For those of you who dont know about all the William Hill/Playtech hoohaa, here is a direct cut and paste (hey, I dont get paid for writing this rubbish you know!);
“William Hill has sacked seven senior managers and several junior staff at its online betting joint-venture after discovering an alleged plan to set up a rival business.
Chief executive Ralph Topping became suspicious when the Tel Aviv office denied the bookie access to its computer systems
The bookmaker’s chief executive Ralph Topping is close to settling a dispute at William Hill Online (WHO), the venture 79pc-owned by the bookie and 21pc by Playtech.
Mr Topping has spent the past four days in Tel Aviv after most of the 180 staff walked out in the wake of the resignation of chief marketing officer Eyal Sanoff – an associate of Playtech’s 40pc shareholder Teddy Sagi. Copycat walkouts followed at WHO’s Bulgaria office and a Playtech business in Manila, where WHO is a major customer. All three businesses were once owned by Mr Sagi.
Mr Topping became suspicious when the Tel Aviv office refused to comply with an internal audit instigated by head office and denied the bookie access to its computer systems. After hiring ex-Israeli intelligence officers to go through the systems, the bookie claims to have found plans for a rival business and that a rabbi, fish feeder and hairdresser were on the books.
Mr Topping is also known to be livid over an alleged string of payments from the Tel Aviv business for table-tennis coaching for managers.
Plans for a rival business are alleged to have included proposals to set up offices in Belarus and Bulgaria.
Mr Topping met Playtech chief executive Mor Weizer over the weekend amid doubts over the working relationship between the two companies. The bookie has a call option to buy out Playtech’s stake in October 2013.
William Hill has installed Henry Birch, WHO’s chief executive, and Jim Mullen, its chief operating officer, in Tel Aviv for the next few months with a brief to change the culture of the business there. Mr Sanoff is alleged to have once told Mr Mullen that he only worked at WHO to “protect Teddy Sagi’s interests”.
Mr Topping, who returns for a board meeting today, would only say: “I’m absolutely furious but cannot comment further.”
It is believed William Hill spent about £2m on severance pay for the dismissed staff.”
Now, not withstanding the £2 MILLION payoff to 7 staff members, nor the full time fishfeeder on the books, TheBoyMitchell has been lucky enough to have been to the Tel Aviv offices (and was very well looked after it has to be said), and saw for himself the absolute love that the boys and girls there have for table tennis. And if you thought that the Adam Sandler film “You Dont Mess With the Zohan” was a work of fiction, I can tell you that the guys over there. make it look like a documentary.
So, judging from how the Playtech/William Hill deal seems to be going at the moment we just know that this is going to be the biggest selling toy over there this Chanukah.
Well, I havent posted for ages, so sorry to both of you that read this, and today marks a new dawn in the life if TheBoyMitchell.com – its a serious post!
I thought long and hard about whether I should write what you are about to read, but I think that its serious enough to be brought into the wider domain, so that others know about it.
Here’s the story…
8 weeks ago I bought a new phone on a shiny upgrade from the 3 store in London town. It was a Nokia N8 (which I love(d)), and the nice lady asked me if I wanted to continue the insurance. I said “OK”, and she carried on the insurance.
5 weeks ago, I lost my shiny new phone. A sad sad day in the Mitchell household but a veritable walk in the park compared to what happened next. I phoned the 3 call centre out in India, and they cancelled the SIM straight away and gave me a number to call to claim on the insurance. All well and good. Except that it turns out that 3 dont do their insurance themselves – they outsource it to a company called Lifestyle Services Group, or LSG. Anyway, I complete the forms and filled in all in and after a load of to-ing and fro-ing (mainly because LSG couldnt process the form properly), the claim was approved.
What happened next was in my mind, quite extraordinary. LSG told me that my Nokia N8 wasnt in stock so could I wait 3 working days to see if one came in. I said “sure”. 4 days passed and I heard nothing, so I called them up, only to be told that “we dont have a Nokia N8 and we have nothing that is comparable so we are going to send you a cash sum of £248.”
I was online at the same time as being on the phone so I looked up how much a non Sim Nokia N8 is – its anywhere from £330 – £350. So I pointed out to the lady at LSG that not only was this not enough to replace my phone, but that they had also taken a £25 excess from my account. As far as I was concerned the whole POINT of having insurance is to replace your phone with the same model if something happens – apprently, this is not so.
The lady at LSG pointed out that the amount they would send was the value of a “second hand Nokia N8 and the price was worked out by using Amazon Marketplace”. Well, this was news to me.
After a lot of conversation which she politely deflected at all opportunities I was told to “take the £248 or we will not be able to process the claim” – meaning, take the money or fuck off.
Now, what gets me is the following;
1. If they had the phone in stock they would have sent it to me. As they didnt they would send me about 60% of the value of the phone, calculated by that most technical of means – amazon.com (I mean, why not use three.com for fucks sake as they are the company that I was dealing with for the value?) – so if I wanted to replace my Nokia N8 I would have to pay an ADDITIONAL £100 on top of the insurance premiums I aready paid, plus my excess
2. If they are the outsourced arm of 3 mobile, why do they need to carry their own stock of phones? Surely it would make more sense to process the claim and then contact 3 to get them to send me a new phone.
3. Why am I having to buy a non SIM version of the phone – surely as I am on a contract with them, they make their money from the contract. Buying a non SIM, or PAYG version of the phone is ALWAYS going to be more expensive because it is not attached to a contract and so the vendor has to make the money on the markup of the product sale.
4. Why should it be up to me to chase this shambolic company up, and then be told a dogmatic solution to the problem, be made to feel it is my fault, and then have to hawk myself about at considerable time and expense to get a new phone – isnt the point of insurance that THEY sort the issues out?
5. Why was I never told by 3 at the time I took out the insurance that this was an outsourced company?
In my mind, the behaviour of Lifestyle Services Group amounts to – at the very best – insurance mis-selling, as I am not getting what I was told I was getting by 3 (and to be fair to them, everyone I have spoken to at 3 since this problem started didnt know that their insurance was outsourced) and at worst it is fraud (selling insurance for something that they willingly apparently point out in their terms and conditions that you WONT get a new replacement phone if you make a claim and they dont have it in stock).
So I am now in a position where I am locked into a 2 year contract with 3 mobile that has 20 months to run, and have no phone to use *and* if I want to replace my phone, I actually have to pay out more money myself.
Through this entire process (and I have spoken to 5 separate people at LSG, all who were very nice and helpful – its not the staffs fault is it – its the company itself, and I bet that the staff dont know how shabbily their customers are treated), I have been made to feel unwanted, unnecessary and under valued. For the sake of £100 – the difference between what they made me accept as a settlement and the cost of me buying a new phone – LSG were willing to let me walk away from them annoyed, unhappy with the service yet stuck with them. And sans phone.
Well, LSG and 3 mobile, thats what made me write this. I’m going to email it to you now so you can have a read, and then you can add that to the 2 facebook profiles I have, plus the other online UK forums that I have written about this problem on. I’m also going to put this on Twitter and encourage retweets, until someone, somewhere decides that its really not worth having this kind of publicity about what I condsider to be a substandard service that has cost me money spread out to thousands of people online and either change the policy and make it clear at the time that you dont pay for a replacement phone if you dont have one in stock (and lets be fair – all your have to do is not stock *any* phones and then all your claims are settled at 60% of the face value), or I get a shiny NEW Nokia N8, or someone from whichever regulatory body reads this and does something about it.
And I really hope that someone at LSG takes this seriously and replies. I’ll be happy to put any replies up here as an update and let everyone know the outcome. After all, I am nothing if not fair. Unlike you.
So, I happened across this bloke the other day. He surfs dating sites and then draws pictures of the people on it….I think he picks out their best features pretty well….
Anyone who has ever listened to me banging on about how BGT and the X Factor is fixed has often rolled their eyes at me, especially Lady Mitchell, who’s Saturday evenings entertainment usually ends up with her slouched on a sofa, bottle of wine in hand watching me shout at the TV in an apoplectic fashion.
I *knew* it was fixed, but she couldnt see it. She couldnt see that the best band went on last so they were freshest in the telephone voters mind. She couldnt see that if Simon said that the person had “nailed it” then it was a signal to vote for them, and if he said “the song choice was all wrong” that it was a signal that you shouldnt vote. That the ones they wanted through had great backing singers and dancers. Etc Etc Etc. Lady Mitchell didnt get it, and obviously neither did tens of Millions of others – sitting their banging out text after text after text to vote for their favourites and simply lining Herr Cowells high waisted pockets.
Anyway, I got hold of this. Its an article about BGT from someone who works there. This person has whistle blown the whole fakery of programs like this. It makes for interesting reading. I’ve quoted it verbatim, so these arent my words, but of someone that words for SYCO (Simon Cowells company).
There’ll be some awkward silences in that office today I bet…
“BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT and the RONAN PARKE CONNECTION
For reasons which will become obvious, I can’t reveal my full identity. But let me just say that, I am an executive with Sony Music UK with many years experience in music mangement. My work involves close liasion with Simon Cowell’s SYCO company (specifically SYCO Music and SYCO TV) and, as a result, I have seen what goes on from the inside and this has left me increasingly uncomfortable about the integrity of Britain’s Got Talent and particularly the workings of SYCO.
It’s long been known that there is a quite a degree of “fixing” in BGT. ( Daily Mail http://bit.ly/fxkWne ) But press reports on “fixing” are only the tip pf the iceberg when it comes to SYCO’s manipulation of, not only the show and the contestants, but also the viewing public and hopefully, in this email, I can shine some light on the smoke and mirrors trickery of SYCO.
Take BGT 2011 for example. Scouts working for SYCO first saw Ronan Parke (the 12 year old singer) some two years ago when he was just 10 and was singing at a birthday party for former Norwich City goal-keeper, Bryan Gunn. Following that, Ronan was privately auditioned by SYCO scouts on two more occasions and, as is usual practice on BGT, he was “invited” to audition for the show as a “preferred” contestant. At the same time, Ronan and his parents were “required” to enter into a contract with SYCO. Like all SYCO contracts, it is heavily weighted in favour of the label and are notoriously bad, even in the cut-throat world of the music industry. Simon effectively signed Ronan for life and he’s got little or no chance of ever getting out of it…unless Simon decides to terminate. Recording contracts are legally extremely complex and usually require input and advice from very expensive, specialist contract lawyers. SYCO knows that such legal advice goes well beyond the means of most contestants. As one senior SYCO executive said to me recently. “These people are mugs. They’ll sign away their own mother just to get on tv. It’s a fucking turkey-shoot and then we own their arses!”
As is common for “invited” contestants that SYCO likes and have already signed, Ronan and his parents were provided with a car to drive them to the audition in London. These “invited” contestants don’t have to queue up with everyone else, they don’t go through the preliminary auditions with producers, but perform straight to Simon and the judging panel at a pre- arranged time-slot. And so it was for Ronan back in 2009 when he was just 10.
It was at this initial audition that I first met Ronan and he looked very different back then. He was a skinny, 10 year old lad who, even at that time, was a bit effeminate. His voice needed a bit of working on, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, nerves got the better of Ronan and he was unable to perform. Simon however, had already seen the audition tapes from the scouts and took Ronan into an unused dressing room and got him to sing in there with his mum for support. Clearly Ronan was not going to be part of BGT in 2009 and nothing from this was ever televised.
Ordinarily, you would think that would be the end of things, but with Ronan already signed to SYCO, far from it. This was just the start of a two year grooming and manipulation process to prepare Ronan for stardom.
It’s no big secret that Simon has been looking for an artist who could crack the very lucrative pre-teen market for some time, particularly in the US. If you like, he wanted his own rival to Bieber and, taking a leaf out of how professional football academies develop youngersters to feed their main team, Simon wanted his own singing academy and Ronan was just one of a number of identified youngsters, with whom SYCO intensively works with.
A development package, which included professional singing, dancing and stage-craft tuition was arranged for Ronan and the SYCO machine kicked into gear with the view of Ronan entering BGT 2010. Lots of work had been done with Ronan and his voice was much improved, unfortunately nerves were still a major issue for him and it was decided by SYCO not to enter him into the 2010 series.
At a following senior exec meeting at SYCO it was suggested that Ronan be dropped, but with Simon confident that he could be the kid he had been looking for, it was agreed that Ronan would receive “intensive support and input” to ready him for the 2011 series. Although Ronan’s voice was now stunning, there were other major problems to be dealt with in order to sell him to the public. With respect to Ronan, he was nothing more than a cooky-looking, skinny runt of a kid and this was identified as a major handicap to sales.
It was agreed at a high-level, secret SYCO meeting, that if they were to do anything with Ronan, he needed totally restyling from the toes up. And so with time running out to develop Ronan into the star Simon wanted, SYCO went into overdrive. Ronan was even given speech and elocution training to rid him of his rural Norfolk accent, again in preparation for the potential US market. As for his effeminate and girlishness, this posed a bigger problem and resulted in many highly confidential meetings. At one of these meetings, the unthinkable was raised as a way forward….
Until now Ronan had been encouraged to “boy-up” and it was planned to present Ronan as an everyday skater-boy. But with his girliness still showing through, the image just wasn’t believable. So a decision was taken to encourage and allow Ronan to “release” and enhance his campness . Disgustingly, SYCO planned to sexualise him. They were well aware of course, that if they sexualised a young girl to look sexually older than she is, all hell would let loose. But with Ronan, as one executive put it, “no one has ever seen a ‘gay’ kid before, it’ll be a novelty.” As for the pre-teen market, it was accepted they wouldn’t care if Ronan appeared gay or not…most probably don’t know what gay is anyway. And so, with a total gay- sexualisation of Ronan secretly planned, SYCO got to work. I should stress, Ronan’s parents were not aware of any of this and were never consulted about Ronan’s development or management. When I first met Ronan he was a bit effeminate in his ways, but nothing like the camp, girlie-giggling kid you see now on BGT and this is a direct result of SYCO’s styling. Even his clothing worn at the audition and live semi-final were chosen for him by SYCO to match his new image.
SYCO took over everything to do with Ronan. His hairstyle, his clothes, his poise, giving tv interviews, you name it, Ronan was styled within an inch of his life and all on the promise of stardom, just as long as he worked hard and listened to his mentors. As for Ronan’s parents they were constantly reassured that Simon was personally looking after Ronan and “it’s all good”.
And so to BGT 2011. With Ronan ready to be unveiled, SYCO bosses, under instructions from Simon did something not done in previous series of BGT; the winner of BGT 2011 was decided long before the first auditions took place and that winner HAD to be Ronan Parke. With Ronan now 12, he looked and sounded just as SYCO had planned, but time was running out. Soon Ronan would be going into puberty and his voice would eventually break, so BGT 2011 had to be the vehicle to launch Ronan’s career; another year and as a singer he would probably be beyond any meaningful career and the opportunity will have been missed. With all this investment in Ronan, the production managers at SYCO TV are ready to deliver Ronan as ordered. Again, I need to stress, Ronan and his parents know nothing of this and have no idea Ronan will win BGT this weekend.
So far in the history of BGT and X-Factor, for that matter, no one has ever won who has not been an “invited or preferred” contestant, and it does sadden me that, all those thousands of people, lining up outside, often in the rain and cold, are basically wasting their time. The producers of BGT are not looking for the talented people, they aready have those. The reality is that the producers are hunting out oddities, freaks and, I’m ashamed to say, mentally ill people, to act as amusing fillers in the audition shows. They are nothing more than unpaid extras and they don’t even qualify for traveling expenses! It’s quite disgusting and shameful really, how the production team on BGT operate. People come from all over the country, often at great personal expense, because they think BGT is a talent competition and they stand a chance of realising their dreams. I can tell you from the inside that BGT is no more a “competition”, than I am an astronaut. Nothing is left to chance on BGT, everything is micro-managed, choreographed, manipulated and planned down to the last detail including, the telephone voting.
The ability to manipulate viewers opinion is vital if you are to control telephone voting and indeed get the required result. SYCO see this as essential to the success of the show and are very open about fact; planning and delivering live shows of quality is impossible if it was purely left to the public vote. As Simon said in a meeting once. “The public NEED to be told who to vote for.” Everything on BGT is geared towards telling you who you should for, particularly on the production side. It’s an art really, which Simon has honed to perfection and SYCO are now world leaders at.
The micro-management of Ronan’s audition performance was incredible. I was really quite shocked at his new image. From a starting point of wanting Ronan to look cute for the pre-teen market, SYCO had totally gayed him up in the process. Ronan’s not a 16 year old expressing his sexualty for the first time, he’s a 12 year old boy. It was horrible and I was very uncomfortable as to where this was going to end. Ronan, still suffering from nerves, performed his song and received a standing ovation from all three judges…why? Because it was in the script to give Ronan a standing ovation. As for Louis comment. “Ronan Parke. Remember that name. This kid’s gonna be a star!!” – that was actually fed to him from the production gallery and I know the guy who wrote the line. And when it comes to Ronan’s tears…well, check it out on YouTube or something. You see Ronan crying and wiping away tears. Only you don’t see any actual tears, not even on close-up and on an HD tv. Yep you guessed it, even that was choreographed, right down to the lip-biting!
It was also interesting to see that even before the final credits rolled on Ronan’s audition show, SYCO TV had uploaded the offical video of Ronan onto YouTube. Today, that particular video has been viewed over 2.5 million times and growing. SYCO don’t do that for other contestants, so why Ronan? The gaying-up Ronan plan slightly backfired on SYCO when lots of negative comments were being posted on YouTube and Twitter about Ronan’s image and the supposed sexuality that represents. Things got so bad on YouTube that the posting of comments had to be suspended. But SYCO learned from this and dressed Ronan more appropriately for his semi-final show; preferring a much more Bieber inspired look to the ‘gay- kid’ image presented in the audition.
In another unusal move for BGT contestants, SYCO created Ronan’s Official Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account. Both these services are managed from within SYCO and they post messages and pictures, not Ronan. This is because they don’t want Ronan posting anything controversial and is standard practice for currrent artists signed to SYCO.
And so this weekend will see Ronan crowned as winner of BGT 2011. Oh and let’s not forget the £100k prize money. It’s unlikely Ronan will see much or any of that. He’s been signed to SYCO for two years now and under the terms of his contract, while SYCO stump-up for costs in advance, this is paid back from future earnings. So he will need to pay for all those lessons, coaches, cars, clothes, styling and management… I wouldn’t be surprised even after winning BGT, if he is not still in debt to SYCO.
As a recording artist Ronan has a relatively short shelf-life. Simon knows he is going to have to hit the ground running to maximise Ronan’s earning potential, particularly if they go ahead with a planned break into the States and the pace is going to be frantic for Ronan. If you think the music industry is bad in the UK, you haven’t seen anything until you experience it Stateside. With an “anything goes” attitude all morals have long since gone out of the window. There will be no allowance for Ronan’s age and he will be expected to perform on late- night shows and dinners etc. And if he get exhausted, there’s always some sleaze-bag on hand ready to put a line of coke under his nose. I’ve seen it a million times.
I know for a fact, that the songs have already been chosen for Ronan’s debut single and album, and that the backing and drum tracks have already been laid down.
Of course, once Ronan’s voice breaks, it’s game-over and he will be commercially redundant for a few years. By the time he gets through that, the world will have moved on and his fan-base will have grown-up a bit. Will he make a comeback? In my experience I’d say probably not.
I’ve met Ronan a few times over the past couple of years. He’s a really nice kid with a generous, warm personality and the most wonderfully cute, girlie-giggle. There’s nothing to not like about Ronan. He’s a really sensitive soul and this comes across as him being a bit effeminate. But in a world of thuggish chavs, Ronan’s a real breath of fresh air really and a real delight to chat to. Do I think Ronan’s gay? No, is the short answer to that. SYCO have got a lot to answer for in their initial styling and image for Ronan. Like many 12 year old boys, Ronan may have issues in coming to terms with his sexuality in a couple of years. But right now, he’s just a great kid…a bit different, I admit…but a great kid just the same.
I hope Ronan is not damaged by this experience, unforunately, history warns otherwise…but whatever, the genie is already out of the bottle and come this weekend, Ronan’s life will change forever. Whether it’s a good or bad experience being a 12 year old star in today’s music industry, only time will tell. But as an industry insider I have serious reservations about what is about to happen to Ronan Parke and I doubt he or his family are ready for what’s coming.
Thanks to my friends on Twitter and Facebook for getting this document out. Without you my voice would be silent.”
On July 2011, the third part of Michael Bays blockbuster retelling of the classic 1980’s childrens programme will be released. Hopefully to massive critical acclaim – although it being Michael Bay, we all know its going to be nothing more an a geeks wet dream. However, will it actually get released at all?
Here’s the problem. Unless you have been living in a cave for 10 years, you’ll know that the US recently found and captured/shot/killed/disappeared a certain Osama Bin Laden/Osama Bin Laden lookielikey (delete as applicable to your conspiracy theory or beliefs).
This has had the effect of opening up the memories of the twin towers attack that happened on Sept 11, 2001.
And in one of the scenes that you can see in this trailer, Shia Leboeuf is stuck in a skyscraper as a Decepticon breaks it in half in what can only be described as a monumental piece of special effects – and probably comes at the climax of the film. However, with OBL and 9/11 back in the spotlight, has Michael Bay accidentally had a “too soon?” moment, ten years after the inital event? Time will only tell.
The good news is though that the trailer looks fabulous, and he appears to have slowed down the action a little bit so that you can actually tell whats going on – a problem that was all too prevalent in Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen. So, have a look at the trailer, and consider for yourself – has Mr Bay dropped a bollock and will there be a whole loads of 9/11 comparisons and uproar in the US, or will the public actually just see it for what it is – a kids film based on a kids TV series.
My thoughts are that it will be the former, but we’ll see….
OK – very short and sweet. Five points from the wedding yesterday
1. QILF – thats a proper term that trended on Twitter yesterday. Although I love the sentiment, I think it should be PILF. Otherwise you sad fucks are cracking one off to an old lady dressed as a budgie.
2. Harry. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOUR SHOULDERS. Did you spend the night before dressed as an American Footballer and forget to take the pads out? Your shoulders are MASSIVE!
3. Pippa. Hubba. Well done you for being shot from behind for the benefit of 2 billion people and 100’s of newspapers. All of whose readers/watchers husbands had to shift in their seats and rearrange their undercarriage. Nice.
4. Willam and Kate. Firstly – congratulations. I am not really a Royalist, but you guys seem really nice and grounded. I probably wouldnt invite you to my house if I was ever on “Come Dine With Me”, but then you probably wouldnt accept. However, if you ever popped in to “The Castle” to watch the Sunday 4pm match then I would deffo buy you both a Guiness. And bearing that where I live is on a river, its only a little sail away (ish).
5. No more needs to be said. I hope you are still doing this in 5 years….
Well, the big day is almost upon us. By lunchtime tomorrow the first commoner to marry into the Royal family will be busy smiling and meeting and greeting. And William will be getting ready to bust the royal nuts when he can get a few minutes alone with Kate. And quite likely, so will Harry.
Anyway, those folks at Paddy Power have drawn up a list of Roral Wedding Day bets – some are boring, some are bizarre, but all of them are real. I quite like the fact that you can get odds of 8/1 on Wills and Kate getting divorced by 2020 – thats 9 years away!
You can also bet on the length of Kates train, The colour of the dress, the length of the sermon (so if Richard Chartres is reading this you would probably bet on that, as your the dude doing the sermon – its a nailed on winner for you mate), the first celebrity to be spotted, how late Kate will be and many more – why not CLICK HERE to go straight to the Paddy Power page and have a look? And dont forget, that if you decided to place a bet, then Paddy Power will give you a £10 bet for free! Which is nice of them.
Truly happy to be here – 3/1
Lasting relationship – 8/1
Paparazzi – 50/1
Its not too late to change your mind – 100/1
Colour of David Beckhams tie
Grey – 11/10
White – 3/1
Black 5/1
Orange 40/1
First to cry
Carole Middleton – 2/1
Kate Middleton – 5/2
Elton John – 8/1
Paul McCartney – 50/1
Prince Philip to be caught sleeping during the ceremony – 8/1 Prince Harry to drop the wedding ring – 12/1
To be honest I havent really been swept up in all the palaver of this wedding, but I dare say it will be on in the Mitchell household with Lady Mitchell dabbing at her good eye with a tissue explaining that she “has a bit of dust or something” in it, and I’ll just be doing what pretty much every other bloke will be doing – watching it out of the corner of my eye in case someone tries to blow them up or something. Zing!
Well that sounds like an apologetic headline, and to be fair it is. You see, I like to think that I know music. I have been listening to music for a long long time, and every now and again a song turns up that I just think is brilliant. And as you know I tend to put these “choons” (as the kids say) onto this blog.
Which appears to be the kiss of death because every song I put on here, no matter how brilliant it is, never gets anywhere – check out my DJ Fresh – Gold Dust page (and that song has just been reissued) or my Miike Snow page (I think they just went back to Scandinavia to write more songs for Kylie or something – and you will understand why I am apologising in advance to Alex Clare.
It cant be easy can it. When I was young I was actually signed as a musician. Four times. FOUR. FUCKING. TIMES. Records companies come and record companies go, but the people who tell you that you are going to be massive remain. They just move companies. With this in mind I feel sorry for Alex. He’s a South London lad with a fantastic voice and a great sound. He’s striving to make it as a musician, and he probably would have done except for one thing – he ended up on these pages; an elephants graveyard of talent.
Give the guy his dues though – this is a great tune, and he has a great voice and an even better beard. And remember – no ginger should ever have a beard. But he carries it off. And no Alex, thats no strawberry blond. Its ginger. Accept it and move on.
Mind you, being featured on The Boy Mitchell isnt the worst thing that could happen….I played this to my wife (yes, you cheeky fuck, I *am* married – writing skills like this dont go without their perks you know….) and she thought it was Matt Cardell from X Factor, and my mate thought it was Daniel Bedingfield.
Man, thats harsher than anything I could ever write…
When I was young I used to play a lot of football. In the park with jumpers for goalposts, in the street, in the playground – I couldnt be stopped.
A few years later and I stopped playing so much; not because I fell out of the game, but because *apparently* I wasnt much good. So I spent a lot more of my time playing football. From the subs bench. Watching hugely ineffective idiots chasing the balls around like flies around a moving dog toffee. Didnt they understand positional sense? Passing? Teamwork? Meh. When I come on, I will show them all and they will love me like their own.
