Vincible

Yes, shock of shocks, Michael Jackson - Wacko Jacko, the King of Pop, the biggest star of his generation and arguably of all time - has moonwalked off this mortal coil. His heart stopped, and he was pronounced dead at 2.26pm Thursday, California time.

I was never a Jackson fan, too much of a kook for my taste, but I was just as gobsmacked as everyone else when I heard he'd died. Fifty years old.


My first thought was of a quote attributed to MJ over twenty years ago, wherein he stated that he'd like to be the first human ever to live for 150 years. Sorry that didn't work out for ya, Mike.

What Next?

It would be naive to think that the superstar's death marks the end of the Jacko saga. Now comes the inevitable surge in back-catalogue album sales. Then perhaps the revelation that Michael died intestate, followed by family infighting over who gets what.

More interesting is the possibility - a strong one in my opinion - that one or more of Jackson's famously devoted and now grieving fans, will go after Jordan Chandler, whose family pressed child molestation charges against Jackson in 1993. It was alleged that the singer had indulged in kissing and masturbation with the then 13-year-old boy.

Following months of legal and civil proceedings, and a media storm, the charges were dropped and the Chandlers were suddenly $22m richer. No-one but Jordan Chandler and Michael Jackson knows for sure whether there was any truth to the sex-abuse allegations, or if the plaintiffs were simply shaking Jackson down for money. Unfortunately, the episode is as much a part of Jacko's legacy as any of his achievements.

Pop Icon

In an era where the word iconic is woefully misused, that's what Michael Jackson was and is. He dominated the pop world throughout the Eighties, his record sales easily topping a half-billion. He was never out of the news for long. Sometimes the newspapers trumpeted his successes, more often his eccentricities. Unsurprisingly, he all but retired from public life, a virtual recluse. Still, it would be difficult to find a single person in the English-speaking world who has never heard his name.

Love him or loathe him, the world will be a duller place without Michael Jackson.


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Halt! Verboten!

Tory leader David Cameron stands accused of being unwise in affecting a German accent in public.

The so-called gaffe took place in Norwich on Monday evening, where Cameron was outlining his opposition to New Labour's national identity card scheme. Presumably likening the ID-card idea to the stuff of Hitler's Germany, he used the phrase Where are your papers? in a cartoon Germanic accent.

Then an audience member stated that she questioned the wisdom of his using a German accent.

LOL! What's German for Get a life! ?

Babies and bathwater. To anyone with a sense of humour (a great many Germans included, I'll wager), Cameron's Gestapo analogy was both relevant and funny. The woman at the Norwich event may simply be a nobody journalist, or a local politician trying to get noticed. In any case, her concerns are no more worthy than those of Lucie Kim, the idiot activist who sued Miley Cyrus for pulling a chink-eyes face while fooling around with friends.

Priorities

Damnit, look out of the window - the sun still shines, the Earth is still spinning. What's more important? Major Government policy decisions, or a few uppity individuals looking to score points against the Tories?

Reading about the Norwich meeting, I learned that the Conservatives have allied themselves to the right-wing Law and Justice party in Poland. I haven't read up on that lot yet, but any move away from lefty nonsense is a good thing in my book.


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Method for Mo

Veteran actress Julie Walters has decided to shave her head, to bring realism to her turn as deceased British politician Marjorie 'Mo' Mowlam.

Since Mowlam had a hand in brokering Northern Ireland's Good Friday Agreement, and since she's been brown-bread for a few years, someone has decided it's time to honour her memory and her achievements with a biopic.

And if said film makes a few quid, hey, all the better.

Mowlam's hair fell out at one point, following treatment for a brain tumour, and Mamma Mia star Walters, super trouper that she is, has opted to lose the locks instead of wearing a skullcap for the role.

So-called method actors get on my nerves. Walters getting a buzzcut to play a bald MP, DeNiro got fat to play a slob boxer, Dustin Hoffman took up jogging to play a jogger in Marathon Man, etc, etc...

For Christ's sake, it's called acting for a reason. Pretending makes it easier!

Maybe Julie Walters will do Long John Silver in panto this Christmas. Let's see if she'll saw off a leg and scoop out an eye. 'Cos it's all about realism.

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Unlucky, Kentucky!

A story from my neck of the woods.

Global fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has been dealt a legal blow by the small man. Well, woman.

Last month, lawyers representing KFC tried to warn off the Titanic Pizza Co, of Carnoustie (near Dundee, Scotland) who have a meal deal bearing the name Family Feast. The tiny takeaway pizzeria has offered a pizza-based Family Feast since 1992, two years before KFC registered its own Family Feast™ - but the US giant sought to put an end to what they saw as an infringement of their trademark.

