| Author | Message | ||
     Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.128.208.99 |
Does anyone else think that they should get David Tennant to light the olympic beacon thingy in his Dr Who costume - just as a re-enactment of the end of that episode, to make people think it's a documentary? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.254.189 |
Him or Will.I.Am, obviously. Actually, it'd be funnier if Tom Baker did it. But of course it's dangerous for the Doctor to cross his own timeline. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.128.208.99 |
Who is Will.I.am? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.254.52 |
Who is Will.I.Am. Now there's a statement to scare the Daleks... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
>>Who is Will.I.am?<< Isn't he Ginger Spice's boyfriend? I thought I saw that on the front of a magazine when I was at the checkout in Morrisons a few weeks ago. In fact, my first thought then was "Who is Will.I.am?" However, Weber, I have since seen on the news that there was a bit of a stink when he carried the torch - in Swindon, I think? The whole idea was supposed to be that the torch was carried by local heroes - and I don't think he lives in Swindon. I guess he's a singer or something like that? Definitely talks with an American accent. When they interviewed him about the torch thing, he looked like he hadn't a clue where he was or why he was there! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Oh, he's some non-entity then. David Tennant for the job. If it was Tom Baker it wouldn't be re-enacting the episode. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
"Oh, he's some non-entity then." Exactly! Didn't Matt Smith carry it somewhere in Wales? | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.22.29.112 |
I liked Frankie Boyle's line on Twitter about the torch relay: when it went through Glasgow it was followed by a junkie with a giant spoon. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.22.29.112 |
I'm Scottish, so that's not just casual racism on my part, by the way  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Will I Am is from the Black Eyed Peas - he's good, seems a nice guy. I don't think it was his fault he was picked to carry a torch, and he was probably right to look bemused. He's too successful to qualify as a non-entity (if indeed anyone is unless they are fictional or dead!). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.31.98 |
Not his fault he was chosen, but his choice to accept. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Well, maybe he felt that pressure thing, it would look odd not to? Oh, what do we know. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
He's from the black eyed peas? He's a non-entity. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.31.98 |
He certainly isn't British, which seems odd under the circumstances. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
In fact, if they were looking for a "celebrity" from Swindon (it was Swindon, wasn't it?), as we started off on a Doctor Who theme, Billie Piper (aka. Rose) would have been a good choice. She was born and brought up there I think. Anyway, it's nice to see the *real* local heroes carrying the torch on its way round the country. There was one guy I saw on telly, suffering from a brain tumour but determined to walk as unaided as he possibly could - and he did! It's those people this is for. A once-in-a-lifetime memory for them and their families. What do you guys think of the people who are putting their torches up for sale on eBay already then? It can't really mean much to them if they do that, can it? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Caroline, I thought it was bad till I realised people were skint. Weber - no-one's a non entity. Don't say that. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
If a succesful pop performer, songwriter and record producer is a non-entity, that must make the rest of us less than a speck of dust... I'm not a fan of his music, and it is a strange choice to have him carry the torch, but in this celebrity-obsessed world, it's easy to see why he was asked. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.31.98 |
Well, my dictionary defines a nonentity as a person of no importance. I wouldn't think commercial success necessarily confers importance, any more than commercial failure negates it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
You're right, Ramsey - commercial success doesn't. But he's critically accclaimed, too; a respected and influential figure in that pop-hiphop world. I'm not interested in his music, but it seems that a lot of other people are. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Are people here suggesting no-one is important? If Wll. I. Am was a homeless person I'd not think him a nonentity. I'm not being preachy - I just hate the idea of a term like nonentity existing. It's almost nazist. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
But then I forget Weber can be quite wince-makingly dismissive of people who aren't his cup of tea. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
The only 2 songs I know by Black Eyed Peas I honestly thought were novelty songs on a par with the Fast Food Rockers and others of that ilk. I'm actually genuinely shocked that someone who came out with a song about her lovely lady lumps is considered a serious musician. On the strength of what I'd heard I assumed his fame was more down to being married to a Spice girl. I also find out he's a jusge on a TV talent show - which automatically means he's a non-entity with an overinflated ego and sense of self-worth in inverse proportion to his actual talent and importance (that is the basic definition of talent show judges). | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.144.35.64 |
