Save Me…… from my lovely waste of three hours

It had to happen sooner or later. Life always imitates art eventually. And so it has this week with Spain’s entry to the Eurovision song contest.

Already a parody of itself, at least as far as the major European nations are concerned, the annual trawl of the pop sewer, once again takes to the airwaves tomorrow night across the continent.

Intentionally or accidentally, Spanish poptart Pastora Soler let slip to the press yesterday that the country’s national TV broadcaster TVE didn’t want her to win this year because they didn’t want to be saddled with the cost of putting on the three-hour marathon of musical manure next year, such is the prestige of winning this God-awful show.

Rewind 15 years to a UK television comedy called Father Ted, about three dopey Catholic priests who live in a remote part of Ireland. One episode had them being chosen as Ireland’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest with the very worst song in the world called “My Lovely Horse”, precisely because Ireland didn’t want to win and end up having to pay for the show the following year.

And lo, it came to pass that TV comedy gold became reality. Surely the writing is on the wall for this symphonic stupidity now?

 The Spanish public themselves already see the contest as nothing more than a bit of fun, one night of idiocy, a joke. For proof, look at the song the public voted for as Spanish entry in 2008. A comedy character called Rodolfo from a TV chat show who sang a song called “Baile el Chiki Chiki” (Dance the Cheeky Cheeky), complete with fake plastic Elvis wig and dancers who deliberately fell over.

The same year, Ireland paraded shopping trolley puppet Dustin the Turkey singing a song called “Ireland Douze Pointe”.

This year, the UK is being represented by none other than ancient, past-it, Engelbert Humperdinck. I don’t doubt that he’s sincere in his wish to sing a good song. But the people who chose him? What sort of shortlist did they have? Were they aware of the irony?

The question is, how much more of a two-fingered salute to the contest can you get? Maybe next year both Spain and the UK should send clowns with water-squirting flowers and custard pies and a comedy car that falls apart on stage. Or let’s just go the whole hog and send Jonathan King instead? The pop impresario has been convicted of sexually assaulting teenage boys, but hey, he can write a damn good pop tune.

There’s no doubt that the stranglehold the big European nations once held over this prestigious poop-fest has well and truly gone. Since 1998 only one of the “Big Four” nations has won it – Germany in 2010. But the UK, France, Spain and Germany are the ones who still dig deepest in their pockets to keep the contest going year after year. “Why?” I ask myself with an incredulous look on my face that no-one can see, which is why I’ve described it to you.

In the UK, the sad spectacle has been treated as a joke by the public for years, helped in part by the brilliantly sarcastic barbs ladled out by long-time BBC Eurovision commentator Terry Wogan. But even he bowed out in 2008 after nearly 30 years, describing it as “predictable” and “no longer a music contest.”

His last comment referred to the fact that politics has overtaken the voting nowadays (Greece and Cyprus regularly swapping “douze pointe” every time, for example). The voting used to be the only part of the show I’d watch. But I don’t even bother with that any more.

Even more ironically, the current BBC commentator for the show Graham Norton is an actor who used to be in Father Ted himself!

The only people who seem to take it seriously now are the “new” Europeans. Since 2000 the show has been won by, among others, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia and Azerbaijan.

So it strikes me that while tiny Iberian songstress Pastora Soler might have been speaking slightly tongue-in-cheek when she said what she said, I’m not so sure the bosses at TVE are actually that keen for her to win anyway. I bet the BBC give a sigh of relief every year the UK hits the bottom spot with “nil pointe”, which it has done worryingly often in recent years.

Ok, the contest has provided some musical quality over the years, the most obvious of which was the win by ABBA in 1974, funnily enough when the contest was held in my home town of Brighton.

But when you’ve had songs called “Ding-A-Dong”, “Boom Bang-a-Bang”, “La, la, la” and “Diggi-loo Diggi-Ley” over the years – and they’re just the winners! - just how much shit do you have to wade through to uncover the real diamonds?

When everyone is tightening their belts, when there’s cuts everywhere, when TV is already swimming in its own growing filth pool of reality shows, is it really worth investing more and more millions in what is frankly a big joke now? Tradition it may be, but crap it most definitely is.

I’d much rather watch “My Lovely Horse” over and over again for three hours. At least it knows it’s a joke.

Save Me…… from the horror, the horror.

There is a plague, an addiction, that is sweeping the globe. It crosses the cultural and linguistic barriers intact. It has no conscience or guilt. It consumes everything in its path. The only people immune to it are men.

