Joey's Spleen Vent

As Christmas is upon us again, each year I'm intrigued by two things that re-appear in shops. Those two things being boxes of Just Brazils, and those blue tins of Danish Butter Biscuits. I'm wholly convinced they are on sale specifically to be bought for people you may have to buy a gift for... but you really don't like.

It's not exactly bank-breaking stuff to buy some chocolates with some variety. A small box of Heroes or Celebrations isn't exactly an inspired choice, but it does a decent job. Same with biscuits. McVities Family Circle and Crawford's Rover are Xmas staples of cheap and cheerful biscuit box purchases.

But Just Brazils? The same thing over and over and over again? You don't want to give these people an iota of joy. That feeling when the last one in the box is a Galaxy Caramel and not a Bounty? They don't deserve a morsel of that pleasure. As for those Danish biccies, the only variety they will get is that some of them are a slightly different shape to the others (and they are DREADFUL dunkers).

If you managed to clap your eyes on my piece about televangelism (if you haven’t, then... well, please do :)), you will have seen how fascinated I am about the powers of persuasion in us human beings, if not necessarily to use those assets for the right reasons.

Writing that blog made me think of other examples, with one in particular worming its way through the memory vault, and what I still think is one of the most bizarre stories I have seen on screen. I remember watching it and questioning in my mind whether this was completely genuine or not. Thankfully, it is on YouTube (complete with ads from 2002 for added nostalgia bonus), and now nearly 15 years since it was aired, it compelled me to watch again from start to finish.

It’s a cautionary tale of the attempts of a fantasist to turn his dreams into reality. He managed to persuade others with similar aspirations, into giving up their livelihoods for a project with its foundations built on quicksand, sucking everyone in, including himself, and leaving them all with nothing.

Reality TV. How fly-on-the-wall became a television beast.

At the dawn of this century the medium of Reality TV was megalithic. Endemol created a monster with Big Brother that was sold all over the planet, I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here was a ratings winner, and Pop Idol catapulted a politics graduate from Wokingham to singing stardom.

TV production companies were eager to devise the next sure-fire hit, whilst average Joes and Josephine’s, seeking the opportunity for maybe more than their fifteen minutes of fame, were keen to get involved in their droves.

A glut of programmes were commissioned, with generally plenty more misses than hits. For instance, a concept like Shattered, where people were in a Big Brother style situation for a week but could not sleep, was well meaning but never really going to merit a second series. Another example was Bedsitcom, where people moved into a flat which in reality was a TV show set, and their housemates were actors putting them in uncompromising situations. It was a crass failure of a programme, all the more surprising seeing how it had Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the creators of Peep Show, and the Gibbons brothers who have revitalised Alan Partridge in recent years, in its roster of writers.

Nevertheless, one young, flamboyant and ambitious producer was convinced he had a smash on his hands. He had devised a concept where people would “take money on at its own game, and win.”

Nik Russian of Nik Russian Productions set about looking for contestants, putting adverts in publications such as The Stage for an audition. The plucky hopefuls were gathered at Ravens Ait, a swish corporate entertainments venue on an island in the Thames.

Russian split the wannabes into teams, and gave them all a task. Come back to the venue with a cake, made completely from scratch. The teams went out and knocked on doors asking members of the public to help them out, and found some generous souls willing to rustle up what they needed.

Given the fun and challenging task which took quite a lot of gumption to pull off, the successful candidates were overjoyed to hear they would be taking part in the show, which Russian had intriguingly codenamed Project MS-2. They gave up their jobs, living arrangements and some even finished relationships. But this was all going to be worth it for their shot at fame. I mean, the biggest regret you can have is doing nothing, right? (SPOILER ALERT!)

Reality bites.

Following big leaving parties and saying goodbye to family and friends, the contestants headed down to London, to discover just what they were in for. But rather than a fun task, they would be met with a shock. The premise of the show was, in any way which was legal, make one million pounds in one year. Their first task of the week was to find accommodation, for free, despite being promised in a contract that food and a place to live would be provided.

Realising something was terribly wrong with the idea, two teams disbanded and left. However, one team’s cameraman (all camera operators were trainee volunteers by the way) had access to a flat, so they all stayed in there to decide what direction to take next, and to demand a meeting with Russian to find out what the hell was going on.

