Okay, so here are the rules. You get to pick the three things from different disciplines that everybody else hates but you like — and you have to genuinely like them, not in an ironic way. I’ll start with three of mine.
1. Sigue Sigue Sputnik
2. Michael Bay
3. Seafood sticks
Your turn
Ooh – good thread. What happens if someone else on the thread also likes one of your nominations (I also really like Michael Bay movies)?
Here are mine:
1. Andrew W.K. – Made one of my actual top ten albums of all time and delivered the best live show I’ve ever seen. I freaking LOVE him. He’s kind of the Michael Bay of music, except better.
2. Tree of Life – Nearly everyone hates Terence Malick’s second best movie. I think it’s an absolute masterpiece and will happily watch it over and over again
3. On the basis that too many people on here love Break Stuff for it to be a legit contender, I’m going to say exercise, and particularly exercise conducted in bad weather/adverse conditions. It’s not a macho thing, I just like that feeling of disconnect when the rest of the world is wrapped up warm at home and you’re outside, in a snowstorm, running, for no apparent reason.
Bingo, number 3 . Can’t beat getting cold and muddy, battling the elements. Then getting a shower, laying on the sofa and basking in a warm, smug glow.
Slightly off track but for podcast fans can I recommend Unjustly Maligned on the Incomparable podcast network. Each week a guest takes something from pop culture that is generally reviled and explains why they love it. Examples include The Phantom Menace, Mighty Like a Rose, Watchmen the Movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Genesis (a popular public school beat combo). Worth a listen.
Sounds great, thanks.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve payed 3 of 4 over the last couple of days and they’re well worth a listen (though I confess the one about how we shouldn’t be so harsh about the Italian theme tunes to cartoons was a bit of a trial).
1. Marley & Me: I genuinely think this is one of the best movies ever made even though (sob, and I mean real tears) the bloody dog keeps dying.
2. Redneck Country Music – the more patriotic and right-wing the better (you listen to Rasta Reggae, don’t you, so don’t preach to me about lunatic beliefs)
3. Cheap, nasty, full of sugar & additives sweeties: a heartless bastard gave me a box of Fortnum & Mason fruit jellies for Christmas : pah, get me a proper box of Meltis now!
Apart from the above I am normal
Marley & Me.
*Gulp*
U2
The Police Academy films (well, 1,3 & 7)
Monosodium Glutumate (the Chinese have been using it for hundreds of years)
I also like crab sticks Poppy. White fish protein. Mmmmmmm.
I’m glad you called them crab sticks. That’s how I first knew them, as crab sticks.
Crab sticks!
Alan’s fact of the day:
“Crabsticks” do not actually contain any crab and from 1993 manufacturers have been legally obliged to label them “Crab flavoured sticks”.
Another one of those tomorrow.
In Sweden they’re called Surimi sticks.
Great for cooking, and extremely cheap. Love’em!
Are they not “Crab’s Ticks” then?
80s’ music
Reality TV
Ianess
C’mon Gary; EVERYONE likes Ianess. He beats us up if we don’t.
Middlerabbit is the true choice of mavericks.
Singles – the ‘Gen X’ movie
Funkydory – Rachel Stevens
Flickr – part of yahoo good grief.
1. The Seekers
2. Bounty bars
3. Saudi Arabia
“Saudi Arabia” is a brilliant answer to this question.
Are Bounty Bars generally reviled? More so than the doubledecker for instance? Who surveys the racks of bars and goes ‘You know my instant gratification needs are best met at this point by a doubledecker’. The withdrawal of the cardboard shelf was I agree a sad day in coconut-filled chocolate bars.
Not as much as the tinfoil from the Kit Kat. (Especially for the post-choccie dragon chaser)..
Ooof, you’re not wrong there.
Bugger, wrong song.
I love Bounty Bars
Dido
Doubledeckers
Er…
Chumbawamba,
Black Pudding,
Birmingham
I’m deffo with you on the first two – don’t know enough about Brum, but I do like the accent which is frequently derided.
I’m going to copy Bingo and say…
1. Exercise. Love it, virtually any form/type discipline. Especially love lifting as heavy as I can, just for the hell of it. Not competitive with other people at all.
2. Barenaked Ladies: ‘One Week’. I think I actually bought this. I may have bought the album but I daren’t check. See also Spin Doctors: ‘Two Princes’.
3. Exams. Yeah I know. 😀
Oh also thermal underwear.
God, this makes me sound insufferable. But currently very warm. (Love Double Deckers by the way but yeah, you would never specifically choose one; luckily they tend to come in shit selection boxes).
Coooool. Weights are awesome; totally right that the only person you need to worry about competing with is yourself. The feeling of lifting something you never really believed you’d ever be capable of is one of the best out there in any sport.
At last, someone understands, rather than thinking I am a bit strange. Have no muscles but I’m trying!
Absolutely everyone starts with no muscles, that’s what makes it so cool. The weights make you humble before they make you strong.
Here’s a classic Henry Rollins article which does a great job of expressing it all and you may get something out of (I know I did): http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/strength-articles/iron-henry-rollins
Ah thanks, yeah I’ve read that before (big Rollins fan) but worth reading again. Been at it about 25 years now; being a gurl and more of a natural ectomorph doesn’t help but I keep plugging away.
That damned deadlift though. *kicks barbell*
Oops! 25 years – bloody hell.
Deadlifts are brutal, but squats are worse.
