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What are your cultural blackspot? And why?

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Vulpes has posted a Rocky Horror Show song in the great pauses thread. It made me think that I have never heard the song and have never seen the show or film. I am vaguely familiar with the Timewarp song but I do not recall ever listening to it actively or all the way through. I have certainly not done it. I then realised I have a strong desire to go nowhere near the Rocky Horror Show. I think its the sheer cheese of what it has become – like a hen night/stag night made into a quirky gothinc musical.

I have other actvively managed blackspots.

I don’t like the idea or concept of Tull. Too much hair and flute. Time changes, folk influences. They remind of my Dad’s cooking – he would continue adding ingredients until he had no more to add.

I avoid Star Wars at all costs. It’s just not good enough to warrant the hype and love that it seems to get. To me, it’s the Greggs sausage roll of film franchises. It’s bland and boring and there are so many better options.

The Marvel universe. The film equivilant of eating delivery pizza every day. A tomato and cheese one at that. Relentlessly samey and the size of the thing is a key part of that problem.

Metal. NWOBM or traditional. It may be a hair thing again but I just don’t get it. Not enough tune and too much screeching.

I can’t be the only one to actively avoid stuff can I?

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Comments

  2. Blues Brothers – I wanted to like it and comedy films are very much my thing. I pretended to enjoy it because I didn’t want to kill the mood in the room.

    Freemasons. As ridiculous as morris dancing but at least they are getting some fresh air and exercise.

    Gambling, casinos, horse racing. Yawn.

  3. I really enjoyed your list @Leedsboy.

    But of course disagreed with a lot of it.

    I saw the Rocky HS in a theatre in the Kings Road when it a fresh and exciting.

    Likewise, the first Star Wars film in 1977 was a very big event for sci fi fans.

    But I can’t disagree with your comments about what they’ve both become.

    As regards Jethro Tull, I’m still….. Living in the past,

    • My intro to the Rocky phenom was via a full bore audience participation screening somewhere in west Lahndahn. My pals Clare & Monica dragged me along to it from their pad in Chiswick; as a result I have no idea precisely where we experienced it (I was going to say ‘saw it’ but that’s not the half of it). The place was packed, and I may possibly have been the only member of the audience not in some form of referential costume. Not that it mattered, the vibe was entirely one of joyous hilarity.

      • I first saw it at a midnight movie place in Boston in the mid-80s, when the phenomenon was still somewhat underground. Costumes, water pistols, confetti, rice and mass dancing and signing. Had never been to a film event remotely like it, now of course commodified but then something that felt subversive.

  4. Drinking/alcohol, golf, gambling, the Beatles (🥱), social media, cars, food, cycling, watches, sunbathing, audio equipment, small talk, mortgages, adulthood.

    All of that said, there are loads of things that would once have made that list that I now quite enjoy. It’s quite nice to think that there’s still time for the penny to drop on some or all of the above.

      • With you on getting drunk.
        Mild fuzziness is as far as I want to go on alcohol these days.
        I’ve never really been a pub person.
        Biographical trivia on musical artists doesn’t interest me. Beatles trivia especially has become a bit ridiculous now.
        Cars are just a means for getting from place to place. Nice to have a well-made one with creature comforts that’s pleasant to drive, but that’s about it for me and cars.
        Football/sport in general. I was never a sporty type at school and while I can appreciate a good sporting performance if I see one, I don’t really care enough about it to be bothered much. The commercialisation/industrialisation of sport and the fanatical fandom that tends to go along with it are both massive turn-offs for me.
        How seemingly rational people can get ensnared by gambling addiction is a mystery. It’s obvious that the odds are not on your side.
        Cycling/Running/The Gym. It’s obvious that taking some exercise is good for you, but to the point of self-punishment? Nah.
        I cannot sunbathe. Out and about in the summer, I need to be doing something. Just lying about baking in the sun is annoying. I gets me bad-tempered after quite a short while.

        Quite a list of other stuff if I could be bothered to continue.

        • Cars is one of mine. I don’t even drive but on occasion it hasn’t stopped others asking, ‘What car does your other half drive then?’ ‘I think it’s … urm …I want to say, blue …?” Sport is another but I can at least enjoy a good top level sporting competition. You can imagine how stranded this leaves me if the conversation turns to motor sports.

          • I used to love cars. The look and style of them. Everything. Now, I admire the very practicality of my car in the same way I do my toaster or kettle. Mind you, both of those are shiny Dualit devices so I am still somewhat up my own arse.

      • Offspring the Younger has just taken up playing golf. Is dullness genetic?

        Offspring the Elder has just bought* a car. “What kind of car do you want?” “A small one. It has to be pink.” A pink Fiat 500 it is, then.

        (*) strictly speaking, Bank of Dad has

  5. Arf! Like this idea!
    Star Wars/Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings: all the same, all nonsense.
    The high street: by and large identical, near wherever you are. I love the few exceptions, btw.
    Wetherspoons: nasty and naff
    Football: just why?
    Anything mainstream or popular, really…….

