"Ha ha, I can't imagine you thinking of anything, Kris!" The words of a friend a few months ago during a night out on London's South Bank. I'm sure we've all had the Room 101 conversation at some point. Annoyingly he was right at the time. I think I came up with something banal like "ignorance" - and that was it.
Although being a generally relaxed, easy-going and glass-half-full person is no bad thing, and I know a lot of people love me for it, there are times when I know I should get off the fence more. The previous blog was a semi-decent attempt although even that 'rant' was closeted to a certain extent. So this is my Room 101 - five things I'd bin or ban with immediate effect. As Dermot O'Leary would say, these are in no particular order (X Factor is a guilty pleasure so Cowell escapes).
1) Celebrity Britain
Yes, I realise it's a soft target but to be honest I don't have a problem with celebrities per se; it's the nation's obsession that really pisses me off. Actually, I nearly put ITV in this list on its own as it's by far the worst offender but there are enough other issues to keep it out. Nevertheless, let's start with ITV, the epitome of barrel-scraping. The whole Peter Andre and Jordan thing is just too depressing to go into at length. Who watches this shit? Who gives a shit what they get up to or "what they did next"? It's simply moronic TV, made by morons about morons and consumed by morons who have no lives of their own and survive on Heat magazine gossip.
Then there's Celebrity this, Celebrity that. I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, Celebrity Come Dine With Me, Celebrity Big Brother, Celebrity Juice. Actually, All-Star Family Fortunes is one that particularly bugs me as it appears to have replaced the original series. What was wrong with the traditional family format? The celebs are never exactly A-listers for a start.
Elsewhere, we have those cheap countdown shows - "50 Greatest TV Moments", "50 Funniest TV Sketches", "100 Most Hysterical Daily Mail Rants", etc. I do have a soft spot for them, actually, and it's always nice to get an insight from those involved in whatever the feature is, but all too often they interview random celebrities with no connection to the subject whatsover. Who cares what they think? Wouldn't it be nice to have a few 'ordinary' members of the public in the talking head sections with more meaningful opinions, rather than Ross Kemp discussing the merits of Wuthering Heights? (A fictional example) My other big gripe is with the BBC series Live At The Apollo. A decent show but marred by the opening minutes in which the host announces which celebs are in the building, to cheers from the audience. I couldn't give a shit - these are just ordinary people, no more important than anyone else, and shouldn't be presented as VIPs. Ultimately my point, I guess.
2) Snoods
What the...?! Is that a scarf he's wearing? I mentioned in a previous blog how effeminate football ultimately is, or at least has become, but this is ridiculous. Yes, this is the current snood epidemic sweeping through the Premiership and beyond. If you aren't aware already - lucky you - a snood is a cross between a scarf and a neck-warmer, and more and more "world class" players are wrapping up warm on the pitch, bless them. I should add that this phenomenon started before the recent cold snap so there's still no sympathy from me.
When I first started playing competitively 20-odd years ago at youth level, we played in some dire conditions between the months of November and February - howling gales, torrential rain, mudbaths, sometimes all at the same time. Not that I'm suggesting for a moment that we just got on with it without any complaints. Of course we all moaned - well, we were kids for a start - and especially did so on occasional matchdays where there were no changing rooms and we had to change in our parents' cars. And it was even worse when it was really cold as well and fingers became too numb to do up bootlaces. But once the game started we soon warmed up and it was our parents who ultimately suffered on the touchline.
Surely the pain threshold of youngsters is much lower than these pros, yet I don't remember taking to the field in gloves, tights and scarves. I may have worn a thermal vest under my shirt but that's about it. Dressing well in the pre-match warm-up is one thing, as muscles need protecting, but do grown men really need winterwear during a game? Maybe I'm being ignorant but wouldn't the crowd and the floodlights generate at least some warmth to balance out the temperatures? Shouldn't the fact that most players run the equivalent of eight miles during a game make wearing gloves and scarves redundant? I have to admit that I had reservations about this choice because I discovered Alex Ferguson had a similar rant, and the thought of agreeing with him made me shudder. However, on this occasion he's got it right and actually banned his players from wearing the snood. Good on him. Nurse!
3) Friends
The TV show, obviously. Sorry but it's rubbish. Perplexingly, I've yet to meet anyone who thinks along the same lines, including a big chunk of my friends, all of whom are intelligent and possess a sense of humour well beyond the intellectual level of this shit, which makes me wonder if the show employs a hypnotist to decimate its viewers' IQ for half an hour. If so, I must have been one of the lucky few to escape. "You have to get to know the characters," they say. I tried. None of them are remotely believeable, all of them are immensely irritating. "You just don't like American humour." Not true; I love Frasier, Scrubs, South Park and The Simpsons, to name just a few.
Basically, the show is lame, the jokes are lame and the audience is embarrassing, whooping at the merest hint of a euphoric moment in the script, or whenever a guest celebrity marches in for a pay day. You may have noticed that I've been writing in the present tense even though the show finished a few years ago. Well, that's because it's still always on, to the point where you're almost guaranteed to find it somewhere if you flick through the channels. Sure enough, I've just done this and there's a double helping on E4 as I write. And anyway, there's bound to be some reunion episode at some point. But what about Jennifer Aniston, I hear you beg. Fair point but not fair enough. She still can't save me from The One With The Holiday Armadillo. Or the Rembrandts.
4) Boardroom Wanking
"I say, is that Rupert? Charlie Fotherington-Smythe here from Dick Head Office. How about we touch base on the bullshit turnover this afternoon over a triple moccha frappuccino with marshmallow topping? Then we and the guys can get together to brainstorm some B2B strategies for Buzzword Central." "Bravo, Charlie, sure thing! Ah, we also need to bookmark a blue-sky conference with Chad from the NYC Headquarters to streamline the overseas market. I know he tends to be all smoke and mirrors but I'm sure we can still diversify within the contingency plan."
"Right you are. Good work, Rupert, catch you later. Ciao!"
If you ever hear me using language as offensively pompous and ultimately meaningless as this, there's a special sell-out helpline. In the meantime, a good kick in the nads will do.
5) New Year's Eve
Christmas is great. Time to forget about work, relax with family and friends, swap pressies, wear stupid hats, watch wall-to-wall football and eat and drink to oblivion. The one downside is knowing you're only a week away from the damp squib that is New Year's Eve. It's scandalously over-hyped and allows various establishments to charge a fortune for what's probably going to be an evening of overcrowding, hour-long queues at the bar and people pretending they know the words to Auld Lang Syne. It's particularly awkward if you are single as it means there's more pressure to go out, and if you also happen to live in a small to mid-sized town, there's more pressure to decide what to do early because the popular pubs and clubs tend to sell tickets in advance.
Living in London is much easier because it's a huge place and means you can pretty much go out wherever you like and decide what to do as you're going along. Public transport is also free, which is a bonus.
But despite being lucky enough to belong to the second category, and be in a relationship, I still don't enjoy New Year's Eve at all. There's a whiff of fakeness about it and it can also be a pretty depressing time if you're reflecting on a bad year - maybe a break-up or the loss of a loved one. Ironically, the only occasion I had a truly brilliant New Year's Eve was the on the most hyped night of all - 31st December, 1999. There was no meticulous planning. It was just me and my best friends from school, a curry, some booze and a mini house party in Preston and it felt special. That was a genuine one-off, though.
For me, the real celebration, and the biggest relief, is waking up on January 1st with Auld Lang Syne, Big Ben and fireworks in the past, and the mobile phone networks back in tact.