Titanic's owner replied defiantly to KFC, who then agreed to drop their lawsuit threat, citing Titanic's limited use of the offending term.

Gloria Esposito of Titanic reckons KFC 'felt silly' when they realised how small her business is. I think not. Rather, I believe that such conglomerates' policy is to attempt to discourage anyone who, knowingly or otherwise, uses wording already trademarked by themselves.

From the litigant's point of view, what happens if they don't act? That's a precedent KFC does not wish to set.

Not the First Time

Speaking of precedents, in recent years, McDonald's Corp. attempted to force a Scots cafe owner to drop the Mc element from his family business name, despite said business having existed for a hundred years.

Again, I believe this is an example of a hard-and-fast rule being applied across the board. Makes a teeny bit of sense from the plaintiff's viewpoint, but is maddening for the little guy.

Finally, in the KFC/Titanic matter, I'd like to know how KFC learned of the existence of Titanic Pizza Co. Maybe some kiss-ass employee of a local KFC thought he/she could curry favour by e-mailing Head Office!

(picture shows Titanic staff celebrating victory with a special pizza)

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What the Foxx Going On!?

I pissed my pants just now, reading that Jamie Foxx fancies himself to play legendary crooner Frank Sinatra, in Martin Scorcese's planned biopic.

Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaarff!

Is this a joke? If so, it certainly nailed me! Either Hollywood is taking its Frankfurt School we're-all-the-same crap to new heights, or Jamie Foxx has been taking loony lessons from his egomaniac pal Kanye West.

The Yahoo article began reporting Leonardo DiCaprio's own bid for the Sinatra gig, Leo going so far as to hire a voice coach, hoping to replicate Old Blue Eyes' distinctive tones.

DiCaprio is of Italian stock, but there his resemblance to Sinatra abruptly ends. If he hopes to land the part, Leo will have to do three more things. First, go to a hack barber for a comedy combover. Second, have his feet sawn off and reattached, leaving him six inches shorter. Finally, have a friend smash his handsome face in with a steam iron.

Even without such method acting, he's still a better candidate than Jamie friggin' Foxx! LOL! That's gonna keep me going all day!

Now I'm off to audition for the lead in Spielberg's Martin Luther King flick.

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Wife and Death

Screen star Ryan O'Neal is keen to wed ailing fellow star and long-time lover Farrah Fawcett.

The Love Story actor and the Charlie's Angels icon have been together since 1982, and the couple have a son. Fawcett is known to have been fighting cancer since the autumn of 2006, news of her health alternating between a joyous all-clear, and speculation that she is dying.

Now O'Neal has stated that he would love to make the relationship official, ending with a noncommittal 'you never know'. Presumably Farrah is not so keen.

Precedent

O'Neal's apparent eagerness to make an honest woman of the perhaps-dying Fawcett, is not solely a Hollywood thing. In recent months here in the UK, chav reality star Jade Goody wed her boyfriend Jack Tweed in a rush ceremony, Goody dying from cancer weeks afterwards.

And, as a child in the Eighties, I recall Tony Booth's (father-in-law of former PM Tony Blair) bedside marriage to Pat Phoenix, who played Coronation Street legend Elsie Tanner. Phoenix was terminally ill at the time of their wedding.

Doubtless there have been many other such rushed nuptials, of the famous and not-so-famous, where one of the betrothed is not long for this world.

Why Bother?

So what's the motivation? Could be a bride's wish to fulfil her girlhood dream of being the blushing bride. Could simply be both bride and groom wallowing in sentimentality. Or could it be religious superstition? Impending mortality putting pressure on God-fearing lovers to do the right thing? Utter nonsense, of course, but then grief leads people to do all sorts.

Fawcett's illness is reminiscent of the plot of O'Neal's career-defining 1970 movie Love Story. His missus dies from cancer in that too.


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Woss the Problem Now?

Jonathan Ross again?

According to one report, the Beeb has received four - count 'em - four complaints about Ross' so-called homophobic jibe on his Radio 2 show.

Discussing movie merchandise, Ross suggested that if anyone's son should ask for a Hannah Montana MP3 player, then those parents might consider having said son adopted, before he brings home his partner.

I think it must be the have-him-adopted part that's sticking in complainers' throats. Jonathan appears to have unthinkingly suggested that having a gay son is somehow undesirable. Unthinkingly, my arse. He does these things on purpose, lest he remain out of the limelight for ten seconds.

