After their Beastie Boys tribute, I now hate Coldplay even more…

Yesterday, a great man passed away. Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, aka MCA, aka Nathaniel Hornblower died at the criminally young age of 47. The outpouring of grief around the world can be measured by looking at social media – at one point in the US yesterday evening, nine of the top ten trending topics were Beastie-related.

As I tried to get a handle on the shocking, sorrowful news, I remembered my own period of hardcore Beastie Boys fandom – hearing Slow & Low on an EP that was given away with Record Mirror in 1985 and having my 13-year-old mind BLOWN; avidly buying up everything they released over the next year or so; being disappointed when they broke into the mainstream with Fight For Your Right (it wasn’t hip hop – I didn’t like it). Yes, I liked them before you did – I’ve always been hipper than you.

But this morning, my sadness has turned to blind rage after seeing and hearing the ‘tribute’ to Yauch from those unwelcome suppliers of lite-rock corporate shite, Coldplay (the Hamfatter that somehow made it) – a piano-led cover version of the aforementioned Fight For Your Right. Here, look… see… cringe…

In case you don’t have the stomach to play the video, what Chris Martin and his gang of humming building society cashiers have done is take a goofy, dumb-as-fuck, rock anthem and clinically removed everything about it that made it great, before infusing it with their trademark empty, soulless earnestness. Yes boys, you’re sad; we get it because we’re ALL sad – just don’t apply the standard Coldplay filter to what is the Beasties’ best-known song and instantly rip apart everything that it represents.

The only thing they could have done that would have been LESS appropriate than this fucking fiasco would have been to break into the morgue, find Yauch’s still-warm corpse, flicked his penis into some kind of vague erection and then wanked him off while Chris Martin played the harmonica and tapped his foot on the floor to keep time.

NOW look what they made me do….


Advert #1

So, I made an advert for a top firm…


Some cartoon strips….

Here’s some cartoon strips that I wrote for Loaded a long time ago. A genius called Tim Major drew the pictures.

 

 


The definitive list of #madeupsexacts

About two years ago, I came up with a load of #madeupsexacts on Twitter. Here they all are again. See how many you can imagine before you need to spend some special time alone…..

Indoor Dentistry

Remastering Electronic’s second album

Taking the pig to market

Borrowing God’s socks

Cancelling a standing order

Draining the Zambezi

Contacting the ombudsman

Singing the browns

Conquering the Cayman Islands

Supporting the Brand New Heavies

Upgrading to HD

Upstairs parachuting

Giving away the image rights

Knocking the top seed out in the quarter-finals

Burping the keynote speech

Getting the bonus ball

Observing the 10pm curfew

Ignoring the lodger

Combing the beach for old coins

Ash Wednesday

Puking the blue Smartie

Australia

Exercising the witch

Hosting the Eurovision

Bombing the car boot sale

Special J

Chatting with Edwyn Collins

Crop rotation

Queuing up for Pearl Jam tickets

Intimidating the witness

DMing Pee Wee Herman

Sneaking in to the labour exchange

Peter Panning / Tinkerbelling

Liberating Illinois

Handing back the MBE

Paddling in the septic tank

Unlearning Yiddish

Council Hutchence

Fiddling while Rome bursts

Fanning Her Majesty

Ignoring the gymkhana

September 11th

Feeding Boss Hogg

Bottling Morrissey

Dot Cottoning

Loving the alien

Mining for spam

Driving Miss Daisy

Escalating the grievance

Drizzling the beatnik

Getting to know James Bolam

Decorating the panic room

Multi-Coloured Swap Shop

Being affected by one of the issues in tonight’s show

Drinking the bra dry

Cheese and cheese and cheese and cheese and cheese and cheese and biscuits

Spoiling the Durham Miners’ Gala


Who says machines don’t have empathy?

Got the January blues? Take heed of the advice handed out by this car park ticket machine in Durham…


Who needs Sherlock when you could have this…

Typical – bemused by the success of Sherlock, you try to come up with a winning alternative idea for BBC1’s Sunday evening line up. Having duly thought of one, you then do a quick Google search only to realise that it’s been done before.

