TTYF! SICK REVIEW OF THE YEAR / 2001
The year 2001 will be forever
remembered as the year when a world power was shocked to
its very core by the unthinkable. A nation that regarded
itself not only as a supreme world power but more than
anything untouchable on its home territory had to endure
a hated enemy inflicting a blow so massive that the
nation may never fully recover. And because this is the
modern world, the nation’s humiliation took place on
television too, with the whole world watching.
Still, it was a foolish pundit who underestimated the
victim’s will to succeed, its track record of
imposing its will on its opponents and, albeit by virtue
of the play-offs, Germany still managed to qualify
for this year’s World Cup.
England had just 10 days to bask and Scotland to stew
in the glory of England’s convincing but somewhat
fortuitous victory over Germany before the events of
September 11 sent all but a few Moslem fundamentalists
into a deep depression. Even Cat Stevens cancelled
plans to re-release a remix of his classic 1970 album Tea
For The Taliban.
Just under 3,000 people were killed in the terrorist
attack. There have been bigger disasters in terms of the
death toll. Eight thousand people were killed in 1984 in
the immediate aftermath of the Bhopal disaster and over
500,000 more were injured, but they don’t count
because they were only Indians, the event did not take
place live on TV and the company responsible for the
atrocity was an American one, Union Carbide.
Will the fuss over the attacks on the World Trade
Center fade away as has concern over Chernobyl since
1991? (Ukraine's Health Ministry estimates that 3.5
million people, over a third of them children, have
suffered illness as a result of the contamination, and
the incidence of some cancers is 10 times the national
average.) I suppose that all depends on how the war
against the Taliban goes. If it becomes a long running
saga on a par with Vietnam then we won’t hear the
last of it for another 30 years, which will put it
several hundred years behind Ireland in the will we
ever get this bloody sorted? stakes.
Certainly thanks to the video footage
the image will stay in the memory for a long time,
probably more so than a far more significant event such
as the dismantling of the Berlin wall. We’ve already
reached the stage, however, when celebrities can no
longer milk easy approval from their ability to bypass
the security restrictions and visit Ground zero
first-hand to "raise the morale" of the New
York Fire Department. Unless the terrorists can strike a
follow-up blow we may even one day see famous American
tough-guy actors like Arnie & Bruce summon up the
courage to go on aeroplanes again.
The Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh, could not be
considered a lucky person except that his execution took
place before the September 11th attack; had he
been sentenced after it the US public probably would have
demanded an even more barbaric form of execution, perhaps
a visit from OJ Simpson or death by suffocation under a
mountain of fat ugly trailer park trash culled from the
Jerry Springer show. As Senator Gary
"Pants-down" Hart said, "Let’s give
the terrorists a fair trial and then hang them."
It’s very easy to criticise the Americans, so
easy even
Americans do it. We snooty Europeans like to
characterise American armed forces as being more of a
danger to their allies whilst we fondly portray
Republican presidents as warmongering imbeciles.
Certainly George Dubya’s alarming ignorance of
events outside of the US prior to his election gave good
cause to worry about how he would conduct a military
campaign such as the one against Al-Quaeda but touch
wood, World War III has not broken out yet, unless the
skirmish between India and Pakistan is just a dress
rehearsal. Suffice to say if it does the Americans will
save our arses again and we’ll spend the next 50
years moaning about it. If you are downcast at America
being the world’s supreme power, just thank your
lucky stars that Israel is not the world’s major
power; there’d be no world of which to be the major
power as they seem to base their foreign policy on the
Old Testament.
Amidst all the fuss of war and terrorist attacks it
was easy to forget that back in Britain there was a
general election in 2001. The result was inaccurately
described as a "landslide". Last time I
checked, a landslide involves a shifting of a large
amount of stuff from one location to another. In this
election the nearest thing to a landslide was the Liberal
Democrats’ advance to 52 seats, their highest total
since mutton-chop sideburns were in fashion (no, not the
seventies, you buffoon). The Tories actually gained one
seat overall, and managed to nick one seat in Scotland,
but it was not enough to save William Hague, who did the
decent thing and fell on his sword.
 Well, actually, the decent thing to have done
would have been to have pushed Michael Howard on to his
sword - literally. Still, on the bright side it is kind
of reassuring to have insufferably smug bastards like
Howard around for the next 20 years knowing his party
will probably not get back into power because a slicker
bunch of Conservatives appear to have the keys to Number
10 locked up for the foreseeable future.
Hague completed the usual transformation of previous
Tory hate figures such as Parkinson, Norris and Portillo
(but not Howard, who patently spent far too long wearing
Sauron’s ring in his youth) and became human, even
likeable. His resignation speech in the Commons was one
of the few occasions, outside of Dennis Skinner and his
Bumper Book of Heckles, when TV coverage of Parliament
proved interesting.
