Oh, how very f**king original..."Which". "Decade". It is an outrage. I rest my case.

(No, I don't mind. Really, I don't. I'm sure it will be marvellous, in a derivative, bowlderised and comprehensively eviscerated sort of way. As my lovely regular commenter Lizzy said, when tipping me off to this outrage affectionate tribute: they'll probably be doing a feature on shirts soon...)

Labels: popmusic, television

K and I really enjoyed the recent Channel 4 documentary "The Sex Blog Girls", starring our very own Zoe One Track.

Needless to say, this was my favourite part of the documentary. Two whole seconds of immortality (rounded up to the nearest whole number)! Why, I nearly wore out the pause button...



And then, just a few minutes later, this popped up:



"Darling!", I squealed at my best beloved. "How could they have got you so wrong?"

Labels: blogs, journal, onetrack, television

(An edited version of this interview appears in today's Nottingham Evening Post. This is the extended remix.)


Thanks for speaking to us at this uncomfortably early hour (8:10 am). Are you a morning person?

It depends. I’m heading to work right now, so I have to be awake! I’m in the middle of filming Torchwood, so we’re driving over to Port Talbot at the moment.

Let’s start by talking about your album Another Side, which comes out on Monday. I’d assumed this was your debut solo recording, but it actually turns out to be your fifth, right?

That’s right. My other recordings have all been geared towards the musical theatre crowd, or towards people who are more into Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein – but this is my debut recording for a more mainstream audience. A lot of people don’t know that for the last sixteen years or so, I’ve been doing shows in the West End and Broadway. When I did How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria and Any Dream Will Do, people would come up to me and say: we didn’t know you could sing, and we’d love to hear you sing some more! So it seemed like perfect timing.

You’ve already gone on record as saying that this isn’t an attempt to become a pop star. But you’re releasing an album of pop covers, and presumably you want it to sell well, so I’m a bit confused by that statement.

It’s an album of music that I love, that I’ve released because people want to hear me sing. I’m in no way wanting to be a pop star. I don’t want to be like a boy band, or Robbie Williams, or Maroon 5. I don’t only want to do concerts and albums. This is a facet of my career that I’m taking a journey with. But listen: if, five or ten weeks down the line, it proves to be hugely successful and the record company says that they need me to be a pop star for a while, then maybe I’d consider it. But it’s not the reason that I’m doing it.

So, no videos shot in glossy locations or any of that stuff?

Well, there is a promotional video for the song All Out Of Love. And I’m a businessman who wants to sell the record, so I will be going to major supermarkets to do signings. But just because I do that, it doesn’t mean that I’m being a pop star. I’d do that with my book! I’d do that with my Doctor Who merchandise! So it’s one and the same thing.

In terms of how you selected material for the album, it feels to me like a collection of your personal favourite songs.

You have got that correct. It probably took about four or five weeks for us to choose them. When Sony first approached me, they gave me a selection of their discs, which I narrowed down to songs that have actual relevance to situations and events within my life thus far. So they are very personal songs. Because there’s not enough space on the album sleeve, the listener can find out more through my website, where I will explain why I chose each one.

You’ve balanced classics – Your Song, Time After Time, Bryan Adams’ Heaven – with some more unfamiliar material. There’s one I really liked, which I’d not heard before, called Being Alive. Where’s that from?

Ha ha ha! See? I’m twisting everybody a little bit, by integrating something from a musical! That’s from a musical by Stephen Sondheim, called Company. I’m so chuffed that you said you liked it, because you might now want to go and see a musical!

Oh God, maybe now I’ll get over my block of Sondheim...

There you go – I’ve done a Sondheim number that you actually liked!

One of your more bold interpretations is Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, which is almost in a Ricky Martin Latin style. Were you nervous at re-interpreting a well known song in such a different way?

Sony said: we want you to do one song that people would never expect you to do. I went away and thought about it, and considered a song by the Foo Fighters – but we thought that wouldn’t quite fit into the scheme of things. This was one of my other choices, because my friend and I were big Police fans in high school. So I brought it forward, and said: look, please trust me on the musicality that I have, and what I know about music. Let me do this in the style of a Mexican mariachi band, with a Latin sound, and we’ll see if it works. So we recorded it, and I let the execs hear it, and they said: we think it’s great, we’re going to put it forward for Strictly Come Dancing!

So this is the song that you’ll be performing on Strictly Come Dancing?

