Capital FM is Attempting To Destroy Yorkshire

Sometimes I write articles which everyone can enjoy. Sometimes I write them for an audience of about seven people. Luckily, seven people makes up the majority of the readership of Wilftonville, so it doesn’t matter too much when I write about a radio station exclusive only to certain parts of England. Capital FM is one of the most popular commercial radio stations in England, based in London. The station is probably a little less popular than Classical FM, but I haven’t done any research as per tradition so that’s all guesswork and hear’ say. It’s pure and simple that Capital FM, one of the most popular non-BBC stations in Britain, should expand their reach and attempt to appeal to other parts of the country. Nation. Whatever England is.

Capital FM used to only be received in London, you see, while Yorkshire has its own set of local radio stations which reference local events and don’t play the weather forecast because the weather forecast never changes in Yorkshire: it’s always raining. But as of 2011, things have changed.



As showcased in this advert featuring Rihanna (of “is it spelt Rhianna or Rihanna?” fame) and the Black Eyed Peas, Capital FM are moving their radio towers so they can cover the whole of our nation/country/colony. This is good news for all of us who enjoy listening to Bruno Mars' extensive back-catalogue of songs, as they are played every ten minutes or so on the station, but what does it mean for the country as a whole? This must be a good thing, right? More choice?

Well no, as you may have surmised from the title of this article. I believe strongly that Capital FM are attempting to ruin Yorkshire forever. And now to explain myself!!!!

Looking through the Capital FM playlist, it’s notable (as anything is notable if you own a notepad, I suppose) to note (with your notepad, remember) that there are no performers there from the North of the country. There’s no Kaiser Chiefs. Or Corinne-Bailey Rae. Instead we have Olly Murs and Adele and there’s not even any Diana Vickers on there. To explain this for anyone from ‘not the UK’ who is still inexplicably reading this blog which surely makes no sense to them, every single artist on the Capital FM playlist is either from London or America. Every. Single. One.

So logically, it must be seen that as the NSDAP systematically ruled out the existence of all newspapers which were not NSDAP newspapers, or how FOX is one-by-one buying all the channels which opposes FOX, Capital FM are replacing all Yorkshire music with London music. Boring, grimy, London music. Why would anyone want to listen to music by people from London? What have they got to sing about – the high price or property, or the congestion charge? Yorkshire, Lancashire, even Liverpoolshire are places of natural beauty and unnatural lyricism. We are the counties where GREEN THINGS grow, where people go to escape London because it’s so boring. So why would we want to listen to London music while walking through the Lake District with a hot-pot in one hand and a can of Tetleys in the other?

Capital FM wants you to believe that Yorkshire doesn't exist. CONFOUND THEM by picking up your copy of Different Class (we know you own one) and play it loud. Play it proud. And then go get some Human League albums and pelt them at passers-by. Together we are going to change this. Someone call Morrissey! We're on the road to revolution!

All you need to know about Aleksandr Orlov

Hello, friends from 'not England'! How are you? Or should I say 'g'day, y'all bonjour danke'? You come to this blog day-in, day-out (don't you?) looking for advice and guidance about new cultural phenomenons sweeping my little nation, made of grass and scarves. Well you're in for a treat today, because I'm going to tell you all about the author of Britain's TOP-SELLING AUTOBIOGRAPHY LAST CHRISTMAS. Having worked in a bookshop over Christmas, I can tell you that the above fact is true. He was massively popular, outstripping other celebs you've never heard of such as Chris Evans (a DJ, not a comic-book loving actor) and Paul O'Grady. The success is even more impressive when you learn that this writer is not human, real, or English.

Alexsandr Orlov is an anthropomothic meerkat, less Timon and more Queen Catherina The Great of Russia. He is the frontman for an advertising campaign by a price-comparison website, Compare The Market, and has appeared in a number of adverts for the company. He also has this tie-in book, and there are reports he will win a record contract in the near future. Alexsandr is a Russian character, and the premise of the adverts is that "market" pronounced in a Russian accent sounds like "meerkat". Britain is not very advanced nowdays.

Alexsandr promotes a website called "comparethemeerkat.com", and in each advert he bigs up this website where customers can go to compare different kinds of meerkat and vote for which they like best. He will typically then get irate because people get his website mixed up with "comparethemarket.com". The advert will end with him naming both sites, in an accent which makes them sound exactly the same, before winking at the camera and making a clicking noise. This is the most popular thing in England right now.

A few things concern us. One is that Alexsandr is meant to have fought through several hardships in the 1970s, before he became the businessman he is today. However, meerkats only live for about 12-14 years. So how has Alexsandr managed to live for so much longer, three times longer than any other meerkat in history. Is this why he can talk? Is the advert suggesting that, were meerkats able to live long enough, they'd eventually learn to speak human dialect and develop fingers flexible enough to manage a computer - is this what the advert is suggesting? Because if so, that seems like tacit support of evolution and all Catholics should protest against the adverts immediately.

Another worry is that Alexsandr's new website is called "Meerkovo". Now, I don't know about you, but that immediately brings to mind "Kosovo", a disputed land in the former Yugoslavian Republic which has for decades now been the centre of horrific war. Why are the advertisers bringing "Meerkovo" into the public eye? What are they going to do. If this ends with Meerkovo getting bombed by angry car insurance salesmen....

Our point, readers, is that we find this whole thing to be very disturbing indeed. While small animals are cute, apart from skunks who are misogynistic, the promotion of these meerkats seems shady and unorthodox. What happens if the adverts cease to be popular? Are we literally going to see civil war followed by acts of mass violence and the whole thing becomes an uncomfortably taut allegory for war-torn Europe? Readers, this whole thing stinks.

Welcome To England! Part 1

So you’re wanting to learn all about England, eh? I bet you’re a little overwhelmed by all the different things which our nation has to offer, friend! Don’t worry, Wilftonville will give you the lowdown on what things are.

1:

What Is This Building?

This building is called a library.

What is it for?

A very popular activity in England is called ‘reading’. The main crux of this activity is looking at words written on paper and comprehending them. Through this act of comprehending words, Englanders learn new facts which were previously a mystery to them. As a general rule though, they check the back of the book first to see if it will tell them the truth, or if it will lie to them. A book filled with lies is called ‘fictional’. People like reading both lies and truths equally, and a library is the place they go to if they want to do so. Think of a library as being like one of those factory warehouses filled with food products. Instead of having row upon row of packaged beers and pastries, a library instead has row upon row of books stacked beside each other.

How Should I Use A Library?

Very quietly. Many people who read have sensitive bodies (this is a scientific fact), and will hear any noise committed in a library. So when you enter, take off your hat if you are wearing one and walk on tip-toe around the building. If you see a brightly coloured book you like, slowly take it off the shelf and sit down at a table. If you can find a table nobody else is sat at – sit there. Never sit at a table which is occupied by someone else, because this is an act of illegal aggression on your part. Open the book and read it at your leisure.

What If I Don’t Finish Reading?

You have to take your book to the counter and pay an extravagant fee. This is why everyone in a library looks so intense. If they do not finish comprehending their lies then they will have to pay for their weakness. In a situation where you are caught not finishing your story, you will have to have a photo taken of yourself which will be put on a “membership card”. You pay for this, and then are allowed to borrow the book for a small amount of time. Again though – if you do not finish your lies in time, the library-keepers will look for you and charge you more money for your mistake.

This Library-Keeper Threw Me Out!

That's because he is The Doctor. You accidentally walked into the Library Of The Dead. You should be grateful for his actions.

Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

Sumo
The National Sport Of: Japan

My immediate thought is of Asians in fat suits running at each other and then falling over, because my mind has been utterly tainted by hours of watching Takeshi’s Castle repeats on TV. And whilst the utterly cruel Jap version of ‘It’s A Knockout’ may have a rubbish closing round and is dubbed by the unfunny Craig Charles, it manages to knock ten spots off the sport is sometimes likes to emulate. Where the appeal lies in sumo is a mystery matched only by that of people who sunbathe (what’s up with that? Where’s the fun?) or the strange disappearance of Snoopy from our TV screens. The sport doesn’t appear to have much technical merit and there’s seemingly little skill involved, and yet it has managed to become seen as a dignified and sophisticated sport. In short, it appears to have reached a level of admiration which the technicalities of the event don’t match up to. Of course, maybe when I do some more of that fabled Wilftonville “research” the sport will change my mind, but as it stands at the moment sumo wrestling seems even less worthy than clock solitaire.


What Is It?

Focusing on professional sumo, the sport is an insanely controlled and regimented way of life for many Japanese men. There’s a lot of money available, but at the same time the average life expectancy of the average sumo wrestler appears to be in the low 60s. In other words, it is the male equivalent of forced prostitution, given what I know of American romantic comedies. Sumo is contested between two different fighters, who wear nothing apart from a gigantic napkin round their waists to hide their jewels when they enter the arena. Said arena has a small stage in the centre where the bouts take place, and the idea is that the two wrestlers enter this circular stage and fight. They are only allowed to push each other, though (no kicking to the face, although that would be infinitely more amusing), and whichever of them pushes their opponent out of the circle or to the floor first is declared the winner. It’s that simple.

And most of Japanese society is based upon the spiritual purity afforded by sumo wrestling. For comparison, imagine if Britain or America respectively centred their cultural and social lifestyle on boxing and WWE wrestling. Oh, and also the Japanese religion, Shinto, is somehow connected to it as well. Although the sound of an overweight Jesus with boxing gloves, crown of thorns and lycra shorts does sound like a surefire crowd-pleaser, something tells me the western world would never accept it. Just to clarify: sumo wrestling is sort of religious. And you thought those little Jewish hats were silly!

But if we could get away from ridiculing religions (stop pushing me into slander, readers!) I’d like to have a little deeper look into sumo. Because heck – this blog is unlikely to ever cover this ‘sport’ again, so we may as well say everything we want to now, while we still have the opportunity. Sumo wrestling is possibly one of the strangest sports ever, in that the main activity itself is straightforward, but the lifestyle appears to be batshit crazy. For a start, all sumo wrestlers are a part of a stable, who look after them. When they are young they train up in the stable with their fellow wannabe sumo wrestlers, and it appears they are used as mini-slaves by the stable-owners. The Sumo Association also have a strict set of rules for their players which must be obeyed – Wikipedia (as ever, the main source for Wilftonville’s research. And, uh, the only) says that among other things, sumo wrestlers aren’t allowed to drive cars because once a sumo wrestler crashed his car and… well, died. So now no sumo wrestlers can drive. Don’t forget that this is one of the only sports in the world apart from darts which encourages participants to be fat and unhealthy, too! The main drink for a training sumo wrestler is alcohol. Why? Well… because.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

The first reason Britain doesn’t give two shakes of a pimp cane about probably has something to do with the aforementioned batshit craziness of the lifestyle, although a greater reason is probably the health-conscious nature of society. Fat children are shunned and the papers cry openly about the loss of exercise and fitness in the future generations. Sumo simply wouldn’t be accepted as a valid excuse for kids to eat as much as they want. The second reason is that Britain is a completely open society – too open, at times – and if sumo wrestling became massively popular it wouldn’t be too long until the women would start demanding to take part, too. Who on earth would want to see that? The idea of two fat British women wrestling each other while wearing tank-tops is physically and morally wrong, although knowing the general readership of this blog you probably all just got aroused. For shame, internet hordes.

One last point. It’d be really, really mean to force the geeky kids to take part in sumo wrestling in PE! Sumo wrestling gives a sense of worth to fat kids and those who are tall or well-built. In other words: the sporty kids. They already hold a monopoly on all the real sports – imagine their glee if they were put in a ring with a small asthmatic kid and told to throw them out. Personally, nothing fills me with hatred more than the glee of a successful person. Sumo wrestling should never become a part of British society.

Wilftonville's Endless Year Of Awards: Best British Male Artist:

Best British Male Artist:

Britain doesn’t have an urban scene, which is why the MOBO awards each year become a self-mocking bed of seething anger. For some reason, even though Britain has the musical talent to back it up (Sway, Wiley… Jamelia (in honesty, I’m not very knowledgeable about British urban music myself, proving that even the most brilliant of pop-culture curators can become part of the problem)) there is very little interest amongst the general public, in regards to supporting and listening to the acts. Instead, America has the monopoly on the market here. Yeah, a cynical industry pumping out act after act with little interest in anything apart from branding has somehow captured the hearts and minds of the British public, which is a rather damning indictment on our modern culture. Identikit artists like Usher/Ne-Yo/Chris Brown, or Ciara/Amerie/Rihanna frequently make a quick dash to the top of our charts, and each time they do the collective soul of the nation fragments a little deeper. It’s been happening for years now, which is why when we reached Summer the hope that a British urban act could ever make it to the top of the charts and be commercially successful without sacrificing their credibility… well, it was almost completely gone.

Earlier on, and perhaps this was in 2007, a young man called Calvin Harris appeared and released an album which was pretty popular with the UK – he was a white record producer who decided to make his own album, and after finding success he moved on to produce for people like, to name the most famous example, Kylie Minogue. That’s not particularly important, but it does lead us on to Mr Dizzee Rascal, who somehow managed to buck the American trend and stomped on the shiny, shiny faces of all those artists who mean nothing. Dizzee is a rapper, and he made it to number one. It was shocking, and surprising, and fantastic. He couldn’t have done it without Calvin Harris, but you wouldn’t know that from seeing his triumphant, jubilatory performances on just about every TV channel imaginable. Granted he didn’t appear to release any other songs, and lord knows if there was an album behind it or not, but Dizzee Rascal became a legend that fateful summer. A legend which only increased in power once he got onto Newsnight and spoke with Jeremy Paxman. It was a magical moment.



Awarded to: Dizzee Rascal

Pop Girls: Nerina Pallot's "Dear Frustrated Superstar"

Nerina Pallot
"Dear Frustrated Superstar"

****/5


Who is the Superstar? You are, dearest listener. Reader. Whatever you may be.

Nerina Pallot just so happens to be one of Britain’s most glittering pop musicians; a woman who not only puts together funny and clever lyrics but also sings them exceptionally well and then plays instruments over the top. Admittedly, this is not an unusual process with making songs. It is, in fact, THE process. Yet Nerina Pallot does everything with an air of sophistication and cool that marks her above most of the competition and makes her far better than the meandering introduction I’m giving her.

Quite often with pop you find that musicians play music which is nice, but won’t exactly set the world on fire. This is not true of Nerina Pallot. Her music will burn us from our homes and as we flee the flames of glorious noise together she will sit and watch with a knowing smile. Her songs are so good that her record company have done their best to keep them away from the public domain; this album was barely advertised when it was first released, and Nerina got so unhappy with her record company that she wrote a message on her website laying out all her frustrations. Nothing bad about that, you’d think – but the record company saw this message, and separation ensued. Nerina Pallot is a woman who knows exactly what she wants to happen with her songs, and it’s that level of quality control which makes this album stand out so. There are a wealth of fantastic pop songs on here, alongside some cleverly constructed ballads and a number of other song styles thrown in for good measure (tango, anyone?) If anyone asks – she is the best female singer/songwriter in Britain right now. Don’t keep it secret.

