John Walker's Electronic House

Here are some predictions for what will happen tonight with Morono-The-Magic, David “Camera Trick” Blaine. Should I be wrong, so be it. But it will look cool if I’m right:

– His world record attempt at holding his breath for nine minutes will not be eligible for inclusion in the Guiness Book of World Records for some obfuscatory reason.

– During his ‘escape’ attempt, he will suddenly look like he’s in incredible trouble, and be about to drown, and people in the crowd will scream and an emergency team will have to rush in. But Blaine will be gone! And appear somewhere else.

– The crowd will drown him for being the most irritating human of all time.

EDIT: Oh, he just did a rubbish anticlimax instead. Nice showmanship Blaine.

For reasons too simple to explain I was given cause today to write an impression of 1990s dying cat impersonators, Suede. Feeling very pleased with myself, I reproduce it here:

Thiiiis is the ooonly verse I botherrrrrred with.
I didn’t really try with this oooone eeeeiiither.
Thiiiis is the ooonly verse I botherrrrrred with.
Even two lines of iiiiiiit aaarre the saaaaaame.

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
Can I have a million pounds now please?

The latest installment in the long-running, LEGENDARY series of industry interviews in which the tables are TURNED ON THEIR MOTHER FUCKING HEAD(s) as the journos are asked confrontational questions that force them to look into their dark souls and ask themself – “am I a gay lol?”

This week we couldn’t find anyone of consequence. Sorry about that.

Some guy called ‘Suki’ started asking me all these weird questions.

Thanks to Kim for pointing this out.

Things for which I would happily pay £100 a year:

To not have to shave

To never be asked “Are you sure you want to quit?” I’ll handle the responsibility for accidental quits myself.

To be chipped such that I can neither see nor hear public reminders to “take all my personal possessions when I exit the [insert ANYTHING ANYWHERE]”…

(On second thoughts thank goodness, I suppose, because when I get on a train I think all my personal possessions have to be left as an offering to the Train Monster, who without my donated property will otherwise eat my eyes. And I think it each and every time afresh, no matter what. As for aeroplanes, I ensure that all my valuable items are firmly stowed in the seat-back pockets before getting off, because it’s a polite tip to the pilot… Pardon? Really? Oh! Apparently you don’t have to do this! I’m supposed to take my valuable items with me when I get off the plane! How silly I’d feel if they didn’t remind me of this EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS EVERYWHERE I GO.

You know what – if I leave my own stuff somewhere in public, that’s my own stupid fault. And don’t give me any crap about bombs – remember the news story about the people who found the suspicious bag on the train, and it turned out to be a bomb? NO! BECAUSE IT NEVER, EVER HAPPENS. Here’s how you know when they’re bombs: THEY EXPLODE.

You know what Thames Trains, how about instead of having the digital displays you’ve wasted trillions of pounds on installing to replace those presumably exhausting and money-consuming tannoy announcements, how about you maybe stop having it remind me to “please take all your personal possessions with you when leaving the train” (As opposed to what? My IMPERSONAL possessions? Items I own but for which I don’t feel any particular affiliation should be routinely left behind? Or are you warning me off taking everyone else’s personal possessions in the confusion of this horrifically complicated getting-off-something procedure through which I must be so meticulously babysat? Maybe you could make the infernally slowly scrolling sentence a bit more detailed, because the realms of ambiguity have left me all muddled. “Please do your best to remember to take with you all items that you brought with you when boarding the train and indeed any further items that you might have purchased during your journey when leaving the train which you should only do at the station to which you intended to travel please.”) the entire time, and maybe have it state the name of the next stop more often than, oh I don’t know, THE INTERVAL BETWEEN STOPS.

Er, I got distracted).

To have access to foodstuffs that are not sealed in triplicate and then encased in concrete. I somehow made it through the 80s when the plastic lid of the margarine and the margarine itself were not divided by the impermeable fortress of a piece of paper, and found that, despite the complete lack of flimsily sealing loose bits of plastic, at no point was I killed by a jar of jam.

To have access to the pavement/sidewalk equivalent of a ‘diamond lane’. Not, as you might immediately suspect, for people giving piggybacks, but simply for those who have passed a test to demonstrate that they are capable of the intricate task of walking in a straight line, and will therefore actually go somewhere at some point.

To have dinnerladies (or “Midday Supervisors” as I was recently told they’re now known) employed by restaurants and pubs, with the responsibility for stepping out when the room volume has become ludicrously loud – simply because everyone’s trying to be heard over the sound of everyone else trying to be heard – and sharply clap their hands and ask that “the noise level come down now please,” resetting things to a tolerable place for another fifteen minutes.

