Language Use That Really Annoys Me #3 - Teenage Girls.

I hate teenage girls. Not enough of them die in wars. Think of all the ickle fluffy bunnies we could save from agonising but necessary medical tests if we used teenage girls instead. They'd get free mascara and most of them like doing weird things to their hair and skin, so it's not exactly a one-sided transaction...

But have you ever been on a train with them? It's Dante's Inferno if he included cheap perfume, desperate attempts to look 'adult' despite still being at school and too much make up. God, they're irritating. So irritating that all of a sudden drinking bleach or being eaten alive by a swarm of ravenous sewer rats seems preferable.

It's how they speak that's really annoying, the excruciating squealing tone that comes from watching too much Hollyoakes or Neighbours or American Teen shlockfests. In this shrill pidgin, one does not go to 'university'. No, one goes to 'YOOOOO-NEEEEEE'. Every exclaimation is 'OH MY GOOOOOOOoooooooooDDDD!'* and their laughter is akin to a really cruel Greek chorus cackling as a cute puppy gets run over by a Deus et Machina Land Rover.

But it's how every f**king sentence has to be a question. 'Hi Emm-AHHHH?' 'Hiya, Denise?' 'We're on a train???' 'So are we?' 'We'll meet at the station?' 'That's a great idea?' 'Love ya, babe?' 'Love you, too, gor-juss?' It's like a gaggle of South Bank intellectuals arguing over whether they actually exist and whether the Jonas Bros. are, like, the cutest boys evvv-aaaaaar.

Everybody thinks that one's teenage years are about rebellion. But as these not-quite-women show, it's really about conformity. Not the beaten down, I've-learned-to-love-the-inland-revenue, oh-shit-I'm-married-and-got-three-kids type of conformity we normally associate with 'the squares', who lost their battle with the Beast long before they even knew they were fighting it.

No, teenage conformity is far worse - they choose to obey, to follow, to think and dress and speak exactly like the rest of whatever grubby little tribe they choose to belong to. 'Teenage Rebellion', that old cliche and crutch for one's own midlife crisis, is a misdiagnosis. The rejection of parental authority is not in favour of some Sodom 'n Gomorrah anarchy, but rather, a far more strident, focussed and vicious obedience to a much more powerful, competent authority. Those girls don't give two farts about what you think about them - because they BELONG, and that means infinitely more than any personal consideration or individual nuance.

And if you don't obey the hormonal Clone-God? You will be singled out. You will be despised. You will be tainted, and You Will Pay for not marching in tune. There is a reason why the Red Guards were mostly students, the Baader Meinhof gang was young and beautiful and why most suicide bombers are young men with their best years still ahead: Only the young can love their masters as much as they do, and HATE their foes with such passion. Piggy always gets lynched by good little tribals, and there is a reason why all those charming chavs and thugs**, of the kind that congregates in large numbers and frighten grown men, all wear the same cut and style of tracksuits and hooded tops and affect the same swagger and menacing, insolent air. They're in uniform and they're on parade.

And in the end, it all comes down to language. The language you use shapes your mind and your actions. It defines you and the company you keep. By definition, any limit you impose on your language is a limit you impose on your own mind, your own decisions and your ability to choose right from wrong. And that's what's really wrong with ghastly teenage girls. They WANT to be limited and hold in contempt any attempt to improve yourself or have your own thoughts.

But there's going to be a day when I get up, walk across the carriage, stand on the table they're sitting around, whip out my homemade morning star and, while waving it about, sing: "'Girl, You'll Be A Woman, SOOOOooo-ooon...', but only when you can string a sentence together, you foul pubescent wreckers of good syntax." And then, and only then, I will threaten them with certain death if they ever raise the pitch of their voices at the end of a sentence that isn't a question. And it will be a good day. If not for my sanity, or vapid girls in scrunchees and tracksuit bottoms with 'WHORE' printed over the buttocks, then at least for language.