The two songs on the tracklisting which might worry any right-minded music fan are “Daily Bread” and “God”, as there are no good religious songs (possible exception: Christmas Carols). Luckily, the latter is all about religious confusion – always good in a song – and the former isn’t even about religion at all. ‘Daily Bread’ starts off with a drowsy, swaying vocal which is quickly displaced by a different style entirely, as she semi-sings the verses before rushing up to a big crescendo each time the chorus sweeps in. The song is about feeling like you’ve messed up life and want to go through it again, I think, but Pallot isn’t a songwriter who gives away too much with her lyrics. The song is pleasant, but one of the less memorable on the album. ‘God’ is much superior in this respect, as Pallot sings about her religious indecision over a sinister overtone of a kick-drum and very hushed chimes. What’s most memorable is her voice, which is incredible. She swoops and swoons at will, her deep, flowing voice carrying along without a care in the world. She hasn’t a powerful voice, but she has a resonant one – think Imogen Heap, if Imogen Heap weren’t all husky and whispery.

The two singles released from the album, which you won’t have heard because they’re too good, are “Alien” and “Patience”. Along with “Rainbow” these two songs form a tremendous trio of pop supremacy. Each are in their own way a superb addition to Britain’s pop catalogue, and something which The Cure would be proud to hear upon their ears (how do you think about that last sentence? Too archaic?). She packs each with a wall of production which forms an impenetrable pop bubble, and let’s her voice do what it does best – everything. Patience is the simplest of the three, fiddly electric guitar and a drumbeat boosted through vocals. Every moment of the song has some kind of vocal performance going on, and when she reaches her chorus everything jumps up into an aesthetically pleasing audio display. At this point in the review, I’m just playing around with words for the fun of it. ‘Rainbow’ is a little darker, with the focus on some bongos, maracas, and piano. For realsies! She sings in a low register for much of the song, before suddenly reaching out and producing a clear high for the chorus. “I don’t want your sympathy/just for you to worship me”, she sings, thus making clear once and for all how women expect to be treated by men. ‘Alien’ is the best of the three.

The songs which don’t work are “Daphne And Apollo” - and that’s a bonus track anyway, so you might not even hear it. And it’s not ‘bad’ so much as it is ‘ornate’.

“Very Good Sir” is not the best of songs, at least lyrically. Vocally she is again without fault (some singers never go wrong) but the lyrics don’t give her much to go on. The chorus tries to make up for this with some “doo doo doo” bits, which always work in pop, but that’s not quite enough to make up for the boring verses. There’s a nice music breakdown thing partway through, though. “Someday Soon” sounds quite a lot like something from a stage musical (minus the rubbishness that inevitably comes from a stage musical), moving from workable verses into a pretty chorus. Having a good voice helps paper over a few of the cracks in the album for Nerina, but the song gels well and is a pleasant listen. I prefer it when she sings darker, though, which is why I find so much to like in “Jump”. Although it sounds upbeat – jaunty, you could say, although I dislike the word so please don’t – the ‘jump’ of the title is of the narrator jumping into bed with a series of one-night stands which make her feel worthless the day afterwards. That she starts the song with

“Oh good lord above/I’m immune to the love/of a good man.
I go for the suckers/the mean motherfuckers”

Is a bit of a clue as to the downbeat nature, but you’d never tell from the peppy, lolloping music. In fact, the song could easily be played during a children’s television show, such is the wanton happiness it flaunts. Given the swearing, this would make for the greatest TV show of all time.

All the songs are long, but none feel like they go on too long. The longest is the opening “If I Know You”, which is possibly the best song on the album. Sticking to the deep end of the piano and throwing in strings and a sonorous (ten points for using the word sonorous in an appropriate context, please!) she creates a mini-epic of a song. It’s not epic because she doesn’t switch around the form of the song, but it is mini-epic because of the style of singing and the lyrics. “If I know you/you’ll come sailing through the starlight in the blue” she sings with a melancholic backflip that gets me every time. A sense of loss hangs heavy over the song, but with a hopeful nature that keeps things interesting and makes the song a first-rate opener. The title track is also one of her best songs, although at first things seem like they’re going to be stalling and clichéd. With chimes and keyboards playing gently over the top, the song quickly unfolds into something more than at first. It’s not about hating life as a musician – she doesn’t – because the superstar is YOU, as she points out on her hilariously written biography on www.myspace.com/nerinapallot . A guitar twangs into slow action and underpins what is a deeply affecting little ballad.

I’m onto a third page of writing, but I feel no compunction to stop suddenly. If you were going to skip this review you’d have already done it, so all the people still having fun/staring in bemusement at the odd wording – do/don’t worry, I still have a fair bit to say. Drum machines and a scaling piano take precedence in “Blood Is Blood”, which also features the lines “Tinkerball my winged friend/I think you’ve got it wrong” for which I will always love Nerina Pallot. The chorus scampers away joyously, and some of Pallot’s odd lyricism finds a home during the verses. She writes in the way I wish I could emulate, and it makes her music instantly accessible. This is not the sort of pop album which takes a few listens to appreciate (hello, Fiona Apple) but is instantly endearing. Like moi! “Watch Out Billie” is as trite as you’d expect, but hangs together on the fact that Pallot herself puts irony into every syllable of her performance. She’s warning Billie Piper of all people about the predatory nature of fame. The warning is that she should enjoy her fifteen minutes, but try to build something strong off the back of them, and find something in her life she enjoys. It was eerily prescient at the time, as the album was released during The Evans Years. And it’s fair to say this song is what persuaded Piper into auditioning for Doctor Who, and moving on to bigger things than her pop career. Fair to say, but probably a lie.

For a lot of “My Last Tango”, Nerina sings with only her piano as backup. But she has a whole orchestra waiting in the wings for when she tentatively reaches the chorus, before her voice starts silkily swooping again. It’s another one of the best songs on the album, and if you delete ‘Daphne And Apollo’ from your iPod it provides a lovely finale to an especially above-average pop album. I’ll repeat my opening when I say that Nerina Pallot is one of the best musicians in Britain at the moment. With people like Imogen Heap and Jem and Gemma Hayes in contention for that position, that’s no mean thing to achieve. Dear Frustrated Superstar stalled Pallot’s career, but it still stands as a great, cohesive album. It’s full of memorable and catchy songs, and it provided the grounding she needed in order to release her superior sophomore effort. I can’t recommend it enough.

Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

Boules
The National Sport Of: France

You’re laughing already, aren’t you? It’s unavoidable. The word ‘boules’ is intrinsically funny (it sounds like balls!), and when you add this to the fact that the word ‘France’ was also mentioned… well, you’re guaranteed some hilarity with this article, for sure! And that’s almost a guarantee! Well, actually, that is a guarantee, due to the use of the word ‘guaranteed’ in ‘guaranteed some hilarity’. I’ve put myself into a box, here, with no way out apart from success. Oh dear.


What Is It?

Boules is a sport which perfectly sums up the French attitude to everything. For a start, the game is based upon a central premise that keeps the players far away from where the action is. This then means that they are safe from any accidents occurring during play, and also gives them a head start in case they need to retreat at any point. It rewards the player who isn’t very strong, and who uses a limp wrist for maximum effect, and is one of the only sports where wearing a beret does not hinder one’s ability to play in any form.

