The Chart of 2006

This year has not been totally shit, as there has been some quite good music knocking about. Perhaps you are Me Of The Future. If this is the case, it might be nice to make a playlist out of the following songs on your futuristic music devise, and reminisce about younger times. Also, congratulations on not being dead.


The top ten songs of 2006:

10. Money - Girls Aloud
9. You Only Live Once - The Strokes
8. Red Dress - Sugababes
7. Nan You're A Window Shopper - Lily Allen
6. Life In Mono - Emma Bunton
5. America - Razorlight
4. Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
3. Faster Kill Pussycat - Paul Oakenfold feat. Brittany Murphy
2. Something Kinda Ooooh - Girls Aloud
1. Sugar, We're Going Down - Fall Out Boy


The rest of The Top 40 (but in no particular order because the top 10 took fucking ages and I'm still not too happy with it): Crazy Fool - Girls Aloud; Promiscuous - Nelly Furtado; Dance Dance - Fall Out Boy; Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol; I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters; Hot Kiss - Juliette & The Licks; All Time Love - Will Young; I Think We're Alone Now (Single Version) - Girls Aloud; Ask Me Anything - The Strokes; Heart in a Cage - The Strokes; Never Be Lonely - The Feeling; Checkin' It Out - Little Chris; Rehab - Amy Winehouse; Sorry - Madonna; Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis; When You Were Young - The Killers; London Bridge - Fergie; Temple of Love - BWO; Stick To The Status Quo - High School Musical; Monster - The Automatic; Pull Shapes - The Pipettes; Wigwam - Wigwam; LDN - Lily Allen; Relax, Take it Easy - Mika; Stars Are Blind - Paris Hilton; Who Am I - Will Young; You and Your Hand - P!nk; Beep - Pussycat Dolls; Everyday Combat - Lostprophets

(To be eligibubble, songs had to be released in the UK at some point in 2006 on either CD/download single or album.)

There would probably be quite a few Rogue Traders songs on this list, but I couldn't work out where to put them because I'd exhausted them once they were finally released over here. So instead of confusing myself I just left them off all together.


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:(

What do all the following have in common?















1) They are all cartoons. No, look closely, they really are.

2) They are all brilliant, and I spent roughly half of the nineties watching them on Cartoon Network.

3) They were all the creation of Hanna-Barbera. I used to think this was a woman with a double barelled first name, but it's actually these two men:

Joseph Barbera carked it yesterday, meaning that they are both no longer with us. This makes me sad. To have created so many fun, entertaining and cool characters and tv shows is quite an achievement, and the world was a way better place for having them. Cheerio, fellas.

*goes into the attic and sobs into his flintstones toys*

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Blimey, this year's X-Factor was duller than Songs Of Praise.

There's only one winner who I still care about:




I hope he's back this year with some new material which isn't a load of old shite or cover versions. It would be a shame to lose such a talented and pretty popstar. And one with such an exciting backstory too, what with the mad family and all the crime. I'll never forget the time in the hairdressers when I read one magazine article about Shsyne's dad being in prison for raping a grandmother, before picking up another one to see a beaming picture of Shayne underneath the headline "I Love Older Women!".


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The greatest Bond villains that never were:

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Fuzzy Feltz

I fucking love daytime TV. It's a shame that it's only really available to students, housewives, dolescum and the bed-ridden; because when I leave the first of these groups I have no desire to join one of the others.

This past fortnight ITV have been showing Vanessa's Real Lives which has been nothing short amazing, whilst also taking the title of Britain's tackiest and cheapest show. It is better than the usual chatshows, because Vanessa doesn't get bogged down with the usual family traumas and paternity tests. Afterall, it gets a bit boring watching the inbred calling each other a slag every day. Instead, Real Live's just brings out the one freak, allowing Vanessa to either point and laugh, patronise, or berrate them, before she wanders around the audience to meet people who are similar to the chosen freak (e.g. other gerriatric pornstars), people who have been brought in especially to condemn the freak (e.g. The Christian Grannies Association), along with general audience members.