With Labour’s significant losses last night, a big shift toward the Conservatives, and the horrific gains in Barking (another win for Predeterminative Nomenclature) and elsewhere for the extreme-right racist BNP, hopefully the last of the sit-back-and-not-worriers will begin to recognise the distinct shift to the right occuring here.

Stephen Colbert’s rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic/Hindenberg joke is suddenly appropriate all over again, as Blair attempts to demonstrate authority by, er, moving all his best MPs into menial roles, and appointing shovel-faced morons like Beckett as Foreign Secretary. Because obviously Jack Straw was doing such a terrible job… oh no, wait. Blair appears to be upping the ante by setting fire to the deckchairs on the Titanic.

So here’s a sobering thought:

“One opinion poll taken before this week’s local elections suggest nearly one in four UK electors have seriously considered backing the BNP.”

Four new copyright infringing Copyright Watches are now up.

If you were paying close attention, you may have noticed that this past weekend there was the annual White House Correspondents (sic) Dinner. Not something that’s usually reported outside of the US, but was made more international by the sketch George W. Bush perfomed alongside an impersonator. The sketch, oddly, was very funny, with Bush lampooning his own inability to speak English, his dislike of speaking in public, and his extremely low approval ratings. He performs well, and is even endearing in his efforts not to corpse while his spitting image delivers the funniest lines. That’s right up until about three seconds after it ends when you realise, “Hang on – if he’s aware he can’t speak, doesn’t want to speak, and is believed to be doing a bad job by over 2/3 of the US, a) how come he’s not addressing it, and b) he thinks that’s funny? The shock factor of Bush himself performing well-written anti-Bush jokes is enough to engage, but upon further thought becomes deeply terrifying. It was enough to get reported in the UK and elsewhere.

However, what wasn’t reported in the UK and elsewhere, disturbingly including the USA, was the main speaker for the evening, Stephen Colbert. Currently riding high with the success of his excellent Daily Show spin-off, The Colbert Report (pronounced “Colberr Reporr”), the honour of giving the main speech at the dinner, which is intended to poke fun at the president, was his. From the reaction it seems no one was quite expecting what Colbert had to say.

In character, he addressed the audience from the perspective of his programme, ironically adopting a Fox News-like stance in order to make a mockery of it. Throughout, Bush was sat two chairs to his right.

“Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Bush, having done his own 32% approval joke (the doppelganger saying, “Why couldn’t I have dinner with the 32% of people who like me?”), smiled. Colbert went on, directly addressing him,

“So, Mr. President, please… pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it’s two-thirds empty. There’s still some liquid in that glass is my point. But I wouldn’t drink it. The last third is usually backwash.”

The first hissed response from the 3000-strong crowd of journalists was inspired by,

“I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit. In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible.”

The second from,

“I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound — with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.”

The word “rubble” seemed to do it.

What made the speech most interesting, however, was his turning on the press themselves. As Colbert’s programme exists to satirise the abysmal state of American news programming, it was only appropriate.

“But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction.”

Obviously in print these jokes are not exactly world-destroying, but in context they were remarkable. I cannot stress enough, George W. Bush was two chairs to his right, and looking increasingly furious throughout. Those of the audience whom he hadn’t attacked were wavering in fear of the peculiarly uncomfortable air in the room, and the it all finished with a superb film of Colbert’s attempt to audition for the position of Whitehouse Press Secretary, which became a smart statement on the Bush administration’s inability to answer simple questions.

The quotes here are courtesy of the excellent transcript on Daily Kos.

The second half of Colbert’s speech can be seen, in terrible quality, on Crooks and Liars.

The whole event is obviously floating around on bittorrent, and was broadcast by C-Span.

EDIT: Thank Lewis. You can also watch it here.

Not one network showed clips of the speech, nor reported it. (I believe the Washington Post has finally gotten around to mentioning it, but then you’d expect them to). Shocking.

Colbert is a hero.

Other favourite lines include:

“Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I’d like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It’s a Mallomar, I guess is what I’m describing, a seasonal cookie.”

“Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, “Oh, they’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring! If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

“Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god! Oh, what have I said? I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife, Joe Wilson’s wife.” [Oh my God, that joke’s so clever]

Nick and I decided to write a film script.

Yeah, every blog in the world is onto this, but I’m still joining in as I had to go out when the news was announced, and I want a go.

Nintendo, in case you’ve not looked at the internet, have announced that the Revolution is to be called the Nintendo Wii.

Pronounced: “Wee”.

So, after an hour sat in the fading evening glow of a clement Bath pub garden/carpark, and one hundred wee-jokes later, I want to compile the Ultimate List of Wee/Wii Jokes.

I definitely am going to queue up for a Wii. I might wait until the Wii prices are slashed. I really want a Wii right now, but I’m going to have to wait. Apparently to make your Wii work, you’re going to have to shake your wand…

Please, fill the comments with your toilet humour.