When they met with Russian, they were stunned to find out that there was basically no show at all. There was no commission, no sponsors, nothing. Russian blathered on about sales and marketing teams, but it was highly likely these did not exist, like the fantasy in his own mind.

Russian’s true identity revealed.

Through a twist of fate, a chat with one of the cameraman’s friends discovered the true reality of Nik Russian. Real name... Keith Anthony Gillard. It turned out he was not a TV producer at all, but a sales assistant in a branch of Waterstones. He had also given that job up and his own accommodation, and then bizarrely turned up at the contestants’ place of refuge as he had inadvertently made himself homeless in the whole process.

They took him in, but not without hatching a plan to expose him and his actions. Tipping off ITV News London, they locked Russian in the flat until a film crew and journalist were let in. Russian did give an interview, but tried to play the victim, rather selfishly talking about his own hardships from this, over the 30 people whose lives he had forced to change to chase his pipe-dream.

Their TV appearance the next day on London Tonight gave the contestants a small sliver of fame. However, the hope anything would come of it would soon dissipate. The team would eventually disband and try and rebuild their lives, but not before contestant Debbie Driver contacted an independent TV company, Christmas TV, about making the documentary about their remarkable story.

As a result, even more investigations into Nik Russian found his web of lies had entangled his friends and his own mother in the whole mess. It was revealed that the audition’s clinical psychologist was his girlfriend who had no experience in that field, and the upmarket location it was staged at was blagged for free in exchange for promised publicity when the series was to air.

Still wanting answers, contestant Daniel managed to track Russian down to a house in Richmond-Upon-Thames, but Russian would still play the victim schtick. Daniel, who came across as a level headed guy up until this confrontation, said to Russian that he was resisting the urge to punch him.

Time to get my amateur psychologist hat on!

It would be easy to label these people as fame-hungry, but when reality TV was booming, a programme like Big Brother had its fair share of people who were encouraged by the experience rather than any perks it brought afterwards. Big Brother held some status as a social experiment in its early series, and had some very affable people in it, until it went down the “we need to shove as many twats in as possible to create scandal for ratings” path.

It could be said these people were gullible too, but one of the key aspects of this whole story was the audition. It went almost too well. For me, I was reminded, albeit loosely, of the Milgram experiment. Not necessarily the premise of that experiment, but how it was set out. The Milgram experiment looked into how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person, in that case through the medium of electric shock. People were told by an “experimenter” to administer powerful electric shocks to someone in another room, through a generator, which was actually fake. They would be told to increase these shocks and continued to do so despite hearing feigned screams from the room next door.

These “experimenters” were decked out in lab coats and held clipboards. They looked the part and therefore could have authority. Russian got his girlfriend with no psychology experience to hold a clipboard and act as if she was one. It’s amazing how just holding a device or wearing something that looks like a uniform can give you an air of authenticity. The camera operators were not professionals either, but they had cameras and looked the part. Russian worked in a book shop, and was not a TV producer, but had the charisma to convince people he was the head honcho in this show. Add the task he set into the mix, which to give him credit was an excellent idea, and also the location, and you’ve got something rather convincing. It epitomises the fake-it-til-you-make-it nature of Russian’s whole escapade.   

The success of the audition however was merely papering over the massive cracks in his bid to make a reality series, and I think it made him even more complacent. It is almost as if he thought everything would magically come together afterwards, but it was an astonishingly speculative idea that in the end was just a husk. The main bulk of reality TV shows have two things in common, an elimination process, and an endgame... a prize, a job, etc. Russian’s had no elimination process, and the endgame was you earned your own prize money. No wonder the TV producer he tried to get on board seemed completely baffled with the concept.

Here’s to the dreamers... (but the ones who make it a reality).

There’s nothing wrong with having a dream, people dream of being music stars, but you wouldn’t choose what genre route you wanted to go down, and arrange gigs, if you could not play an instrument. To make a dream a reality, you have to do all the things in between to make it work, the hard yards.

It would be interesting to see what has become of Nik Russian (who I doubt is still called that), and whether he learned a powerful lesson or not. You would have hoped so fifteen years on, and that his grasp of reality has considerably strengthened.

