Create Your Own Americal Idol : How To Manipulate The Public For Fame And Riches

After several years of watching Pop Idol (as it’s known over here in the UK) and it’s American equivalent, I am now ready to present my guide to creating your own guaranteed ratings winner, super successful talent show that is a sure fire way to make you a millionaire several times over.

1: People Like To Watch People Being Humiliated

Never, never underestimate the essential cruelty of your audience. If they don’t get to see mentally unstable people attempting to sing or some hopeless case being savaged by the judging panel, then they are going to change the channel.

Luckily, you can avoid this fate by recording absolutely everything from every audition for your show. That way you can focus on the untalented, the mad and the truly disturbed as much as you like.

2: Bring Me The Homeless Orphan With The Lisp

Right from the start, you need a human interest story to keep the attention of your audience from week to week.

Actually, you will need 4 or 5 of these during the show’s run, but before the finals, you only need one really good one to hold the interest.

As this is early in the show, your first story has a sad ending. Yes, despite overcoming being homeless, parentless and having a lisp, the cute female orphan who walked 17 miles barefoot to the audition unfortunately doesn’t make it to the final 12.

She is, of course, rejected at the final hurdle with the words “it was a tough, tough decision…but with your drive, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future”.

By that point, your homeless orphan has served her purpose and the fact that she sang flat is no longer a problem.

However, the controversy caused by this will generate lots of press interest, headlines and water cooler comment, thereby increasing your audience share still further.

3: You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

The golden rule is ‘keep people watching’. The more people who watch, the higher the networks charge for advertising and the more money you will make for your show.

Let’s face it, on it’s own, a bunch of amateurs singing bad Karaoke is not enough to keep people tuned in.

That’s why you need to be very careful when choosing your judges.

You need at least one really self-obsessed, opinionated egomanic (other than you) otherwise you won’t be able to convincingly fake an ongoing hate-hate relationship. This will inevitably lead to an onscreen confrontation that results in at least one judge ‘quitting’ the show.

This, again, creates more press, more interest and higher ratings. Obviously, your co-judge returns 2 weeks later, again boosting the ratings of your show.

4) I Am The Spawn Of Satan…And You Are My Puppets

As the creator, main judge, promoter, executive producer, record label owner and all round Svengali of your show, you don’t want to come across as arrogant and dictatorial. Heaven forbid!

That’s why you need to hire a judge who is essentially a decent human being who tends to see the positive in things.

A former, but not major, pop star is ideal for this.

This person’s role is to be unremittingly positive about performances, regardless of quality. That will allow you to bully them to the point of tears. Thereby creating more press, more controversy and higher ratings for your show.

There is, of course, always the possibility that this judge will genuinely want to quit. At that point, you’ll need to remind them that their entire career rests on your good graces.

5) The Public Decide…What You Say They’ll Decide

Unfortunately, in order to create a truly successful talent show, you will actually need some genuine talent. You do want your viewing public to care about who wins. But what you don’t want is that the public choose a winner you don’t want to win.

That would be catastrophic. After all, you are a highly paid music exec and they are just the public. Their job is to buy whatever you put in front of them. That’s it.

That’s why you don’t allow public voting until the final, even though the money you would make from the phone calls would add an extra million or two to your bank balance.

Luckily, because the other judges are, in effect, paid employees, you can always ensure that the final two are, at the very least, the two contestants you would like to win.

6) Milk It ‘Till It Hurts

Don’t forget that every contestant is your property - you’ve signed them all to short term deals, so force them all out on tour together, and collect another $1million.

Combine this with DVD sales, download, album and merchandising sales for the winner (and runner up, most likely) which are going to be huge as your music buying public has both watched them on TV for months and voted for them to win.

You can see that the path to riches is yours. All you need is a bunch of crazies, one semi-talented, fame hungry youth and a talent show. Go to it !

The 10 Worst Translated Movie Titles

It’s a danger well known to international brands, who have to be extremely careful so that their USA best selling cleaning product doesn’t translate as ‘dog dirt’ in Finnish or something.

However, movie makers are not so lucky and here are 10 of the worst translated movie titles :

1. Airplane : Translated into German as ‘The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Aeroplane’

2: Leon : How can anyone mistranslate this. It’s someone’s name. But the Chinese decided on ‘is Hit Man Is Not As Cold As He Thought’ instead.

3: Home Alone: This became ‘Mom, I Missed The Plane’ in France.