I speak of the horror that is bags.

Hand bags, clutch bags, shoulder bags, bum bags, designer bags, bags that slip under your arm, bags that are strapped to your leg, bags that are so small they can have no possible practical use, bags that have big gold letters on them which apparently mean they’re expensive. Bags, bags, bloody bags.

And all of them are craved, coveted, lusted after and yearned for by women. Women of all nationalities, creeds, colours and religions. Here in Spain, back in my home country, the UK. Everywhere. The carnage is absolute. There is no obstacle, no barrier big enough to keep women from acquiring more and more bags.

I bring this up now because this week my wife decided to add to her extensive collection of bags yet again. This time it was a bag to carry her Notebook laptop in.

“But you’ve already got one,” I said, “I know that because I bought it for you myself.”

“Yes, but that’s different. That was one which you carry under your arm,” she said, “This one has a shoulder strap so I can wear it like a bandolier.”

She has bags for everything. Well, actually, for a limited number of things, but all of which can be carried in a very slightly different way, which, of course, is obviously vital. She’s got so many bags she could open her own bag shop and then with the remaining bags open an online order warehouse. She’s got more bags than she’s got stuff to go in them. We can’t go past a bag shop without her stopping to look.

Now, before you start lobbing accusations of cheap sexism at me, let me assure you that I have carried out exhaustive research with both men and women on this particular subject. It is so exhaustive that I have actually, for the first time ever, been forced to include endnotes in this particular blog as a pre-emptive defence to such outrageous insinuations. The findings have been carried out at a personal level[1], a domestic level[2], nationally[3] and even internationally[4].

In fact, my findings are so definitive, that they would have Cambridge University professors sucking furiously on their pipes and scratching their beards, while saying: “Extraordinary, I must say. Quite extraordinary.” 

Yes, ok. I haven’t surveyed every woman on the planet, but my aforementioned detailed investigations have uncovered some startling facts. Even a random survey of both men and women in my immediate social sphere revealed some shocking statistics. I have, out of courtesy, agreed to keep the conversations anonymous. Well, actually, in order to save on potentially expensive lawsuits for personal suffering, punitive damages and counseling. But the following is all completely and totally true.

Me: “How many bags do you have?”. Man A: “Er, two.”. Man B: “What sort of bags?”. Me: “All sorts.” Man B: “Oh, ok, two.”

Me: “How many bags do you have?”. Woman A: Pauses, counts on her fingers. “Nine.” Me: “Thanks.” Woman A: “Mind you, that doesn’t count suitcases of course. I’ve got four of them.”

Me: “And how many bags do you have?” Woman B: “Oh, not many. I used to have more. But I think I’ve only got about 11 or 12 now.”

A summary of the above research revealed; Men = 2, 3, 1, 2, 2. Women = 13, 12, 9, 8, 14, 12 and 20.”

I rest my case, your honour.

Don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger. The horror of this particular addiction has been with us for a long time and has already been subliminally referenced in media much greater than your humble blog writer.

I think it´s more than coincidence that on TV here last Wednesday they showed the classic film Apocalypse Now. As I sat there watching it for the umpteenth time, I suddenly understood it properly for the very first time.

Many people believe the film - which tells the story of a US Army captain sent into the remote Cambodian jungle during the Vietnam War to assassinate rogue US Army Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando - is about the insanity of war.

But I can tell you for a fact that they´re wrong.

While it may be true that the Colonel has gone insane and is carrying out attacks on the Viet Cong with his own private army, the climactic scene in which a mortally wounded Kurtz repeats the words “The horror, the horror” with his dying breath is not, in fact, about war at all. It´s about bags. The only reason Kurtz fled into the jungle in the first place was because his wife wouldn´t stop buying the fucking things.

Let’s be clear here. I am willing to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – and a kicking from the wife - if it means that the true nature of this affliction can be brought to wider attention.

And don’t even get me started on women and shoes.

---

[1] me

[2] my  wife

[3] Mara, Monica and Rocio who are Spanish

[4] Fiona, Marla*, Frida and Kara who are Irish, American, Swedish and British respectively.

*Footnote to endnote – She said: “I don´t have many bags** because I´m a minimalist, but I know many women who do.”

**Appendix to footnote to endnote – She said that she used to have a lot of bags, so I included her as a YES to the original question anyway. It’s my survey. I’ll do what I like.

