What is the deal with...

… killing Christmas?

Matt Sharp — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:00:20 +0000

Seeing as it’s nearly Christmas (it is, Christmas is amazing, don’t fight it), the time has come for the annual ‘complain about the PC brigade’s attempts to kill Christmas’ festival. This year it has been kickstarted by everyone’s favourite gay-hating, African-murdering, paedophile-protecting representative of God on Earth, the Pope. In one of his interminable speeches he said that some made-up people are trying to kill Christmas. ‘Hooray,’ said the Daily Mail, ‘that’s some front page news,’ and lo, on the front page it went. Cue the beginning of the yearly tradition of railing against ‘winterval’ and not being able to talk about Jesus in case it offends a Muslim.

Except it’s all completely made-up bollocks designed to sell newspapers to idiots who love to get indignant, but not about things that matter. Nobody is trying to kill Christmas. The classic example is “HAVE YOU HEARD?! BIRMINGHAM COUNCIL ARE RENAMING CHRISTMAS TO WINTERVAL! BASTARDS!” Winterval is something they had in Birmingham once, over ten years ago. It was a campaign to draw more businesses to the city centre. Nobody remembers it now, which is why unscrupulous newspapers and overpaid moronic columnists can make up and repeat complete lies about it.

Christmas is a multi-million pound industry, whether you believe it has anything to do with some dude getting born in a shed or not. It won’t get shut down, flushing away a colossal amount of money, just because of Muslims, who on the whole don’t give a fuck anyway.

If the Pope is looking for aspects of British culture reminiscent of Nazism, he should turn his gaze away from the laudable efforts of secularists, and look instead to the media-led demonisation of an entire religion and the culture of fear and mistrust that it engenders. The constant railing against the evil ‘PC brigade’ is simply the means for intolerant people to undermine their opponents under the guise of freedom of speech. Nobody is trying to kill Christmas, political correctness has not gone mad, and not all Muslims want to blow you up. But if you believe everything you read in the papers, somebody should blow you up, because you’re a waste of space.

… “real women”?

Matt Sharp — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:00:01 +0000

Why is this a distinction that needs to be made? Where are all the fake, robotic women that we’re supposed to be so worried about? Why have I not noticed any cartoon women stepping out of the television and entering our world? How do I spot a ‘real woman’? Is my girlfriend not a real woman? Or my mother? If she’s not real, then what am I? Is anything real?

… people who pick the girl in a videogame and justify it by saying “I’d rather spend 15 hours staring at a girl’s back than a man’s arse”

Matt Sharp — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:01:11 +0000

YOU PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS!!! IDIOTS!!! WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH YOU?!?!

… Granny’s Garden?

Matt Sharp — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:11:53 +0000

When I was in school we had a BBC Micro, like most schools in Britain at the time. And, like most people with a BBC Micro, we had this game:

Well this looks like a big barrel of school-sponsored fun.

It’s an edutaining adventure game sort of thing. It’s got pretty easy puzzles and a blue bird guides you around. For instance there’s a bit where you need to find the secret word hidden on the front of a house. The word is ‘FIG’ and it’s in big blue letters. If you get it wrong the game says things like “it’s written on the wall”, “it’s in blue letters”, and finally, when it gets fed up with you, “the word is FIG”. After having earned your entry to the house, you’re warned that a witch has set some traps in there. These include a snake, a pan, and a stick. The stick seems pretty innocuous. You can pick it up and carry it around. If you try and use it on anything, the game says something like “UH OH! The stick was actually a magic wand!” and then… and then…

OH MY GODDDDDD. I was six years old. To this day I am still frightened of pictures of laughing witches in profile rendered on a BBC Micro. That’s the only thing I’m scared of.

… ‘hilariously’ misspelling the name of ‘Microsoft’ because you don’t like them?

Matt Sharp — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:18:33 +0000

I’m not defending Microsoft. Who cares about Microsoft? Nobody’s going to hurt their feelings. I’m not saying this on their behalf. But you look like a dick when you write ‘Micro$oft’ or ‘Microshaft’ or ‘Microshit’ or ‘Microitisabadcompany’ or ‘dollarsdollarstheyjustwantmoney’ or WHATEVER. You’re not clever. Nobody reads that and thinks, ‘wow I’d better reevaluate the way I look at “Microcrap” and perhaps install Linux.’ Nobody at Microsoft reads that and thinks, ‘My GOD what monsters we have become, let’s shut this all down right away.’

fartz

… Junior Apprentice?