4: Lost In Translation : It was inevitable perhaps that this movie title has been mistranslated. The Portuguese called it ‘Meetings and Failures in Meetings’. Sounds fascinating. Sure to be a big hit.

5: You Only Live Twice: Personally, I think the Japanese translation : ‘007 Dies Twice’ sounds a more interesting prospect.

6: Jaws : The French went for ‘The Teeth from the Sea’ for this ’70s classic.

7: Cruel Intentions : Became ‘Sex Intentions’ in France.

8: The Horse Whisperer: Ended up as ‘Held by Wind in Montana’ over in Japan.

9: The Matrix : This has got to be my favourite. The French called this sci-fi extravaganza ‘The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses’, which is literal, if nothing else.

10: Pretty Woman : Can anyone confirm this one? Apparently, this was translated into ‘I Will Marry A Prostitute and Save Money’ in China.

21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles Part Two

OK, following on from part one of 21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles here, imaginatively enough, is part two.

8 ) That George Martin Was Good, Wasn’t He

Let’s face it. Lennon and McCartney were good with a melody, but certainly weren’t the musical geniuses everyone thinks.

A large percentage of the arrangements and innovative instrumentation was down to their producer, George Martin.

Strip away a lot of that stuff and many of the songs don’t stand up anywhere near as well as the best of The Stones.

9) Still Got The Blues For You

A lot of the comments regarding part one of this article argued that The Stones were little more than a derivative blues band, while The Beatles were innovators.

The thing is, at the outset of both bands career, both were little more than copyists. The Beatles just played the latest pop hits (Twist and Shout, etc.) while The Stones played the blues.

The Stones, however, always had an authentic touch when playing differing styles of music as their career developed. They could do blues, country (’Wild Horses’, etc.), reggae, rock…everything they did sounded right. Largely because Keith Richards just has a natural affinity for music in a way that McCartney and Lennon didn’t.

The Beatles, by contrast, just played pop music and, um, music hall.

10) In The Studio…No One Can Hear You Scream

The Beatles may have been a fairly good live band, but they threw a strop somewhere around 1965 because the screaming was too loud and they couldn’t hear themselves properly.

The Stones would have just bought bigger amps. Let’s face it, from the footage available, it’s clear that The Beatles weren’t anywhere near in the Stones league as a live band. The Stones were, probably even still are, the greatest live act in rock n’ roll.

11) They Influenced Who ?

OK, it’s undeniable that The Beatles have been a huge influence on popular music for, well, ever.

However, let’s have a quick look at the bands that followed the Beatles as part of the Merseybeat sound they popularised.

Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and The Swinging Blue Jeans. Rubbish, one and all.

Not to mention the fact that they helped kick start the musical career of Cilla Black.

By contrast, The Stones helped kick start the musical career of Marianne Faithful and the bands that followed them from the London r n’b scene included The Kinks, The Who and The Yardbirds.

12) OK, We Give Up

The Beatles lasted about six years, giving us a few good albums and lots of great singles. And then, well, they just gave up because they couldn’t really be bothered anymore. Listen to ‘Let It Be’ and you’ll hear the sound of a band who can’t be bothered.

The Stones, of course, are still going. While, admittedly, they haven’t done anything worthwhile in the last twenty years, they continued growing as a band way after The Beatles split and put out great album after great album well into the 1970s and even one (Tattoo You) in the 80s as well.

13) The Beatles Wrote The Worst Song Ever…Official

In 2004, a BBC released poll voted Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da the worst song ever. That’s because it is. Although Octopuses’ Garden runs it close…and Hello, Goodbye isn’t exactly the work of genius either.

14) Coyness Is Not An Attractive Feature In Grown Men

Both the Beatles and The Stones took their share of drugs. Well, Keith Richards probably took your share as well, but I digress…

Nevertheless, the coyness of the Beatles about the drug use was very far from endearing and smacked (pun intended) of a fear of losing their cuddly, family friendly image.

The Stones never allowed such concerns to get in the way of industrial quantity drug mis-use.

‘I Was Forced To Caddy For Tiger Woods Wearing A Ball and Chain’

The world is stranger than we think. Don’t believe me? Then I’m proud to introduce you to Jonathan Lee Riches.

Mr Riches is a convicted fraudster, who since his incarceration in 2004 has issued more than 300 legal actions from his jail cell, mainly against well-known sports stars.

