There is plenty of advice on the internet about how to do the old blogging. How to promote the blog, how to make money off of the blog, that sort of thing. Fuck all advice on how to actually write properly, which is why the "blogosphere" contains so many incorrectly used apostrophes and stupid made up words like "blogosphere", but plenty about the traffic getting and the money making.
A lot of this advice is boring and a bit pony - update your blog regularly, write about stuff you actually know about so you aren't talking bollocks, get your friends to post links on their blogs, do bloody Twitter (follow me at www.twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap - every time you don't, a pony cries, trust me, they can cry)... All sound, but face it, you could have figured any of that out for yourself.
So, here are some tips from the dark side of the "blogosphere" (fuck, I can't stop saying it now!). This is the shit they don't tell you, but you need to know. It won't make you rich. It definitely won't do that. I'd just like to make that clear before we start.
Tip #1: Search engines WILL bring perverts to your site - use this
Well, sure, I swear a bit, and I have my content warning smacked on the front so nobody gets in trouble for reading all those naughty words at the office, but this is primarily a site where nothing all that dirty happens. There aren't even any pictures. My Facebook page is dirtier than this.
Despite this, barely a day goes by when I don't look at my site's stats and see that at least one person has arrived on my blog because they have been searching for "women sucking off ponies" or "Pony fucking porn" or "Catherine Zeta Jones getting fucked by pony" (really, that one has come up twice). If you have arrived here because you were looking for something along those lines, or, and I don't even know what this means but it is a popular one out there, "who is Charlie Sheen's pony?" (it might not be dirty, that one, but I expect that it is), then first of all, shame on you, and second of all: I'm sorry.
I'm sorry if you are sitting there, cock in hand, expecting to see images of young ladies fellating farmyard animals. I am sorry that instead, you get a site with newspaper opinion column style articles about EU directives affecting the insurance industry, or just how much I dislike the Argos catalogue. Nobody is going to wank over that. Not even you, you creepy horse porn watching creep.
Whatever you write about, given the nature of creepy internet pervs, you will get at least the odd weirdo stumbling upon your finely crafted literature, because there is probably no combination of words you can use that will never match a porn search of some sort. I was kind of expecting the "pony" thing to be a problem, but it turns out "trap" is a slang term for a transvestite as well, so even just my title suggests I'm just begging for dirty, dirty guys to come on my stuff. So to speak.
There are probably ways we can use this. Maybe I could operate a sister site which actually is just pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones superimposed onto some horse porn. And, for some reason "Elton John shitting himself"... I have been toying with ideas. Very briefly, I toyed with the idea of making some pony porn myself, but once I sobered up I realised that was a bad idea - I can't afford a pony and I live in an apartment so where would I keep him? And where do you find hookers willing to do that outside of Charlie Sheen's house (double shame on you if you thought I was going to act in the pony porn myself!)? But until I have my pervert exploitation eureka moment, I basically just take the approach that all publicity is good publicity, and so I don't shy away from using sentences that sound like filthy Google searches in my otherwise clean as a whistle posts. I also casually mention unrelated celebrities that people like to search for naked pictures of. Let's see how many times I can seamlessly include the words "Megan Fox" in the rest of this article... Or, "Megan Fox and Jessica Alba in lesbian hardcore". Yeah, Pony and Trap welcomes onanists of all persuasions.
Tip #2: Think locally, blog globally
Yeah, that title was pretty gay, wasn't it? But anyway...
I'm an English person from England, and most of the shit I write references UK culture quite a lot. Surprisingly though, UK readers make up only half of the traffic I get on my site. A large proportion of the others is, as you might expect given some of the topics I've covered, American, then there's Canada, Australia and New Zealand all bringing in their fair share, mainland European countries, and then some seemingly more random places, given the fact I use a lot of UK slang and talk about stuff like the Cow and Gate advert, why the BBC Sunday schedule sucks and how much I dislike the Argos catalogue, which surely isn't something people in Vietnam are all that bothered about. Sure, they could be proxies. Or ex pats. But I like to think that somewhere, right now, somebody in the Philippines is reading my last post and wondering what the hell Aleksander the Meerkat is.
The internet brings the world together and allows people who would never otherwise have met to become friends, business contacts, even to shag each other, so your blog will, if you're lucky, be seen by people from all the corners of the globe (which doesn't have corners, but that's still a thing people say so it's fine).
This doesn't mean you should stay away from your local idioms and references to stuff specific to your culture and environment. People like that. An American friend of mine who lives in Seattle and is a big supporter of this blog went and Googled the Cow and Gate advert after I said the woman's voice was annoying, and then he agreed that it was. If people aren't familiar with a phrase you use or a thing you talk about they will either seek to learn, or skim over that bit and still be more than able to take on your main points. Family Guy is incredibly popular in the UK, but it is full to bursting with references to obscure American 1980's sitcoms and commercials. If you don't get the reference, it seems surreal and even more funny. It has gone massively downhill of late and Seth Macfarlane now pretty much just annoys the b'jaysus out of me, but the point still stands: Welcome your foreign readers, but don't patronise them.
Tip #3: Controversy is fun, but don't expect a proper debate
I sometimes think that when I write about things that annoy me, I am writing less for the people who agree with me and more for the people who don't. I want people to argue with me, to get a bit of healthy debate going on. I wrote that I think quotas for female MPs are the stupidest idea since George Lucas conceived of Jar Jar Binks. I wrote that people who cycle to work are the smuggest, most irritating people in all of London town (including the bankers - wow, imagine a banker who cycled to work... That would be the Everest of shit. A veritable cuntocalypse.). So, where better to promote such articles than on Facebook groups for people who love cycling and to Mary Ann Sieghart's Twitter followers (she was, if you remember, the one who wrote the article saying quotas for women were basically essential. Yesterday we actually had a minor argument on Twitter. I won.). I wasn't expecting those who found their way to my blog from these places to agree, but I was expecting them to have some kind of argument in their arsenal (Arsenal fans - don't like them either...).
Instead, all I got was somebody calling me an "unpleasant piece of poo", which is the kind of insult that a primary school kid would think was tame, someone suggesting I should "swear less and avoid the ad hominem approach", which really served only to suggest they hadn't got that swearing is my thing (it's in the fucking opening paragraph under the title, fool!) and they had no idea what ad hominem meant, someone saying I was like "Jeremy Clarkson, but a version you would find in Oxfam", which I took as a compliment - even being a poor man's Jeremy Clarkson is better than being no man's nothing, and being told I had a small penis and an even smaller brain. There was no actual rebuttal, no effort made to discuss things, to try and change my mind, just fairly lame name calling. Jesus, I wouldn't even mind the name calling if they had been cool or original with it...
