Loose lips talk shit.

Yeah, you might well pull your face, you enormously bigoted hag! Let me explain. I've been off work for the past week and I've been watching an inordinate amount of daytime television. I'm the kind of person who likes to have something to be angry about. In fact, if I don't feel any anger at all, then I start to think that something's wrong. So while I'm off work and I haven't got the everyday trials and tribulations of the workplace to wind me up, then daytime tv has to plug that gap.

Thank the lord then for Loose Women. For those who don't know, Loose Women is an hour-long soapbox for opinionated harridans to spout objectionable, misinformed bullshit about 'issues', inbetween talking to the likes of Barbara Dickson and Deacon Blue about their new albums that no-one with half a brain gives a shit about. The kind of topics they like to wax lyrical about are things like asylum seekers, benefit cheats and teenage pregnancy. All topics which these moronic, hormonal harpies know pretty much next-to-fuck-all about. This leads to them sounding like female Jim Davidsons while the equally menopausal studio audience claps their every outburst like they've just got to the bottom of that whole meaning of life thing.

This week, I've been treated to Colleen Nolan (yes, one of the frigging Nolan Sisters!) saying that Muslim women who wear burkhas should just get with the program and wear normal clothes like everyone else because, and get this, "if they want to live in our country, they should observe our customs". What?! Okay, she was just siding with Jack Straw, in her mind at least, but I'm sure that she's missed the point somewhat, a fact that was picked up on by Loose Women's voice of reason, Kaye Adams (an oasis of intelligence in a sea of ignorance).

I thought this was the low-point of the loose wenches' lack of enlightenment, but today, the horrid, Carol McGiffin (pictured), a woman who makes me want to pour sulphuric acid directly into my eyeballs everytime she appears on screen, let fly with the most abhorrent statement that I've heard in a long while on tv. In fact, if you hadn't heard it yourself, you'd find it particularly hard to believe. When discussing the hot topic of whether Britain is a nice place to live, Jayne MacDonald (yep, the cruise-ship singer) not unreasonably asked "Well, if Britain is such a horrible place to live, then why do so many immigrants come here?", to which McGiffin replied, "So they can sit around on their lazy arses and let us pay for them"!

I beg your pardon?!

Seriously, Bernard Manning would have been proud for her. This was met by the usual cheers of approval and manic clapping from the audience, lapping up every prejudiced moment as though she was some kind of modern-day oracle. The Loose Women website calls her "the 'tell-it-like-it-is' element of the show". More like tell-it-like-you're-Oswald-fucking-Mosley!

I think that it's time we started keeping an eye on the housewives of this country as I fear they might be being brainwashed by these idiotic fishwives who are, apparently, immune to censuring by an kind of broadcasting watchdog. The next time an immigrant family moves in near your mother, keep watch that she's not cutting eyeholes out of white sheets or fashioning crosses out of that pile of timber in the backyard. If she is, do the right thing and turn the fucking tv over.

In the meantime, this is for the Loose Women...

Iggy & The Stooges - Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell (mp3)

And now for something completely different...

Music fans of the world rejoice! One of the finest British songwriters of the late-20th Century is back among us. Jarvis Cocker is back, back, BACK, with a whole new album of rather excellent pop songs, the likes of which have been missing from the musical landscape since 2001's We Love Life album.

The fact that Jarvis' debut solo album, simply entitled Jarvis is absolutely brilliant is one that was pretty much a given since everyone heard the fantastic 'Running The World' single. 'Running The World' isn't even included here (you can find it on the soundtrack to the film Children Of Men), so that should give you some idea of the strength of the songs that made the cut. Jarvis is no singer-songwriter-like whingefest, in fact it's quite the opposite. Cocker's sardonic wit is very much in full flow, but there's a streak of optimism that runs through the album that makes it one of the most enjoyable albums I've heard all year.

'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time' is a surefire future hit single, 'I Will Kill Again' is a pretty piano ballad that's both hilarious and heartwarming and the riotous 'Fat Children' will have you rocking out with willful abandon. In fact, this is as vital and life-affirming a record that you are ever likely to expect from a 43 year-old man. No doubt I'll write some more about this wonderful record in the not-too-distant future, but for now I'll just say that we can thank our lucky stars that the man has not lost it.

Jarvis - Fat Children (mp3)

Until next time,

JMx