Here are the highlights so far:

Jonathan Lee Richens vs The US Masters

Richens filed a suite against the US Masters golf tournament for forcing the plaintiff to caddy for Tiger Woods while wearing a ball and chain and allowing Mexicans to enter the United States via the 14th hole.

Damages Sought: Suspension of US Masters tournament

vs The Williams Sisters

Charge: Having a ‘beef’ with the plaintiff since the Nixon ear and stealing several Van Gogh paintings.

Damages Sought: Exclusion of the Williams Sisters from all future tennis tournaments.

vs Mike Tyson

Charges: Playing Culture Club’s ‘Do You Want To Hurt Me’ on a nightclub jukebox, kicking the plaintiff when he refused to dance with Mr Tyson.

Damages Sought: $4,000,000 plus medical costs.

vs Tiger Woods

Charges: Stealing luggage, treason, not answering the plaintiff’s telephone calls among others.

Damages Sought: $213,529,000,000,000

vs David Beckham

Charges: Using footballs that are really satellite guided missles, dropping balls on the plaintiff from Empire State Building, receiving funds from Iraq and giving them to Buckingham Palace.

Damages Sought: £3,000,000 in UK pounds plus Beckham to wear plaintiff’s name on his shirt for all matches.

vs Barry Bonds

Charges: Bonds bench-pressed the plaintiff against his will plus illegally produced moonshine.

Damages Sought: $42,000,000,000 in Swiss Francs.

vs LeBron James

Charges: Putting bubblegum on the plaintiff’s bicycle and breaking into the Watergate hotel during the Nixon era.

Damages Sought: $83,000,000 to be donated to good causes.

vs Floyd Landis

Charges: Cycling with E.T in his basket and plotting to ride into South Fork dam using a missle-shaped bike.

Damages Sought: Surrender of the missle shaped bicycle.

vs Jeff Gordon

Charges: Dropping tic tacs on racetracks via a secret trapdoor in his car and stealing the talking car ‘Kit’ from Knight Rider.

Damages Sought: £22,000,000 plus the defendant’s Nascar car.

Six Reasons Cats Are Superior To Dogs

Where I live, I don’t seem to be able to walk down the street without tip-toeing around some dog dirt. Even worse are the never-ending streams of people walking dogs that should be muzzled and are, more often than not, named ‘Tyson’.

Truth be told, though, I’ve never really liked dogs. Cats are, frankly, the superior animal and here’s half a dozen reasons why:

1) Cats Can Take Themselves For Walks

Dogs seem incapable of taking themselves for a walk without getting lost or run over or something. Cats, on the other hand, are quite willing to exercise themselves without bothering their owners.

Score one for the felines.

2) A Bath Once A Month Whether You Need It Or Not

Like small children, dogs don’t like to be bathed. Unlike small children, however, dogs seem completely incapable of cleaning or washing themselves.

They are therefore often pretty smelly, grotty animals.

By contrast, cats seem to spend pretty much all day grooming and cleaning themselves. You don’t have to wash or bath cats.

Score two for the felines.

3) What The Hell Is All That Noise?

Anyone who has ever had dogs as pets will confirm that they bark at the slighest thing - the doorbell, someone walking into a room, someone walking out of a room, other dogs. In fact, dogs bark at pretty much everything all the time.

This, if you are used to cats, is intensely distracting and annoying.

Cats, by contrast, are comparatively quiet. Make that 3-0 to the cat.

4) Wherefore Art Thou…Master

If you leave a cat at home alone all day…you’ll come back to find it sleeping peacefully without a care in the world.

If you leave a dog at home alone all day…you’ll come back to find it has eaten your sofa, howled so much it’s hoarse and, for the final denouement, has defecated on your new carpet.

Do I need to say more?

5) Drooling On Me Is A Sign Of Affection, Right?

Dogs slobber a lot. They also drool a lot. Drooling on me may be a sign of affection as far as a dog is concerned, but to me, it’s just disgusting.

Score yet another to the cats.

6) Cats Keep You Alive Longer. Fact. Dogs Don’t.

OK, here’s the big one. Cats keep you alive longer.

Cat owners are “less likely to die of a heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases than people who have never had a pet cat”, according to a National Health and Nutrition Examination Study of over 4,500 people.

And before you dog lovers claim that dogs have the same effect, the study doesn’t support that conclusion. So there.

In the words of my eight year old niece. Cats rool. Dogs drool. And you can’t argue with that kind of logic, can you?

Arguing…I Keep Losing The Plot.

