Documentary: Montage of Heck

I went to see Montage of Heck today, the documentary about Kurt Cobain. It's impossible to write about in a vacuum, because the story, the time period etc had such a profound impact on everyone of that era who was a Nirvana fan or a teenager when Kurt died. I'm sure everyone has their own story about that time, and the impact of his death culturally and emotionally. Like Patty's documentary Hit So Hard, this was very painful to watch at times and me and my friend who went to see it both came out of the cinema needing a Valium and a nice sit down.
Now here's a confession; I don't like Kurt Cobain very much. I loved him so much when I was a teenager that when he killed himself, I took it as a personal insult. I felt so deeply betrayed by him, I barely ever listened to Nirvana again. I saw him as weak and Courtney as strong, and I just thought him leaving Frances was unforgivable. I also feel like he was a bit of a pissy cunt; at one point in this documentary he goes he doesn't care about the fame, just the songs, but that wasn't true for him, just like it isn't for Morrissey. Kurt wanted the fame, but couldn't live with it when he got it. I always thought he was kind of a dick with how embarrassed he was about being seen as 'mainstream'. But hey, you get what you want and you never want it again, right?
Twenty years later and I forgive him for the suicide; I realise it was a lot more complex than it was inside my teenage brain. He was a seriously ill man, mentally and physically. But Nirvana have stayed in that kind of time capsule for me, whereas I've carried Courtney with me ever since. So it's a weird clash of nostalgia to be taken back to that time.
I think some of the childhood stuff could have been cut; I feel like I've done Kurt's childhood to death; Heavier than Heaven was a bit like Morrissey and Marr; a thesis in Kurt Cobain that we had to read back when we were greebos. I had Kurt Cobain: The Diaries and I like seeing all his doodles and lists and things (like Courtney's) but I wonder if HE would like it? And the documentary being named after his old mixtape? He was so concerned about image that I wonder if he would cringe a bit at seeing them animating his childhood doodles? I don't know, it doesn't quite sit right with me, but then some of his little bon mots were genius. He was a really intelligent man, but he just thought too much. Like when he did a doodle of Courtney and said 'You talk to much.' She does, so he mustn't have had much time to think when she was around. Probably that was part of her appeal.
I also didn't like the animated parts of the documentary that much; especially in contrast to Kurt's own drawings, which were considerably better. I just thought it was a bit pointless or a bit out of place, but my friend didn't mind it.The music was very powerful in the documentary, except for a kind of pan pipes version of one Nirvana song at the beginning, plus I don't like that kids' choir singing 'Teen spirit', it's creepy. But on the whole, the music was just so loud and powerful it just felt like you were being blasted with a hairdryer of pure pain. It was pretty effective.
I was surprised to see Kurt's dad and stepmum in the film; I don't remember seeing much about them before, although I must have read plenty about them and just forgotten it. His dad looked like a square and his stepmum looked like a leathery lizard. His mum is beautiful, and sad. Yeah he got passed around when he was younger, but his childhood was no worse than most people's I know. I think his problems ran deeper; I think his problems were in his psyche and drugs gave him a break, from when he was little onwards.
It was a shame they wheeled out his first girlfriend again; this woman gets more airtime on Kurt and Courtney documentaries than Dave Grohl (more of which later). Would you want your first boyfriend/girlfriend sharing their memories of you again and again? It's just cringey and lowest common denominator..
Krist Novoselic cut a sad sort of figure, in his pristine, Scandinavian-esque house. I think it was when they cut to Nirvana's music blaring out screaming and then cut back to him as my friend Sarah said, kind of 'covering up' for Kurt, it just felt a bit tragic. I liked him in the old clips as the only one with a sense of humour (for the most part, although Kurt was having some moustache-related bantz in the bathroom with Courtney later). Let's be honest Dave 'Kurt hated him' Grohl doesn't have much of anything to offer, and was mainly notable by his absence in this documentary, which I was pleased about. Krist was the real deal, and he must be haunted by memories too, as well as befuddled by the popularity of the Foo Fighters, like the rest of us. There's only so long that Nirvana goodwill should have lasted, and it should have run out in about 1995. God knows what happened there.
All the old Nirvana footage, magazine covers etc made me feel so nostalgic for that time, my brothers, growing up, it was just a completely different time. Every image, clip, song in this documentary took me back to my bedroom, me taping every Nirvana video or performance on the VCR. The most powerful clip was probably the 'Unplugged' footage played to death by MTV and ruined for years, but here you could see it in isolation and just how amazing it was, and tragic. The Smells like Teen Spirit video, seen for the first time, is brilliant. The nuts and bolts of it are beautiful. Criminal what they did to his legacy, really. MTV definitely made me hate several of the songs just because I was so tired of hearing them.
It felt like a very long time until Courtney showed up, but of course, these were some of the most powerful parts of the documentary. I thought we were going to get a Kurt and Courtney sex tape at one point! Courtney is right, he was more beautiful than Brad Pitt and it was obvious how much she adored him. The video footage of their relationship was so personal, and so revealing; the strength of their love, and their addiction. The clip towards the end where she's trying to get him to hold Frances and he's all scabby and nearly passing out was just horrendous. Could nobody see it? Courtney seemed far more 'with it' than him; he was deathly ill at that point, already. I'm certain he would have died one way or the other, it was just a matter of time. Terrifying to think of Frances being brought up by them at that time; but she looked like such a pudgy, healthy baby. I honestly don't know how Courtney and Frances watched this documentary together, it's just so raw.
The last clip of them in the bathroom with Frances and Courtney in the bath felt so personal. When Courtney says something like, 'I feel kind of happy right now' and he said, 'I do, too' it was just too much. He was dead four months later.
Whatever you think of Courtney, and I've heard everything people think, most of the time very much uninvited, he loved her from the bottom of his heart. Getting the crowd at Reading to say they loved her was just beautiful, and I know there are many more examples of this (The Word, etc). Even his death threats to journalists were quite romantic. I think it's sad the way she's never found anyone who can live up to him, who worships her the way he did. Do I believe she never cheated on him? No. But it's irrelevant. Their love was undeniable. I wish we could see more of the footage of the Courtney interview, but then I always want more Courtney. I just find her so fascinating. She is such a strong, flawed character.
The Heart Shaped Box era always gives me a sense of dread, because it was, of course, right near the end. Was 'I hate myself and I want to die' literal? I think we got the answer to that one. 
I'm glad the documentary finished when it did; I don't think any of us could have faced seeing that photo of him lying dead again, or the suicide note eulogy, especially not at that point.
There's no moral to the story, just a really sad, sad memory left behind, as well as the travesty of the Foo Fighters' continued success. And now I'm 34, not 14. I'm a grown up. I work the 9-5, and it's not so bad, it's better than being dead, you know? It might not seem like it when you're a rock star, but it's actually alright.
And Kurt Cobain never got to get trolled on Twitter, or get to be on E News or get doodled on by Perez Hilton. And for that he'd probably be glad. But if only he could have seen another way out. Courtney always said if only he'd gone away to an island, just jacked it all in. But he wanted the fame, and he didn't want it. And if even Frances wasn't reason enough to stay, then there was ever going to be a happy ending. He could have got clean, but he still would have been famous, and mainstream. I just don't think it was what he signed up for - or thought he was signing up for.
For so long afterwards, I waited for Courtney to die, but she never did. She could survive a nuclear war, that one, and that's why I love her. I hope her and Frances are OK and will be OK. I wish Courtney could find someone who loves her, like he did. Yet anyone would be lucky to find a love like that, even once in a lifetime.
And as for those teenagers in Nirvana t-shirts now? You weren't there, man. But we were. And it hurt.