    • I’m going to respectfully disagree about Wetherspoons. I know some are pretty grotty, but they have some impressive sites – the one in Chorlton, Manchester (The Sedge Lynn) is a Grade II listed building, and it’s rather beautiful.

      They also don’t allow dogs in, which is a major bonus in my eyes…and the beer’s cheap. I don’t wildly dislike dogs, but on Sundays, most pubs in my area could double for Crufts.

      Here’s some to consider:

      https://www.thetimes.com/travel/inspiration/where-to-find-the-uks-most-spectacular-wetherspoons-8q69hmdn7

        • My dogs are my usual drinking buddies, which further strengthens my stance. I go to a pub about once a fortnight, for a couple of hours, usually mid afternoon. I might take my laptop and do some “work”, with headphones of course, or might just read my phone or the most recent local CAMRA bimonthly magazine. Two pints is my limit. The only other times I am in a pub are before gigs or if the wife and I are on a day trip or on holiday, and is then associated with food. Small and bijou always the preference, which rules out the Spoons style dens of dipsomania, however grand the building. Bit like churches really: often fabulous architecture, I just don’t like what goes on inside.

          • My drinking at gigs policy:
            Beer only. No other alcohol.
            If the bar is in the same room as the performance I’ll have a maximum of 2 pints (no more because I’m usually driving). If the bar is in another room I’ll stay dry.

            Side Note:
            While I’ll happily go to gigs on my own (most often I prefer it, in fact) I cannot imagine going to the cinema on my own. Never done it.

            • When I was (much) younger I never drank at gigs because I didn’t want my perception of the performance to be chemically enhanced. Alcohol being a drug. At some point that changed. Two pints is about my limit whenever I drink now, probably haven’t been drunk in about 10 years.

              Go to the cinema on my own a lot, gigs too

  6. The best way to enjoy the Rocky Horror Show is to almost ignore everything associated with it and just enjoy the original Roxy cast recording.

    All the original cast, the best versions of the songs and none of the hoopla that surrounds the actual performances. I think, as time went on, the cast became more aware of the legacy of the RHS – the weight of expectation – and this was reflected in the music.

    The Roxy recording has an innocence to the music and performances that’s lacking in subsequent recordings. Albeit an innocence at odds with the lyrics.

    It does help if, like Richard O’Brien, you have a knowledge of pulp sci-fi and horror of the 50s, but it’s not entirely necessary.

    I’ve seen the film several times, watched the stage show and, yes, even gone to a showing of the film that was heavy on audience participation. I can live without them all. But the Roxy cast recording is something that I would go back to frequently.

  7. Antique shows and property shows on TV (with the exception of Grand Designs), opera, Marvel Universe (as above), modern classical music, parties. And that’s just for starters!

    • Genuinely not sure it is that Sal. We’ve had plenty of those “I can’t stand “ posts. But I get what Leedsboy means I think. I’ve never got Star Wars, Blues Brothers , quite a few very popular phenomena like Friends (I’ve never seen a whole episode of Friends as far as I know) I have often wondered why, even worried about it. The best I can come up with is that my parents didn’t really like “common” things, mainly ITV actually (!) so I wonder if it is somehow something to do with that. To this day I refer to a crap tv program as “a bit ITV.” I may well be a snob.

      • Friends is initially ruined by the happy hand-clapping in the music – it doesn’t get any better.
        I know some people who love it, quote it, have the DVDs, but I’m just not getting it.
        (then again, they would probably say the same about me and Monty Python)

      • I know exactly what you mean. I’ve never bought a lottery ticket – a tax on the mathematically inept. I’ve ballroom danced for 35 years but I’ve never watched Strictly. The only thing I’ve watched on ITV in decades is Midsomer Murders, which I record so that I can skip the adverts. Yes, I am a snob.

    • It’s not meant as a hate list – hopefully it doesn’t become one. It was more the fact that there is stuff out there that people I like (and respect) absolutely love – possibly even obsess about. But I don’t. Neither of us are wrong.

      • Sorry, I was possibly a bit curt there. I get that an ‘I don’t get’ thread isn’t the same as an ‘ I hate’ thread, though there is a risk that without the reliable curation you provide*, that it could degenerate in that direction. I’ll let you all get on with it. My tendency is the opposite – if I don’t like something, I’m inclined to explore it until I find a reason to enjoy it. Apart from golf. Golf can fuck off.

        Hamper due before the day is out (Europe time).

        *To whit the Colin/Dai subthread

  9. Never got far with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Marvel movies.
    Or hairy, flutey bands. Or hairy, leathery bands.
    So I’m basically you, LB.

  10. All of the above plus classic literature. Dickens, Hardy, the Brontes, Austin, Lawrençe etc. I like contemporary fiction, to the cost of everything else.

      • I’m hereby changing my terminology and saying “modern fiction” instead of “contemporary fiction”: I like modern fiction, to the cost of everything else. Any novels written prior to The Great Gatsby are probably rubbish and not worth bothering with, except for some of them.