On the [Sunday night] results show, yes. We pumped that song to them, and they went: this is great, this is perfect for our show!

You’ve also done something quite unusual for an openly gay performer, in that a lot of these songs do specifically reference women. Was that something you had to think carefully about?

Not at all, because I still like women! Just because I’m gay, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like women. It doesn’t mean that I want to sleep with them, but some of my closest friends are women. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic doesn’t necessarily relate to someone you’re having sex with. Also, the songs are for the listeners. When they listen to songs like She’s Always A Woman, my vision is of a man and a woman, partnered, married or whatever, sitting next to each other. It could even be a lesbian couple. And they’re listening to that song, and the one turns to the other, and says: that song is you to a tee. I want it to stir emotion within people. But I don’t see my homosexuality as being a guide for me.

You’ve got yourself into an interesting position – and a good position, really – in that you can cover songs that reference genders in that way. I can’t think of a gay performer who has been able to do that before, without people thinking: oh, that’s a bit off. Maybe the Captain Jack character has helped in that respect?

I don’t think it’s because of the Captain Jack character. What you also have to remember is that people have changed over the last five or ten years. People realise that I am an actor, and that my duty is to entertain people. I give an illusion. I’m a gay man, but when I go on stage in the West End, as I have done for the last sixteen years, I will play a romantic leading man. I will fall in love with girls, and I will let the audience believe that. You’re not watching John Barrowman – I’m playing a character. That’s the way you have to look at it, and audiences have moved on from five, ten years ago.

You’re taking the album out on tour next year, and Nottingham will be one of the dates. Will it be primarily a singing gig, or will it be more of “An Evening With”, where you’ll be mixing the singing up with some talking as well?

At the moment, we’re still formulating some of the ideas, so I’ll give you a couple of little inside details of things that we’re currently working on. I’ve done cabaret before, and one of the things that I love about cabaret is that it’s intimate. Now, what I want to create, although it’s on a bigger scale, is some of that intimacy. So I will be telling stories and anecdotes, and certain things will be scripted – but if I diverge from the script, then I diverge. I’ve always found that in the past, audiences enjoy that. They like to go on those little journeys with me. So there will be chat, and there will also be some guest stars. I’d like to have a couple of artists that people may not have heard of before, so that we can introduce some new talent. It stems from the reality shows that I’ve done, which are based on bringing new talent to the forefront.

I like the sound of the unpredictability. It means that people can read reviews of the previous night, without being told everything that’s going to happen on the following night.

Exactly, and that’s bringing the element of where I started in live theatre, because you just don’t know what’s going to happen, on a nightly basis. So, yes, there’ll be a bit of unpredictability about it.

(photo taken at London Pride 2007 by dtank)

You seem to have the most incredibly full schedule at the moment. For instance, you’ve got a BBC1 game show coming up, called The Kids Are All Right. What’s that all about?

It’s a light entertainment show, where adults will compete against kids who are super-intelligent – not just in the academic sense, but in the social sense, and with books, and all sorts of stuff. It will be a group of kids, and that’s why we say that “the kids are all right”. I mean, they’re cool – but they’re always right. So the adults will either be glorified or shamed by these kids. We did a pilot, which worked really well. These kids are very smart; they have attitude, and they sling it around the stage. So it will be good fun.

And then you’ll be coming back as Captain Jack in the New Year…

I’m not in the Doctor Who Christmas special, but I come back in Series Four, which starts filming after Christmas. Series Two of Torchwood also starts airing on BBC2 in January.

There must be a special sort of responsibility in playing Captain Jack, in that you must get collared by fans of both Torchwood and Doctor Who, who expect you to know every last detail of all the plots. Do people delight in trying to catch you out, saying that something happened in Episode Two which was contradicted in Episode Six and so on?

Some of them do, and I’ll be honest with you - my response is to say: you have too much time on your hands, and you need to get a life. I have no problem saying that! They usually laugh back, and say: yeah, you’re right. I am a fan of Doctor Who, and I love what I do – but I don’t go into so much detail. Sometimes when we’re looking at scripts, I’ll say if something contradicts a previous episode – so I do recognise these things. But if someone challenges me on it, I’m like: dude, come on!

I mentioned to a Doctor Who fan that I’d be talking to you and he said: ask him why the Face of Boe looks nothing like him!

[Suddenly very animated] Well, you can go back and say: because the Face of Boe was designed in Series One, before that plot had actually come round to it!