Documentary: Stacey Dooley - Beaten by my boyfriend

It would be easy to mock Stacey Dooley, I guess, if you're a snob. I still don't know quite where she emerged from, and I looked it up once. She's a young woman with a thick accent (she sounds Cockney but I remember from an old episode about extremists that she's from Luton, which is near my home town of doom). But I like her documentaries and the way she interviews people. She seems genuinely interested in finding out about the underbelly of life, be it drugs, extremism, or tonight's topic. There's just something about her I like. My mum always says we're all from one of six tribes (some Bible crap, I think) and I feel like Stacey Dooley is from my tribe. It's partly the Midlands thing, partly the way she looks, I just feel an affinity with her. Her documentaries are very watchable. Who could forget the drug that gives you crocodile skin? I don't think I've ever seen a man look more high, or closer to death. It was fascinating. And Stacey Dooley didn't give him Louis Theroux side eye or Nick Broomfield impassiveness. She treated him like a fellow human.
Every 30 seconds police receive a 999 call about domestic violence. Domestic violence is a subject I had face to face experience with as a child and I care more about pretty passionately. We had our fair share of 999 calls ourselves and it wasn't much fun. It wasn't much fun watching my mum get her skull cracked open, I must say. In fact, it fucked me up royally.
This documentary focuses on young women in violent relationships. I can't imagine ever being in a controlling or violent relationship, but that's as a direct result of my own experience; I just wouldn't put up with that for a minute. Still, I understand very well how women get sucked into these relationships and how controlling boyfriends/ husbands operate. I've seen it happen to my friends, despite me begging them to leave. It's not until you're in that relationship or that environment that you understand the hold those relationships have on you. These men grind you down until you don't know what your own personality is anymore.
This poor woman is having her door fixed because her thug boyfriend has kicked it in while pregnant. Every door in my house as a child had a hole in it from a fist from the men I grew up with. Violence is one thing, but living under the threat of violence is another, and is just as bad (well, almost).
'During holidays and major sporting events 999 calls increase.' Just think about that. Women get battered because their idiot husband's team loses. That's a reality. Doesn't that terrify you? It scares the shit out of me. Imagine scaring the hell out of the person you love, harming the person you love. The scary part is when children witness this horror, or have to live with it on an ongoing basis. It's just incredibly cruel. But women are too scared to go, or don't have a place to go that's safe.
One in four women suffer from domestic violence and two women die a week. Two women die a week and it really feels like no one gives a fuck.
Stacey is visiting a refuge. One of the scariest scenes in The Fall was when that abusive husband found his wife in the refuge. That's my worst fucking nightmare, all those vulnerable women and an animal like that finds them (and yes, I know it's not real). I support Refuge because probably the scariest thing I can imagine is a woman leaving her violent partner and being turned away because there's nowhere for her to go. That's when men kill women. That's the riskiest time to be a woman.
I wish women knew better the warning signs of these psycho men; and these charming romantic types are the worst, these fuckers who buy clothes for you. I wouldn't put up with anyone jealous as that's a sign. There are so many tiny signs, but like Stacey says, they seem flattering at first. But it's not flattering if you look at it from the perspective of that man would treat ANY woman that way, so how are you special? Any woman would be treated like his own personal property.
It's so wrong that women lose their children because of abusive men, and because they can't figure out a way out. They are being punished twice, and for what? Stacey said, 'people might seem you're picking your abusive relationship over your baby.' But it's not like a domestic violence victim is making a sane and sensible choice. They aren't seeing things straight because they have had their heads screwed up by these controlling bastards.
These injunctions are good that stop men from even coming near their victims or they get five years in prison. Stacey is following the guy giving out the injunctions to these fucking arseholes now. I couldn't look at them myself.
I was disappointed that we had to have the obligatory 'women are violent too' mention, which is such a minuscule issue it's not even worth mentioning, except to make men feel better about all the women they murder. I hate that they fudge the issue like that! The show is called 'Beaten by my boyfriend.' And even now MEN on Twitter are telling me how women are violent, too. Well, they weren't in my house. It was just the men. The men with the tempers and the men with the baseball bats and the men with the brute fucking force. It just said nine out of ten attacks are by men and still men whine 'what about women who beat men up?' It's my female friends who have abusive dads, not abusive mums. I just wish these men would shut the fuck up. I'd be ashamed if I was a man. I wouldn't be arguing with women about the statistics. I'd be trying to work out why the fuck men were doing it. Why should I cry for that one man getting beaten up for every nine women? Fuck him. I don't care about him, I really don't, and if that sounds harsh, then tough. I guess my experiences made me that way. Honestly, it makes me fucking furious. Are there refuges full of hundreds of terrified men, all across the country? No, there aren't! So shut up. Stick your statistics, because I don't care. I care about women getting battered in front of their children and killed for daring to leave their boyfriend.
Why DO men do this to women? Why do they think they have the right to treat women like this? I just don't get it. Women just have to stop dying. Men have to stop killing us. Claire's law is really important but it's not enough. It's terrible that funding for refuges are being cut. It's a death sentence to women. But like the Tories fucking give a shit. What's a few dead women to them? I liked Stacey sticking it to Teresa May. I liked her question of 'what would you like to say to these girls?' a if an MP cares.
I'm glad Stacey went to a place where abusers get rehabilitated because I do believe - in fact, I know - that men can be rehabilitated but a massive part of that is actually waking up and realising what the fuck you've done. I've seen it happen. And I've seen it not happen. And these boneheaded straw man arguments of 'well women do it, too' doesn't help either side. It's just another way to put women in their place along with bashing in their front doors - and their skulls.

Documentary: 40 year old virgins

Hey you! Join me in taking the mick out of people on Channel 4. This 'documentary' looks a bit duff, I really should have written one about the brilliant, but cruelly named, The Undateables. I should also have written one about the appalling Oscar Pis-whatshisface BBC3 'documentary', mindbogglingly presented by Rick Edwards. But I watched it at four in the morning, drunk, so probably best I didn't. Good reconstructions, but the rest of it was a bag of shit.
So instead, let's take a look at this old crap. Ooh, before I start, a note on the show Gogglebox, which was also on tonight, and who DID cover 'what's that guy from Tool Academy doing there?' If you like TV, you should watch this show. It's obviously a little bit scripted, but it's just people watching TV and commenting on it. The best people are the posh drunks and the black best friends, who last week opined about the horrors of malnutrition which sharing a packet of crisps. I find something very comforting about watching other people watch TV, whether it be Beavis and Butthead, or some Big Brother housemates doing a task. I don't know why, I think it's just the fact that it could go on forever, people watching people watching TV, watching people watching TV, like some mirrored vortex. Like David Icke's worst nightmare (except for when he's on it). Anyway, genuine characters on Gogglebox, the likes of which our Big Brother could do with getting hold of in the summer. But of course, they'll just get some Essex page 3 girl instead. Shame.
Let's meet the virgins. Boyd Hilton (sorry, Clive) is going to 'go on a radical course to teach people how to have sex'. Guess what country that course takes place in? You win. Boyd is 45. He works in IT. He looks normal, if you fancy Boyd Hilton. Someone must. He lived with his mum until he was 29. That doesn't help. He has that Doctor Who K9 thing in his house. Enough said. Ah, he's in the friend zone.
I don't know why these people don't just go online. ANYONE can get laid online, I truly believe that. Going on TV and admitting you're a virgin is probably not going to help your pulling power.
'29-year-old' Rosie looks middle-aged to me. She wants to have children. That's not going to get the men queuing up, a virgin who wants to get knocked up. She says, 'men smell weird to me, like aftershave and ham.' Well, it's better than Lynx and piss, I suppose.
Both of them are going to see 'sex surrogates' (that's prostitutes to you and me) for a 12-week course. Surrogate Cheryl says she's had sex with '850 people, not including my husbands.' She didn't list the number of husbands. Oh, she says she's not a prostitute (she is). She don't look bad for 68, though, Christ, I thought she was mid-fifties. Would you want to fly to America and sleep with a 68-year-old? Boyd Hilton does! That's Morrissey fans for you. (Aw, get well, Morrissey.)
Boyd has also got some religious guilt crap going on so that's not helping.
Rosie was sexually abused when she was younger so her problems seem a lot more understandable. Rosie goes to meet a creepy old man who's going to take her virginity. Er... is there a theme here? But apparently he doesn't smell of ham. Hurrah. Looking at him playing tennis, I thought it would be a bit like having sex with one of Larry David's friends. Not exactly something you fantasise about. LOL, she told him she doesn't fancy him. I'm sure the feeling is mutual.
Boyd is saying the word 'penis' into a mirror until it loses all meaning. Yeah, this is really going to get him all the 'chicks' when he gets home. I'm kind of expecting him to find 'clitoris' written on the mirror in period blood later. That's more of a hope than a likelihood, though.
Watching Boyd kiss this 68-year-old-not-prostitute made my stomach turn, but luckily he started crying about three seconds in, so I didn't have to suffer too much. I am being a bit mean, and I do feel sorry for him. I just don't think this is the solution. Probably going with a real prostitute NOT on TV would be more beneficial.
Rosie is getting her face stroked by an old man she doesn't fancy. Is this really helping her get over sexual abuse? REALLY?
This programme confirms to me that men will sleep with ANYONE. I wonder how much this 'treatment' costs? I mean, I know C4 are paying for it. But for a layman. And isn't there a risk that Boyd will fall in love with this lady?
Rosie on willies: 'it looks like an uncooked sausage.' She's obsessed with meats! She's been sent to buy a vibrator and 'find out where her vagina is.' Well, I suspect it's between her legs. It must be scary for a virgin to go into a sex shop and see all that stuff. I get scared of that stuff!
Boyd had a flashback of someone pulling his pants down in front of a group of girls and pointing at his penis and laughing. God, is that all it takes to ruin someone's life? Mental, isn't it? It's true though, little things like that can fuck you up forever. One comment can make you anorexic.
It's probably not helping this guy get a hard-on that it's broad daylight and there's a fucking CAMERA in the room! How about some candlelight and the option to hide under the covers?
Boyd is being shown through a book of ugly vaginas. I've never felt so straight. Don't get me wrong, penises can be pretty gross too, but vaginas are just frightening. Boyd 'feels queasy.' So do I.
Rosie's has enough of Gary as she doesn't fancy him. Fair enough; who wants to fuck someone they don't fancy?
It's Boyd's last 'session'. Will he 'go all the way'? Eek this woman is giving him a blowjob! Fuck me, they're showing the sex! This is shocking. Channel 4! You monsters.
Aw, I hope Boyd finds a girlfriend back home. Maybe Lucie Cave is interested. Hang on a minute, isn't Boyd Hilton gay?! Oh, Boyd. You've lied to us. Get back to your column about Spooks or some other crap your target audience isn't interested in. Goodnight.