* In this case, Sharnice, the infernal deity of backstabbing, hairdressers, eating disorders and crap taste in music. Alignment: Neutral Evil. Favoured Weapon: Fake Gucci stiletto heel, outside a pub in Central Cardiff on a Saturday night...

** At least teenage girls have an internal life, albeit a really stunted one. Teenage boys, as a rule, haven't quite got past the grunting and saying 'c**t' a lot phase. They seldom develop further, either.

Language Use That Really Annoys Me #2 - Over-Used Cliches.

I hate spoken cliches. When someone says, 'well, y'know, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, and - I'm not being funny but - like, you what I mean?' I want to stab them. In the head, with a tent spike. Or possibly just shoot them. If America is to be hated for anything, it is for the hideous over-use of the term 'what-not'. But then, the French keep going 'alors' and Cheryl 'I sound like Sid The Sexist in Drag' Cole probably intersperses every four f**king words with 'like', so the tendency is universal.

Why? It suggests lazy thinking. People who keep using the same phrases, time and again, are not using that most-complex-structure-in-the-known-universe that occupies their cranium. Their brains are taking short cuts, they are running on autopilot and - worst of all - they're just speaking someone else's words. They are not functioning as people, but as automotons, or jukeboxes playing the greatest verbal hits of someone much more creative.

The worst ones are however created by the individual who then proceeds to overuse them so they never need structure an original sentence again. For example, I knew one idiot who kept using the word 'intransigence' to the point that you had to wonder if that was the first four syllable word they had ever said and their tiny minds couldn't cope with the stress. 'Negative' or 'negativity' is another overused one, as is 'solutions', but so too are potted ideological arguments for people too stupid for ideology, like 'political correctness gone mad!' or 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear'. It even has a social cost - think of all those families ruined by 'my house, my rules!' or 'you're not going out dressed like that!'(and so on) vs. 'you don't understand me!' or 'I hate you!' or 'You're So Unfair!'. All too often, we venture into life as individuals with our own thoughts and viewpoints, and yet in the end we are reduced to stock phrases, archetypes and echoes of echoes of echoes, playing out prealloted roles with prealloted dialogue...

Lazy use of cliches is profoundly annoying, but it's also dehumanising too. But, y'know, it's like 'what-evvaaaaar', innit?

Language Use That Really Annoys Me #1 - Bully Language.

I am an irritable ovine at heart, often getting into fights at barn dances with collies that look at my ewe funny. Also annoying are the many ghastly uses of the English language that remain both far too common and not nearly as violently put down as they should be.

For example, there's language that is offensive - for example, calling someone's mother a llama - and then there is language that is just begging for a fight. 'Bully Language' is a good example of the latter.

But what is 'bully language'? It is a phrase or cliche designed to shout down, bellitle or dismiss someone who feels aggrieved. It is often used by people who are insensitive, thuggish or who just like putting other people down.

Examples include 'live with it!', 'suck it up!' and the all-time twat classic, 'buck up your ideas!', usually applied to someone who's suicidal or severely clinically depressed. It is often used politically as well, as a way of rubbing it in and making yourself look like a cock at the same time, e.g., 'Hitler has just won the election. Live with it!' This allows you to appear masterful, no-nonsense and folksy and in control. Oh, and to be an arsehole to people you know won't hit you.

Some defenders of bully language claim it is both common and necessary in warzones. For example, 'get up and fight, you big poof! We'll find your leg later!!!' Somehow, though, it seems a bit disproportionate to invoke the sort of language used on a battlefield when talking to someone whose boyfriend has just dumped them.

But how best to counter bully language? Face punching is illegal, but it's your word against theirs. And when they're bleeding, you can then reply 'live with it!' while laughing at your own ironic wit. However, the old reliable response of 'Go f**K yourself!' is an acceptable substitute. And if they don't like it, they too will have to 'suck it up', 'buck up their ideas' etc.

