Whistling Clarabella...

Good evening all (actually, it's 2am, so what's new?)

I know I've hardly mentioned, but if anyone cares, I shall indeed be hosting the Third Annual Clare's Oscar Party tomorrow night. It'll probably start some time before midnight my time here in London, and because it's 2am, I'll ask you to take pity on me and work out timezones for yourself ;)

Anyway, it'll be on Yahoo Chat as previously, if only because I think I remember how to use it. I'll post details on how and when to join chat tomorrow when I know what I'm doing. I might make it invite only, but chances are if you ask, you'll get in... I just don't want total strangers coming in and buggering about.

So come along, invite any interested pals and we'll get into deep and meaningful debates about the state of American cinema, the patriarchy of Hollywood, the metaphorical themes currently sweeping through popular western cinema and the future of civilisation as we know it.

And taking the piss out of what people are wearing, obviously.

If you want to come along but can't get Y!M or other technical stuff, drop me a comment and... well, I'll see if there's anything at all we can do about it.

Bring your own drinks, snacks, armchairs and I'll provide the scathing wit.

Kaplinsky to front Six O'Clock News

For the love of all things good, holy and not smothered in six inches of stage makeup, why does this woman keep getting work? Natasha Kaplinsky is one of the most truly vapid, hollow wastes of existence currently clogging our airwaves. I love the mornings she's not on BBC Breakfast because it means the approaching-good mood I have on waking is maintained far longer than the mornings she is.

I think Sophie Raworth is brilliant and gives the impression of not only being able to write the stuff herself but to be able to understand it. When it's the likes of Sophie and her ilk, ones does not get the feeling that it's All About Her. With Natasha Kaplinsky that's all you get. She is good for nothing yet continues to get all manner of presenting gigs that would be far greater in the hands of someone a little less vacuous.  And now we're gonna have to put up with her in the evenings too? A rum deal, Auntie Beeb, a rum deal indeed.

Indeed, I'll be avoiding the evening news until they get rid of Natasha or Sophie R comes back.

THE FUCKING CORRS THE FUCKING CORRS!

The dreary little bastards have done a cover of my most dear Philip's single 'Old Town'. This was, back in the day, a great and infectious, yet terribly melancholic ode to the town he loved so well and which he never wanted to leave.

Philip wrote it to tell the world that he loved Dublin. It's become a great Dublin anthem. It has the kind of beautifully classical-style piano melody that I've only heard in pop music in 'In My Life'. The video for said song was filmed in Dublin, on the Ha'penny Bridge and down the streets and by the river. It has reduced me to a weeping wreck of a human because it combines, in three and a half minutes, the eternal contradiction of Irish effervescence and Irish melancholy. Philip knew it, and I've known it. The two threads are impossible to tear apart, you know, so he didn't bother. It's a beautiful and happy song with a story of heartbreak and sadness. Typical Philip, typical Ireland, really.

So how can the FUCKING CORRS, who make Coldplay look hard and cutting edge and make Lionel Blair look like the coolest man on the planet, how can they POSSIBLY JUSTIFY covering this song? I thought about it once, then realised that it was probably a waste of my fucking time. SOME SONGS SHOULD BE LEFT WELL ALONE. I'm not one to completely demand the sulphuric wrath of God Himself without checking it out, so I went off to the Corrs Website, and sure enough, there's a link to a little clip of the song. So I clicked on it.

The original suffered a little for its 80s orchestration and production, but not overly so. Philip sang with subtle emotion, careful and probably even thoughtful inflection. Singing Corr, whichever of the little bints she is, sounds more affected and insincere than Britney trying to convince the world that she's actually a really classy sort of a girl, with taste and restraint. She's trying so fucking hard and it makes me want to take a wire-wool brush to my own soul. The piano sounds like it was recorded by the PG Chimps in their piano-moving advert while the drums sound like a five year old with some saucepans and just as fucking clunky. Robert Plant has more fucking rhythm than this record. There is no fucking love for this song, nor in the clips of the trad. stuff I checked out there because I like to be informed.. It's like the exact opposite of Van Morrison's album with the Chieftans, Irish Heartbeat. That record made my heart swell to Grinch-at-the-end-of-the-film proportions, made me long for the land I loved so well, made me proud to have come from the same place as that music. This record makes me want to swear eternal allegiance to the Queen and promise never even to listen to Paddy McGinty's Goat ever again (almost). This is a CHEAP AND NASTY cash-in on the fact that everywhere the FUCKING CORRS go, they get asked to do Irish music, cos they're er, Irish.

FUCK THEM. IT'S SHIT. IF YOU WERE THINKING OF BUYING IT (and I find it unlikely anyone on my flist would, but you guys surprise me sometimes) DON'T FUCKING BOTHER. BUY PHILIP'S RECORD INSTEAD.

Hell, if you want to hear the original version, I'll email you it. I'm listening to it on this computer right now. Sure, I've heard some bad covers in my time, notably Sway by Michael Bubbleheaded-Wanker-Not-Sinatra, or the entirety of Swing When You're Winning by Robbie 'Talentless dancer twat from Stoke' Williams. I've heard some dodgy rock covers too. I didn't even like Jeff Buckley's rather wearing cover of Thin Lizzy's 'Dancing In The Moonlight', but I'd happily make that the sole soundtrack to my eternity in the frigid depths of HELL with Phil Collins as my voicemail ringtone instead of this VAPID NO-USE BANALITY OF A TRAVESTY FROM A GROUP I DIDN'T THINK COULD GET ANY MORE VANILLA COMA-INDUCING SHITEY BOLLOCKS WASTE OF TIME WORSE!

KILL ME NOW. SEND ME TO PHILIP, FOR I CANNOT STAND THE EVIL ANY LONGER.

Ironically, throughout this whole post, I've typed 'Coors' and had to go back and correct it. Which is ironic because this has turned me to drink. I'm fucking off to get my bottle of Jamesons. And a straw. See you on the other side. Again, this avatar seems to say everything I need it to, and on behalf of said man. To think, had he lived, my boy might've been able to stop the Corrs in their tracks. By, you know, being BETTER THAN THEM AT THIS CAPER.

I am, to paraphrase Fletcher, extremely fucking dis-chuffed.