He may have not made the smash show he thought he had, spanning hours of programming and being a concept bought all over the world, but inadvertently he did find himself the centre of one hour of seriously intriguing television.

View Part Two of The Great Reality TV Swindle here

It's not all butter though is it? Granted there is butter involved, but several other ingredients come into play. If it was all butter... then it would be that. Butter. Nowt else.

Google all-butter croissant and the first thing is a link to a recipe for croissants that says “typical ingredients include wheat flour, water, milk, yeast, salt, sugar, butter and egg.” LOOK. MANY OTHER THINGS TO MAKE THE CROISSANT.

If it was a butter croissant, it would be butter in the shape of a croissant. A quite simply preposterous idea. Imagine trying to spread jam on that. It would just simply become a mess of butter and jam. Nothing else, because it says it's all-butter, and a total and complete waste of time (potentially hours depending on what detail you wish to go into) making what was effectively a sculpture of a croissant out of a dairy product.

One of the things in life that really engages me is the power of persuasion to influence how we behave. We all go through sticky patches in our lives and people use inspiration to try and get out of them. However, when things get desperate, it’s easier for people to be persuaded by something they had unfettered hope in, to have it skewered by those not really looking to help, but to manipulate that faith into something for their own gain by outrageous means. And that, I reckon, (might be a long opening paragraph but sod it), is what sums up the weird, and not-so-wonderful world of televangelism. Somehow I became bloody fascinated by this whole thing, which is unique as it is mainly an American phenomenon, but does stretch across the globe. So yeah, what is televangelism?

The broadcasting of evangelical Christianity through TV and radio. Many years ago, religious broadcasts were used via radio to try and reach out to places where Christianity was illegal and spread its word. However, as television took a play in this with a larger audience, that created a greater amount of people to effectively fool into thinking certain preachers had divine powers, sent from the deities they worship. Therefore, they can find ways and means of coining in massive amounts of money on the back of anguished, and sadly gullible individuals.

If this is an American thing, how did I get round to being really interested in it?

This thing, the Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox. A great bit of kit (I since found out it was used by US folk-rock band The Mountain Goats to record several albums on) which I think my Dad bought me one birthday to eventually copy his way of recording the John Peel show off the radio and amass dozens of tapes from his favourite tracks off that programme. 

However, there was one thing on it which became my window to the world. Long before I felt the excitement of the screeching and beeping noise that a 56k modem and a Freeserve 1p-a-min dialup number could give me, the short-wave radio on this meant I could listen to voices from around the globe. I would eagerly yet precisely rotate the dial to find an English speaking voice, the Voice of Russia and the bizarre numbers stations used for international espionage would pop up at times. But on a more regular occurrence would be this manic sounding preaching of the readings of the bible (which also reminded me of the track Help Me Somebody by Brian Eno and David Byrne, which my Dad would play on occasion). What the bloody hell was that racket?

Pre Wikipedia me and my cousins, should we need to find out anything, would consult our own human encyclopedia and Grandad, Pop. Pop told me this was the work of the bible belt, a vast area of America in the South where evangelical Christian preachers plied their wares to immensely religious folk. As a result, there were copious amounts of radio stations to broadcast their words from beyond their usual congregation. Knowing the solution to my query I eventually forgot about this until many years later, growing up and becoming vastly sceptical towards anything that claimed to be out of the realms of possibility. And if you’re going to be a sceptic, you will end up finding out the works of the absolute don of them all, this bloke.

James Randi. What a guy :)

James Randi is a personal hero of mine. Randi is a former magician who has spent decades tenaciously trying to debunk the theories of the paranormal, quack science, all of Uri Geller’s work and on this topic, faith healing. He has been the inspiration behind the career of well-known bullshit uncovering legends Penn and Teller. He also set up the James Randi Education Foundation, which had a challenge where if anyone proved they were psychic or had the ability to harness the power of the paranormal, they would win a million dollars (this has now been discontinued due to the distinct lack of entrants).

However, there was one piece of work which I found on YouTube many years later in a search for those preachers I listened to back in the day on the radio. This one chose television as his medium to preach, and managed to swindle millions doing so across the USA in the eighties. Randi’s audacious work outed him as a fraud and bankrupted this particular charlatan on one of the most watched shows on American television at that time. You will hear about that chap later as I have gone on long enough, let’s get into that top five. And in true clickbait-yo-ass style, you won’t believe what is number one. So you have to scroll the hell down for it or read what I’ve bloody worked on. 