Real Live's has now finished it's trial run, but it'll hopefully be back for a proper series next year. Here were the best bits:

- Vanessa meeting a lady who is "terrified of holes".

- Vanessa meeting the man who drinks his own urine. Upon finding out that he also uses it on his skin, she asked him to rub some on his face, before smelling the area and stepping back quicky to tell him in her most disgusted voice that he "smells like a Urinal". Funny, that.

- Vanessa standing next to the tallest man in Britain, and being perfect blowjob height.

- Vannessa meeting a woman who breast feeds her 7 year old son, as well as her sister-in-law's son whenever he's at the house.

- The revelation that one of Vanessa's daughter's friend tried it on with her - "he said I was a Milf!"

- The man who eats roadkill, including dogs.

- "Coming up after the break, a woman who got over her problems by eating her placenta." I didn't see this one, but apparently Vanessa asked what wine is best to have with it.

- 39 year old identical twins, who always wear the same clothes and sleep in the same bed together each night.


I've missed you, Vanessa.


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I would like it on cyber record that:

Last night I got to meet God's representative on earth, Dr Karl Kennedy. !!!!!.

He and his band Waiting Room, after touring what seems like every other uni in the country twice, finally got to mine, making the place 10004% less shit.

Dr Karl Alan is loved by virtually everyone who hasn't had a 9-5 job at some point in the last 12 years, so unsuprisingly there was mass hysteria. We got right to the front for the performance (mostly made up of amazing britpoprock cover versions), which means that I was totally crushed and had to elbow and kick a lot of people in order to keep breathing , but got to hold his hand tightly at one stage, as well as stick one of my fingers up his nose. Though that bit was not so intentional. We then queued for fucking weeks and got to meet him, where he signed my CD and I told him he was my telly dad, which he seemed pleased at. I was quite drunk so forgot all the things I wanted to say to him, but he said he'd send all my love to Susan and reassured me that she has no tattoos on her arms. I'm now regretting that I was a state in front of such a man. I had christmassy red hair dye on my forehead at that point.

My Dr Karl and Christmas joy now has to fuck off for four whole days, as I have 2 important assignments to write. One is 2500 words on the Classical Hollywood Star System compared to the modern day's, and the other is a 4000 word outline of a film script idea (mine is shite and involves a teacher developing super powers). These are both semi interesting, but still boring. No essay will ever live up to the one I did for my goddawful Gay Cinema lecture a few weeks back, because that contained the phrase "vigorous fisting".

I am now listening to my Waiting Room CD. It is brilliant. One track is even co-written by Susan Kennedy.

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EDIT: I've just remembered that he performed Living Next Door To Alice, but changed the lyrics to involve the recent Karl-overdoses-on-sleeping-medication-and-sleeps-with-Izzy- thinking-that-she's-Susan storyline, which even he said was unbelievable. We all got to sing "Susan? Who the fuck is Susan?" at him.

Truly amazing.

Why BWO are the best thing to come from Sweden since ABBA:

And yes I do include IKEA in that, because IKEA is a fucking terrible place. It is time such truth was spoken.

There will be an Award Ceremony in Candyland in a few weeks' time (!!!). Perhaps this will win an award for Best Music Video. Although it probably won't because I doubt there'll be such a category. If you have any ideas for categories, feel free to leave them in the comment box. They can be for anything, although it's nice to keep it celebrity related. I couldn't give a toss how many kids the lady down the street has fostered.


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"And since we've no place to go..."

Let it snow.

Do one of these! It's for charidee, and it's nice and festive and a bit sentimental.


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Oh it get's worse

Following my ipod trauma, I have just got back from a massacre at the hairdressers. I've lost half my fucking hair and have a stupid tiny choppy little fringe. I look like a post-chaemo Kylie drag impersonator :(

I should have ran screaming from the salon the moment I saw that the woman lunging at me with the scissors was some sort of dreadlocked eco-warrior.