True Blood vs. Twilight, or 'Cloth vs. Clobber Redux'

Back in days of yore, Loaded magazine (in its James Brown-edited incarnation) was actually worth reading. One article from this era that stood out for me was 'Cloth vs. Clobber', a grand unifying theory that sought to explain all events in history on whether the participants were 'cloth' (as in, affected, individualistic and possibly well-tailored or art student-esque) or 'clobber' (as in, JGB Sports, whatever your mum buys you at Primark, trainers, work clothes, etc.). Put simply, it's Noel Fielding vs. Noel Gallagher, or possibly Zoe Heriot vs. Rose Tyler.

This article has stayed with me ever since. Even now I view the world between these two poles. NATO vs. the Taliban, for example - our boys are obviously clobber because they're all in uniform, wear glorified Doc Martens and drink lots of lager. Whereas, 'The Scholars' are cloth because they all dress like Obi Wan Kenobi and have a thing for mascara and pederasty. You see? It all makes sense now.

Anyway, let's now talk about vampires, or rather, HBO's Deep South haemovore soap, True Blood, and the upcoming vamps 'n werewolves epic, Twilight: New Moon. Again, I refer you to 'Cloth vs. Clobber'. True Blood is plainly clobber, not least because it revolves around the nation's favourite hung up telepath waitress, Sookie Stackhouse, prancing around like a latter day Daisy Duke, right down to the tight but dead common t-shirts and matching shorts. The rest of the cast is also clad in that functional, naively gauche way of many Americans - all jeans, strappy tops, check shirts and Nascar baseball caps. Everyone shags like rabbits and most of the action takes place in the town bar where everyone eats burgers and drinks Budweiser. Even Bill, the in-house brooding vampire, is more akin to a dressed-down Southern Gent than a blood-hungry New Romantic. The fact that Bill's Clan Elder, Eric, looks like he's just been on tour with Opeth notwithstanding, True Blood and its characters are as said most assuredly clobber.

Meanwhile, the Twilight series has just got to be cloth. Wan, winsome teenage virgins listening to Muse and getting lovelorn over a wet prat of a vampire that can't even bring himself to bite/bonk them is proof enough. But if the trailer for the new sequel is anything to go by, we've also got suspiciously well-groomed Byronic Hero werewolves stripped to the waist and looking rather troubled, and a Vampire Court that makes the Borgias look rather understated. It's so cloth, it makes Hot Topic look like Footlocker.

But who prevails? In this case, it has to be clobber. True Blood just seems much more compelling, believable and nuanced, like a living world waiting to explore, whereas the Twilight Saga can only really be seen as a sort of sanitised, simplified romantic smut for tween and teenage girls who want all the vicarious thrills without the grot or nuance of the real thing. So chalk another one up then, clobber. Chavs, rejoice!

NEXT WEEK: Is Being Human the new Rising Damp? Log on next week for the answers!

2012 - A Spotter's Guide.

Do you like disaster films that are just like every other disaster film, give or take state of the art CGI effects? Then this checklist is for you! Remember, 2012 has all these cliches and more, including a bit where two silly old women die in a much deserved road accident! Go Emmerich, Go! How many can YOU spot?

MAIN SECTION
* Earnest black chap giving pious speech about shared humanity? CHECK!
* Billions dying but at least the dog makes it? CHECK!
* Gratuitous product placement? (Sony VAIO et al.) CHECK!
* Deep Impact-esque tear-jerker moments between doomed relatives? CHECK!
* Expendable second husband/stepfather? CHECK!
* Panto villain politician who won't listen to the earnest black chap? CHECK!
* Professor in a bow tie? CHECK!
* Romance blossoming despite monumental carnage? CHECK!
* Various improbable last minute escapes from certain death? CHECK!
* Token foreign family thrown in as a handy Deus Et Machina? CHECK!
* Token foreign family thrown in to emphasise tragedy of situation by dying horribly? CHECK!
* Tibetan Lama sounding rather profound yet somewhat abstract? CHECK!
* Desperate sucking up to the Chinese as this means good box office in the PRC? CHECK!