Yeah but it’s 25 years of one step forward, two steps back (injuries, etc). Squats are terrible for me (minor back problems) but I’m finally learning to do them properly.
(Apols to all for hi-jack.)
I have a similar issue with deadlifts – have to be careful and not get carried away. With those big Olympic lifts form is everything, and even when you think you’re nailing it you’re generally not quite balanced right. Filming your sets can really help you see where you’re going wrong – also a great ego check!
Yes, absolutely; a few years ago I filmed myself for a trainer friend who was horrified! Also got told to work on my posture. *slumps in front of computer*
A good check on the ego indeed; I had to/have to re-learn lots of things due to bad habits. Humbling. But that’s good.
Form is more important than weight. Strength increases slowly. Never train when sore or even worse injured. If it’s painful you are doing it wrong.
Diet trumps everything. Without paying attention to diet you are wasting your time.
Seems like the ends of the boxes are being cut off – Safari on mac Mini. Probably shit browser problem.
Doing it in Chrome as well
Frankie Boyle
The music of Gary Glitter
Melody Maker
Courtney Love
Dance Moms (Tantrums & Tiaras of the US dance world)
Roast Beef Monster Munch
Nothing wrong with Roast Beef Monster Munch. Yum!
I’m with you on Courtney. She’s a Goddess in my world.
I love Courtney.
Prefer Hole to Nirvana any day.
I knew I was amongst friends!!
There are those who believe one is the route to the other…
I tell your mam of you.
Jeremy Corbyn – well he doesn’t seem very popular round here
Coldplay
The Moody Blues
Runrig. There. I said it.
Human Resources.
Haggis
HR – arf!
Joe Satriani & widdly-widdly guitar music
Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygene and Equinox
Vangelis
Mahavishnu Orchestra (Colin H and me in a group of 2?)
The Boat that Rocked
Someone else already suggested Black Pudding so instead can I say Beetroot. If Beetroot too obvious and liked by more than just a few then Tongue.
Oh and Retro everyone knows Birmingham is best City in Country.
I properly like the MO. Burt does too. The gang of four – that’s 8 necks between us.
If you’re talking pickled beetroot, I am with you there also. I can eat a whole jar – and a while later you get the value-added fun of purple wee-wee (What do you mean, you don’t get that?)
I also adore Mahavishnu Orchestra.
In fact, you might say.
Another big fan of the Vish. Book @paulwaring too 😉
No,poo that is red. Scared the bejesus out of me the first time I saw it. Blame it on Aldi they had more colouring in theirs than Waitrose.
Aldi have red in their poo? Is this company policy?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you still can’t trust those Germans.
Nickelback (well, the All The Right Reasons album anyway)
James Cordon
R4 comedy such as Clare In The Community or Ed Reardon’s Week
Enya
Daytime TV quiz shows
Russell Brand
Pink Floyd – The Division Bell
Godfather part 3
Christmas lights and stuff starting in late November
The Christmas thing btw. I fucking love it. I live in Texas. As far as I concerned, day after Thanksgiving is start of Christmas season. Music, tree, lights and all. It’s skill.
“Skill”!? …. I see sir grew up in the eighties!
“Skill” is an abbreviation of the term Skillage in the Village (not a lot of people know that (or care))
Fry’s Turkish Delight.
The Bible.
The Bryan Adams album “Reckless”.
Oh dear god – Bryan Adams.
My second year at Uni I shared a house with a mate of mine who was obsessed with Bryan Adams. I don’t use that word lightly – I mean “obsessed” in a way that makes the people on here look positively unengaged when it comes to their favourite bands. He owned everything the man had ever recorded, right down to the last b-side, had a bootleg collection, had seen him live upwards of 50 times by his early 20s and would later propose to his girlfriend in the front row at an Adams gig he’d dragged the poor girl to.
For a solid year, I listened to more Bryan Adams than can possibly be healthy for a man, as said friend attempted to sway the rest of the household into joining him on his godless aural death trudge. He managed several conversions, but not me. Not even when he LEFT AN EXTRA COPY OF RECKLESS IN MY CD COLLECTION WHEN I WASN’T LOOKING in the hope that I would come to like it by some strange form of osmosis.
Having heard them all, I can confirm that it is the best Bryan Adams album. That’s about as far as I’m willing to go.
I would also suggest that this is the best thing the Groover from Vancouver ever did. I don’t believe it’s on any of the albums, but it demonstrates a (relative) lightness of touch wholly absent from the rest of his cursed oeuvre.
Aw cmon man, only someone wilfully hardening their heart-style organ could possibly dislike Run To You, One Night Love Affair, Heaven or Summer of 69.
ok, I’ll admit that Tina Turner duet is a bit of an endurance test, and Kids Wanna Rock should be re-titled Kids Wanna Puke, but I like this record.
I further maintain that if it weren’t for Robin Hood ruining him for the listening public, it would be viewed as a perfectly respectable effort.
Have you ever heard “We’re Gonna Win”, Bob?
Because I have. Heard it at least once every week for a year. Heard all different live versions of it. Heard the demos.
Here it is.
And IT’S NOT EVEN HIS WORST RECORD.
Reckless may well be a great album, but I wouldn’t know, because when I hear Bryan Adams’ voice it has much the same effect as walking in a crowd and suddenly glimpsing the face of your former torturer. The familiar icy wave of terror. The moment of doubt – no, it couldn’t be. The desire to run, even as your feet are rooted to the spot.
