Long-time WoSblog viewers will already be aware that I’ve embraced my gay side when it comes to Eurovision now, thanks to the simple expedient of entering into the spirit and watching it with other people. (If everyone else is even briefly out of the room for some reason I get very twitchy.)
But for those of you still struggling, here are this year’s highlights, with the minimum of campness and the maximum of ROCK!
(Click the pic to watch on YouTube. We can’t have it embedded here because the repellent corporate nightsoil at Sony Music Entertainment have laid a copyright block on it and there STILL isn’t a remotely decent video plugin for WordPress. This is the original TV version, incidentally.)
It’s fantastic, of course. But on this occasion it’s not the truly awesome thing.
There are two reasons I’m incredibly happy about suddenly and unexpectedly rediscovering it – as I just have – of which the first is the less important.
Malcolm McLaren RIP. This is a version of a piece I originally wrote for WoS a few years ago, reprinted in tribute to one of the world's great chancers.
The world would have been a much more interesting place if he'd managed to become the Mayor of London.
(To enjoy this feature TO THE EXTREME!, install the excellent Spotify and click the song titles to hear the songs. Failing that, I’ll just have to try to paint you a picture of some sounds, but made with words instead of paint.)
In the heady atmosphere of 1985-1986, I never thought I’d live to see the day when The Jesus And Mary Chain – musical revolutionaries, performers of shambolic 20-minute sets of hellish white noise and inebriated chaos, banned from Student Unions across the country because of their concerts’ tendency to end in (sort-of) riots, scruffy council-estate urchins from the industrial wastelands of West Central Scotland – would be having their music celebrated and given away free with copies of The Times.
I guess if you’re right, and if you wait patiently enough, the world sometimes comes round to your way of thinking eventually.
Alert WoS viewers will have seen this a while ago, but as it’s my all-time favourite piece of videogames-related art it’s worth repeating for the hundreds of new readers of WoSblog. Once you’ve grasped what it is you won’t expect that you’re going to watch all nine minutes of it. But you will.
The content industry has a long and shameful history of spurious figures when it comes to the subject of intellectual-property piracy. This much we already knew. But the most recent set of “statistics” on the economic cost of piracy – which have, of course, been seized on and repeated unquestioningly by the press – may have set some sort of record.
Southernbystander on Believers In The Ruins: “He was hounded by a relentless media onslaught, much of it driven but those made mad with rage by their…” Aug 16, 21:59
john h williams on Believers In The Ruins: “Captain Caveman very well said,it is a disgraceful post from someone who has very little idea of Autism or disabilities…” Aug 16, 19:57
James on Believers In The Ruins: “Look at yersel in a mirror, wee man; you’ll see yin.” Aug 16, 19:37
DaveL on Believers In The Ruins: “That’s rich coming from the Nazi fanboy himself! Who’d be Hatey? What a winner!” Aug 16, 18:59
agentx on Believers In The Ruins: “When you see “Confused says:” scroll on by.” Aug 16, 18:44
Alf Baird on Believers In The Ruins: ““”In physics, the concept of “opposites attract” is a foundational principle.” It is well known that certain groups of colonized…” Aug 16, 18:39
Red on Believers In The Ruins: “It’s regrettable when empathetic hearts are tricked into sympathy for the worst people. This is what Courtney Gartshore did, without…” Aug 16, 17:43
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Pointless. Murrell endorses superglue for Scotland. Don’t be fobbed off with inferior substitutes.” Aug 16, 17:21
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “C’moan Confused. Dae Restore next! Then the Jews aboot 9 PM after the second boattle kicks in. It’s nae lik…” Aug 16, 17:19
robertkknight on Believers In The Ruins: “Hammer meets nail. Farage would sell his own Granny for glue.” Aug 16, 16:34
twathater on Believers In The Ruins: “Keep on telling it like it is confused , don’t let the middle class claimants put you off” Aug 16, 15:40
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Light cannot exist without darkness? So if I turn on a bright light in a dark room, I can’t turn…” Aug 16, 15:01
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Sorry, TURABDIN, you may not be fully up to speed with the lunacy here. Burnham is simultaneously letting real criminals…” Aug 16, 14:54
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Hands up now! How many alert readers have twigged that a fatberg can’t ever know what a phallus is!” Aug 16, 14:46
Captain Caveman on Believers In The Ruins: ““An appalling post stuffed full of ignorance and bile” Welcome to Confused.” Aug 16, 13:43
James on Believers In The Ruins: “Adrian; noted and acknowledged. Meanwhile, as predicted the site phallus appears just like clockwork….. But you’re the one doing all…” Aug 16, 13:26
Spartan 117 on Believers In The Ruins: “An appalling post stuffed full of ignorance and bile, aside from the closing point about the BBC and the Western…” Aug 16, 13:20
Southernbystander on Believers In The Ruins: “TURABDIN, If there is irony there it is covered in too much of the blank variety, and so has become…” Aug 16, 12:53
Confused on Believers In The Ruins: “er, the point I was making about “things can always get worse” – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz977nxww1jo the main reason people hit the…” Aug 16, 12:24
TURABDIN on Believers In The Ruins: “THE SCOTTISH ANTISYZYGY PARADOX AND PHYSICS. Understanding Oppositional Forces in Physics Fundamental Principles In physics, the concept of “opposites attract”…” Aug 16, 12:01
Captain Caveman on Believers In The Ruins: “@Alf Well, there’s only one person around here “in perpetual darkness of their Colonial Echo Chamber®”, Alf – as you…” Aug 16, 11:46
Jay on Believers In The Ruins: “Hi 100%, i typed in all those characters but youtube and this tablet do not communicate. Was keen to see…” Aug 16, 11:39
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “I think Burnham shouldn’t have been daft enough to threaten people flouting the disposable barbecue rule with prison. Even if…” Aug 16, 11:20
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Odd hoo mony times I post tae Northy and you reply, Alf. Or vice versa. Here’s an echo I just…” Aug 16, 11:11
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “We can all see and understand those cases where a cold blooded killer is arrested, charged, tried and sentenced, and…” Aug 16, 10:46
100%Yes on Believers In The Ruins: “@ alurker and everyone else link to this conversation. Lets say for arguments sake, that Scotland doesn’t exist anymore just…” Aug 16, 10:34
Alf Baird on Believers In The Ruins: “Here is a wee bittie licht for yersel an ithers Hatey, in the perpetual darkness of your colonial echo chamber:…” Aug 16, 10:22
Alf Baird on Believers In The Ruins: ““These must be English elections in Scotland seeing as the English parliament was not dissolved 3 hundred years ago.” True,…” Aug 15, 21:59
Aidan on Believers In The Ruins: “For once I have to agree with James, there are no jurisdictions to my knowledge where the death penalty is…” Aug 15, 21:42
James on Believers In The Ruins: “Well said, Grace. “…When are we going to bring back the death penalty…” they wail. If they could, they could…” Aug 15, 21:20