Controversy will get you more views. It will bring people in for one time only. But it won't do what I hoped it would and actually start anything interesting. Well, unless the people who disagree with you are cleverer than the people who disagree with me...
Tip #4: Reveal nothing about yourself, it's funnier that way
OK, so this only works on a certain type of blog. If you write the diary style of blog, where you talk about yourself and what books you are reading and put up pictures of your cats and stuff, obviously you can't use this tip at all. As an aside, those blogs can do quite well. I had always wondered what the point was and thought it was a bit fucked up, people reading about someone they don't even know and their minor daily events and hopes and dreams - kind of like looking at somebody you have never met's photo albums. I wondered how nosey one would have to be to enjoy reading that. But a mate of mine, someone I have known since she was five (that sounds creepy, but it isn't, we're the same age and were in infant school together), has one of these and it is actually fascinating. It's kind of interesting to see how someone you know represents themselves to the world, and the content is good too - sometimes she reviews books and movies, but it all has the personal, conversational feel and you really get the impression she is writing for fun, rather than to make any kind of point or somehow make money. Hats off to people who can pull off that sort of thing and make it compelling.
What I do here is nothing like that.
I have, on a couple of occasions, given away my age, and alluded vaguely to the sort of work I do, but that is it. One thing I have never come out and said is whether I'm a man or a woman (I did on Twitter yesterday though, so if you want to know simply follow me ;)). This is partly because it shouldn't be important, but more because it's more fun that way. If I am a woman, those comments about my tiny penis look a bit stupid and assumptive. If I'm a man, then, well, I guess all that casual misogyny makes a whole lot more sense. But hey. It's interesting to see the assumptions people make when they need to fill in the gaps. It's also easier to not get fired if I at least try to conceal my identity...
I hope these tips are useful to you, and if not that you have enjoyed this kind of "behind the scenes" thing. Normal service will be resumed as soon as something interesting happens in the news.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
The Royal Wedding
The good thing about Britain is, whether we know it or not, some things unite us all. I'll give you an example:
Everybody, without a single exception, likes Aleksander the Meerkat better than the Go Compare guy. They advertise almost identical services, and maybe the fact that that bloody fat tenor guy is so irritating means the Go Compare brand is as, if not more, memorable than a meerkat that says "simples", otherwise Go Compare would be bankrupt and Compare the Market would be bigger than Microsoft, the Catholic church and Justin Bieber put together. But black or white, rich or poor (did you just hear Nicholas Lyndhurst in your head then, because I did), Chelsea or Man U, PC or Mac, Eastenders or Corrie, daddy or chips, everybody loves the meerkat and hates, really fucking despises, the Go Compare guy.
Of course, this, like most things the people of this country aren't divided over in some way, is trivial and happened purely by accident. This is because, perhaps unlike in the past, when things happen that we are supposed to be bound together in our love and excitement for, it never works. Yesterday I wrote about one case in point, the 2012 Olympics, and today, because it's been a bit of a slow news day and all my friends are too busy scraping pancakes off of the ceiling like the fucking Chuckle Brothers to give me any inspiration, I am writing about the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
According to polls, the majority of people, 70%, aren't against the monarchy and are happy enough with the current system. I fall into this camp, largely on the basis of not really thinking it's important enough to go to the effort of having a different opinion on. I guess I'm pro monarchy, in that it's kind of nice to have them around, but if they were gone I probably wouldn't miss them. I suppose I could have summed that all up a bit better by just saying "meh".
I could summon up a modicum of interest in their wedding, in the same way as I could summon up a polite enough amount of interest in the wedding of someone from work I didn't really give a fuck about. I am not saying it isn't newsworthy at all, especially in an age where people will buy special editions of Hello because someone called Susan Shaw has gotten married. I am also quite happy with the whole "extra day off work" situation. I have nothing against William and Kate, and I hope it works out for them (although mainly so I never have to read about the fucking divorce wall to wall). The problem is the assumption in the media that we all want to know about Kate's dress (which is all speculation anyway, as she isn't going to reveal the designer or any other details until the wedding itself - though given her generally tasteful and conservative style of dress you know it's going to be perfectly nice but boring as fuck - if you want to see a wedding dress worth talking about you know full well that Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is going to be the best way to scratch that itch), about who has been giving Kate advice on being a princess, about whether the coat Kate wore to an appointment was the same coat she'd worn before a couple of years ago, about whether Kate has invited the guy who runs her parents' local cornershop (she has, apparently)... It's like someone has taken that annoying bitch from your office who is getting married in six months and thinks you give even the tiniest portion of a tiny rat's arse about the figures on the top of her cake or the font on the place settings, and given her columns in every newspaper, every day, and a big fucking megaphone.
The thing I find most weird about it all is the longing in certain parts of the press (you can guess. It rhymes with "press" and "guess", actually. I didn't even do that on purpose.) for Kate Middleton to fill the perceived (but basically non-existent) gap in our collective hearts left by Lady Diana. Does she measure up? Is she anything like her at all? Please, please, please let her show some signs of being like our lady of the twelve sorrows Diana Spencer!
Christ, what do they want to see, Kate Middleton sprouting steering wheel shaped stigmata on her face?
It is weird because Kate Middleton is marrying Prince William. Princess Diana was his mum. Would you want everybody comparing your hot new wife to your mum? I wouldn't be holding out for any little princelets - keep putting that image in the guy's head and he'll never be able to get an erection. Even the royals aren't that incestuous.
Of course, it's got to be weird for Kate too. On the one hand, it has to be difficult everybody comparing you to someone so beloved, and famous, and dead. If she scores "Not Like Diana" in the "Are You Like Diana?" Cosmo Quiz, then she might feel a bit inadequate. On the other hand, if she scores "Just Like Diana", aside from worrying about her husband's potential Oedipus complex, she may also start to think "so, er, we're going to cheat on each other a whole lot and get divorced, and I have to have bulimia?"...
I reckon the whole thing would be a lot more enjoyable for everybody involved, including the royal couple, if the media stopped harking back to an age where a major event for the royal family was a cause for street parties (which sound fucking horrendous - as if anyone you socialise with lives on your street) and bunting (whatever that is), and accepted that in 2011 sure, we might all watch some of it down the pub while enjoying our free day off of work, but that's all you can really hope for. A person who owns an iPad 2.0 isn't going to want a commemorative mug.
Just like no babies that are born in Britain tomorrow will be given the names Mavis, Maud or Archibald, the sun has set on that kind of behaviour.
