Alan Coleman

It was the article on the front page of this mornings Guardian that made me part with 55p, the bloke on the paper stall at Blackfriars tube tried to skank me out of my change by taking the £1 and ignoring me. Like I’m just going to walk away? I honestly didn’t think that sort of stuff went on in London, how naive.

Anyway I new it was a mistake going anywhere near the bloody G2 section, but I read it anyway because it’s easy to read on the train and Thursday includes the Online stuff which I’m supposed to be interested in.

Low and behold within minutes I’m fuming to the point that I want to get the tube back to 119 Farringdon Road and urinate in the lift.

I’m referring here to Tanya Gold’s article about how crap a £99 holiday in Corfu turned out to be. Of course the outcome of the article was in no doubt before she left Crouch End for the airport, you can just see her now musing over all those lovely voyeuristic anecdotes in the back of the taxi. Her main point was that the holiday, priced at £99, was a rip off. What? A flight to Greece and seven nights accommodation around a swimming pool, all for the price of your average weekend festival ticket?

The other holidaymakers where under no illusion about what was on offer for that sort of money, that’s probably all they wanted or could afford, and furthermore are realistically minded enough to get on with it and enjoy. What did Tanya expect? Day trips to the local olive press? (Scrumptious free samples MMmm). An evening lecture at the amphitheatre on the Greek god Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstatic revelry ? (Really inspiring).

This article amounts to really cheap and opportunistic journalism that tries so hard to funny, whilst at the same time reassuring its readership. Just more peering class snobbery from the supplement that spoils an otherwise fine newspaper.

So Tanya, the next time you and Toby spend seven days in a low impact wigwam in the west country living off pine nuts and semolina, consider that those hardworking people who have a week in Corfu on £99 just might not be that enthusiastic.

It was my cousin Paul’s stag night last weekend in Bournemouth, me Ben and Chris decided to camp at a site near Poole both to save money and show off our latest camping gadgets.

Chris has a superb frame tent, freestanding cooker with grill, additional gas hob, sturdy aluminium table, chairs and various different lamps (It all packs neatly into the boot of an Escort saloon with rear spoiler).

I can admit to being a little envious at the type of organisation this kind of set up affords, of course you need a car to get around but once you’re there it’s literally home from home. With the weather on top form the camping in the Dorset countryside was really enjoyable.

The paintballing on Saturday was also superb, it’s something that I’d always steered clear of in the past but I’m glad we made the effort to charge around a forest playing war like kids. Slightly bizarre situation to find yourself in, properly shouting and running around sweating like it’s the real thing, and a bit embarrassing when looking back. Though I’m glad we all pulled it out of the bag to beat the Ruperts in rugby shirts, they were giving all the bunny about being Army officers, screaming at us like toys at Sandhurst.

Not so big when you got whipped at the end eh? Brilliant.

As too where the ACDC tribute band, the end to a memorable day. Nice one Ian for putting it all together.

A person can become saturated with their own greed, it’s the point where the interest in private wealth is lost and its RELATIVITY is increased by keeping the resources of those around them to an absolute minimum.

Then instead of a finite figure prosperity can be measured in terms of a ratio, which has a more warming effect on the ego. The main reason being that attention can be switched to justifying the lack of wealth of those without, rather than having to explain the reasoning behind personal greed.

Years ago I overheard this bloke in a pub talking about his car being serviced, speaking in one of those nauseating tones that seems to pierce the boundaries of any conversation underway. “£70 for 4 hours labour, outrageous!!”.

Motorists winging about mechanics is nothing new, but this particular rant continued into a momentous twist of the delicious irony with a capital I. In almost the same sentence, through an oppressed smile, he groaned about ‘His’ lawyer costing £250 per hour.

Really he’s just informing us that he can afford a top lawyer, smiling inwardly about the necessity of such a comfort being the preserve of the few. The basic cost of the mechanic was genuinely begrudged, while the cost of the lawyer is celebrated as a sort of sinister recognition of the disparity within our society.

Some spending has glamour attached to it that is proportionate to its cost, full circle to a point that the cheaper it is the more of a rip off it becomes. A Bizarre mix of intellectual snobbery hiding a practical ineptitude.

I went to a auction once and watched a record collector part with £200 for a copy of The Magical Mystery Tour on yellow vinyl. He was quite rightly ecstatic as it was a fantastic piece of memorabilia, if I had the money it would have been mine. Which made me think that something is basically worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

If the mechanic wants to charge that sort of money then why shouldn’t he? If you don’t like it buy a Haynes manual and crawl around in filthy sump oil yourself. All this is back up by the likes of Rouge Traders, conservative opportunism at its finest.

Its at this point that the scum exposed on rouge traders all become happy go lucky Gary Hobbs from the square. Grinning inanely whilst not bothering to change the oil filter and compounding the insult further by showing the owner an old one from a completely different car, or decade.