Number 5 - Ernest Angley

We start off with a guy who effectively had a hit record based around him. Jesus He Knows Me by Genesis was written as a satire to televangelism and sticks the boot in on Angley, with Phil Collins playing a caricature of him in the music video. When touring in America, Collins became intrigued by large touring rigs that would often turn up after Genesis’ shows, accompanying acts he was unfamiliar with. He would find out they were for evangelical preachers, and after learning about their murky practices, decided to write a song lampooning them. At the time of writing this piece 95 year old Angley is remarkably still active as a televangelist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s, and almost seems like a parody figure, with his bizarre preaching voice, glaringly obvious toupee and over-sized suits. However, it’s all part of the charisma which is a key ingredient in what makes these so-called healers so wildly successful in hauling in fortunes of cash.

4. Benny Hinn.

One of the things you notice about these televangelists is they have showmanship. Hinn, an Israeli-American preacher and wannabe crooner, has it in spades. He packs out arenas not just in America but across the world to show the miracles of God’s power... well... what is attributed to be God’s power anyway.

The thing is however, whilst he supposedly claims to spread God’s word, the bloke is absolutely raking it in. Hinn makes enough money, tax-free as he masquerades as a charitable organisation, to live a life of opulent luxury. He said he would tone it down to go back to the roots of Christianity, but then shelled out on a $12.5m mansion.

Now, as well as being an ebullient showman, you’ve got to display the power to channel God’s energy. This is something known as “anointing.” Anointing usually means the covering of someone in aromatic oil to influence a divine intervention, but now is a term used to take on other forms. Hinn’s form of anointing is to lay on the fire of God, which causes a lot of people to fall over (unless you are playing a particularly important musical instrument on stage, they seem to be unaffected).

Hinn is an arena filler, so it’s going to cost money to see his crusade, but you could be really sick and not be able to travel. Plus, time moves on from Angley and putting your hands on the screen. You need to be anointed from home, and felt to have some kind of personal connection with a preacher in that case. How? Through a combination of red handkerchiefs and screaming? Yeah... yes that’s how our next guy does it.

3. Kerney Thomas Jr.

I could not leave out this guy when it came to doing a top five. Kerney Thomas Jr is legendary in televangelism because of his schtick, which is... well... to scream GODDDDDD! at the top of his lungs. I mean, just bloody look at him.

Thomas Jr offers a free personal prayer package which consists of a letter from him and a red handkerchief, the colour supposedly to represent the blood of Jesus Christ when he was on the cross.

People are then asked to put the handkerchief over something representing their problem, so if they are broke, they put it over their purse. If it is an ailment, they place it on that ailed area and so on. They then send it back to him and await further instructions, which are to “plant a seed of faith.” That seed of faith, is basically, money. The money they send in will give them greater blessings.

Now, this seems mindboggling that people would give money to these folk, but it’s a huge case of the exploitation of desperate people. America has many devout Christians, as do a lot of other countries. However, until recently (unless the Trump administration repeals it) it doesn’t have something like the NHS, so it has many people without health insurance. So if you are ill, and you have faith in God, if someone says “I can get you closer to God through me, and heal your problems”, you see a pattern emerging here. 

One particular case with Kerney Thomas Jr is when a guy rings up who by the sounds of it has some kind of debilitating arthritis in his arms. Thomas Jr, assisted by his unconvincing glossolalia (speaking in tongues), tells him to wave his arms around, with clearly a negative effect. The guy is obviously in agony but Thomas Jr tries to assure him he is getting better.

So, what we have seen from the televangelists so far is that they are showmen, salesmen and they have a schtick. Our next one has all that but he also has something they do not have. In the world of televangelism, this guy made the greatest comeback since Lazarus (to coin a Sid Waddell phrase.). He came back from being outed as a fraud, and bankruptcy. Remember that guy I was on about earlier? This is him.