Everybody, without a single exception, likes Aleksander the Meerkat better than the Go Compare guy. They advertise almost identical services, and maybe the fact that that bloody fat tenor guy is so irritating means the Go Compare brand is as, if not more, memorable than a meerkat that says "simples", otherwise Go Compare would be bankrupt and Compare the Market would be bigger than Microsoft, the Catholic church and Justin Bieber put together. But black or white, rich or poor (did you just hear Nicholas Lyndhurst in your head then, because I did), Chelsea or Man U, PC or Mac, Eastenders or Corrie, daddy or chips, everybody loves the meerkat and hates, really fucking despises, the Go Compare guy.
Of course, this, like most things the people of this country aren't divided over in some way, is trivial and happened purely by accident. This is because, perhaps unlike in the past, when things happen that we are supposed to be bound together in our love and excitement for, it never works. Yesterday I wrote about one case in point, the 2012 Olympics, and today, because it's been a bit of a slow news day and all my friends are too busy scraping pancakes off of the ceiling like the fucking Chuckle Brothers to give me any inspiration, I am writing about the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
According to polls, the majority of people, 70%, aren't against the monarchy and are happy enough with the current system. I fall into this camp, largely on the basis of not really thinking it's important enough to go to the effort of having a different opinion on. I guess I'm pro monarchy, in that it's kind of nice to have them around, but if they were gone I probably wouldn't miss them. I suppose I could have summed that all up a bit better by just saying "meh".
I could summon up a modicum of interest in their wedding, in the same way as I could summon up a polite enough amount of interest in the wedding of someone from work I didn't really give a fuck about. I am not saying it isn't newsworthy at all, especially in an age where people will buy special editions of Hello because someone called Susan Shaw has gotten married. I am also quite happy with the whole "extra day off work" situation. I have nothing against William and Kate, and I hope it works out for them (although mainly so I never have to read about the fucking divorce wall to wall). The problem is the assumption in the media that we all want to know about Kate's dress (which is all speculation anyway, as she isn't going to reveal the designer or any other details until the wedding itself - though given her generally tasteful and conservative style of dress you know it's going to be perfectly nice but boring as fuck - if you want to see a wedding dress worth talking about you know full well that Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is going to be the best way to scratch that itch), about who has been giving Kate advice on being a princess, about whether the coat Kate wore to an appointment was the same coat she'd worn before a couple of years ago, about whether Kate has invited the guy who runs her parents' local cornershop (she has, apparently)... It's like someone has taken that annoying bitch from your office who is getting married in six months and thinks you give even the tiniest portion of a tiny rat's arse about the figures on the top of her cake or the font on the place settings, and given her columns in every newspaper, every day, and a big fucking megaphone.
The thing I find most weird about it all is the longing in certain parts of the press (you can guess. It rhymes with "press" and "guess", actually. I didn't even do that on purpose.) for Kate Middleton to fill the perceived (but basically non-existent) gap in our collective hearts left by Lady Diana. Does she measure up? Is she anything like her at all? Please, please, please let her show some signs of being like our lady of the twelve sorrows Diana Spencer!
Christ, what do they want to see, Kate Middleton sprouting steering wheel shaped stigmata on her face?
It is weird because Kate Middleton is marrying Prince William. Princess Diana was his mum. Would you want everybody comparing your hot new wife to your mum? I wouldn't be holding out for any little princelets - keep putting that image in the guy's head and he'll never be able to get an erection. Even the royals aren't that incestuous.
Of course, it's got to be weird for Kate too. On the one hand, it has to be difficult everybody comparing you to someone so beloved, and famous, and dead. If she scores "Not Like Diana" in the "Are You Like Diana?" Cosmo Quiz, then she might feel a bit inadequate. On the other hand, if she scores "Just Like Diana", aside from worrying about her husband's potential Oedipus complex, she may also start to think "so, er, we're going to cheat on each other a whole lot and get divorced, and I have to have bulimia?"...
I reckon the whole thing would be a lot more enjoyable for everybody involved, including the royal couple, if the media stopped harking back to an age where a major event for the royal family was a cause for street parties (which sound fucking horrendous - as if anyone you socialise with lives on your street) and bunting (whatever that is), and accepted that in 2011 sure, we might all watch some of it down the pub while enjoying our free day off of work, but that's all you can really hope for. A person who owns an iPad 2.0 isn't going to want a commemorative mug.
Just like no babies that are born in Britain tomorrow will be given the names Mavis, Maud or Archibald, the sun has set on that kind of behaviour.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Exclusive Interviews with Charlie Sheen
I am bored of hearing about Colin Firth. He may have won an Oscar, but he has no chin and was in those unforgivable Bridget Jones movies, so he can fuck off.
I am bored of hearing about whether Kate Middleton will be getting her wedding dress from Burtons. Unless she is having her dress designed by that scary Scouse lady off of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, it will be boring and tasteful and it can fuck off.
I am bored of International Women's Day, although it did cheer me up that amid all the worthy, depressing crap I have seen about it in the papers, Sky have decided to celebrate it by showing a Simpsons marathon where all the episodes are about Marge, and a movie starring, and I'm not kidding, they actually said this on my actual TV earlier - "the queen of Hollywood herself - Sandra Bullock!"...
Any ennui experienced as a result of seeing any new articles about any of these subjects has, however, been massively eclipsed by the soul clutching tedium I have come to feel whenever I see an exclusive interview with Charlie Sheen. Seriously, it's all just so very laborious at this point.
The latest news is that Charlie Sheen has officially been fired from Two and a Half Men, the popular US sitcom in which people used to say he basically played himself. Obviously it has come to light since that if he had been playing himself it would have been far, far funnier, but would probably have been so fucked up it would only be allowed to be shown on pay per view in Dutch hotels. Or in Japan.
The whole story swung from slightly distressing, as watching someone have a quite obvious and very public nervous breakdown is bound to be, (you know, until you remember that he is extremely, and for no real reason, rich and it becomes very hard to rouse any sense of sympathy), to just plain hilarious. Unfortunately, the jokes there were to be made about the words "winning", "tiger blood", "F18", "ordnance" and of course the Mount Everest of all drugs - "Charlie Sheen", whilst they were many, were exhausted pretty quickly, and despite the many, many interviews he has given he just keeps feeding us the same fucking material.
Seriously, he has done so many interviews that here at Pony and Trap HQ the idea of trying to get one with him tonight for this pokey little blog was actually considered, in a kind of Challenge Anneka kind of way, but rejected because meh, you know, effort.
