Public Eye

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is the public.

More specifically, I hate the things that people think it's acceptable to do in public. You can't walk down the street without someone playing the piano, or trying to talk to you, or telling you to stop screaming. Here are three things it shouldn't be acceptable to do in public:

3. Eating sushi. I like nothing more than buying an espresso so I can pretend to be a giant drinking a regular cup of coffee. Ask anyone. But when you sit in public with your tiny food and your tiny chopsticks and your tiny fish-shaped soy sauce, you look unbelievably stupid. I know you think you look cool, the smug expression plastered all over your wasabi-stained face makes that painfully obvious. But believe me, the reason we're all staring is not out of admiration. People hate you. They're waiting for you to finish your ridiculous meal and sheepishly sneak into a garage for a pasty.

2. Watching films. Stop watching films on your phone. If Ang Lee had wanted Life of Pi to be watched on an HTC he'd have spent much less time on the tiger. 

But try telling that to the man I saw on the train who thought that was an acceptable thing to watch on his phone, happily insulting the work of every single person involved in the making of Life of Pi. Actually, that seems fair.

Stupider even than him is the man I saw reading the Metro on his iPad. People only read the Metro because it's free and it's there. If you've got an iPad connected to the internet, you can do almost anything. You can look at brilliant pictures of cats, or watch Fail compilations on YouTube, or enjoy some pornography. And what was he doing? 

Reading the Metro. Maybe there was an unmissable article about a man who eats slugs or something.

1. Being pregnant. I mean seriously, it's 2014. And yet, people still think it's acceptable to go out in public whilst being pregnant. Have some self-respect. You'd have thought the shame of getting pregnant in this day and age would be enough to drive anyone into the sewers with the rest of the brainless pond-life, but some of them actually seem proud of themselves. I've seen them, wearing their "Baby on Board" badges. So I'm supposed to give up my seat on the train for you, because you were too stupid to use protection like they teach you in school. You're so self-obsessed that you think the world needs someone else with your stupid genetics, even though it can barely hold the strain of the exploding population and your exploding ego. Not only do the rest of us have to suffer the long-term consequences of there being a tiny version of you running around a dying planet, you also expect us to stand up for you because you're so brilliantly impressive for failing to take precautions. But if anyone reading this is pregnant, congratulations etc.

Here's The JB Conspiracy.

Shoot To Thrill

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is crap that only works in thrillers.

It's generally accepted that the laws that govern the fictional worlds of film and TV are quite different from the pesky logic that we real folk have to contend with on a daily basis. But there are recurring techniques in thrillers that surely don't work in real life, which our on-screen heroes are programmed to do by lazy writers. Here are 3 examples:

3. Spying from cars: Our protagonist Mr Lovely is tailing Mr Nasty, waiting for him outside his house. So where does Mr Lovely hide? In the bushes? Up a tree? In a bin? No, in a car, parked right outside Mr Nasty's house. Last time I checked, windscreens are see-through, otherwise people would crash more. But not in thrillers, where being in a car seems to turn you invisible. It doesn't work in real life and you'd get a parking ticket.

2. CPR: Mr Lovely's girlfriend, Miss Pretty, has been killed. She got run over, set on fire, shot in the face, run over again and then died of cancer. But wait, Mr Lovely knows CPR, and shouts things like "don't give up on me now!" while pummelling her suspiciously exposed chest and shoving his tongue down her throat. And Miss Pretty comes back to life, spluttering water even though she hasn't swallowed any. In our boring world, the chances of CPR completely working is around 2%, according to some website I just found. It's likely that those who are revived will die within a month, which puts a real dampener on the end of most thrillers. Imagine that, everyone who's ever been revived on screen has actually just died a few weeks after the credits rolled.

1. Using guns on your buddies: While it's true that most gunshot wounds aren't actually fatal, I'd still be cautious about shooting someone I cared about. But characters such as Sherlock and James Bond are happy to lodge a bullet in their friends, their expert marksmanship guaranteeing the survival of their loved ones. There are surely too many variables in play to warrant such a casual attitude to gunplay. And the reason I say using guns rather than just shooting is down to Lost. On the craziest island outside of all those party islands, characters are constantly thwacking each other over the head with rifles to knock them out "for their own good." Once passed out, Charlie can be carried to safety by Locke or whoever, and we get a few gloriously peaceful moments of Charlie being unconscious. This seems like another massive risk, given the high probability of them never coming round or being concussed. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds bad. They could become seriously brain damaged, but in the case of Charlie I'm not sure anyone would notice.

That You Criticise

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is HBO's True Detective.

What I don't love is the stuff that's being written about it. Not since NBC's Hannibal have critics fallen over themselves in such a hyperbolic frenzy. Here are three things people need to stop saying about True Detective.