2. Peter Popoff

German-born Peter Popoff shot to fame in the 1980s when his television ministries were broadcast throughout America. In his auditorium shows, he managed to display an in-depth knowledge of where certain people were sat in the hall, their names, addresses and what they wanted to be healed. This ‘supernatural’ ability put him very much at the forefront of the American preachers, making Popoff a multi-millionaire as a result. However, like most things that seem to good to be true, they usually are. Popoff’s reign as the King of televangelists would eventually be toppled in an incredible fashion.

James Randi, who we mentioned earlier, was not buying any of this and set about trying to find where Popoff got his supposedly divine powers from. Randi enlisted the help of his friend Steve Shaw, aka the magician and mentalist Banachek, to go undercover at a Popoff crusade to see any obvious signs of foul play. Banachek noticed something was untoward when he observed that Popoff was wearing a hearing aid, which seems rather strange for someone who claimed to heal every kind of ailment imaginable that he could not heal his own deafness. The game was now afoot in discovering Popoff’s secret. They set about taking a radio scanner to one of Popoff’s shows, with amazing results.

When people came into the arena, they were handed “prayer cards,” which asked them to put their names, addresses and illnesses, which were filled out and handed back. When collected, they were given to Popoff’s wife, Liz. Tucked away from any watching eyes, Liz would then relay the information on the cards to Popoff, via radio transmitter into an earpiece. Randi and his team were recording all of this, and the net had truly closed in on Popoff.

Randi had a friend in a high place in Johnny Carson, the eponymous talk-show host of The Tonight Show, with an enormous audience of viewers across America. It was the absolute ideal place to show this footage and out Popoff for what he really was. Within a fifteen months, Popoff was bankrupt, his days as a televangelist over. Well, you would think that wouldn’t you? Surely he can’t recover from that? You would be very wrong.

Seeing as we are on the subject of healing, it looks like Popoff’s greatest healer was time itself. Over a decade since being outed as a fraud, Popoff began to grow his ministry again and buy air time on religious channels and Black Entertainment Television.

Similar to Kerney Thomas Jr, Popoff would encourage people to send off for a free personal gift. You would follow the ‘strict instructions’ on what to do with it and then be blessed with divine intervention. As shown in the video, one of Popoff’s favourite trinkets is the Miracle Spring Water, said to have been found at a spring near Chernobyl completely unaffected by the nuclear meltdown in 1986, which you are supposed to drink if you want to be showered with riches, once you have sent a cheque back to him that is.

It is amazing to think anyone could fall for this, but the donation figures are nothing short of staggering. In 2005, an investigation by the CBS television programme Inside Edition found $23million came into his ministry in just that year alone. Goodness knows just how much he has made out of all this as his broadcasts continue to this day.

So is there any chance of another Randi-esque moment to bring him down? Well, since writing this blog I have found one of the most interesting insights to how he works, in the form of an article written about someone who used to work in his organisation, People United For Christ.

Crystal Sanchez took on the role of “Donation Processor” thinking she had a job in a worthy non-profit organisation. However, she soon found this was not the case and she was a cog in the wheel of Popoff’s wholesale operation. Sanchez has now decided to lift the lid on Popoff’s dud miracle factory and write a book about it, and hopefully her story will at least prove some kind of catalyst in another Popoff downfall.

So, if this is a top five... and we seem to have evil personified at number two, then what kind of monster is at number one? Well... fear ye not. We need a little light relief. You see, our number one takes the rule book on televangelism and tears it to shreds. He does not appear to want your money. He is not going to send you any personal prayer packages. But what he is going to do, is fire a volley of insults at his audience, all to the background music of some hip-hop legends. Ladies and Gentlemen of the congregation, I present to you...

#1 Reverend X

“I come in the name of Jesus! You can’t top that bitch!”

All the televangelists you saw in this list before now would say they were sent from God. But none of them claimed to actually be God. Not like our number one, Reverend X, aka Don Vincent. And man, is he angry.

Reverend X began broadcasting on Los Angeles public broadcasting service in the late 1990s, with his “Spirit of Truth” show. It effectively brought together eye-watering green screen, a constant barrage of swearing including the superb insult “nincom-f***in-poop,” bewildered callers (”I would like to know if this is a joke?” and “You’re an idiot, you need help, go to the hospital”) all to the tunes of the likes of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.

