Category: Popular Culture

Avatar Oxford English Dictionary Updates

The English language is quite simply amazing. It fluctuates and changes like the tides of the ocean, or how I feel towards the career of the actor Tom Hardy.

The other day I mentioned to a colleague that they had my name correct and that they should not wear it out and they looked at me as though I had spat in their mum’s face and stolen her purse. It is quite clear to everyone that I do not have my finger on the fashions. In fact none of protruding limbs are anywhere near the fashions.

It is so very difficult to keep on top of things. As a (questionable) adult, I have given up on trying to keep up with trends. Everything has fallen by the wayside: clothing and fashion, music, films and television, literature etc. I am an analog man in a digital age.

Luckily I have three nieces under the age of ten who like to keep me in the loop of THINGS and other matters. Only yesterday they were telling me of the following updates to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Monster Munch – now Gobble Monsters – a baked corn snack in the shape of feet and coming in several different flavours.

Odd Socks – now Muddle Socks – when you can’t find two of the same pair and end up matching one with another that is completely dissimilar.

“Tee Lau” – the origin and explanation of this phrase is still unknown and will possibly remain that way because none of them will disclose what it is.

I trust this information will assist all of you, as in the two or three of you reading this, in your daily lives.

Avatar Episode 2: Cheery Polar Bears

Hot on the heels from Episode 1 comes… you guessed it, Episode 2!

In this episode, Kev and Ian discuss, amongst other things:

  • The musical zeitgeist
  • How to recognise a time travelling horse
  • The future of breakfast cereal
  • The economics of Chinese Manufacturing

 

 

Avatar Picture of the Week

My phone is gradually filling up with all the chaff of modern life so taking any new photos is completely off the cards. Sometimes, however, you see an image that needs to be captured. A picture just so vivid and beautiful that you cannot put into words how it makes you feel.

This photo, taken recently, is one of those pictures:

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Breathe that sucker in.

It is not just a tree in a phone box. It is not just a futile attempt to avoid the responsibility of having to get rid of the last remains of Christmas, or some teenagers’ attempts at a funny “joke”. No, this is art in every sense of the word and I am making arrangements for this to be moved into the Laing Art Gallery as soon as possible.

Avatar Making Christmas

Christmas is a time for miracles. It is also the time for blatant commercialism and funny hats. That said, which it just was, it is also the time for ingenuity and improvisation.

This year Audrey asked for a copy of ‘The Lady in the Van’ on DVD for Christmas, the film based upon the book by Alan Bennett. It was a bit of poor choice really because the film is being shown on terrestrial television for free on Christmas Eve. Nevertheless, prior to being in receipt of this important piece of information, I still went ahead and purchased a copy. Neither I nor Reuben have ever read or seen ‘The Lady in the Van’ and so we decided, based upon the front cover of the DVD, that we would guess what the story was and write and illustrate our own version as an additional present.

It is called ‘T’Lady in T’Van’.

The end result was, quite simply, amazing. I cannot for obvious reasons include a copy here for fear of spoilers for the intended victim, I mean recipient.

What I can include though is a piece of concept art that Reuben came up with during the development process. He decided that the story should involve 80’s martial arts hero and general good egg Chuck Norris and thus drew a picture of him. This was then improved by adding three dimensional eyes.

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Special doesn’t even come close.

Avatar The Overwhelmingly Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline

Do you remember a time when Chris Tarrant was everywhere? He was just wherever you looked. You could not glance towards a lady with the hope of stealing a gaze without his mug smearing into your line of sight. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, far from it. Everyone welcomed his enthusiastic noises and laughter, whether winning a million pounds on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ or throwing a bucket of cold gunge over Lenny Henry’s head on ‘Tiswas’.

Come 2016 though and it is a different landscape. Your only chance of seeing his viso/volto is either from repeats on long-forgotten television channels or those lotto adverts that air at bizarre times.

What you need is more Tarrant in your life. What you need is our dedicated service: The Overwhelming Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline!

Call our hotline 24 hours a day and be greeted with tedious and unrealistic impersonations the likes of which you have never heard before.

LISTEN… for all those confusing Tarrant-esque noises missing from you life.