I survived, man. I made it outta there. And I’m never going back. NEVER!
I counter-propose that one he did with Sporty, “When You’re Gone.” Everyone likes that one.
Try listening to it 500 times while your housemate winds the video back and forth because he thinks Sporty Spice “does a sexy look”.
Still, at least it wasn’t “I Wanna Be (Your Underwear)”.
*shudder*
I like the Bryan too. “Summer of 69” is brilliant. And Fry’s Turkish Delight has been my gateway drug back into eating sweet shit more than once after staying off it for ages because some ancient advertising campaign planted the idea that they are moderately healthy, or at least not too bad, in my brain. I once ate 3 on a long drive with a large coffee in the cup holder.
Partridge.
You weren’t driving in bare feet were you?
I’m going with people here:
Tom Cruise (yes there’s the Scientology stuff, but his movies are usually great, and he plays the part of movie star to perfection)
Ronaldo (yes he’s a pumped up prima donna who’s prone to hissy fits, but he’s a footballer, you need to have an ego, its part of the game.)
Ricky Gervais ( He makes me laugh)
Dire Straits. Saw them on the Making Movies tour when a 16 year fumbling about with a guitar and they were f**king excellent. BIA remains desperately hard to like. So, I don’t.
Wagon Wheels. E numbers covered in not chocolate. I think so!
Hoovering.
I had much the same experience with Ocean Colour Scene live. Perky pop professionally played and all round a thoroughly enjoyable night out . So sue me, hepcats.
Sue you?
Not a bit of it. I’m coming out in support of both DS and OCS.
It was only the sheer ubiquity of Brothers In Arms that saw them maligned as Coffee Table Yuppie Music. The first 3 albums are corkers, and Alchemy is a magnificent Live album.
Ocean Colour Scene? OK, Mod Revival-Revival, but there weren’t too many others doing what they did, and Live they were pretty damn good
I really love the first OCS album, which OCS themselves hate. Several fathoms beneath the underdog.
Always liked The Dire. They made a couple of execrable singles which typify the hideous 80s for me – Sitting by the pool, Walk of life, Money for nothing – but much of their stuff is top notch. I even like BIA actually.
BIA is a good album. Maybe not as good as Love Over Gold or Makin’ Movies, but a fine slab of plastic.
Problem is it includes the execrable “Walk Of Life”, the over-played “Money For Nothing” (the greatest guitar rif ever? it’s a nick from Satisfaction), and the production is pretty limp.
Hellman’s mayonnaise
Goofball car movies starring Burt Reynolds
Hampstead
What’s not to like about Hellmann’s?
On Cumberland-sausage sandwiches, everything, I’ve been told.
Who doesn’t like Hellmans?
Hellmans?
Salad Cream for ponces and the aspirational middle class!
I love Smokey and the Bandit. I was hoping the Scottish government would pass the minimum pricing legislation for alcohol so that we could have a remake where some lovable rogues travel from Edinburgh to Berwick to drive a lorry full of McEwan’s Export back over the border.
Hampstead’s nice. I’d happily live there if I became a squillionaire overnight.
1. Benny Hill.
2. ‘Nicola’ by Bert Jansch, the ’67 ‘folk’ L.P. with a swingin’ beat group vibe all through it.
3. OHMSS – not the best Bond actor (Connery), possibly the best Bond film, definitely the best Bond soundtrack.
Along a similar theme to above, playing football in the freezing rain and wind in January. All the lightweight skilful pacey kids don’t fancy it, and it’s the domain of the heavy one-paced six-foot+ centreback like me.
Desperados “Tequila-flavoured” beer. I even like the version with the twist of lime. But the Guarana infused one is a bit much even for me.
Menswe@r
Wow. Menswe@r.
I really like Being Brave, but…. you like Little Miss Pinpoint Eyes?
I’m willing to concede that it’s not exactly their finest hour 🙂
With hindsight, attempting to rhyme “toxic icicle” with “bicycle” was ill-advised at best…
I remember being 16 years old, buying the album and immediately listening to it on the concourse at Tunbridge Wells railway station.
Words cannot express the internal struggle between my desire to like this much-hyped band and my first encounter with LMPPE. It was like turning up to your own arranged marriage and finding Julie Burchill waiting impatiently for you at the altar.
Yngwie Malmstein
Eric Clapton (reviled here anyway)
Tom Clancy
” Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, it’s pronounced “Fronkensteen.”
“Yngwie Malmstein: No, it’s pronounced “Malmsteen.”
Walking (stumbling) through densely wooded countryside in the night. In the dark without a torch.
Grey Squirrels.
Lists.
Your post reminded me of Andrew Marvell’s line about stumbling on melons… which in turn reminds me pleasantly of finding hastily discarded porn mags in hedgerows, one of the glories of an ’80s boyhood.
Andrew Marvell was from Hull too. And he was way cool.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Okay, the Tina Turner stuff is a bit poor, but I really like the second half of the film with the lost kids and all the mythic resonance. (And much as I loved Fury Road, it really needed a proper ending monologue like this one has. And would it have killed them to put a gyrocopter in it, huh?)
Rubbish cheap crisps – Discos, Space Raiders, the lot (except Scampi Fries, which are proof that Satan exists and wants us to suffer)
Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi. I would also ask the judge to take Bad Medicine into account.
I really like Beyond Thunderdome too. It has an unfairly bad rep. To be honest, I prefer it to the first movie.
Bon Jovi: Young Guns II soundtrack represent!
