Original Sauce

“Cool” stuff. Part blissfully stimulating, part incandescently and homicidally infuriating. However I must disclaim, dear reader: do not, for one second, think that under this fragile umbrella of coolness resides the word “kooky”. Kooky is a word made up for things that might have been cool, only far too much time and thought has gone into making them cool, with special attention paid to making them look as if they’re not cool at all. Balls to cool. Don’t need it. I’m my own cool. I am in no way, shape or form trying to be cool. Perhaps I am alone in this notion (I may well be), but as far as I am concerned, kooky can really and truly fuck off.

Kookiness is everywhere. It permeates every fibre of popular culture, and constantly scratches every nerve ending in my brain, to the point at which I want to stab a member of Team Kooky in the neck with a pair of retro sunglasses. Of course, whilst myself merely a slave to the cool, one’s measure of kookiness is arbitrary. Perhaps its not kookiness, perhaps it is overlooked coolness on my part. More than likely, its too cool, and I don’t get it. However, there are no such misdiagnoses made when an image is crafted in kookiness; a willing and self-proclaiming kook. I’m “crazy”/“scatty”/“unique”. Ha. Sure, you are all of those things, but in just the right microscopic quantities to make you look as cool as possible, and in no way make you crazy or scatty or unique; which individually or in conjunction would infact make you look like a mental patient. Doesn’t kooky mean bizarre? I mean, you’re not bizarre are you? No, you aren’t a freakish outsider, don’t worry, you are safe as cool houses. Phew.

I love cool. We all do, and we’re suckers to ourselves if we don’t admit it. Kooky just isn’t cool, and whilst its superficial objective is to indeed be un-cool, all that needs doing is for the kook to take off its banner, and I can re-holster the Ray Bans.

Durham University has two very large constituent groups; students that went to public school (I count myself as one of them), and Christians (not really my thing). What seems strange is how integrated Christianity is with “posher” students. After all, Jesus, who’s really very important, was the son of Joseph, a carpenter. Jesus was, in essence, working class. Pondering this, I wondered how many more of Durham’s well to-do would be ready to accept Christ into their lives if they knew he was a bit more on their level. A quick and easy change to the already Walter Mitty Bible would be to replace the 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, which sounds like some kind of ASBO, with Jesus setting off on a Gap Year. Ah yes, the Gap Year; mainstay of the bleach-haired flip-flopper, chock full of hilarious anecdotes and glorious pictures of tanned people among the natives. Jesus could “resist temptation” in Thailand, and then do some good by spending an absolutely nominal period in Africa helping to build a bookshelf for an impoverished school, whilst taking as many pictures as is humanly possible of him standing proudly with a load of African kids to put on Facebook, as if to say “I saved the third world”. “Thank you for saving us Jesus!” NB Many people quite legitimately consider Christ as their saviour.

Disclaimer: Iain took a Gap year himself, enjoyed it very much, and continues to bore people with anecdotes to this day, and so is just as guilty as Jesus would be. Also, this is not a dig in any way at the Christian faith, just a cumbersome metaphor.

Why did I do a review of Britney? Because its a cruel world and she's an easy target.


Britney: non compos mentis, stretchered out by paramedics, gleefully Papped, for the world to see. How we mourn the fallen angel. “Too much too soon” and other assorted clichés come to mind.

But wait, she’s fine isn’t she? She’s absolutely fine. Phew. Well, that’s what Britney’s second and latest release from her 5th studio album Blackout, would have us heartless bastards believe. According to Piece of Me, Britney is on top of the world, and wants to have a good old rant at the Paparazzi and media rumour mill. A worthy rant, arguably, and certainly subject matter that will resonate with the fans. Whilst most of the lyrics sound desperate, and rather ironic: “I guess I can’t see the problem with earning and being a mama” (don’t think the judge sees it that way Brit), the comeback kid reminds us “I’m miss American dream, since I was 17”. And yeah, it’s true. And although the line “no wonder there’s panic in the industry, I mean please”, referring to her absence from the charts, comes off as a little cavalier considering the jury is still out on Britney (not the court case), she is again pretty accurate; its not to be underestimated the gap in pop that was left when the songstress chose marriages, kids and Kentucky Fried Chicken over pop domination.

