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alexsarllAfter innumerable interruptions, last night I finally finished JP Donleavy's marvellous, maddening Schultz. I don't normally hold with the word 'antihero' - it's usually applied to heroes people are ashamed or guilty to admit they like. But here, as with Flashman, I'll let it stand. Schultz is not so much flawed as an assemblage of flaws dressed as a man, and yet he's still somehow admirable. To come over all Bernard Shaw for a minute, I think it must be his sheer life force, his inability to admit he's beaten even as he grandly, lugubriously declares he's beaten, his invulnerable, doomed optimism through which he always gets back on the horse (or, more to the point, woman).
What is the point of Mark Lawson? Even were he a great interviewer, his resemblance to an unusually smug slug should bar him from television. But he is not a great interviewer, nor even a passable one. He's on BBC4 at the moment with a series of interviews - a rare opportunity for in-depth talks with authors, who so far have included two of my favourites - Terry Pratchett and Iain Banks. An hour's conversation with either of those should be a must-see for me, but not when Lawson's involved; in each case, I only managed five minutes before I had to turn off. Because the Slug slimes in there acting like a fan, yet from his stilted diction you can tell that even the titles of the books are barely in his head. And as for his understanding of anything deeper, the concepts...not a hope. He has some ill-conceived agenda, and he's going to ask a series of questions around that. Some of them will be cretinous, others merely confusingly irrelevant, but that won't stop the Slug! And the authors politely, but with increasing puzzlement, do their best to answer the questions, but it doesn't make for rewarding viewing.
Contrast the little interview snippets which have been on Radio 7 lately. They only have them because the current audio Who (featuring the cast of Spaced) is running short, and they're repeats of impromptu pieces from local BBC stations whose reporters happened to find Iains Banks (again) and Rankin and got short chats with them. The reporters admit to not knowing much about the books, don't ask especially original questions, are audibly starstruck - but they do it with enthusiasm and sincerity. Better a great interviewer than an amateur, sure. But better by far a keen amateur than a middlebrow arse who mistakenly believes himself to be a great interviewer.
A Press Complaints Commission for blogs? Well, so long as it's as toothless as the real thing, I have no objection. Though surely blogs already have the right of reply? Not only do they have comments and reply pages (generally far more open than a newspaper's letters page, if only because space is no restriction), but if you're sufficiently incensed, you can start your own, post a link and get rebutting a damn sight more easily than you could start your own newspaper.
Alan McGee, the man who signed his wife and his wife's best mate's brother to his label, before signing his dad to make orchestral versions of his best mate's already underperforming records, has condemned "showbiz chancer" Robbie Williams. Alan - I don't own much Robbie Williams, but he has at least as much right to make records as any of the aforementioned, and considerably more than Three Colours Red.
Had thought to go see The Prestige tonight but, having abandoned three perfectly good films last night because they just weren't working for me, perhaps best not. Instead put on the Hawksley Workman christmas album and decked the halls with such decorations as I have, but am yet to feel the festive spirit kick in; perhaps the Stay Beautiful christms party tomorrow will do the trick. Some of you I will doubtless see there; for the rest, well, you are the generation that missed a Johnny Boy show and you get what you deserve.
What is the point of Mark Lawson? Even were he a great interviewer, his resemblance to an unusually smug slug should bar him from television. But he is not a great interviewer, nor even a passable one. He's on BBC4 at the moment with a series of interviews - a rare opportunity for in-depth talks with authors, who so far have included two of my favourites - Terry Pratchett and Iain Banks. An hour's conversation with either of those should be a must-see for me, but not when Lawson's involved; in each case, I only managed five minutes before I had to turn off. Because the Slug slimes in there acting like a fan, yet from his stilted diction you can tell that even the titles of the books are barely in his head. And as for his understanding of anything deeper, the concepts...not a hope. He has some ill-conceived agenda, and he's going to ask a series of questions around that. Some of them will be cretinous, others merely confusingly irrelevant, but that won't stop the Slug! And the authors politely, but with increasing puzzlement, do their best to answer the questions, but it doesn't make for rewarding viewing.
Contrast the little interview snippets which have been on Radio 7 lately. They only have them because the current audio Who (featuring the cast of Spaced) is running short, and they're repeats of impromptu pieces from local BBC stations whose reporters happened to find Iains Banks (again) and Rankin and got short chats with them. The reporters admit to not knowing much about the books, don't ask especially original questions, are audibly starstruck - but they do it with enthusiasm and sincerity. Better a great interviewer than an amateur, sure. But better by far a keen amateur than a middlebrow arse who mistakenly believes himself to be a great interviewer.
A Press Complaints Commission for blogs? Well, so long as it's as toothless as the real thing, I have no objection. Though surely blogs already have the right of reply? Not only do they have comments and reply pages (generally far more open than a newspaper's letters page, if only because space is no restriction), but if you're sufficiently incensed, you can start your own, post a link and get rebutting a damn sight more easily than you could start your own newspaper.
Alan McGee, the man who signed his wife and his wife's best mate's brother to his label, before signing his dad to make orchestral versions of his best mate's already underperforming records, has condemned "showbiz chancer" Robbie Williams. Alan - I don't own much Robbie Williams, but he has at least as much right to make records as any of the aforementioned, and considerably more than Three Colours Red.
Had thought to go see The Prestige tonight but, having abandoned three perfectly good films last night because they just weren't working for me, perhaps best not. Instead put on the Hawksley Workman christmas album and decked the halls with such decorations as I have, but am yet to feel the festive spirit kick in; perhaps the Stay Beautiful christms party tomorrow will do the trick. Some of you I will doubtless see there; for the rest, well, you are the generation that missed a Johnny Boy show and you get what you deserve.
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you are the generation that missed a Johnny Boy show and you get what you deserve.
Date: 2006-12-01 02:57 pm (UTC)Someone needs to dump a load of salt on Lawson, just to see what would happen.
Re: you are the generation that missed a Johnny Boy show and you get what you deserve.
Date: 2006-12-01 03:01 pm (UTC)The other Johnny Boy songs aren't *as* good as 'Generation' but hey, what is? And they're certainly not an embarrassing distance behind it.
hey, what is?
Date: 2006-12-01 03:06 pm (UTC)Lordy I'm in a foul mood today..Hi, I'm Johnny and I'm a music nazi! Welcome to my oven, won't you come on in?
Re: hey, what is?
Date: 2006-12-04 02:05 pm (UTC)Re: hey, what is?
Date: 2006-12-04 02:54 pm (UTC)Yann Tiersen did a cracking Black session come to think of it....
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 04:40 pm (UTC)Tony Wilson told me when I interviewed him that he only signed the people he did to Factory because he liked them as people. "We don't sign acts, we sign *people*" or words to those effect, was what he said, although you shouldn't read too much into anything the man says, obv.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 08:24 pm (UTC)He's not too bad on Front Row (but then he's only got 10 minutes at most and he's got to ask questions about specific things).
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 02:06 pm (UTC)(NB I love Dead Air, but you know what I mean)
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