        • I read contemporary fiction from time to time, mainly written in English, and some translations, but I usually find even the best a bit disappointing. It’s like contemporary jazz in that the artists have clearly studied their predecessors and learnt the lessons, and in many ways are skilled, but lack their orginality. For example, I happened to read Zadie Smith’s NW a few weeks after I had read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, and despite the different social settings and eras, it was obvious Smith had taken Mrs Dalloway as her model. It was still quite good, but no more. Another was Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, reissued after 20 years as a classic with an introduction full of praise, but he, by his own admission, is heavily influenced by Henry James, and it shows. (Although with gay sex added.)

          If you take contemporary as your own lifetime, the only great contemporary novels I have read are One Hundred Years of Solitude and A House for Mr Biswas. Both from the third world, maybe it’s because those places haven’t been exhausted in fiction, but quite possibly not.

          • But Virginia Woolf is so boring! She takes 17 pages just to turn a light switch on. Actually I must admit, I have a passage from To The Lighthouse memorised off-by-heart cos I like it so much. She’s still well boring though.

            Every one of the following contemporary novels written in my lifetime is way better than any of the classic novels I’ve never got round to reading:
            The Color Purple, A Confederacy Of Dunces, American Tabloid, The Remains Of The Day, Stoner, Life Of Pi, English Passengers, Star Of The Sea, Middlesex, Atonement, Days Without End, The White Tiger, The Secret History, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, The Book Thief.

  11. Fine dining for me. When I sit down for a meal I expect to be fed, not presented with a tiny bit of meat/fish, a smear of some sauce or other and a couple of hot raw vegetables that rack up a three figure bill and necessitates a call at the kebab shop on the way home.

    You can add Shakespeare, Kate Bush, reality TV, gin and skiing as well.

    • Seinfeld. I know there’s a lot of love for it, and I have tried, but I just don’t find it funny. It’s certainly clever; it’s definitely witty, but…

      There’s so much love for this show amongst people I know, like and respect, so I’m genuinely sure I’m the problem.

      • No, it isn’t just you – it’s as funny to me as an episode of ‘Rentaghost’ played on a loop.
        It has never raised even a smirk.
        I can ‘appreciate’ why it’s meant to be funny ( yeah, yeah the famous wanking episode) & clearly see where the beats are, but it actively makes me potentially miserable. A pox on it.
        Absolutely love ‘Curb’ though, so go figure.

  12. I find myself in agreement with the Leeds Boy on Rocky Horror, Marvel (or anything like it in print or screen), Star Wars. I’ve either never seen them, with no intention of wasting my time doing so, or in the case of Star Wars, I think I saw the first two at a cinema as a child and happily left them there.

    My other blackspots include mobile telephones, stand-up comedy of any kind and almost all comedy panel shows, Graham Norton, reality TV, Bob Dylan (never listened, not interested but accept his cultural importance in the 60s), Rolling Stones (colossal bore, overpaid garage band chug-a-lug chancers), most music after about 1980 and virtually all music this century.

    On the other hand, I view Tolkien as a genius and have no problem with 60s/70s era Jethro Tull.

    • If you have not listened how do you know about Bob Dylan? And nonsense about The Stones. You don’t like them, fine. Making ridiculous sweeping derogatory statements about them is something else. They are actually an incredibly diverse band if people take the time to actually listen

      • I haven’t said anything about them here in a couple of years precisely because you got upset once when I did. So if there are threads from people bigging up those people, I no longer express a view on them.

        I’ve heard in passing enough Bob to know that it’s not for me and I find the ‘Dylanologist’ levels of adoration and apologia to be baffling and completely out of proportion. He’s not, in my view, an enigma, he’s a man who has sold the world the idea that he’s an enigma and, from what I understand, he keeps touring and putting on shows that are deemed a triumph in fans’ eyes if they can recognise any of the songs. It’s not for me.

        Leeds started this thread asking ‘what are your cultural blackspots and why?’ – and I answered those questions honestly. This thread is actively asking people to list their negatives – and I did. Get over it.

        • “colossal bore, overpaid garage band chug-a-lug chancers”

          I could say similar nonsense about the many tedious to me artists you choose to promote here, but I don’t bother.

          I agree that Dylan live can be a challenging experience on some nights

          • I do think the Stones are a great example though. Clearly there is something about them. Lots of people rate them as the best rock band going. I like rock music (a lot) but there is something about me that makes me not enjoy them a great deal. My daughter has the same view about coriander.

          • I think the problem is, Dai, that you react to someone expressing an negative opinion about these very, very well-off people – so well-off they couldn’t care less what I thought, not one iota, even if they knew about it – that you adore as if that person has obscenely insulted your closest family. I haven’t, and I wouldn’t.

            I genuinely – and this is the truth – stopped passing comment about the likes of Ron Wood and the Rolling Stones a good year or two ago because it seemed to upset you so greatly. It didn’t cost me anything to do that – it seemed like a decent thing to do.

            But I say again, Leeds has started a friendly thread here asking us if there are any culturally significant things that individuals among us ‘just don’t get’.

            And in the context of this thread and the friendly chat nature of it, I’ve mentioned a few things that seem to me to be a waste of time / of no interest / bafflingly overrated (whatever): Marvel, Star Wars, Bob, stand-up comedy and yes, those millionaires on whose behalf you get upset if we don’t all genuflect at every sloppy chord and mincing move.