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Rotten Apple

Something TERRIBLE has happened! My I-Pod has died.

My beautiful, shiny, magical ipod (aka MY BEST FRIEND) keeps demanding to be "reprogrammed" over and over again, and won't play any music. It's still under guarantee, but it'll be aaggggees until they fix it.

I've become so dependent on having one these past three years, that the next few weeks of my life may be the darkest on record.

And those kids on the Oxfam advert think that they have problems.



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EDIT: Yesterday I did still walk to a lecture wearing it though, so I could still get away with looking a bit spaced out as I walk between campuses, along with having an excuse not to have to talk to anyone I didn't want.

Has everyone seen this yet?

A karaoke classic in-the-making, surely.


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Open Letters:

Dear Britney Spears,

For goodness sake love, please stop flashing us your toilet area. I'm starting to feel like your gynecologist, and it's making your new friend Paris look classy.

I find it hard to believe that one of the most famous women in the world thinks that she can get out of cars without having a lens or two knocking on her downstairs door.

You've pretty much lost all the goodwill that throwing Kevin out won you.

Yours faithfully or sincerely (whichever it is when I know your name),

Gareth

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Dear Certain People,

It's a little bit early to have put your decorations up. They'll be looking crap and you'll be bored of them by Christmas Day, making them somewhat less special, yes?

It's also cruel to me, as I can't fucking wait for the 25th and the extra reminders of something so far away is make me die inside.


Love from,
Gareth x



P.S. Snow spray is about as classy as a KFC bargain bucket and always looks shit. Especially when you can't fit much on the window and have to settle for "MeryXmas".

And is it still an open letter if you actually send it? Because I was in a mood on Monday morning and sent this to The Sun's Victoria Newton. I feel like I'm juming on a hate powered band wagon, but it's her own fault for writing absolute rubbish and putting her email address link at the bottom.

Dear Victoria,

I'm stating the obvious here, but nobody cares and takes any notice of what you think. Have any of your painfully tedious campaigns actually worked? No, I don't think they have, have they? Your "Don't Let Westlife Get To Number One Because They Are Not Real Music Because I Am Like A 14 Year Old Boy Who Gets Angry About Stuff That Doesn't Have Guitars And Is Performed By The People Who Didn't Write It " campaign was surely evidence of this, what with it having no effect whatsoever on yesterday's album chart. Perhaps this was meant as just a bit of fun, but going on about it every day certainly made it wear pretty thin.

Perhaps instead of trying to show how powerful you are, you should just report the facts about what's going on in the showbiz world instead. Although you've not really managed that too well in the past now I come to think about it. Hmmm. Why not transfer to a job more suitable to your abilities? There's no shame working in a shop y'know, and they're always recruiting this time of year.



Best Wishes,

Gareth

P.S. RE: This Westlife Campaign - I see that you're still going on about it, this time urging your readers to buy Take That's new album. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that it'll outsell the 'life's effort. But I suppose you know that, and think you can get away with saying that you were the reason it happened come sunday. I look forward to a "Make It Rain This April" campaign in the new year.

P.P.S. Calling them "Pestlife" is very clever. It's almost as good as you calling Lindsay Lohan, Lazy Lohan! Oh, I'm still laughing about that one.

P.P.P.S. I have tried so hard to like you, what with everyone else slagging you off. You really haven't helped yourself though.

Udpate urgeNT!!

I have just been sick on Heidi ftom the sugarababes.

It maight have just been a picture though. I blame the christians with their toASST

Girls Aloud Battle The Spirits

Oh Nicola won't like these photos.

Perhaps she'll have better luck with the ghostly types as - in what can only be The Greatest Programme Idea Of All Time - Girls Aloud have joined Britain's answer to Scooby Doo (Yvette Fielding) to take part in Most Haunted.

