It's our World Of Bollocks 400th Post Celebratory Extravaganza Utter Cop-Out!

Gruntings. Because selective OCD about large numbers ending in zeroes, Your Correspondent has been deliberating for the past week over what story to tell for our 400th World of Bollocks post. In the end I gave up and told someone else's. This is a Storify account (a clever interwonk invention which collates social media discussions into coherent stories) of a tale I probably shouldn't be telling, on Twitter or on here; but I am, and I have. Dedicated to all my fellow and fallen PhD students, past and present. Enjoy. The Doctor (and yes, they did give me one in the end) is OUT.

A spot of bother

The Indian Premier League may be the world's first ever quantum sporting event, being that it exists in a state of being completely fixed and utterly broken at the same time. Overnight's breaking news of multiple player arrests as part of a spot-fixing scandal involving shady underworld figures and dodgy bookmakers (not for once implicating Tom Wankerface) were met by large rounds of 'What else is new?' amongst cricket fans, weathered against the moral and sporting vacuum under lights that constitues the IPL. Although these blokes weren't best pleased.

Fucking hell Sanjeev, I said YOU were supposed to bring the effigy this protest 

If you were seeking to evolve a sporting tournament from scratch that would be maximally susceptible to corruption, you couldn't have done any better than the IPL's proven template. Select for lazy, avaricious local and international pros more interested in money than the game. Surround them with glitz, glamour and shiny shit; culture for weeks in a petri-dish of hangers-on, media gushers, celebritards, thieves, pimps and bookies. Make them pay endless sequences of who-cares fixtures between who-cares franchises. Then look shocked and horrified when they start bowling pies on queue with towels down the front of their trou.

In related news, our Irony Meter just blew up

Although the IPL is by definition a tournament of irrelevance and idiocy, Sreesanth et al's actions are a lot closer to 'match' fixing than 'spot' fixing than say the Pakistanis who were done a few years ago. Hurling down a few no-balls in a five-day-test vs England is liable to have considerably lower less impact on the result than going for 14 an over at the pointy end of a T20 game, no matter how monstrously pointless an exercise said contest is, or destructive to the game of cricket at large. Or even to individual reputations. Former Strayan quick Shaun Tait found his name dragged through the mud with no apparent justification after unsubstantiated reports of wads of cash being found in his hotel room circulated online, and then in news reports. Not only was this completely unfair on Tait, it would be completely inexplicable. In general, in order to be involved in spot-fixing, one must first have some form of rudimentary control over the general vicinity into which one is to deliver the ball.

Meanwhile, in England, actual cricket has broken out. Thank fuck for that.

The Doctor is OUT.

Piking out

Sebastien Loeb isn't particularly into weeping because he has no more worlds to conquer. The nine-times-consecutive-and-reigning-champion of the World Rally Championship, greatest rally driver in history, former champion gymnast and freelance Tom Brady impersonator is going through a staged retirement this year, winding his WRC involvement back to four events (in which he has so far finished first, second and first with his home event in France to come). Citroen, for whom he won all nine world titles, have him under contract to run World Touring Cars in 2014. In the meantime he's pottering about with his self-run World Endurance sportscar team running McLarens at Le Mans and the like. And having a bit of a run in this thing.

'This thing' is the Peugeot 208 T16 'Pikes Peak', the spiritual successor to the terrifying billion horsepower 'Group B' Peugeot 205 T16s of mid-1980s world rallying, which once banned from the WRC found themselves as the basis of the Froggy Lion's Paris-Dakar winners of the later '80s. The same architecture, draped in fuck-off-ludicrous wings and turbo engine overboosted to the stratosphere, was handed to Ari Vatanen in the form of the 1988 405 T16 and pointed in the direction of the infamous Pikes Peak hillclimb in Colorado.

