11^th November 1998

Greetings again. This new column is going to be two things: Irregular and frequent. I aim to have one out a month, but this will be an average, not a commitment. Some months will have more than one, some with have none at all. And others will have exactly one. Some will have none, but will look like they have loads. Others will have a few, but actually have none. And… Oh, I think you get the point.

Well, no obviously, but there is something very spooky about them. Their last two single releases, have caused bizarre coincidences to occur within my shopping basket, that are so freaky that I am nearly scared to leave the house. The previous single was "Going to Town" and featured on the B-side a cover of "Moon River". Now, at the same time, I bought a copy of the latest Strangelove single, "Sway" which on the B-side featured a cover of "Moon River". Coincidence.

 A couple of years later, and it's time once more for the Afghan Whigs to release another single. (They've been busy, okay.) This single is entitled "Somethin' Hot," and featured on the (spooky) B-side (or X-side as it shall now be called) a song called "Miss World." It wasn't until I got home that I realised this was a cover of a Hole song from the album "Live Through This." Now, guess what album I had bought at the same time as that single? Yep, Hole's "Live Through This." Spooky Coincidence.

 Unfortunately, just as things were getting beginning to get all Muldery and Scullery, the coincidences ended, and so I look like an idiot. Well, they haven't ended, it's just that the next Afghan Whigs single release, based on their previous record, should happen about 2002, which is too long for me to wait. But in the mean time, I look a fool. Two coincidences make a spooky happening. It takes three of them to make a haunting.

 But by the time the next Afghan Whig single is released, I will old, married, have three teenage children, two mortgages and a string of unfulfilling extramarital relationships. Or not. So I'm telling you now.

 And you can wipe that I-don't-care smile off of your face right now.

George Michael is a man who could return from the dead, I'm sure. He has, career-wise on a couple of occasions. First, he managed to go from being the one who did stuff in a boy-duo - the fore-runner to the boy-band - to being a respected and admired musician. His latest come-back is a brilliant ploy of turning bad publicity round and making it work for you. We all know of the dramatic way Mr Michael came out of the water-closet, so I won't dwell on it here. But in the video for his new song, Outside, he makes all this wanking in the toilet malarkey look as though it was just a brilliant publicity stunt to advertise this new single. In it Mr Michael sings about shagging in open spaces. In the video he sings this from inside a public toilet (which is some sort of blunt irony, I think). But before long the seedy lavatory becomes a seedy nightclub, instantly promoting the public convenience as the place for groovy homosexuals to go to pick up a piece of rough trade, and even the odd pop star or two.

 Now the song's pretty bland, as you'd expect, but I give Mr Michael ten-out-of-ten for not shying away from what was a defining moment of his latter career. The day the nice-boy pop-star trying to be raunchy by harping on about sex all the time and having naked birds in his video, grew up and became a nice-boy pop-star trying to put some thrills back into his life.

 Oh, and one last thing... wank me off before you go-go.

The journalistic ethos of not getting involved but reporting what they find has gone too far with an interview a weekend or so back with actress Sandra Bullock. For those of you who don't know Miss Bullock she was in Speed, Speed II, and should they make it, Speed III. She looks like the girl next door who grew up and got cynical. And you know, just by looking at her, she makes a hell of a lot of noise when you the right thing to the right place.

Now this article in the Gardien was an interview that dwelled on the fact she was rich and successful and without a someone to make her make all those noises mentioned above. In fact there was no other real revelation other than she was pretty darn rich, quite successful, and very single. Rich, successful and single. And of these three, she was happy to keep two of them the same, but she was quite keen to alter that last one. Rich, successful and looking for someone. Now, whose type is that?

 This is where the unaffected, unaffecting reporting style showed itself up to be it's most heartless and uncaring. For Miss Bullock is single and looking for someone. Many of the readers of the article are bound to be also single. I am most of the time. Surely the paper owes its readers and interviewees more than just a few pages of words and some pictures. Why not make some of those people happy by printing Miss Bullock's phone number at the end of the article. Thus, prospective boyfriends can call up and ask her out. She'll possibly find that special someone and always have a soft spot for the newspaper, giving them exclusive interviews, etc. The newspaper could run [epithet's] such as "Yore Carung Gardien" and would probably increase their sales manifold. And several lucky readers will get to go on dates with Hollywood superstar, Sandra Bullock. Some may get to have sex with her, and one of them could end up going out with her.

 Come on guys, don't just report the bad stuff, try and make the world a better place. Tell us Sandra Bullock's phone number. Now!!!

The only down-side as I can see it will be the inevitable nuisance-calls, phone-beggars and very sad Sandra Bullock fans who just won't give up once they've started talking to her.

This will be my first report of my visit to the Edinburgh festival this year. And as with most of my reports, it has an air of topicality that can only be beaten by the magazines in dentist waiting rooms.

 The topics I want to dwell on this week are the twin sports of celebrity spotting and celebrity missing. Celebrity spotting is the game played in Edinburgh by most punters. Either deliberately, by scanning round for famous people. Or inadvertently by looking up and seeing that Such-a-such-a-bloke from Such-a-such-a-TV-show is standing right in front of you looking round frantically like an actor who's lost his agent. As an inadvertent player, I think I won the most points for spotting Richard "I do not believe how long this series can run" Wilson coming out of Forbidden Planet. Clearly the oldest spod in town.

 Celebrity missing is a much better game, although you can't actually set about playing it. It can only be played inadvertently. It is best played the morning after a heavy session. Which is most mornings to the average Edinburgh punter. My best was my first: Walking blindly through a pair of people whilst feeling a bowling ball in my head. My friend turned to me and said, "see! Famous people." I looked back and saw a couple of bad haircuts of the type only comics still sport once they are rich and famous. I looked at him blankly. Apparently I had, momentarily, split up David Baddael and Frank Skinner, stars of TV's Return To Fantasy Island Football. The rest of the day saw me miss all manner of other celebrities, although with quite the same barge-through style.

 Next year's game will be "Call the celebrity by the wrong name." Thus if I was to see Richard Wilson again, I would have to call out something like "Noel! Hey, Noel! Look at me! Blobby! Blobby! Blobby!" It's not much of a life, but it's the only thing I own outright.

(c) November 1998 Peter R. More.