So, he's been properly sacked, and rumours suggest that one of the two porn stars he was shacked up with, Bree Olsen, has fucked off as well. This is a woman who was first brought to my attention because of her quite remarkable Twitter posts, in which she says that she fantasises about being a pregnant forty year old truck stop hooker, and laments the fact she never gets raped and stuff like that. When someone that gross and fucked up leaves you, even though you're minted beyond the dreams of avarice, you know you've made it onto the Greatest Train Wrecks of All Time leaderboard, and that, I suppose, could be defined as "winning", especially if you are also trying to win at having all of the STDs in the world at once. Jesus, even Kerry fucking Katona probably wouldn't touch you now, mate.
With the job and the interestingly disturbed porn star out of the picture, surely there isn't that much left to say and we can take a break from hearing about the whole freak show for a little while, but maybe, to be on the safe side, we need another star to royally fuck themselves up in front of us so we can seamlessly divert our attention.
Isn't Amy Winehouse meant to have a new album out sometime soon?
I am bored of hearing about whether Kate Middleton will be getting her wedding dress from Burtons. Unless she is having her dress designed by that scary Scouse lady off of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, it will be boring and tasteful and it can fuck off.
I am bored of International Women's Day, although it did cheer me up that amid all the worthy, depressing crap I have seen about it in the papers, Sky have decided to celebrate it by showing a Simpsons marathon where all the episodes are about Marge, and a movie starring, and I'm not kidding, they actually said this on my actual TV earlier - "the queen of Hollywood herself - Sandra Bullock!"...
Any ennui experienced as a result of seeing any new articles about any of these subjects has, however, been massively eclipsed by the soul clutching tedium I have come to feel whenever I see an exclusive interview with Charlie Sheen. Seriously, it's all just so very laborious at this point.
The latest news is that Charlie Sheen has officially been fired from Two and a Half Men, the popular US sitcom in which people used to say he basically played himself. Obviously it has come to light since that if he had been playing himself it would have been far, far funnier, but would probably have been so fucked up it would only be allowed to be shown on pay per view in Dutch hotels. Or in Japan.
The whole story swung from slightly distressing, as watching someone have a quite obvious and very public nervous breakdown is bound to be, (you know, until you remember that he is extremely, and for no real reason, rich and it becomes very hard to rouse any sense of sympathy), to just plain hilarious. Unfortunately, the jokes there were to be made about the words "winning", "tiger blood", "F18", "ordnance" and of course the Mount Everest of all drugs - "Charlie Sheen", whilst they were many, were exhausted pretty quickly, and despite the many, many interviews he has given he just keeps feeding us the same fucking material.
Seriously, he has done so many interviews that here at Pony and Trap HQ the idea of trying to get one with him tonight for this pokey little blog was actually considered, in a kind of Challenge Anneka kind of way, but rejected because meh, you know, effort.
So, he's been properly sacked, and rumours suggest that one of the two porn stars he was shacked up with, Bree Olsen, has fucked off as well. This is a woman who was first brought to my attention because of her quite remarkable Twitter posts, in which she says that she fantasises about being a pregnant forty year old truck stop hooker, and laments the fact she never gets raped and stuff like that. When someone that gross and fucked up leaves you, even though you're minted beyond the dreams of avarice, you know you've made it onto the Greatest Train Wrecks of All Time leaderboard, and that, I suppose, could be defined as "winning", especially if you are also trying to win at having all of the STDs in the world at once. Jesus, even Kerry fucking Katona probably wouldn't touch you now, mate.
With the job and the interestingly disturbed porn star out of the picture, surely there isn't that much left to say and we can take a break from hearing about the whole freak show for a little while, but maybe, to be on the safe side, we need another star to royally fuck themselves up in front of us so we can seamlessly divert our attention.
Isn't Amy Winehouse meant to have a new album out sometime soon?
London 2012 Olympics
In the wake of the news last week that some people in Iran have noticed that the 2012 Olympic logo looks a bit like the word "Zion", causing no small amount of controversy, let's have a look at the many things that have been pony about the preparations for the London Olympics so far, and the many pony things that are no doubt yet to come to pass.
First of all, let's talk about that logo. The logo was designed at a cost of £400,000. I must admit I find it hard to see where it looks like it says "Zion", because when I look at it, I'm afraid I can only see Lisa Simpson fellating Bart. Seriously, never mind an Iranian boycott, they are lucky Bart and Lisa haven't sued them for libellously suggesting they are into incest. Well, or Matt Groening hasn't sued them for copyright infringement, anyway...
Even if you can't see the beloved cartoon character porn, and it could be that I just have a sick mind, you have to admit that this logo is shit. £400,000 for that. They could have had a competition in any given primary school for nix and come out with something better. It was designed back in 2007, when economically we were all a lot less fucked than we are now, but even so, how did nobody look at the invoice without the phrases "having our pants down", "some kind of joke" and "fuck off!" coming into their baffled minds...
But no. Having unveiled this piece of shit to an unimpressed nation, they thought they would have another stab at capturing the public's imagination with the launch of the freaky one-eyed metal mascots, named Wenlock and Mandeville, after some towns in England that have something to do with the Olympics so boring that I only just looked it up and I can't remember what it is now.
Again, the general consensus among those in the media who didn't have some kind of obligation to be positive about the whole stupid enterprise, and er, my Facebook friends, was that the mascots were as rubbish as the logo. I actually think they are kind of cute, but could do without the shitty, contrived symbolism such as having the London taxi lights (supposedly, they look nothing like the lights on any cab I've ever seen) on their heads and the Olympic rings worn as "friendship bracelets" (all the other one eyed metal aliens say they're gay for having friendship bracelets, but Wenlock and Mandeville, they know they're cool).
So, the promotional stuff hasn't really been getting the nation on side, and the phrase "white elephant" has been bandied about almost as much as it was back when the excellent O2 Arena was the terrifyingly lame Millenium Dome. I doubt they will be able to sell off Wenlock, Mandeville and dirty Bart and Lisa as a venue for Miley Cyrus concerts after the Olympics, though, sadly.
Another source of bad feeling about the 2012 Olympics being held here, is that no matter how much money we throw at it (and as a country whose budget is down to ribs and dick already, we should be throwing less money at this than is spent on the average infant school play about how head lice spread) we are still never going to make the opening ceremony look as good as China's. They may have, rather meanly, had a pretty little girl lip-synching to an ugly little girl's singing. They may have Photoshopped in a lot of the fireworks afterwards for the TV coverage. It may have involved a lot of very boring, drawn out (but nonetheless weirdly impressive) mass dance routines. But what are we going to do? It'll be Katherine Jenkins singing the national anthem (which is fine, she's done it lots of times before and can be trusted with such a thing, unlike that creature that used to be Christina Aguilera doing the American national anthem at the Superbowl...), and then probably a presentation about global warming, then maybe that kid off of Britain's Got Talent doing some break dancing.
