Haggerties and swamies Pacific palisades

Things that annoy me - an occasional series

No 2.

Crowdsurfers. It's really annoying when you are standing in an audience at a gig and some idiot thinks it is a good idea to crowdsurf and then you are expected to guide them as they roam over your heads.

Why? What makes you so special? Just watch the gig like the rest of us.*

(*there is the tiniest chance that I could make a special dispensation if Josh Homme decided to do it, but then I couldn't promise that I could keep my hands to myself).

Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun

Can anyone guess what I will be buying tomorrow?

Yes I know the city like a lover Good or bad it's hard to love another

I was watching Taggart last night. I love Taggart. It makes me nostalgic for home and the days when I lived in Glasgow. I love trying to spot bars that I know (even now, when Glasgow has changed a lot) or even better, spotting when they are inside a particular location, and then they come outside to the wrong exterior. It's the kind of thing that you notice only if you've lived in a place (the same thing happened in Trainspotting the film. Near the beginning when Ewan McGregor is tearing down Princes Street and then suddenly he nearly gets run over by a car. Well, firstly Princes Street is long, and it is unlikely in the extreme that he could keep running at that pace until the point at which he meets the car. Secondly, the street that the car apparently comes down is a dead end and the car could not have garnered that much speed either).

But I digress. Back to Taggart. Last night's episode was as enjoyable as ever, but was also remarkable for another reason. They said fuck - three times. Now, I am pretty unshockable when it comes to the use of the F-word. I'm no shrinking violet, and I have even been heard to cuss myself on occasion (unless my parents are reading this, in which case, of course I haven't). Yet, when DI Robbie Ross (swoon) said it the first time, I did a double take and thought "did I hear that right?". When he said it the second time, I realised that I had heard right.

So, what was the big deal about it? Well, the thing is, they never say it normally. Yes, the script will be peppered with a few bastards and a couple of shits. But nothing stronger. In this episode, it's sporadic use was in tense scenes, where the character was being pushed to his limits and struggling to keep control. And it was all the better for it. In these situations, a person doesn't say "get lost" or "I shall jolly well come after you". I really hope they made a conscious decision to have him swear. It reminded me of when I saw the film Casino and Robert De Niro's character called the Sharon Stone character a..., well, this is pretty much the one word that I won't use, but suffice to say it starts with c and rhymes with runt. I visibly blanched when he said it. The film had countless of other swear words, but this stood out and, my feelings about the word aside, made an impact.

Sometimes tho' the converse is true. I've started watching the Wire (well, having now finished Season 3 of HIMYM, I have to wait patiently for the current season to come out on DVD, and I need something to take its place). It's wonderful, but the language is something else. As I said before, I am largely unshockable (c-words aside), but the violence of the language in this I find quite shocking. Not off putting, just shocking. I think it is down to the sheer volume of it. But strangely, it hasn't made be desensitized to it, so it must be down to the subject matter. There is probably just as much swearing in some of the comedy films I watch, but whereas in those it is funny, in the Wire it is brutal and relentless, certainly for a TV series.

So even now, a well-placed swear word can make a powerful statement.

Words are working hard for you

I make my living from words, so it stands to reason that I have to remain pretty neutral about them. Yes, I do have my favourites, but I try to take each word or phrase on their merits. Whether I think a word is stupid or not doesn't really matter.

So, I found the story that certain words have been banned by the LGA hilarious. Some of these words are fantastic, especially when you try to analyse what they mean and come to the conclusion that the answer is nothing.


The full list is here. At first glance, and used in isolation, some of them seem fairly innocuous. Is there really anything wrong with the using the words agencies, collaboration or enhance? But then, when you consider the whole idea of predictors of beaconicity, you start to understand their thinking (try as hard as I can, I have still not managed to work out what on earth a predictor of beaconicity is or does). And I am very pleased that my own personal favourite word is on their list - functionality. Has there ever been a more ridiculous word? I'm afraid with the best will in the world, and try as hard as I might, whenever I hear this word being used, I see blackboards and long nails.

I am starting to sound like my dad who is often heard to lament "you know, someone gets paid to sit and make up these words". He'd be proud.

Where does it stop, where do you dare me to draw the line

Things that annoy me - a new occasional series

No 1.
Bands releasing remixes of their albums or re-releasing albums with one extra "new" track. I know you don't have to buy it, but bands don't do this for the sake of it. Otherwise they would be free.

When I finally get around to writing my book of music rules, this will be in there.

