Posts from November, 2007

For years the world has thought that a Jackson Five reunion would be impossible, not least because nobody can imagine going to watch a gang of rickety old child-stars limping through Rockin' Robin fronted by a frail alabaster ghoul.

However, the world clearly doesn't have the self-belief of Jermaine Jackson, because he's decided that this exact tactic is what will make him successful again. According to Jermaine Jackson, the Jackson Five will reform and play some shows next year, with Michael Jackson firmly in place as a member of the group. But, accounting for Michael Jackson's notorious flakiness, Jermaine Jackson has drafted in a few Jackson Five understudies as a contingency should Michael Jackson pull out. And who wouldn't want to see a reunited Jackson Five with Samuel L Jackson, Randy Jackson or noted long-dead American organic chemist Charles Loring Jackson singing all of Michael's parts?

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A long time ago when we were all nippers, we got told to make pretty pictures for our parents. Our teachers told us that they’d really like them and place them with pride on the fridge – covering the reminder letters from angry gas companies.

Yes, the drawings of our family were put on display even though they were utter shit and didn’t represent our parents well. Except our mother, who really does have three fingers, unusually long arms and a bright purple face. We always thought that art was done with pens, paint, chalk and - if you were poor like us - crayons. But apparently not. Now, there is something called modern art where we have to think for ourselves about what it all means. And injure ourselves on it too, if the Tate Modern's giant crack exhibits anything to go by.

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All said, Saturday’s X Factor Love Songs Night was a great success; although if we’re honest, compared to the X Factor Disco Night an X Factor Dissonant Avant-Rock Night would be a success, too.

And that means that this Saturday X Factor is treating us to a Best Of British show where, dressed up as an assortment of jolly red-faced butchers, cricketers and wooden-toothed Victorian prostitutes, the X Factor hopefuls will belt out a selection of songs like Roll Out The Barrel, Doing The Lambeth Walk, My Old Man’s A Dustman, I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts and the theme-tune to Oh, Doctor Beeching! by Su Pollard. Either that or they’ll all sing You’re Beautiful with a quiet look of desperation in their eyes. Let’s wait and see.

But who’s going to win X Factor this year? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts, with help from Paddy Power…

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It looks like the latest wildfires to hit California might be an act of God, in which case we can assume that God dislikes the Red Hot Chili Peppers almost as much as we do.

That's because Flea, the man responsible for all of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' interminable bass solos, is the highest-profile victim of the wildfires that swept through Malibu this weekend. According to Flea himself, his $4.8 million Malibu mansion has been "burnt to a crisp." It's a tragic situation for Flea to be in, because not only was he forced to witness the total destruction of his house, but he's now also been forced into emergency accommodation in the form of the other $10 million mansion he also owns in Malibu. We sense the next Red Hot Chili Peppers album might be quite heavy on the bass-led ballads about how crap it is to only have one multi-million dollar Malibu mansion instead of two, you know.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

This week: Strange Facts

In 1969 the American space program was fledgling. Regardless of their inexperience, the pimple-faced NASA felt obligated to take a solid crack at sticking boots on the moon. This they did, as we now know today. Neil Armstrong said something about jumping, and Buzz Aldrin was probably pissed Armstrong beat him down the ladder.

What's a little less known is that the American up and ups weren't entirely sure they could get their boys back to Earth. In fact, things were so uncertain Richard Nixon even had a speech drafted up in case of horrific failure. Hecklerspray has it for you.

Yes we do.

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For an unmade movie remake of a political BBC TV show that anyone with a working internet connection can discover the ending to, State Of Play has been getting all sorts of fuss made over it lately.

Although, to be be fair, that isn't because State Of Play is a world-class movie in the making; it's because Brad Pitt stropped off production recently, right before it was due to start filming. But now, with Universal planning to sue Brad Pitt for the walk-out, State Of Play needs a new leading man, and fast. Step forward Russell Crowe, who Universal has been desperately wooing all weekend. Of course, Russell Crowe is a notoriously safe pair of hands, and won't demand constant script changes like Brad Pitt reportedly did, apart from requesting that his character performs a 25-minute multi-stanza poem about the fickle nature of material success right in the middle of things.

And that 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts performs the State Of Play title music.

And that the whole thing gets called Russell Crowe's State Of Play and is set in prehistoric times, and that Edward Norton's character is replaced by an otter in a baseball cap.

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The heavyweights of cartoon/ live-action hybrids - Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, that thing with Paula Abdul and the chain-smoking hip-hop cat - must now all make room for Enchanted.

Disney's latest movie Enchanted is the number one movie at the US weekend box office. Oh, you know Enchanted - it's hardly as if you've been able to go more than ten seconds without seeing an Enchanted trailer, billboard or large cinema cardboard cut-out looming down at you lately, is it? But it's not just relentless promotion that's pushed Enchanted to the top of the weekend box office - Enchanted also teachers the viewer several profound socially-relevant lessons too, as shown in the Enchanted scenes where everyone mocks the midget and the chipmunk pulls a funny face. Or something.

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Hulk Hogan's wife must be an idiot to want to divorce him - she'll never find another old, bald, long-haired, moustachioed, blindly patriotic, sausage-armed, shirt-tearing, pretend-deaf hunk of man as good as the Hulkster as long as she lives.

But that's just the risk that Linda Marie Bollea is taking, because after 24 happy years of marriage, she getting divorced from Hulk Hogan. Not that she told Hulk Hogan this, of course - that was down to a journalist who'd heard about the divorce and phoned up Hogan to get his opinion, only to discover it was the first he'd heard about it. But now that there's been time to let the news of his divorce sink in, let's hope that Hulk Hogan can see the positives in the matter - after all, without a wife around, Hulk Hogan will have much more time to indulge in his hobbies of pumping iron accompanied by widdly-woo 1980s stadium rock and headbutting the flags of various non-American nations.

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Say the name of this game to a nun and she'll slap you in your dirty mouth, but then let the nun try to play Bollix for herself and she'll collapse, sobbing that if only she had spent more time online and less time praying she'd get past level 12.

This is how Bollix works. You're a ball and you have to gt to a goal. You move the ball with the mouse and you have to avoid moving objects. That is all. That is all Bollix asks of you. And it's easy at first, until the objects home in on you and trap you and Bollix becomes exactly like a dream we had the other night, except we weren't naked and nobody was laughing.

Play Bollix Now

Mondays? Hecklerspray? Haiku competitions?

What else did you expect?

Eh? Last week's winner? Before we've announced that this week's subject is Paul McCartney?

I suppose we'd better do that, eh?

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