The style of the song is in keeping with many of the tracks on the new album: sweeping synth lines, slick drums, and sickeningly insistent vocal effects. Produced by Bloodshy & Avant, responsible for the rather good Toxic, the song, unfortunately, largely dissapoints. It just feels far less well thought out as an arangement than the first single Give Me More, where less was definitely more. Piece of Me seems a bit brash in comparison; cluttered, unstructured, with no real hook to the chorus, infact, not much of a difference to the parts of the song. And of course HAL 9000 on the vocal effects mean it could be any old heffer singing the song, not the sweet southern pop princess we once knew.

However, it is very likely that the single will do well. The “message” (*groans) of the song will surely resonate with fans, who, like many others feel that Britney is the victim of major-league celebrity bashing and is due for her big comeback. And Jive records, previously pretty doubtful of renewed success, seem to think so too. Give Me More’s video budget was reportedly $25,000 (about the price of a Ford Focus), and Piece of Me is an altogether reasonable $500,000. Out with the motorway strip club and Windows Movie Maker visual effects, and in with Hollywood glamour and glitz. That’s the Britney we want to see. We’re well past the point, sadly, of pigtails and school uniform though.

As I sit here in possibly the most soul-crushing vehicle on earth, the locomotive, I ponder that in such an unconscionably woeful environment, I could happily become a psychopath. My train is the 21:00 from London King’s Cross to Durham, a journey that I have made many times, and consistently found bafflingly shit. But wait, salvation is here, from whom you ask, but National Express! Phew. GNER has proven to be simply too crappy, and the route has been taken over by those synonymous with coaches, the second most baiting and skull-numbingly banal way of travel I can think of. Before, dear reader, you launch into the alternatives: the aeroplane, the automobile, I get it ok? I am a willing sacrifice on the altar of self-abuse. I, like everyone else, buy into the notion that it’s “easier” to travel long-distance by train. The fact is that it is not; I am still herded around, queue for everything, jostle for my seat and drag my luggage everywhere. Nor is it cheaper. Nor is it anymore enjoyable; a cramped cattle truck, the price paid for such a privilege warranting Faberge coffee cups.

And yet, the price has increased again. For the eight percent increase, I can find nothing emeritus of it. My current journey surprised. To fete the arrival of National Express, I am treated to a worse train than I had ever experienced under GNER. Its age is incalculable; beige kitsch seemingly transcends time. Now of course, this could be a one off, but nonetheless, I find it baffling that they can do the equivalent of turning something already terrible, into the travel equivalent of Halfords. But it is reassuringly consistent – seats so close together I am practically mounting my neighbour, legroom fit for a stoat, and zero luggage space; so overflowing with luggage was a carriage on my southward journey to London that a lady got trapped in the loo. Frankly she’d have been better off staying there. One hears periodic threats on journeys from the staff that if luggage is not removed from an emergency route, (if there’s a crash we’re all fucked anyway) it will be dumped on the platform of the next stop. Two years ago one of the offending pieces of luggage was mine, and when I attempted, very politely (remember Iain, they’re only “doing their job”), to explain that it was occupying the only available square inches of the train carriage, and that POWs had better luggage provisions, I was treated as if I had just told her I was a sex offender.

The staff are a major gripe of mine. Now I fully appreciate that any length of time on the misery express would make me into a complete fuckwit also, but still. The main offenders are those who are charged with checking tickets. Not only are they invariably impolite, I am invariably a complete cretin, and have either forgotten my Railcard, missed my train, or am sat in the wrong seat. All my fault. However not once have they cut me any slack, especially when I have forgotten my Young Persons Railcard, and been slapped with a massive ticket purchase, usually £120. Not only that, but they smirk as a meekly attempt to wriggle out of it, citing late connecting trains (which is sometimes true), and appealing to their cold hearts and iron fists. This is a frequent occurrence; I am coming to the conclusion that I have something of a sadomasochistic tendency.

I won’t even rant about the train food (har har har old train sandwiches aren’t they rubbish har har). The single most depressing thing about my journey is the palpable feeling of collective despair among fellow passengers; the darting eyes, the perpetual shuffling in seats, the same people walking up and down all journey, and the feeling that we’ve all been suckered. Again.

I've got a blog now. As I seem to have conned myself into some kind of fantasy journalistic career aspiration, I thought I'd post a few narcissistic, neurotic and vitriolic wordy nuggets.

So thanks.

Iain