The result was a lot of perforated eardrums. And back-to-back Pikes Peak titles for the 405 T16. Being French, they got fairly pretentious about it. Professor Jean-Louis Loubet, head of the Department of History at Evry-Val d’Essonne University:

"In the wake of the Drivers' and Manufacturers' World Rally Championship titles secured by Peugeot with the 205 Turbo 16 in 1985 and 1986, the so-called Group B cars were deemed too powerful and promptly outlawed at the end of the 1986 season. This gave Peugeot a chance to turn its attention to other challenges and put the car through its paces in other parts of the world. Pikes Peak is a metaphor for the American dream: it takes place in Colorado where the sense of freedom and space provides the inspiration to take on the very highest summits. It was a period when Peugeot was successful in everything it entered, from the World Rally Championship to the Dakar Rally, and the American event represented a fresh challenge..."

(Why doesn't some fusty humanities prick from Monash or USyd faff lyrical about Brocky winning Bathurst nine times, that's what I want to know)

The notorious Pikes Peak gravel has been progressively sealed over the past few years, and is now completely tarmac base to apex, all 19.99km and 156 corners of it. Which makes a fairly-well-credentialled-on-asphalt rally driver the perfect pick for Peugeot's assault on the all-time Pikes Peak track record, currently held by second-gen Kiwi rally star Rhys Millen at 9m46.164s in a Hyundai. Yes, a Hyundai.

Not exactly a rented Accent from Thrifty though.

Loeb's been testing the 206 T16 on Mont Ventoux, probably better known for its mid-year prominence as a perennial stage of the Tour de France than as a tarmac rally stage, but it does look to serve well as a local analogue of Pikes Peak in its current form. The shame, of course, is that its current form is all-sealed, and the gravel is all gone. Sure, tarmac is faster. But it's hardly as much fun.

Yes, this entire post was just an excuse to link the video of 'Climb Dance', because it's made entirely of fucking awesome. C'est magnifique, or something.

The Doctor is OUT.

Citeh citeh bang bang

New-money reactionary arriviste anti-football arsehats. That's one's immediate response to Manchester Citeh doing their finest Chelski FC impression and firing their manager for no apparent cogent reason other than they didn't win ALL THE THINGS in the past 15 minutes. This morning's MCFC statement:

It is with regret that Manchester City Football Club announces that Roberto Mancini has been relieved of his duties as Manchester City Manager.

This has been a difficult decision for the owner, Chairman and Board to make and it is the outcome of a planned end of season review process that has been brought forward in light of recent speculation and out of respect for Roberto and his extensive contributions to the Football Club. 

Despite everyone’s best efforts, the Club has failed to achieve any of its stated targets this year, with the exception of qualification for next season’s UEFA Champions League. This, combined with an identified need to develop a holistic approach to all aspects of football at the Club, has meant that the decision has been taken to find a new manager for the 2013/14 season and beyond. 

Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said: “Roberto’s record speaks for itself and he has the respect and gratitude of Sheikh Mansour, myself and the Board for all of his hard work and commitment over the last three and a half years. He has clearly also secured the love and respect of our fans. He has done as he promised and delivered silverware and success, breaking the Club’s 35-year trophy drought and securing the title in 2012. I would like to personally and publicly thank him for his dedication to the progress that he has overseen and for his support and continued friendship."

Assistant Manager Brian Kidd will take interim responsibility for the remaining two games of the season and the post-season tour to the United States.

Roberto Mancini, failing his job interview as an AFL goal umpire

Even by established coach-firing-press-release standards the above load of bollocks makes less sense than Sir Alex Ferguson after most of a bottle of Glenfiddich. Or Sir Alex Ferguson at any midweek press conference, which is pretty much the same thing. Aside from the astonishing faff about love, respect, gratitude and the chairman's continued friendship with a bloke he's just put in a Jobcentre queue, the gold Bogie for Best Use Of Management Wankwords has to go to '...combined with an identified need to develop a holistic approach to all aspects of football at the Club...'

Which, reading between the lines and colouring in the numbered segments, means they either sacked Mancini because he was shit at running the backroom stuff (transfers et al), or they sacked him because he objected to them bringing in a director of football to oversee that stuff as well as the first team squad.  Because management issues are always a good reason to fire a guy who won you the Cup and the League in consecutive seasons after 35 years of wasting oxygen.