Documentary: I woke up gay

Sorry I missed The Voice, I was mucking about on rollercoasters at Alton Towers. Revolving chairs and then some; super fun. Such a great weekend.
Yay, another BBC3 documentary! Strap in for some of the good shit. I've read about this story so I'm really looking forward to this. I've also been enjoying The Undateables which is heartbreaking. I hardly think the blonde girl in the 2nd episode was undateable though, just because she was in a wheelchair. She was really pretty and lovely. Let's not go overboard. Some of the cases are very sad, though. But I believe there's someone out there for everyone. I'm a romantic!
Anyway, I digress. Back to the matter at hand. I love the idea of this story, it would make a good film, but it's real. I love things like this that call into question the very idea of 'self', I just find it so, so interesting, as I'm so entrenched in myself and who I am and my personality. I've always been so sure of myself, that to be so dramatically changed would be so weird.
A freak accident made Chris gay. How does THAT happen?! I've never heard of anything like it. He did a wonky forward roll down a hill and had a stroke that turned him gay. Scientists said it was impossible. But he should know whether he was gay or not before! It's an interesting take on it, though.
I love the thought of his old self watching this programme in horror. It's like when someone loses their memory and has to rediscover their personality and they don't like their old one or their old friends or anything.
It's obvious his brain got rewired from the stroke. I believe him. I don't think he was always gay. Weird unexplainable things do happen; look at people who have an organ transplant and start liking chicken nuggets or speaking Spanish.
Oh, he DOES have memory loss. This explains the complete change of personality, then. It must be hard for his friends and family to have a 'new' Chris. Must be sad to lose your memory like that. I have a bad memory. But not that bad.
I like the fact he refers to 'old Chris liking motorbikes, I really don't care anymore.' It's like 'old Chris' is some annoying relative he's chained to.
How weird watching him have those photos developed and not even recognising himself. 'I look chavvy'; how funny! It's like he doesn't even like his old self. He did look like the type of person you'd avoid on a cheap package holiday before.
It's sad that he's not close to his mum anymore. It must have been hard for her to see her son completely change personality, but how can she stop loving him? It's still him. Or is it? I suppose it's like a death of 'old Chris'. But either way, he's still her son. I wonder if it's because of the personality change or the sexuality change? Both, I suppose.
Children shouldn't have to write letters to parents asking them to live up to their fucking responsibilities. It makes me so angry. What part of being a parent don't these people get? Aren't you meant to be a parent no matter what? Thank fuck I'm never having kids but I seriously treat my cats better than some people treat their kids. It's disgraceful.
I thought his boyfriend's dismissal of the situation was quite patronising. I guess it's hard for him to prove he was never closeted if he can't remember. But I believe him. My boyfriend said maybe the stroke gave him to freedom to 'be gay' but maybe his new personality WAS just gay. I don't know, it's a headfuck. Does he even have to justify himself? I think I would in his situation.
That's sad that he lost his friends as they didn't have anything in common anymore. I've seen that before in memory loss cases.
How does this scientific test involving a joystick and listening to Wires by Athlete determine you're gay? I liked the scientist referring to the stroke as a 'neurological insult'. I also liked the boyfriend worrying another stroke might turn him 'straight' again!
I like this guy Chris. He knows his own mind. His mum would surely know if he was gay before, or his brothers. Could he be bisexual? It's not even been mentioned as a possibility. I know people who've 'changed' sexuality, so to speak, ie. a female friend in a straight relationship for many years who's been gay for about ten years and doesn't identify as bi. I also know bi people in 'straight' relationships and vice versa, so it's not always black and white. Bi invisibility!
Could you be so strongly in denial about your sexuality that you fuck millions of girls? I suppose you could. But I believe he believes he was not gay before. Therefore he was not gay before.
I think it's a good idea to track down an ex and find out what she thinks. But even they could only guess, I think, because who knows what goes on in people's heads? But it would be an educated guess, at least.
There's more to the human mind than we know. If you bang that frontal lobe the wrong way, it can turn you into a psychopath. I read about one guy who had an accident and became addicted to porn and gambling. Plus we only use 5% of our brains. We don't understand everything; just ask David Icke.
It must be weird for that ex girlfriend that he doesn't remember that stuff. But I can barely remember some of my exes. I didn't think she was very helpful!
I like that guy he met who had a stroke and went from a builder to an artist. He was cool! His art was nuts, his whole house was covered. It's like some part of his brain has been unlocked. I liked him not remembering getting his tattoos. I want to unlock a weird bit of my brain. Not a bad bit, though. You have to be be careful with that Pandora's box, just ask the Big Brother USA contestants.
I can't fucking BELIEVE his mum didn't reply to his letter! Oh sorry, did you prefer your old homophobic son? I know I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect there, but come on. He's your son! He's alive! Wake up before you regret it. Seriously, anyone who says 'blood is thicker than water' is thicker than pigshit. Blood don't mean dick. It's loyalty that counts.
I found this documentary absolutely fascinating. It's like when someone gets Alzheimers, where does their 'old' self go? Does it lie in wait? Is it annihilated? What is 'identity'? It's almost something close to spirituality, as loathe as I am to use that word. Do we go on? And if we do, what will it look like? Who'd have thought BBC3 could bring up all these questions? Good stuff!

Film: Hit so hard

I went to see the documentary Hit So Hard at the British Film Institute tonight which told the story of Hole drummer Patty Schemel. I laughed at the blurb which said something like 'while egomaniac front woman Courtney drew the attention the more interesting story was happening elsewhere with Patty'. Even the person who wrote that must have giggled a bit. Are drummers ever interesting? Well maybe not, but her story is. The stuff about her sexuality was interesting and her mum was amazing! She was hilarious. They didn't dwell too much on her back story though, the lifeblood of the documentary was the Hole story.
I didn't realise Patty was such good friends with Kurt and lived with Kurt and Courtney in this strange tree-house place! All that footage was really interesting, and was very intimate and personal. It seems quite relevant I watched this today because I had a teeny Kurt vs Courtney spat with a friend of mine on Facebook this week and he said 'Kurt was my hero'. Well, Kurt was my hero, too, once. And some of the footage in this documentary would truly break your heart. There were so many interesting parts. I loved old 'ugly' Courtney with Kurt and baby Frances; I love seeing her how she was, her real beauty. But it's so weird when you see a baby in that environment when people are obviously on drugs and it's frightening and incongruous, and then you think of how it all turned out and it's just wholly depressing. I loved Kurt too, he was truly beautiful, and it's just another heartbreak on my list, which is why I make fun of him a bit now, because he hurt me when he killed himself (I know it wasn't a personal attack on me, but it was a tough time of my life and it felt like it then!) I do wonder what Frances thinks of it all. It must be hell for her.
I wasn't expecting the documentary to be so heartbreaking either: the death or Kurt and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff was really harrowing (I liked Courtney being indignant that all the 'death attention' was on Kurt like it was some competition). Sounds like Kristen died from the Amy Winehouse treatment; she was trying to get off drugs, and then when she went back to them, her body couldn't cope.
And then there's the crossover with your own life: I was at that Reading in 1994 after Kurt died: I saw Courtney self-destruct and she was my idol because I'd watched my life self-destruct two years before. And my friends weren't on heroin or crack but one of us could easily have died on one of our Fisher Price versions of drugs when I was a teenager. It just takes a bit of bad luck or one one night that goes on too long.
And that's why you never get over the music of your teens because it is intrinsically linked to every vital adult emotion you'll ever feel: love, heartbreak, ecstasy and death. And that's when you feel all of them for the first time and it stays with you.
I always have this dismissive attitude to 'band members': it's like the way I am with Johnny Marr- without Morrissey there's no Johnny Marr, therefore who gives a fuck about Johnny Marr? Johnny Marr and Mike Mogis are just window dressing, and they're part writers. A drummer? They're less than that. But I have to backtrack on this a little now, because I understood watching this documentary that a band is a band of brothers (or sisters) and aren't interchangeable like the Sugababes with replaceable heads. The bit where Courtney ditched Patty from Celebrity Skin and put a LOOKALIKE in the video was truly jaw-dropping. And the way Eric and Melissa sat on the fence was shameful: it was like Jade Goody vs Shilpa Shetty all over again.
A word on the other band members then: Melissa still looks beautiful. Eric Erlandson looks like he's died of AIDS and just looked in the mirror at his own ghost. Honestly, he looks seriously ill. And Patty? Well, she looks pretty much the same as ever. But she's off the crack, so thank god for that. When she basically admitted she sold herself to get crack when she was homeless it was truly shocking. She was extremely brave and honest to admit that. I love the fact she called Courtney for help: that must have been hard. Especially as it was partly Courtney's fault. But I liked Courtney trying to get Patty off drugs in Hawaii and clearly being off her face herself.
I thought this might be one of those documentaries where Courtney would have banned Patty from playing any Hole tunes (let's face it, she bans every fucking thing) but actually Courtney featured quite prominently and amusingly (she was either high or pissed out of her face and appeared to be eating some sort of biscuits throughout - my boyfriend would have gone mad if he'd been there as she was talking with her mouth full at one point).
I liked the bits where Patty and Mellisa were almost in code talking about Courtney going off on one and how they took refuge in each other. And I liked Courtney's indignation at her dress getting ripped off in the crowd, like what did she expect from those animals? A cuddle?
Anyway the really cool part was that Patty came on at the end for a Q&A. Me and my friend John didn't dare ask our respective questions (mine was: what do you think of the current incarnation of Hole?) but the questions asked were all really interesting and she was very gracious and funny about Courtney and said she saw Dave Grohl at a 5-year-old's birthday party recently and he was moaning about getting old and having a bad back.
It's funny seeing everyone there of a 'certain age' ie. my age, all clinging to the past. You just feel part of something. And I left the house and saw the bright lights of the South Bank. Excitements.
Patty came across as thoroughly decent, honest, wise and forgiving. She seems to have found her happiness at last and it wasnt on 'heroin island'. You cant really say fairer than that. It's not easy to get off hard drugs and that must be respected. And it can't be easy to work with Courtney and come out the other side. So good on her. I wrote this blog on my phone on the tube, which is very unlike me, but I wanted to get my thoughts in some sort of order about it. I didn't expect it to affect me so personally, but it did. I thoroughly recommend this doc if you're a Hole fan and there's one more showing at the BFI on Tues, so get down there.
I also saw some of my old kittyradio crew down there, but that's another story. PS: I'm not dead!