Oh, but that de-mystifies the whole process, if you’re going to say that!

But you’ll probably find that if you go back to the Face of Boe now, they’ll re-configure it a little bit – because the Face of Boe is the oldest living being in the universe, and obviously he’d change. That’s the other answer: people change over time! [Shouting] He’s being too literal!

Quite so. I will pass on your comments! Now, in the midst of all this, you’re also writing your autobiography…?

Funny you should say that: I finished it this week! I’ve been carrying an iPod with me, on a daily basis, and I’ve been telling my story into it. I then send it off to my sister, who has been penning it. The way it has been written is like a musical. I have started at one point, and like a musical story you jump to different parts, every so often. It takes you on that kind of journey. Each chapter is named after a show – and within that show, there’s a song which relates to the chapter. It’s all done so that it’s very musical-based. It will be out around February.



And then the next event coming up is your starring role in Aladdin at the Birmingham Hippodrome…

Yes, it’s my third year in a row doing panto. My first was in Wimbledon, and my second was at the New Theatre in Cardiff, which was the biggest financial success that they’ve had in their entire history. Consequently, they put me into Birmingham, which is the largest in the nation. It’s going to be spectacular: we’ve got Daleks, we’ve got 3D, we have interactive. This production of Aladdin has been written for me. It has almost sold out, and it’s done so well that they’ve already asked me to do next year. People say to me sometimes: why are you doing panto, you don’t really have to. It’s not a question of having to, but I see it as a perfect way to introduce theatre to a young audience. That’s their first experience, and what a great way to have it.

This is an insanely busy schedule, especially for someone as lazy as me to look at. What motivates you to be so busy all the time, and do you have a lazy side?

I do have a lazy side. Funnily enough, I carry a suitcase around with me, that has all my paperwork in it. That’s my lazy side: I very rarely get around to it. My driver has to lug it every single frickin’ day, in and out of the car, and it never gets any lighter. So there is a lazy side to me – but you know what? I enjoy working. I have these golden opportunities that I am given, and I am so not going to pass them up or turn them down, because someone else says: you shouldn’t do that. My attitude is: f**k ‘em, I love what I do. I trained to be a working actor, and I’m being given work – so I’m going to take it. Listen, you’re a long time dead.

Indeed. Well, good luck with the album.

And please let the people of Nottingham know that I’m looking forward to singing for them!

Labels: celebs, eveningpost, interviews, popmusic, television

"I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision." -- David Bowie, 1977.

What follows is a cautionary tale (co-written with K), which is primarily for the benefit of anyone who might be thinking of installing a service called BT Vision.

(If you're not thinking of installing BT Vision, then please sit back and enjoy the schadenfreude.)

BT Vision is British Telecom’s rival to the Sky Plus service, which involves receiving your TV signal through your high-speed broadband connection, via a special set-top box and a wireless “home hub”. Once installed, you can receive all the Freeview channels, plus a wide range of digital radio stations, with the ability to pause and rewind live transmissions in the same manner as Sky Plus, Tivo etc. The box’s hard drive lets you store recorded programs, with a significantly larger memory than Sky Plus.

The interface is well designed and intuitive, with a more contemporary look and feel than Sky. There’s also – and this was one of the clinchers – an extensive “On Demand” service, which lets you download a truly vast range of movies, TV shows (including entire series), music videos and so on, either for free (most of the time), or for no more than £1.99.

Since we already use BT for our landline and broadband, the combined service works out dramatically cheaper than using Sky for the TV. Since we were already extremely happy broadband customers (rock solid, fast connection speeds, never goes wrong, wireless and “home hub” installations a painless doddle), we thought we’d be onto a winner. So long, evil billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch! Hello, lovely fluffy cuddly British Telecom!

How wrong can you be?

Brace yourselves, readers; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

(What follows is, believe it or not, the edited, highlights-only version. Because we wouldn’t want to bore you.)

---

August 6. A morning installation had been booked for this date. Nobody turned up. A phone call was made. “Oh, it’s been cancelled by the installations team.” No further explanation given.

August 10. Installation completed.

(Note: Over at the cottage, at around the same time, we also received 400 – yes, 400 – identical telephone bills through the post, in 400 separate envelopes. Perhaps this was some sort of omen for what was to follow...)

After a brief and blissful “honeymoon period” of a couple of weeks or so, problems started occurring, with the box regularly going down and requiring re-booting. This also affected the previously rock-solid wireless Internet connection, which also started dropping out (or “going out of synch”, as it was explained to us), requiring nothing short of a full PC re-boot each time.