Save Me…… from the torture of musical extortion and the failure to capitalize on its potential for world peace

Two significant things happened this week which got me thinking. And after only a few minutes of furrowed-brow cogitation, I realised the incredible link between them and its potentially earth-shattering implications.

For a start, for the first time this year we got the fan out of the cupboard as the temperatures in Seville hit 35C during the day and 27C at night. Unusual for early May.

Secondly, the trials of five alleged September 11 attackers began at a top security US Army court room at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

There is a link, I can assure you.

You might well be thinking that my brain works in a funny way. I mean, after all, I did manage to find a connection between Star Trek baddies The Borg and Andalucian society and culture two weeks ago. Far-fetched it may have been. But it was well thought-out, skillfully analyzed and incredibly insightful, even if I say so myself.

So this week, it was frankly a piece of cake for me to see the amazing link between what appear at first glance to be two of the most unconnected events ever in the history of the world but also the far-reaching ramifications this link has the potential to create. You see, you’ve got to look at these things from a different perspective. And once you do that, the thing that links the two is obvious.

It’s an accordion. See?

Ok, maybe I need to fill in a gap or two here and there just so the picture is a bit clearer. I appreciate my mind works in very lateral ways sometimes, but I figured that was just down to the fact that I’m special. Or something.

Anyway, when the weather gets hotter here, more and more people sit outside at cafes and bars, eating and drinking late into the night. But with this turn in the weather, and the dusting down of our electric fan, comes too a menace which has remained essentially dormant for most of the rainy and cold winter months.

It is the plague of the wandering street musician. The man who spots a crowd of people outside a bar quietly talking and minding their own business, then rolls up with his tiny portable amplifier connected to a car battery, both of which are balanced precariously on an old, battered, metal suitcase trolley, and then proceeds to serenade the reluctant diners with the same crap song he’s been playing a hundred times a day at a hundred different cafes every summer for the past ten years, before going round every table demanding money for the privilege.

You don’t get a choice. You have to listen to it, whether you like it not. You can’t even pay him to go away. He just takes it as a sign that you like what he’s doing.

Me and the wife had the deeply unpleasant pleasure of this form of torture at our local café on Wednesday morning when a bloke lugging a scratched and ancient-looking accordion, cranked up the decibels right next to our table. There was nowhere to run. I hadn’t paid for the drinks yet and I still had a piece of half-eaten toast on my plate. It was terrifying.

In this way, the accordion player is very much like the CIA, who have openly admitted torturing the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, in order to get information out of them.

Ok, the CIA torture their victims by water boarding them, that delightful activity where you pour water down the throat of the victim to give them the feeling they’re drowning. While I’m clearly not equating the enforced listening to a crap accordion player as being anything like on the same level as water boarding, the principle – and the fear - is the same. You can’t get away, you don’t know when it’s going to end, and you feel compelled to give him something when it’s finished in the fear that it might all start again.

Now do you see?

So how do we tackle this twin-headed monster of evil?

Media reports said this week that the Guantanamo detainees had refused to answer questions and had disrupted the court proceedings over the proven claims that they had been tortured, that the information they had given was under duress and therefore inadmissible in a court of law. Their protests have so far fallen on deaf ears. The hate between them and their captors only multiplies.

The accordion player knows he has a captive audience. He knows he can strike at any time, without warning and that his victims will be so tortured that they will feel under duress to give him something in the clear knowledge that their protests will only make him do it more. Our hate for him only multiplies too.

So you see, torture achieves nothing. As Martin Luther King once wisely said: “Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. The chain reaction of evil must be broken or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

So here’s my plan of non-violent attack. We send the accordion player to the CIA and force them to listen to him, so that they can gain a sense of empathy and ultimately see the pointlessness of torture, as using it automatically loses you the moral high ground as well as the hearts and minds of decent, reasonable people. As a result, America’s aggressive foreign policy changes, prompting al-Qaeda to put down its weapons, after which Israel and the Palestinians realise it’s all been a waste of energy and embrace each other and even North Korea says enough is enough and proposes a reunification with the south.

Simple, isn’t it.

That, or I fly a plane into the accordion player’s house.

Save Me…… from elections where politics gets in the way of personality

Let’s be honest. Politics is generally very dull and depressing. Everyone promises a lot. But no-one actually seems to deliver much.

Last November Spain voted for a change in their national government, with a move from left to right politically. In March this year, voters in Andalucía swung right too, but not far enough to stop the left and the centre parties forming a coalition to retain power in the region. Nothing much has changed. There are still no jobs.