            We’re not in school – it’s not ‘my band’s better than your band’. If you don’t care for any of the various musical acts that mean something to me, that’s fine – it really is. If I ‘promote’ anything here it’s usually Noticeboard posts about cottage industry artists touring the UK/Ireland and looking to get 30 or 40 people at a gig (and I don’t apologise for that) to make the sums work or a bit of passion and information about some act from the past that might be of interest to some – some – here. And the other 90% can happily ignore it, as I ignore posts about Bob et al.

            I really don’t know what more to say, save that you’ll hear far more insulting lines about public figures than ‘colossal bore’ or ‘chug-a-lug chancers’ on ANY TV comedy panel show any given week.

  14. Tried very, very hard with Opera – three seasons at the ENO before deciding the plots were preposterous and the lyrics banal plus a distinct lack of drum & base. Get dragged along to the ballet every so often and whilst I can only marvel at the athleticism and grace, it’s a no from me. Most poetry leaves me cold. They invented the word philistine just for me.

    • Can we add Musicals to that list. I have only seen two that were decent – Les Mis and Matilda. The rest? It was an expensive way of feeing cramped and bored at the same time.

    • You’re spot on with opera lyrics. As I’d only ever heard them in Italian or German, I had no idea how utterly quotidian they were until I saw a few subtitled operas:

      “I’m opening the doooooooor. Using my haaaaand. And the dooooorhaaaaandle.”

    • The plots are often templates, featuring pantomime villains, but the music and spectacle can be tremendous. I much prefer the ROH to the ENO partly because they stick to the original language (with surtitles if anyone does want to know how the evil count wants to seduce the fair young maid or whatever).

    • I’ve always loved ballet. I was a pretentious child/teenager and still have pretensions as an adult and nothing was more pretentious as a child than going off into ‘the good room’ to watch a ballet on Christmas afternoon away from everyone else. Loved it then, love it now.

      However, I genuinely think most people who love ballet and opera would acknowledge the utter preposterousness of both.

      Story of Swan Lake? A woman has been turned into a swan by an evil magician? And said magician’s daughter, played by the same dancer, shows up to trick the prince who has fallen in love with her? And thus prevent the spell being broken?

      Never used to like opera until I started going to see it. Accept that, like ballet, it’s often a slim story on which to try to support over two hours of a performance but enjoy the spectacle and emotion.

      Saw Eugene Onegin recently in Belfast and it was terrific. But the same opera, from a couple of years before in the same venue and done by a touring company, was less impressive, with its highlight being when a horse walked on stage.

  16. Football, rugby, cricket to be perfectly honest. Never got into them as a youngster( I was an effete child, crap at PE) and couldn’t start later.

    Radiohead, Frank Zappa and Thomas Pynchon: I should like them in theory ( what with their influences and experiments, and passionate fans) but have tried them without success.

    No interest in the Tull whatsoever, btw.

  17. Not sure if they are a ‘cultural’ blackspot, but that bunch of whining chaps from Oxford do my head in, always have. You know the ones I mean. After all, does anyone else from Oxford whine like that?

  18. Where to start…

    Premier league football (love non-league though)
    Rugby Union (League is alright in small doses)
    Most science fiction
    Most costume drama
    Heavy metal
    Rap (love hip hop music itself though)
    Musicals
    Modern drag artists (sorry)
    Reality shows
    Small talk
    Oversold small gig venues
    Unknown earnest solo acoustic singers in support slots

    • Yes to most of these. Heavy metal is unbearable as is rap but hip hop fine. I would say Avicii type dance music and his later ‘songs’ are pretty bad too. Likewise Swedish House Mafia. A certain kind of banal, ugly sounding dance music with terrible electronic bleeping elements which seems to have spread quite widely like a disease. There are other forms of dance music I do like though.

      • Through a series of unplanned events, I have actually seen Swedish House Mafia play live. Wasn’t a fan on the way in, but I have to say it made a lot of sense in a live setting.

        It’s obviously fairly brutalist music, and there’s certainly not much beauty or evidence of a human soul, but endlessly building up to one monster drop after another is a pretty sure-fire way to energise a crowd. I had a really good time, as did seemingly everyone else.

    • Small talk is an underrated art, I think. I don’t want to sound like a LinkedIn wanker, but brief, friendly exchanges in a lift or in a shared space like an office kitchen area are great places to incrementally build good working relationships. Ideally, you’ll have a private recurring subject or some form of joke which is nothing to do with work.

      For the first 20 years of my life I had to go to mass every Sunday. There is one part of the mass where you turn around and shake the hand of a strangers around you and say “Peace be with you” – that brief exchange tangibly lifts the general atmosphere and always gave me a mild “hit” of goodwill.

      • Small talk is something I’ve really enjoyed since I moved to Australia, particularly Murwillumbah. Random chats with strangers you encounter in the street, the supermarket or the coffee shop, shop workers and so on add a little extra something to your day. May be just me, but I don’t remember this happening much in Blighty. I’ve even learned to say G’day without (I hope) sounding like a complete wanker.