Plus, we for some reason have had to build a shitload of stuff. Velodromes and whatnot. Surely there are enough leisure centres dotted around London that we could just cobble it all together with what we've got. You know, given we are fucking skint and will probably have to bulldoze all these new stadiums down immediately afterwards to make room for, I don't know, mass graves for all the people who, by 2012, will probably be dying of scurvy and rickets.
That was the difference with our World Cup bid. Well, aside from the fact that football is way better than cycling. Yes, I know they have football at the Olympics, but there's nobody you've heard of playing and England and Scotland are the same team - where's the fucking fun in that? As a football loving nation with the strongest domestic league in the world we already have a wealth of stadiums with sufficient capacity to host such an event. But then, so did Qatar, so we didn't get it.
The Olympics could be great fun. It may surprise us all, by reviving the economy, capturing the imagination of the next generation of British sport legends, and giving us all a welcome distraction from being pissed off with bankers. But to give it a fighting chance they need to stop wasting money and try and make it an Olympics that reflects modern Britain. So, er, cheap, basically, with all corporate hospitality catered by Iceland. And the logo should just be "2012", in 12 point Arial. Done, and done.
Once again, plugging time - you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap.
First of all, let's talk about that logo. The logo was designed at a cost of £400,000. I must admit I find it hard to see where it looks like it says "Zion", because when I look at it, I'm afraid I can only see Lisa Simpson fellating Bart. Seriously, never mind an Iranian boycott, they are lucky Bart and Lisa haven't sued them for libellously suggesting they are into incest. Well, or Matt Groening hasn't sued them for copyright infringement, anyway...
Even if you can't see the beloved cartoon character porn, and it could be that I just have a sick mind, you have to admit that this logo is shit. £400,000 for that. They could have had a competition in any given primary school for nix and come out with something better. It was designed back in 2007, when economically we were all a lot less fucked than we are now, but even so, how did nobody look at the invoice without the phrases "having our pants down", "some kind of joke" and "fuck off!" coming into their baffled minds...
But no. Having unveiled this piece of shit to an unimpressed nation, they thought they would have another stab at capturing the public's imagination with the launch of the freaky one-eyed metal mascots, named Wenlock and Mandeville, after some towns in England that have something to do with the Olympics so boring that I only just looked it up and I can't remember what it is now.
Again, the general consensus among those in the media who didn't have some kind of obligation to be positive about the whole stupid enterprise, and er, my Facebook friends, was that the mascots were as rubbish as the logo. I actually think they are kind of cute, but could do without the shitty, contrived symbolism such as having the London taxi lights (supposedly, they look nothing like the lights on any cab I've ever seen) on their heads and the Olympic rings worn as "friendship bracelets" (all the other one eyed metal aliens say they're gay for having friendship bracelets, but Wenlock and Mandeville, they know they're cool).
So, the promotional stuff hasn't really been getting the nation on side, and the phrase "white elephant" has been bandied about almost as much as it was back when the excellent O2 Arena was the terrifyingly lame Millenium Dome. I doubt they will be able to sell off Wenlock, Mandeville and dirty Bart and Lisa as a venue for Miley Cyrus concerts after the Olympics, though, sadly.
Another source of bad feeling about the 2012 Olympics being held here, is that no matter how much money we throw at it (and as a country whose budget is down to ribs and dick already, we should be throwing less money at this than is spent on the average infant school play about how head lice spread) we are still never going to make the opening ceremony look as good as China's. They may have, rather meanly, had a pretty little girl lip-synching to an ugly little girl's singing. They may have Photoshopped in a lot of the fireworks afterwards for the TV coverage. It may have involved a lot of very boring, drawn out (but nonetheless weirdly impressive) mass dance routines. But what are we going to do? It'll be Katherine Jenkins singing the national anthem (which is fine, she's done it lots of times before and can be trusted with such a thing, unlike that creature that used to be Christina Aguilera doing the American national anthem at the Superbowl...), and then probably a presentation about global warming, then maybe that kid off of Britain's Got Talent doing some break dancing.
Plus, we for some reason have had to build a shitload of stuff. Velodromes and whatnot. Surely there are enough leisure centres dotted around London that we could just cobble it all together with what we've got. You know, given we are fucking skint and will probably have to bulldoze all these new stadiums down immediately afterwards to make room for, I don't know, mass graves for all the people who, by 2012, will probably be dying of scurvy and rickets.
That was the difference with our World Cup bid. Well, aside from the fact that football is way better than cycling. Yes, I know they have football at the Olympics, but there's nobody you've heard of playing and England and Scotland are the same team - where's the fucking fun in that? As a football loving nation with the strongest domestic league in the world we already have a wealth of stadiums with sufficient capacity to host such an event. But then, so did Qatar, so we didn't get it.
The Olympics could be great fun. It may surprise us all, by reviving the economy, capturing the imagination of the next generation of British sport legends, and giving us all a welcome distraction from being pissed off with bankers. But to give it a fighting chance they need to stop wasting money and try and make it an Olympics that reflects modern Britain. So, er, cheap, basically, with all corporate hospitality catered by Iceland. And the logo should just be "2012", in 12 point Arial. Done, and done.
Once again, plugging time - you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
National Women's Day Specials
I made a mistake today. I picked up The Observer's Sunday supplement, and fuck me, I read some of it. I know, now at least, that it is the same as the bastarding Guardian, but I saw on David Mitchell's Twitter feed that he had written a column in the main Observer paper, and I quite like him. This supplement was probably the most deeply irritating thing I have or will ever read, and I think it needs to be preserved in the national library for this reason - so anyone who wants to rage up can go and look at it.
The supplement was a special "Women's Issue", in honour of Women's Day, which is on the 8th of March, the day before No Smoking Day, which I have already discussed my views on. I am starting to think that this would be a good week to go into a coma.
I think it is safe to say that I have not really established myself as a proponent of the feminist cause. I think it is outdated and unnecessary in the modern western world to bang on about feminist issues. Yes, in other countries women are treated like shit, but that is a different matter. Here, women can have whatever jobs they want and still fuck off and have babies for a year or so and come back part time. If anything, they get more exceptions made for them than men could ever dream of, and they get their own Observer supplement once a year too!
And god, how depressed and pre menstrual would you need to be to want to read about a week in the life of a woman who sells scarves in Afghanistan. Wow, yes, that's interesting. She travels to a market and sells scarves.
