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Monday, January 26, 2004
Regular readers of this blog will have been wailing and gnashing their teeth today after noticing the absence of any new entries this weekend. I've already had one email imploring me to get on with it. The problem is, when I sat down yesterday to craft my latest post, I couldn't think of anything to write about. Everything I've done over the last week has been so dull that had I written about it I'd have lost both my regular readers at a stroke. And the world of popular culture has hardly been aflame with excitement recently. Thank God, then, for the return of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. For non-British readers, this is a TV show in which a bunch of D-list celebs camp out in the outback for two weeks, eat rice and hope to reap great showbiz rewards, like being asked to endorse toilet paper when they come out. The show is notable this year for the presence of Jordan and Johnny Rotten - or John Lydon as he's been known since the Sex Pistols broke up. His sneering presence is actually quite pleasing, because it will severely piss off all the punks that used to hang around my flat when I was 19. Which is another story. Jordan is an enormo-breasted glamour model, ie the kind of model who doesn't actually model anything except her surgically-'enhanced' self. She has promised to go naked all the time. She was lying. I read somewhere that if any of the leeches that live in the camp pool attach thelmselves to Jordan's boobs, said boobs will explode. Also present in the jungle are Aussie has-been singer Peter 'The Body' Andre, who made a respectable showing in the recent 100 Worst Records of All Time poll on Channel 4; a rubbish footballer called Razor who's scared of heights (which is lucky, coz his career has just plummetted to new depths); and the DJ Mike Read, who is famous for two things: banning Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax' live on air after discovering it was about, whisper it, sex; and having the world's freakiest and most misguided stalker, Blue Tulip Rose Read. Actually, I find the whole thing wildly irritating, mainly because every time somebody sees a rat, spider or leaf, they start screaming and calling for their agent, as if they didn't realise that there'd be creepy-crawlies in the jungle. When they're not freaking out over the presence of (debatably) lower lifeforms, they're complaining about being hungry because one of them failed the task of eating 3000 termites and they now have to share one baked bean between them. By day two, one of the women whill be crying because she misses her 'usband and kids and has never had to spend a night away from them before. Snot will run down her face as she blubs and says she wishes she'd never come here. "If only," she'll snivel. "If only I didn't crave fame so much and it wasn't so hard to come by." Sunday, January 18, 2004
Buy the Franz single..or we'll bite you Thanks to Caroline for sending me the pic above. My Gloomy doesn't have the bloody bits on his chest. I'm still waiting for him to cross over to the UK. He could be bigger than Mickey Mouse - hey, they could set up a Gloomyland, with a big dipper that plummets towards a pool of blood and people in Gloomy Bear costumes jumping on passers-by. Parents would threaten bad kids: "Okay, little Johnny - if you're not a good boy we'll take you to Gloomyland." What a great idea! Franz Ferdinand are No.3 which is a pretty good result, although they had been at No.2 midweek. I love that Kelis single too - it's so saucy. The Groucho was a bit celeb-light the other night. Even Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry weren't there. How disappointing. The journey home was very entertaining though. I got serenaded by two Aussies on the platform. They were singing Waltzing Matilda, believe it or not. Then the girl sitting opposite me on the train was sick in a carrier bag. It was a WHSmith's bag, in case you're wondering. when the ticket inspector came round she thought she'd lost her season ticket and started crying, proclaiming it 'the worst evening of her life', a long black streak of mascara running down her cheek. She'd shut the handle of her bag in the door so couldn't look in it properly. While she stood up and searched through her coat pocket, her boyfriend held her bag of sick. Aah, young love. Thursday, January 15, 2004
Hands up if you agree that 'Take Me Out', the new single by 'the Glaswegian Strokes', Franz Ferdinand, is the best thing to hit the airwaves since...well, the original Strokes. Actually, they're more like Pulp than the Strokes. And they are completely brilliant. I command thee to go out and buy a copy - if you can find one. All the shops in Islington had sold out and my local HMV had one copy left. And I got it. A MarkCity reader sent me a link for an excellent site that sells Japanese toys (er, that's my gravitas resolution gone tits-up) called Funkyzilla.com. If you follow this link you'll see the wind-up Gloomy that swings a small child round and round. I got sent one of these for Xmas by my friend Keiji. It's wicked, but Syd and Nancy are scared of it. Perhaps that's why they've embarked on an orgy of sharp-toothed destruction recently. You should see our sofa. On second thoughts, I'd be far too embarrassed to show you. I hope the vicar never wants to come round for tea. I'm going to the Groucho tomorrow. Ooh, lah-di-dah. Sunday, January 11, 2004
I'm sick. No, not in the head, though my love of Gloomy Bear may cause some to think otherwise. I've been infiltrated by a virus causing a sore throat, much coughing and feeling a bit woozy and needing a dose of salts. I thought I'd escaped after every other person I encountered - esp all those sick sneezers and splutterers who like to introduce their germs to their fellow commuters on the train each day - was riddled with disease. I felt like a character in The Stand, um, standing alone while all others were struck down by the lurgy. But it got me so I need y'all to send me get well soon vibes through time and space. Aaah, I'm feeling better already. I found a great site the other day called The Wayback Machine, which is an archive of internet pages from the past. It allows you to look back at websites that don't exist any more, or see what your fave sites used to look like. Nostalgia for netheads. Unfortunately MarkCity has always looked the same. Maybe I need a redesign. Sunday, January 04, 2004
Some Japanese people, yesterday Japan suddenly seems to have become achingly trendy. This month's Arena magazine has a guide to life (and underwear) in Japan. Then, of course, there are all the J-themed movies coming out: Lost In Translation, The Last Samurai (anyone seen it?; any good?), Kill Bill Volume 2 and, um, well, I'm sure there are more on the way. David Mitchell, author of Ghostwritten has a new novel out in March too. So all this means that I need to get my arse into gear and finish Sayonara Baby before the zeitgeist moves on to Korea or El Salvador or somewhere else I've never been. I'm about 92000 words in, and counting. I don't even have to click 'word count' - the total is always there at the bottom of the screen, goading me. Actually, 92000 words is enough for a whole novel, but unfortunately you can't just say, 'Right, that's 300 pages' and end it. There's all that annoying plot resolution stuff to deal with. Sigh... I think the real reason I haven't been rushing to finish it is that the thought of going through the whole agent- and publisher-seeking thing is just soooo depressing. I'm seriously thinking about self-publishing it and using my marketing, ahem, expertise to flog it online. Apart from becoming a world-famous author, my other new year resolutions are: 1) To go to the gym twice a week. I will conquer the boredom of the cross-trainer and get that flat stomach I've always dreamed of. 2) To develop gravitas, as mentioned below. 3) To collect all 7 DVD box sets of Buffy. One of these resolutions might be easier than the others. |