Wanted Dead Or Alive is brilliant.
INPO.
Within you, without you
Whats up? – 4 Non Blondes
Spaceman – Babylon Zoo
Hull.
Super Noodles.
iTunes.
Hull
I played my copy of Arthur Brown ‘s Kingdom Come album Journey from 1973 today and found via a rubber stamp on the inner sleeve that it had at one time been sold by The Book and Record Exchange of 97 Princes Avenue and 43 Carr Lane, Hull.
Perhaps you know of this establishment Moose?
Moose may or may not know of that establishment but I purchased a (knackered) copy of “Black Sabbath” from the Princes Avenue branch in 1973.
Great stuff. The ‘ull Book and Record Exchange lives on via the Afterword.
After my time, but my Dad’s got a load of records with that stamp on – including, I think, the first Electric Flag album.
I think that unit is now a chip shop…. so it could be a lot worse.
Sultanas on a pizza – not just a little sprinkling, but loads.
Made In Chelsea – a dreadful, dreadful programme full of vacuous idiots. I can’t stop watching it.
Boney M.
The last is surely a side effect of your car boot/chazza adventures. Boney M are as ubiquitous now as Klaus Wunderlich once was. (What is it with Germans?)
Klaus Wunderlich and his mighty organ.
It certainly is. The Torero Band fixation though, specifically the Christmas album, is down to you, dear Moose.
You’re welcome, ma’am!
🙂 I often buy copies when I see them, just to give away to poor unsuspecting acquaintances. In fact I’m posting one out to a Twitter chum today. ???
The daughter (mikethepsdottir) recently found herself on a plane to Iceland with Boney M. They weren’t going on a Holi-Holiday, they had a gig. The Boney M Christmas Concert, no less.
Didn’t the guy in Boney M die last year or so? Not that he had much to do, easily replaced.
As were all of them, I seem to recall that the original ladies got the boot quite early on.
Basically, any two ladies plus a half-naked dude can call themselves Boney M I think!
Not having kept up with things in the Boney M universe, I really couldn’t say. Perhaps @mini-breakfast can advise. They’re very popular in Iceland, anyhow.
I can’t be any help, sorry. I’m living in the past.
Hmmm…it’s complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boney_M.#Later_Years
Jeez, time flies – he died in 2010 already…
It reads like a Starbucks franchise, the account of the different Boney M line-ups around the world at different times.
Fab singles all the same. Cheese of the best kind!
Tammy Wynette
Gamelan music
Going to church (though mine may be atypically accepting, open-minded and sane)
Love gamelan
We are a small band of believers….
Even better live
Carry On Films
Red Dwarf
Formula 1 Motor Racing
Contemplated adding Marillion, but I would have to bound it to the Fish Years only, as I have no great love for the Hogarth-era (don’t know why, it’s just the way it is)
and whilst I’m here, I’ll add another vote for Seafood Sticks (unless they come from Aldi, and then they taste (and smell) distinctly dodgy)
Top Gear
Obladi oblada
Bestiality
I have to say I was very unsure about owning up to one of these, but at the end of the day I do honestly think Top Gear was pretty entertaining.
Arf!
Top Gear was entertaining.
I sometimes wished it had more about the Cars in it, but that’s just me.
It really was 3 mates having a laugh whilst driving around.
MacDonald’s – Not very keen about the food but they are fast, fairly cheap, the kids always eat well and there are good toilets.
Sub-zero temperatures in the winter. We went above zero on Monday and everything was one great, sloshy, slushy puddle and it’s no fun to go out in sleet. Mr Frost has now resumed his normal service and we have three inches of fresh snow. Gorgeous!
My last choice will mean nothing to anyone here but I can assure you that DuCool or Locust would not be seen dead listening to any of it.
Synthy, 1980s, Danish pop sung by girls with names like Anne, Sanna or Anne-Dorte.
And just to show that I am taking this seriously (and to really make myself cringe), here’s an example.
I adored the proper coldness of a Svensk winter in the way only an outsider can, I think. The Decembers of the 90s in England were depressingly mild. In Ljungby it started snowing at the end of October….. glorious.
Nah, I love cold winters too, the colder the better! After a couple of disappointing past years I’m very very happy right now. But so is everyone else I know, so I think I’ll disqalify it from my list.
It’ll have to be:
Ben Elton
Revolution 9
Olivia Newton John’s music
Three things I’m pretty sure won’t make me any new friends on the Afterword!
Not sure about “the colder the better” @locust. When it was minus 15 last week it took some getting used to.
Is Ben Elton an AW hate object? I’m not really up to speed with him. But the writing he did for Blackadder was excellent.
Paul Daniels
Cher Lloyd (for a long time With Ur Love was my most played track according to my iTunes – it’s still number three!)
crisp sandwiches (ready salted, white bread)
That Cher Lloyd track is class.
Jeremy Corbyn’s politics
Kylie Minogue’s music
Theresa May’s look
I said this before on one of our previous sites, Theresa May – I would.
So would I, separate thread needed
Yes, great thread. Some truly horrific things some folk like……Theresa May’s look ?
Pim Fortuyn
Cutting my toe nails and giving them a chew
Give ‘Em Enough Rope
Give em Enough Rope is the best Clash album – fact
I think so too, but it’s always rubbished by the critics.
The first track in itself justifies the very existence of rock’n’roll.
First three tracks on that are the best opening salvo to any elpee anywhere ever.
And the cover is worth the price of the record alone.
