Where Do You Think You Are Sitting, Mr Hitler?

Despite the fact that it's short of a very distinctive moustache, I still think there's something unpleasant about the 'occupied' icon on this automated seat-selection device at the cinema.


I don't care for the way he's gradually taking control of all the seats.

Shameless reposting

The clip below was on the Holy Moly mailout this week. It is behind-the-scenes footage of The Stars recording the charity single We Are The World, all the way from 1985. These are proper, legendary, stadium-filling big guns and seeing them off-guard and making awkward jokes with each other, like strangers on the first day of a residential work conference, is weirdly moving – like those old clips of The Beatles I was droning on about a few months ago.

I don't remember too much about We Are The World. I was 11 years old and completely obsessed with Do They Know It's Christmas?, the UK precursor. That record featured all the bands that made me feverish with pre-teen longing, and it was better for shrieking along to at school discos in an effort to obliterate the sight of your so-called best friend slow-dancing to Phyllis Nelson's Move Closer with the boy you were seriously, this-is-the-real-thing-even-though-I-am-still-at-primary-school in love with. My charitable take on USA For Africa was probably something along the lines of 'GOD! They are TOTALLY copying Band Aid!' which suggests a consummate failure to grasp the purpose of the exercise. Band Aid simply blew my mind ('Duran Duran? And Wham!? And Spandau Ballet? In the same room? On the same record? *11-year-old head spins round and explodes*). I bought a special souvenir mini-magazine which, unsurprisingly, I still have 25 years later, and infuriatingly can't find right now.

This clip has many, many highlights, including:

1) Lionel Richie coming on like some flamboyantly smart-casual high-school drama teacher and teaching some of the biggest stars on the planet how to lean into the microphone.

2) Stevie Wonder getting the giggles just after Quincy Jones tells everyone off for being noisy during a take, while Paul Simon stands there silently, as anxious and tiny as Piglet.

3) Cyndi Lauper's clattering jewellery ruining the take.

4) As Holy Moly brilliantly noted, Lionel helpfully pointing out notes on the sheet music to Stevie Wonder.

5) The youthful, bed-headed, leather-jacketed Bruce Springsteen looking like some bad-boy-with-a-heart boyfriend from an episode of Blossom. His voice is such an explosive contrast to the silky vocal skills of everyone who's gone before that I find it impossible not to shout 'GO ON, BRUCE' right before his part comes in.

6) Michael Jackson at a point where, maybe, just maybe, he could still have found his way back.

Also, everyone involved can really sing.

You can see the full, finished video here, which is noteable for the presence of Bob Dylan. He's barely there on the behind-the-scenes footage, and I didn't remember him being on board at all, but that's probably because, at 11, I would have taken one look at him and said, 'Bore off, Grandad. You can't even sing. And your hair's stupid,' which, coming from a Duran Duran fan, would have been pretty rich.

Huey Lewis's fist of pure emotion, meanwhile, is also laudable. I have a lot of love for Huey Lewis. This is because my other twin obsession from 1985 was Back To The Future. Here is a picture of Huey's cameo in the film, taken from my Back To The Future souvenir magazine, which I found when I was looking for the missing Band Aid memorabilia.

Huey seems like the kind of man who would show you the inside of a wild bar, the outskirts of town, and every part of a good time (maybe this is a characteristic that comes as a package with the name Huey. The Fun Lovin' Criminals' Huey is exactly like this, but with added 'Seriously, I am ludicrously sexy' built in). Recently, someone I was working with told me that they had been to see Huey and his News at the Shepherds Bush Empire a few years ago. The magnitude of my jealousy surprised even me. I used to love the Sports album – which I bought from Woolworths in Bicester during a stay with my grandparents – so you can imagine how excited I was to hear I Want A New Drug playing in the background during this week's Glee. Maybe this will signal a path back from the critical badlands for Huey Lewis & The News. After all, it's working for Journey.

Or, er, maybe not.

(See part 1 of the We Are The World film here)

Desperately seeking a decent romcom

Anne Hathaway seems nice enough, but I find myself disappointed by her new film, Rachel Getting Married, even though I haven't seen it.

This is because every time I hear the title, my romcom radar registers a tremor of activity. I keep thinking RGM is an adaptation of a Marian Keyes novel. Or, more specifically, two. Rachel Getting Married is, through the leaky double filter of my ears and brain, a hybrid of Rachel's Holiday and Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married. There is an additional, thematic, red herring since in the film, Hathers plays a drug addict, while in Rachel's Holiday, the vacation of the title is actually a spell in rehab. However, instead of a warm, witty, watch-whenever-you're-off-sick romantic comedy, RGM is in fact a worthy, character-led drama. Eurgh, tiresome! 

