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Archive for December, 2009|Monthly archive page

Top ten worst Christmas number ones

In Top Tens on December 19, 2009 at 12:36 pm

Tis the season of musical garbage.

As Joe Somebody from X Factor battles it out with a song released more than 10 years ago by a band which has split up for the prestigious Christmas Number one slot,  Themultifarious takes a look back at some of the other tragically bad songs to hit the top spot.

This is the top ten worst ever Christmas number ones.

10.

Mr Blobby

The pink idiot from Noel’s House Party somehow became very popular in the early 90s.

One of the least funny characters ever, Blobby spent most of his time falling over.

This is his hit single from 1993, if you can bear it, personally I think it’s more vomit inducing than our top ten sports injuries the other day.

9.

Cliff Richard – Saviour’s Day

Cliff could make a top ten of his own with his sickening overly religious preachy nonsense.

I’ve decided on this one as it features a tin whistle.

Number one from 1990, lots of idiots bought it.

8. Shakin’ Stevens -  Merry Christmas Everyone

This guy used to be a sex symbol, but this song, heard from October time in shopping centres around the country is a dreadful piece of festive filth.

Number one from 1985, this Shaky wearing a really terrible jumper on Top of the Pops.

7 . St Winifred’s School Choir – there’s no-one quite like grandma

My own grandmother, 95, would say “What is this ridiculous music? Turn it off” to this, and as always, she’d be spot on.

Ghastly, cringing, cheesy pap from 1980.

6. Benny Hill – Ernie (the fastest milkman in the west).

Benny Hill is a national treasure, but in my mind the bloke is about as funny as serious bowel surgery (he was irritatingly successful in America, which says it all).

This is his “song” about Ernie, a speedy milkman, number one in 1971

5. Wings – Mull of Kintyre/Girls School

Paul McCartney’s godawful band after The Beatles proved he was very much being carried by the rest of them.

His famous Christmas song, the grotesque “simply having a wonderful Christmas time”,  mercifully didn’t get to number one.

However, this did and it’s bloody awful.

4. Renee and Renato, “Save your love”.

I think this was meant to be a joke, but not a very good one, as droves of halfwits sent it to the top spot in 1982.

It was a collaboration between Renato, an Aston Villa fan from the West Midlands, and Renee, British singer Hilary Lester to produce this sickly rubbish.

He died earlier this year after brain surgery.

That’s quite sad but there’s no excuses for this.

3. Michael Jackson – Earth Song

Jacko is a legend, but he had a horrible tendency to be ever so preachy.

This is one of his finest efforts, and the song which prompted Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker to invade the stage at the Brit Awards to point to his arse, signaling his displeasure at Jacko apparently making himself out to be Jesus.

Number one in 1995, here’s the video, and Jarvis’s legendary protest.

2. Boney M – Mary’s Boy Child-Oh My Lord

Number one from 1978, hilarious 70′s clothes, awful music and preachy music means this is flying high.

I love the guy’s hair.

1.  Cliff Richard – mistletoe and wine

Yup, he’s back, topping all his other religious rubbish with his.

Cliched, cringy lyrics, choirs, cheesy images and old Cliff himself sends this flying to the top.

Why hasn’t there ever been a sniper handy when he gets his singsongs going at Wimbledon?

Lookalikes: Coleen Nolan and Linda Blair

In Film, Multifarious, Television on December 7, 2009 at 8:24 am

You’ve probably noticed the latest commercial offering from purveyor of frozen ‘delicacies’, Iceland; an advert that has all the festive spirit of a 7 hour speech by Josef Stalin. If you’ve seen this particular abortion of an ad, you’ll have noticed a spectacularly uncomfortable-looking Jason Donovan grimace and gurn through a musical number so forced in its jollity, most of of the cast and crew members are probably featuring in this at gun point. But my attention turned to Jas’s co-’star’, and the other reason why he might look so uncomfortable: one Coleen Nolan and her uncanny resemblance to child star, Linda Blair’s possessed character Regan in the cult horror film, The Exorcist. Don’t believe me? Have a look for yourselves:

Linda Blair and Coleen Nolan

Coleen Nolan and Linda Blair: separated at birth?