Boules is a one on one game which leaves neither player feeling particularly satisfied afterwards, which I’m informed is another French trait, and is taken in turns. The first player throws a small white ball a short way into the distance, and the two then take turns attempting to throw several other balls at it. The player who gets their balls closest to the little white one is the winner. There aren’t many jokes about boules which don’t resort to classic double-entendre, but we’ll try to keep out of that particular area, for the sake of the children. When playing you can take one of several different route: you can wait until the last throw to knock everyone else out of the way and earn the victory, or you can try to form a protective barrier over a number of throws so that nobody can dislodge your balls. From the white. Ahem. This is one of the few games where a player can leave halfway through to buy some more toasted bread and choc au pains, and return without any serious long-term effect on your score.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

The obvious answer lies in the location of the game: France. Britain and France are eager enemies, ever since Britain repeatedly saved France from being invaded/ruling the World back in the good old days. If you don’t believe that Britain and France really hate each other, look no further than the 2012 Olympics. What other reason could Britain have for wanting them, other than to make France fail in their quest to win them? It is an honest hatred that the countries have for each other. And for the French to expect us – the bold and brave heroes of humanity – to sit down in the dust and throw balls along the ground? What a madness! What a cheek they have!

But that’s not the real answer, although many would abstain from the game for precisely this reason. Boules has never been the most delicate of events, all things considered. There is no formal uniform, no break for lunch and tea (the nerve of these people!) and the winner is judged by the competitors themselves. There isn’t a referee with a measuring tape or ruler, coming along to rescue the day with a bold answer as to who has won. Oh no. It is the very model of savage gameplaying, with players forced to fend for themselves in the wild. This does not appeal to the British sensibility, which is why we invented our own game. A superior game.

Not for us; the hefty throwing and vulgar lack of rules. No, we find a long stretch of grass and roll the balls down it, and then at the end of each round we have a referee judge using measuring apparatus the range of each ball from the white one, so that a winner can be decided impartially. And whenever either player gets tired, they are permitted to take a rest, during which they can go off for an ice-cream or perhaps even a spot of hot tea. It is civilised, it is British, and it is far better than anything the French have to offer us.

We call this game… bowls.

Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

Ice Hockey
The National Sport Of: Canada

Oh, cruel alphabetical order, which forces me to put the three biggest sporting nations (that aren’t in Britain) as the first three entries in this series. Cruel alphabetical order, indeed! First America, then Australia, and now Canada. By the time we’ve reached the end of the list, there won’t be any interesting countries left (Although having said that… Zimbabwe is last, right? No, wait, ‘crimes to humanity’ isn’t a sport, silly me. Forget I said anything.) In Canada, they play lacrosse a lot, but that barely qualifies as a sport at all. Only people in Enid Blyton novels ever play lacrosse. No, we’re going to focus on that other sport associated with Canada instead: Ice Hockey.


What Is It?

Remember that game that everyone used to have to play during P.E. lessons? Hockey? Yeah, well it’s that but done on ice. Because of this added challenge, all the players are kitted out not only with the traditional hockey sticks and shin-pads, but with almost-complete body armour that covers them up like mini-Juggernauts on a mission of vengeance. Not only is this helpful because ice-skating is difficult and tends to make you fall over every ten seconds, but also because the game appears to be only semi-based on the sport it takes it’s name from. Although we have two teams here competing against each other to score goals by hitting a solid, heavy, bricklike object into the rival goal (the goalkeepers are particularly shielded with their armour because of this, which begs the question – why not use a softer puck/brick?), the typical fan does not appear to have any interest in this aspect of the game. Instead, the biggest cheers are gained for the routine sight of players beating each other up, at carefully-staged intervals. In this respect, ice-hockey most resembles wrestling on ice.

I’m not lying. Breaking my long-standing policy regarding Wilftonville, I actually did research for this article. Research that included watching videos of ice hockey on Youtube. And nothing else. Once a game, without fail, one of the players will do something to annoy a member of the other team (or, on the most fun occasions, a teammate), and this will start a fight. As the two players are on ice, this fight usually takes the form of a couple of wild flaps followed by one or both players falling over. Not joking, this is actually one of the main reasons many people bother watching the sport at all. And I’m also not joking about the fights being largely made-up by the players, either – sometimes the players even go so far as to plan the fights before each match, and there is an unspoken code of rules for how the fights should all progress. It really is as choreographed as anything the WWE have ever put out, although with far less baby oil involved (one should hope). In movies, the fight always ends with one player being thrown through the glass, but I found this video much funnier:



Six players on each team, as you’d expect, and the goal-keeper is allowed to use their hands to block the brick... if they want to lose said hands. Matches are split into three 20-minute sections, and women are allowed to play (if they want to) for some bizarre reason. I’ve never met a female who plays ice-hockey, and I don’t think I’d ever want to. It’s fairly typical, and as most Brits know how hockey works out, there’s not much need to describe the game any further.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

Did you know there is a version of this which is called “Pond Hockey”? Not that this has anything to do with anything, mind. I just thought that was a funny name for a sport and had nowhere else to write about it. Anyway.

Y’know why we play sports? Because we don’t have an Empire anymore. Well that’s a lie, we have Gibraltar and the Falklands to hand – but this is hardly the army which will terrorise our foes, is it? We’re not even sure that the Falklands like us, for crying out loud! (Nobody has ever visited. We do know that they’re somewhere near Argentina, but it seems like too much of a hassle to try and get involved with them at this stage.) In light of not having an Empire anymore – blame those damned French if you’re going to blame anyone – we have turned our attention to sport instead. Rugby? A chance to beat up those Italians once a year. Cricket? Well, that was set up so we could beat those convicts in Australia, but they’ve recently started winning all the time so we don’t like it anymore. The common point in most sports that Britain enjoys is that they are loosely based on beating up the people we hold a grudge against. Being British as we are, however, this means we hold a grudge against everyone, including each other. This was why snooker was invented – to satiate out need to defeat those closest to us without resorting to physical violence.

The Canadians, however, aren’t a race we’re familiar with. We have vague recollections of them helping us burn parts of America (good times, man…), and they seem to accept that The Queen is the True Saviour of Mankind, but aside from that… nah. We don’t really care. We’ve got Germans to belittle in Athletics, after all. And the fact remains that ice hockey appears to have been designed by drunk people. Have you ever tried watching it? You can’t see the damn puck! Hasn’t anyone else noticed this, or is it just me? The players run all round the arena, skating like the professionals they are, but I’ll be damned if I ever have any idea where the puck is. In rugby, the ball is gigantic, brown, and oval-shaped – who wouldn’t notice that? Ice Hockey is ridiculous. Not to mention, it’s not exactly the kind of sport which lends itself to spur-of-the-moment play. Grab a tin can and put down two jumpers, you can have a rudimentary game of football almost anywhere (not in a nuclear reactor. Dear Lord, don’t do this in a nuclear reactor.) If you want to play ice hockey, on the other hand… well, do you have a frozen lake handy? Not practical, mate. Not happening.

Oh, also - if we ever want to see a decent fight, all we need do is stand outside the pub after closing time. Or go anywhere in Ireland.

Ten British Singers To Admire

It’s quite upsetting to read the papers every morning, because without fail one of the headlines is going to tell us all about how a musician, previously admired, has gone off the rails. There’s a massive problem in Britain, and not many other countries have it quite as bad as we do, where the media can’t stand to see someone succeeding in life. Not just the media, but the general public too. As the uber-wise Emily Haines once put it, “there’s an obsession with seeing how people aren’t their dreams.” It’s quite sad. And now that Amy Winehouse is a daily fixture in the papers, and it’s impossible to turn a corner without hearing people whispering dirty rumours about Duffy (note: lie), there’s a growing feeling that Britain is losing identity. Step in Wilftonville, heroic champion of the underdog, in all the forms that it can take. We don’t like to see this going on; and we know for an almost fact that what you’d like to read about is something positive, instead.