As if the world is not in enough trouble, it seems to be increasingly full of films that promise to be romcoms - explicitly or otherwise - yet fail to deliver. The most common failing is the lameness of com. Closely followed by a leaden lack of rom. Is it part of my slide towards early middle age that I mistakenly believe they don't make 'em like they used to? Or is the romcom species really in danger, desperately in need of protection and preservation? If it's the latter, I might write to Jamie Oliver to see if there is anything he can do to help. I'm sure he's looking to diversify.

Schwing!

One of the pictures below is a detail from a fashion story in the latest issue of British Elle. One is a detail from Wayne's World. Can you guess which is which?

Extreme close-up!

'Read 'em a clipping, News'

Sad day.

Lions and terriers and bears

It was quite the cultured weekend. On Friday I went to see The Wizard Of Oz at the Royal Festival Hall. There is lots to recommend it – some adorable animation used to convey effects and scenery which were beyond the physical limitations of the venue; some nice dancing; Roy Hudd. On the other hand, there were sluggish lighting cues, microphones turned on seconds too late, and Dorothy didn't really nail The Big Number. But any kind of review is basically rendered irrelevent by two things:

1) Toto was played by an ACTUAL REAL-LIFE DOG. Pity the actors, emoting and pratfalling and turning their musical theatre tricks, only to be comprehensively upstaged by a small waggy West Highland terrier who does his own stunts – which included, and would mostly seem to be limited to, running across the stage, and then running back again – guided by a homing device made from doggy chocs.

2) It is impossible to not have fun at any production of The Wizard Of Oz. It is like Joseph and it is like Guys And Dolls. They could be massacred by the world's least gifted amateur dramatics troupe, yet you would still leave saying 'Wow, those guys were great!' all because they were so indecently well served by their material.

A few years ago I had a go on one of those children's miniature trampolines, and I thought to myself 'This is amazing! They should give these to people with depression. You can't be unhappy bouncing up and down like this.' Unless, of course, you are operating beneath a particularly low ceiling.

[In a rare outburst of earnestness I should say that, in light of these last two posts, it may seem as if I have a somewhat cavalier approach to mental health. I would like to assure you that this is not at all the case. No punchline.]

To borrow from A A Milne, I think nobody can be uncheered by a trampoline. And maybe it's just me, but I also believe nobody can be uncheered by Follow The Yellow Brick Road. It just makes you want to beam, and clap your hands together like the precocious inhabitants of a sea-life centre.

Celebrity sums

In the absence of absolutely anything on telly worth watching on a weeknight, yesterday I watched Pal Joey from the Sky+ library which I have been carefully curating for just such a cultural famine. I think it's the first film I've seen with Rita Hayworth and, to be honest, I couldn't really see what the fuss is all about.

She seemed to be a combination of this:

and this:

In end-of-the-world news, I have seen a suspicious number of giant ants today, in various parts of London. It's the apocalypse, of course, just so you're in the loop. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of town…

Today, at work, while I was hunting for an afternoon snack in my bag (mixed nuts – brazils, almonds and cashews, for preference) – I discovered this:

It is incredibly difficult to photograph so allow me to clarify. It is a false nail.

It emphatically does not belong to me. I am not the kind of Jones who suits a false nail, as you can see from this state-of-the-art digital simulation.

So how did it get there?

I believe an extraordinary physical phenomenon has taken place. There has been a female typhoon. I went to see Sex And The City last night in London's Leicester Square. I can honestly say I have never been in an atmosphere so oppressively humid with womankind. Any man present – and I honestly believe there were none – would have felt their Adam's Apples melting away and breasts swelling under their incredulously exploring hands just from the sheer intensity of female hormones in the room. 

As the film began, to riotous applause, the concentration of oestrogen in the room bubbled higher and higher, the electrons of anticipation become more agitated, and the molecules of excitement collided with ever-increasing frequency. The inevitable consequence? An extremely rare natural phenomenon which simply could not be contained. Several rows in the middle – the epicentre, if you will – combusted in a shower of body parts, accessories and cosmetics.

It was not an aftermath for the faint-hearted. Consider the ushers who had to clear the debris from the deserted cinema – for every half-eaten box of popcorn, a severed string of coloured plastic beads. For every drained cardboard cup of watered-down, cola-flavoured drink, a singed bunch of hair extensions.

I consider myself lucky to have escaped with just a stray fingernail in my bag. I could have been extracting my snacks from a stranger's flipflop, their two biggest toes still clenching the thong with the rigidity of utter hysteria.