TV recordings also had a habit of frequently ending a couple of minutes before the actual finish times for the programmes, which was particularly frustrating during the sort of drama series which habitually ends on a “cliff-hanger”. A phone call was made.

“Yes, we know about the problem. It will be fixed with the next automatic software upgrade. No, we don’t know when that will be.”

To the best of our knowledge, this problem has still not been fixed.

“On Demand” programmes also started freezing in the middle of playback, rendering them unwatchable.

We repeatedly rang Technical Service (0845 600 7030), on average twice a week. Calls usually lasted between 45 minutes and one hour each, due to a lack of staff at their end. Various suggestions were made, which were generally variations on the theme of “switching the system off and then on again”, and checking the line speed. One of the suggestions meant that we lost all of our stored recordings (but hey, the last couple of minutes were generally missing anyway).

Nevertheless, we were still able to “enjoy” some sort of regular, if intermittent and slowly deteriorating service, even if numerous “relaxing evenings in front of the telly” turned into marathon Call Waiting Hell sessions.

Now the fun really begins!

Monday October 8. The “On Demand” service fails entirely. The screen says “Call Technical Service – Fault Code V04”. We call Technical Service, and go through all the usual processes yet again: switching off, switching on, and checking the line speed.

“Sorry sir, this problem is beyond us. We will get the Resolutions Team to call you within 48 hours”

Thursday October 11. 72 hours later, there has still been no call from the Resolutions Team. We call Technical Service, as the Resolutions Team do not give out their number. (Well, why would they do a silly thing like that?)

“Oh yes sir, the Resolutions Team are scheduled to call you on Saturday October 13.”

“Why didn’t they let us know?”

“The person you spoke to shouldn’t have told you 48 hours.”

Saturday October 13. No call from the Resolutions Team.

Monday October 15. A full seven days after we were promised a call from the Resolutions Team, there has still been no call. We call Technical Service.

“Oh yes sir, the Resolutions Team are scheduled to call you tomorrow – but in the meantime, their may be a fault on your line. Have you tried unwiring your main BT socket and wiring your Home Hub into the back of this?”

Eventually, K grudgingly finds a screwdriver and complies. It doesn’t work.

Okay, so they are being inundated with calls, due to launching a product before it is actually ready. We will give them the benefit of the doubt this time. However, we also try to register a complaint with the BT Vision Complaints Line (0800 545458).

We try this number repeatedly throughout the course of the week, and never get an answer.

A week after the failure of the “On Demand” service, the entire BT Vision box fails, meaning that our only remaining TV service is terrestrial, via the old aerial.

Tuesday October 16. Still no call from the Resolutions Team. We call Technical Service, and demand to talk to a supervisor. The supervisor comes on the line.

“Sir, I can see you have had an embarrassing number of problems with BT Vision. We are a large organisation and sometimes things do go wrong – but I can see in your case that just about every wheel has fallen off the wagon. I will take care of this personally myself, and will call you back tomorrow.”

Wednesday October 17. No call from the supervisor. In the evening, we call Technical Service.

“Oh yes sir, he is looking into it and is currently booking you a service engineer visit. You will get a call tomorrow.”

Thursday October 18. After ten days with no On Demand service and three days with no BT Vision service whatsoever, K finally gets a call! This is a major breakthrough!

“The service engineer will be with you tomorrow morning, between 8:30 am and 1:00 pm.”

“Fine, thank you, but I am not waiting at home. As I work only five minutes from home, he can call me on my mobile when he arrives, and I will be there straight away.”

Friday October 19, 3:00 pm. K has heard nothing from the service engineer, and so calls Technical Service.

“Yes sir, we can see that he has been to your house, and that he has not called your mobile as it states on the job sheet. Sorry, we don’t know why not.”

The next available re-scheduled date is the morning of Tuesday October 23.

Tuesday October 23, 9:00 am. K calls Technical Service.

“Can you please confirm that the service engineer has my mobile number to call when he arrives?”

“Yes sir, that is on the job sheet.”

Tuesday October 23, 2:00 pm. See Friday October 19! Once again, the engineer has been and gone, without calling K’s mobile. K demands to talk to the supervisor.

“Sorry sir, I can see that you rang this morning to confirm - and also that my colleague, the supervisor that you spoke to on Friday, also called to confirm that you should be contacted on your mobile. Can we reschedule for tomorrow? Would you prefer am or pm?”