History shows Pearlman right. Best produced Clash album too.
Peanut Butter
Pixie boots
Cherie Blair
Alien Sex Fiend
St Elmo’s Fire
Motorway service stations
Motorway service stations. Yup. Especially Wetherby.
Ah yes, Wetherby. Regular haunt when we were ferrying daughter too and fro to Newcastle Uni. Excellent services. Of course Tebay is very good, but actually everyone thinks that so doesn’t count for this thread
But is Wetherby better than the pleasuredome that is Donny? Hmmmm.
Is this the same Wetherby that has an always full car-park meaning a 2 mile walk, 45000 people inside and 345 women queuing for the toilet? All this is, of course, is forgotten once the Cornish Pastie van parked at the main entrance is espied..
Indeed. Awful/wonderful.
Anyone been to Gloucester services? Totally middle class, but if I lived nearby I’d go there even if I wasn’t going anywhere else!
Tebay is a new experience of Service Station.
No McDonalds or Starbucks, oh no Tebay has it’s own Farm Shop.
(Northbound is better than Southbound, the Car Park is easier (for some inexplicable reason)
Interesting site if you’re as dull as I am, and enjoying reading about this stuff:
http://www.motorwayservices.info/
and this one:
http://motorwayservicesonline.co.uk/
There are websites for such things? Newport Pagnall. Mmmmmm.
A forum! ‘Teddington Hands: Coffee machine is Costa Express’.
And don’t forget Sutton Scotney, one of the finest pre-war Delta bluesmen.
Bluesman Sutton Scotney – ably assisted by Leigh Delamere with vocal impressions and noodling
the much talked about collaboration with Birchanger Green came to nothing
Michael Wood was way out of his depth on drums, and Woolley Edge forgot his pedal board.
There used to be a Little Chef on the M1 just outside Wetherby. We would stop there on the way up to Newcastle to see my lot.
Staffed exclusivley by Yorkshire ladies of a certain age, all either frying bacon or wiping down the tables in the restaurant. All of them lovely.
They’d make a fuss of our daughter when she was smaller. An extra sausage or piece of bacon on her plate. And more juice, unasked for.
Don’t bother looking for it, it’s not there anymore.
Why are you people so into service stations? Is it well-lit dogging you’re into?
Slot machines. Overpriced tat. The hand wipes you forgot. All human life is there. Always a Starbucks or Costa, so crap, dried-up indulgent cakes. Those machines in the bogs with the things you chew instead of cleaning your teeth.
There’s just nothing like them, anywhere.
Mainly though the hope and expectation of travel. I also love love love train stations and airports, for the same reason.
Also have a memory of a service station from a few years ago. My son was less than a year and being somewhat difficult, adding to the choir of squalling babies all on their long journey to the frozen north.
Took him out of the cafe for a break for us and everyone else. He was dressed in a striped onesie. A woman passed us, looked at him and said: ‘ooooh it’s the Stripey Peril!’
From that day on, he was/is the Stripey Peril.
On a particularly M25-blighted trip up to the North West recently we stopped at Beaconsfield services on the M40 (the one with the pub). That’s not too bad – it’s more like a food court than your usual services. We usually end up at Cherwell Valley (nice, open) or Warwick (not quite so nice but does have 3 Starbucks on the South side, bizarrely).
Best one I’ve ever been to is Carnforth, which is probably more of a truck stop. Proper food. Have always fancied Tebay but don’t go that way much.
Second Coming.
Rocky films.
Scampi Fries.
Did the first thing happen then? I missed that. Obviously not well received. Had He ditched the beard’n’sandals schtick?
There are people who don’t like the Rocky films?!
All of my immediate circle. The fools.
Africa by Toto
Women’s style/gossip mags
Going to work
Katie Hopkins
The Frog Song
Are You Being Served
Wait… come back!
Supertramp
MASH (sitcom and film)
Timothy Dalton as Bond.
People don’t like MASH? Really?
I think MASH is widely, if not universally, dismissed as being too sentimental. It did have its clunkers, especially towards the end of the TV show, but they were always watchable, and the final episode is a masterpiece. Most people of my acquaintance dislike the movie for not having the cast of the TV show. I love ’em all – TV, film and book.
80s Goth
Megadeth
The Jezza McVyle Show
Michael McIntyre
Tony Blair
Doner kebabs
Can’t join you with any of them Blue Boy – just Michael McIntyres hairstyle gives me the screaming abdabs. Looks like someone has put an axe to his head – thinking about it, might not be a bad idea.
Wot, not even donor kebabs?! Heathen.
I admit a little of MacIntyre goes a long way, but in small doses he can be funny.
Blair – well, Iraq was a catastrophe but when I look at his record against this lot….
A Doner Kebabs is a health food.
Carbohydrate from the pitta bread, proteins from the “meat”, and if you have salad on the top it counts as at least 3 of your 5 a day.
And the chilli sauce is always useful for clearing any lingering blockages.
Ah, let’s see here
– Gilmore girls (don’t judge me)
– Bob Dylan’s Street legal (since up to now i never encountered anyone who likes it)
– admitting to getting sentimental and just letting it be, things from the past, like this four song Tiny desk concert by Tom Jones. Second song in, he does Green green grass of home, a song I heard on the radio 45 years ago, daily, but of course never admitting to myself or others to give it a moment’s thought. Now I welcome it like an old friend, almost teary eyed and caught unaware. Someone please post this in one click version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=118zckalkJ0
Green green grass starts at about 3.30 and as you’ll see he not nearly phones it in, he gives it all, bless him, a true gent, a dedicated entertainer and, comes to think of it, one of a very few survivors of past musical eras.
