Gear Shift to Shift My Shift

As I have so little to do whilst I am in work, I have decided to use the massive amount of news reading I do for something that is, arguably, useful. At the very least I hope it will help the passing of the hour that is left of my shift. Here’re some of the articles that I have read and found interesting.

All of the articles that feature here are from the BBC website, where I was distraught to find the line: “The operation also had to be speeded up”. My gut reaction to the word ‘speeded’ was one of supreme wrongness. For me, the word clangs in a sentence like a clang-creating device falling heavily into a vault of clang. Probably should have used the klang spelling, then I could have segued into how good the series We Are Klang was, but I won’t, I’ll focus. The more I looked at the word ‘speeded’ the more I worried that I was wrong to assume that the word is non-existent, and so I copy-pasted it into the search box at the top of the screen. Overlooking the fact that my use phrase ‘copy-pasted’ places my criticism into uncertain waters, the amount of times the word ‘speeded’ appeared in BBC articles leads me to believe that this is my personal foible rather than a lexical error.

Uses included:

“its droning bass and melodic hooks mesh with speeded up snake-charmer horn”

“the films have been speeded up so that you can get more miles for your money”

“Then our technical boffins speeded up the footage”

“Researchers spoke to more than 1,500 drivers and found that 94% of them admitted they had speeded.”

Apart from the final use, which I don’t mind because of it’s relation to the term ‘speeding’, which is a fairly recent evolution of the word ‘speed’, I feel as though the writers really should have been using the term ‘sped’. I like the word ‘sped’. Surely it is the correct term to have used in those situations. Regardless, if the term ‘speeded’ is legitimate, then I will be doing my very best to boycott it. Despite the possibility that this blog entry contains more of the term ‘speeded’ than any other, and is going to have ‘speeded’ as one of the tags. The more I discuss it, the hoisting of my own petard is merely being speeded up. Damn.

What is a petard?

One story masquerading as news was the revelation that in the Flintshire Council headquarters in Mold they had renamed a certain foodstuff, re-christening it a ‘Spotted Richard’. According to the article:

“The "spotted" part of the name refers to the currants, which resemble spots, and "Dick" is believed to derive from the word dough.”

Now I’m not really familiar enough with the workings of Old English to speculate on whether or not ‘dough’ can really be linked to ‘dick’. Dough rises. Yeast infection. Throbbing wholemeal breadstick. The article also contained the oft-repeated phrase:

“But one councillor described the move as "political correctness gone mad"”

Of course he/she did. The exciting game of misunderstanding ‘political correctness’ is omnipresent in Britain, and by using my powers of rampant judgemental speculation I can picture the jowls of the councillor wildly flailing as he rings the death knoll of “pritiacrecntssgoma!”. The real reason that name had been changed was that the workers in the canteen had become bored with the occasional sniggers that inevitably follow when a childish person buys spotted dick. I hardly think it warranted a name change however, as spotted dick is one of the ludicrously named things that the British populace become jaded with quite quickly. The pudding makes the foolish mistake of not actually looking like a dick. If it had nailed that one, it would have been the undisputed emperor of inappropriate after-dinner snacks. It loses out to the jammy fanny, which doesn’t exist.

Another councillor, and winner of the Most Obnoxiously Macho Name in History Award, Klaus Armstrong-Braun laid this nugget of wisdom on the debate:

"People make silly comments about everything in life, there is no need to change the name over it."

Exactly, grow up. I expect to have my puddings correctly labelled the next time I go to purchase some spotted penis.

More silly comments were readily forthcoming in an article about what presumptions you can draw about children based on their names. According to the story a survey discovered that:

“Pupils called Callum, Connor, Jack, Chelsea, Courtney and Chardonnay were among some of the ones to watch.”

I tend to believe that judging people on things they have no control over is wrong. The exceptions are race, sex, sexuality and where you come from. During that last statement my tongue was so far in my cheek it exploded out and now my teeth are visible through the bloody gash in the side of my face. Kids have very little control over what they are called, even nicknames are monikers usually allotted to individuals by others, as the lack of children called ‘Captain Awesome’ shows. Judging a child on how tasteless their parents are seems slightly harsh, I would argue that children known to be from worse-off families should be given fair chance to proceed in life, there’s enough prejudice of ‘chavs’ without actively encouraging judging people because of names they had no control over. I shouldn’t be complaining when:

“The survey also asked teachers what the brightest children tended to be called, with Alexander, Adam, Christopher, Benjamin, Edward, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emma, Hannah and Rebecca coming in as the brainiest names.”