One of the greatest things about YouTube is that people suddenly realised they had some thing like this on a dust-gathering VHS and decided they wanted to share it with the world. A gift not necessarily from God, but a gift nonetheless. There are a fair few of these which have been unearthed and put online for your viewing pleasure, the one I shall leave you with has quite frankly one of the smoothest displays of crip-walking you are ever likely to see. 

Right, thank you very much for bearing with me through all this and reading it, or skimming through it, or just scrolling down to see who number one was. 

This morning I walked into a lift at work and a very irate lass and her friend get in just after me. Anyway, none of my business as to what she was ranting about but just as I was about to get out she goes "give me one good reason why I should accept that."

Then, my brain just quickly digs into its cluttered Useless Memory Vault and goes "remember that 'Give me one good reason' song that was always on in the coffee shop in Neighbours, for like... years? And when there was an ending scene in said coffee shop (although would sometimes be on in Lou's Place or what it was called at the time before it burned down spectacularly), and they'd generally end with that "One Good Reason" song, which would be playing in the background, then when the last line was said of the episode, they'd chop in the "One Good Reason" song chorus, and fade it in really quickly and REALLY f***ing loud? Like it would be "give me one good r..One GOOD REASON WHY I SHOULD GO HOME AGAIN..." Probably ending on Stuart "Chooka" Parker managing to look a triumvirate of facial expressions, shocked then pensive but effectively gormless, after being given a home truth.

Now, I've always said that if a brain surgeon wanted to trial a computer desktop style recycle bin for grey matter, I'd be first in the line volunteering to be that there so called guinea pig. There's a ridiculous amount of stuff I remember of no use (although sometimes is spectacular for pub quizzes), yet when it comes to doing something like learning a language it's like "no... you useful doings can fuck off. Remember that 'can you name these obscure 91/92 Division 2 footballers by their Pro Set cards" quiz that you got 18/20 on?' That's the success your brain wants. It feeds off that. None of this 'learning' bollocks."

“What’s for tea tonight?”

“Why, it’s ‘Basic Chicken’“

“And is it less than 65% chicken?”

“Yes, it’s got pea starch and tasty triphosphate too!”

Rose Royce - Car Wash. "Fill up and you don't have to pay."

Right, I have gleaned from this lyric that the car wash is part of a filling station. However, Rose Norwalt explains there is this special offer of getting a free car wash if you fill up your motor, which would be business suicide in this industry if implemented. It is a statement which demonstrates a staggering lack of business acumen required in the combined automotive petrol and car wash spectrum. Why? I'll bloody tell you.

You know why the things available for sale in petrol station shops are so expensive? That's what they make their money on. They make very little on the petrol due to spiralling costs from wholesalers due to, as we are told on regular occasion, the rising cost of a barrel of crude oil. Therefore to have a hand car-wash annexing said station is a good way of making some extra money for the business where fuel is, in some respects, a bit of a loss leader.

Rose Royce, when writing this, showed reckless abandon in failing to take into account covering the overheads involved with running the hand car-wash and showed shocking ignorance of its potential benefits.

What message does this send out to budding entrepreneurs who may wish to invest in a franchised petrol station and car wash business? Rose Royce made a disco classic but suggested a borderline ridiculous piece of promotional marketing which, to me, tarnishes the track completely.

Rose Royce may have started this, but Christina Aguilera could have ended it in 2004 when she covered it for the forgettable Dreamworks animation Shark Tale. Aguilera could have left it out completely, but she did not, and sung the line with even more vigour. Missy Elliott could have intervened, maybe explaining the fallacies of the original song in the rap bit, but she did not. She just let it pass by. It's a f***ing disgrace.

One of the things I've noticed about leaving Christmas shopping until very late on is, unless a family member or very good friend has asked for something specific well in advance, it's not that much of a concern to leave it until the final few days.

The numbers of quality shops on the high-street may be dwindling but spending a solid couple of days just before everywhere closes its shutters and you will probably find something to please your recipient on the 25th (if previous history in this matter has taught me that is!). Also, I find a greater deal of satisfaction if you have been tazzing round the streets at high leg-speeds all day and finally found a superb gift you'll know they will like.

That's all well and good if you are single. If not... for want of better words, you've kind of bollocksed it up.