“We’d better have am please, since we will need the afternoon to repeat this process.”

“(thin laugh)”

While this call is taking place on the land line (it lasts well over 45 minutes, due to being placed in various queues and “on-hold” situations), K passes the time by placing a simultaneous call to BT Corporate Headquarters (0207 356 5000) on his mobile.

“Oh dear, you have had a very difficult time with BT Vision, sir. I will register you for a call from the Chairman’s Office.”

The Chairman’s Office does not reply.

Wednesday October 24, 11:00 am. The service engineer successfully calls K’s mobile! This is a major breakthrough!

K returns from work, lets the service engineer inside the house, and begins to explain the problem.

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m going to have to stop you there. I’m afraid that you’re not going to like this. You see, I’m a service engineer for the broadband service, not for the BT Vision service.”

“But the broadband service is fine!”

“Shall I check the line speed anyway? Yes, it’s 5.5 mb. No problem there, then!”

K rings the supervisor. By now they are old friends, and on first name terms.

“I’m sorry K, but we’ve had you down as the wrong kind of fault all along.”

“But I have told you on numerous occasions, spread out over several weeks, that the broadband service is fine, and that the BT Vision box is at fault!”

“I understand that, K. We’re going to supply you with a replacement box. Someone will contact you soon, in order to arrange a visit…”

All of a sudden, Grand Tragedy has converted to High Farce, as we have finally reached the stage which K and I habitually refer to as “Beyond The F**k It”.

Well, you have to laugh, don’t you?

Update (1): Tuesday October 30, 14:00 pm. An engineer arrives to replace the BT Vision box. Naively, K assumes that before signing off on the job and leaving the house, the engineer will have tested the service.

Tuesday October 30, 16:00 pm. K's parents have arrived for an overnight visit. As they are potentially interested in subscribing to BT Vision themselves, K switches on the TV for a demo session... only to find that none of the "on demand" programmes will play. (This is a recurrence of our old friend, the V04 error code.)

Tuesday October 30, 21:00 pm. By this time, the entire BT Vision service has become inoperable once again. K spends about an hour on the phone with his old friend the supervisor; you know, the one he's on first name terms with. (The supervisor, it has to be said, is as friendly and as willing to help as any supervisor could possibly be.) Between them, they try everything that they can think of, but to no avail.

K: "I'm going to be requesting a goodwill gesture of a full year's worth of free On Demand programmes."

Supervisor: "And I'm going to copy your full history to the team who looks after compensation."

K: "In which case, you might want to take a look at troubled-diva.com - all the details are there."

K posits the new theory that maybe the "home hub" box is at fault, rather than the BT Vision box.

Supervisor: "We'll get another home hub delivered to you, K."

K: "Oh, that's OK; you accidentally sent us two home hubs in the first place, so we've got a spare!"

Update (2): Wednesday October 31. K swaps our home hub unit with the accidentally delivered spare unit. Amazingly, everything now works - and has continued to do so ever since.

---

Summary.

1. Both the BT Vision box and the separate home hub box were faulty, with problems exacerbated by fluctuations in line speed.

2. BT Vision support failed to diagnose the source of the problem correctly, logging it as a broadband fault despite repeated instructions to the contrary. In the end, it was down to us to suggest that the home hub might be faulty.

3. Time was wasted by BT Vision support's inability to get the engineers to ring the mobile number, again despite repeated confirmations - and also by their sending the wrong type of engineer out to visit us.

4. Telephone response times for BT Vision support were abysmally slow throughout, with many, many hours spent in call waiting. Their internal structure appeared to be cumbersome and overly complex, even causing confusion for BT's own staff. Much time was wasted on being passed between various departments.

5. The so-called "Complaints Line" deserves a special mention, for never once answering or returning our calls. Ditto the so-called "Resolutions Team".

6. The BT Vision service simply isn't mature enough yet. It's too new and too bug-ridden, and was released too early. It compares well with Sky on cost and look-and-feel, but Sky is already responding to the competition on price.

7. To their credit, BT Vision staff were unfailingly courteous and helpful in their attitude. They seemed to be as frustrated by organisational problems as we were. Special credit must be paid to "Steve" the supervisor, who latterly went out of his way to help us. Steve is still ringing us most nights, on his own initiative, to trace what's happening with our request for compensation - and we'll certainly keep you posted as to what form of compensation we eventually receive.