3. 

The oft-repeated un-opinion that True Detective is "like a movie" is, to use a technical term, donkey bollocks. The crime-drama is protracted and slow to an extent that no movie would ever get away with. If a film was paced like True Detective, you'd turn it off. When people compare it to cinema, all they mean is it looks nice and has film stars in it. As a piece of criticism it's superficial, hacky and lazy. You can't just say a TV show is like a film because it's good, TV has been better than film for ages now. With the amount of money and talent that's moved to TV over the last few years, TV has overtaken film to the point that we should really start saying that a good film is "like a TV show." Twin Peaks and Breaking Bad aren't like films. Films are crap. With it's drawn-out, unravelling mystery, True Detective is nothing like a film, it's very much like a TV show.

2. 

No, the real star of True Detective could not be Louisiana. Because it's a place. The real stars of True Detective are, get this, its stars. The clue is in the name. I see what The Guardian man is trying to say, but calling the show's setting its "star" seems to undermine the work of the director and cinematographer and everyone involved in putting it on screen. Louisiana contributes relatively little towards True Detective's success, because, and I can't stress this enough, it's a place. This is the sort of pretentious thing people say to sound clever, which is actually completely meaningless. It's the sort of thing I might say. 

1. 

I've written about these ridiculous claims made by critics, that make you question their motives. Clearly these nonsensical headlines are just hit-generators. Maybe True Detective will be the best show of the year. But it's fucking February. No opinion you currently hold on the subject has any worth at all. The level of disingenuous non-discussion by professional critics seems to be reaching staggering new heights, with reviewers mindlessly saying anything to get traffic or a retweet from Lena Dunham. You have the best job in the world, all I ask is that you think about what you say. 

Thanks for reading, here's Who Are You by the brilliant Skindred.

Boredom

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is boring main characters (in good TV shows).

A lot of television dramas start with a person going to a new place, an unusual place full of interesting people. The protagonist is therefore our point of entry into this strange new world; they're our "in". There seems to be this idea that they have to be as "normal" as possible, in order for us to relate to them, as they become our eyes and ears. This means we're lumbered with a boring main character, in an otherwise excellent show. This idea that protagonists have to be dull is nonsense, as we can see from the huge number of great shows whose lead characters are interesting, weird or downright insane. People like Walter White, Agent Dale Cooper or even Dexter, before it went crap. Here are 5 examples of boring main characters (in good TV shows):

5. Piper Chapman - Orange Is The New Black 

I've written about my love for this Netflix-produced prison drama and its diverse range of brilliant characters. So why do we have to spend all our time with the smug and unlikeable Piper? Why can't we spend it with Nicky, or Morello, or Alex? The answer is that it's based on Piper Kerman's memoirs, and it's the fish-out-of-water displacement of a New York middle-class woman into the nightmarish world of prison that drives the whole narrative. Still though, she is a dick.

4. Lana Winters - American Horror Story: Asylum

I've also written about my love for this joyously bonkers horror drama, and Asylum saw some of its most mental moments. There were Nazi doctors, killer nuns and even a psychotic Zachary Quinto. And who were we stuck with? Lana Winters: Lesbian Journalist. Spock should have killed her when he had the chance.

3. Will Graham - Hannibal

This one isn't even a good TV show. It's actually rubbish. But there's good stuff in there, most notably Lawrence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, and of course Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter. But not Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, who twitches his way through terrible dialogue with all the charisma of Nicky Campbell. Stupidly his deductive skills seem to amount to psychic ability, a bit like Sherlock but without any of the charm.

2. Buffy Summers - Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Obviously I'm in love with Buffy Summers, who isn't? But she is one of the show's most boring characters. She's annoying, whiny and has the worst taste in men since that German woman Nigel Farage is married to. In fact the only people more boring that Buffy are the men she falls in love with. But that Riley Finn sure is a dreamboat. 

1. Jack Shephard - Lost

I love Lost. But Jack is without a doubt the most boring main character in a good TV show. "Can I tell you about how I got my tattoos?" "Have I mentioned my dad lately?" "Would you like to watch me cry?" Shut up! We're on a magical island with characters as brilliant as Locke, Sawyer and Hurley, and you just go around feeling superior and/or sorry for yourself. But at least he's better than Charlie. 

Thanks for reading, here's Buzzcocks.

Ignition Sequence

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is bad title sequences (for great TV shows).

Two years ago I wrote about my top 5 opening title sequences, a list which remains unchanged since then. The American Horror Story titles change each season but remain the scariest thing about the show.

But what about great TV shows with crap opening titles? Here are my bottom three:

3. Firefly

I love Firefly as much as the next geek, but why does such a refreshing show need such a dreary title sequence? Joss Whedon wrote the theme song, so it's almost a relief to learn that there's something that man can't do. 