It's not on for another two weeks, but early reports say that

• Cheryl cries none stop
• Sarah is unfazed (but that'll be the gin)
• Nicola runs off half way through
• And Kimberley has a stone thrown at her by a ghost.
  

Nadine doesn't feature. She was probably off recording solo demo tapes and pretending to go out with tv gardeners.

All in all, this sound much better than the usual "Was that the wind? Of course not! IT WAS A GHOST! " that Most Haunted normally gives us.


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What is that I hear in the distance?

Why yes, it's the faint jingle jangle of sleigh bells - because it's nearly Christmas! There's only a month to go!

I've been feeling festive since November the first, when the start of the Christmas adverts signalled decorations to be put up inside my brain, meaning that virtually everything I think about turns into a Christmas thought.

Are you not feeling excited yet? Here are ten whole reasons why Christmas is the greatest time of the year:

1. You get presents! Lovely new things to call your own! You also get to give presents, which is often also fun in it's own way. You get to bring joy to the people you like, and drop hints to those you're not so keen on. What's this that Grandad's unwrapping? It's a deodorant gift set. How lovely.
   
2. There's some fucking great tv on. This year it's all about Doctor Who's Runaway Bride. I am literally as excited about watching that as I am about Christmas itself.
   
3. Foooood. Lot's of lovely unhealthy things to gorge upon. I'm sure last year I was actually sweating chocolate by the end of boxing day.
   
4. Everyone gets fat together! Hooray, there's no need to feel guilty or more hideously whale-like than anybody else at the end of the holiday.
   
5. Christmas music is just bloody brilliant, in a really rubbish way. No song brings any greater joy to me than one about snow and wrapping paper, accompanied with a sleigh bell filled rhythm.
   
6. People are generally nice to each other. I should probably start practicing good things to say to my monstrous sister, actually.
   
7. Unless you work in the emergency services, or for Ebeneezer scrooge, you don't have to do any work for over a week. What joy.
   
8. It is perfectly excusable to start drinking at 8 in the morning. Except I won't, because a drunken me in front of the family is a big mistake. As seen three/four years ago when I'd had a little bit to drink, and answered the phone to here "hello" from an Aunty who we only really tolerated. All excited by christmas and alcopops, I shouted "Ah no it's Aunty Hills" and put the phone down. I haven't heard from her since :(
   
9. Everything looks nicer at christmas, all clad in decorations.
   
10. It is a beautiful, poignant time to remember the birth of our Lord baby Santa Jesus and to pray for those less fortunate than us ETCETERA ETCETERA...

If you are of one of those kerazy alternative religions, like Islam or Jehovah's Witness, those were also ten reasons why you should totally convert. There's benefits to Christianity all year round too, what with not having to do anything ever and the lack of rules. Perhaps have a no-ties 14 day trial period over the festive season.

Ho ho ho.


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Election Night

It's been exactly one week since the mayoral voting began, and our candidates have been busy campaigning across the whole of Candyland, culminating in the unfortunate events of yesterday when a hungover Charlotte Church lent forward to kiss a baby but ended up spewing last night's kebab all over it.

Despite Doctors predicting that the tot's blindness will only be temporary, it may have cost Charlotte the election.


THE POLLS HAVE NOW CLOSED.


Thanks to everyone who took part.

Here is your new Mayor:

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5
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4
-
3
-
2
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1
-

Heeeeeere's Dolly!


Congratulations to Mayor Parton, who'll be over to take up her new position once she's found someone to water the plants in Dollywood.


Let's have a look at the results:

(Click to enlarge.)

Those of you without a PHD in politics may wish to know that this election was hardly a landslide, with the lead actually being different whenever I remembered to check it. However the closeness of the vote, coupled with the not-so-minor fact that probably no more than 5 people visit Candyland, leads to the conclusion that Blogpoll may not have been the best voting system to use.

