Charity.
I am just here to escape from the agony of L1v3 Ate on tv. Somehow ykS has come back on and I felt I should share this historic moment as I know my children are actually in the park somewhere watching it. Of course it is a good thing, of course SOME of the performers are kind and caring etc. but the excruciatingly self-conciously, self-satisfied expressions on all their faces.

I just watched 'Laney' who I have vaguely heard of but never seen. OMG! How is it possible to be that irritating? Especially as there was a weird familiarity to his act and I finally realised that he was replicating Fr3ddi3 M3rcury at the original concert. He was even wearing similar clothes and ripped off his t-shirt and tossed it casually into the audience. I still have my teeth gritted.

There was a lot of mean comment about the lack of any Afr1c@n groups playing and then not helped by B.G..f saying the reason was that none of them were good enough. Finally a horrifically patronising solution was found where they are having their own 'mini-L1v3 Ate' down HERE in the W. country. And ALL the acts are Afr1can so that they can all be rubbish together.... I assume that is the thinking.

To show that she is sensitive to the realities M@dd0nna has just sung with a massive chorus of bl@ck pe0ple who shuffled on behind her and said 'Oooo Oooo' rythmically while she ran through her repertoire.

I came up here when B0b appeared and sh0w3d that film which had the whole stad1um sobbing in unison when he did it the first time.

I feel bad about finding it all so annoying but why do they have to be such WAN....RS about it.

I suppose it is the small island thing but over the years I have met several world famous p0p st@rs. Oddly, mostly quite insecure and perfectly nice to talk to. Some were parents of my children's friends at various schools or happened to live near us in the country and none met under glamorous circumstances. Possibly the most famous, I knew when I was at SCHOOL. It is bizarre to look back at how incredibly ordinary they were and how we went to their first conc3rt in a church h@ll out of niceness and were bored to death. They are playing today, possibly as we speak, to an audience of millions. As are another sup3r-gr0up whose lead s1ng3r was my daughter's boyfr1end's best fr1end also at school. It is f.ck.ng WEIRD. I have never got used to the fact of it.

On another front ... I have remembered two famous people who I hate so much that I have to note it here. One is M0by ... I don't think I need to give reasons, one look at him is enough. A pop music reviewer on TV said suddenly, when his name came up, 'I really hate that guy', and then clapped his hand over his mouth. It's okay, we're all right behind you.

The other is S@lm@n Rushd1e. What a PR@TT. How I longed and longed for some brave soul to complete the F@tw@h. The literal millions we taxpayers wasted on keeping him safe while he slagged off England and 'courageously' lurked out to fashionable parties with vast pol1ce b0dyguard. I must have seen a hundred pictures of his fat beardy face on the dance floor with some random teenager. 'Serious writer' my ar.e. I have never met one person who has actually finished a book of his. I met him years ago at a smart l1terary party, when he had only just emerged on the scene. He was sliming up to everyone in case they were useful and mistakenly turned to me. 'Hello, I'm 1ris St0rm', I said. He sprang into some chitchat. 'Sorry, I didn't hear your name', I said. He glared at me, icily and said the immortal words, 'What? You mean you don't know who I am?' And even when he forced himself to tell me .. I still didn't. Because outside a minute group of literati .. NO ONE DID ... because he WASN'T FAMOUS. And so he walked off. WHAT A PR@TT.

Anyway, I was thinking about them because of the faces of the performers today. BUT .. good cause ... try not to mind. I'll go back and have another look.
- posted by Iris @ 7/02/2005 07:37:00 PM comment