I am also glad I got to read the opinions of a panel of women who discussed the place of feminism in modern Britain. One of the panel muses that it is awful that most young girls these days seem to believe that their future should be all about being famous and beautiful. Terrible, isn't it. I am glad that someone I have never heard of called VV who is described as a Singer and Model has explained how bad it is for young girls to want to be, er, singers and models. They say that women fill a large proportion of jobs such as nurses and teachers, but they should be encouraged to be doctors and scientists. Now, I'm sorry, but I think if a woman wants to be a doctor or a scientist and she has the intelligence then, just like a man, she will do it. Some women just want to be bloody nurses and teachers, same as some men want to do traditional male things like being a builder or a fireman. Does anyone bitch about that, and say those guys should have gone to uni, or that they should have thrown aside the stereotypes and become nannies? No, because that would be stupid and reductive.
There was also a really shit article about these two women who had started a UK branch of a website started in New York called Hollaback! where women who have been "harassed" on the street by wolf whistling and similar could shame those who had done it. These two women, referred to throughout as "students" even though they were both about 25, so were probably in more accurate terms "unemployed", were so ugly that it is hard to believe they genuinely do find it hard to make it from one end of Oxford Street to the other without crazed suitors attempting to molest them. One of them looked like Moaning Myrtle out of Harry Potter only wearing a bad 1980's leather jacket, the other was chubby and had dyed her hair a colour that doesn't even have a name. Burnt Umber is probably the closest I have seen in painting sets. Nobody is harassing these women.
My problem with this was where did the humour die? Why can't a woman get whistled at by some builders and go away thinking she maybe looks good, rather than that she is letting down the whole of womankind. Why can't you see a bloke masturbating on the tube and just laugh at him, and tell everyone down the pub about what a freak he was, rather than getting all righteous and indignant on some ugly bints' website?
Being of a given gender is not actually a subscription to a club - you don't have to be on the same side as everyone else like you in an imaginary war. I have always wondered why gay issues have to involve the "LGBT" community - lesian, gay, bisexual and transgender. None of those four groups really have anything in common with any of the others, aside from not being the majority. Is that really a community? I don't think Ellen Degeneres and Alan Carr have all that much to look after each other over just because they are both homosexual. Nor do I think Chris Eubank has any responsibility over Kanye West because they are both black. So why does being a woman mean you have to be part of some massive global issue, especially when it seems more natural for most women to have a competitive dislike for one another rather than forming some kind of "hos before bros" thing?
After reading the shit in the Observer, I read the Sunday Times Style Guide, which, whilst focussed solely on the vacuous subject of what kind of trousers and shoes women might like to wear for spring and where they could buy them, had a vastly more positive and optimistic outlook on what it is to be a woman.
Gender issues won't go away, but what the hell makes these people at the Observer, which actually has a column dedicated to bloody "ethical shopping", think they are helping anybody's cause by making the whole thing seem so horrendously "I will spell women wimmin so it doesn't have the word men in it"? Fuck off back to your lesbian bongo circle, and, if you want to get on the board of a company, try not being such a fucking bleeding heart liberal and having some actual business nous, rather than banging on about how it is because you have a vagina. You'll get a lot further that way, I promise.
The supplement was a special "Women's Issue", in honour of Women's Day, which is on the 8th of March, the day before No Smoking Day, which I have already discussed my views on. I am starting to think that this would be a good week to go into a coma.
I think it is safe to say that I have not really established myself as a proponent of the feminist cause. I think it is outdated and unnecessary in the modern western world to bang on about feminist issues. Yes, in other countries women are treated like shit, but that is a different matter. Here, women can have whatever jobs they want and still fuck off and have babies for a year or so and come back part time. If anything, they get more exceptions made for them than men could ever dream of, and they get their own Observer supplement once a year too!
And god, how depressed and pre menstrual would you need to be to want to read about a week in the life of a woman who sells scarves in Afghanistan. Wow, yes, that's interesting. She travels to a market and sells scarves.
I am also glad I got to read the opinions of a panel of women who discussed the place of feminism in modern Britain. One of the panel muses that it is awful that most young girls these days seem to believe that their future should be all about being famous and beautiful. Terrible, isn't it. I am glad that someone I have never heard of called VV who is described as a Singer and Model has explained how bad it is for young girls to want to be, er, singers and models. They say that women fill a large proportion of jobs such as nurses and teachers, but they should be encouraged to be doctors and scientists. Now, I'm sorry, but I think if a woman wants to be a doctor or a scientist and she has the intelligence then, just like a man, she will do it. Some women just want to be bloody nurses and teachers, same as some men want to do traditional male things like being a builder or a fireman. Does anyone bitch about that, and say those guys should have gone to uni, or that they should have thrown aside the stereotypes and become nannies? No, because that would be stupid and reductive.
There was also a really shit article about these two women who had started a UK branch of a website started in New York called Hollaback! where women who have been "harassed" on the street by wolf whistling and similar could shame those who had done it. These two women, referred to throughout as "students" even though they were both about 25, so were probably in more accurate terms "unemployed", were so ugly that it is hard to believe they genuinely do find it hard to make it from one end of Oxford Street to the other without crazed suitors attempting to molest them. One of them looked like Moaning Myrtle out of Harry Potter only wearing a bad 1980's leather jacket, the other was chubby and had dyed her hair a colour that doesn't even have a name. Burnt Umber is probably the closest I have seen in painting sets. Nobody is harassing these women.
My problem with this was where did the humour die? Why can't a woman get whistled at by some builders and go away thinking she maybe looks good, rather than that she is letting down the whole of womankind. Why can't you see a bloke masturbating on the tube and just laugh at him, and tell everyone down the pub about what a freak he was, rather than getting all righteous and indignant on some ugly bints' website?
Being of a given gender is not actually a subscription to a club - you don't have to be on the same side as everyone else like you in an imaginary war. I have always wondered why gay issues have to involve the "LGBT" community - lesian, gay, bisexual and transgender. None of those four groups really have anything in common with any of the others, aside from not being the majority. Is that really a community? I don't think Ellen Degeneres and Alan Carr have all that much to look after each other over just because they are both homosexual. Nor do I think Chris Eubank has any responsibility over Kanye West because they are both black. So why does being a woman mean you have to be part of some massive global issue, especially when it seems more natural for most women to have a competitive dislike for one another rather than forming some kind of "hos before bros" thing?
After reading the shit in the Observer, I read the Sunday Times Style Guide, which, whilst focussed solely on the vacuous subject of what kind of trousers and shoes women might like to wear for spring and where they could buy them, had a vastly more positive and optimistic outlook on what it is to be a woman.