The guaranteed way to earn non-entity status in my eyes is to appear on Big brother or any other manufactured reality show including all the x-factor type shows. We have so many kids out there now who don't want to do anything when they grow up, they just want to be famous. Unfortunately, as Jade Goody, Nikki Graham and the casts of shows like TOWIE demonstrate, this is now unbelievably possible. Gone are the days when you needed some discernable talent or intelligence to be famous. Now you need to so stupid that it's a wonder you have enough brain power to walk and breathe at the same time and you get on prime time TV and millions of complete f***ing morons will watch these idiots and aspire to be just like them. And then they get so full of their own self importance it's sickening to watch. What you find is there's an inverse relation between their sense of self-worth and the actual contribution they've made. The more up their own ego-ridden arses they are, the more of a non-entity they are in reality. And relax | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.85 |
Will.I.Am was an odd choice for the UK, I think. He'd have been a good choice in the USA, coming as he does from the ghetto and being successful as a songwriter and record producer and then taking his money to invest in the people and make jobs in the area in which he was born. A good role model. Whether he's in the Black-Eyed Peas or Show of Hands for that matter. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.5.43.148 |
As usual, Mr. Lynch is far more eloquent than me. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.111 |
Nah. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.254.56 |
Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony looks great. A couple of cows and an allotment and Glastonbury Tor with a plasticine tree on it. I love the fact the presentation wasn't even a CGI job but a papier mache effort with some figures from the 70s/80s kids' cricket gameTest Match strewn here and there. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
So we've agreed that Will.I.Am is not a non-entity. Can we now agree that he's a cancerous pustule on the squirming, rotting corpse of popular music? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.182 |
Lighten up, children. What great claims can we make for such celebrities of the distant past as Jimmy Osmond, Jack the Ripper or Judas Iscariot? Fools and villains have always had a place in popular culture. Shakespeare's plays are full of them, though their moment at centre stage was as brief then as it is likely to be now. But no doubt the critics of Shakespeare's time lamented the fact that to get a laugh from the audience you only had to drink beer, fall over and make jokes about cuckolds. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.254.239 |
If you're over 30 and pop music doesn't offend your sensibilities it's doing something wrong. Will.I.Am makes his music and the young people enjoy it. His music in no way detracts from my enjoyment of Kate Rusby's stuff. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.150.18.54 |
The problem with most modern pop isn't that it offends my sensibilities, it does nothing whatsoever for them. Anything x-factor etc related is about as offensive as one of Enid Blyton's famous five novels. It's bland beyond belief. If it were food, on the spicy scale, Traditional English food would be a vindaloo in comparison. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 94.197.127.22 |
'The problem with modern pop'. There you go. ;-) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.42.48.99 |
I actually like a lot of the Black Eyed Peas songs. And a lot of modern music. It's too big and varied to possibly condemn. There are some very resentful people here - I don't understand it. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
>>There are some very resentful people here - I don't understand it.<< I don't think it's resentment - just folk (like me) who are fed up of all this "celebrity culture" rubbish. While I agree that the word "non-entity" is probably too strong (and I agreed with Weber, so I'm just as much at fault here), the fact is (in my opinion) this Will.I.Am fella isn't as deserving to carry torch as, say, the guy with the brain tumour who I referred to earlier. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.42.48.99 |
No, he isn't - I just think he's getting more criticism than he should. Thing is, the people on The Voice seem to me to have worked bloody hard. I don't watch that Essex thing or BB but the Voice is different - these people put the time and care in in that show. I dunno - some people think the things they don't like are rubbish for no other reason than that they don't like them. There are loads of things I'm not crazy on but I don't think of the people who do them are non-entities or 'pustules'. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.174 |
You appear to be the first person to mention The Voice, Tony, or did I miss it? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Hmmm. Sometimes the people condemning the blandness of 'modern pop' are rather young to have a good basis for comparison. 50s pop was mostly what we now call MOR. 60s pop was mostly that plus tedious boy bands and girl groups. 70s pop was dominated by the likes of the Osmonds, Mud and Showaddywaddy. 80s pop was Duran Duran and Modern Romance. 90s pop was slightly better but we've since reverted to the old model. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.174 |
When I think of fifties pop I immediately think of Leiber and Stoller. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.42.48.99 |
Not by name, Ramsey, but I think it was what Weber was talking about; 'I also find out he's a judge on a TV talent show - which automatically means he's a non-entity with an overinflated ego and sense of self-worth in inverse proportion to his actual talent and importance (that is the basic definition of talent show judges).' I actually find a lot of modern music quite sophisticated, even when it's seemingly simple. Even David Lynch has made a Dance album. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.174 |
Ah, I missed that (or didn't realise that was the show!) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.42.48.99 |
That's ok - and sorry Ramsey for coming across as prickly. Sometimes when I get tetchy I can imagine patterns in forums and think they are making points they aren't. I was starting to panic that I'd done it again! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.174 |
Don't worry! |