BONUS SECTION
* Woody Harrelson playing a weirdo? CHECK!
* John Cusack deciding now's the time to cash the fuck in? CHECK!
* Complete disregard for probability or scientific feasibility? CHECK!
* Danny Glover looking rather startled? CHECK!
* Clumsy attempt to spice up a tired genre with unconvincing political subtext and spot-it-a-mile-away Biblical/Classical allusions? CHECK!

Dangling On A Thread - The Execution of Gary Glitter.

Last night's Channel 4 docudrama, "The Execution of Gary Glitter", has certainly divided opinion. A quick Google search reveals many who think it is pro- or anti- death penalty, and many others who claim it soberly provides us with both sides of the argument.* I'd argue, though, that it was less about the debate and more about the people who argue over it.

I shan't bore you too much with the details... Real life rock star/nonce Gary Glitter (nee Paul Gadd) is tried for child rape committed in South East Asia, but the twist is that this is in an alternate timeline where the UK has reintroduced hanging for murder and child abuse... (And presumably crimes committed in other countries.) After a vulgar trial and an intentionally short 30-day wait, he then goes to the gallows... And that's it.

But what stands out, as said, are the characters. None of them are savoury. Glitter is arrogant and stupid, his paedophilia (if not his conviction for rape) obvious in terms of his delusional, self-pitying behaviour. True, the real Glitter would probably flounce to the gallows like a latter-day Jack Shepherd, eager for one last bout of attention whoring, if - that is - they really ever did get to hang him. But there's little to engage us with the pig-headed sobbing wretch we are presented with here, even though what is most disturbing about the real Gadd was how easily he won the public over before he was exposed, and still probably could if these events were real.

The rest of the cast is not likeable either, again deliberately. Real life Journos Gary Bushell and Miranda Sawyer send up their respective grubby rabble rousing and lazy broadsheet vapidity with the same glee that drove Davina McCall to be turned into a zombie in Dead Set. Whereas, right wing politician Ann Widdecombe, media hound that she is, doesn't seem to be in on the joke. But it's the solipsistic barristers, pompous judges, dubious witnesses, the jury that tries Gadd not just for rape but what his popular image has come to represent, the whining and mewling and ultimately hypocritical antis, the hysterical and bloodthirsty bully-boy pros and of course a public that seems hell-bent on turning the first execution on British soil in decades into a circus and freakshow, that stand out as monsters. Not the child-abusing kind, mind you, but the kind of monster that finds vicarious delight through the horror of child abuse and feeds off the hate it engenders or which derives a perverse thrill in shedding tears for a pervert. The drama makes one point clear: the society that hangs Gary Glitter is in its own way every bit as depraved and fucked up.

Not all the characters are unlikeable however. The American death row chaplain, flown over to administer to Glitter's final 30 days, is sympathetic and kind, and perhaps the only truly moral figure in the show due to his compassion and honest intentions. While the hangman himself is an interesting figure - impartial and professional, without agenda and motivated only by duty. He stands in stark contrast to the howling mob outside and the shrill, sanctimonious home secretary he ultimately takes order from, who may either be an insincere hack playing to the mob or who is genuinely intoxicated by the fumes of her hellfire sermons, or perhaps a mixture of both.

So far, so good. But ultimately, "The Execution of Gary Glitter" is undermined by its lack of real merit. Whilst the writers may argue that they are simply trying to engender debate, the faint sleaziness of the premise rather does in any claims of serious docudrama making. What one is left with as the trap is pulled and Gadd finally swings is not a sense of outrage or elation, but a cold, bleak and dirty emptiness, like staring into a pit of total despair and degradation for 90 minutes. Apart from lazily fitting into a British tradition of overwrought pessimism-for-pessimism's-sake in drama, literature and media, the show also chickens out by putting Gadd's neck on the line rather than its own. For in the end what really stands out is the script's own cowardice, its own unwillingness to pick a side and stand up for it, come what may.



* And lots of other people who think it is lurid, exploitative trash.