        • Been in France twenty years, my French is ok but I rarely get involved with small talk apart from nice day or a bland comment on last night’s rugby.
          Back in the UK I’m the guy chatting away/talking bollox to the shop assistant or the old woman in the street or the traffic warden or the supermarket lady…

  19. I have no interest in Americana, modern young people’s music, skronky jazz, the majority of mainstream films, neurasthenic literature, cultural warriordom, car obsessiveness, or sports. Some of these are “been there, done that”, others are lifelong eschewals I have no desire to visit in my last 25%.

    I also avoid 99% of television. I was trapped in a 4* hotel room with a TV the other night, and as an experiment tried to see if there was anything I could stay with. There were a couple of hundred channels. I settled on the news and an old episode of “Randall and Hopkirk (deceased)”. Dear God, most telly is awful. Give me YouTube any day.

  20. Er… all that too cheerful old time rock ‘n’ roll like Johnny B. Goode, but I like The Beatles Rock ‘n’ Roll Music cover, it’s better than the original. Elvis though, I prefer the white jumpsuit era, Suspicious Minds. The 50s stuff seems a bit weedy really. Those old records sound, um…old. Unfair maybe. John Cale’s Heartbreak Hotel version is very good though.

    Those Pre-raphaelite paintings are pretty bad. Sentimental tosh often. Conceptual Art is also largely a waste of time. The artist’s own shit in a can, the urinal. OK we get it but who wants to stand and look at it for more than a few seconds?

  21. Golf I’m indifferent to, not remotely interested. Loath rugby with a deep seated hated which took root when I had the misfortune to play it at school.

  22. The Roundhouse, Camden, North London.

    I have been to a number of gigs there since it was refurbished and reopened and every one of them was ruined by boors who have no interest in listening to the music but just to the sound of their own voices after they have pushed their way through the crowd to secure a decent vantage. At which point some turn their back to the stage so they can talk to their mates. Then a couple will be despatched to the bar for a fresh round pushing their way through, even though the band is still in the middle of a song.

    It is also riddled with the beer salute. You just raise your arm up, holding a beer glass , because they just know the band is going to play better when they look out and see these raised glasses.

    My last gig there was to see Jason Isbell in 2017. My wife wanted to see Jason, so I agreed to get tickets.

    Now I don’t care who is on – Gerry Rafferty could announce his comeback gig – and I’d still stay at home.

  23. I share your avoidance of Star Wars and Marvel – my error probably, but nah!

    Harry Potter – Kids books and films. Never read the books, but seen “bits” of the films (with 4 kids in the house it was sort of unavoidable)

    “Going Clubbing” – yes, I want to pay £10 to get in, £10 a drink, and not be able to have a conversation (yes, unlikely to be on my radar as a fully-fledged Old Git, but even in my younger days … if asked, second word was “off”)

    Opera – what’s that all about?

    Rugby – overweight blokes chasing an egg
    (bit reductive I know. I’m sure there is skill and athleticism involved, and I played it for school team. But as a spectator sport … my loss again)

      • Aye, plenty of cross-over/similarity there.
        Apart from F1 … love watching the Racing Cars me.
        Most forms of motorsport work for me (even rallying, although gone are the days of standing in a Welsh Forest at 5am listening for a Subaru – yes, I did that a couple of times. My only annoyance was I was too young for the Mark 2 Escort, Audi Quattro, and Lancia eras, so had to make do with the Scooby and Mitsubishi Evo)

  24. Quite a few when I think about it … rugby (no idea what’s going on) ballet (never been never will) tennis and formula 1 (despise them both) cats (dogs all the way for me) Star Wars (saw the first it starting to get better then it ended) Harry Potter (I’m not 12) Charlie Chaplin (Laurel and Hardy all the way) Peter Kay (Phoenix Nights was genius his stand up is dog shit) jazz (man sawing wet log)

  25. I expect that I probably have far too many such blind spots, but two come leaping into view before the rest:

    1. Jazz. All of it. Please don’t waste your time explaining that there’s a big difference between (checks notes) trad jazz and bebop, and that I’d realise Miles is a musical genius if I just gave it a chance. To me it’s just unlistenable. I agree with whoever said jazz is the sound of a blues band falling down stairs.

    If you like it, more power to you (and I expect I love music that you detest just as much as I hate jazz), but it’s not welcome in Chateau Darling, thank you very much.

    2. Cricket. Never seen the appeal, and just somebody talking about “leather on willow”, Aggers and Johnners, etc., is enough to give me the fear. Also, why is it always featured in great depth at the end of practically every 6pm BBC News show when far more popular sports don’t get anywhere near the same attention? Are the Beeb’s head honchoes all cricket mad?

    • Jazz is odd.
      I love it, by & large & my palate has definitely altered to the point where stuff I’d have hated in the past, I now revel in.
      The deeper I’ve dived in in however, the more Mrs Jim has recoiled.
      Now stuff she used to like (bits of Stan Getz & some mellow Latin stuff) she can’t abide, presumably because she fears an imminent outbreak of skronk or something.
      Regardless, keep digging what *you* dig.