The same is more or less true in the UK. In 2010 voters turned against the ruling socialists, but not quite enough to give the right wing Conservatives enough power to govern on their own. So they teamed up with the centre party to form another coalition. And, as if by magic, nothing much has changed there either.

But then, just when you thought it was hopeless, just when you thought nothing could drag the political process out of the dumpster, an election has come along to cheer us all up, to revive our passion and our interest, to give us something to really give a damn about.

And you know why? Because it’s got nothing to do with politics. This one is all about the personality. And in this case, two huge egos whose head-on collision has produced fantastic fireworks. It is a true heavyweight boxing contest and the winner takes all.

I talk, of course, of the London Mayoral election.

The reality is that the London Mayor doesn’t have a huge amount of power. But it doesn’t matter, because the prestige of the post brings out the best in the candidates. It goes beyond politics. This is about who’s the biggest and brightest, the most daring and challenging and, frankly, the funniest and most colourful.

Yesterday voters across the capital went to the polls to decide who they want to be Mayor for the next four years. The last two times they did it in 2004 and 2008 I was living in London and I had a ringside seat on the bitter battles between left and right. But the grappling, the punches, the holding, the jabs, the biting, the kicking, the spitting and the body slams all seemed to disappear into a confused mishmash of blanket media coverage – sort of like watching a gang of drunks who had just been kicked out of a pub, fall over each other as they lashed out in all directions.

But this time I’ve been watching the same contest avidly from a distance – 1,600km to be precise – and in many ways I’ve gained a fresh perspective on just how colourful this epic contest is. Precisely because it’s not been splashed over the newspapers, the TV and the internet here all the time, I’ve only seen the best bits; the crunching uppercuts, the left hooks to the jaw and the smashing haymakers – less drunken brawlers, more edge-of-your seat highlights of a top heavyweight boxing match.

In the blue corner is Boris Johnson, the bumbling public schoolboy with the mop of uncontrollable blonde hair and a somewhat blustery, if generally articulate, delivery. As current champion he is looking to retain his crown for a second successive time. Among his campaign highlights are calling his main rival a “fucking liar” for questioning his personal tax affairs, and referring to questions from a BBC journalist about potentially dodgy private sector sponsorship deals as “fucking bollocks”. Maybe I should rethink the “articulate” description.

In the red corner is Ken Livingstone, the George Forman of the race. Twice champion, he’s been licking his wounds from his defeat in 2008 and is hoping to wrench back the crown he won in 2000 and 2004. Among his highlights are bursting into tears at a party election broadcast and getting into a physical confrontation with his rival in a lift after a particularly hostile debate on live radio.

Both are polarizing candidates. Both inspire loyalty and loathing in equal amounts. Both are enormous personalities and both have the egos to match. Politics doesn’t even get a look-in on this title fight.

By the time you read this, it’s possible the winner will already be known. There are five other candidates in the Mayoral race, but none of them has a hope of beating Boris or Ken so who cares about them.

Someone once said that anyone who wants to be a politician should automatically be banned from being one because the attributes needed to be one – single-mindedness, ruthlessness, a craving for power and a willingness to stab anybody in the back just to get what you want – were clearly not qualities voters would want in a person expected to be a leader.

But with a show like this, who cares about that?

I was in London last week for a few days visiting friends. And when I returned to Spain on Tuesday, at first I figured I had come back too early, fearing I was missing out on all the fun. But, you know what? In hindsight, I’m glad I’m back here, because I’m getting a grandstand seat to witness the best of the carnage, without all the bluster and sideshow irrelevancies to muddy the waters. It’s brilliant.

Maybe this is what Spain needs to reinvigorate its political process and, in turn, its fortunes. Instead of the grey suits who populate the left and right here, maybe they need a prize fight on a par with the London Mayoral elections. Something to inject a bit of spontaneity, drive, motivation, colour and hope back into the political process. Seville’s got a Mayor, Andalucía has a president. Even Spain has one too. But, for the life of me, I can’t remember any of their names at the moment. And if I had to pick them out in a lineup I’m not sure I could do it.

Personality is everything when it comes to rousing the disillusioned voter. Unfettered swearing, tears and the ever-present potential for punch-ups have made for a fantastic spectacle in London. It’s just a shame it all has to end today when the new Mayor is likely to be announced. So what about taking the gloves off here too? You never know, something might actually change for once.