Documentary: Becoming Chaz

I was really interested in this documentary, about Chaz Bono, Cher's former daughter, now her son after a sex change. I think being born in the wrong body must be one of the most traumatic things that anyone could ever go through. Everything 'normal people' take for granted has to be earned or battled for.

OMG their cats have no hair. Cats with no hair are frightening. Why is that cat's skin all saggy. Oh god, no. That's not right. Transgender issues I can cope with, but not naked cats. I like their chihuahuas, though.

In other news, Chaz's girlfriend looks very petite and pretty, which I'm sure will be a shock to some. So they started going out when he was still Chastity. That is quite a big thing for a relationship to go thtough, I'm not sure I could hack it. But who knows until that situation arose?

Chaz doesn't look a thing like Sonny or Cher, as far as I can see. Was he adopted?

It was interesting seeing the chronological photos. It's weird enough just seeing your old hairstyles and fashion disasters, imagine seeing yourself go from one sex to the other over the years.

Chaz's grandma looks like Audrey Roberts. She has the EXACT same hair.

I'm not sure Cher is too happy with this transition. Mind you, it's hard to tell with her face. She could be thrilled, we'd never really know, would we? One thing's for certain, she's never in the same room with Chaz at any point. And she didn't pay for the surgery, his sponsor (whatever that is) did. Oh, and she's still calling him 'she'. I think that's OK for a period of time (it must be hard for parents to adjust) but after a few months it becomes a matter of respect to use the new pronoun. Why is Cher worried about the publicity? It's not like people don't know. Everyone knows!

Stop calling him SHE! God, if she can't get it right, it doesn't set a good example to pig-ignorant far-right Americans who hate anyway. I think that's really important.

I did feel sorry for Cher when she said she'd miss hearing Chastity's voice. It is like a small death for a parent and you do need to grieve, I guess. It's a death of a type of dream, I suppose. But Chaz is still there! He is still the same person inside. I don't think my mum could hack it, either. It kind of is a generational thing, too. But is that an excuse? Is a generation gap an excuse for bigoted behaviour?

I understand why Jenny his partner is upset, anyway. Five years is a long time to go out with someone and to have them become more aggressive and change personality must be hard. The gain for them is a cost for you. Also, you have to change your sexual identity if you're a lesbian and your partner becomes a man. It's a lot to ask of anyone. It's a true test of love.

At least Cher did make a bit of an effort on Letterman. I do feel for her. I mean, parents get bent out of shape about shit like not having grandkids. If their expectations are for you to be a certain way, that's their beef, but you have to understand a little bit.

I liked Cher's little analogy that if she woke up in a man's body tomorrow she'd be like 'get me out of here'. Not sure I like her gold snakeskin jacket, though. Call PETA!

Film: Catfish

OMG! This film was amazing. Talk about a slow burn. It's a great story, and it definitely won't be to everyone's taste, but I really liked it. It's true, the less you know about it the better. I'd suggest probably not reading this if you are going to watch it, because I'm going to have to spoiler a little bit to even talk about it. So don't read this- go and watch it! I mean it; don't read this if you're gonna watch it.

STOP.

It starts slow, but it's really tense when it kicks off about 20 minutes in. I felt tense for about half an hour during the middle. The dynamic once it becomes clear what's happening is really freaky and intriguing and incredibly sad. A lot is unsaid.
This film is for anyone who's ever been lied to on the internet. And I have. I went out with a bloke once who was courting four other girls at the same time on a messageboard I frequented. And one of them was in Australia! More fool me.
The main guy in this film, Nev, is such a dude, charming, beautiful, and ultimately extremely kind and understanding. He had every right to go completely insane. This story could have ended very, very differently.
It must have hurt him to be so cool about everything. He got totally done over. I liked the bit where he read out the 'sexy' texts. He had balls to do that.
I wonder how Angela felt when they turned up on her doorstep? She must have shit herself. I don't blame her for falling in love with him, I think I've fell in love with him a bit. Those teeth and brown eyes were just a killer combination, and I even liked his hairy chest when just got out of bed. It must have hurt her to not be what he wanted her to be. The internet is cruel; charm isn't awarded unless you got something to back it up.
Ultimately, this film tells a sad story, of a sad woman who just wanted a bit of escape. Who wouldn't want to live in a fantasy world? And she was definitely creative; in more ways than one. And she was still lying to his face whilst confessing! I think she was just a bit mental; but who could blame her?
You think her partner Vince would be more pissed off about the whole situation, really. He took it all pretty well, too.
I cried at the end, obv. I'll be your facebook friend, Nev. I'm 24, five foot eight with long dark hair, I'm a keen gymnast and I play the clarinet. I think we're gonna get on great.