    • I love cricket but I totally understand people disliking it. As for its popularity I think I read somewhere that a televised cricket match between India and Pakistan is by far the most-viewed live sporting event in the world. More than the Super Bowl or a FIFA World Cup final.

      Sometimes an event is “beamed to an audience of a billion viewers” but that’s not how many people are watching it. It’s the number of people that COULD watch it.

    • I love cricket and jazz when I hear it.

      I don’t play jazz very often but when heard I enjoy it.

      Cricket in Test Match form, especially when you get a result in the final session of the fifth day is the best.

      I understand why people don’t get/understand it…but when you do, sitting in the garden with a glass of wine, listening to Test Match Special, as England beat Australia in the final session of an Ashes Test played in England is a marvellous feeling.

      • Another cricket lover, but I have never understood why anyone would actively hate it. Not understand it, yes I get that because it’s a comparatively complex sport that is initially difficult for new comers to appreciate, but hate it? At worst, it is still a relaxing day in the sun with food and drink aplenty. What’s to hate?

        • This isn’t a hate thread, as Leedsboy explained – rather blindspots – things that people don’t understand, as you said, and as others said – they just don’t get. There isn’t any active hate that I can see.

          • Oh, I don’t know….. watching cricket is borderline hateful to me. I used to play it, badly, for the med school 2nd XI, the drinking side, and loved the rigmarole: pints before and after to take the edge off. But as an observer sport, ghastly. I’ve tried: the Oval, Lords, Old Trafford. Dull as old boots.

            • Pace Retropath2 above and his open cricket vitriol, it feels more to me like ‘live and let live’. But then I’m scrupulously not giving any examples myself, preferring the Locust approach of – I don’t enjoy it yet.

              • Re: County Cricket at Lords.

                Some may view it as eight hours of a boring sport.
                I see it as eight hours of prime office space in London for the price of £2.50 per hour.

  26. Disney Films – if I was a kid, I might get the “enchantment”
    Disneyland – a very plastic experience and/or a very expensive theme park.
    When you’re slightly hungover, you don’t want to see a 7 foot mouse wandering around
    If it wasn’t for Disney+, and the fact they resurrected The Muppets after some German company sitting on the rights for years, then the whole empire Disney could do one as far as I’m concerned

  27. Coffee culture – hate the stuff, rugby, Formula 1, opera, Dylan, Neil Young, Heavy Metal but not heavy rock, a particular strain of English comedy or comedy drama characterised by whimsy or barminess:, much classical painting, Children in Need (the TV show), Dickensian Christmas “traditions”, Seinfeld (as mentioned above), Miriam Margolyes, stand ups who obviously don’t write their own material, crime fiction, true crime podcasts and gangster movies, Les Paul guitars…I could go on!

    Looking over that list they’re not just things I don’t like (or I’d have people who think partake and take part mean the same thing) they are things that I struggle to see the appeal of.

  28. I have never been to an opera or a ballet and have no desire to – I’ve seen and heard enough bits on the telly to tell me I wouldn’t enjoy the artifice.
    Classical music – this is just down to plain ignorance really, that and having it rammed down my throat at school. My parents were ashamed of me I think as they had a big classical record collection. There are some pieces that I can enjoy if I encounter them accidentally, but I just don’t know where to start.
    Regular readers will know of my dislike of meandering twiddy diddly prog rock – far too clever for its own good.
    Punk rock – a few good records came out of it and it was a good, and necessary, idea…in theory. Far too much though was derivative, repetitive, badly played shouty rubbish. Also, spitting at people is horrible.
    I have no idea what rap and hip-hop is all about – it’s a generational thing I suspect.

  29. Musicals: Awful, over-emoted twaddle that is the antithesis of all I love in music. Plus bad acting.

    Superhero movies: I’m baffled that people treat these things and their comic source material as if they are some sort of great narrative work rather than the pulp emo crap they actually are. I liked my superheroes middle-aged, flabby and ludicrous. I don’t need them to be brooding and in PAIN.

    Stand-up comedy: There are a few good comedians, but the vast, vast majority of stand-up is simply not remotely funny. Most stand-up relies on compliant crowds who are desperate to break the tension of an awkward scenario.

    Improv comedy: I can only interpret this as a form of therapy for participants, and like therapy it would be better conducted behind closed doors. Most people fail to be funny when they are given ample time to prepare. What are the chances that a group of them can be spontaneously funny on demand?. Audiences seem to be made almost entirely of family members and other improv perpetrators and the bar for ‘hilarity’ is extraordinarily low.

    Action movies: Stupefyingly predictable and boring. Have no idea why so many people (OK, let’s be honest – men) think their life is long enough that they can spend a considerable chunk of it watching this crap.

    British period dramas: Why do so many people (OK, let’s be honest – women) want to immerse themselves in such a socially revolting and repressive world? I guess the thing I hate most is the implication that this was a time of ‘proper’ manners, society etc. Mills and Boon for Oxbridge graduates.