Gender issues won't go away, but what the hell makes these people at the Observer, which actually has a column dedicated to bloody "ethical shopping", think they are helping anybody's cause by making the whole thing seem so horrendously "I will spell women wimmin so it doesn't have the word men in it"? Fuck off back to your lesbian bongo circle, and, if you want to get on the board of a company, try not being such a fucking bleeding heart liberal and having some actual business nous, rather than banging on about how it is because you have a vagina. You'll get a lot further that way, I promise.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
No Smoking Day
If The Simpsons teaches us anything, it's that the way to get ahead is not to squirt people's lit cigarettes with water. This is why Artie Ziff got (in the cutaway) gang raped and murdered horrifically in prison. So why is there a day - March 9th - just a week away, where people are being encouraged to participate in such behaviour? It's really, really fucking bad for the health.
For those of you reading overseas (and my stats tell me there are a lot of you, so thank you very much America, Canada, Denmark, and, for whatever reason, Vietnam), No Smoking Day is this really obnoxious thing that has been happening in the UK since 1984. I was only born in 1983, so for me this essentially equates to "forever".
It was started by Duncan Bannatyne, who as we established in my article about Queen's honours (he has one) is my second least favourite twatty millionaire off of Dragon's Den. In truth I only really like Theo, er, christ, no idea how you spell that, er, Paphetis? Pethetis? Lord, who knows, something Greek anyway. I can't be bothered to look it up. But anyway, Duncan Bannatyne started it, and now it has an ambassador in the from of Lemar, who came second or third or something in this BBC show called Fame Academy that used to be on. This isn't my usual thing of saying that Olly Murs from the X Factor in 2009 is responsible for something when he isn't really, Lemar really is doing this, and like everyone off of Lame Academy (not original, but in my head that was what it was called. Some people went with Shame Academy. Both are good.) he's far less famous than Olly Murs.
Apparently, the "theme" of 2011's No Smoking Day, which is "giving up smoking on No Smoking Day" and is therefore probably the same theme there has been every year, was developed with "smokers themselves". Nobody asked me. I would have said the theme should be "everyone act like Charlie Sheen for a day" or "rollerdisco" or "talk like Rasta Mouse". Something good. Something better than giving up smoking, which is a thankless thing - first of all it's apparently hard (I've never tried so I have no idea if it really is or not), and you should never do anything hard because Duncan Bannatyne tells you to unless he's offering cash, and secondly, it seems to turn you into a douchebag who feels the need to interfere with everyone else's relationship with their fags. Give up, and soon you will be Artie Ziff with his water spray, or this guy I used to know who would blow out your lighter when you tried to light your cigarette and then look smug. I would like to tell you he is dead now. He isn't, but he has no friends.
I understand that a lot of smokers would like to give up, and I think it's great that there is help available for them on the NHS, but those people already know about this and where to find it, unless they have been living in a cave, which they haven't, because where would a cave dweller be getting their fags from? There is no need to have a day devoted to guilting out all of the smokers who still enjoy what is one of the remaining accessible pleasures in life.
Apparently, in Essex, there are council officials and uniformed policemen having roadblocks all this month to check company cars for the smell of smoke, and if they find it, fining the smoker and their employer. Jesus wept. It's not like Essex is known for being that crime free that using its police force for this is going to be considered a good use of public money. In fact, it is up there with "the worst possible uses of public money" with "betting it all on a horse called 'Lasty'"...
I urge you all, even those who don't smoke, to light up on 9th of March. In fact, START smoking on the 9th of March. Yeah, for your health you should probably quit, as should I, but if you do it, don't do it because these dickheads tell you to, do it for you. And do it on a random, arbitrary date that isn't the 9th of March. And when you have quit, never, ever speak of it to anyone.
By the way, you can now follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap should you so wish. It's been there for a while, but I have only just started to be arsed to actually use it...
For those of you reading overseas (and my stats tell me there are a lot of you, so thank you very much America, Canada, Denmark, and, for whatever reason, Vietnam), No Smoking Day is this really obnoxious thing that has been happening in the UK since 1984. I was only born in 1983, so for me this essentially equates to "forever".
It was started by Duncan Bannatyne, who as we established in my article about Queen's honours (he has one) is my second least favourite twatty millionaire off of Dragon's Den. In truth I only really like Theo, er, christ, no idea how you spell that, er, Paphetis? Pethetis? Lord, who knows, something Greek anyway. I can't be bothered to look it up. But anyway, Duncan Bannatyne started it, and now it has an ambassador in the from of Lemar, who came second or third or something in this BBC show called Fame Academy that used to be on. This isn't my usual thing of saying that Olly Murs from the X Factor in 2009 is responsible for something when he isn't really, Lemar really is doing this, and like everyone off of Lame Academy (not original, but in my head that was what it was called. Some people went with Shame Academy. Both are good.) he's far less famous than Olly Murs.
Apparently, the "theme" of 2011's No Smoking Day, which is "giving up smoking on No Smoking Day" and is therefore probably the same theme there has been every year, was developed with "smokers themselves". Nobody asked me. I would have said the theme should be "everyone act like Charlie Sheen for a day" or "rollerdisco" or "talk like Rasta Mouse". Something good. Something better than giving up smoking, which is a thankless thing - first of all it's apparently hard (I've never tried so I have no idea if it really is or not), and you should never do anything hard because Duncan Bannatyne tells you to unless he's offering cash, and secondly, it seems to turn you into a douchebag who feels the need to interfere with everyone else's relationship with their fags. Give up, and soon you will be Artie Ziff with his water spray, or this guy I used to know who would blow out your lighter when you tried to light your cigarette and then look smug. I would like to tell you he is dead now. He isn't, but he has no friends.
I understand that a lot of smokers would like to give up, and I think it's great that there is help available for them on the NHS, but those people already know about this and where to find it, unless they have been living in a cave, which they haven't, because where would a cave dweller be getting their fags from? There is no need to have a day devoted to guilting out all of the smokers who still enjoy what is one of the remaining accessible pleasures in life.
Apparently, in Essex, there are council officials and uniformed policemen having roadblocks all this month to check company cars for the smell of smoke, and if they find it, fining the smoker and their employer. Jesus wept. It's not like Essex is known for being that crime free that using its police force for this is going to be considered a good use of public money. In fact, it is up there with "the worst possible uses of public money" with "betting it all on a horse called 'Lasty'"...
I urge you all, even those who don't smoke, to light up on 9th of March. In fact, START smoking on the 9th of March. Yeah, for your health you should probably quit, as should I, but if you do it, don't do it because these dickheads tell you to, do it for you. And do it on a random, arbitrary date that isn't the 9th of March. And when you have quit, never, ever speak of it to anyone.