We can help with this. Instead of picking up a newspaper from now on, we suggest that you bookmark this blog entry, and re-read it every time you feel an interest in what the news of the day might be. It’s difficult to go cold-turkey, but if anyone can do it then you can. Here is a list, of singers who have managed to make us feel proud about Britain again, in their own different ways.

1: Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys, The Last Shadow Puppets)
A young lad from Sheffield, our Alex isn’t afraid of a bit of hard graft from time to time, as proven by his strong workrate over the past three years. He released an album a year with his first band, The Arctic Monkeys, and then went on to release another album earlier this year with a side-project called ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’. All three of ‘em take a look at British culture and declare it revived, in a way. A smart fella with a wry sense of self-deprecating humour, Turner is the sort of person you want at your award ceremony. It doesn’t matter what he’s done, just give him an award of some kind, let him go up to the mike, and enjoy.

2: Alison Goldfrapp (Goldfrapp)
Her music may have been brash and aimed directly at getting people onto the dance-floor, but Alison Goldfrapp has never been the kind of person who could be called socially active. Quite shy in front of a camera (although not as shy as her musical partner, who refuses to take the stage at their concerts), she shows a level of quirkiness that has been a part of Britishness for decades and decades. From Syd Barrett’s music-making to Churchill’s crazy decision to attack Germany for no reason, the British are known for being an odd sort, and Alison Goldfrapp is a pioneer of oddness. Dancing with giant owls, dressing up as an old woman, and all the while singing about breast implants, she needs to be recognised as the modern-day icon that she is.

3: Paul Heaton (The Housemartins, The Beautiful South)
Paul Heaton is from Manchester, a place synonymous with bricklaying, housing estates, and crime. He’s never let this get him down, though, and his songwriting has often tried to make Manchester seem like a much nicer place than it really is (sample lyric: “If rain makes Britain great/then Manchester is greater!”). Heaton is well-known as a collector of anything he can – he collects crisp packets, ‘do not disturb’ signs, and autographs, amongst others. What could be more British than the inbuilt desire to keep as much junk in your house as possible? He’s a funny bloke, too, although his choice to always wear a tracksuit top – even in concert – is baffling.

4: Ricky Wilson (The Kaiser Chiefs)
There was an incident a while ago where Ricky was walking through the streets of Leeds at night (oh what a beautiful sight), but was caught up in a hit-and-run incident, which left him with a broken leg. How, then, was he ever going to be able to complete the tour his band were currently partway through? Why, with a cast on his leg, of course! The dirty humour of Wilson is well-liked in Britain, and his reputation as a cheekie chappie is certainly bolstered by the strong, retro-fitted lyrics he’s given to sing by bandmate Nick Hodgson. With a constant grin on his face, and typically battered, Wilson represents the very noble spirit of stamina. The show must go on, after all.

5: Dame Shirley Bassey
The Dameship alone should be enough to fill you in on her legendary status, but if you want more: she has sung three different James Bond themes. The brassy Welsh diva – was she the first real diva to emerge from music? She’s certainly one of the most beloved – has an extensive career to date, and miraculously her voice has remained as powerful as ever it was. How does she celebrate this? By turning up seemingly every year for the Royal Variety Performance to sing something for the royals, who love it. When she went to Glastonbury to perform for the first time, she was smart enough to bring along wellies to keep her feet safe. However, she was also glam enough to have said wellies encrusted with diamonds that spelt out “DSB” on each leg. Class doesn’t cover it.

6: Dizzee Rascal
This list isn’t a fair representation, as Dizzee Rascal is the only black entrant. But race doesn’t matter – we’re more interested in Dizzee’s personality. As a rapper, you would expect his reputation to be linked with drugs, brawls, and so on. Heck, fighting and drugs were all that kept So Solid Crew in the papers. Yet Dizzee Rascal is not thought of in that sort of way. Instead, he’s seen primarily as a great spokesperson for young Brits, and also as a strong, charismatic performer. These traits, along with his recent barnstorming performance on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman, make him a Brit to be proud of.



7: Jarvis Cocker (Pulp)

Any list of true British heroes, who should only ever be spoken of in faltering, praise-filled hushed tones, is incomplete without Jarvis Cocker. An incredibly articulate and astute man, Jarvis writes songs which capture a moment in great detail, and in doing so raised points about class and culture which reverberated through Government. Although he has chosen to live his life in France, which is a terrible mistake on his part and will probably end in his brutal sacrifice just as soon as the French harvests fail, Jarvis manages to be filled with everything that symbolises Britain. He’s smart and funny, he was raised in Yorkshire, and he takes the piss out of everyone he sees. On top of this, he’s also a superb dancer.

8: Tom Jones

A true gentleman knows how to wear a suit, and Tom Jones can wear a suit better than anyone else in the World. He can also wear not a suit better than anyone else in the World. Continuing the strange trend of powerful singers from Wales (Shirley, Duffy, Cerys Matthews… The Automatic), Mr Tom Jones throws off class and sophistication everywhere he goes, even though somehow he has never lost his ability to appeal to the working man. With a collection of songs which would be the envy of any singer; Mr Jones has managed to sing tunes which have crossed continents and charmed millions of women, the suave geezer. And has he ever been caught up in drugs scandals? Has he ever been sent to rehab because of drinking? No. Because he’s a legend.

9: Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy)
Speaking of gentlemen, Neil Hannon surely epitomises the look of a modern Irishman. Instead of being dressed in the slave dungarees that are traditional for all who work in Ireland down on the potato fields, Hannon wears a suit and can recognise the idea of having a melody in his music, instead of histrionic shouting. Conducting together superb, baroque pieces of orchestra in order to compliment his deft use of words, he has created music that sounds more English than anything the English themselves could ever hope to make. In the process, he has suffered many hardships, but came through them stronger, and his recent output are arguably his best records to date. A superb musician to admire.

10: Kylie Minogue
We're claiming her.

18 Things To Try During Bonfire Night

1: Rocket Russian Roulette

2: Fancy dress costumes of Guy Fawkes post-execution

3: Cellotaping fireworks together

4: Revolution

5: An incendiary fetish

6: Baking drugs into parkin cake

7: Sparkler lightsabre battles

8: Making jokes outside Andrew Sachs house about where the loud bangs are coming from

9: Visiting the zoo

10: Burning peasants

11: Throwing plastics onto a public bonfire

12: Writing lewd letters to Katie Melua

13: An elaborate sacrifice to the great Lord Ra

14: Attaching a Catherine wheel to your hat

15: Standing in a hospital reception while laughing at all the injured people who arrive

16: Re-enactments of The Towering Inferno

17: Hiding in unlit bonfires

18: Begging whilst dressed as a burn victim

Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

[Earlier this year I put a site tracker onto Wilftonville, just for a week, and I found out that a surprising majority of readers come from the Down Undah’ (is that how you write it?). So… this one’s for you, Australia!]

Australian Rules Football
The National Sport Of: Australia


What Is It?

Having previously slighted American Rules Football for being wimpy at best, I’ll have to stand down a little. Aussie Rules Football is based around the rules of rugby, just like American Football is - but in the case of the Australians the sport isn’t toned down (wussified) at all. If anything, they add an extra layer of unpredictable violence into proceedings. Australian Rules football may not be football, but it certainly is a sport only the Australians could ever have invented.