Contrast the cretindom of Citeh (and Chelsea, who will shortly be seeking their tenth first-team manager since 2007/08 (though it'll be the ninth different one if The Special One is batshit-insane enough to come back for another crack at Russian Owner Roulette) with Manchester United, whose 26-year veteran manager reminded supporters, owners and hierarchy of the job of said supporters, owners and hierarchy when and if a new manager (say, f'rinstance, a Mr David Moyes formerly of Everton FC) finds himself on Struggle St: get behind the bastard.

At least you know where you are when you're manager of Citeh.
You're fucked.

Preferably not with a big fuck-off knife, like the new-money fucktards.

It's not for coincidence that Moyes, the new MUFC boss, was one of the longest serving managers in the Premier League, thanks to Everton not being arsehats re continuing a manager's employment even if the club happens to have a slightly crap year. Even Arsenal, whose name SOUNDS like Arsehat and who last won anything sometime around the era of the dinosaurs, have stuck with Wenger through thick and thin. Mostly thin. Anaemically, anorexically thin. But occasionally they play some pretty football, and hey, they've got a young squad and they're rebuilding. Yes, they've been a permanent construction site longer than most of south-east Queensland, but they're rebuilding...

An arsehat

Interestingly, one of the criticisms levelled at Fergie at MUFC (one of the many, particularly from media types who he'd had barred from club press conferences) was that the force of his personality and the power of his machinations meant United had no real succession plan for his retirement - all his former 2ICs found themselves obliged to move elsewhere to find senior management positions. Fergie's assistant from 1991 to 1998 (until Fergie slagged him off in his autobiog): Brian Kidd, who today finds himself caretaker manager at Manchester City.

Admittedly, Kidd's lack of first-team gigs probably has as much to do with him utterly fucking up his season at Blackburn Rovers in the late 90s, but that's another story. One which seems to repeat on an intermittent loop for Rovers over the past few seasons. Particularly since they were bought by cashed-up Indian chicken farmers with no detectable understanding of football whatsoever and managed to go through three managers in a season. There's 'new-money reactionary arriviste anti-football arsehats', and then there's being called 'utterly unforgivable', 'woefully inadequate' and 'entirely contrary to the way justice is supposed to be served' by the High Court judge you are appealing to in order to prevent having to pay the former-club-hero manager you sacked after 56 days in the job. He was only asking for two million or so, which is the amount Rovers manage to lose every month...

More arsehats

Yes, it seems Citeh and Chelski still have a way to go to match World's Best Practice in New-Money Reactionary Arriviste Anti-Football Arsehattery. Venky's, take a bow.

And then fuck off out of football forever.

The Doctor is OUT.

Dey terk urr jerbs crowds

Because I give not a fuck for Victorian Rules Football (to the point of leaving Australia to get away from the shit) I don't actually want to write this post, but I will, because rancid cuntery. That's about the only even-handed description of failing 'n' flailing Greater Western Sydney Giants coach Kevin Sheedy's inference that only dirty unAustrayan foreigner boat people types support soccah, and because the Golden West is full of said illegal immigrants, noone wants to come to proper Strayan footy games and instead they go to wogball, set off flares and spread typhoid.

I may be paraphrasing ever-so-slightly. But only ever-so-slightly.

On the long laundry list of dumb shit said by Sheeds, this is remarkable for its ignorance, its casual racism and its boneheaded lack of logic. All ignored AFL apologists, who inevitable as gastric after a 3am kebab have trotted out the usual excuses and disclaimers:
'he was quoted out of context' - no he wasn't
'oh that's just Sheeds he's just a knockabout Aussie rogue' - no he's a cunt
'this is just more lefty hashtag outrage derp' - my personal favourite, given the Red & Black Block have always struck me as about as left-wing as Fred Nile; about the only thing vaguely leftist about them is the red on their shirts, and their faces after they lost the final

There was context to his cretindom, that being a blathering list of excuses for why GWS had pulled a home crowd of 5,830 on a beautiful clear sunny Sunday afternoon (that crowd figure coming courtesy Super League Crowd Counters Ltd) - mainly pinning the blame on the AFL scheduling a game on Mothers Day, clearly picking on small clubs. Aside from Greater Western Sydney being full of sheilas, wogs and pooftas.

