Proof that the Brits suck worse than we do
There have been some wild assertions on this blog recently that people in the U.K. are perhaps not quite as fucked up as people in the United States.
I think this video is proof otherwise:
Sure, Americans created this deeply horrifying thing, but it was in the U.K. that the record spent two weeks at #1 on the pop charts in 1975.
Two weeks.
No doubt some of you Brits will scramble wildly here and claim that the only reason thousands of you were buying this record was so the copies could be burned in a gigantic bonfire on Salisbury Plain, with the Archbishop of Canterbury leading a special invocation to ask that God spare your sceptred isle any further incursions by humongous disembodied floating heads and bald Greeks speaking from the bottom of drum barrels. But I think we know better. Put this together with the Mull of Kintyre evidence and the existence of Human League, and the truth is all too clear.
*****
Thanks to the Poor Man for the Savalas video. My life will never be the same.
32 Responses to “Proof that the Brits suck worse than we do”
-
simply wondered says:
a) if you think britain needs a video to prove how crap it is, life in america has made you soft.
b) you’re just bitter because nobody loves you, babyFebruary 11th, 2007 at 4:36 am EST -
Flash says:
I can think of many examples of British crap, though I wouldn’t want to make this a competition. The Archbishop of Canterbury – any archbishop of Canterbury – comes far higher up the list than having Telly in the charts in 1975.
-
ehj2 says:
Dear Violet,
Talking about clarity (from clearness, transparency, etc.), I suspect a wind may have blown some soot onto the surface of your oracle water this morning, and that you’re not working too hard to find “clear truth” in this post. That said, there are little truths and big truths.
Niels Bohr famously said, “The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.”
So you kind of have to sneak up on truth. Since I’m inclined by my Meyers Briggs INFP-ness (heavy intuitive) to think in terms of metaphors (okay, to be honest, for me absolutely everything is a metaphor), I find some ring of truth in the following:
We judge a mother (in part) by her children. If we’re sitting in judgment of England today, I think we also have to look at America, Australia, New Zealand. [Please don't go all "Ottoman map-redrawing after WWI" on me and claim the cluster-f**k of the Middle East, and that is putting it delicately, is England's child -- I think we're more honest acknowledging that was a collaborative European offspring.]
To wit, if England was a woman, I’d be proud to date her.
-
Violet says:
Well, if Viacom weren’t being so pissy about some silly copyright issue, I could settle this right now by posting the video to the worst Human League song ever, “(Keep Feeling) Fascination.” Everything about it sucks, including the parethetically cluttered title.
And so the conversation turned
Until the sun went down
And many fantasies were learnedAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
I actually rather like “Human,” not least because my brother and I spent many happy moments in the 80s laughing hysterically at it. “I am just a man,” sings the girl in her lovely soprano. And the spoken voice verse at the end!
While we were apart, I was ‘uman too.
-
ehj2 says:
I’ve already poked out my eyes and poured molten lead into my ears from that last thing you shared with us.
What’s wrong with you?
It’s the polonium, isn’t it?
-
Violet says:
I’ve already poked out my eyes and poured molten lead into my ears from that last thing you shared with us.
Do you not love the expression on her face? Does it not kill? She looks so uncomfortable there in her 30-foot tall Vaseline-smeared bubble. She keeps darting her eyes at the camera, then back at Telly, like she’s planning to make a break for it.
And the reverb on Telly’s voice! Jesus Christ! It’s a total shock, ’cause the sound effect on the match-strike is normal, right? Then Telly opens his mouth and he’s at the bottom of a well. Then the giant head slides on…
The thing is gold.
-
ehj2 says:
The thing is gold.
Violet, dear. Be calm. Just be calm. There might be some kind of help for this.
What did you eat? Where were you? Who were you with? Was Paul there?
/Frenchie
p.s. This is not swift-boating Paul. I know he did it. Somebody even paid off his father to say he’s done this kind of thing before.
-
Jeff says:
WTF???
I was 21 in 1975, and prettily heavy into all kinds of music, but I have absolutely no recollection of this *cough* masterpiece.
And, honestly, I could have gone the rest of my life never hearing of or seeing it. ehj2, can I get you to send me some of that molten lead?
-
Paul Tergeist says:
Who loves ya, baby? Can we all agree never to revisit either Telly or the Human League please?
Or, for that matter, Neils Bohr’s stand-up comedy.
If it quarks like a duck….
-Neils Bohr at the ImprovTake my life……PLEASE
-Henny Tergeist on death row -
Paul Tergeist says:
b) you’re just bitter because nobody loves you, baby
-SWPut a sock in it you foreign devil. How dare you pre-steal my funny Savalas quote!
