Ewan
McGregor - National Film Theatre interview
The Four Word Film Review
on Velvet Goldmine
Ewanspotting: not so much a website
as a determined effort to prove the world sets its clocks according to Ewan
Celebrities
with chickens: A perhaps unsurprisingly small resource
Blogs We Like
We're delighted to be report that one of our favourite
resources, the Arts & Letters Daily,
has been helicoptered out
of bankruptcy and back onto the Internet. Meanwhile, we're equally chuffed
that, following a spot of thinking, The
Minor Fall, The Major Lift has decided to continue, but with a broader
focus than the music-only rule the Problem Drinker has been hitherto disciplining
themselves with.
And we must also offer praise to Diary
of a Britney Loving Lesbo, who pulls of a rare trick of making diary entries
interesting and worth reading. I mean, to people who don't know her.
The Words "Rum" and "do" spring to mind
In what way can the position as presenter of a TV game show become "untenable?" The BBC seems to think there's some way it can, and has caned Angus Deayton from his role on Have I Got News For You, apparently because his drug and hooker dabbling leaves him too wide open as a target for guest's jibes. Isn't this going to make finding a replacement impossible, though? Stephen Fry, clearly, couldn't work - jokes about stealing, or turning your back on your responsibilities would just be bounced back at him. Some people think Dermot Murnighan might be the new host - but how can the man who presented the Channel 4 Daily be able to make gags at the expense of TV stars whose shows don't perform as well as expected. Andy Marr must be a safe pair of hands? Erm, except how can he be able to get away with humour based on the foibles of the newspaper industry after his on-off-on-off spell at the helm of the Independent? It seems to us that now they've decided that only someone with an unblemished record can present the show, they've left themselves forced to choose between Po from the Teletubbies and the ghost of Richard Dimbleby. I'll bet George from Rainbow is regretting having signed up to that late night Channel Five smutfest...
The worst thing about the whole Deayton saga is the way that Christine Hamilton seems to think she was responsible for the exit of Angus. This hasn't been helped by a bunch of lazy hacks quoting the bit in the first show of this season where he described her husband as disgraced. "If he's disgraced, what does that make you?" shot back Chrstine. This was quoted in the rubbish Amanda Platell's media column in the New Statesman, and has been circulating ever since. Interestingly, Platell reported this glittering moment a few lines after claiming never to watch the show anymore because of Deayton's behaviour - we have to wonder not only how she heard the "witticism", but also how she can bear to be a media commentator if she can't bring herself to watch immoral people on the telly. It must be limiting, only being able to tune in to Songs of Praise. Anyway, we're not sure of the attraction of Hamilton's riposte - firstly, it took so long to occur to her it hardly even counts as an ad lib; secondly, it neglects Deayton's own reply, which was to say "disgraced as well, I think" and pulled the sting from Hamilton anyway. And finally, Angus Deayton is alleged to have had sex with other people and taken some drugs. He is a presenter on a comedy show on the TV. Neil Hamilton, on the other hand, had taken GBP10,000 from Mobil, shortly before he tabled an ammendment which could have cost the Treasury millions in taxes. The question should be if Deayton's disgraced, what does that make Neil?
Sports News
Someone from Wimbledon FC pops up on Today to defend his company - sorry, team, who only managed to pull 849 paying customers to their midweek match. Apparently, it's impossible for Wimbledon fans to have boycotted the game, since anyone who boycotted the game was, by the very act, making it clear they weren't Wimbledon fans at all - an insult to anyone who cares about their team enough to fight for it, and an indication again that the people in charge at the Dons just don't get football at all. To basically tell the thousands who helped Wimbledon rise from nowhere to the top flight, and then stuck with them as they bounced down again, that they don't count simply because they don't applaud every money-grubbing trick of the directors reeks of arrogance. Wimbledon are planning to relocate from South London to Milton Keynes "before the end of the season"
Tower of Babel
Multibabel is an easy, diverting way to pass time between QuiteGood's singing kittens. It takes a phrase, translates it five times, and then serves it back to you. The effect is rather what we imagine its like being a member of the European Parliament. It seems to work best with newspaper headlines - "Dear Saddam, my firm would be delighted to do business..." comes back as "Wanted Saddam, my company would be magician to give the form to the agreements..."; "Inquiry ordered after CJD blunder" offered " The questions had asked for the CJD mistake approximately" and if you keep sending the results for "Duncan Smith is finished", you get "Synopse I gave Smith with Duncan."
The War Ticker
Political highlight of the week has been John Humphrys finally challenging
a government minister when they said Saddam had thrown weapons inspectors
out of Iraq. "Actually, they elected to leave, didn't they?" he
asked Jack Straw. Not missing a beat, Straw's response was along the lines
of "If someone behaved like that in a job you were in, you'd sue them
for unfair dismissal." Now, while this leaves out the fact that Clinton
warned the Inspectors to get out before America launched a new attack on Iraq
(interestingly giving his successor an excuse to launch just such an attack),
it does raise the wonderful possibility that we should be dealing with Saddam
not through the UN, but by using UK employment legislation. Never mind the
nuclear weapons capability, why not close down them pesky palaces because
they don't come up to disability equality legislation? And are we sure that
when Saddam hires lookalikes, his advertising probably doesn't fit in with
the terms of the 1973 Sexual Discrimination Act.
The Colour Supplement is a beta-test version of stuff that may have made No
Rock And Roll Fun, but was off-topic.
No Rock And Roll Fun is a bit of bothsidesnow
You can contact us at coloursupp@bothsidesnow.co.uk