Cartoon Junkie Heckled
There are few things more tedious than the antics of an addled drunk or drug addict. A minor saving grace is that these embarrassments usually happen more or less in private. They are mostly associated with teenage experimentation and peer-pressure and are soon outgrown.
When they become the central theme of public performances, however, the polite yawn becomes a communal tut or raised eyebrow of disapprobation.
It should be noted here that my total exposure to the Amy Winehouse experience has been listening to part of “Rehab” when stumbling upon a wireless station whose listeners were probably mainly grannies wearing tweed twinsets and pearls.
The song seemed monotonous and vocally indecipherable, childishly purporting to shock and probably too long, but it was heard by accident rather than design. It was only later that the song became paired in my mind with the cardboard cut-out of a tattooist’s window-display on which someone has piled their discarded knitting: an image which I later again discovered was Amy Winehouse.
The chanteuse has, apparently, like all and sundry other nonentities, something in the way of a drink and drug problem, which perhaps makes the song Rehab somewhat autobiographical.
Be all this as it may, she apparently slurred and stumbled her way through most of a concert in Birmingham until the crowd booed and walked out and she staggered off stage mid-song.
She is supposed to have said: “First of all, if you’re booing you’re a mug for buying a ticket. Second, to all those booing, just wait till my husband gets out of incarceration. And I mean that.”
A few points. It was probably not only those booing who were mugs for buying tickets: why deprive the rest of the crowd their mugdom? “Gets out of incarceration” is somewhat quaint, but sounds more illiterate than simply ‘jail’ or ‘prison’.
The problem is the last bit. Is it, to use the old playground conundrum, a threat or a promise? Is she saying that her imprisoned husband (something to do with assault and perverting the course of justice) is going to track down those who booed and beat them up? It will hardly help his case if this is so. Or does she mean her lacklustre performance will improve when she has her true love by her side?
The simple fact, probably, is that once people have witnessed the slow-motion car-crash of a drug-sodden, drink-riddled artiste on a spiral of decline, the experience is just too boring for them to want to repeat it.
So, Amy, no need for you to ask your husband to get out of jail in a hurry. You will probably find nobody will be waiting.
Yay Go Britney!
Sometimes, you just have to go with your heart and not hold back.
Not being completely sure who Britney Spears is, I shall assume she was a Big Brother contestant, but whatever the case may be, I promise to leave her alone. Yes, sir. Mmm. Honestly.
Tony Blair: Right Hand Of God Part I
Tony Blair - Photo European ParliamentRead these exclusive extracts from Tony Blair’s new blockbuster autobiography, not only before anyone else, but before they get written!
As the world waits with bated breath for a publisher to be dumb enough to cough up a fortune for a load of pulp fiction, we bring you a prequel to Tony Blair’s unwritten autobiography “Legacy of a People’s Prime Minister”.
Cripes! Who would have thought that a mere 54 years ago, someone would come into the world who would change everything. Someone of such stature that they could bestride the world like a colossus for ten long years and all that time carry the weight, the burden, of the hand of history on their shoulder?
Listen. That was me. I did all that.
I remember well the moment I was born because my father, my old dad, said something then which has stuck with me ever since. Do you know what it was? He said, as he wiped his eyes on his old workman’s cap and struggled to form the words through his tears, he said: “One day, this child will be the people’s prime minister”.
Of course, at the time, I thought, “What does this old ship’s carpenter know? This man who goes out daily from the shipyards of Newcastle to do battle with God’s elements to put a meagre scrap of fishy on the dishy of his laddy?”
Perhaps it was then that I began to see that not only was I destined to be the most powerful man on earth, but also a fisher of people. A fisher man.
Look. Listen. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Quite frankly, let’s just start at the beginning.
Birth of the Messiah
This may seem dramatic, but for anyone who knows me, they will know it is actually quite modest. They know I am a pretty straight kind of guy.
I was born into poverty and I am not ashamed to admit it. Obviously, we had money. It was not the kind of poverty where lack of funds limited ambition. We chose poverty as a symbolic demonstration of solidarity with the working classes, the salt of the earth.
We knew in our heart of hearts, our mind of minds, that a leader would arise from the masses to save the world. Some of you may already be able to guess who that leader was.
At the time, though, I was just like any other child growing up, although, obviously, with far more talents and abilities than anyone else. It always surprised me and many others that occasionally my evident talents were not fully appreciated by everyone, which is a burden I have had to carry to this very day.
At the age of about eighteen months I had to have a word with my father. I told him that I was not prepared to fulfil my destiny with him bringing me down by stinking of fish and sawdust all the time. I told him he had better shape up and knuckle down to a proper job where he could wear a nice suit. This has been my motto ever since. Clean jobs good, dirty jobs bad. Middle class good, working class bad. Celebrity good, obscurity bad. You get the idea. Morally, you will find it a pretty sound way to live and it has certainly never let me down.
My father took my advice and managed to get qualified as a lawyer and we travelled the world, he saving poor people from oppression and challenging despots to figurative legal duels, while I conveyed the essence of my new philosophy to the masses and turned wine into vinegar.
Next time: The Shapeshifting of the Third Way
Credit: Photo European Parliament
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