Who Knows Who? Channel 4 join the tinfoil hat brigade in search for Illuminati

In Comment, Politics, Web on December 2, 2009 at 8:03 pm

Secret societies, the Illuminati, the Masons; hidden cabals of the rich and powerful have long been an obsession of cranks, weirdoes and conspiracy theorists, but recently the veil is being tugged back and the discreet relationships between those occupying high positions in society – both elected and unelected – is being dragged into the public eye like never before. A rash of exposés featuring government ministers and shady Russian business types, often taking place on yachts in exotic locations, have granted a glimpse into a world the likes of which us mere mortals can only dream of.

Channel 4 have latched onto the general zeitgeist of disillusionment with our leaders and have created a new website that explores some the network of relationships between these powerful, yet secretive, individuals and our politicians called ‘Who Knows Who?’. The website forms part of a larger idea that taps into the latest Internet buzzword: crowdsourcing. This hideous portmanteau (since when was an Internet-related portmanteau anything else but hideous?) means that a crowd of people on the Internet come together to achieve a common goal set by a 3rd party. The Guardian put this to very good use during this summer’s expenses furore, putting around 30,000 volunteer editors, recruited from the ranks of Guardian readers, to task sifting through the hundreds of thousands of pages of MPs’ expense claims, in order to find such gems as duck houses and cable TV pornography.

This time, Channel 4 are asking their viewers to contribute any information that they might have about the relationships between politicians, businessmen and women, media figures and religious types, and any other members of the great and the good.

The site is built using Flash, a rich media web technology, which most people will have installed on their browsers, so it has a potentially very large audience. The interface is very snazzy; each figure features in the centre of a large web of links which you can click around, find out how deep the rabbit hole goes (to drop briefly into conspiracy-speak).

I think this site is a very interesting and bold idea that combines contemporary relevance with an exciting and fresh approach to engaging with a new audience. It’s certainly very different from a lot of Channel 4′s recent youth-oriented websites. It’s also fascinating to see the popularity of websites like 38degrees, TheyWorkForYou and UnlockDemocracy, whose aim it is to help us keep tabs on our elected rulers. The Internet as a tool to empower grassroots activism appears to be really coming of age.

Great stuff – I think I am going to tape an X to my window tonight to see what happens!

Top Ten cheats

In Sport, Top Tens on December 1, 2009 at 5:44 pm

Here we go again, moments that drive us all absolutely barmy, we see it, everyone in the stadium sees it, the world sees it but the idiot in the black uniform who matters the most misses it.

This is the top ten cheats

10.  Rivaldo dive

This pathetic incident happened in the World Cup in 2002 in the game between Turkey and Brazil.

The Turkish player boots the ball to Rivaldo, who is waiting to take a corner.

It strikes Rivaldo gently in the leg, yet he goes down clutching his face as if he’s been on the end of a particularly good right hook.

Stupid ref then sends off Turkish player, much to the annoyance of the rest of the team, the management and the watching world.

Rivaldo was subsequently banned, on the grounds of being a twat you’d guess.

9. Neil Back

England rugby legend Back is playing for Leicester Tigers in the European Cup final.

His team were leading, but opponents Munster got a scrum not very far out, dead centre in the last minute.

Irish scrum half goes to put the ball in, as he does, the originally nicknamed “Backy” taps it with his hand back into his own side of the scrum.

For those of you not au fait with rugby, this is akin to punching the ball into the goal in football, a no no.

The ref, however, is standing on the other side, keeping an eye on one of the props, and so misses it.

8. Trevor Chappell

The least well-known of the famous Australian cricketing dynasty is probably the most notorious.

This is a clip from a one-day game against New Zealand in the 1970s.

After you’ve finished laughing at their kits, you’ll need to know New Zealand needed six of the last ball to win.

As a result, Chappell rolls it gently underarm along the ground, thus making it impossible.

The rules were changed after this.

I particularly like the way the batsman reacts.

Despite being a pro sportsman, he reacts in the way anyone else would, by giving him a look which says “you utter c**t’.

7. Tonya Harding

Ice skating is not well-known for scandal, but this is pretty unbelievable.

American Harding was embroiled in scandal after her husband hired a man to attack and injure herbiggest rival, Nancy Kerrigan.

The injury put Kerrigan out of the US figure skating championships in 1994, which Harding went on to win.