Here's a thought. If you want to pull a crowd that wouldn't even embarrass the Wellington Phoenix, maybe play some decent football and win a fucking game or two?

Another GWS sellout at Skoda Stadium

This isn't just an argument based on the 'AFL is unwatchable shit' line of reasoning - though it is - but the simple fact that noone wants to pay money to watch a fucking awful football team wobble about the paddock getting lapped by everyone, even other fucking awful football teams. If there's an audience for AFL in western Sydney, that's not the way to find it. The AFL, in their wisdom, decided to hang their campaign for control of Western civilization on two personalities: coach Sheedy and NRL recruit Israel Folau. Folau turned out to have as much personality as footy-playing ability, and has fled back to egg-chasing for the Tahs. Sheedy's personality turns out to be making pissant excuses for his own inability to coach an incredibly well-resourced team past even the worst clubs in the AFL. GWS might not have the Immigration Department recruiting supporters, but they do have multi-millions in AFL HQ largesse to spunk all over the Golden West. The Wanderers had goodwill, two bucks fifty in Cabcharge vouchers and some natty red and black playing shirts.

So far, the result of the battle for Western supremacy ain't even close. Much like most of GWS' recent on-pitch contests. The amazing thing isn't that only 5,830 people turned up yesterday to watch GWS lose by 135 points. It's that anyone turned up to watch at all.

The Doctor is OUT.

I'm a Scientist, Get Me A Twitter Account

Research funding, vis-a-vis career progression for young researchers, is fucked. For those who work in SCIENTS, or those of us who work slightly to the side of SCIENTS helping researchers with colouring-in within the lines and using the grown-up scissors, this isn't news. As discussed previously here, universities burn PhD students for fuel, churning out overtrained, indebted graduates with no actual prospect of employment in the research fields they were trained in. Those who somehow hang in there and compete for jobs are left with a contracting competitive research funding environment in which they have next to no hope to sustain themselves, their families or the people who work for them.

This is a strongly written, passionately argued account of how fucked the system is in Australia. The only thing that needs to be added to it is that New Zealand researchers would kill for a success rate as 'low' as Australia's. Halve those figures and you reach the reality of NZ research funding, which is well below the OECD average. In the first round of the Marsden Fund, NZ's only basic research funder (i.e. non-applied, blue-skies, curiosity led, whatever you want to call it - proper fucking science is what I would call it), the preliminary round has an over 80% failure rate. Less than one in five proposals make it through to the second round. Where less than half of THOSE will get funded. And if they are it'll probably be less than they asked for, and won't be enough to do the work properly, and will run out after three years with no prospect of continuation on that particular project. Does that suggest we have too many researchers and too many research institutions for the size of the country? Probably. But we have them, and they represent human capital which the nation has invested in, as well as human beings which we have a responsibility to look after.

Anyway, it is what it is. And what is also what it is, or something, is Mr Minit's Nats making possibly their only clever decision in two terms of office and pouring ACTUAL NEW MONEY into the research sector, in the form of the National Science Challenges. $135M in ACTUAL NEW MONEY over the next two budgets, in particular. Not counting the cash they blew running a much-lauded public consultation process involving patronising TV ads and flash websites (i.e. websites that are flash, not websites that run Flash). Given that the list of National Science Challenges are pretty much (a) what NZ science was working on in the first place (b) what NZ science has always been working on since day dot (c) what NZ science will always be working on until the heat death of the universe, one more cynical than I could argue the entire process was an exercise in pissing money up a wall while ending up precisely where one started from. However, that discounts the hidden value of the process: we asked the public what science they wanted us to do, and they confirmed we were pretty much on the right track already. Apart from the tinfoil hat brigade who demanded we investigate chemtrailing UFOs piloted by fraudulating climate change researchers, fluoridating our water supplies from the air and making us all gay-marry each other under sharia law. But apparently, those were in the minority.