SMILE… as you hear your favourite Tarrant catchphrases such as, “… but we don’t wanna give you that”, “take your time” and, “is that your final answer?’.

CRINGE… at the poor quality of the service you’ve received.

We have dedicated centres based in Leeds, London and Newcastle so you are guaranteed to find one close to you. As well internet services, part of our expansion plans will also incorporate a drive-thru and the experimental ‘Street Tarrant’ which will see droves of men and woman flood city centres to give bite-sized taster teasers to the general public.

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You don’t need to suffer in silence anymore. You don’t need to handle that difficult interview without someone at your side. You don’t need to go on that first date all on your lonesome. Here at the Overwhelmingly Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline we are here to help you in any way we can, as long as it involves crude vocal representations of Reading’s favourite son.

Call now!

Avatar Ultimate Party – De-Sade-ber

After the recent celebration of the work of both the band and singer, both called Sade, on this website I think it is only fair that we throw open the doors and try to organise something to carry on the party. Most occasions are only occasions and therefore are only allowed to be a day of celebration or, when you behave nicely, a week. It is very rare when an event will be allowed to run for a full month.

That is what I am proposing though. Given the gifts that Sade, both versions, have provided to the world it is only fair that the entirety of December is used to give them a much-needed pat on the back. I am therefore wanting to gather the world together to organise ‘De-Sade-ber’.

We take one overused and busy month, namely December, change the letters around and what do you get? ‘De-Sade-ber’! A full thirty one days of smooth, sensual overtones and jazz-like lounge lizard silken sounds. There are only sixteen tracks on ‘The Best of Sade’ so we will have to double up if we play one song for each day of ‘De-Sade-Ber’. But won’t it be nice!

You’ll be Christmas shopping in some horrible, sweaty shopping mall and ‘The Sweetest Taboo’ starts playing to ease the tension.

You’ll be wrapping presents to the gloriously swirly ‘Your Love is King’.

You’ll be, I dunno, swigging eggnog to ‘Cherish the Day’.

I think it’s a good idea. I think that you will think that it’s a good idea. I also think it has a catchy name regardless of whether you pronounce Sade the correct or incorrect way. I also think that people need more Sade, both versions, in their life.

Avatar Ghostman Pat

Following on from the success of the BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards, in which none of the entries won and the BBC decided just to plough a serious amount of bread into yet another series of ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’, I have been commissioned to come up with some new ideas for that difficult 11-15 age gap that bridges the vast chasm between tiny children in uniforms to unkempt teenagers who can’t get into 18 certificate films at the cinema.

What kind of programming would these sweaty, nautical organisms like to watch on an evening? What would really get their bantwagons pushed up to the high twenties? We need something that is right on the fashions and I believe I have a good starting point. A (bad pun alert) spiritual successor to hugely-loved eighties children’s television programme monster ‘Postman Pat’.

Ghostman Pat

Pat has grown to become not only the nicest person in the history of Greendale but also the most respected due to his dedication to his job and in helping the other residents in their daily lives. He has an idyllic life with his wife and child, and not forgetting dutiful companion Jess the Cat.

Except one traffic accident later leaves Pat dead. Shuffled off this mortal coil.

The village engages in a month-long saga of grieving. His wife Sarah, inconsolable, is unable to move on with her life. One evening however, not long after the tragic accident, she is ironing some tea towels when she is visited by an apparition. The apparition of her recently deceased husband. It seems as though Pat is not quite done yet.

Fate has decided that his years of service are not enough. In punishment for the, quite frankly, dreadful Lionsgate film released a couple of years ago Pat must now deliver a total of 1000 parcels before he is able to leave and ascend to heaven, in a story that borrows heavily from Hiroaki Samura’s seminal samurai manga work ‘Blade of the Immortal’.

But how can Pat deliver any parcels when he has no physical presence and only his wife and son, Julian, can see him? It is up to them to help him finish his task and finally leave this world behind.

Along the way they must deal with fruit-polishing vampires, blancmange-toting merengue infidels and, of course, numerous cameos by everyone’s favourite all-round entertainer Gary Wilmot.

Can they succeed? Seven seasons and a TV movie, I think, should answer that question.