2. Breaking Bad

 

I love Breaking Bad, who doesn't? Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't? It is a rubbish name though, with a tacky opening sequence that belies the show's high production values. But at least it's short. 

1. Twin Peaks

I love Twin Peaks and today's news that David Lynch might be making more although probably not is as exciting and confusing as the show itself. But I always skip the title sequence, because one and a half minutes of nice scenery and boring music just doesn't entice in the way the show does. It's presumably that long because of the huge cast who need credits, but Lost has a brilliantly brief opening despite the size of the ensemble. Instead, their names appear across the bottom of the screen right up until the end of each episode.

Thanks for reading, here's Jurassic 5.

Radio Retaliation

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is BBC Radio 6 Music.

A few years ago, when 6 Music was threatened with closure I was one of many twitter uses with a "Save 6 Music" twibbon. Remember twibbons? I had one because the brilliant Adam & Joe were on 6 Music, but they were my only experience of the station. Now I have to sit in an office where 6 Music is constantly on, and I wish it had been shut down at the time.

I accept that no publicly funded radio station is likely to play the combination of third-wave ska and Jamiroquai that would satisfy me, but this is supposed to be the home of alternative music. And every day it plays that same fucking Jake Bugg song repeatedly. I don't know much about radio, but isn't it bad to play the same song within the space of a few hours?

Obviously criticising someone else's music taste is stupid, but if you like Jake Bugg you belong in a fucking Saw trap. That way you'll know how the rest of us feel when we have to listen to that whiney prick who can't sing and is only famous because he wrote a song with "Bolt" in the title just before the Olympics. And this is meant to be the alternative. This station which plays The Killers and Sex on Fire and Florence + the Machine - whose nails-on-a-blackboard voice makes it impossible for me to do any work. Florence Welch owes me compensation.

It's the level of smugness that really gets to me. The idiots who host shows and the lickspittles who call in all share a feeling of superiority because their pop music has guitars. Every time they announce another awful fucking indie band it's with a sickening sense of disdain for those plebs who listen to Radio 1. I'd rather listen to Rihanna than the pretentious dreariness that populates 6 Music.

Worst of all is Lauren Laverne. The least discerning person in the history of radio, who apparently thinks that every track she plays is the greatest song ever. Every time she says "Maida Vale" it makes me want to punch the radio, and she talks like a three year old who's accidentally crawled into the BBC. I've heard her refer to Dame Judi Dench as "Dame J.D" and to Bristol as "Brizzle." This is a grown woman. Why don't they just bring in Russell Brand and be done with it? Oh I remember why, never mind.

So please join me with a Close 6 Music twibbon and enjoy Thievery Corporation. To get the full 6 Music effect, listen to it twice in a row.

Call It Pointless

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five more of them.

I've been observing your human behaviour for 22 years now, and I'm constantly baffled by how much of it is completely pointless. Here's 5 examples:

5. Fancy dress - The very epitome of forced fun. "You can come to my party but only if you dress as a smurf." Why? It's exactly the same night out but with an extra inconvenience, with the bonus of having to clean blue off all your stuff for the next few months. Fancy dress should only be allowed for small children, when it's cute, or the middle-aged, when it's funny. 

4. Opening curtains - I recently had an epiphany and haven't opened my curtains since. It's a Sisyphian task, opening curtains every morning only to close them again every night. It makes sense for the purpose of letting in sunlight, but there's really no point when you live in the middle of a cloud made up of constant Sheffield rain and industrial smog left over from the 1980s. Now I save literally seconds every day.

3. Dressing smart - That we sometimes have to wear smart clothes is surely just a hangover from the olden days. It doesn't make us work any better, so what's the point? It's just another case of being slightly less comfortable for no good reason. 

2. Wrapping presents - They just get immediately unwrapped again.

1. Not wearing rucksacks - At some point in history, a genius invented the rucksack. Drawing inspiration from the animal kingdom, we could actually carry our worlds upon our backs just like the noble snail and stoic tortoise. This extraordinary invention allowed us to transport heavy goods whilst somehow having both hands free. So we could run, grab and fight zombies should we need too, while all the time carrying our shopping on our backs. And yet there are people out there - and I've seen them - who are so stupid that they insist on neglecting the mighty rucksack, opting instead for a handbag or satchel. Are you insane or just thick? The rucksack is the greatest invention ever and you're wasting everyone's time with your bag which unnecessarily inhibits movement. Are you really so vain that you'd rather use up an entire limb by carrying a handbag or have a satchel swinging against your side as you walk than be caught wearing a rucksack? You might as well be pissing on the grave of the rucksack's great inventor.

Here's Primus.