I dunno. I’m away for a month or so and Jade Goody dies. That’s all I wish to say about her in particular. I’m not here to dwell on what her motives were for the gaudy auctioneering of practically every aspect of the last seven years of her life. All for the good of public consumption.

No, because what’s really unsavoury in all of this is:

A) The media circus willing to fork out obscene amounts of money for the exclusive rights to what is tantamount to watching a young woman die.
B) The manipulative scumbags lurking behind the scenes, creaming off their cut of each and every deal closed as the destructive force that is cancer tears somebody’s insides apart.
And C) The opportunist soundbite merchants jumping on the celebrity-grief bandwagon to tell us how sad they are at the death of someone they’ve probably never met, but most certainly wouldn’t give a flying fuck about were it not for the spotlight opportunity associated with such a media carnival. (Yes, that means you Mr. Brown, and all the other scummy politicians who came out to offer their insincere condolences. I didn’t see any of you giving statements for the other unnamed statistics who happened to die from cancer on the same day)

What manner of society is it that clambers across each other, chequebooks open, to buy the exclusive rights to another human being’s painful demise? Whether that person chooses to allow it or not, or even actively encourages it. Whatever happened to self-control?

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Following a harrowing past few weeks, reflected in his ever more desperate cries of despair, Jeffman is taking a long lie down in a very dark room. Hopefully he will be up and back amongst them sometime next week.

In the meantime, why not take a gander at Head Full of Snow – Home to the underground (and selected overground) music of the late 60s and 70s.

Like the cut of my jib? Wanting more? Then subscribe to my RSS Feed

Just a note to announce the launch of Jeffman’s music review blog, Head Full of Snow.

Dealing in psychedelic rock, psych-pop, acid, space, classic, prog rock and all that good stuff from the late 60s and 70s it will certainly be one for anybody into the underground (and overground) sounds of that most freaked-out of eras. There’ll be album, song, band reviews, news and features – so head over and take a gander.

Whilst you’re there, be sure to subscribe to the Head Full of Snow RSS feed.

In the song Working Class Hero, John Lennon says:

“As soon as you’re born they make you feel small, By giving you no time instead of it all, Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all…”

Now even moreso than ever. As well as everything else a child has foisted upon it during its formative years on this heartless wasteland of a rock we inhabit, nowadays they are also targetted from birth by the disgusting and murky world of marketing, eager to rob a child’s innocence in return for their share of the 30 pieces of silver that perpetually passes through this shabby industry.

Their conniving minds realised that kids were an untapped pressure lobby, ripe for recruitment in the continuing war to rinse every last penny from the pockets of their beleaguered parents. So they market to them with every manner of tat going, safe in the knowledge that peer pressure will ensure a healthy ROI (that’s a vomit-inducing marketing and business acronym for Return On Investment).

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

The vile anti-freedom, pro-tory, pro-fascist shitrag that is the Daily Mail, have this week all but run a campaign to get Carol Thatcher reinstated on our TV screens. Not a day has gone by without them publishing some form of article on their website, clearly stating which side of the fence they sit on in this matter.

Well to counter this I would like to start a campaign – right here, right now – to keep Carol Thatcher off our TV screens.

I suppose firstly I should explain who Carol Thatcher is and what it is she has done.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Not at all. No sir. Not one jot! But in other news, not much seems to be happening outside of the country grinding to a halt following a heavy downpour of snow.

By heavy downpour, I mean ‘dusting’. By country, I mean ‘London’.

Nothing like the snow we used to get but because, for once, London was affected, it was a case of baton down the hatches and declare a national emergency. You’d think it was The Day After Tomorrow the way the capital’s media network simper on about the white stuff falling magically from the sky. Nowhere else really gets a look in. After all, it’s not London, is it?

image courtesy of World Economic Forum

Anything north of Watford is considered an illiterate backwater populated by toothless dullards trying to get a tune out of a punctured inner tube, whereas any sane individual knows that’s just Dudley.