    Gold fittings in bathrooms: Tacky beyond belief. Beloved by bogan tradies (translation: chav tradespeople) and presumably Trump supporters.

    Fender guitars with painted headstocks: Obviously.

    • I know what you mean about comedy: I once went with friends to the Edinburgh festival and was odd-man-out by wanting to see plays there instead of stand-ups; find them excruciating to be honest. (But I do have a gold plated toilet, so…)

    • I’m with you on everything – except musicals, dammit. True, there’s a lot of Lloyd Webber dross around, but when it’s good, it’s very very good. Guys and Dolls is a work of genius.

  30. Apart from superheroes and the supernatural, with which I agreed with Mr Diddley in the first comment –

    Certain sports – horse racing, sailing, Aussie Rules football aka AFL,

    Music – opera, punk

  31. Summer holidays involved morning TV (Banana Splits, The Monkees, Treasure Island, Laurel & Hardy, Tintin etc.), Test Cricket and/or playing all day in Epping Forest with my mates.
    Two exceptions every year:

    1. The rainy day, when a video game (the Ping Pong one) was played and…
    2. The trip to the cinema. “Do you want to see ‘Star Wars’?” / “No. I want to climb a tree”.

    So, video games and “Star Wars”, in fact any blockbuster really. When people are queuing up for the blockbuster at our local cinema, I’m watching the Bulgarian film about beekeeping.

  32. I couldn’t abide punk. Too few good records and too much hot air. I was only 11 or 12 when it started and part of me wanted to jump on the new bandwagon but even at that age I couldn’t believe that everyone suddenly had to say they hated all the music they had liked up to last weekend. Of course now I realise they were all lying about all kind of things – their ages, their musical tastes, where they had been to school.

  33. Cheese. In all forms.
    Sports. Ditto.
    Prog, anything played by earnest and furrow-browed men with facial hair
    Opera. I tried, I failed.
    Contemporary chart music (including R&B/hip hop/whatever Kanye West is)
    Action/fantasy films & TV
    “Wellness”
    Much of social media

    Don’t like much, do I. But in the immortal words of Chris Lowe, what I do love, I love… passionately.

  34. There’s probably a few areas that I don’t have any current interest in, but I know myself well enough to not rule anything out. I am open to learning about anything, and if someone else finds it interesting, then ok. Maybe it’s me.

    Even a musical act who gives me hives – Steeleye Span – I can see that there’s good in there (somewhere… the mandolin playing, when it occurs, seems very good.)

    • I can’t stomach the Span either – well, not the rumpity-tumpity fol-de-rol Span post the Gay Woods/Martin Carthy era, and even then Maddy’s voice isn’t for me.

      But I wouldn’t say that they were among the cultural totems that Leeds was implying in his post.

  35. All sports apart from football – even that’s a love/hate thing.
    As mentioned already – Star Wars, Cars, Rocky movies
    Steely Dan, Will … American comic actor you know the guy, Elf, can’t think of his last name and refuse to Google. Don’t mind him as a voiceover in Megamind though.
    Reality TV.

  36. I am a sports fan but Basketball I do not get as it is just boring and repetitious. Speedway seems the same. Get in front at the first corner and the rest of the laps seem pointless.

    Opera – I attended a couple in my 20’s to keep a relationship going – but no.

    Soap operas on TV – why waste your life on watching miserable sad people having issues. Although I did like Brookside back in the day but it was also funny and ground breaking.

  37. Yes, Brookside’s early years had lots of comedy. Coronation Street in its prime had a much lighter touch too. I have occasional glances at Coronation Street now and the people look healthier with tans and very white teeth and perfect hair – but their lives seem to be relentlessly grim.

    • Ha! That reminds me of when the actress who played humble factory worker Ivy Tilsley turned up for work one day with very obviously collagen-enhanced lips. No-one would blink nowadays, but back then it jusn’t something you’d expect to see on a working class woman man of advancing years in Northern England and took you right out of the show every time she was on screen..

    • I used to love Corrie but gave up about 5 years ago. I gave up on EastEnders about 20 years ago, but I started watching again end of 2023. It’s really good right now most of the time, yesterday’s episode was topnotch, there have been quite a few good ones leading up to its 40th anniversary (next week)

        • That was when the scriptwriters had to really stretch material to fill the time. They couldn’t do it so went for sensationalism.
          Hence the regular murders.
          “We haven’t killed anyone off for a couple of months”.
          “You’re right. Who should we target next for the chop?”.

        • Corrie is apparently dropping back to three half-hour episodes a week soon. According to something I half listened to on R4 the other night, when I was doing the washing up.

  38. Musicals.

    I’m not against them, they just don’t appeal to me. My wife and I have an arrangement – she’ll come with me to ‘my’ bands, and on the odd occasion she wants to go to a musical, I’ll trot along. We’ve seen the odd fine show, but as a genre…not so much.

    Sharon, however, is very into them. Semi pro as a singer, and very knowledgeable as well. I don’t inflict King Crimson on her, I get spared Idina Menzel.