-
simply wondered says:
you’re welcome, PT – now dust my blog, bitch. (was wondering whether people had missed it or simply felt it unworthy comment)
ooh i got my name in there – it’s all about me me me…
and lay off the human league – has anyone ever released a song about lebanon? -
Violet says:
and lay off the human league – has anyone ever released a song about lebanon?
In English, probaby only Human League. I imagine some Lebanese have released songs about Lebanon.
You’re really Phil Oakey, aren’t you?
-
Tom Nolan says:
Hey, I remember this! It came out only months before my family emigrated to Australia.
It’s pretty ghastly, but it’s not as bad as the William Shatner cover. Or was that Leonard Nimoy?
The girl was obviously filmed unawares while doing her best to ignore invasive questioning by a mackintoshed stranger at a bus-stop. She is scared to death, but doesn’t want to precipitate the nightmare by actually saying something or making a sudden move.
Britain sucks all right. But its having once favoured this appalling dreck is the least of its problems. Every street, ditch and hedgerow strewn with litter, a foul-mouthed and out-of-control underclass, hopeless public services. It’s a HOLE. And I’m a Brit, so I should know.
-
therealUK says:
a foul-mouthed and out-of-control underclass
Unlike the good old days when the lower orders knew their place, cap doffing and all. And men were men, women were smiling 50′s housewives (or wicked whores that we locked up in institutions for being pregnant out of wedlock), and children skipped merrily in the streets …
-
simply wondered says:
You’re really Phil Oakey, aren’t you? – Okey dokey!
Tom, you may be a brit, but if you live in Oz I think you understand all about a foul-mouthed and out of control underclass.
-
Tom Nolan says:
I currently live in the UK, but I’ve lived in loads of other places too – including Oz – and I am quite confident about affirming that Britain has some of the lowest standards of public behaviour and public cleanliness in the western world.
As for “underclass”, sorry if it got your goat, but there you are. I’m from a working class background and have been blue-collar all my life, so it pains me to have to acknowledge the truth: that the popular solidarity and popular *culture* that are a big part of French, German and Italian proletarian life have given way in the UK to the point where class-consciousness means little more than a willingness to behave badly in public and to shirk social responsibility.
Do you live in the UK, simply wondered? When was the last time you walked down a clean street, one without bottles and crisp-packets and sweet-wrappers in the hedges and the gutters? A clean street is the normal expectation in Australia (ditto France, Germany, Austria, Italy). In England it’s an anomaly.
-
kalibhakta says:
holy mother of god!!!! that was a horrifically wonderful video and a brilliant post. does anyone remember the fundamentalist psychopath inbreed Telly played in The Dirty Dozen? can you say “Renaissance man”?? ;)
-
Jeff says:
At least “The Dirty Dozen”, even while being complete Hollywood revisionism, was somewhat entertaining. This video was entirely vacant of original or artistic thought or talent.
-
Violet says:
You Brits are at least a lot more polite than we Americans. I thought I’d provoke a little friendly slugfest between our national cohorts, but instead you lot are just arguing amongst yourselves over just how sucky the U.K. really is.
-
Daisy P says:
Dontcha just love the fag (that’s doublespeak in blighty – can mean homosexual but it also means cigarette – there is also a public schoolboy meaning I won’t go into here – I think it also has homosexual undertones though) – anyway, about the fag, he was still smoking it post-coitally too! Man, that man could suck and talk at the same time but still make the fag last the whole sorry length of the “song” – what a talent!
And yes, the shiny vaseline face – that’s all they had back then and it worked just fine for everything, thankyou very much, don’t need all this speciality shininess these days. A shiny product for eyes, another shiny product and special applicator for lips, another one for (see misc body parts for furhter info). Perhaps telly the greek used some on the top of his head too? A truly great all-in-one product – I am nostagia-ing for the simpler days.
I vaguely remember this record but did not live in the uk at the time, mercifully. These sorts of records are made for people like him who cannot actually sing, but want to get in on the music scene, and cash in on some kind of “sex appeal” – god knows what women saw in him at the time – kojak indeed – give women any old ugly guy who represents authority, (so masterful) and they’ll find some way to make him sexy. He actually made this recording before rap was invented – could tez savalas be the true father of rap? God help us.
-
Tom Nolan says:
Daisy P
god knows what women saw in him at the time
Well it’s obvious from that shiny, taut scalp isn’t it? He’s a deep-voiced, murmuring phallus. Every woman’s unavowed wish come true.
-
simply wondered says:
tom re 16 as a whole – first, fear not, my goat is not got.
i started a response and then it got so long i thought it was more polite to phrase it as a new post at my blog. so feel free to read it and dispute it or not as you prefer.
http://simplywondered.wordpres.....ous-sorry/(vi – hope it’s ok to post a link and it does look a bit long – oops sorry)
-
Daisy P says:
“….you lot are just arguing amongst yourselves over just how sucky the U.K. really is.”
violet – it’s a polite internal argument – I’m only an honourary brit anyway (and most would say not even honorary – see? I can spell it both ways!) – and besides the brits are very good at humourous self-deprecation,(and being polite) that’s d-e-p-r-e-c-a-t-i-o-n (be careful how you pronounce/spell this).