But c'est la vie!

Long live Mayor Dolly!


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Ooh, two YouTube posts in a row is a sure fire way to lose any sort of readership.

Yeah I know, but it's four in the morning (WHO KNEW SUCH A TIME EVEN EXISTED?!)and it's better than the big essay that I need doing in the next 9 hours, which wouldn't even be that big or difficult if I'd started it at some point in the last month and a half BUT THERE WE GO.

So let's trawl youtube for better things.

This painfully awkward interview between Joan Rivers and Brigitte Nielsen is fun:




As is Kylie duetting with Kermit the Frog:




Or what about a lovely ballad from Britains best ever dropped boyband:




Or (SOB) Geri's last ever interview as part of the Spice Girls?


Holy Mary in a wheelchair, all these selections were a bit homo weren't they?

Here is a monster truck to balance it out:




Ohh the essay hasn't gone away yet :(


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Jingle Balls

And here's another rubbish thing about the X Factor... it's totally destroyed the hallowed tradition of the Christmas Number one. This really gets on my nips, since it means we no longer get the exciting chart battles and effort made by artists to reach the top, because we all know that it'll be The X Factor winner singing something from Now That's What I Call The 50 Greatest Ballads Ever! cd. This year it's set to be "A Moment Like This", also off the telly adverts for Sandals Holiday Resorts. Fucking. Hell.

From the limited selection, here are three that should be number one instead:




It's Jordan and Peter! And it's for charity, so people can't slag it off. Well that's what they hoped at least. Personally I love it. It's got cringe value.




Aaargh. This is a single from the kid's show Lazytown. I've only seen a few episodes, but they all gave me migraines. Everyone's so happy in it, the little fuckers. I don't quite understand why either, because there's a self righteous argentinian wanker called Sporticus marching around the place and brainwashing them into eating fruit instead of sweets. I quite like the song, though only as it's christmas.




Hooray! It's The Aloud with their best cover version since Jump! And what is this I see? A video that manages to be good despite the £4.80 budget? Blimey O'Riley - it's got magic and shiney bosoms and a lovely hair/hat combo from Kimberley, so it gets my vote. This is only being released to plug the Greatest Hits album (which actually contains a rubbish, lazy version of this song), but let's hope it does better than last year's number 9 performance for their worst single ever.

My mum says that Cliff Richard is also making another attempt at the Christmas Number One slot. She went to see him on Friday night, but thought that "he was singing that one from a few years back, until he said that it was his new christmas single". High praise indeed.


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STEP AWAY FROM THE DENCH!

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EDIT: I've just seen the new Bond. It's "quite good". Paris does not feature, as she'd make a shit Miss Moneypenny (who is either on holiday in Casino Royale, or being played by a man).

Like finding a bar of gold in a pile of shite.

Hello. There is a programme on ITV called The X Factor. It lasts for over three quarters of Saturday and features lots of celebrities* singing for the public vote, with fifteen minutes of adverts between each. Every week a (usually black) person or group gets voted off, and their dreams are shattered because they'll have to get real jobs.

There is also a website on The Internet called YouTube. Once you've established the one or two X Factor Contestants that aren't really crap, you can save yourself the utter tedium of the tv show by just watching their performances online the next day. Observe:



That was Eton Road - the only capable swimmers in this year's talent pool. Handled correctly they could be the next Girls Aloud. They have the same unique and clumsy charm, as well as the tendency to swing towards the good songs and away from Westlife territory.

The star of this particular boyband is their token gay. He is called Anthony and rewrites the Token Gay In The Boyband rules in many ways, mostly through the lack of highlights and the fact that he makes no attempt to hide his terrible affliction. Someone on Lowculture described him as the lovechild of Boy George and Annie Lennox. That says it all really.

Vote Eton Road!


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*They're not celebrities when it starts, but the series goes on for so fucking long that we know them as well as the Beckhams by the midpoint.