My name is Adam, which proves that my critique of the article is valid because clearly I am clever because my name proves it. But by using the opinion of the article to vindicate that I am clever I have proven that the article is correct, which makes my criticism of it incorrect, which proves I am not clever. And universe imploded in a spiral of paradox. Of course it is possible for the article to be incorrect and for me to also be clever. Which is the case.

“Names of the most popular children in the class included Jack, Daniel, Charlie, Callum, Emma, Charlotte, Hannah and Anna.”

Not in my class they weren’t.

Other news sees a discussion of people who have actively changed their names, thus proving them both to be stupid. The divorce of Jordan/Katie Price and Peter Andre/Peter Andrea has gone through successfully. It would seem hypocritical to criticise people because of their names after speaking out about that very thing, though clearly these individuals saw some inadequacy in their own names, and it is the choice I am scrutinising, not them. In Jordan/Katie Price’s case I imagine is was glamour/privacy reasons that fuelled her choice back in the day, though privacy and glamour don’t usually go hand in hand. It is for aesthetic reasons that Peter Andre must have dropped the ‘a’ from the end of his name. Still, the husband with a woman’s name, the wife with a man’s name, it’s not surprising they didn’t last. The reason actually given, however, can be discovered as:

“It was revealed the pair had both applied for a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.”

So luckily that clears that up. The divorce goes through:

“with neither party accepting blame for the split.”

It seems strange to me that it is necessary to accept blame in a divorce, or indeed provide a reason more pressing than “I don’t want to be married to you anymore”. What a strange and outdated system marriage is. I will be boycotting it henceforth, which I’m sure will cause global outrage, as the removal of a spotted dick obsessive should.

That is surely the only pudding that, with the help of the humble comma, can become an explanation of a picture of a celebrity.

Spotted, dick.

Semi-skimmed Re-shuffle: Top Ten

It’s a bumper edition this week, with 5 new songs gracing the grit-teeth-and-bemoan-state-of-humanity list. Let’s jump straight in.

10 - Remedy – Little Boots

Oh, go easy on her, she’s only Little Boots. This song is like a nagging stubborn headache in the front of your head. It’s filled with mild, turgid pop la-la-laing, laid generously over migraine swells of clunky ugly synth.

We have my all time favourite type of lyric, the lines which walk the line between saying nothing and being so vague as to mean anything you want it to, an example being: ‘move while you’re watching me / dance with the enemy’ - grade-school rhyming couplets for the idiot generation. Ya-hoo. I would rather not move while I’m watching her, by staying still it makes it easier to keep the rifle steady.

But my favourite line from this song is: ‘I can see you stalking like the predator’. This makes me laugh because I like to imagine she is referring to Predator, who is famously hard to see. Equally if she is referring to predators in general, there is a large amount of stalking involved, and being seen in usually not in the predators’ best interest. You lose points for silly-billyery.

9 - Get Shaky – Ian Carey Project

There are many examples of naive lyricism in ‘Get Shaky’, my personal choice is: “baby go crazy / break the rules”. ‘Breaking the rules’ is a huge cliché in music writing, especially when you consider the fact that this song has a video that is shown on the television. The video shows children in school breakdancing in the corridors. At some point breakdancing may have been a defiant artform or a rebellion, however it isn’t anymore. There are many breakdancing championships, and schools that can teach you how to do it, which often undermines the counter-culture, non-conformist, vibe of a movement. Ironically, in order for the video to have been made, the film crew would have had to get permission from 1) the school, 2) the children (if they are children) and 3) the children’s parents. This is where anything on television touting a “break the rules” message is so incredibly insincere and false, because the entire process, from writing the song, recording the song, recording the video to actually getting the video on TV, would require the team to have jumped through so many administrative hoops it hardly embodies a “break the rules” ethos at all. A more direct reason the “break the rules” line doesn’t stand up is the lacklustre delivery of the line, which sounds as though it is sung by an uncaring wretch forcing out a last breath before finally embracing death.