Documentary: Britain's Fattest Man

I always have to check how to spell Britain. Is this normal? I can't sleep so might as well stay up and watch this, as by tomorrow it will be ye olde news. In fact, it's probably old news now. I can't keep up with all the Twitter folk. It's like I'm writing this on parchment. Hey ho.
Firstly, let me say I can relate to this 70 stone guy. Because I went to go swimming after work today, stood on a 73 bus for about 25 minutes as it sat in one spot, and then got off and got a McDonalds. So I know how he feels. Luckily, I can still see my toes (for now).
I can't work out what is going on with this guy's rolls of fat. He has a roll of fat coming off his leg that is about twice as big as my head, and it's not his leg, or his stomach. What is it? It's fucking frightening, that's what.
How come someone comes in and looks after you when you eat yourself almost to death? I suppose there's no choice, really, what else can they do, just leave you to rot?
His face doesn't look that fat, oddly. He must eat CONSTANTLY. You must have to put in the spadework to get that fat. I eat junk three times a day and I've only got the one roll of fat. Right?
Who is bringing him crisps?! Who is bringing him white bread and butter? He was eating 20,000 calories a day! Fuck.
30 to 40 chocolate bars a day?! I don't think that can be true, but look at him.
Oh god, seeing him rolling there naked like a jellyfish, being sponged down as if he's a particularly unattractive car is just too much. He can just sit naked and it's not indecent because his genitals are just buried under layers of fat.
Christ, he's been turned down for stomach stapling. I doubt if they could find it. And I'm not being flippant. I'm starting to think I should have gone swimming after all!
Ugh, the op they're going to give him means he has half a chance of dying. I can't believe they can put someone that big under anaesthetic. It's unreal.
OMG he can't go toilet. That was what stopped him eating so much. Wow, is that what it takes?
He can't lose the weight because he doesn't move and burn off calories. Fuck.
It's weird that he wasn't even a fat kid. You'd imagine it would be a gradual thing from childhood. Interesting that he ended up caring for his mother, and now needs caring for himself.
He re-mortgaged his mum's house and spent ten grand on food and his sisters stopped speaking to him. Wow. Oh my god, this is too sad. He has no friends and no family.
They are putting a new table in to do the op because his 'tummy apron' is too big. Can you imagine the humiliation? Can you? Can you really? This is real-life horror.
Christ, they can't put him in a helicopter! Who's going to volunteer to fly that fucker?
I guess it's cheaper for the NHS to have a 50/50 chance of killing him than paying 100K for his care each year, right? I bet they do weight it up like that (I should be writing for The Sun).
OMG they are worried that the NHS floor can't hold him! But they weighed him and he was 'only' 56 stone. Lightweight.
Will someone take that toast off him! Give him a carrot, ffs. He didn't seem very interested in the fresh air. He hasn't been outside in years!
They're installing metal supports in the hospital. Bet he's glad he's not American and having to pay for all this.
I want to go on that 500 calorie a day jelly diet. A little 'piece' of his body looks flatter. But what is that piece? What's it called? It's like magic producing new body parts. This programme is making me feel scared shitless. I really hope he doesn't die at the end.
Don't look at the operation! Fuck me, how did he survive that?
Christ social services rang him whilst he was still in his hospital bed recovering to tell him they're taking his carer off him! FFS she's like his only friend. Evil cunts. They did just do it to save money. They're probably weeping because he didn't die. That is pure mental cruelty.
So at the end he'd lost 18 stone. He still looked fucking huge. They took his carer off him, and I'm surprised he coped with that. From being with someone 12 hours a day to having them gone is totally wrong.
At the end he stood up for the first time in two years. And then they did another op to make him able to walk by removing the massive lump of fat from his thighs. That piece of skin alone was one and a half stone. Wow. They even had to reset his legs to make them the right way round to walk.
He did actually look a lot smaller at the end, and lost 21 stone. I just want to lose two!
PS: if you're his sisters, why not try picking up the phone to him now?

Banged Up Abroad (Locked up abroad)

I’m often so busy talking about the shows I don’t like on here, I forget to champion the ones I do. Banged Up Abroad (also called Locked Up Abroad overseas) is a hidden gem, stowed away on the National Geographic channel (me neither). From the title I’d think it was a show like Road Wars, featuring drunks getting nicked in Magaluf. I can assure you it is NOTHING like that, so don’t let the title put you off.
90% of the time, the show follows the same format, which is as follows: person struggles for money in hot country. Person meets X, who offers them the chance to earn big bucks smuggling drugs. Person goes for it, panics a bit, then gets caught.
The format is so simple, and it’s almost the same every week, but what makes it so compelling is that it’s real people telling their stories. Half the show is them being interviewed telling you how it happened, and half is a ‘reconstruction’ of events.
One of the things I like best about Banged Up Abroad is the quality of the lookalikes they use for their reconstructions. You’re so used to reconstructions being almost comically shit, that these ones are actually an art form in comparison. On more than one occasion I’ve thought it was actually the same person as the actor. They really, really make the effort with them, which makes it feel all the more real- especially as sometimes they’ll show you the actual crime photo of the person getting caught with the drugs in the airport and you can see how the lookalike is dressed exactly the same; they really care about the detail.
There’s always a scene where the person gets caught at the airport, and you always know it’s going to happen, but you still feel like you’re there with them when they feel that hand on their shoulder. Half the show is just build up to that moment. Sometimes they get through once or twice and that makes them greedy. I’ve seen ones where people have been conned into it, ones where people have swallowed bundles of coke. Then there’s what happens to them when they’re in prison; and often it’s horrific. Often they do several years before they get out of the most horrendous of jails. I saw one recently where the guy became a junkie and contracted HIV. Grim stuff.
One of the best episodes I saw was of a couple telling their story, and they always give their interview in front of a black background, and at the end, they drew the curtain back, and you realised they were still inside! It was so horrendous, because normally you’re waiting to find out how many years they did. It was a brilliant twist. The girl was like this Manchester raver type, everything was ‘safe’ and ‘wicked’, and it was so weird to think of her still in there.
Sometimes they deviate from the usual formula- we saw this amazing one where this guy got kidnapped by rebels in the jungle and they kept him for months. He told them he was dying of prostate cancer to freak them out and kept shoving a key up his nose so they thought his nose was bleeding from the cancer. So much stuff happened in that episode, it was like a mini film. He was the most amazingly brave person; he was like Indiana Jones.
The whole concept seems like such a simple idea, and didn’t even sound appealing to me at first, but it really is the storytelling that drags you in, and the thought that it could be you. Just one bad decision is all it takes to change the course of your life forever.
I recommend.

Katie: My Beautiful Face

This is the horrific story of the model who got acid chucked in her face, by a 'friend' of her boyfriend because she dumped him. Blinded in one eye, and scarred for life, she can't even eat because her throat is burnt. She has to get fed through a tube.
To all the people who believe in 'fate' and 'karma': tell me what does someone do to deserve this?
GOD, those first operation pictures were so fucking horrific. I can't believe she looks as good as she does considering those pictures. They rebuilt her face entirely. When she described looking in the mirror for the first time, it was just completely harrowing. Just unimaginable how that must have felt, especially to someone who made her living through her looks.
Watching her parents have to massage her scars four times a day looked hard. Having to move back in with your mum must be hard. Not being able to go out on your own. Hard. Losing your looks AND your independence seems too much to bear.
So she met Danny on Facebook. He raped her after two weeks. Three days later he sent the guy to throw the acid at her. How much must he have paid him? Fucking cunt couldn't even do it himself. The CCTV of that was just terrifying; that's real life horror right there. That's You've Been Framed directed by George A Romero.
29 operations. God. She is one strong woman. 'Brave' is a weird word, because what choice does she have? It's just do or die, isn't it.
I didn't like it when she said she belonged to him now because of what he'd done. Don't admit it, don't let him think he's won. The thought of him watching this show and feeling smug is just unbearable.
That boyfriend cunt got a minimum of 16 years. The other guy got 12 (no minimum mentioned, but the papers say he'll only serve 6). Not long enough. But thank god it wasn't any less.
It was hard to see her suffer and feel so ostracised from society, but a lot of it is in her head (understandably). I think she could easily find love again. I think she needs to get out of her mum and dad's house as soon as she is strong enough.
She was absolutely stunning before, but she's still attractive, and she's got a gorgeous smile, and massive strength. I thought she looked really good at the party; I'd kill to have that figure and hair! I liked her dress as well.
The only way 'justice' can be done in this situation is to stick her ex and his stooge in a vat of acid. I'd enjoy watching. Just lower them in by robot, and then there's no morality issue. Then put it on TV, just to complete the circle.

Age 8 and wanting a sex change

Shouldn't that be 'aged'? That's a clunky title. How about 'My sex change: aged 8'. It's not entirely true, but it's snappier. Anyway...
Background: I think my feelings about transgendered people, and particularly their treatment by the media, (and then society), has definitely got a lot more defined in the past couple of years. It's all about the pro-nouns, isn't it (said in Gok style). It is so sick when the Daily Mail (oh yes, our old friend) insists on calling someone who's had a sex change by their old gender; if someone feels strongly enough to have their sexual organs operated on, and removed, then I'd say they deserve to be called a woman (or man, if it's the other way round), personally. Plus, the kind of agony it must take to come to that sort of decision; I mean, have a heart. Yet still, I barely notice jokes about 'trannies' sometimes, I'm sure I make jokes about them on occasion (yes even me!) They are an easily forgotten minority. Even some feminists seem unsure of where trans people fit in.
This documentary seems quite shocking on the surface; but what choice do the parents have? Let the child 'be themselves' whatever that might be, or suppress them? Isn't it better to let them find their own identity? That seems great in theory but in practice seems like a very difficult and confusing issue (and I'm just watching it!)
Josie is an 8 year old girl who used to be called Joseph and was born a boy. It does feel weird to call her Josie, initially, because can a child make that decision? I mean, they are American, and this is the country that brought you beauty pageants, Balloon Boy and My Monkey Baby. Who's to say a mother who really wanted a girl wouldn't put bows in her boy's hair for long enough until something stuck. But that's not the main reality.
It's interesting the way her mum said Josie ALWAYS wanted to be a girl; that it was just something so inherent inside. Not even that she wanted to be a girl, but that she WAS a girl. Even so, it does seem strangely psychotic to be discussing sex-change surgery with an 8 year old.
The mum said that Josie behaved badly as a boy because she wanted to be a girl so much. She finally found her in the bathroom considering castrating herself with a pair of nail clippers. The doctor diagnosed her with gender dysphoria (sounds like a Placebo song).
After that, the parents didn't seem so rash, they seemed very kind to have let her be herself at that age, rather than trying to fit her in another box. I guess a child who has had that freedom from 8 will be much better equip to deal with her teenage years, in many ways.
Kyla is another 8 year old boy with gender dysphoria (see, she wears pink!) Kyla seemed a little more like a boy in drag to me than Josie (and the voice-over was calling her him!!!) but I trust the parents have the child's best interests at heart. It's hard though; do you really know at 8? It's a scary decision to make, as they have to decide whether to give them hormones to basically change the path of puberty. That's a big one to get right. And I don't think it's patronising to question that; there's a reason why you can't get plastic surgery until you're 18, because your body changes, and your mind changes. But then there's this thing of just 'knowing inherently' and trusting someone to know themselves; I mean, I knew when I was 8 I never wanted to have kids. That hasn't changed. Argh, it's so difficult (see, this is why I don't want kids!).
It was weird to hear Josie at 8 coveting puberty and 'boobs'. That was funny when she said she was 'grumpy' that she had a penis. It seemed poignantly childlike.
Hold on, they just said 'it's been found that most people with gender dysphoria grow out of it.'!!! If that is the case (although they quoted no statistics) then surely letting the kids take the hormones before they hit puberty is pretty dangerous. I thought the doctors point about what if they change their mind about the hormones when the parents are quite fixed on it after so long was a good one. Christ, what a minefield!
Kyla then got highlights. I'm not sure an 8 year old should have highlights whatever the gender. I didn't dye my hair til I was about 13.
Ah, they finally have one the other way round! 12 year old Bailey was a girl who is now living as a boy. It seems more 'normal' that way round, I guess because it's more acceptable for girl's to act masculine. That was jarring when she said 'I don't even have girl thoughts; I think about sports and football'. This strikes me as a little worrying; because it's just this myth of defined gender roles, and they are hard to deconstruct at 18 or 27, let alone 12. Like, does it have to be one or other, or can it just be more fluid than that?
16 year old Chris was born female and now lives as a boy. He did take the drugs to stop him going through puberty as a girl, and now takes testosterone to make him a man. He really looked male too, except with a bit of a girly voice (but then I know many other men like that!).
It was interesting that his aunt said his dad always said he wanted a boy, but god, there's trying to please, and trying to please! Surely that can't have influenced it, it has to be genetic.
It was interesting when they were discussing should 12 year old Bailey tell his 'girlfriends' the truth? What if he does and it destroys his life, as they moved to an area where it wasn't known he was born female? It's a dilemma.
For Chris, aged 16, this was even more pertinent, but his girlfriend knew the truth. I liked his mum saying 'at least we can guarantee he won't get anyone pregnant'. Such a mum comment!
Bailey then had to chose between the testosterone injections and growing any taller, as they stop you growing. What a choice for a 12 year old. It just seems like too much. Testosterone also makes you infertile, so it's like a 12 year old choosing to be sterilised just for good measure. What a lot to take on, that's just mind-boggling.
In a weird twist of fate, Chris had a trangender mentor (FTM) who then fell in love with his mum! It's not the kind of family that Jan Moir would approve of, but it worked for them! I liked Chris, he was really sweet.
It makes you realise that these rigid little pigeon-holes we set up for children really are no good; pink for a girl, blue for a boy. They said Josie still likes cars and dinosaurs, so what? Maybe the little pink ironing board and kitchen set wasn't very much fun, did they think of that? I just feel lucky I never had to question my sexuality or my gender. I had it easy.
And as Brian Molko says, 'Don't forget to be who you are.' He also said 'For the first half of our gigs, there's normally some guy convinced I'm a girl, and a pretty cute one at that. As the gig continues, it begins to dawn on him that I'm a bloke, and suddenly he has to ask himself some serious questions.' and I think that's a good note to end on!

Documentary: Extreme Male Beauty

Vain men. Could there be anything less sexy? British men are spending 920 MILLION quid a year on male grooming! How?! A couple of deoderants and a bottle of shampoo is about a tenner.
I admit, I am highly sexist on this particular issue (but that's OK, because it's a trifling one) but men beautifying themselves just turns me right off. It's bad enough women are so browbeaten into the advertising myth; now men too? It's tragic. They should look at what it's done to us and run a mile.
Tim Shaw, investigating (nothing) looked quite slobby but that's about it. He wasn't hideous or anything, just average (can't you tell from the way he mentioned beer and the missus- sigh). He decided to try and change his body in 8 weeks. Well, makes a change from women doing it, I suppose. But it's still dumb. His wife was very youthful looking and pretty, which probably didn't help.
To prove something, he went and stood half naked on a podium whilst women said they thought he was rough. One lone voice said she hated vain men. Actually, the responses were quite varied; women hated all types of men, vain, skinny, muscly!
Then he went to talk to men about their grooming routine (in some showers, for no apparent reason), including shaving their pubes off! URGH. Just leave it alone! I didn't like the way he talked about 'tits'- he came off sounding like a sexist wanker.
Afterwards he went to meet some numpty who wanted to look like Peter Andre, but who looked more like Mario of Big Brother infamy. For some reason we were forced to look at his naked, fat body and him shaving his balls. We could have had a warning first. Wow, he lost 12 stone via gastric bypass surgery but it left him with man boobs. Shame. The show turned into Ten Years Younger, as the plastic surgeon was drafted in. Doesn't it rather defeat the object of trying to look good by having all your flabby bits put out on display on TV? Afterwards, he was still gross, just in a different way.
Then there was some tedious stuff about steroids- zzzzz. And muscly men taking their tops off- vomit. Personally I favour either average or thin. I'd even rather have fat than athletic or muscly. One, they'd be boring, and two, I'd be frightened they'd burst.
This show was nowhere NEAR as good as it could have been. These sorts of documentaries are so hit and miss. But I'll probably still watch the others, if only to see what Tim Shaw ends up looking like in the show. I saw a picture and it wasn't good.
PS: read Charlie Brooker on this show, he was funnier.

Conor Documentary: One of a Kind- The Story of the Mystic Valley Band

I'll never forget my crushing sense of disappointment when I bought the Evening with Saddle Creek DVD; how can a DVD with The Faint, Cursive, Rilo Kiley and Bright Eyes on be so bloody boring? But it was. Too much dull waffle. It's weird when one of your biggest idols is actually not that charismatic; yet his music says everything.
I'm not the biggest champion of Conor and his Mystic Valley Band (come on, have you ever met anyone who is?) but I would die for the merest sprinkle of Bright Eyes stardust.
So I sat down to watch this documentary with trepidation. But hey, this documentary is free, so it would be churlish to complain anyway. Still, I'm sure it won't stop me.
I don't hate the Conor solo album, I think Eagle on a Pole, Lenders in the Temple and Milk Thistle are beautiful (oh, and Breezy). But I really can't abide that country guitar sound. I swear the more country he gets, the less shouting he does. And the fact he lets all of them sing does my head in. They are not worthy! Aw, he doesn't want them to sit on the sidelines. But not everyone can be a lead singer, can they? They don't let the duff ones at the back of Coldplay do their own songs, do they (they probably do actually, like when Take That lets Howard Donald have a go).
Five minutes in and the documentary just appeared to be songs, and clips of photos, which suited me to be honest, I don't really care about the studio, or the hi-hat, or how they all get along so well.
Oh. And so it begins. The banal chatter. One of them is sorely lacking a neck and appears to have a serious dental problem. I only like the one who plays the violin and who's in Bright Eyes and likes playing 'I Believe in Symmetry.' His name will come to me eventually. No, NOT Mike Mogis. Nick!
There's another one who's like a faux Conor. But what's the point when you have the real one there?
OMG. Ill-advised Conor beard. When I watched Louis the other night, ALL the sex offenders had beards. Beards are NEVER good. Come on Conor, you're already making your music tedious, don't go ugly too. Give us a rock to cling to. I know it's hard work being so pretty and everything, and being a heart-throb as well as a genius, but it could be worse; at least you don't have to get up early and suffer through failed performance reviews like in my miserable life. Those sideburns later on were just about acceptable, I suppose.
What is that bloody track with the didgeridoo on? It's interminable. Conor's ad libs between songs aren't much cop, either. Oh my god, and when he does that 'check, check, check' thing. It's as bad as Morrissey's intro tapes. Just play the fucking tunes! In fact, play ONLY the tunes I want to hear! Right?
It was nice seeing Conor shed a tear when Obama won the election.
So the whole band wrote songs called 'Eagle on a Pole'? That must be disappointing when you go see them and hear one of the crappy ones.
This documentary is worth a look but only if you're a diehard fan. Oh and download it if you can. The streaming made my eyes hurt and I kept having to pause it so it could catch up which was a bit of a rigmarole. But the version I downloaded first didn't work. Painful!
Conor said his approach to making music has changed from 5 or 10 years ago and hopefully it will change again in the future. I hope so too, I hope he becomes adventurous again, and not so plodding. He's my age!
I'm looking forward to the album, of course (except the cameos), but I'm still left wishing Conor would just put on some shoulderpads, team up with Patrick Wolf and do some thrash-techno. Is that too much to ask, as Morrissey once warbled in a very mediocre song. And how apt.
Oh and at the end, it turned out it was just one big advert, like in Starship Troopers.