I love Steet Legal -absolutely one of my favourite Dylan albums. Now if you’d said ‘Saved’ or ‘Down in the Groove’…..
Street Legal is properly good, all the way through as well. Very easily the best Bob album between Desire and Oh Mercy.
I’m sorry @Izzy, you’ll have to come up with two more, as Gilmore Girls and Street Legal are both ace.
Count me in for both of those as well.
Here it is Izzy
Green Green Grass holds childhood memories for me too, just a great song.
I once blubbed like a baby at a Ted Hawkins gig when he sang it.
Balls!, it doesn’t want to imbed for some reason.
Freedom of expression
Cultural imperialism
Captain Beefheart
You like freedom of expression? Fascist!!
You’d better look for a safe place, sharpish.
‘Space’ is the ‘place’
What, up there with the Russians?
They know a thing or two about freedom of expression.
er…
1) Deep fried pizza. The first few pizzas I had were deep fried. We didn’t know any better in our town and, you know what? The ghastly excuses for pizza we had in the 80s BENEFITED from being deep fried. And I had one a couple of weeks ago. It was BRILLIANT.
2) Pornography. Ok, it’s a tricky one this. But if your pregnant wife is having a terrible trimester which is killing her libido what the fuck is a man to do? Also, if you are a potential sex criminal, a supply of this shit might keep you from tipping over. I hope you all appreciate which of the two is personal experience and which is hypothetical.
3) LBC. It’s mostly awful apart from James O’Brien. But I reckon it’s a complete guide to how a lot of UK folks think these days. So it’s compelling and addictive. But while Iain Dale’s interview of his mate Donal Blaney, head of the section of the tory party which has been bullying its members to death, was in many ways a disgrace, it was also fascinating. An insight to how people I loathe, despise and hate think.
(U2 I revile and just hate. Sorry.)
Well I haven’t even bothered to look through the 122 other comments so maybe someone else has picked these…
1. Emerson Lake and Palmer – 1st album (it’s called “Emerson Lake and Palmer”)
2. Emerson Lake and Palmer – “Tarkus”
3. Emerson Lake and Palmer – “Pictures At An Exhibition”
Fear not @Mousey
No one has taken em !!
I like a lot of things already listed. In fact I never knew Dire Straits were considered “reviled’ until just now although as mentioned above both Walk of Life and Twisting by the Pool are genuinely terrible.
1/ I love Copacabana by Barry Manilow and I pity anyone who doesn’t
2/ I’d rather eat a tin of baked beans than any fancy meal anywhere
3/ Modern episodes of The Simpsons. Not as good as the first ten seasons but they still have some very funny things. A Rasta Itchy and Scratchy! That’s gold!
Love Actually
Gregg’s
Democracy
Storage Wars…even the crappy UK version
Smooth jazz…the shinier the better
Sub-Rebus UK crime fiction – Peter Robinson/Stephen Booth/Peter James
Waking up in the dark early mornings and walking to work with nobody about.
The Persuaders
Personal space on public transport.
Ah The Persuaders, great telly.
Alright, since I’ve been faintly accused of coasting, here’s two more. This time it’s personal.
– nose-picking, without, mind, the second part as defined by wikipedia: “may include the succeeding action of ingesting the mucus picked from the nose”
– Sailor’s A glass of champagne
Coasting is a term I learned from Frasier (using as little effort as possible), not sure other english-speaking territories use it.
Nope, sorry
Nose picking makes a mundane life exciting – treasure hunting from the comfort of your sofa.
“Glass of Champagne” is a joy!
Must try harder.
Judge John Deed – There are re-runs on some obscure Freeview channel at the moment. I am recording, and sometimes even watching, them.
Cheap crisps – Aldi multi-pack cheese and onion are vastly superior to hand cut, rosemary and sea salt, pan fried Kettle chips or whatever. They just are – crisp golden, and not stinking of burnt sunflower oil
Cardigans – I have been telling people for 30 years that cardies are cool. Occasionally I have been able to stop telling them because they are briefly in fashion; then the wheel turns and I have to start all over again.
Cardigans!! I wear nothing else!!
With my slacks, plain black shoes, flat cap, car coat and driving gloves.
Glad you clarified that ‘I wear nothing else’ for us.
Dylan Christian albums
Australian cricket team
Australian Rugby team
Actually make that Australian sporting teams
So that gives me one more. Hmmm
Vegemite
It’s really only the Aussie cricket team that is hard to love. We don’t mind the Wallabies or Socceroos and Aussie golfers tend to be likeable too.
Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band
The Sky At Night
Carol Vorderman (It’s just lust, honest)
Go on then:
Mrs Brown’s Boys – you can see the jokes coming a mile off, and it’s desperately crude at times but it still raises a smile. And it has a bit of heart.
Chris Evans – UK version, not the US actor
Kraft Cheese Slices – not proper cheese but they taste nice (and nothing melts in quite the same way).
Cheese slices are great.
I have them in a sandwich because I can’t trust myself to cut a sane amount of cheese. Rationing, you might call it. Must be squishy bread, tho’. Mmmmm.
When I was a student I used to have cheap Co-Op white bread, toasted, with Marmite and a cheese slice in. The Co-Op bread was unusually small in size, so a cheese slice fitted it perfectly. Thinking about it now makes me realise why I used to doze off in afternoon lectures.