  39. I’m into hard sci-fi. Fantasy is bullsh!t.

    So I’ve never watched Game of Thrones when the rest of the TV viewing world and media seemed to be watching.

    I was flicking TV channels recently and saw one Game of Thrones scene by chance. The scene featured a dragon. In a dungeon.

  40. After reading this thread I feel tolerant like an f-ing saint! 😀

    The only things I have strong, grumpy opinions on these days are a few food dislikes, and sandals (especially when worn by men). And even these opinions are less strong than they once were.
    However, when I was a teenager, I would have joined in to complain about at least 50% of the dislikes on your lists.

    I think the difference is that I’ve become a person who wants to like things.

  41. I haven’t had a TV since 2001. Even if I’m in a hotel room with one available, it is now so completely out of my habit, that I don’t watch it. I acknowledge that is a fairly massive cultural blackspot. And yet, the kidz are no longer watching telly, I understand, so maybe I’m just ahead of my time.

  42. I think it is pointless to say 90% of this or that genre, e.g. rap or punk, is shite. The fact is that 90% of everything is shite. I’m even willing to concede that 10% of prog is okay. But the nature of the music industry dictates that it will be mostly shite, because it is the hype that makes the money. The reason why we have the debates is trying to find the 10% that we might like, and continue to like.

    And, while I’m about it, for those who think that there was no genuine exuberance in punk, well they just never experienced dancing to the Ramones at a great party, is all I have to say about that.

  43. I don’t pay much if any attention to the likes and dislikes of others when it comes to music, books, films, television etc. Taste is personal and everyone is correct. If I don’t care for something my reaction is universally the same, indifference. It takes up too much energy to engage in silly, immature arguments over matters of personal taste. There is way too much intolerance at large at this present time and I have no desire to add to it.
    So what do I dislike? So those irritating people who start every discourse about themselves with the word so. So there’s that. Everything else whatever.

  45. I’m confused by this dislike of musicals, all musicals?

    We have occasionally been down in London for a family Christmas and it’s a family tradition to go to the theatre on Christmas Eve, musicals seen Little Shop of Horrors, Sunny Afternoon, Chicago and The Carole King one, (can’t remember it’s name as I wasn’t too enamoured by it) enjoyed the rest. I drew the line at going to see Les Mis as I knew I’d hate it.

    Sunday afternoon was black and white television with Fred Astaire musicals, plus Busby Berkeley extravaganzas loved them.

    I watched Mamma Mia at the cinema with my son and really enjoyed it , mind you we were in Greece at the time at an open air cinema, which helped.

    An advert came on the TV recently for Hamilton showing nearby “I’d like to see that” said my wife “I’ll come with you” said I but I won’t go to it”. Even when she offered to pay for my ticket it was a firm no, I said there was no point wasting her money as I’d just be sat there waiting for it to finish and she’d just not enjoy it as I’d be sat there bored. I’ll shall wander round the media museum in Bradford instead, luckily it’s a matinee, curry after. Win win situation.

    So yes it’s probably 10% of musicals I like.

    • For me it’s a bang for the buck issue. I have seen about 15 and really enjoyed 2 of them – one was Les Mis though. I’d stop doing most things with that rate of return.

    • You’re really missing out if you don’t see Hamilton – it’s phenomenal. I saw it in that same there Bradford on my birthday two weeks ago. It’s an incredible work of art.

    • For me, yeah, all modern musicals from the Andrew Loyd Webber period on. Before that, musicals were cheesy show tunes which I also don’t like, but don’t get incensed by. There is a tonality of voice that is used in modern musicals that instantly gets my back up. I have a son with mesophonia, and I imagine this is similar: I get instantly and irrationally furious. Whenever that tonality creeps into rock or pop, I just can’t listen to it. Daltry gets mighty close on bits of Quadrophenia, a lot of Ry Cooder stuff from mid 80s on etc.

      • I recognise your reaction to THAT vocal tone, which seems ubiquitous in modern musicals. I can’t really explain why, but it makes me want to remove my ears, just to make it stop. Of course, it’s easier to just not go to musicals.

  46. Manga. Infantilism with frankly creepy sexual aspects in comic form. Besides which, It’s just bad over-stylised art.
    I am no fan of comics anyway, at least not since I was 14, and manga was unknown in the UK way back then anyway, but it is the modern popular comic culture at its worst.

    • I’m no expert but it’s not all schoolgirls with tight clothes. I went to an exhibition at the British Museum a few years ago about the history of manga* and the hyper sexualised stuff barely appeared.

      *Daughter’s introduction to animation was via Ghibli although she’s moved on these days and never really liked the “big eyes, multicoloured hair” stuff anyway.

      • While no fan of musicals either, went to see
        The immersive Guys And Dolls last year.

        Absolutely brilliant. Really wish I’d got a
        Ticket for the open stage

  48. Spaghetti bolognese. Wormy, wet, semi-heated pasta with what looks like a sicked-up kebab posing proudly on top. Even more so when someone refers to it as ‘spag bol’.

    If I ever appear on Saturday Kitchen (unlikely, I grant you), it’s my food hell. It was voted the UK’s favourite family dinner last year; I am baffled.

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