Pop needs to learn a valuable lesson: a drum machine and a skittering synth does not add up to an actual song. If you must insist on attempting a minimalist synth approach, learn something from Susumu Hirasawa beforehand.

4 - Behind Closed Doors – Peter Andre

I was encouraged by the sound of actual instruments at the beginning of the track, but soon I was disappointed. Real instruments? Oh wait, no, I am just being teased by a repeated overdriven guitar loop. Driven electric guitar goes with a tinkly computerised drumbeat and auto-tuned pop aaahings like beans and sick.

The picture chosen for this radio rip track by the YouTube user is Peter standing next to Chris Moyles holding a t-shirt which reads “I’VE JUST BEEN INTERVIEWED BY CHRIS MOYLES” which sounds less like a proud exclamation and more like a sobbing statement given to the police.

Now, Peter Andre is likely enjoying renewed popularity due to the vast coverage of his split with Katie Price / Jordan and so the appearance of the line: “Who’d have known / That our life would be so exposed?” rings slightly hollow because the answer should be: You, Peter. You should have known when you sold the rights to your wedding and filmed documentaries following your every move. Buffoon.

3 - Ready for the Weekend – Calvin Harris

Piano, bass, drums – I was tempted to go easy on this track as the bile in my throat was making it hard to breathe, the track is less aggressive and brain-numbing than the other entries, but I was unable to hold on to my enthusiasm past the intro.

The abundance of leotard clad ‘beauties’ in the video left me empty inside, and the soul-crushing nature of the vacuous line “I put on my shoes and I’m ready for the weekend” is unutterably depressing.

2 - Never Leave You – Tinchy Stryder ft Amelle Berrabah

When given the option of who they would repatriate first; Coolio or Tinchy Stryder, a young female BNP voter recently decided that Mr Stryder would be the first to get the boot. Now, as a rule, I don’t agree with the BNP on any level, and so it worries me that I desire to see the back of Tinchy Stryder. My reason for wanting him gone is different from the BNP, however, as I have no qualms with his not being a member of the British master-race (and what fantastic specimens we are), I have a far more direct complaint, the song is, as I’m sure you expected, awful.

Having clicked a link to an ‘interactive’ video of the song on his website, I was privy to an experience which I’m depressingly sure many people will find ‘nifty’. Run the cursor over the video as it plays and little informational tabs will pop up, telling you what you are pointing at. This was useful for me, as this confirmed my suspicion that the prancing poseur was indeed Tinchy Stryder. I used the pointer to discover that the woman in the video was Amelle Berrabah, who was rumoured to ft in the video, and the white cube carved into a throne is a ‘custom mod chair’. For cynical people it will become quickly apparent that this gimmicky video player is merely a trick to slam further advertising down your face, letting you know that the background is ‘Black Island Studios’, his jeans are ‘Armani Vintage Style Denim’ and his glasses are ‘Louis Vuitton Evidence Sunglasses’. I like to imagine that the glasses are ‘evidence’ in a court case where someone had pulled them off his pouting face and used them to stab him in his pretentious burke gland.

Amusingly, this feature was, at the very least, interesting, and did distract me from the actual song, which is a good thing. The most amusement was garnered, however, when I paused the video and it fell out of sync, meaning that it described Amelle Berrabah’s arse as ‘Barbour Quilted Jacket’. Throughout, Stryder’s clothes are described with advertising spiel, though Amelle’s dress receives no advertisements, and wherever you run the cursor over her it merely sports the tab “Amelle Berrabah”. This technology certainly hints at the eventual crossover of two internet genres, the streaming pop video and the flash dress-up game.

If that ever happens, you will have heard it here first. And it will be horrible.

Round up and go away.

10 – Remedy – Little Boots

9 – Get Shaky – Ian Carey Project

8 – I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) – Pitbull

7 – Beat Again – JLS

6 – Supernova – Mr Hudson ft Kanye West

5 – Sweet Dreams – Beyonce

4 – Behind Closed Doors – Peter Andre

3 – Ready for the Weekend – Calvin Harris

2 – Never Leave You – Tinchy Stryder ft Amelle

1 – I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas