I wonder if you are subjected to exposure issuing from the idiot-box early on Saturday nights? I am talking about the X-factor on the telly. It's compulsive compelling viewing and must have a tremendous audience judging by the rich array of adverts that occur every 5 minutes and last an eternity. Plenty of advertisers leaping on the band-wagon. It occurred to me that the programme panders to our sadistic delight in humiliating the poor untalented nonentities who think they are possessed with the lungs of a nightingale.
Certain contestants have improved their chances by recounting tales of hardship, disease and bad luck through which they have battled courageously to fling themselves on the mercy of 4 overpaid judges sitting in the middle of a baying crowd of music lovers. Yes we love a trier but even more so we love a loser who sings worse than us. Like the viewers in an art gallery standing bewildered before a Jackson Pollock, they know that little Tommy paints better than him, and he's only 6 yrs old and as for the black square by Rothko, how can you call it art? Unlike the mausoleum atmosphere of an art gallery, the X- factor is conducted in utter chaos with no shortage of loud opinion issuing from the orifices of the cultured multitude.
But what is not revealed to the viewers, but seems pretty obvious when you consider the masses of applicants, is that a team of pre-judges sift through the applicants before they get selected to go onto the stage in front of the cameras. Such pre-judges are tasked with looking out for contestants who think they are marvelous but in fact are possessed of the musical talent of a sewer drain in Calcutta. Hence when they start performing it feeds our sadism and humiliates the poor bugger who can't keep time, has no rhythm, forgets the words and croaks like a wounded bull frog.
We love it but is it good television or simply a Roman amphitheater with Cowell sitting there like a replete Nero with his thumb down, passing the death sentence of the very contestant who is enriching his coffers?
So I now know how to get that precious 3 minutes of glory. I will be unbelievably self confident, outrageously dressed and utterly failing the first interview as so to be sure of getting exposure. Then, when it is my turn, I will sing like an angel, make my relatives cry with schmaltz induced joy, wow the audience into stunned silence followed by explosive applause. Definitely off to boot camp and a decent meal at last.
Who cares about selling furniture - Simon's a good egg.
Add comment (1)
Why has everybody suddenly become an expert in this noble game? People who never played or attended a match are suddenly praising Jonathan Trott for his dogged occupation of the crease or criticising Paul Collingwood for throwing away his vital wicket and dropping searing catches coming at him at 90 miles an hour! How all of a sudden the mighty Austrailian Cricket Team has been laid low after the hiding they gave England two years ago on their own soil is still a mystery. Flintoff, that lovely jovial giant from Preston who was expected, in this ultimate test
match, to perform miracles with the ball, did hardly anything until he ran out Ponting with amazing agility and this stroke of genius sounded the death knell on Australia's dogged and resilient defence of that precious vase of ashes.
So much happier did the nation feel after the horrors of Headingley where we got whopped for an innings and many runs. How did it turn round in the final test so dramatically especially when so few of our players seemed absent from the party?
Well cricket mirrors life. Sometimes you lose when you shouldn't have done and sometimes you win when you don't deserve it. Sometimes the umpire makes an amazing gaffe and compounds it with another by leaning the other way to compensate for the original sin. I find business is also unpredictable. When we are supposed to be ploughing through a trough of slough, customers keep ordering more furniture. Are people re-furbing their homes because they cannot sell them and have decided to improve the environment for their own benefit or are they investing into a sensational makeover expressly because they want to sell their property for a higher price? One reads that the housing market has improved but I really think it is because the estate agents are placing a lower figure on people's expectations. After all, the street-wise agent
knows they might as well get a small slice of something rather than a big slice of nothing. Moreover, the snatched back properties are filtering on to the market and people with inside knowledge are buying them, not from the worthy occupiers but from the bank or institution who has lent rather too much on them. Very little is heard these days of the dreaded HIPs or Home Information Pack. Has it been swept under the carpet as too much of a bother for the average seller or are buyers skipping the requirement in order to do the deal?
Whatever the figures are, we seem to be incredibly busy and are having trouble keeping up with production. A far cry from the state of play earlier in the year and I put it all down to the England Teams resistance at Cardiff.
Long live the Burnley lad, Anderson and his team mate Monty! (Pic Right)
Add comment (0)