Rage Against The Rage Ragers

I’m supporting the campaign to make Rage Against The Machine the Christmas number one. Why? Because it’s a song I’ve loved for years and I think it deserves to be acknowledged better than the lowly chart position it received when it was first released back in the ’90s. That’s all.

That said, I’m sick of all the clever dicks who keep making those really annoying “you do realise” questions. “You do realise that they’re both Sony songs so Simon Cowell makes money no matter what?” Yes, but Simon Cowell has plenty of money already. This isn’t about money to him, it’s about power. He had nothing to do with Rage Against The Machine and I’m sure he’s not exactly going to be jumping for joy about something he didn’t create outselling something he did to deprive him of that all-important Christmas number one spot that means so much to the music industry in the UK.

“You do realise the irony in buying a song that says ‘fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’ when in reality by buying it you’re only doing what someone else tells you?” Well, if I decided to be a rebel and buy Saturday Night by Whigfield instead it might not really have the same impact. There needs to be someone organising what’s going on, otherwise no song will really have a chance of challenging the top spot. The difference with this campaign is that we at least have a choice. Nobody is “telling” us to buy the song, we’re choosing to support it. On the other hand, without the campaign the X Factor song would be number one whether we wanted it or not.

“You do realise this would have been better had you been backing a festive song instead?” Sorry, I forgot The Climb was all about Santa’s arduous journey up the side of a bungalow. Personally, yes, I would have preferred something like Fairytale Of New York to have been the campaign song, but the truth is the Rage song is far more effective. It’s so different to the schmaltzy X Factor song that it seperates the listeners into two completely different camps.

I’ve been a Rage Against The Machine fan for around a decade now. The most important thing about this campaign in my opinion isn’t necessarily the battle for the Christmas number one. In my heart I’d love it to win but in my head it doesn’t seem likely, not when all the mums start buying the CD single for their children’s Christmas when they go shopping after work tonight.

What’s important for me is what’s currently top of the iTunes album charts: Rage Against The Machine. This campaign has given the band far more coverage than it’s ever had in the mainstream media, and it’s finding a huge new potential audience as a result.

And if just a handful of these new listeners take note of the political messages throughout the rest of Rage’s songs, they may feel encouraged to learn more and get politically active. That’s the real success story here.

Quick Tip: Hands-Free Kits

Here’s the first of a few quick tips I’ll be giving out to help make the world a better place. In a way I’m like a modern day Christ figure. By which I mean an action figure with not a lot of articulation. Anyway, here’s the tip.

Hands-free kits for mobile phones are designed for the car, so you can drive with two hands. Now, unless your walking ability is at such an advanced level that you can gain extra purchase from the environment by literally gripping the air and pulling yourself along, you don’t need a hands-free kit while walking.

It makes you look like a twat, plain and simple. People who know you’re on the phone think you’re a pretentious tosser, and people who don’t think you’re insane and having an argument with yourself.

And if, like the idiot I walked past this morning, your hands-free kit fits so badly that you have to use a HAND to hold the mic to your mouth, then it’s not serving its purpose and you should JUST USE A PHONE.

Thank you.

Tubes On The Tube

Sorry I’ve been a bit late with this list, but here it is now. This is a list of things that have happened to me on the Tube (on multiple occasions for some) and that angered me so much that I had to bite my fist to stop me from forcefully slamming it into the offender’s larynx.

1) On one occasion the train started beeping because the doors were about to close, so a big guy started running to the train to jump on before they did.  I was also running to try to get on the train. The guy jumped inside the train and stopped dead in his tracks, forcing me to slam into the back of him, at which point he turned round and glared at me as if it was deliberate. Sorry mate, I didn’t realise that as soon as you were on nobody else behind you mattered. Wish I’d led with my elbow.

2) This one’s a weekly occurrence: a group of tourists (usually a family with two children) standing in the middle of a corridor, usually a narrow one that leads from one platform to another, discussing which way to go. Here’s an idea: out the bastard way so people can get past you.

3) People who stand on the left-hand side on the escalator (note to non-Londoners: you stand on the right and walk on the left) or, even worse, people who stand on the right and sit their luggage on the left. It makes me think I can climb over it, then I decide against it at the last minute and end up having to stand behind it while the person behind me tuts as if it’s my fault I’m not walking any further. I’m not Casper mate, I can’t just plough through the thing.

4) Slow people. Not so much old people: they’re annoying but it can’t be helped. I mean slow people who are just sauntering down the corridor, without a care in the world. Get out of my way, please. This isn’t a scenic route, it’s designed for people to get from one place to the other as quickly as possible. It’s a transport system, not the Lake District.

5) People who cram themselves into tubes that are already filled to the brim, and shout “could you all move up please” as if nobody had thought of that. There’s another one in two minutes chief, just wait. It’s not Sliding Doors.
That’s all that spring to mind just now, though I’m certain there’ll be more. Feel free to comment below and add your own.

Knit One… Oh

While I was on the Tube this morning I saw a truly bewildering sight. A woman in her thirties got on, sat down and spent ages rummaging in her bag. Eventually she took out some knitting needles and an unidentifiable woolen creation, then started knitting.

Now, this is odd but by no means bizarre. The tube may not be the most stable environment for such a delicate task but I’ve seen someone successfully applying mascara on the Tube before so it’s possible.

The bewildering thing was that precisely one stop later she quickly packed up all her stuff again and left thr Tube. After one stop. Taking into account the time taken to get the knitting out of her bag, that’s about 50 seconds of knitting action.

How important does her knitting have to be that she has to spend every spare half-minute doing a little more? For some reason, harmless as she was, it annoyed me.

I get annoyed a lot in London. It’s turning me into a proper moody bastard. Don’t get me wrong, when I talk to people I’m as nice as possible because being polite is one of the most important things you can be in my opinion. But deep down so many things annoy me. Especially on the Tube.

Tomorrow i’ll give a list of things that make my blood boil on the Tube. Beware, it could get nasty.

It Begins…

I’ve tried doing blogs in the past but for some reason or another they’ve tended to fail after a month or so.

I recently got an iPhone though and in an attempt to look really thoughtful and important on the Tube I decided to download the WordPress app and start another blog with regular but smaller updates.

This way I can record my thoughts and pretend they mean something to some people while at the same time people watching me frantically tap away on my iPhone on the Tube (as I’m doing now) will think I’m some sort of powerful businessman sending important emails.

In reality, the most important thing I’m likely to write in this blog is an angry diatribe on the faux caramel used in so-called Kit Kat Chunky Caramels, which (as my old flatmate Adam is right in saying) is nothing more than melted Caramac.

Just one little disclaimer: some of you may know me and know what my job is, and those of you who don’t can find out easily enough. I just want to be clear that there’ll be no gossip related to that magazine, the publisher I work for or anything else like that on here. This is a personal blog, not an extension of my work.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got so far. Some serious shit and a bit about Kit Kats. Welcome and that.