The wages of sin

I can't be the only person who believes that advertising agencies are somehow infiltrating my brain using lasars and black magic, finding out what my favourite songs are, and then consummately ruining them by changing the lyrics in a clumsy, ham-fisted fashion and thinking that will seduce me into buying their products. 

IT WILL NEVER WORK. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

The latest example: Charlotte Church advertising Virgin Holidays (like she needs the money! but wait, that is a different post) with a rubbish, reworded version of I Want It Now! from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. It is in my Top 10 songs from musicals, and don't think that's not a real list that exists in my head. Here, with a few minutes' preamble, is the original.

The whole concept of pillaging the classics reminds me of revising for exams at school and listening to a local radio station which had a really good indie show on weeknights. But, following the model of commercial radio, it worked on a ratio of about two songs by Kingmaker/The Wonder Stuff /James/other to four minutes of extremely low-rent adverts for local businesses. Perhaps the worst was for a company called Posh Windows And Conservatories, which bastardised Every Day by Buddy Holly, a simple, beautiful, totally perfect song. Whichever 'creative' realised that the name of the company would more or less, just about scan in the same way as 'Love like yours will surely come my way' probably got a pay rise but verily, they are the wages of sin. Even now I feel a shudder of violation whenever I find myself humming 'Every day, prices getting lower', which I do with surprising and hateful frequency. They probably think this means They have won. Comrades, They never will.

Being Michael Schumacher

The most amazing thing I've heard today came from the radio news – and regular readers may recall that I am not a fan of the medium. Subsequently, I discovered that the story had also been in the Metro, meaning it is 100% truth with no lying bits.

Bruce Willis is being lined up to play elderly motor racing commentator and bumbling genius Murray Walker in a film about the life of Michael Schumacher. Bruce Willis? As Murray Walker? This is even more extraordinary than the fact that someone would want to make a film about Michael Schumacher.

What could come next in the alternate universe of sporting biopics? Sylvester Stallone as Alan Hansen? This would be perfect, since Sly would be required to demonstrate absolutely no emotional range whatsoever. But personally, I would pay literally all the money I have to see Clooney play Hansen. In fact the idea of these two titanic men being somehow fused via celluloid into one male colossus is so incredible it necessitates a lie-down with a damp flannel across the forehead, perhaps for the rest of my life.

But back with F1 – who to play Schumacher? I think that perhaps Bill S Preston esq could do some good work within the role.

But dye his hair, and Beaker is surely a shoo-in.

Boy Wonder

I have read some extremely joyless reviews of Be Kind Rewind, most particularly by Philip French of The Observer, who, from the small amount of his work I've absorbed, doesn't really seem to do joy. I note from the infallible Wikipedia that Philip French is, in fact, 75. Naturally this has no bearing on his ability as a critic, but I wonder if reaching old age as a dead ringer for Uncle Junior from The Sopranos has left him feeling slightly jaded with his lot.

'The f**kin Feds are so far up my ass, I can taste Brylcreem'

'Be Kind Rewind is a sentimental, whimsical embarrassment'

Anyway, sorry, uncle Ju, but the magical mincing machine that is director Michel Gondry's brain always bewitches me. And while I'm aware I'm dazzled to the extent that I suffer a minor dislocation of my critical faculties (Dave Eggers also does this to me, albeit with a slightly different method, and Jonathan Safran Foer), I wouldn't have it any other way. No, I don't think Jack Black completely nailed it. And no, I didn't sit through the 'let's make our own movie' part without the slightest ding-ding on my wince-ometer,  But I could happily see out all my cinema-going days in The Gondry Enchanted Forest, where the everyday is transformed, with the casual deftness of a balloon modeller, into the extraordinary.

Also, Mos Def = hot.

One of the joys of a trip to the Odeon Beckenham, aside from the chance to see my lovely friends of course, is renewing my love affair with the gleaming aisles and chic packaging of Waitrose, which, like any good mistress, arranges itself seductively round the side of the train station. As I flirted with the ready meals, I heard a handsome young orderly whistling one of the Moldy Peaches' songs from the Juno soundtrack, to the indifference of his colleagues. I wanted to catch his eye, and say, with the power of my mind, and the muscles in my face, 'Me too! I know what you're singing, even if none of these pork-pie-hatted, white-overalled automatons don't. I know'. Maybe he couldn't see me from behind his painstakingly dishevelled fringe, maybe my powers of telepathy aren't all they might be (although surely that's not true), but alas, I was unable to distract him from his work. But us impotent disciples of Le Gondry live for these dreamy non-encounters. And those thai red curries won't unpack themselves.

