2010 in a pretty pink bow

Multicoloured balls of fire scatter in all directions, wave after wave of incandescent fury dancing across the night sky, exploding and cascading back to earth. Then, with one last whimper, it's over. Darkness and silence return. Fumes from spent firecrackers and rockets hanging in the air as 2010 turns into 2011.

There were a number of ways in which I planned to wrap this final blog in a pretty pink bow. I thought about doing a spoof Matt Cardle Christmas Diary:

Tuesday Dec 21

Busy day today. Start it off by appearing on the "Chris Moyles Breakfast Show". Top bloke. Dead switched on. And totally funny. Good times. Unfortunately, he had to go to an emergency traffic report and cut short the interview just when I started talking about the stuff I plan to do on my second album, which'll be a return to the more personal and introspective stuff I was doing before I won "X-Factor".

Lunchtime finds me doing a signing of my new no.1 single "When We Collide" at the HMV in Bayswater. The place is PACKED. It's like wall to wall p-u-s-s-y. I rock the house with "Tears In The Rain" which I wrote with the band I was in before I went on "X-Factor". The crowd were so into it. Totally silent and open-mouthed. Dead appreciative. It was a shame that during the second verse there was a power failure. Luckily it didn't last too long and my manager decided I should probably do "When..." to give 'em a different vibe instead of starting up "Tears..." again. Fair enough.

Simon Cowell's been brilliant. He's dead genuine and wants me to express myself. I remember him saying: "Matt, I want you to be you. I don't want you to be a "style". So many acts today are merely style and no substance. You're different. You've got genuine soul and that's what I want. I want your soul, Matt," and he was so intense when he said it. It was almost like his eyes sparked red. I've been giving him my soul ever since.

I thought perhaps I could look at the recent OFCOM report into our attitudes to swearing:

Apparently, pre-watershed, most participants found the words ‘cunt’, ‘fuck’, ‘motherfucker’, ‘pussy’, ‘cock’ and ‘twat’ unacceptable and also wanted care to be taken over the use of the words ‘bitch’, ‘bastard’, ‘bugger’, ‘dick’, ‘wanker’, ‘shag’, ‘slag’ and ‘shit’. Post-watershed, ‘cunt’ and ‘motherfucker’ were considered the least acceptable. There were contrasting views on the use of the word ‘fuck’ which was considered more acceptable by some participants (e.g. younger people and male participants) but less acceptable by others (e.g. participants aged 55-75). Respondents also wanted care to be taken over the use of the word ‘pussy’ post-watershed. The other words listed were considered acceptable post-watershed by most participants.

“I hate that word (‘motherfucker’), I hate it, I don’t know why I just hate it.”

Group discussion, male, no children, aged 30-55, ABC1, white and BME,

Birmingham

Many participants weren't familiar with, and didn't know the meaning of the word ‘bloodclaat’. Some assumed that it couldn't be particularly offensive because they hadn't heard the word before. They also didn't think that many people were familiar with it and would therefore be likely to ‘miss it’ if it was used on television.

“Sorry, can someone explain how it’s offensive to me because I actually don’t understand it.”

Group discussion, male, younger children, aged 20-45, C2DE, white and BME, London

‘Bloodclaat’ – “Jamaican/Patois originated, meaning blood cloth and referring to menstruation” (derogatory)

At which juncture I would have advertised my favourite new non-swearing, swear word: 'TWUNT'. A fruity combination of two naughty words to create a moist, glistening new one which means absolutely nothing but is pregnant with intent and is unequivocal in its communication.

I alighted briefly upon the notion of highlighting my favourite Facebook status updates of the past 12 months:

A good meal can be a near-sexual experience - a sumptuous, homemade Thai Green Curry for example. This evening's Bacon, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese filo baskets on a bed of rocket leaves was so good, I dislodged a light fitting.

Basil Creese Jr dreamt about you again last night, my lips still tingling from your perfect kiss as my eyelids flutter open. The scent of rain and the wet pavement seeps through the open hotel window...

As I departed, the villagers bestowed upon me the name "Mutembaiie", meaning 'Fire God'. In return I ask only that they sacrifice their livestock and Chris Fucking Moyles. Seriously, what is he for?

I danced with the idea of looking at this year's Adult Video News nominees for the "Cleverest Porn Movie Title Of The Year". They were as follows:

Barrack's Big Stimulus Package

A Brutha Came in Yo Mutha

It's Okay! She's My Step Daughter

Sexual Blacktivity

War on a Rack

Who's Nailin' Paylin?

