped her.
Then, in the same magazine, yet another page had Gok Wan and loads of women taking part in some nude contest with him grabbing someone’s décolletage. And today I see Georgina Bailey, the girl at the centre of the BBC’s problem ‘phone calls, has starred in a sleazy video where she gets another girl to wash her bare chest. The world has gone boob crazy!
We know that if Kerry Katona had a sensible mum she’d wear her squishy assets as a nice scarf wrapped around her brass neck for the cold nights and we’re smart enough to realise Liz Hurley’s boobs don’t really look like that. So what’s the point of it all when we suspect that she goes home, undoes the steel harness, and watches as her chest hits her kneecaps before sweeping the floor.
The police say it seems that a Friday night isn’t complete without some girl having a few drinks and thinking it’s wild and wacky to bare her chest in public. “Wouldn’t it be absolutely hilarious”, she thinks, “if I pulled my top up and showed my bazoombas. My how everyone will think that’s original and will laugh.” Well, go on You Tube and watch thousands doing exactly the same and you’ll get an inkling of why, at the risk of sounding like an American TV evangelist, I’m going to say “enough is enough”.
Please girls just stop. We guys have something unique too, you know. How would you feel if we went around showing what we’ve got all the time? Would you fancy opening up Hello and seeing Liz Hurley’s husband showing his... er... beer belly? We blokes know that you’ve all got these treasure chests, but Hugh Grant was right. It may sell honey and jam but it’s not big and it’s not funny.
Well unless you’re Kerry Katona of course. Now hers really are big and funny.
You can tell Christmas is on the way, can’t you? Go to the shops just now and it’s all cut price Terry’s Chocolate Orange and Michael Jackson’s mummy kissing Santa Claus. But the real giveaway that Santa’s getting the soup stains out of his beard and gearing up to whip the elves in to shape is that every shopping mall walkway is overrun by adults with their barrows, trying desperately to shift crystals and hair ties that even eBay wouldn’t touch.
I went to our local mall this week and had to run an assault course of guys wishing to rub sea salt on my elbows, women who wanted me to buy hair straighteners, odd looking hippies selling perspex cubes with holograms of Jesus, barrows buzzing with vibrating cushions and then the sad sight of three adults sitting on trikes and going round in circles while imploring us to stop and buy. The embarrassed looks on their faces were replaced by tsunamis of sweat and a look of job hunting gone very wrong two hours later when I passed again to see their wacky races still in progress and, judging by the stock on view, not one single sale made.
What bothered me more than any sympathy I felt was the builder’s bum showing on each one of them as they cycled by, bums topped, of course, by the usual tattoo. Now regular readers know I would rather drink maggots melted in goat’s sick than get a tramp stamp tattooed on my posterior, but these were different. One had a bar code, as if she was scared of losing her bum and might get it handed in to a check out later, and another had an arrow marked “this way down”. I almost wanted to buy a trike just to get a closer look.
A church of England vicar, Jim Mullen, says he wants gays to be compulsorily tattooed on their bums with the message “sex can seriously damage your health” which is a great idea for all of us but, for those whose romances are conducted with lights out, perhaps they could use luminous ink. Maybe also do it in Braille just to be helpful to all minorities. Married men who stray could get one on their appendage saying “Property of…” to avoid any infidelities and if there’s not enough room then perhaps just the wife’s name. Or, in my case, initials.
Carrying on through the shopping centre I went past someone selling orthopaedic sandals, another with pillows that massage your head, a crazed looking woman selling calendars and then I bumped in to a woman who really had it sussed. She was selling pots of honey and jam and had a queue of men buying furiously. The reason is that she had her blouse unbuttoned and her ample chest pushed up with some sort of industrial hoist till her cleavage could be mistaken for a cleft chin.
Looking at these guys who had suddenly discovered the joys of jam I was reminded of that line from Notting Hill where Hugh Grant confesses that he can’t see what all the fuss is about regarding women’s breasts. “After all, half the population have them. Slightly more if you count Meatloaf”.
Having just come back from a week in Portugal, I was exposed to these celebrity magazines you only buy on holiday because they usually have a free Cadbury’s Flake stuck on the front. Magazines like Ok and Hello don’t normally fill my reading hours although I did like the cheek of a now defunct Scottish version called Hiya. Of course it had to be short lived as, once you’ve interviewed David Tennant and The Proclaimers, there are no Scottish celebs left. Anyway, this week there were photos of Kerry Katona who was pictured topless with her hands cupped around her bare breasts, looking like she was trying to gather in pounds of bread dough before they slid to the floor. Liz Hurley appeared in a red dress with her cleavage hoisted up and squashed like two big stress balls and the irony that she was appearing at a Breast Cancer fund raiser, where many in her audience may have had surgery, seemed to have escaped her.
Then, in the same magazine, yet another page had Gok Wan and loads of women taking part in some nude contest with him grabbing someone’s décolletage. And today I see Georgina Bailey, the girl at the centre of the BBC’s problem ‘phone calls, has starred in a sleazy video where she gets another girl to wash her bare chest. The world has gone boob crazy!
We know that if Kerry Katona had a sensible mum she’d wear her squishy assets as a nice scarf wrapped around her brass neck for the cold nights and we’re smart enough to realise Liz Hurley’s boobs don’t really look like that. So what’s the point of it all when we suspect that she goes home, undoes the steel harness, and watches as her chest hits her kneecaps before sweeping the floor.
The police say it seems that a Friday night isn’t complete without some girl having a few drinks and thinking it’s wild and wacky to bare her chest in public. “Wouldn’t it be absolutely hilarious”, she thinks, “if I pulled my top up and showed my bazoombas. My how everyone will think that’s original and will laugh.” Well, go on You Tube and watch thousands doing exactly the same and you’ll get an inkling of why, at the risk of sounding like an American TV evangelist, I’m going to say “enough is enough”.
Please girls just stop. We guys have something unique too, you know. How would you feel if we went around showing what we’ve got all the time? Would you fancy opening up Hello and seeing Liz Hurley’s husband showing his... er... beer belly? We blokes know that you’ve all got these treasure chests, but Hugh Grant was right. It may sell honey and jam but it’s not big and it’s not funny.
Well unless you’re Kerry Katona of course. Now hers really are big and funny.
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