Of course, I rarely, if ever came on and somehow the changing room experience isnt quite the same if you havent actually participated in the game. but still I would turn up every week, helping to put up the nets, helping to take them down, taking the kit to wash and lending my shinpads to the fat pikey who always left his behind every week (to be honest, I realise now that he probably never owned a pair and just relied on muggins here to share).
Anyway, in my dreams I always wanted to score the winning goal in a penalty shootout. But even I, with my vivid imagination never thought about taking a penalty like this….
I loves my music, but it tends to be more of the “you wouldnt know this” kind of thing. Gimme Grandaddy, Nine Inch Nails, I Blame Coco, and a million other bands that are too cool for school – and definitely too cool for your local pub goer to understand. So after hearing the first single “Na Na Na Na” from (lets be honest, they are probably regretting naming themselves that now) My Chenical Romance I was kinda interested in this new Big Dumb Sound.
You too will have heard of MCR. Although it would have been from their last CD, Welcome To The Black Parade – a story of a cancer sufferer reliving his life through memories. Pretty fucking heavy stuff. And a “Concept Album” too, if that made it any easier listening. It didnt.
Anyway, I was wandering around HMV in London last week waiting for the pubs to open and they were selling the new CD for just £5. A fiver. you cant go wrong can you really. So, with the complete understanding that the cunts at the counter would be scoffing as I meekly shuffle forwards with my copy of “Danger Days – The True Lifes of the Fabulous Killjoys” totally aware that I am neither a 14 year old girl nor am I wearing the requisite guyliner of an emoy kid, I went ahead and threw a shiny five pound note at the sneering ‘yeah man, I’m in a band too’ guy behind the counter.
When I got home I left the CD for a couple of days – it wasnt an urgent purchase; this is not my favourite band ever – this is not a MUST LISTEN TO NOW purchase.
Anywah, a couple of days later, I stuck it on the CD player, cranked it up to 11 (well, 5ish – maybe 6 – you dont want to piss off the neighbours do you) and went back to my work with this on in the background.
Its Fucking Brilliant. Fucking Brilliant. FUCKING BRILLIANT. Its the sound of a band loosing its shackles of having a massive Emo hit by writing a big old dumb heartfelt album of songs because they love the songs. Its the most immediate record I have heard since Faith No More released “The Real Thing”. the difference being that with Faith No More I would rewind my tape after the first four songs and listen to them over and over again – not so with Danger Days. Every single song is brilliant. its like the first time you heard Pretty Fly For a White Guy, the first time you heard Madness, the first time you heard All American Rejects – dammit, the first time you heard Weezer. Lemmy would fucking hate it.
Its hard to explain, but this just sounds like fun. Even though they are a “serious band” these arent serious songs. Every song could be part of a film soundtrack, or played at an indie disco.
Again, its hard to explain, but this album is now ingrained on my heart. I fucking love it. You will fucking love it too. If it was a film it would be Dumb and Dumber, Anchorman and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind rolled into one with a smattering of Machete thrown in (the first five words of the first sone on the album are “Drugs, Gimme drugs, Gimme Drugs”). As such, parents are going to hate it – the radio versions sound friendly – as they should – but the CD version has a lot of swearing in it – enough to delight the 14-16 target age group but also enough for the older ones of us to just accept it as it is without getting all Hoo Haa.
Buy this record. You wont regret it. If you like music this is the antithesis of Elbow, Muse, Interpol, (the godawful) White Lies etc. Its fun. FUN. Add it to your record collection and when then sun is out, or you are driving stick this on – you’ll have a great big dumb smile on your face. As God intended.
Thanks you MCR. Thank you for releasing a record that sounds so big, so dumb and so much fucking fun that I have it on pernament repeat in my office. And that doesnt happen much. In fact its never happen.
Album of the Year? Album of the fucking Decade mate. No questions.
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