Your Mom Tossed My Salad

Some hot wax dripped on the buttocks of the individual who correctly hits me back with the actual winner of this category. Eventually I figured it best to go with a recent observation. The Top 5 rated television programmes of 2010 are;

• The X Factor final - 17.7m
• England vs Germany 2010 World Cup - 17.4m
• EastEnders - 16.4m
• Coronation Street - 14.7m
• England vs Algeria World Cup 2010 - 14.6m

Now these are exceptional numbers, so I checked out some more run of the mill programmes. A repeat of "East Enders" on BBC3 commands an audience of 1.16m. "Neighbours" on Channel 5 1.29m. John Pilger's "The War You Don't See" on ITV1, a condemnation of the UK and US media which is complicit in their respective governments' rapacious war agenda, and emerged in the shadow of the Wikileaks mushroom cloud (during which hubbub, high profile Neo-Con draft dodger - aren't they all? - John Bolton, advocated a "military response" to the cable leaks. I mean, it's hard to tell with those Neo-Cons and their quest for "Full Spectrum Dominance", but was he suggesting they nuke the internet? Yeah... Probably) pulled in a paltry 940,000.

“If the public knew the truth, the war would end tomorrow. But they don't know and they can't know.”

Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to Manchester Guardian editor C.P. Scott

Rageh Omaar, Dan Rather and David Rose all told how they spouted, parrot fashion, lies fed to them by a relentless disinformation campaign to justify an illegal war and expressed shame. Testimony from soldiers recounting tales of missions of bloody carnage targeting civilians where they were advised that to rescue injured children was "off mission" brought tears to my eyes. The true revelation of this film is that in the First World War, 10 per cent of casualties were civilians. By the Second World War, it was 50 per cent, rising to 70 per cent in Vietnam. In Iraq, it was 90 per cent.

Grainy camera footage from helicopter gunships unveiling a street strewn with dead innocents is accompanied by a soldier smirking "Oh, yeah. Look at those dead bastards. Nice."

Meanwhile, Andrew Marr was standing outside 10 Downing Street and smugly intoning:

“I don't think anybody after this is going to be able to say of Tony Blair that he’s somebody who is driven by the drift of public opinion, or focus groups, or opinion polls. He took all of those on. He said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right. And it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result.”

Andrew Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003

This is the same man who recently said that those who blog are "socially inadequate, slightly seedy, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting." All of which is certainly true of me, as you well know, but what blogging has revealed to me over the past year is the gaping chasm between the concerns and feelings of us, the 'unpeople', on one side and the politicians and their agents in the media on the other, who claim to represent us.

Marr and his clique aren't journalists, they're stenographers unquestioningly disseminating propaganda which is why you'll never read anything in the mainstream press about the worse-than-Hiroshima nuclear fallout levels in Fallujah or the Israeli government calculating the dietary needs for the population of Gaza ensuring the population is kept alive at a near-starvation level.

The political class despise us (probably with good reason. If you've ever been to a football match and had the twunt behind you spit meat pie all over your back in his haste to yell racist abuse then I'm sure you'll have had doubts about the logic of universal suffrage and the notion of democracy) and that's why they would rather carry out the day-to-day running of our lives in secret whilst we lap eagerly at the slick of excrement seeping from the cathode ray tube. And we're happy to comply, aren't we? Otherwise we'd do something about it.

Mr Marr (his incomparably indolent interview with Tony Blair earlier this year was as close as we'll come to seeing a 'rusty trombone'* executed on UK terrestrial television) has helped me connect with my inner Hulk and for that gift I thank him.

Have a brilliant Christmas and I hope 2011 brings you everything you've ever wished for.

Be easy

b-b-b-Bx

* 'Rusty trombone' - "a euphemism for a sexual act involving a man in a standing position with knees and back slightly bent, with feet at least shoulder width apart in order to expose the anus. The other partner typically is on his or her knees behind the man and performs anilingus while reaching up beneath the testicles or around the body to masturbate the man, mimicking the motions of a trombone player."

Bitter suite

And so "the world's most miserable and unsociable Man" (copyright Basil Creese Sr) undertakes a prolonged period of travel to far-flung corners and strange locales affording him the opportunity for reflection and self-analysis.

Chelmsford:

I complete the bulk of my journey on one of those leaning Virgin Pendolino trains. The word Pendolino is itself derived from two words; Dolino, as in Niña Dolino - a Filipina actress. She was one of the finalists of MTV's VJ Hunt in 2005. And Pen from the Greek number 5 (pente), referring to the number of times, on average, those of a delicate disposition will throw up before the train reaches London. I looked out of the window at one point and where the sky should have been instead were rolling green fields and yet to be slaughtered livestock. Freaky!