What this is, effectively, is science communication in its rarest, and yet most useful form. Many inside research view (and practice) science communication in the form of telling people stuff: this is what science is and this is what scientists do and you should be interested in it. This is not communication. This is broadcasting. Communication, by definition, is a two-way process. It involves talking AND listening. This is why the NSC consultation process wasn't entirely a waste of fuckloads of money which could have been spent on lab consumables. And this also is why I've enjoyed being involved in @RealScientists so much.

For those under a rock (who aren't geologists) RealScientists is a project initiated by a group of science-minded tweeps to get actual SCIENTS people - lab types, policy types, clinicians, sci-comm-unists et al - communicating directly with people via Twunter. And it's been hugely successful. The most interesting thing though has been the two-way nature of the communication, which is Twitter's great strength, and why I'm not sure it'd work as well (certainly not in the same way) on any other social media platform - although pages like I Fucking Love Science work spectacularly well on Facebook, it's still primarily a broadcasting platform, and doesn't really permit anything other than superficial, once-over-lightly approaches to complex topics. On Twitter, you can dig as deeply into something as time and interest allows. This is not to say that RealScientists won't expand to other platforms - it's very early days - but I'm personally enjoying watching the interactive nature of this particular flavour of science communication.

And making up stupid shit for the intro/outro posts, like this.

[Administrators note - if you are An SCIENTS and you want to join in as a potential curator, flick us an email. For more info, check out RealScientists on WordPress. For even MOAR info, follow the @RealScientists account - or just bookmark the page, even if you're not on Twitter.]

The Doctor is OUT.

Massive Ferguson

The reaction to an OAP called SAF deciding to GTFO from MUFC has been decidedly OTT, but after an unprecedented and unparalleled 26 years of success (or at least 20 years of success preceded by six years of winning fuck all) at the highest level of English football, Sir Alex Ferguson certainly deserves a few bouquets thrown his way at his curtain call. Even if, like me, you think Man U are shitcunts followed by arrivistes and wankers. His Legacy speaks for itself. It has a voicebox like KITT from Knight Rider. As BBC Sporf (yes, Sporf) put it:

26 Years

13 Premier League Titles

10 Community Shields

5 FA Cups

4 League Cups

2 European Cups

1 Piece of Chewing Gum

Which just leaves the minor issue of who you sent on as a following act. Succession planning hasn't particularly been Man U's bag - all of SAF's 2ICs have POQ'd when offered the chance to manage other sides rather than hang around and wait for the old fucker to toddle off - which necessitates the MUFC PLC sifting through candidates from outside the tent. These can broadly be sorted into three groups:

(1) Former club stalwarts 
The traditional recipe for the procurement managers in the Prem. Often also the traditional recipe for Epic Fail for the procurement of managers in the Prem.
Pros: All that touchy-feely bollocks about 'knowing the culture of the club'. Guaranteed positive reception from the terraces. Likely to already have a tracksuit in club colours.
Cons: Usually have fuck-all idea about how to manage a football team. Particularly if they got through their career on raw talent rather than intelligence or acumen. See Maradona, D.A.
Candidates: Pretty scant, despite Man U's generation of the early '90s having reached their 40s and garnered their FIFA 'A' Licences. Steve Bruce - coaching's Littlest Hobo, who's thumbed lifts between clubs up and down the top divisions of English football, last seen at Hull. Paul Ince - no. Just no. Sparky Hughes - would have been airdropped straight in four or five years ago, after flopping at Citeh and QPR wouldn't get an interview.
Dr Y's pick: Eric Cantona. Can he coach? No. Would they win? No. Would it bring the Maradona-grade lulz? Fuck yeah. The seagulls will certainly be following the trawler.

(2) Flashy Euros
Favourite route of nouveau riche clubs owned by cashed-up overseas owners (Chelski, Citeh etc). Can directly relate to the playing staff as they have much in common with them. Huge reputations. Huge wages. Huge egos.
Pros: Huge egos.
Cons: Huge egos.
Candidates: Your Svens, your Capellos, your Ancelottis, your Pep Guardiolas - all highly credentialled, all highly competent, all highly under contract to other clubs - but it's not as though tapping up is any kind of sin in the modern Premier League, after all.
Dr Y's pick: The Special One. Because he's Special. And if he signs up for a second crack at Coaching Employment Russian Roulette with Chelski, he's Special as in Needs.