By the way, you can now follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap should you so wish. It's been there for a while, but I have only just started to be arsed to actually use it...
John Galliano on Trial
Really? I'm going to defend John Galliano? After I slated Cheryl Cole for being a racist? Is Pony and Trap the kind of hypocrite who eats ribs?
John Galliano, who you may see referred to in less pedantic reports as a fashion designer, but who as of yesterday is actually "an unemployed bloke", was the creative director at Christian Dior. Then, he "allegedly" (why one has to say that I don't know, the video is all over the frickin' internet - he didn't so much "allegedly" do it as "blatantly" do it) made some outlandish racist remarks, including calling a man of Asian descent a "fucking Asian", and, as has been covered for some reason a whole lot more, slagging off Jews and saying he loved Hitler. Well, actually, he didn't slag off any actual Jews, it turned out that none of the people who have complained about his anti-Semitic slurs towards them was actually Jewish, he just presumably thought they were. Which somehow just makes him look like an even bigger twat, doesn't it?
There were apparently three incidents of John Galliano making such comments, all of which took place at La Perla, a cafe bar in Paris' traditional Jewish quarter Le Marais, though there is only video evidence of one of these occasions and although it has only just come to light, it actually was filmed in December 2010.
So, why, when everyone from his former employers to Natalie Portman (yeah, I wondered what the fuck she had to do with anything to start with as well, but it turns out she is the face of Dior perfume and is Jewish, so she's a bit pissed off about the whole thing) are condemning John Galliano would I want to be sticking up for him?
Well, I'm not sticking up for his opinions - fuck that. That is, even if they are his real opinions. He was very drunk when all of the alleged outbursts occurred, and you have to wonder why someone who hated Jews would be hanging out in the Jewish quarter of Paris in the first place - I'm not saying it was, but surely there is the possibility that it was just someone talking shit because they were pissed up? OK, so it would be the first recorded instance of beer goggles making Hitler look lovable, but still.
What I think is wrong about the whole thing, is that he may be facing a six month jail sentence and a fine that amounts to over $30,000. In fact, I think it's wrong that he even has to stand trial. So what you have, effectively, is a world where a woman can publicly lie about shagging David Beckham, make loads of money off of it, and not get in any trouble whatsoever for defamation of character even though he could prove he was in an entirely different city at the time, due to freedom of speech laws in America, but a man can go to prison and face a huge fine for something he said in private when pissed out of his crazy hat because it happened in France.
And would you want to go to prison if you looked like John Galliano? Hardly looks like he can handle himself, does he?
I think if Dior want to fire him, that's their business - because it's just that, business. People who know about this sort of thing are saying it will be hard to replace him, but again, that's Dior's business. Personally I think people in those sort of industries - fashion, art and whatnot, which as seriously as they may take themselves are basically there for our entertainment, are supposed to be a bit mental. They are also, surely, supposed to be a bit prejudiced - it's just they're supposed to be prejudiced against the poor and fat and the old and the ugly, rather than on a racial basis. In many ways, I think that like the whole Kate Moss cocaine thing and the whole Naomi Campbell being a bitch thing it will probably end up with John Galliano still having some form of career in fashion after enough rehab 'n' grovelling. Rehab 'n' grovelling being the time honoured recipe for redemption for famous people.
I don't agree with John Galliano's comments. I do think he has done something wrong. I just don't think he has done anything criminal. Unlike Cheryl Cole, who actually beat someone up for being black.
John Galliano, who you may see referred to in less pedantic reports as a fashion designer, but who as of yesterday is actually "an unemployed bloke", was the creative director at Christian Dior. Then, he "allegedly" (why one has to say that I don't know, the video is all over the frickin' internet - he didn't so much "allegedly" do it as "blatantly" do it) made some outlandish racist remarks, including calling a man of Asian descent a "fucking Asian", and, as has been covered for some reason a whole lot more, slagging off Jews and saying he loved Hitler. Well, actually, he didn't slag off any actual Jews, it turned out that none of the people who have complained about his anti-Semitic slurs towards them was actually Jewish, he just presumably thought they were. Which somehow just makes him look like an even bigger twat, doesn't it?
There were apparently three incidents of John Galliano making such comments, all of which took place at La Perla, a cafe bar in Paris' traditional Jewish quarter Le Marais, though there is only video evidence of one of these occasions and although it has only just come to light, it actually was filmed in December 2010.
So, why, when everyone from his former employers to Natalie Portman (yeah, I wondered what the fuck she had to do with anything to start with as well, but it turns out she is the face of Dior perfume and is Jewish, so she's a bit pissed off about the whole thing) are condemning John Galliano would I want to be sticking up for him?
Well, I'm not sticking up for his opinions - fuck that. That is, even if they are his real opinions. He was very drunk when all of the alleged outbursts occurred, and you have to wonder why someone who hated Jews would be hanging out in the Jewish quarter of Paris in the first place - I'm not saying it was, but surely there is the possibility that it was just someone talking shit because they were pissed up? OK, so it would be the first recorded instance of beer goggles making Hitler look lovable, but still.
What I think is wrong about the whole thing, is that he may be facing a six month jail sentence and a fine that amounts to over $30,000. In fact, I think it's wrong that he even has to stand trial. So what you have, effectively, is a world where a woman can publicly lie about shagging David Beckham, make loads of money off of it, and not get in any trouble whatsoever for defamation of character even though he could prove he was in an entirely different city at the time, due to freedom of speech laws in America, but a man can go to prison and face a huge fine for something he said in private when pissed out of his crazy hat because it happened in France.
And would you want to go to prison if you looked like John Galliano? Hardly looks like he can handle himself, does he?
I think if Dior want to fire him, that's their business - because it's just that, business. People who know about this sort of thing are saying it will be hard to replace him, but again, that's Dior's business. Personally I think people in those sort of industries - fashion, art and whatnot, which as seriously as they may take themselves are basically there for our entertainment, are supposed to be a bit mental. They are also, surely, supposed to be a bit prejudiced - it's just they're supposed to be prejudiced against the poor and fat and the old and the ugly, rather than on a racial basis. In many ways, I think that like the whole Kate Moss cocaine thing and the whole Naomi Campbell being a bitch thing it will probably end up with John Galliano still having some form of career in fashion after enough rehab 'n' grovelling. Rehab 'n' grovelling being the time honoured recipe for redemption for famous people.
I don't agree with John Galliano's comments. I do think he has done something wrong. I just don't think he has done anything criminal. Unlike Cheryl Cole, who actually beat someone up for being black.
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