The hotel itself was located in a remote service area just off the A12 lending the establishment a distinctly gloomy Gulagian air further reinforced by the presence of a lifesized, inanely grinning Lenny Henry cardboard cutout. The online blurb for this hostelry boasts of "an integrated restaurant serving a mix of traditional and contemporary dishes." 'Dish' would appear to be stretching the point somewhat and their unwritten mission statement appears to be:

"Your standards will be compromised."

The steak I encountered had the consistency and taste of well worn brake pads. My jaw harrumphed a decidedly pissed off "Fuck this..." midway through the mastication of: The. Most. Gristly. Piece of meat ever offered for human consumption and thus I returned to my room to watch the fascinating spectacle of Andrew Marr fellating Tony Blair live on BBC One. I'm speaking figuratively, of course, but the subtext of the interview seemed to be "Please cum on my face, Tony!"

Tony: There can be circumstances in which it is legitimate to intervene even in another country's affairs where the oppression of the people is so cruel and where you can't simply say well, unless our national interest is directly threatened in a very specific way we're not going to have anything to do with it.

Marr (choosing NOT to challenge this vile assertion, but instead agreeing): So you can topple tyrants because they're tyrants, not because they immediately threaten other people. And so to Afghanistan. Another piece of nation-building.

Perpetual war in the hizzouse! The perfect illustration of "us against them" came a few days later when Tony had to abandon his book signing tour having been subjected to far more criticism and invective from the general public than any journalist - who jubilantly cheerled the invasion and equated those who opposed it to Islamofascists, before later deciding it might have been a little bit illegal (David Aaronovitch and Johan Hari take a bow) - could ever muster.

Manchester:

I hosted the Co-operative Bank Customer Service Awards at the Midland Hotel eschewing the Jean Paul Gaultier black leather kilt in favour of a subtle, understated, grey three-piece suit. I sashayed my way to the stage employing Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby” as my theme. It went pretty well (“Before we kick this baby off, can the owner of a white Popemobile…”), although an insecure, needy, extroverted introvert like me could have done with a more public display of gratitude for my services: y’know like a special ‘Basil’ award just for me being so ineffably me.

Leek:

The venue here is a jumbo-sized, labyrinthine Portakabin. Lovely! The taxi driver on the way back to the hotel (which sits near the local Odeon, a Marina and a Retail Park featuring a celebrated footwear store who quite cheekily ask for your postcode prior to purchase. I'm a very private person and so offer SW1A 1AA and smile smugly to myself as the sales assistant punches it sulkily into their database. Google it. See what turns up) provides a running commentary as we weave our way through the streets of Hanley: "That used to be a Garage," "There used to be a school over there," "That's the most popular club in Stoke-On-Trent." He uses my name for the first time as he points out, "Here you go, Basil. This is the red light district."

"I beg your pardon?!?!" I splutter in affronted response, making a mental note of the name of the road for future reference.

My Moat House Hotel room contains 4 beds in total: two twin beds and a set of bunk beds. I spend my week sleeping in a different bed every night, just for the goof, which incidentally seems to be the impulse behind Nick Clegg (whenever I see him with David Cameron I think "There's a conservative, with a little 'c'") stating that the recent budget cuts are “fair.” "This is completely different from the budgets of the past," said Little Nicky after the emergency budget. And he’s right, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the measures brought in by the new coalition are "generally regressive" – that is, hitting the poor much harder than the rich. If you are in a family with children at the bottom of the ladder then you come out worst in this government's reforms, with your income cut by more than 5%. The poorer you are, the poorer you will be under this new government. Haven’t we been here before?

Indeed the budget was so “fair” that the Fawcett Society has filed papers with the High Court seeking a Judicial Review. Not that you would have heard about this anywhere. No. Everyone was up in arms about the Pope's shoes, that woman putting a cat in a wheelie bin, or Wayne Rooney, or Anne Widdicombe on Strictly, or the ongoing spat between Dannii and Sharon, or Chantelle and Preston. Rather than that or, say, the obscene increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah which now officially exceed those experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Just read that last sentence back to yourself and weep.

That’ll be the depleted uranium then (see blogs passim).

I sat back in my seat in the Moat House restaurant having demolished 2 Bacon, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese filo baskets on a bed of rocket leaves (not quite as nice as a homemade Thai Green Curry, but still...) and cast my detached gaze about the diners - all texting on iPhones or tapping away on swish laptops and I wondered if anyone had stopped to consider the following, as summarised by Bill Blum:

"... the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, has been destroyed,
ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their
physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives..."

"More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized,
in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ... an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East,
Europe and Central Asia ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again."

I sighed, trudged up to my room, swung himself onto the top bunk, powered up my MacBook Pro (tm), accessed 'Demand Five' and watched Neighbours.