A sane amount of cheese is anything less than half a block, isn’t it?
‘Allo, ‘Allo. Especially the policeman.
Sprouts. I love them. Stir-fried, steamed or made into bhajis.
Antiques Roadshow. I’ve missed very few episodes since it started.
Love me some sprouts. Never tried them as bhajis though – interesting.
I cut them into thin slices, and sweat them in a bit of butter and olive oil until they’re just softening. Then carry on as per onion b’s, with spices and gram flour batter. Gert lush.
Sprout bhaji started as a joke, with a friend who hates the gorgeous green globes.
Bubble and squeak is also food of the gods, especially alongside some liver and onions, swimming in gravy.
Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodles
Walking in the freezing, pouring rain – but not if it’s windy, wind is shit.
The smell of my own farts.
Liver
Shed Seven
White reggae
Disco Down and Going For Gold are tremendous records.
And Dolphin, Chasing Rainbows, Where Have You Been Tonight?, Ocean Pie… The list goes on. Change Giver was as good a debut as Definitely Maybe and with much better production values. Great live band, too.
Agreed. I didn’t like them much when they were first out there, but went to see them with some mates, and by ‘eck they were a good live band.
I like Dolphin and Getting Better, I think.
Getting Better is another beauty. I saw them live most recently at the Victorious Festival in 2014. Now, admittedly it was my stag and I was both refreshed and ready to enjoy a band from my youth… But they were outstandingly good ( in a converting friends who had been sceptical kind of way) and they pulled out a cover of Born To Run that has firmly convinced me that all reformed, unloved bands should adopt it as an anthem to ensure bonhomie and good will flows stagewards on such occasions. Great lost band. I might even rouse myself to a thread once I’ve finished moving house and deciding who I can be once I leave Muswell Hill…
Barbara Streisand
Dinner Date
Sainsbury own brand ‘budget’ white chocolate.
Sainsburys Savers Shortbread Fingers
3 more from me.
Love actually (RIP Alan Rickman)
Belfast child
Not sure if this counts, but loud/lairy shirts (Floral/paisley)
ELP passing off Bartok and Janacek compositions as their own (above @Mousey) is indeed worthy of revulsion. Belfast Child , though, is a completely other level of perfidy @Jackthebiscuit. Depends, I suppose, on how you regard the integrity of songs passed down over several generations, in this case She Moved Through The Fair. Take the melody and fuck on it? Acceptable? Songs do need protecting, it seems.
This the best thread of the year so far. No, no, no to Mrs brown’s Boys, cardigans, ELP,motorway service stations, Derek Crapton,and F1 racing but yes to Caz Vordaman, Baz Manilow’s Copacabana and many more.
Great thread!
TMFM
Barry Manilow – “Mandy”
Judge Rinder – becoming an obsession.
The video for Bowie/Jagger’s “Dancing In The Street” – a comic masterpiece.
Maria Carey – All I Want For Christmas is You. I’ve got loads of tasteful blues/soul/Motown/Rock ‘n’ roll/Spector Christmas records to make the season I loathe pass as easily as possible – but this is the one that makes me sing along loudest.
The Goldbergs – absolutely appalling and ghastly sitcom, but I keep on watching. There’s a new series soon!
Crocs – officially the world’s most ugly and uncool footwear, but a godsend since arthritis joined the party. Even more embarrassing to Mrs P than Maria.
Had the Spector album been recorded and released in 1994, that Mariah Carey record would have been on it. Brilliant tune, and, when she’s not trying to song 10 notes where one will do, a very good singer.
Crocs, wear them every day since moving to Dubai. Love them
1. Moulin Rouge!
2. REM – Around The Sun
3. Manchester United
1. Roger Moore as Bond
2. Anchovies on Pizza
3. Visage
Anchovies on pizza … Mmmmm
But doesn’t everybody of a certain generation (the one who were teenagers during Moore’s reign) think that he was the best and only Bond?
I certainly do (the others take it seriously, for god’s sake! Ridiculous) and all of my friends of the same age do too.
Exactly!….i’ve never heard anyone else say it though, Moore embraces the ridiculousness of it all perfectly.
Roger Moore is the best James Bond.
For many years I cited Connery as the best, but realised in later years this was just a crowd-following, trying to be cool affectation.
James Bond is Roger Moore (and vice versa, obviously)
1. Mike Ashley – So he’s made some stupid decisions but I may be the only person in Newcastle who thinks that somewhere there is a parallel universe in which MA didn’t buy NUFC and they are in a much worse situation. Mark Viduka and Michael Owen are still on the pay-list for starters.
2. Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs – Yes he plays the same songs every week. And it’s Steve Wright. But singing along to Woman In Love by Barbra Streisand at the top of your voice and watching the accompanying look of embarrassment and disdain on your daughter’s face is what Sunday mornings are for.
3. A nice Greggs Corned Beef Pasty – no explanation necessary. Ambrosia in flaky pastry.
I thought Mike Ashley was a hero figure in Newcastle. The renaming of the stadium is surely testament to this belief.
Nope, Ashley is a piece of shit on every level, but Greggs pasties are indeed the food of the gods.