The rules are almost simple. Two teams of eighteen (seriously? Eighteen? That’s insane!) take to the field, and stand essentially wherever they want before kickoff starts. The ball – a rugby ball – is thrown into play, and the madness then begins. The ball can be passed by punching it or kicking it, which adds credence to my belief this game was designed to appeal to the inner convict present in every Australian, but not through throwing. That makes it quite different from rugby, then. Also, if a player decides to run with the ball then they have to bounce it on the ground every fifteen metres. No trouble, except this is an oval rugby ball and they play on terrain which is typically slightly less well maintained than Wembley. On top of all that, the players from the other team (don’t forget; there are eighteen of them gunning for you once you grab the ball) can get it back off you by tackling you. Aussie rules are just like British ones in that the players aren’t given any protective gear – except, lord hopes, a cup – so when a player gets tackled they’re going to feel it.

There are four posts on each side of the pitch, and if a player can kick the ball between the two most middle posts then the team gains six points. If the ball misses and goes between a middle and outer post, or if the kick completely spastics out and hits a post, only one point is scored. In that respect, Aussie rules thus rewards even the sloppiest of players. After eighty minutes of killing each other, spread over four twenty-minute sections, the players are called in and go off for a barbeque and lager. Fosters, mate.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

Everything about Aussie rules seems to suggest that Britain would love the sport, if they could only get past that first word of the name. “Australian”. Y’see, that’s the problem for us all. When it comes to sport, the last thing we want to see is a participating Australian. As far as any Brit is concerned, the national hobby of Australia is “beating Britain” (of course, we get the occasional upset – an Ashes win here, maybe a Rugby World Cup on home turf after a last minute drop goal C’MON Jonny Wilkinson or an Olympics Medal Table that surprised even us, but typically we tend to lose to those bastards). If we play cricket, then those dirty Aussies will undermine the entire point of us shipping them abroad in the first place by beating us. Likewise with most other sports – Australia have a naturally tendency to be just that little bit better than us Brits, and that really rubs us up the wrong way sometimes. Grr, and all that.

So the reason why we don’t play any Australian sports like that, nor care about any Australians who do? Because if we give them any attention at all, then they’ll almost certainly change the names for all their teams to stuff like “The Pom-Bashers” and “The Limey-Toppers”. And help us, we find it difficult enough as it is to win at sports we invented against them – how would we ever compete if we played a sport against them that they’ve had years of practise with?

Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

After watching the British public make the quickest about-turn since the Krauts saw us advancing into the Rhineland in ’44 (sorry) whilst watching the 2008 Olympics, it struck me that Britain simply doesn’t care less about a lot of the sports you see other countries playing. We didn’t care less about the track-and-field in China until we realised that we weren’t failing for once, which brought us together as a nation in an attempt to write Christine Ohuruogu’s surname correctly on our Union Jack flags. We came round eventually to the whole idea of the World coming together to celebrate diversity and culture and sport – but only once we started winning.

There are so many other sports that could do with a bit of the same. Around the World, countries celebrate a variety of sports that nobody in Britain cares less about – most of the time, we have a reason, but in some cases it’s just snobbery that keeps us away from such activities. Snobbery, of course, being one of the things Britain is best at, alongside sarcasm, irony, humour, and making a decent fish and chips. We also have a handful of sports that we really love and accept – where would we be without Rugby, Football, Cricket, and Horse Riding – and some sports which we grudgingly accept for a few weeks until any British competitors are eliminated (tennis). Those aside though, we don’t really try much new stuff, which is probably for the best of the country: we don’t want to start playing sissy sports that give Prince Philip a heart-attack.

I have barely done any research about any of them, so most of the facts presented here are, as ever, probably incorrect, but here we will list several sports which millions of people follow fanatically. We don’t care about any of them.


American Football
The National Sport Of: America

What Is It?

American football is rugby, which has been spiced up with the addition of halftime shows and cheerleaders, and wussed up with the addition of extensive body armour for each competitor alongside rules which give the audience more scrums and less running for their money. Each team has to get the ball from one side of the field to the other without being tackled or ‘sacked’ by a member of the other team. You are allowed to kick or throw the ball to other players, and you score points each time you cross the line at the end of the other team’s end of the pitch. The game is split into four quarters, and lasts an hour overall.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

Nobody in Britain cares about either of these sports, because we already have variations of them for ourselves, thank you very much. In the case of American football, we already have two superior versions of the sport which we play at home anyway, those sports being rugby league and rugby union respectively. I can name for you right now, American Readers, why this sport bores us, and shall do so with immediate effect:

• American football is played in 10 yard sections, instead of being played as a free-for all race to the finish. If a player advances to the next section, the game apparently seems to restart at the beginning of that section, so you don’t get to see much movement over the course of a match.
• The players only play for fifteen minutes at a time, instead of the forty minutes halves that rugby players experience. As such, going to a game of American football appears to be more about good company and beer than it is about watching sport.
• If we want to have good company and beer whilst a sport nobody cares about goes on in the background, we’ll simply go to the pub and watch Italian football.

With rugby, nobody wears much protection at all, and when you couple this with the British weather, this makes for a much greater potential that horrific violence will soon occur. That’s why we watch the sport. Also, in America I believe that the football players are held to be the dim ones, who get into university because they are good at sport and not because they are clever. In Britain, the rugby players tend to be the posh, smart ones who go to the private schools – so we get to watch posh people get beaten up! We love that.

Another reason why Britain is never going to care for American football, despite everything it throws at us, is the fact that because it calls itself “football”, we’re not allowed on the internet to call our sport – the real sport, because we invented it first – football. Instead, on Wikipedia and around the internet, we’re forced to refer to it as ‘soccer’. Damn you! And just for that, we shall never watch your “super bowl”. It’s not petty to be annoyed about something if you’re on the side of Good, which Britain always has been.

The Cheeky Monkeys

I don’t keep up with British TV, because I believe that it is being used as a device to destroy the soul of our country, and that it weakens the free-spirit of our children and scares the elderly. Every so often I am dragged across to see something, and last night that something happened to be a little TV show called Britain’s Got Talent. “What a quaint show this will be!” I thought to myself, for in my mind I am an elderly woman. “I do so hope that it celebrates the best of British talent and helps strengthen the resolve of our army in Iraq.” I’m a concerned young man when it comes to the welfare of our troops, and I’ll be the first to admit it. I physically cry every time I see someone wearing a red beret in the street, from the sheer memory of the fact our troops are out there right now, fighting so that people will stop fighting the British troops in Iraq. I care deeply, as you can see, about the welfare of the nation.

It seems that I was watching the wrong places! While the first act was a set of dancers who performed a routine that any Royal Variety Show would be proud to host, and the second act was a University student who could bend herself over backwards (yes, she was Asian, but I cannot confirm nor deny that the Chinese Government broke her spine in order for her to be able to achieve this. I don’t have the resources. I did make several sexually inappropriate jokes about her during the routine, because I like to make people laugh and my grandparents were looking a bit bored). This is all very well and good, nothing wrong there, no reason to panic about the state of Britain. And then these two came on.

They call themselves “Cheeky Monkeys”, which is interesting because I’ve never met a child in my life who ever uses the word “cheeky”. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that cheeky is a word only ever used by twee mothers who think their abominable spawn are actually being endearing while they happily maul the curtains. It gets worse. The idea behind their routine is that these two little children do a dance routine involving high kicks, cartwheels, and an odd finger-shaking routine which I believe was taken from a 50’s musical about the joys of black segregation (does such a musical exist? I would love to see it). So yes, our television at prime time is devoted to seeing young children dancing. This offends me on several levels, and my inner granny on many an occasion has been tempted to write a scathing letter followed by a knitted scarf to the ITV executives because of this repeated sight.