---

Estimated number of phone calls to date: 45 calls.
Average length of phone call (at a conservative estimate): 25 minutes.
Longest phone call to date: 90 minutes.
Number of conversations with the Resolutions Team (as promised): zero.
Number of conversations with the BT Vision Complaints Line (as advertised): zero.
Number of calls from the Chairman's Office (as promised): zero.
Total estimated telephone time to date: 19 hours
Total time without any “On Demand” service: 23 days.
Total time without any form of BT Vision service: 16 days.
State of K’s nerves: shot to pieces recovering.
Likelihood of ditching the entire BT Vision service and returning to Sky: high dependent on a stable service in the future.
Moral of the tale: DON’T TOUCH BT VISION WITH A BARGEPOLE!

Labels: broadband, bt vision, consumer, television

Following his recent trip to Pittsburgh, a news report on K's dog cancer company was screened on the city's KDKA television channel yesterday evening.

You can watch the clip here. (To replay it, click on the dog photo under the caption "related".)

He scrubs up well, doesn't he? I'm that proud.

Labels: linkage, mediawhoredom, television

From Digital Spy:We've all gone mad, haven't we?

Update/Clarification: It's primarily the infantilisation of the public discourse which bothers me. It seeks to elevate - or rather to reduce - a complex network of relationships to an Ism, and the protagonists to Ists. Racism. Racists. When what I see are three playground bullies and an impossible princess.

Labels: bigbrother, celebs, media, television

1. Once again, K and I have become Big Brother's bitches. Once again, Grace Dent provides the sharpest commentary. Also on the telly tip, I was able to identify the precise moment when the hitherto flawless Shameless jumped the shark: namely, when an unconscious Frank Gallagher was dragged from his burning kitchen by his pet dog. I mean, really.

2. As the Hellen Affair rumbles on, Zinnia Cyclamen provides a neat rebuttal of his rebuttal.

3. Much to my surprise, since I'm not exactly Mister Gadget Man, I have been completely sucked into the Apple iPhone hype, and now find myself pining for ownership. Engadget has the most thorough explanation. Unfortunately, K's plans to surprise me with a Blackberry on my birthday now lie exposed and in tatters. If only he was going to Florida in June...

4. ...rather than today, six months short of the device hitting the shops. In preparation for this, my valeting services have been in great demand this week. We had a lovely time picking out fresh shirt-and-tie combinations for him a couple of evenings ago (does pink scream "Spring 2006", or can we get away with it for a while longer?), and I have never been far from an ironing board. Oh, I do have my practical uses.

5. Alarmingly, K will still be out of the country when the kitchen fitters arrive next week, thus leaving me as de facto Site Manager. But what if they ask me technical questions about, I don't know, angle brackets or something? I shall be all at sea. Thankfully, K's business partner's wife E - who is something of an expert in this field - has volunteered her services as Relief Manager. She knows her way round kitchens, does E. I don't usually stretch much further than the fridge, the kettle and the microwave.

6. Facing the prospect of being home alone with no working kitchen for a few nights, I intend to be Out and About as much as possible next week. Owt good at t'flicks?

7. My intensive pre-interview research into the Life and Times of Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is yielding rich dividends. In particular, his most recent album The Letting Go is a quiet revelation. I don't have many alt-country moments these days, but this is one of them.

8. With the Amsterdam weekend imminent, blogging might be light, but Twittering will hopefully be moderate-to-heavy - so keep your eye on the newly expanded "we twitter" box on the sidebar. (I am SO PROUD at having hacked the code around for this, although it has rather buggered up my archived unordered lists.) In the meantime, why not refresh your memories with details of my previous visits in 1991 (in which I found myself the unwitting star of a Benny Hill sketch at a *cough* "men-only event") and 2002 (in which cracks appear in my carefully constructed professional facade)? Ah, for those heady devil-may-care early days, when Troubled Diva was still a byword for Too Much Information...

9. Preparations for Which Decade Is Tops For Pops and Post of the Week have taken up most of the rest of my spare time - and at the time of writing, there is still one more vacancy for another member of the Post of the Week editorial team. More details below.

10. If spin the list out to a nice round ten, I'll make myself late and miss my plane. Have a good weekend!

Labels: bigbrother, confessional, gadgets, journal, linkage, lists, media, onetrack, television, twitter

Despite my fondness for getting pleasantly pickled on a fairly regular basis, and my general reputation for being a "good" drunk (articulate and affable to the last, even though I do tend to stray into "too much information" territory), I'm no good at dealing with "bad" drunks. It's the loss of rationality which unsettles me the most; if someone is no longer capable of having a joined-up conversation, then I am at a loss with them.