In fact, anything further up the map than the M25 circle is regarded as t’North and therefore neither matters, nor probably in their mind’s even exists.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

You didn’t really need me to tell you that…

According to the Prime Minister and saviour of the world, Gordon Brown, the present economic crisis is no more than “the birth-pangs of a new global order.” Apparently the solution is not to “muddle through it as pessimists but make the necessary adjustment to a better future…”

It would seem this ‘necessary adjustment’ is for the likes of you and I to make. By losing our jobs, our livelihoods and our homes. Repossessions are on the rise and although we’re not even a month into 2009, the likes of Zavvi, Adams, Barratts, Barclays and Corus have announced closures, receivership and mass redundancies. Of course, those five are just the tip of the iceberg with other high-street chains shutting up shop and the lifespan of the likes of Jaguar looking very grim indeed.

But so long as the boys in Westminster are all right, that’s all that matters.

Words cannot begin to describe the anger and absolute revulsion Jeffman feels towards these scabrous, reptilian politicians who once elected to power see fit to abuse it. That goes for all denominations. A septic brew of arrogance, lies, perceived self-importance, greed and veritable fuckwittery has put us in the foul position we now find ourselves in, all courtesy of the esteemed members of Parliament.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

“Tell me Jeffman, is there anything you actually like?”

I imagine people would ask this question with a regularity bordering on infuriation, if A) anybody knew who I was, and B) I actually believed that anybody cared.

Precisely six people know Jeffman’s true identity and they’re sworn to secrecy on the promise of certain death. Not even the crack-team of writers know who the trilby-sporting enigma really is. Which is how it should be.

But back to the initial question, which I suppose you find yourselves wondering on a daily basis. The answer is: “of course”.

In the absence of anything better to write about in what is essentially a slow news week – after all, there’s only so many times I can tackle greedy bankers being handed more of our money to squander in the naive belief they’ll stick to their side of the bargain and we’ll one day see a return on it. And Presidential inaugerations hold as much interest for me as the Presidents themselves. Unless, of course, there’s a shoe involved -  I have chosen to list some of the things I do like. You lucky people.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Richard Hammond, in what can only have been a desperate attempt to try and prove his ‘working class’, blokeish manhood, once drove a car so fast it very nearly killed him. Well, I say car. It was more of a Boeing 747 engine strapped to a roller-skate.

Nowadays he has the look of a haunted corpse about him. That’s quite a sacrifice to make in return for the privilege of wearing one’s man-badge with pride.

Now I’ve never really had anything against Richard Hammond, despite his suspect claims of proletariat Brummy roots, but in all fairness anybody can look good when stood alongside a crypto-fascist with a merkin on his head, namely Jeremy Clarkson. However, he managed to plummet right out of Jeffman’s estimation the other Saturday night when his new TV show was unveiled to an unsuspecting audience.

I only managed to catch this monstrosity through sheer bad luck. I was still incapacitated by Christmas illness and thus not sampling the delights of a barmaid’s apron. Having just been considerably underwhelmed by the naming of the next Doctor Who, I happened to leave the telly on. And lo, it did appear. Total Wipeout.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Jeffman returns and another Christmas has come and gone. One that was just as crap as anticipated.

You see, anyone that knows me personally or reads this rubbish with something bordering on insane regularity, will already have made an assessment in their minds that I am the cut of cove who has a very low tolerance towards fellow idiots, the greedy, politicians (not mutually exclusive of each other, by any means), so-called celebs and… well let’s just say 99.9% of the human race.

But this painfully low tolerance threshold isn’t just reserved to his fellow man. It would seem to stretch also to whatever dose of lurgy is presently doing the rounds.

This Christmas, in what has become something of a festive tradition at chez Mann, your host was struck down with a vicious wee bastard of a virus that I have since found out has reduced the Great British nation to what could be a ropey outtake from the remake of George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead. Albeit one involving a great deal more snot, phlegm, and a continual interchanging of feversh sweats and ice-cold shivers.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Those arriving here expecting a spot of Christmas cheer may be better off going here instead. For those choosing to stick around, read on:

“It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade.”

Indeed so. Well, maybe if you’re a politician, a banker, or anybody else fortunate to operate under the sleazy banner of corrupt and bone idle rich – complete with obligatory easy-wipe conscience.

For the rest of us, well Christmas is just a slightly sparkly plaster – you know, the sort they stick on the bloodied knees of toddlers at Playschool, complete with minute depictions of whatever cartoon character is currently flavour of the month – administered in preparation for the wasteland of precariousness that inevitably lies ahead.