And it’s not just because the girl wears a short skirt that is completely inappropriate and should get her mother sent to prison for months and months and months. This is though, admittedly a factor in my hatred for this particular act. My main problem is that they expect the British public to find this sort of performance to be ‘cute’ and not ‘creepy’, when obviously the parents are demented. How would they like to be up there under the spotlights, performing a ridiculous and sexualised dance in front of the whole of Britain? Quite a lot, I’d imagine. They’re probably sat up in the crowd taking photos, which they’ll then photoshop their own faces onto. Parents should never be allowed to have kids.

Just looking at this photo makes you a sexual predator.

Who Will Replace Terry?

Terry Wogan has had enough of Eurovision, and you can’t blame the guy. For the past ten years or so he’s sat by and watched as the British entry has failed miserably (with the exception of HAWTNESS Jessica Garlick, who came third), and has had countless attacks aimed at him because he realises, as does most of Britain, that Eurovision is a popularity contest and not based on the music. Actually, it’s probably because he has noticed this that Britain has. And he’s not just a passive bystander, remember. Terry picks and befriends and promotes the entrant each year, appearing on TV shows and doing interviews and doing his best to boost the profile of these bands and singers, only to see them fail. It must be a little heartbreaking, and you could hear at the end of Eurovision this year the despair and aggravation in his voice as he debated whether we should bother with it anymore.

Terry’s better than Eurovision now, and he deserves his break from it, should he choose to pass on the baton. But the Eurovision will remain, and the only question is: who will take over? A lot of people have been pushing Jonathan Ross to do it, because he does everything else so nobody will notice, but that’d be a mistake, as would Jimmy Carr, that other guy who presents TV in Britain. You need someone who isn’t a one-trick pony, who can do more than that. So I’ve compiled a list of people who I think would be great for Eurovision, and I urge you, should you agree with any of them, to form petitions and start chaining yourself to BBC headquarters in order to get your person into the job.

Graham Norton: The cheeky Irishman would be just the ticket for guiding us through the camp joys of Eurovision, and could poke joyous offensive fun at proceedings. He could also, though – and this is the key thing – do so whilst still being in awe of the whole event. It’s tailor-made for his personality.

Mark Radcliffe: The Radio 2 DJ has a wry eye for details, and if anyone would be able to tell us that the Romanian entrant looks like a broken TV set with green mouse ears, it would be him. At the very least, he should take over if Ken Bruce moves over from the Radio 2 programme to the TV broadcast, which is possible.

Rob Brydon: My personal favourite choice. Brydon can do pretty much anything, having an astonishingly wide repertoire. He also has a superb voice for the event, and a wicked sense of humour. He could make fun of something and then pull himself back and tell us off for agreeing with him.

Jools Holland: Imagine the awkwardness of any interview Jools has ever done on his show, but stretched out for three hours or so. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Claudia Winkleman: Three hours of listening to the delightful Claudia Winkleman would be fine by me! I love you, Claudia Winkleman.

Ronnie Corbett: The great thing about Ronnie is that he would be reminded of a story by seeing someone from Armenia or something, and would go off on a long-winded joke about things, paying no attention to what is happening on screen, making for a superb night of calming television.

Brian Blessed: Admittedly, I’m pushing it a little here.


Who would you like to see?

The Best Of Rareware

Who are Rareware? Oh, you poorly-read fools! Rareware happen to be the greatest second-party video games company of all time. Their first notable series of games came in the 1990’s when they helped Nintendo on the N64, creating several of the best games for the system, as well as a few which many claim to be ‘the’ best. After Nintendo moved on from their brilliant, underappreciated console and moved to the Gamecube, Rare were bought out by Microsoft and moved to the X-Box, where they’ve stayed in hiding for many years, releasing barely anything. The games that have come out from the Rare umbrella have traditionally been poor in comparison to their golden run on the N64, with only Perfect Dark Zero standing out at all to anyone. Their most anticipated title, Banjo-Kazooie 3, has not been seen by anyone since a short trailer released a few years ago, and generally it is accepted that Rare have gone downhill a little. Their Glory Years live on, though, and as I have a lot of love for the Twycross-based company I’ve decided to celebrate them for the ingenious, hilarious company that they were (and could be again!) Here, then, are the five games which represent the best of what Rare have given to the World. These are the top five Rareware games of all time (although only games from their period with the N64 are mentioned, because Battletoads was godawful).

5: Jet Force Gemini
Jet Force Gemini was a third-person shooting game where you took control of either Juno, his sister Vela, or their yellow space dog Lupus and went around killing giant bugs who had terrorised a planet inhabited by cute teddy bears. The fun comes not just from the ludicrous levels of gunge that spurts everywhere when you kill the baddies, but also from the easy gameplay, the brilliant weapons that were on display – including homing rocket launchers, machine guns, and (oh yes) cluster grenades – and the fact that if you wanted to, you could screw the “kill the bad guys” ideal and shoot the teddy bears instead. Rare seemed to anticipate that gamers would want to kill the teddies, as they were animated to have many more different death sequences than the giant space ants that made up the majority of the baddies. You could kneecap them, decapitate them, blow them into bloody chunks… it was fun. You just don’t get that sort of violence nowadays, and I think that’s an almighty shame.


4: Goldeneye 64
Known by many as the greatest first-person shooter of all time, in Goldeneye 64 you got to BE James Bond, running through scenarios similar to the film of the same name as you fought to kill off Sean Bean before he did something dastardly but ill-explained. The gamer was given the option for the first time, really, of choosing either to run through the level shooting everything, or instead holding back and using stealth to progress through the game, which slowly became more and more essential as you advanced through levels. The fun is from the weapons and baddies, again – this was one of the first games where you could shoot humans that looked vaguely realistic, and again Rare answered our more sadistic instincts with throwing knives, explosives, and a tank. Oh boy, the tank. You got to drive round St Petersburg in a tank! Genius. The multiplayer too, thrown in as an afterthought by the designers, has been the single greatest influence on shooting games ever since. It’s yet to be beaten, really.


3: Donkey Kong 64
Nintendo had a history of lending out their Donkey Kong license to rare, which resulted first in the good but tremendously irritating Diddy Kong Racing, which featured almost every annoying Nintendo character ever created in one game (Slippy Toad from Starfox was absent, thankfully), and then this. Donkey Kong 64, a superb, visually stunning platformer that picked up from where Mario 64 left off and was one of the few games to come close to matching it. No game ever will though, of course. With Donkey Kong 64 you took on all five of the characters above as they fought against the evil King K. Rool (the plot was mostly played for laughs, a characteristic of many of Rare’s games) whose giant weapon of destruction had broken down. To fix it, he stole all the bananas from Donkey Kong’s island home, thus motivating a truly bizarre plot which culminates, I kid you not, in a boxing match. So much is packed into this mammoth game, including but not limited to: jetpacks, guns, swordfish, rapping, ghosts, and a fairy. How could anyone not love it?


2: Perfect Dark
Superior to Goldeneye, the sequel to one of the most beloved games of all time managed to prove itself even in the face of staggering expectations. Perfect Dark is, quite simply, the best first person shooting game of all time, taking you on an extraterrestrial adventure that starts off on Earth and ends on a far-off planet populated by lizard aliens. The Goldeneye gameplay engine returned, but was vastly advanced, creating more baddies and weapons, hoverbikes, blood, and conversation. This enhanced the need for stealth, because if you got caught by a guard he would invariably run off and tell his mates where you were. Perfect Dark took everything that was good about Goldeneye, and everything that the public demanded it have, and put it together in a game that feels as fresh and entertaining now as it did when it was first put out. And in the process, it helped men across the World access their feminine side – your character is called Joanna. Also, you have a boss with a Scottish accent. Brilliant.