Head into any department store at this time of year through the entrance which greets you with the beauty counter departments (the wrong entrance as I call it) and look upon the faces of gentlemen shoppers present. Take note of their expressions. It's generally a mixture of blind panic, confusion and fear that they are teetering on the edge of pre-yuletide futility.

You can read the signs and almost delve right into their minds about what they are thinking. "Oh God... I dunno what it's called that she wears or who it's by but it smells citrussy. Smells a little bit like... Lilt actually, but obviously not. I can't go up to the counter woman and ask 'which one smells most like Lilt,' can I?" "Whenever I've seen it in the cupboard it just says 'MAC foundation'... Here there's about twenty types! Eeenie-meenie-minie... ah f*** it I'll just get her some bath bombs from Lush." (I highly recommend you do not do the Lush bath-bomb/BodyShop-basket-bailout by the way unless you want to see even more of what thinly veiled disdain looks like from a lass on Xmas day.).

So, where is this going and what advice can I give? Well, basically if you are one of those blokes who are doing last minute beauty products shops for your lady then well, sorry. Unless you can pull it right out the bag, you may well have to discard the beauty products, buy something else and see if she falls for the "I didn't buy you anything to make you look more beautiful, because you're beautiful enough" line. You soft twat.

I'm not saying this is sure-fire winning advice (and I'm definitely no Casanova myself!) but for next year your beauty shopping needs a degree of strategy to it.

If you don't know what make-up your adored beloved adorns, or what perfume she wears... if you take her out for dinner around August/early September time, well then is the prime point to ask. Leave it any later and well... people start saying in conversation "it'll soon be Christmas," crackers and Terry's All Gold are in the supermarkets and she will truly cotton on to what you're on about.

This also has to be a very quick fact-finding mission. You've got to balance the gathering of the information so you remember it and it is correct, but also be rapid enough that she forgets you had this part of your conversation. Do not do anything to let on why you have asked once she has told you. No smirking, no whispering under your breath of 'get in!' or 'yaaaaaas!' and definitely no fist-pump. I would suggest thinking in advance of something to change the subject once you've obtained what you need to know.

All being well, you should be sorted. When it comes to Christmas and your previously-dreaded encounter at the counter, you will come across as confident, knowledgeable and a true gent who knows what his partner wants. You may be thinking, "well you say ask her in August, but her birthday is in October." Her birthday is HER day, so you should get her something which truly fits her personality as a big present. Then you can get her some stuff from Lush as a supplement to that... but you knew that yeah?

Right, you know those Smith's "Salt 'n' Shake" crisps with the little blue packet of salt that you open and chuck over the crisps in the bag? Them things... bit of a snacking novelty and probably needless but anyway. I was in Lidl the other day and they have their own version, originally titled "Salt Your Own Crisps." 

It has exactly the same concept as Salt 'n Shake, as shown in this picture, with the blue bag of salt. It says "simply salt and shake the bag." Yep, I get that. But one thing did slightly concern me was that of its "serving suggestion" on the packaging.

This appears to suggest not in fact using the small sachet attached, but using your own salt shaker. It also appears to imply you should shake some salt not actually onto the crisps but in completely the opposite direction to where the crisps are, in this case... north-westerly on a table. The crisps, which seem to be of a disproportionate size to that of the table (with some looking like they are actually hovering above it), are not in the bag. However, Lidl seemed adamant by the text that we should shake the bag after administering salt.

Lidl, seriously... have a word with yourself. Your suggestion is not the snacking experience I would expect, and it would be quite frankly madness to even consider this. Especially because I can't make the crisps bigger or levitate.

Just had Spotify on random, and up pops the full 22.43 minute version of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn."

The reason this reminds me of family holidays as a nipper was how my Dad would make sure he had his tape of this ready for whenever we had a long stretch of road, he'd stick it on. He seemed very happy driving along to this.

I asked him, in my inquisitive childhood nature, what an Autobahn was. He told me it was German for motorway. Despite being just eight years old, I could see there was a problem. See, we were not on an Autobahn with its unrestricted speed like in Germany, we weren't even on a motorway, but on a dual carriageway, in a Lada Samara borrowed off me Grandad (reg number F212 HTV, I remember that well), heading at a quite laborious pace (occasionally overtaken by Yugos for God's sake) towards a caravan park in Skegness.