(3) Angry Scotsmen
Preferred option of pretty much every club in the top two divisions of English football.
Pros: Coaching staff will not need a translator, being are already fluent in Agitated Glaswegian Bollocks
Cons: Unlikely to find another angry Scotsman who's prepared to be paid in duty free single malt and crates of cleanskin Chilean merlot
Candidates: By passport, half the Prem and two thirds of the Championship
Dr Y's pick: David Moyes of Everton. Highly experienced in taking a bog-average, unimaginative, uninspiring team and keeping them at exactly that level for as long as the cheques continue to roll in, by spending fuck-all, playing dull, ugly football, winning 1-0 and complaining a lot about refereeing decisions.

He'll be perfect for Manchester United.

The Doctor is OUT.

Bag of dictators

The 80s were a bag of dicks, as anyone with a pulse, a brain and/or direct personal recollection of the period will endorse. The fashion was shit, the music was shit, the hairdos were fuck-off-cretinous and internet porn hadn't been invented yet. It's not for unrelated reasons that the only pricks trying to bring back the era are the idiot kids who weren't born until after 1990.

One thing the 80s did have, though, was proper batshit loony dictators. Admittedly, the 1970s were arguably the highpoint for the field, with the likes of Idi Amin strutting about the place, but the 1980s had variety - from your Noriegas and Pinochets and Argie juntas in central and south America, to the commie thugs of East Germany gunning down wall-climbers and force-feeding roids to prepubescent girls, to the fat white belligerent Boer cunts of apartheid Sarth Efricor. Plus everyone's old-school totes-totalitarians who've stood the test of time - your Castros, your Chinese Communist Apparatus (which should be the name of an indie band from north Fitzroy, and probably is) and of course your Kim Jong Licenced-To-Il in the DPR-to-the-K.

Today, of course, we have two fifths of fuck all. 2013's big bag of dictators is barer than Cronulla-Sutherland's trophy cupboard, while the need for the first world to know which foreign leaders to revile remains as overflowing as Cronulla-Sutherland's safe injecting rooms. Outrage-hungry activiste types and are forced to redefine the likes of Rupert Murdoch as totalitarian dictators, when in reality what they are is just cunts. Apart from Ahmadinnerjacket and some Syrian Asshat, there's not a lot doing nowadays. Until Kim Jong Il became too ill and dropped off the twig, handing over to his genuinely fucking unhinged young bloke: winner winner chicken dinner. Unless you're in North Korea, where it's kim-chi. Or rather would be if the country wasn't broke-ass-broke, so it's wet cardboard.

How genuinely fucking unhinged is Kim Jong Un? Well, he wants to start a war, start a NUCLEAR WAR. And since there's no gay bars in Pyongyang (that the DPRK are prepared to acknowledge at least) he's looking to start one in the South China Sea instead. To quote the usually reserved AFP: 

The current crisis, with its nuclear threats and Kim's lurid exhortations to his troops to "break the waists of the crazy enemies and totally cut their windpipes" has placed the young leader in the global spotlight... His apparent affection for amusement parks and Disney characters sits oddly with his position as supreme commander of the world's fifth-largest army with an emerging nuclear arsenal.

You think?

The final dealbreaker in the is-Kim-Jong-Un-batshit-insane debate is, of course, the company he keeps. If he was in any way compos mentis, but just playing up the looney tunes routine in public in order to further his devious aims (much like the Mad Butcher), he'd surround himself with intelligent, rational, strategic-thinking people.

That'd be a no then.

Dennis Rodman was and remains an all-time great of NBA basketball. If you needed defensive rebounds, the Worm was your man. Led the league in rebounds every season from 1992 to 1998. Two-time defensive player of the year.  Five championships, two with the Pistons and three with Jordan's Bulls. The Pistons retired his number. NBA.com called him 'arguably the best rebounding forward in NBA history.' He's in the Hall of Fame. 

He also appears to be batshit, weapons-grade, window-licking insane.