Matt Sharp — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:26:41 +0000

Oh my God it’s amazing. Let’s combine the two most annoying sorts of people: contestants on the Apprentice; and precocious children. Welcome to TV heaven.

Between this series and the last one, Alan Sugar has got himself a new title, so now Siralan is constantly referred to as Lord Sugar. LORD SUGAR. Brilliant.

They’re all little kids wearing suits and talking exactly like people on the normal Apprentice. This is what TV looks like to my Dad.

One of the boys (team Instinct) has a beard. He looks older than all the others, like he’s lied about his age but then not thought it through and grown his facial hair. But he shears sheep, so the beard is probably compulsory.

The girls are called Revolution. Why are they always one word team names? Mine would be “Lord Brown Sugar’s Dream Boys”. Even once the girls joined it.

Does this programme demonstrate that these teenagers are very precocious, or that the usual contestants are very childish and petty? Because they’re exactly the same.

This post is basically several Twitters’ worth of content. But that’s me; I don’t play by the rules. I make my own rules. And then I break them.

… those annoying e-mails people send to Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode when a bad film is about to come out?

Matt Sharp — Tue, 04 May 2010 18:28:55 +0000

For everybody other than the one other person who has a vague idea what I mean, they go like this:

Well, here we are. Having survived the trials of Bride Wars, the tribulations of Leap Year, and the testing tides of Bounty Hunter, we find ourselves surveying a week in which appears a film set to eclipse all of the aforementioned turkeys. Yes, this week sees the release of a film that stars both Jennifer Aniston and Orlando Bloom, is directed by McG, and has been appearing all over the sides of buses for the better part of the past month. Yes, a low rumbling fills the air as the film entitled The Wedding Game arrives in our great nation’s cinemas. And what could that noise be? Might it be a herd of gazelle? Perhaps it is the sound of a thousand drumrolls? Or is it in fact the first sign that Mount Kermode is about to blow? Yes, the stars have aligned in a configuration that can mean only one thing: A truly epic rant is imminent. Some may run to the hills at this news, but I am sitting back in a comfortable chair with a tall cold glass of cider, and preparing myself for perhaps the biggest eruption of criticism since records began. One can only hope the subsequent dust does not disrupt flights this time!!

Yours, some massive cockend.

… throwing eggs at people?

Matt Sharp — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:23:34 +0000

Why eggs? What is it about eggs that makes them so ideal for hurling at people you don’t like?

Well, genius, it’s because they are aerodynamic, they don’t break until they hit their target, and they are full of weird gunk. I mean, honestly, it’s pretty obvious when you think about it. It’s like nature has designed a thing that is perfect for throwing at a politician. It’s like birds have evolved specifically to poo out cool things for us to lob at people. I mean, they haven’t, but that’s what it’s like. When you think about it. Yeah?

… the tagline to the remake of ‘Clash of the Titans’?

Matt Sharp — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 20:30:26 +0000

The tagline to the remake of Clash of the Titans is “Titans… will… clash”. In the trailer. Here are some more taglines, why not see if you can work out what films they are for? That might be fun.

The streets… are mean
He will be alone… at home
It’s hard… to die
This bull… will rage
Women… smell
This gun… is naked
The knight… will be dark
A man… spider
Bang bang… kiss kiss
He wasn’t there… he is a man
He will garden… constantly
These shoes… belong to a dead man
This baby… is Rosemary’s
Private Ryan… will be saved
The Ugly… The Good… The Bad

Feel free to make your own up too. Or whatever I don’t care. Go away leave me alone.

26th April 2010: Kermode and Mayo and their dirty listeners have stolen this hugely original and unique joke. What is the deal with that?

… the inevitable and interminable pause between the words ‘and the winner is’ and the name of the winner on every TV talent contest?

Matt Sharp — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:01:29 +0000

Where did this stupid thing come from? Who is held in suspense by this? How many hours of television comprising only of people nervously staring into the middle distance have been broadcast this century?

Maybe it was created accidentally on the set of Fame Academy as Patrick Kielty suffered a minor stroke halfway through a sentence. Or perhaps one week on Pop Idol both Ant and Dec momentarily forgot what Darius was called. Or Davina McCall suffered a sudden crisis of confidence as her voice was piped into the Big Brother house, suddenly realising that she was implicit in the decline of the once glorious medium of television, before remembering the bags of dirty money piled high in her dressing room, collecting herself, and speaking the immortal words “Bubble! I’m coming to get you!”

Or maybe, maybe, it’s just a very cheap way to fill up the ludicrously overlong slots given to dancing competitions in primetime. Who can tell.