I wanted to interject, but I feared coming across as being a smart-alec eight year old upstart... and knowing full well that by doing so would hamper any chances of being allowed to play on "Sweet Licks" or "Cracky Crabs" in the Maid Marian arcade or him not allowing me to beat him at our annual long-jump contest on the Skeggy sands.

Years have gone by, I'm now 28 and have yet to confront my Dad about his Autobahn delusions. He's never visited Germany and I dunno if that somehow, deep down rankles with him that he hasn't listened to the full version on an actual Autobahn.

Maybe he'll look at this, and deny the whole thing... but I know on that way to Ingoldmells, that was what he wanted.

It was what you wanted Dad.

IT JUST BLOODY WELL WAS.

There's been a few things I've noticed post-studentdom recently, you get invited to a lot less house parties. You get invited to people's houses still, but they aren't really parties... they're more like "gatherings." You end up rather than bringing two 2l bottles of Strongbow and some Doritos, there's bottles of Rioja and continental cheeses. The host has made you all some really nice Tacos. The night ends up in a mildly heated debate about current affairs. It's a far cry from how it all used to be.

In some ways, that's a good thing, you can't hold on to the past forever. In another way, hurtling towards 30 and trying to convince yourself it's the new 21, you kinda look back on those supposed halcyon days and dabble in a bit of nostalgia wallowing.

When I was at University I couldn't say I was a typical student, on the whole I didn't like students. My coursemates were genuinely some of the soundest people you could ever have the pleasure to meet, however on the other hand I met dozens of cretinous arsepieces who thought going out all dressed up in Borat Mankini's was dead rebellious and f**king hilarious. I hated the tiresome image of being a student, so much so by the end I had a similar amount of disdain for them as Paul Calf (although I never smacked anyone!). 

But yeah, I digress. Parties.

I often wondered something about student house parties, that feeling in the morning when you wake up slumped on a sofa arm looking round at everyone who is comatose thinking "thank f**k this isn't my house". I'd look down on someone inadvertently using a quarter empty can of Grafenwalder Pils (75p a can from Lidl) as a pillow, unknowing they have had their eyebrows shaved off, and if they don't see a mirror before they leave the house they will enter the outside world bleary eyed and with swastika's drawn on their head in marker pen.

The same things always seemed to happen at them... such as.

1) Something of massive value will get broken. Even when every single family heirloom and precious ornament has been locked away in a spare room, some idiot will drunkenly turn up an expensive speaker system costing hundreds of pounds when his fave "choon" comes on and blow it beyond repair. Or find a football and start kicking it about. It's always the token clumsy oaf, or a complete twat who breaks something.

2) The more drunk the host gets, the less bothered he is about who turns up... when originally at the start of the evening he/she goes on about "I hope XXXX comes, but I hope they don't bring XXXX." Years ago I was at a little music festival in town and my dad had gone away, leaving me with a free house. 16 years old, naive and battered, I lead about 25 people through fields in the pitch dark to my very small house, and everyone ringing people up telling them where they were, a small two bedroom terraced house had about 40 people in, and twenty people trying to get in... some of whom were rather unsavoury characters and would have nicked everything.

3) There's always one girl who will get so trolleyed and so suggestable that she will have sex with at least two or more people at the party in the parents/host's bed.

4) At least one girl, maybe even the one in 3) will end up crying.

5) Someone will embark on the most complicated food delivery order ever and get most of it wrong ("I asked for mayonnaise AND chilli sauce on my fries!") after being on the phone to an irate kebab shop owner for fifteen minutes.

6) Every house party has a guest who no-one quite really knows, but they come with no beer and just nick everyone elses.

7) One of the bedrooms becomes a drug den for the evening, although having said that this is the room where probably the most in-depth and thought provoking conversation will occur, despite most of it, when it boiled down to it, being absolute drivel.

8) At 2.30am no-one would be talking anymore and everyone would be shouting the lyrics of whatever tune is playing. Usually around this time at house parties I went to, it is the popular with student theme-me-do from Baywatch. Note how no-one really knows the lyrics to the second verse but they try to bumble along anyway.

9) If you wake up first and offer to make a cup of tea to those waking around you... you're given legendary status.

10) If you host the party you can gauge just how true your friends are based on who stays longest and helps until everything is cleared up.