As for the comment, so ****in' what? Had I a son, I'd prefer that he not be gay, and behind the curtain of so-called open-mindedness, I reckon most parents would be most uncomfortable, at least at first, to discover that their child were homosexual.

So who are the complainers? At a guess, I'd say stick-up-the-ass lefties and/or couch patooties with bugger-all else to do.

Ofcom is obliged to investigate, i.e. to see how Ross' statement corresponds to broadcasting code. That'll take all of five minutes, hardly an investigation, is it?

Pink News quoted listener Karen Mills: What would be the message to a young gay man listening to this? Worse still, how might such comments reinforce and support homophobic bullying in the playground?

I have a mental image of Karen Mills. She's a spiky-haired social worker who wears non-leather boots and rolls her own.

I think gay-rights campaigners give gays a bad name, make them all appear to be whining wimps who think being homo is a lifestyle and a talent.

They get on my wick. Offend me, no less. Who do I complain to, then?

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Jaded with Jade

For six months now, the news media have scrutinised virtually every moment of Jade Goody's deterioration, since her cervical cancer diagnosis last summer.

Her decline has been rapid, as has the about-face of the media, the print press in particular, which reported Goody's every faux-pas after she shot to fame in 2002. The cameras were there whenever she was being thick, then later pretending to be thicker still, playing to expectations. Then the newspapers trumpeted piously when she let go at spoiled, high-caste Indian twat Shilpa Shetty, during Celebrity Big Brother five years later.

Channel 4 agreed with Ofcom that Jade's behaviour was disgraceful, but saw fit to broadcast it anyway!

Jade's less-than-classy parentage was well documented too. Not a stone unturned.

Predictably, that's all changed now that Goody is ringing death's doorbell. Even her name has changed. She's no longer Jade Goody, goofball extraordinaire. Now she's just 'Jade', everyone's best friend. She's even buried the hatchet with Shetty. Altogether, now - aaaaaaw!

The whole sorry tale makes me roll my eyes. Of course the cancer is a great personal tragedy for Jade Goody and her loved ones, but let's not pretend that anyone else really gives a shit. Least of all a shower of journalists with conveniently short memories.


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Taking the Mickey

Bad-boy Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke has bounced back off the ropes, it seems. His latest comeback-themed movie The Wrestler has drawn rave reviews, and the star prize at Venice's Film Festival.

Of course, The Wrestler is just another movie, but to hear the media these past couple of weeks, you'd think cinema were a new invention.

Besides the hype over the film itself, much has been made of Mickey Rourke's big comeback, his return to the Hollywood fold, after years in self-imposed exile, not to mention self-destruction. He allowed his career and his personal life to go down the toilet during the Nineties, doing drugs, boozing and all the rest. Predictably, parallels have been drawn between Rourke's life and that of Randy Robinson, his latest character role.

Rourke returned briefly to his first love - boxing, even had a short-lived pro career in the ring. He has spoken of his pugilism as a way to help him focus on getting his life back on track, but it might also be viewed as just more self-punishment.

Hollywood loves a bad-boy-made-good story. Remember Sean Penn? Always on the fringes, never got the Oscar, never seemed to care either. Content to butt his head against convention, choose movies HE wanted to do. Early on, Penn's habit of making odd choices was perhaps best illustrated by his 1985 marriage to then-rising star Madonna. The marriage failed, but then publicity stunts are always short-lived.

In 2004, Penn finally won his Best Actor Oscar for Mystic River. His performance in that (or in any film) wasn't particularly great, but movie awards have nothing to do with talent, just more manipulation and publicity. So Mickey Rourke's isn't the first ultra-hyped, shunned-to-shiny Hollywood story, and it won't be the last.

I'm betting fingersmith Winona Ryder will be the next to reinvent herself and put her shenanigans behind her. If she doesn't get the Academy Award, she can always sneak backstage and toss it in her handbag.

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A Study in Pointlessness

Just a few days ago, the University of Dundee - my hometown - published the results of their investigation into the congenital nature of our tastes in food.

It seems obese people may be the hapless victims of a genetic sweet tooth.

As I've said before, fat folks don't need another excuse for being fat, but there it is anyway.

That aside, what bloody use is this 'information' to anyone? Who benefits from confirmation that we are born with sweet or savoury tastes?

This comes hard on the heels of another Uni of Dundee study, that one bad-mouthing forward-facing pushchairs. They screw up your baby's social skills, it seems.

What is it with academics? Why do they enjoy studying subjects of no consequence? Fat people will still overeat and be fat, mothers will still buy traditional baby-buggies.

Maybe I'll apply for state funding, carry out my own probe - into the motivations of boffins who study utter crap.


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