The Truth About Online Anorexia/ Louis Theroux/ Slumdog Millionaire

Forgive me, folks, I'm about a week behind on TV at the moment, thanks to my stupid aerial, but you can probably still get this stuff on catch up, innit, if it's that bloody good. This is my mish-mash blog, with something for nobody.
And so another asinine TV presenter makes a 'serious' documentary (hi there, Alesha Dixon and Louise Nurding). This time it's crow-faced Fearne Cotton checking out 'pro-ana' websites (good advertising for them, right?) in The Truth About Anorexia.
Fearne looked at an anorexia messageboard and said 'how is this even online?' How naive is she? There's kids being raped online, Fearne, you can download anything in your wildest dreams. It's a free-for-all! It's the INTERNET. Best friend to the mentally ill and the grotesquely lonely. Plus, you're advertising it.
Fearne then went to visit some schoolkids to tell them not to worry about being fat, whilst being very thin herself. What a good role model. It was sick hearing children talk about calories, but all children are doomed now, anyway.
As usual in these programmes Fearne took the hypocritical step of 'trying out' an anorexia 'diet' (again, what a good role model).
She read on a messageboard, 'Fat people can't fit anywhere'. They can fit some places, just not through turnstiles. Fearne then made a collage of thin people to provide 'thinspiration' (giving them ideas) and said 'the last time I made a collage was when I was about 7.' Really, you're missing out, my collages are the talk of the town!
Woah, anorexia is the biggest killer of any mental illness in the UK and one in five girls with it dies of the condition! Wow, that's a lot.
Fearne then went to meet the mother of a girl who died of anorexia aged 19. Her mum told her to 'just eat more food' which is my general feeling towards anorexia. But I'm not so stupid that I think it's that easy. But how can they look in the mirror and think they look nice when they look like frail old women? It truly is a mental illness, like you go blind or something. The pictures are so horrific. It's like a horror-show.
But I don't believe celebrity causes it. Yet I don't believe it helps, either.
How awful to watch your child die of a self-inflicted illness like that.
When I was researching my novel I visited a lot of self-harm sites and they were pretty grim.Those galleries were not pretty, but they were proud of the mutilation. There's fucked-up people out there. In a way it's good they have a community that isn't the whitewashed media, but actually content with no filters is dangerous, too. I'm forever glad there was no internet when I was a young teenager.
Also, Fearne, you're not a children's TV presenter anymore (are you?) Could you stop talking in that patronising voice. Thanks.
Oh I also saw Louis Theroux's show on paedophiles which was excellent, obviously. There's not much to say about it, just watch it. Louis says more with one raised eyebrow than Fearne could in an entire lifetime. The woman in control of the bloody place was worse that the paedos! She was so stiff and robotic she made you side with child molesters. That's not right on any level.
PPS. I was going to do a whole blog on Slumdog Millionaire as I finally watched it, but what's the point, everyone has already seen it, so I'll just say a few irrelevant words. I thought it was beautifully shot, put together well, and I enjoyed it greatly. It deserved all the acclaim. I liked the British call-centre, plus my boyfriend found the Millionaire music playing over a dramatic scene near the end very funny. The dance was a nice touch, too. Probably the best bit was when he 'phoned a friend'- it was a real heart-stopper.
I thought the woman love interest was slightly miscast as she was a little too glam for Dev's character, and the film was a bit depressing at times, (no shit given the subject matter), but those were my only niggles. The children in it were excellent (don't sell her, you bastard dad git) and super-cute. The evil Chris Tarrant figure was really horrid, and excellently realised.
Next: Deal or No Deal: the feature film? I live in hope.

Documentary: Addicted to Surrogacy

I think surrogacy is wonderful. I have read amazing stories of women's generosity, and been in awe of them. What a gift. But why would someone want to do it repeatedly? Surely being pregnant is a strain, an ordeal, a drain on your health?
This show followed Amanda, who decided to be a surrogate after having her own baby. Olga, who was to be the baby's new mum said 'what's the point in marriage if you aren't going to have children?' as if people without children are entirely pointless. Amanda had never been a surrogate before, so it was all a bit up in the air how it might pan out.
I can't imagine how it feels to have to put your trust in a woman to give up their baby. It must be hideous; what a delicate, fraught situation. I am so lucky in a way that I don't want children; no biological clock, no worrying about fertility, no worrying about finding the right man, the right house, or being a good role model. It is very easy for me.
Another surrogate, Jill, had been a surrogate to EIGHT. She just seemed to be addicted to the feeling of being pregnant. All of her babies were biologically hers, but she had never kept one! How weird that she didn't want children, but she loved being pregnant. Now she was 44 and still trying! Time to stop. But it gave her life a purpose. She'd spent 18 years being pregnant for other women and hadn't had sex since she was 20.
Tammy-Lynn was American (no shit, with that name) and on her 6th and 7th babies (twins) for an English couple she didn't actually like. What must her husband think? I felt sorry for the couple waiting outside the room as the twins were born. How frightening to have your fat in someone else's womb.
Next we saw Carol who'd had twelve surrogate children, including triplets. Eek! She said her health is now on poor shape, and she had varicose veins and dodgy teeth. One baby she had for another couple turned out to accidentally be her own husbands instead of the new father's! Apparently the babyless couple were very angry but kept the baby. Carol seemed quite flippant about this, like they should be grateful for any baby, and I guess they should in a way, but it must have been a shock.
It was weird seeing the dynamic when Amanda's baby was born, Olga tiptoeing round, feeling like she was stealing the baby. Amanda was amazing, really; what a big thing to do for someone. How brave. I think it genuinely is that the women know how much they love having children and want to pass that onto another woman. But still she cracked when the baby left. That was hard to watch. I was shocked when she said she'd do it again! It must be like a weird buzz.
Personally, I'd rather have an addiction that's more managable. Luckily I do. Crisps!

Documentary: The World's Most Enhanced Woman and Me

Is this a new series of this, or a repeat? Mark Dolan (i.e. the male Dawn Porter) this week goes to find the women who has deformed herself most grotesquely with boob jobs. I was going to blog this last week when he did the world's cleverest child but it was kind of boring. Give me Dawn having an orgy any day. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Anyway, this week Fauxis Theroux went to meet women with HUGE boobs. These women made Jordan look like Keira Knightley. I thought this had gone out of fashion, too, but apparently there are still a few mega-freaks out there.
I thought it was interesting to find out 'why', why indeed? Men, money, insecurity?
The first woman he met showed him her old four-and-a-half litre implants, which looked exactly like the kind of bags you take home from the fair with a goldfish in. Nice. It leaked into her body and made her brain swell up. Yummy!
He didn't seem to learn much from the first woman he met; he just seemed to be objectifying her. Hmm. Then he went to meet a big boob fan (i.e. a sleaze). This led him to a woman called Minka who had a stupid amount of cleavage and yorkshire terriers.
Minka had 4 litre breasts and a tiny waist. Each one weighs the equivalent of 4 bags of sugar and they were four times bigger than her head. As Placebo once said, 'there's no escaping gravity.'
Her manager 'Woody' called her 'a commodity' and said 'have you ever seen an Asian that looks like that?' Charmed, I'm sure!
The sad part was, she actually wanted to be a tennis player, but her 'manager' (who also stars with her in the films) decided on another future for her. Sucking his cock and disfiguring herself.
How she can play tennis with those boobs, I have no idea. Mark Dolan stood there looking disgusted, but that was about it.
Next Mark went to Brazil to meet Shayla Hershey who was having an operation to become the most enhanced woman in the world. She doesn't do porn or go topless, she's more of a Jordan figure (without the glamour start in life). Her boobs are so big, she is bent over with a bad back. Great. It was weird watching her jiggling her boobs for photos in the shopping mall. Even Jordan isn't that shameless.
It turned out her boyfriend persuaded her to have the breast implants. Oh dear. It was actually quite disturbing when she was posing for pics straight after her operation; something wasn't right in her head. She didn't seem very happy, did she?
I like it when my blog is about something naughty. Watch my hits go up as disappointed men find my blog instead of enormo-jug action.