Things I have genuinely heard a Virgin Radio DJ saying today:

'The chancellor... he loves a bit of tax.'

'Anyone who has the same surname as a British military hero is alright by me.'

One of the boons of my day job as a freelance drone is entering the many different, parallel worlds of daytime radio. The 80s Hour on Virgin is amazing. It's too bad The Hoosiers and Scouting For Girls are never far behind it. This was my favourite thing I heard today:

Bat Out Of Hell was very narrowly beaten into second place. Sorry, Meat. Had they played Dead Ringer For Love, my decision would have been reversed.

Some films you loved when you were 12 bear repeated watching in your 30s. St Elmo's Fire is absolutely not one of them. It's like being made to watch your own GCSE drama project.

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'Dancing On Ice goes grunge!'

My friend Alannah refuses to watch Dancing On Ice. She is an extremely big fan of Torvill & Dean and thinks it is beneath them. I basically agree. It's very much the winter Olympics to Strictly Come Dancing's days in the sun. It's more dangerous, more spectacular, but somehow everyone finds it that bit harder to care.

But one of the best things about it (or the worst, depending on your cringe threshold) is witnessing journeyman sports commentator Tony Gubba finding himself completely out of his depth in the arenas of dance, costume and modern music. If you've ever watched an Olympic opening ceremony, and I have watched a few, this is not a new phenomenon. But in that situation, those drowning in ill-judged metaphor and hopeful guesswork are often afforded the privacy of some kind of graveyard time slot, broadcasting as they are from Sydney, Seoul, Atlanta, etc. How mean of ITV to shunt them into primetime. 

Tonight, Chris Fountain, age-inappropriate crush object and clear DOI favourite, performed to Timberlake's Cry Me A River. The Fountain clearly spent quite a bit of his early youth breakdancing in shopping centres, and T&D were happy to exploit this. God bless Tony, then, for exclaiming at the end, 'Dancing On Ice goes grunge!' and then venturing something about raves. 

I am watching the BAFTAs. I now love Javier Bardem. And, while I don't agree with the whole principle of wishing you looked like someone else, I reckon it can't be bad to wear the face and body of Rosamund Pike. Also, Tilda Swinton may be one of the few women in the world who is paler than me.

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Juno, Tracy Barlow and the criminal element

So we went to see Juno last night. Of course we loved it. I'm almost annoyed by the predictability of me loving it. Let us count the factors they put in place to snare me. Smart-mouth, hyper-literate teen speak? Check. Alison Janney? Check. Acoustic, whispering soundtrack? Check. Jason Bateman, changing of the seasons, hand-hewn title sequence, Belle & Sebastian, for Christ's sake... 

I always find it grating in the extreme when people say to me, 'Ooh, you'll love this', or 'This will REALLY make you laugh.' In fact, it only inspires me to make a point of absolutely not loving it, or remaining steadfastly stony-faced. I am nothing if not stubborn. (What can I say? I'm a Capricorn, this is how we roll.) Of course I'm infinitely more multi-faceted and endlessly fascinating than anyone who thinks they know me and my love of whimsical Americana could possibly predict. Aren't I? Oh, apparently not. (By the way, I've just worked out where the italics button is. This novelty will wear off soon, I'm fairly certain.) 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Juno was the way it featured fictional characters goofily picking up instruments, singing and strumming along, without making me cringe in any way at all. Lest we forget, this is never usually the case. Evidence for the prosecution?

Is it only me who can't watch this? Julie, Julie, Julie... Or is it actually Ethan Hawke who really brings the cringe here? I can't decide.

Afterwards, Eleanor make the excellent point that Juno made being 16 look a lot better than being thirtysomething. And someone else – probably me, actually – said it made being 16 look a lot better than being 16. Personally, I followed the Tracy Barlow model of adolescence –staying in my bedroom, shunning any form of natural light and listening to pop music I would later disown. 

In the real world, even one of us becoming a real-life crime statistic shortly before the film  began could barely dim our enjoyment. It's disquieting to have your narrow-mindedness affirmed. There I was in the restaurant, enjoying my black beans and meatballs (organic tapas, since you ask), looking at our neighbouring diners and thinking to myself, 'That's unusual. Two men out for dinner together, and they don't even look gay,' only for them to leave the restaurant without ordering, having liberated my friend's purse from her handbag. Anyway, if you went to the 9pm screening of Juno at the Greenwich Picture House and wondered why the police were interviewing that glamorous, pregnant woman, now you know. She had been Wronged. Although you probably knew that anyway, since the only people likely to be actually reading this were probably there at the time. 

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