She was found guilty of helping to cover up the incident, but has always denied masterminding it.

It’s still a blatant act of cheating though, whoever is responsible, and there’s no doubt she benefited.

6.

Thierry Henry

Old Thierry is a fabulous player, but may well be remembered for a piece of handling Jonny Wilkinson would be proud of.

Running down the wing, the ball bounces up and he scoops it along with his hand before crossing it to William Gallas who whacks it in, thus winning France the game and sending poor old Republic of Ireland out of the World Cup.

Cue rage in Ireland, where there were demands for a replay.

They also conveniently forgot they won one of their earlier games thanks to an extreme dodgy penalty, but there was outcry nonetheless.

This is one of those things where you wonder how no-one saw it as it is so obvious, and anyway, who wants to see a load of Championship cloggers playing in the World Cup at the expense of messrs Henry, Anelka and Ribery.

5. Spain’s Paralympic basketball team

The sheer brass and morally wrong-ness of this is brilliant.

In the Paralympics of 2000, the Spanish team was stripped of the gold medal it had won in the intellectual disability competition after it was revealed 10 of the 12 players had nothing wrong with them.

The rules stated that to be allowed to play, players had to have an IQ of less than 70 (they could’ve asked the majority of Premiership footballers).

Spain didn’t bother to do the tests and were rightly stripped of the medals.

4. F1 Crash

I hate Formula 1 with a passion, so when I read about this I smiled.

The second most interesting thing that’s ever happened in the sport, after the tragic death of Ayrton Senna, was when Flavio Briatore, the mega-rich owner of the Renault team, instructed their driver Nelson Piquet junior to deliberately crash to help their lead driver, Fernando Alonso, win the Grand Prix in Singapore last year.

I know what I’d say if someone told me to crash while driving at 200mph but here’s the clip

 

3.Ronald Koeman

This is still the single moment that has enraged me most in any sporting ocassion.

This is the famous incident from the must win World Cup Qualifier in 1994.

First, Koeman hauls down David Platt when clean through on goal inside the penalty area.

Red card and a penno you must think?

No no, Koeman then convinces the ref not only was the foul outside the box, it was a mere yellow card.

As the script then suggests, the blond-haired get went and scored at the other end, meaning England didn’t qualify.

Happily, it did lead to the sacking of Graham Taylor.

A few points to make, if you look, he grabs Platt’s shirt just outside the area, however, he’s still got hold of it when he goes down very much inside the area.

He is also clearly the last man who has prevented a clear goalscoring opportunity, therefore a red card.

But the good old ref sums up why everyone hates refs by getting two massive decisions completely wrong, allowing good old Ron to stay on and score admittedly a very good free kick.

That said, have a look at who’s playing for England,  Carlton Palmer, Tony Dorigo, no wonder we didn’t qualify.

Also check out the Dutch manager’s combover.

For some reason I can only find highlights in Dutch, which somehow makes it even more annoying.

And yes, David Seaman should’ve saved both, especially Bergkamp’s, which was rolling gently across the ground.

2. Ben Johnson

Somehow athletics officials failed to notice Ben Johnson’s yellow eyes and bodybuilder’s physique at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

His time of 9.79  seconds smashed the then world record and is only slightly slower than Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds record 21 years on.

Of course, he was found to have pumped himself full of steroids.

You’ll notice a young Linford Christie finishing in third, which was pushed to second when Johnson was found to have more drugs inside him than an NHS Foundation Trust.

1. Diego Maradonna

Yes, who else could it be? Another dirty cheating foreigner who cheated our heroic footballers out of  World Cup glory.

We all know about the “Hand of God”, but I have a few questions, why did no-one twig that it was very unlikely that Maradonna, about 5ft 3in, would be able to outjump a 6ft plus goalkeeper stretching as high as he could for the ball?

We also have to applaud the little twat for his first goal, probably the best ever, but why didn’t any of England’s lumbering midfield do what you or I would have done and booted him up in the air?

Mind you, they probably couldn’t even get close enough to do that.

As you marvel at the nimble feet of the Argentinian genius, take stock of how incredibly slow England midfielder Peter Reid is.

Here’s his amazing goal (with some really terrible commentary), which actually made it 2-0 after the handball debacle.

and here’s his ridiculous cheating.

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