Documentary: Surviving Gazza

Which vulture do you hate the least? That's what it comes down to, isn't it.
Sheryl Gascoigne must have been certifiably insane to take him back. She only needs to look in a mirror to see what has become of a life with that man. She looks hard-faced and drawn, utterly joyless. What was her motivation for taking him back? What was any of their motivation for filming the whole fucking car crash?
He looks like he has a terminal illness; which really, he does. A self-inflicted one.
How funny that Gazza's son hates football. He probably just hates it because he hates his father.
I can't stand drunks; and I remember very well the pictures of Sheryl after he beat the shit out of her. He never deserved a second chance under any circumstances, years later or otherwise.
It was gross to see the way he treated his children. Sheryl was irresponsible even having him in the house, in my opinion, it's too damaging on everyone's psyche. She should not have let him back into her life, she's living in fairlyland if she thinks he'll ever change. I was totally on the youngest kid's side; he had absolutely washed his hands of him and he was absolutely right. Gazza doesn't give a fuck about them, so why waste your energy?
Dear God, let me never find myself sobbing watching my wedding video. Portentious words spoken by Gazza; 'I'm very proud of her for having the guts to marry me, she must be mad.' Quite.
How many times are you going to let someone punch you, let you down, hang up on you? It's sad to be a victim. It's sad he's made his family that. But really; they should have cut their losses long before. I don't believe 'blood is thicker than water'. If people treat you like shit; fuck them. You don't owe anyone anything because you share a last name. It's not right to terrorise your family. The drama just gets tiring after a while. Sheryl is on a guilt trip but she's going to fuck her kids up in the process, especially the little one, because he'll lose respect for her in the end as well.
Her kids should have been more supportive when she finally said enough is enough. If that was my mum I would have begged her never to contact him again. What about HER mental health? He's just a selfish drunk fuck. The problem with people like Gazza (and George Best before him) is that everywhere they go there's some moronic football fan ready to kiss their arse and buy them a drink. But that's still no excuse.
I can't believe the kid rang him up and he went 'who?' Fucking hell. I would have no more gone to Portugal for that intervention than I would have gone on holiday to Afghanistan. And that kid should have been kept out of it entirely. Experiences like that leave their mark.
Let him drink himself to death- just like Best. I'm not sorry. He had everything. The man is an idiot. Fuck him.

Film: A Complete History of My Sexual Failures

I watched this film today, which was a documentary following a slacker-type guy called Chris (who had an echo of Kurt Cobain about him), who had been dumped by every girlfriend he'd had and could no longer get it up.
The film came to rather a big snag early on when none of his ex girlfriends wanted to be on film. He eventually persuaded a couple of them who he went out with quite young. Both of them were quite smug and looked years older than him, even if they did have big, bland houses. I think he had a lucky escape with those ones. Unfortunately later on he met up with some of his exes who he had clearly done serious wrong by, and they were interesting, attractive and independent.
I thought the film was slow and relentlessly depressing for some time. Chris was a pretty unlikeable character, in my opinion, I didn't feel he had much charm, he just stumbled from one crisis to the next. I don't mind a scruffy bloke, but having to get his mum in to clean pubes from round his toilet was a step too far. Not appealing.
He didn't seem to have a lot of answers as to WHY he was such a dick. Why didn't he reply to Olivia's love letters? Why did he propose to one girlfriend and then never set a date for the wedding? That particular girlfriend still lived in the flat they'd shared and it was probably the most interesting part of the film as they cried together. How silly of him to declare himself still in love with her, when she was pregnant. It was textbook teenager behaviour, and just emphasised how emotionally immature he was.
The film lost it in the middle; first with his trip to the dungeon (how would getting his arse smacked and his dick twisted help him get a hard on?) and then when he decided to deal with his erectile dysfunction by doing a whole packet of Viagra. I thought it was pretty insane. Can't you have a heart attack like that? When he ran out of the streets begging people to fuck him I thought that was tantamount to sexual assault; I would have punched him in the face had he approached me like that. He lost all of my sympathy at that point.
Yet incredibly, he met his next girlfriend this way! And she was really good-looking and had a good job as a journalist. I was glad the film cheered up a bit, but it seemed a little too neat.
All in all Chris reminded me of the kind of person you know who just won't grow up, and who blames other people for all their problems. I think the film was meant to be funny, but I didn't laugh very much. It just made me realise how stupid men can be in relationships. And how much women have to put up with. (insert sexism complaint here!)

Documentary- Dispatches: The Hidden World of Lap Dancing

Sorry I’m a couple of days late on this one, but thank god for More 4, because I’m still without laptop. This episode of Dispatches followed a poor beleaguered reporter who was forced to go undercover in lap dancing clubs (it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it). He discovered sometimes the lap dancers get a bit close (no shit) and occasionally, with the emphasis on occasionally, sex is offered.
Firstly, as a feminist, let me say I have massively mixed feelings about lap dancing. I completely agree that they should be licensed as sexual entertainment; not dancing. It IS sexual entertainment, and the law around them seems very ropey, and to have been designed with deliberate loop-holes. It does seem wrong. So I totally agree with that side of it.
BUT there is another side of it I just can't get excited about. I do not CARE if men want to go and watch women rub their fannies in their faces. I think the men are fools; they are paying mega bucks for what is essentially a load of hot air. I am also quite happy for women to make their money that way. It’s not what I want to do, but I am not going to deny others their liberty. Women are objectified everywhere you look, and it is depressing, but I can’t get excited about it when there are so much bigger issues facing women. To change the way magazines/ society sees women will take a hundred years, in my opinion. There are other fights we can win much sooner.
As for Mr and Mrs Jones going 'I hate the thought of what goes on in there' well, don't think about it! There is massively fucked-up stuff going on behind closed doors EVERYWHERE, but it’s none of your business. Part of it is just about one section of society trying to assert their moral values on another. One woman was like ‘we have to walk past it every day’, so what? It’s just like walking past a shop. It’s just a shop with a picture of a woman outside.
I understand to an extent why you’d be annoyed if there was a lapdancing club right beneath your block of flats because you might get comments from men/ a bit of hassle, but that is a problem with MEN, not lap dancing. And again, the licensing should be changed. That has nothing to do with what actually goes on inside the clubs, and the morality of it.
There is an odd group of people against lapdancing, and it seems a strange marriage between the very conservative and the feminists opposing the clubs. I want to really distance myself as much from the highly conservative people as possible; and I think feminists have a danger of looking po-faced and even anti-women in this debate. BUT porn and sex work is always something that divides feminists, and always will. I personally think prostitution should be legalised; and made safer. You can’t stop it. So make it safer for the women.
Personally I wanted to see more of the reporter’s FACE when he was getting the lapdances! I wonder if he got excited? Haha. Also, what amazing bodies the women had! Bloody hell. And how funny was that councillor bloke they interviewed for about 30 seconds? He was a comedy character in waiting!
So, licensing laws bad, busy-bodies bad, feminism doing it’s best and lap dancing not bad. That’s my position on it.

Documentary- Dawn Porter: Mail Order Bride

This week Dawn went to Russia to investigate a ‘mail-order bride event’. So can you ‘buy’ a wife easily? I think some people can and do. But this event seemed very dodgy from the start; in fact I’m amazed they even let them film it, it was so badly run.
The ‘high-calibre men, doctors, lawyers’ promised turned out to be various dysfunctional Americans, ranging from ordinary looking to comedy moustaches and possible third-degree burns. Fine, if they were what they said on the tin, but the majority of them (i.e. all but one) seemed anything but.
One in particular seemed particularly vile, so Dawn did a bit of digging around on their backgrounds and discovered several had various convictions (including for assault).
Third-degree-burns dude basically said he’d been wrongly convicted of assault, and then muddied the waters quite worryingly by saying, ‘Imagine if every time you hit or slapped someone you got accused of assault.’ Er- that IS assault.
Also anything but what was promised was the agency itself. None of the girls were interested in the men, but instead came for the free food, and the manager’s scruples were somewhat shaky. Dawn asked about the men’s credentials/ criminal records, and the woman replied, ‘These are educated men, they know how to use the internet.’ When Dawn protested that the ability to click a mouse didn’t equal brains or morals, the woman said ‘there is a direct correlation between men who can use the internet and them not being violent.’ Tell that to a million abused children and battered wives. Dawn did go a little Louis Theroux at this point, but that was about as far as the challenge went.
The bizarre last part of the show surrounded Third-degree-burns guy telling Dawn she fancied him (not likely, mate) and berating a pretty Russian woman over dinner for daring to have talked to another man at the introduction party. Wasn’t that the point?!
And what was with that Christian guy handing out Jelly Beans with Bible quotes sellotaped on? It’s not my idea of a come-on, but hey, I’ll take the sweets.
All in all not as good as last weeks but still a zillion times better than anything Dave Gorman has ever put his name to. Dawn rocks.