How do you keep a straight face? The customer walks back to the trusty family MG tut tuting at the exorbitant prices of working men, blissfully ignorant the thing is going to have to do yet another 18,000 miles on soiled lubricant.

Hilarious!

Things have started to change over the past 15 or so years. The explosion in the ideas surrounding celebrity have allowed the unlikeliest people to earn huge amounts of cash. This earning potential is begrudged by many who look upon these brilliantly successful individuals as undeserving because, “Its just not worth that…”

The reason why, and look away if you’re queasy, is based on and around the functions of intellectual snobbery, the worst kind. The notion that an earning potential should somehow be linked to academic achievement or worse still, your background and how you speak is fairly pervasive in our society.

Infuriating but true.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard people moan about how thick footballers are, in the same sentence as expressing quite obvious jealousy about their earnings.

Lets take another example, Jordan, who despite the pneumatic chest is a lovely looking and funny woman. The paradox in the thought of all those angry young ‘Film studies’ graduates banging on about how thick she is, whilst being completely unable to tear themselves away from her images is to good to be true.

Every time I see Jordan I can’t help but think of the huge amounts of cash being shovelled into her bank account. Outstanding! Tabloid tales of wanton sexual excess are earning her millions for basically just enjoying herself, for some reason this success is resented because she talks in a certain manner…Or more to the point, because she is working class.

Further, the antics of Premiership footballers in city centre bars and clubs is a times completely unacceptable, but should we get this into perspective? Are they any worse than a group of middle class twenty something’s on a stag night in Prague. Or the psychotic city dealer that bankrupts a third world country at the flick of a switch and then grabs a 30 billion pound bonus.

Are these acceptable occurrences because of the people involved? Being thick is not definable, and as an education at any level is not indicative of intelligence then resentment of glamour girls and footballers with sexy accents can only point to one final factor.

Class snobbery fuelled by a complete misunderstanding of the ideas surrounding raw talent and intelligence. There’s no other way to explain contradictions harboured by the jealous, about the uniquely gifted ability of the likes of Paul Gasgoine, David Beckham and Jordan.

The concept of celebrity has exploded over the past decade into something of its own industry. Whilst being a footballer or pop star used to allow for a certain amount of star status, now being famous is usually enough to guarantee an individual the position of ‘Celebrity’.

For some this is a handy way to make a living for a couple of years, start by winning Big Brother and use it as a springboard to other stuff, and good luck to them you know? How we loved Graigs accent, and how we all secretly giggled at Abi’s antics. But if we’re stupid enough to suck it all up then who’s laughing?

However a darker side of the novelty is starting to rear its ugly head. For some the emergence of celebrity now presents a justifiable reason to make a living from appearing in the tabloid press. And as Kate Lawler and Jade Goody satisfy the nations appetite for the girl next door there appears to be some impostors worming their way in.

For the Windsor’s this phenomenon has appeared at just the right time to accompany their next generation of parasites into adulthood, now that the old guard are either too old, lazy or just plain greedy to establish any kind of useful role. So the Windsor’s are re-launching themselves as bona fide celebrities, “No me more charity fetes for me, photos playing polo and swigging vodka red bull are more than enough”.

Having your photo taken is now enough, Williams contrived gap year jaunt to Chile is now classed as his work, and Harry’s obnoxious little face appearing at society parties delights the tabloids and as such maybe qualifies his role as some sort of man about town story fodder.

The worst part of this is that they’re latching onto an environment created predominantly by those that would otherwise have jobs like you and me. Also most celebrities are elected through choice, those with obscene amounts of other peoples cash have the ability to create their own brand of reality celebrity. Clever, in predictably snidey sort of way.

Novelty acts have never really done it for me. People (students) who pretend they’re into music smile along happily like they’re ‘Having a larf’, when in fact they simply like sickly tunes of any description and the irony of the novelty act is as good an excuse as any to indulge.

I had this in mind while I waited for Goldie Lookin’ Chain on Saturday evening at the Ashton Court festival in Bristol, and what potentially could have turned out to be as cringe worthy as waking up next to Peter Mandleson actually proved to be pretty bang on stuff. Eight blokes from across the bridge in Newport, all charging around a tiny stage in tracksuits swearing and shouting about smoking soap box.

Basically bloody brilliant. With loads of munted audience participation on ace tracks like, ‘Fuck you Alicia keys’ rounded off a great day with a proper highlight, rather that the cold experience of polite guitar / new material.

So maybe GLC aren’t a novelty act after all, maybe now’s the time for tracksuits, swearing and amusing lyrics about your mum having a penis. Well it worked for me!

Watch out Snow Patrol, the Chavs are coming!