If someone slags you off, in theory, the one way to diffuse it is to agree and to apologise (see below) and agree to your own suckiness (this of course does not really work in reality, all the time – if it did of course, there would be no conflict in the world).
“..(vi – hope it’s ok to post a link and it does look a bit long – oops sorry)”
The brits are also good at being sorry (and saying so) about everything – I do it now myself – sorry sw!!
-
Daisy P says:
“Well it’s obvious from that shiny, taut scalp isn’t it? He’s a deep-voiced, murmuring phallus. Every woman’s unavowed wish come true.”
votes please wimmmin – is this our ultimate wish-fulfillment personified? Alrighty then – I’ll stick my neck out and start off the vote-athon -NO! (translation – pee off and give wimmin some credit).
The shiny, taut scalp as knob-end? I was wrong about the vaseline then – that shininess was KY jelly yes? Eeeewwwwww, I’m grossing even myself out now.
-
simply wondered says:
The brits are also good at being sorry (and saying so) about everything – I do it now myself – sorry sw!!
and i’m sorry about my constant apologies
-
annared says:
Daisy P – I know we are friends and everything, but please! All this talk of shiny, taut scalps masquerading as K.Y.ed rapping knob-ends is putting me off my haggis and chips. I have never been very keen on Tel *shudder* in fact I hate him, but I am been polite.
Oops got the code wrong – typing in the dark again :-/
-
Daisy Puke says:
Hello Annared
No, I never really thought he was that bad until I made this recent vaseline/KY association with his bald head and now, I am put off forever – do you think he also shaved “down hither?” (looks meaningfully downwards). Oh no, that’s even worse – brain running away now with imagining him rubbing vaseline/Ky “down yonder pubis region” – mental images being permanently reinforced in brain now forever and ever – eeewwwww. Hmm, I need to get a life. Still friends now Annared?? Will this turn into a competition, you know, like when you’re kids, to see who can gross-out the other one more? I am throwing down the gauntlet now – I dare you to up the ante on the grossness factor – turn it up a notch I dare ya! (Subject matter does not have to be Tez Savalas necessarily, though that helps.)
-
Violet says:
I could out-gross either of you (still in competitive mode here) by posting the alternate video that was made for this song, which I unhappily discovered when trying to find out which drugs the director was taking when he/she made this thing.
The alternate video is even worse but not in a funny way. It’s actually very depressing, a seemingly cinema-verite shot of Telly being fondled by drugged-up hookers, apparently filmed from the inside of a beer bottle. Very bizarre.
-
Daisy Puke says:
Ah ok Violet, the challenge was made to Anna, but this is your blog so of course you can rise to this challenge, and now I decreee that the gross-out comp is open to all and sundry!
The gauntlet has been thrown, please do post the vid – you have everyone really curious now (well, perhaps only saddos like me). Maybe I will google it – if you found it, surely I can – will save you posting more grossness!
-
Tom Nolan says:
I can’t imagine why anybody would construe what I wrote as gross. If I’d wanted to be gross I would have pointed out the clearly visible throbbing blue vein running from his right temple to the crown of his shiny, taut, God that looks painful, head.
Other risible elements.
Making him smoke a cigarette: “he can’t sing a note, but he’s an actor so he should know how to handle props, right? Let’s play to his strengths!”
Those stupid, stupid lyrics: “if a face could launch a thousand ships, then where am I to go?” What the HELL? What happened to tense-sequencing, I want to know.
The slightly hungry look on the giantess’s face. I’m pretty sure that after the fade-out she picks up the Telly-doll, glosses her lips with his shiny head, and eats him.
-
v says:
“It’s pretty ghastly, but it’s not as bad as the William Shatner cover. Or was that Leonard Nimoy?”
William Shatner rocks. If anyone wants evidence, heres some.
-
Pakistani Heretical Girl says:
Britain is a racially divided dump. London is full of tuberculosis (I got it myself now), Islamic thugs and newly arrived Polska girls plotting to seize our jobs. It’s a mess, a total mess, jeez, I’m dreaming of Orange County. The ONE good thing was the Human League, not being old enough of course to remember them in their hey day, or even their 1990′s revival, I nonetheless honored them. In my new novel’s synopsis, the Eurasian Republic’s dark armies are finally confronted by a global alliance including America, China and those Brits and other Europeans who escaped into exile- called, you guessed it “THE HUMAN LEAGUE”.