So put another dime in the jukebox, baby

God bless the jukebox. I've been fascinated by them since I was a child. And during a summer job working behind a bar, the jukebox kept me sane (well, just about). Standing there choosing the songs is a thrilling experience. I have a very methodical approach to them. I stand there eagerly scrolling through the various pages (are they pages? Well, I think so) to see what is on before making my choices. And I choose all of the songs I want to hear before putting any money in. I've made the elementary mistake before of choosing the first one and then spending the whole of the song stood there choosing the next 4. What a waste! And then there is that awful sinking feeling of whether or not you have entered the numbers correctly...

Perhaps the best thing about them is the fact that you can put on a few guilty pleasure songs - those pop songs that you publicly might disdain, but deep down you love. Or something that you haven't heard for ages. Or, and this might depend upon how much alcohol has been consumed, one that will get you and your friends singing.

However, of late, I've come to the conclusion that jukeboxes and me are not the best of friends. One of my favourite pubs has a fantastic jukebox. It's a bit of a RAWK pub, and the jukebox is pitched accordingly, with more than its fair share of goth too. My last 2 attempts at choosing songs have resulted it them playing 4 out of 5 before I had to leave (and leaving out No-One Knows, in spite of it being the first song I had chosen) and then choosing not to play any of them, but instead play wall to wall Pantera (OK, it was a Saturday night and the place was heaving, but still).

So, fast forward to last Monday. I am in a quiet pub in a smallish village. It's not busy and the barstaff switched on the jukebox just for us. So no-one had got in there before me. I know this. I stand there, going through all the steps as described above. I choose the 5 songs and carefully input the numbers and sit down expectantly. It plays my first choice for sure. And my second. And then that's it. No more. But horror or all horrors, it plays You're Beautiful by James Blunt. "Did you put this on?" asks my friend, jokingly (I assume). Now, I can live with not hearing the rest of my choices. But now everyone in that pub thinks I put on You're Beautiful.

I fear I will never be able to show my face there again.

I'm stuck on your heart, I hang on every word you say

I watched the Brit Awards last night. I'm not really sure why. Although I like watching award shows, I get annoyed with the Brits usually. The awards either go to people I dislike or else it smacks of tokenism.

And bearing this in mind, it didn't disappoint. I was able to predict all of the winners, bar two. Should it really be this obvious?

The Brits always seem to be a step behind. It's like they suddenly realise "ooh, Elbow are a good worthy band, we'd best demonstrate that we realise this and give them best band". Now, this is perhaps an unfair example. I like Elbow (and have already said how I came to them fairly recently, so I am not pulling a "oh, I was there at the beginning") and was very pleased that they won. I think they deserve. But I am always deeply suspicious when the mainstream suddenly embrace something. It's the same as when they think "oh, someone's a bit kooky, let's honour them to show how hip we are".

And when they are not suddenly deciding to honour someone who had previously not crossed their radar, they pick on an artist that they have decided is worthy and pile multiple awards on them. They did it with Blur, they did it, inexplicably, with the Darkness (and how embarrassed must they be about that now), and they did it last night with Duffy. I neither like nor dislike Duffy - I find her voice a bit grating, but she seems nice and talented enough. And again, I'm not really saying that she shouldn't have won. But it all just seemed so obvious. Perhaps that is the way it should be tho'. The prize is for the best example of the category, not for the least obvious. And maybe it's just that I don't really like most of the music that is nominated. Still, at least they manage to be sensible about the awards they have to give, unlike the Grammys who seem to have a category for every imaginable genre and sub genre. I know that it can seem like an impossible task to compare wildly disparate genres, but I would hate to see us go down the "best vocal performance of a rock song with a middle eight, written on a Friday by a man named Keith, and performed by a female with blonde hair and blue eyes" route.

But I think what annoys me most of all is the ceremony, and here is where they could learn from the Grammys. Don't have the public there. Last night's ceremony was hosted by James Corden and Matthew Horne (and Kylie Minouge), and by and large they did a good job I thought. But lots of the jokes that they made were just lost and drowned out by the shrieking and screaming of the public who were at the ceremony and consequently ended up falling flat, with awkward silences. Get rid of them I say. What's wrong with just having an awards ceremony with the people who have been nominated there, plus others in the same field? It would also cut out some of the embarrassing attempts by some of the people presenting awards to "talk to the people".

And don't get me started about how out of tune Girls Aloud were. Annoyingly, that stupid song was stuck in my head all day.