Yes, even by NBA standards, where it's not off-message for a guy to rename himself Metta World Peace, even if he's previously been suspended for an entire season for punching on with crowd members.

Rodman copped a lot of heat during his career, but nothing like the frothing from Septic meeja types for hanging with the DPRK's Number Un, shooting the shit and rolling with the lulz while they watched some ball. At roughly the same time as North Korea were ramping up the thermonuclear rhetoric (and underground testing) vis a vis the South, and as the DPRK were sentencing American citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years hard labour.

Which brings us to the following:

I did me a solid this morning; it took two flushes, but that's beside the point. What's not beside the point, indeed what's right on top of the point poking it in the ear with a sharpened HB pencil is the undeniable fact that if this works, and if Rodman can get through to KJU when NOONE ELSE IN THE WORLD can - not the Americans, not the South Koreans, not the Russians, not the Chinese -  Dennis Rodman may turn out to be the Henry Kissinger of our time. And since it would seem highly likely Kissinger couldn't grab a defensive board to save his fat arse, Rodman is likely to be the greatest negotiator in the history of international diplomacy.

Dennis Rodman: crazy like a fox. In a wedding dress.

The Doctor is OUT.

Givin' up and gettin' fat

So you're in your late 30s. You're getting older, fatter, allegedly wiser. Your years of gig-pigging, piss-sinking and hell-raising are long past. Anyway, all your favourite bands have given up and gotten fat (to paraphrase You Am I, who'd know more about that than most.) It's time to settle the fuck down and get on with life. It's no disgrace to grow old disgracefully. Better than the alternative, which is not to grow old at all.

So thought a late 30-something Pom called Tony Sylvester. Fat, beardy, balding, tattoos beginning to fade. His better days were behind him, and he was OK with that. He'd fronted a bunch of fleabag punk, indie and undie (ground) bands in his younger days, served as the president of his favourite band's UK fan club - notorious Norwegian deathpunks Turbonegro and their fearsomely loyal, denim-clad and demented Turbojugend (Turbo Youth) - and packed it all in to work behind the scenes in the music industry. Turbonegro, of course, had packed it in themselves, their iconic lead singer Hank von Helvete having finally succumbed to the drug addiction and mental illness that haunted his 17 years with the band, sadly meeting his end as a functional, rational human being - i.e. becoming a Scientologist and appearing on Norwegian TV's 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me A Herring Suppository.'* In order to honour the Turbojugend one last time, the remaining Turbonegroids decided to put on a comeback-slash-farewell gig with a bunch of different guest singers from their years touring around the traps, and called in their old mate Tony to catch up over a few beers and help sort the singer shortlist.

It turned out to be a very shortlist.
(1) Sylvester, T.
(2) No second placed dividend.

Seriously, if going from being the number one ticket holder for your favourite band one day, to standing out front of them bellowing your beardy hole off the next** isn't the fucking awesomest thing in the history of ever, then I'm made entirely of Cheez-Wizz. I love this story, not only because it's In The Worst Possible Taste IRL (and Turbonegro's lethal combination of (a) noise (b) filth (c) pisstaking is pretty much bang-on what I'd imagined Flange Gasket and moreover Hayabusa to have sounded like.) But what makes it an even better story is that the ensuing Turbonegro album, 2012's Sexual Harassment, is the best fucking thing they've done since their apex predator years of the late '90s. Sneering, swaggering, deafening, apocalyptic death-punk***.





...Though I can't see Angus in the hat somehow.

The Doctor is OUT.


* This bit may be made up, but Hank's definitely turned into a Scientologist and celebrity whore. 'Norwegian Idol' judge. Say no more

** Disclaimer: there may have been more than 24 hours elapsed between these two occasions

*** Yes, death-punk is a thing. Turbonegro invented it. If you want to be the best in your field, first define your field to include only you (Academia 101)

**** is what some newspapers write instead of fuck, which is less than informative. Cunts

***** is what Margaret and David generally award fuck-off-unwatchable arthouse films which go for weeks and are never about ancient Norwegian punk bands who still rock like a motherfucker, even if they do look like the Village People with a Spitfire supercharger down their trousers