1: Banjo Kazooie
A left-field choice for the best Rare game of all time, Banjo Kazooie squeezes more creativity and fantastical humour into the opening scenes than most games can muster in the whole of their existence. A witheringly sarcastic bird and a dumb, lazy bear team up when the bear’s sister is stolen by an evil witch (who only talks in rhymes). They’ve aided in their mission by a wise mole who has an intense hatred for Kazooie, the bird, and a shaman called Mumbo Jumbo, who’d rather be sleeping, really. In the course of their journey the heroic duo fight giant ants and crabs, steal oranges from a monkey, visit a haunted house whilst disguised as a pumpkin, and free a giant mechanical shark from his job as a recycling machine. Through every step of the journey, Rare punctuate things with irony and sarcasm, usually from Kazooie, and deliver gameplay that equals that of Mario 64. You get to fly, and actually fight a boss whilst doing so. The enemies are varied and brilliant, making fun of you even as you kill them, and towards the end the game gets seriously difficult, but never too hard for it’s own good. The music and visuals complement proceedings perfectly, the background music changing slightly as you run through the level select area (a castle) depending on where you are. As you visit the entrance to the beach level, for example, the music turns into a hula, whilst an accordion plays the tune as a sea shanty when you reach Rusty Bucket Bay. Everything about Banjo Kazooie is entertaining, and it more than earns it’s place as Rare’s greatest achievement… thus far.

Which Is The Best James Bond Film?

People across the internet go on and on about which is the best of the James Bond spy franchise, picking their favourite and then saying that their choice is obviously the correct way. However, nobody ever goes to say why the other films aren’t as good as their favourite. In one of my frequent online experiments with culture, I’m going to work out once and for all, which is the best Bond of all – by eliminating the other films for single acts of rubbishness they commit. I thought up nine questions, designed to test the series. If a film does not live up to the question I ask it, then it loses and will be eliminated. The film left standing after my nine questions shall be the winner. Let the elimination commence!


Question 1: Can You Remember What Happens?
Thunderball has something to do with submarines, and For Your Eyes Only had a Greek dude who was the villain. Octopussy has this one scene where one of the allies gets killed with a buzzsaw thing, which is cool, and I think Roger Moore dresses up as a clown. The Living Daylights was the first Timothy Dalton one, and he was a good Bond. These are the sum remembrances I have for any of these films.

Eliminates: Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, The Living Daylights.


Question 2: Who Plays Q?
If Desmond Llewelyn is not playing Q, the film is rubbish and must be taken out back and shot. I’ll let Casino Royale off, because Q doesn’t actually appear in that one. However, he is played by someone else in Dr No and Die Another Day (John Cleese, natch), and I refuse to let those films off so lightly.

Eliminates: Dr No, Die Another Day.


Question 3: Does Bond look past it?
James Bond is a superspy! And more than that, there is a policy that says all 00-Agents have to retire when they reach 45. Despite this, Bond looks pretty rough in Never Say Never Again and A View To A Kill. (Never Say Never Again, by the way – I only include that here so that nobody thinks I’m dissing Lord Moore. I don’t consider it a real Bond film, so don’t even GO THERE). Yeah, those two films are pretty much eliminated.

Eliminates: Never Say Never Again, A View To A Kill


Question 4: Is the Villain Up To Much?
From Russia With Love has a great villain – Red Grant – but sadly nobody remembers him, and he’s out of the picture long before the final act. Instead we have Rosa Klebb, a butch Russian lesbian who has a dangerous shoe. Ooh, scary. The Spy Who Loved me also has a bad villain, a really old guy who sits at a table and likes fish. There’s another old guy in Tomorrow Never Dies, a journalist who says “delicious” far too often and is no match for Bond. I’m also including For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights on this one.

Eliminates: From Russia With Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies.


Question 5: Is the death scene of the villain insanely stupid/bland?
Again with the Klebb – she spends a few minutes waving her leg at Bond before she gets shot – where’s the fun in that? Bond literally inflates someone to death in Live and Let Die, whilst Le Chiffre dies without Bond punching him once. Lame! The Man With The Golden Gun sees Bond pretend to be his own statue before shooting the otherwise badass Scaramanga, and nothing will ever remove the image of a fat German bloke getting sucked out of a fake window in Goldfinger. If I remember correctly, he even makes the noise a balloon does when you let go. Real classy, guys.

Eliminates: From Russia With Love, Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, Goldfinger, Casino Royale.


Question 6: Is Space Travel involved?
Moonraker has lasers. That’s about the only good thing I can say about it. Actually no, I’ll give you Jaws’ last line. That was pretty funny.

Eliminates: Moonraker


Question 7: Does Bond get the wrong girl?
Poor Pierce Brosnan. The role of James Bond offers you the chance to roll around with stunning women, and yet in every one of his films he ends up with the least appealing of the two women who appear. Why couldn’t Xenia reform in Goldeneye? Couldn’t they have found someone less irritating than Christmas Jones to be his lover in The World Is Not Enough? Whose decision was it to kill off Teri Hatcher, and WHY did Rosamund Pike have to be a villain? She’s so hot! Poor Pierce got a string of bad luck, it seems. Also Timothy Dalton’s Bond shows highly impaired judgement when he picks the CIA agent lady instead of Talisa Soto in License to Kill.

Eliminates: License To Kill, Every Pierce Brosnan Film.


Question 8: Does Blofeld not look like Donald Pleasence?
I can accept only two kinds of Blofeld: Donald Pleasence, or obscured Blofeld. All other forms of Blofeld are unsatisfactory, and towards the end they get really strange (Diamonds are Forever – what’s going on there? Face transplants?) I’d also like to take this moment to point out the weirdness of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s bobsleigh scene.

Eliminates: Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever


Question 9: Are black people bad?
Self-explanatory.

Eliminates: Live and Let Die



The Lone Survivor: “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.”!!

It has a kickass opening, a superb villain, a decent song, an underground hollowed-out volcano superbase, and people getting poisoned by string. Fantastic. You Only Live Twice has survived my nine questions, and proves itself to be truly the best Bond film of all time. Dispute THAT, fanboys!

How Green You Are: Pointing Out Things That Make My Country Better Than Yours

#1: Allotments

What is “Allotments”?

An allotment is a patch of land which is rented out to an individual or family so that they can do their gardening on it. Every weekend, there is a mass exodus of old men with dungarees and white beards to these areas, where they then spend hours upon end poking the soil with rakes and chatting to neighbours about how much they don’t love their wives anymore.

What’s The Point?

The point is that they provide men with somewhere to go once they’ve retired which isn’t a golf-course, as well as helping hundreds of work-executives to ease away all their stress by digging up a particularly elongated tree root (them things are a right bother). Without allotments, these men would have to talk to their wives, which for many should never be made an option. Wives are scary creatures, what with their words, and questions, and facial expressions... You’ll never understand a woman, but you could learn to understand the art of growing runner beans, which is why allotments are so popular. The things are dotted all across England, and could single-handedly provide enough food for one small African nation per year, if every allotment-owner chose to focus all their work on helping those who are less fortunate. However, these people are mostly retired, and so don't care about anything except the state of the NHS.
As allotments are all situated outside, they provide a great opportunity for people to complain about the weather, a traditional English past-time.

What Makes This So English?

If any other nation were bored at the weekend and wanted something to do, they’d doubtless go off to the park, or a museum; see a film or play some sport. Not in England. As our national sports are rugby (painful) and cricket (slow), going off to the allotment every weekend is the only real way in which they can relax. Yes, the English relax by doing work. Don’t try to think about it too long, you’ll get a migraine. Really, though, the belief is that most people only own an allotment so they can grow potatoes, and thus can mock the Irish by having something that Ireland doesn’t: a viable potato industry.

Go England!