Unfortunately, I'm also very bad at disguising this unease, which filters through as a kind of cautious distaste, bordering on superiority. More unfortunately still, most "bad" drunks are also adept at picking up on this, and so I am frequently taken to task for my perceived prissiness.

Donny Tourette is (update: was) a contestant on this year's Celebrity Big Brother. He is the lead singer in a not terribly successful rock band called Towers Of London, who bear the minor distinction of polling the lowest EVER score of any of the 1000+ tracks which been reviewed on the Stylus Singles Jukebox. On the show's opening night, Tourette enters the Big Brother house in a state of advanced refreshment, flicking V-signs at the crowd outside as he stumbles his way in.

Initial impression: he's a poor man's Johnny Rotten, a latter-day Gizzard Puke, a rebel without a clue, the latest in a long line of witless dullards who have appropriated the trappings of "outrageous" rock-and-roll behaviour, but without any real fire in their hearts. Whereas Rotten's contempt was impassioned, lethal and withering, Tourette's V-signs are a mere learned pantomime.

Inside the house, his fellow contestants have no difficulty in grasping his schtick, and compartmentalising him accordingly. The token rebel. It's what he does. It's his act. None of the squares are freaked out, even for a second. They're in showbiz too. They've seen it all before.

"He's a pussycat at heart. You can tell."

He is also, clearly, a "bad" drunk. I can already feel myself tensing up.

Eventually, and with a thudding inevitability, Donny ends up in the outside jacuzzi: fully clothed, fag still lit, expensive radio mike still attached (and hence beyond repair). Watching him from the other end of the garden, those same tell-tale signs of unease are beginning to flicker across the faces of his fellow housemates.

Except, that is, for Cleo Rocos: a carefully preserved (we're the same age; I can say these things) television comedy actress, whose main claim to fame was appearing as an over-the-top glamour girl on the Kenny Everett Show in the early 1980s. Cleo, as it swiftly transpires, is quite superb at handling "bad" drunks like Donny. Smiling, supportive, and utterly unruffled, she takes him in hand, leads him away from the others, gets him cleaned up, lends him some dry clothes. Without coming across as even faintly bossy, or critical, or disapproving, she takes full control of the situation. Donny is putty in her hands.

There's a wonderful, telling moment, which resonates with me more than any other. As Cleo hands Donny his change of clothes, a moment of clarity emerges from the foggy depths of his booze-addled soul. It's there in his eyes, as he holds Cleo's gaze for a second or two, with a mixture of surprised realisation and warm, trusting relief. It's a look which says: F**king hell, you're alright, you are. It is not an expression which I am used to seeing in situations like these.

The whole episode is a master class in how to handle a "bad" drunk, and I have learnt something from watching it. Once again, by placing real-life inter-personal relationships under a microscope, and by raising the emotional temperature in order to elicit a series of controlled reactions, Big Brother is - whether by accident or design (and I couldn't really care less) - usefully illuminating the human condition. This is why, for all its peripheral irritations, I never tire of watching it.

Labels: bigbrother, celebs, drinking, media, opinion, television

Mike T-D: K and I are hurling insults at the TV screen. Did Amy Jenkins start with a tick list of "Isshoos"? Aaargh. (about 1 hour ago from web)

Mike T-D: All across the UK, New Year vows of abstinence are being shattered, as the nation heaves a collective groan: "Christ, is this shite on till 10:30?" (about 1 hour ago from web)

Mike T-D: K to me, just now: "THAT IS THE LAMEST EXCUSE I HAVE EVER HEARD." He's just pissed off that I've snatched the last glass off him. (about 1 hour ago from web)

Mike T-D: OK, time to un-pause the Sky box and face the full horror of the Manic Street Preachers Formation Dancing Scene... (about 1 hour ago from web)

Gert: It's a shame that not one of them has acquired any understanding of anything in ten years. (33 minutes ago from web)

Gert: I'm kind of enjoying it as a revelation of what some media tw@ thinks people are like on a planet in parallel solar system to my own. (33 minutes ago from web)

Siobhan: is wondering if Mike is slightly the wrong side of the This Life Demographic age-line to care so passionately about these things? (11 minutes ago from web)

Labels: media, television, twitter