Here’s the truth. I am good at arguing. Politics, religion, sport, music…all of that stuff. I’m not saying I’m always right, but I can put together a cogent argument. You can agree or not…but I can hold my own.

There’s one exception. Arguing with my wife. I completely lose track of what my point is, I get sidetracked, I go back on myself, I go over and over the smallest point again and again, I end up shouting when being calm would work better. Essentially, when it comes to arguing with women, I am hopeless.

I expect there is a good psychological or physiological reason for this, but I’m damned if I know what it is.

I would be fascinated to know whether there is a genuine reason why my brain starts to shut down when I’m arguing with my wife. Anyone got any ideas?

21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles : Part One

As the Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce case draws to a close, it is almost inevitable that Sir Paul is frequently referred to as a musical genius and an integral part of The Beatles.

Half true…for sure. He was, of course, an integral part of The Beatles. Now, don’t get me wrong - I like The Beatles a lot. And I agree with those people that say “anyone who doesn’t like The Beatles is either deaf or lying”.

Nevertheless, The Beatles were - and are - overrated. Here is the first part of my 21 reasons why The Stones were better than The Beatles :

1) The Stones looked cooler

What’s this got to do with music? Everything. Keith and Mick were just cool - McCartney was a lovable, cheeky Scouser and Ringo was even worse.

2) The Wives and Girlfriends

The Beatles wives were partly responsible for their breakup. The Stones kinda shared and shared alike (Anita Pallenberg and all).

3) The Lyrics

The one thing that rarely gets mentioned about The Beatles is their lyrics. This is because, with only one or two exceptions, they are awful.

Here’s a few excerpts:

From Hello, Goodbye:

“You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t know why you say goodbye when I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t why you say goodbye when I say hello.”

From Strawberry Fields Forever:

“No one I think is in my tree,
I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can’t you know tune in.
But it’s all right.
That is I think it’s not too bad. “

There’s much worse than this, of course, but you can find all the Beatles lyrics here - if you must.

By contrast, The Rolling Stones were pretty accomplished lyricists. Here’s a few excerpts:

From Salt of The Earth :

“Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead”

From I Can’t Get No Satisfaction :

“When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarrettes as me”

Lots more great Stones lyrics can be found at this website.

4) The Drummer

Ringo Starr is an amiable, likeable scouser. Unfortunately, what he is not is a good drummer. In fact, he wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles.

I’ve heard all the revisionist nonsense about Ringo’s abilities over the last few years, but that’s all it is: nonsense.

By contrast, Charlie Watts is a fantastic drummer. His minimalist style in The Rolling Stones often hides his natural jazz style, but what he does in the Stones is always, always perfect.

5) The Novelty Songs

When you’re five or six years old, ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and the like are fantastic songs. In pretty much the same way as ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ is fantastic poetry.

The fact is, though, that The Beatles novelty songs are, frankly, embarrassing. They’re generally awful music hall pastiche with - in far too many cases - the tone deaf Ringo singing.

The Stones avoided this trap and thank God for that.

6) Self-Indulgent Rubbish

While The Stones are responsible for the execrable ‘Satanic Majesties Request’, there is nowhere near the level of self-indulgent rubbish as that churned out by The Beatles.

‘The White Album’, for example, is four good songs plus an hour of tiresome half-written rubbish, like ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’.

Is this really the work of the best band in the world ever? Nope…it’s just rubbish from a bunch of self-indulgent millionaires.

7) Where Did They Hide The Good Albums

The Stones recorded ‘Beggars Banquet’, ‘Sticky Fingers’, ‘Exile on Main Street’, ‘Goats Head Soup’ in succession.

The Beatles made only one really consistent album - ‘Sargeant Peppers..’. The rest were pretty ropey (Let It Be, The White Album, Revolver…some good, some bad on all).

I hope you enjoyed this first part of a three part series. Part two is here.

Just What The Hell is Bluff Charging

OK, let’s get the obvious question out the way at the start of this blog’s life.

Just what is bluff charging ?

Well, according to this website, bluff charging is :

“An interaction between a bear and a human where a bear charges toward the human, but stops short of the human or veers away before making physical contact. The bear’s behaviour is intended to intimidate, but not necessarily harm.”

How this relates to the content of this blog remains to be seen. ‘Cos, to be honest, sometimes, I’m going to be charging but not bluffing. I just liked the idea that a bear could have such a clear understand of the human psyche to be able to achieve it’s goals without having to cause any real harm.