Now I must go and mournfully throw away my hastily-written one page treatment for ‘Starfish Hitler’…


What Michael Jackson will look like in the year 2000

Or at least according to Ebony magazine in 1985. Brace yourselves, because it’s eerily accurate…

[via @harikunzru]


Wikipedia’s So Solid Crew member list

Earlier on, I was alerted to the FULL list of So Solid Crew members on Wikipedia. It was a thing of wonder. Shortly afterwards, it was removed from the site, probably by laugh-allergic boffins. So I got a screengrab. Here it all is….

(By the way, I didn’t write any of this, although I wish I had)


The Very Best Of The Fucking Beatles

I did this for Sour Mash magazine.


Those celeb autobiographies – which one should you ask Santa for?

You’re probably stumped about which one to buy from of the plethora of enchanting celebrity autobiographies that are available ahead of Christmas. Fret no more dear reader, because I have read them ALL for you*. Here’s my handy guide…

 

LEE EVANS –THE LIFE OF LEE (£20.00)
The rubber-boned joker concentrates on the gruelling life he endured before finally making the big time, revealing for the first time some of the grotty jobs that sustained him before he became a household name. Anyone who isn’t moved to tears by Lee’s description of his three months spent as a novelty penis salesman in Jakarta doesn’t deserve to have any eyes.

OPENING LINE: “No one sees the man behind the clown mask; no one sees him sitting in a bush in the car park of his local Asda at 4am because he still can’t get over that garbled punchline he delivered in Hull in 1992.”

 

 

JAMES CORDEN – MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE? (£18.99)
Heavy stuff from the roly-poly funnyman, belying his public image as a loud, detestable buffon. Four of this 654-page book’s five chapters focus on the occult, as Corden reveals his belief that he is only a few years away from being able to transform his own urine into liquid gold.

OPENING LINE: “It was my 15th birthday, when I tranquilised my pet dog Wilfie just so that I could eat the tin of Pedigree Chum that was rightfully his, that I knew something needed to change on Planet Corden.”

 

 

ALAN SUGAR – THE WAY I SEE IT: RANTS, REVELATIONS AND RULES FOR LIFE (£20.00)
He started out with a few quid and a van at the age of 16 and he’s now one of Britain’s best-loved millionaires. But he’s retained his hard edge, as displayed in this book. For example, one of Lord Sugar’s ‘rules’ focuses on male employees who don’t tuck in their shirts – he says of them: “My sole reason for entering the House Of Lords is to pass legislation that will make this despicable practice punishable by death. Death caused by the forced feeding of said shirt, its breast pocket filled with the hottest chillies known to mankind.”

OPENING LINE: “People look at me and think I live the life of Riley but there’s nothing I enjoy more than shaving my mother-in-law’s back on a Sunday afternoon”

 

 

SUE JOHNSTON – THINGS I COULDN’T TELL MY MOTHER (£18.99)
The much-loved actress has a lifetime of tales to tell from her showbiz and personal life, and this book is a weapons-grade page-turner. You’ll be as astonished as I was to learn that Waking The Dead ended after Trevor Eve took legal action against Sue, claiming that he had won one of her kidneys in a drunken card game at a post-filming wrap party.

OPENING LINE: “Fate is a funny thing. If I’d replied to a certain advert that I saw in the Liverpool Echo in 1967, I’d almost certainly by now be one of the most celebrated Formula One drivers of all time.”

 

 

BRENDAN SHEERIN – MY LIFE: A COACH TRIP ADVENTURE (14.99)
Finally caving in to immense public demand, the tour guide from TV’s Coach Trip has put pen to paper and laid himself bare. He glosses over his early life as the President of the UK Golliwog Preservation Society, choosing to share anecdotes about the show that has made him famous. Worth reading if only to learn which contestant was ejected from the coach while it was still moving after exposing himself to a group of blind nuns through the rear window.

OPENING LINE: “Some people find it hard to believe that I was allergic to buses until the age of 32 – until I show them the photo I always carry with me, with my face so swollen that my eyes look like raisins and my cheeks like raw steaks.”

 

*I didn’t read any of them. Do I look like some kind of twat?


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