Couple of seasons ago myself and some mates, aghast at the fat controllers choice of W*nga as shirt sponsors, attempted to make this come true…
http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/oo78/clampdown59/afterwordy/D4319AA7-B00B-4A8B-97F3-AC34D88185B8.png.jpeg
An endorsement deal with Greggs may just tempt Micky Quinn out of retirement
A season ticket in the ‘Steak Bake Stand’ would be a dream come true.
Having any advertiser’s name on the shirt looks crap, but having a loan shark like Wonga on it is hideous. Ashley does seem to have staying power though. I thought he would go on several occasions but he managed to tough it out.
Mike Ashley is probably a horrible man, but he can’t win at Newcastle. He’s been pilloried for years for not spending more money on players. This season Newcastle have the third or fourth highest net spend in the country (and they’ve just lashed out another £12m on Shelvey) and he’s still getting stick for having bought the wrong players.
I wouldn’t want him to own my club, I don’t like his company, the Wonga sponsorship is terrible and I think the stadium naming farrago has been bloody awful, but he’ll be slated in Newcastle whatever he does: Alan Pardew was never welcome up there either, and he’s been repeatedly proved a pretty decent manager since.
Olly Murs
Hale & Pace
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Fray Bentos pies
Taxidermy
German accents
Just remembered something.
Queen. Not THE Queen (lorra lorra lully couple LULLY BIFF NICE BIFF) but Queen, the band.
I don’t love everything of theirs, or about them, but I like ’em.
I think there are probably more Queen fans on here than you may think. I’m one for a start. I think Queen fans have got to the point when they can’t be bothered responding anymore when people have a go at them for being ridiculous/camp/OTT/tories (delete as appropriate). I think the same goes for ABBA fans (count me in there, too).
I remember on one of the Word Podcasts Stuart Maconie laid into Queen, describing them as a “pantomime Led Zeppelin”. I thought that said a lot about him to be honest, because for me a pantomime Led Zeppelin sounds wonderful fun.
The Carpenters
Match of the Day
Tony Blackburn
Big Brother – Series 1-10 (The Channel 4 years)
James Last And His Orchestra
Paris Hilton – Stars Are Blind
Cheap Polish lager
Free Jazz
Death In Paradise
Dallas (the late lamented soap, not the location of JFK’s demise)
Marmite (you either love it or hate it – a bit like Marmite)
ABBA
Hmmm…not sure ABBA are reviled, frankly. Revered, more like. In my house at least 😉
1. Tragic Band era Captain Beefheart
2. The Cat in the Hat movie
3. Michael Gove
I’ll get my (frequently used) coat…
I’m with you on Tragic Band. The ’74 live recordings are excellent, particularly ‘Full Moon, Hot Sun’, with the Captain in excellent voice. I’d give a review of the Glasgow Apollo show I was at, but, unfortunately, my mates and I were ejected after 3 numbers for excessive drunkenness. I’d foolishly attracted their attention a short while earlier by loudly heckling the execrable Henry Cow and then ignoring their warnings to stop consuming the bottles of vintage Hirondelle I’d smuggled in. I retain a vague memory of Beefheart striding on stage, but that’s all folks.
Spot on re the 74 live recordings – the Live London set is outrageously good.
I saw Beefheart twice around ’74. At the Victoria Apollo and at Brunel Uni, in Uxbridge.
At the Apollo gig (although it may have been called something else in 1974) I took a young lass on our first date. She’d never heard of Beefheart, but I said not to worry and assured her she’d love it.
Of course she hated every second of it. Funnily enough there was no second date and I never saw her again.
Tales from Topographic Oceans
Jazz-rock fusion of the most elevator kind
Marmite, anchovies, black olives, licorice, liver
This is hard…people keep bagging my choices. But…
Stagg chilli (NOT the veg one, it’s got to have those little square bits of, er, ‘meat’.)
Light music (eg this)
Sandwich spread
Oh, those streamlined LMS Coronation Class locomotives – still achingly beautiful almost 80 years after they were built.
Of course the rival LNER came back with the A4 Pacifics, including the even more elegant Mallard which still holds the world speed record for a steam locomotive at a shade over 126 mph
http://i.imgur.com/AF0qTrl.jpg
Stick an air scoop on both sides, and that would look like something out of “Captain Scarlet”
Pedant alert – the A4s were built first, starting 1935 (though Mallard was built 1938). The Coronations didn’t appear until 1937.
Another 3
Tony Blair/ new Labour (is that one or two? – I am going for one)
Bohemian Rhapsody – I adore it.
Automatic cars (as in “It’s not proper driving”) – yes it is – now fuck off.
I’ll go along with that. I got an automatic 18 months ago. I’m never going back. Objecting to them always seems enormously Alan Partridge to me, somehow. Pringle jumper, driving gloves, refers to the wife as “the wife” or, in company, “my good lady”. Hasn’t driven an automatic since 1970 but thinks it’s basically for pooves.
In twenty years time most of us will be using driver-less cars anyway. That’ll really give the Partridge Posse something to wank on about.
Says the whippersnapper.. In twenty years time most of us on here will be driving mobility scooters and we’ll be half way back from the shops when we realise we can’t remember where we live..
That’s OK. Your mobility scooter will know where you live, where you keep your doorkeys and how many sugars you like in your tea. And somewhere out there will be a company frantically monetising all that sweet, sweeeeet data.
Manual cars – the equivalent of going “why would I want a tumble dryer when I’ve got a mangle?”.
1. Multinational Companies
2. Nuclear Energy
3. Kiss
Peter Hitchens
Let It Be
Popular lagers (Carlsberg, Fosters…etc)