Take Woolworths for instance. Set to close its doors in the UK for the final time on January 5th 2009. The name has been trading for 130 years, which has led to the media’s ‘nostalgia’-tinged banter about how wonderful the pick ‘n’ mixes were, Saturday jobs for teenage girls, and shoplifting etc. But amidst all this dewy-eyed reminiscence there’s also the small matter of 27,000 suddenly out of a job.

That’s 27,000 human beings, with lives of their own, families to feed, and bloody great bills to pay. Not a statistic chanted ad nauseum by anodyne newsreaders every few minutes of the day, nor a great whopping figure whose only purpose is to bolster the steadily rising unemployment figures. Makes one so proud to be alive, right here, right now!

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Not a big fan of Christmas records. Even the mighty Roy Wood fails to float Jeffman’s boat with the done-to-death ‘Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’. However, there are a couple that win the much coveted tip of the trilby, and this be one of them.

Tis the mighty Jethro Tull, with the somewhat wonderful ‘Ring Out Solstice Bells’ taken from the 1977 album, Songs From The Wood.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

As you may know, Jeffman’s not one to discuss American politics. An entire campaign of murky presidential electioneering has just crawled back under the rock from whence it came and Jeffman didn’t as much as squeak.

This is simply because A) he doesn’t care, and B) he’s in no hurry to experience the unfortunate end of a bullet delivered by some ‘offended’ NRA-type, exercising both his right to bear arms and his right to travel to other countries whilst doing so.

However, I couldn’t let the Iraqi shoe-flinging incident slip without at least tickling the subject’s belly and seeing what pops out.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Birmingham’s finest, The Move, forebears to the equally magnificent Electric Light Orchestra, make a welcome return to these pages with a track from their 1970 album, Looking On.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

The little man who brandishes the stupid stick and dances about maternity wards administering sound beatings to the heads of selected newborns, must’ve really had his work cut out the day arch-chavette, Waynetta Slob- sorry, I mean Karen Matthews, and village idiot reject Michael Donovan were evacuated kicking and screaming from their respective mothers’ wombs, never to darken its doors again.

Suffice to say, said little man would surely have been in need of a new stupid stick once he’d finished beating this particular pair of dullards about the head, evidently using up what you’d think to be a limitless supply of idiocy on the pair of them.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Monday will mark 28 years since John Lennon’s murder in New York.

This is Jeffman’s favourite song of Lennon’s post-Beatle’s stuff and easily the stand-out track on 1970’s otherwise lacklustre Plastic Ono Band album.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Jeffman often thinks that the adverts they foist upon an unsuspecting public between the unprocessed sewer water they try and pass off as television nowadays, are solely created to wind him, and him alone, up. There is probably a small quality control department in every advertising agency who’ve been issued with strict orders to pass nothing off unless there’s more than a 70% chance it will drive Jeffman to smashing his face through a plate glass window whilst gargling with vinegar.

One advert in particular has recently been causing ructions at casa del Mann, simply because of its sheer audacity when it comes to degrading a once proud human race. DFS and their marketing agency should be hauled off to the Hague, post-haste, and tried for crimes against humanity. Not even Saddam would’ve sank to something this low.

For those who haven’t already seen it, take a peak at the vid above, one of three variations of the advert -- but be warned. Tis strong stuff indeed and not for the faint of heart. One would recommend a stomach nurtured on asbestos fritters and cast-iron curries.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…

Jeffman made one of his rare journeys outside of the pub yesterday and was quick to regret it when he innocently happened upon the following sign, printed in big black letters on bright orange paper, and attached to the notice board of his local church:

MARY WRAPPED THE FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT. CELEBRATE THE LORD’S BIRTHDAY HERE THIS CHRISTMAS

Well he should’ve seen it coming really. Jeffman knew it would only be a matter of time before the grasping hand of religion tried to muscle in on the festivities and claim their share of the seasonal purse.

Any right-thinking individual knows full well that Christmas serves two purposes and two purposes alone. Drinking to the point of central nervous system collapse and acquiring a respectable stash of loot. Just what the religious bods thinks this has to do with them is beyond me.

Tickled your fancy? Read on…