Having got shot of a bald europhobic weirdo as their
leader the Conservative party took an absolute age to
replace him with .... a bald europhobic weirdo. Ian
Duncan-Smith has achieved the impossible by having an
even lower profile since becoming leader than he had
before .
The election campaign was, by common consent, about as
interesting as a 1980's re-run of Arsenal versus Jack
Charlton’s Middlesbrough. Had it not been for John
"Two jabs" Prescott responding as any fat
northern working class bloke would after being pelted by
an egg ("Back in t’war my father would have
worked for a week down t’pit to afford a real
egg,") then the only abiding memory of the campaign
would have been Tony Blair getting hand-bagged by some 15
minutes of fame woman outside a hospital.
Thank God Birks had some decent chilli dips and
tortilla chips on hand on election night to occupy me
because it really was the dullest Election Night I can
recall. Screaming Lord Sutch was sadly missed.
Of course, Peter Mandelson did his best to liven up
proceedings with his "I am a fighter, not a quitter"
speech; a rant which more or less confirmed that the only
real source of opposition for the Labour party these days
comes from within its own ranks. After such a display of
wild-eyed nuttiness it is barely conceivable that
Mandelson will ever be recalled to the Cabinet but it
would be entertaining if he were, if only to see how he
could fuck up his career for a third time. For a bloke
who was supposed to be the Prince of Darkness and the
master of spin he has always been a terrible TV performer
and he should stay in the background, preferably behind a
brick wall.
On a personal note I was chuffed to see
Portillo’s conqueror, Stephen Twigg, increase his
majority in Enfield North, if only because the
Conservative candidate opposing him (John Flack) was a
twat from my year at school. There’s already one
objectionable Tory in Parliament who used to be in my
year at school (Andrew Lansley) but at least he is
intelligent, although given that he was the mastermind
behind Hague’s electoral strategy perhaps he is not
so bright after all.
I remain convinced that the Tories’ main aim in
this election was to avoid annihilation. They knew they
could not win so instead of attempting to do so and
moving to the centre they instead shored up their core
vote and moved further to the right. By the time of the
2009 election Britain will probably have joined the euro,
the British way of life will have been barely altered and
the Conservatives will have to come up with a whole new
nightmare scenario with which to attempt to frighten the
voters.
John Flack, failed Conservative parliamentary
candidate for Enfield North, is not the only repellent
thing to have come out of Essex. There’s me and Kev,
for a start. Jamie Oliver for, hopefully, a finish. Early
in the year, however, the nation’s most reviled
county sparked off the outbreak of foot and mouth disease
which brought much of Britain’s tourism industry to
a standstill. In order to protect the sale of 20,000
carcasses of beef to Europe the (now disbanded) Ministry
for Agriculture, Fisheries and Fuck-Ups decided to
authorise the mass slaughter of around six million
animals, most of whom were completely unaffected by the
disease.
Much of the countryside was declared out of bounds, a
decision I am happy to see never repealed, except for
tourists - and only then because it makes the towns less
crowded and makes it possible to get on the London
Underground in the summer.
The handling of the outbreak became this year’s
Millennium Dome botch job. Some pundits thought it might
even cost Blair the election, but short of him being
filmed buggering a heffer (the corpse of Eric Heffer,
possibly) it is difficult to conceive of a scenario
whereby Labour could have lost the election.
This year’s Millennium Dome/Foot & Mouth
botch-up could be Railtrack, a company beset by
"institutional paralysis", according to Lord
Cullen’s report on the Paddington rail disaster.
Like the Millennium Dome, the
"de-privatisation" started out as an idea with
potential populist appeal, but the handling of the change
of ownership is not proving popular with the media or the
skilled personnel of Railtrack who are, reportedly,
leaving the company in droves.
I, personally, could care less about the bleating
complaints of the denizens of the stock market who as
ever seem to expect the government to waive the rules of
capitalism whenever it involves the investment banks
losing money? Who can forget the complaints of the
investment banks who underwrote the BP share issue before
Black Monday back in 1987? The whole point of
underwriting share issues is that you receive a handsome
fee for taking on the risk that not all of the shares
might be bought at the offer price. When the stock market
suffered an historic slump and the investment banks were
facing massive losses on the BP share issue the
government stepped in and put a floor on the BP share
price. Now with Railtrack the fat cats in the City were
trying it on again.
"It’s not fair," they whined, "we
thought you’d carry on giving hand-outs to Railtrack
for ages so they could promptly pass the money on to
shareholders. If we’d known the company could go
bust we would have invested in other companies such as
Enron ... oops."
I have some sympathy for the rank and file staff who
have lost out on their share options and who might have
been relying on them to see them through retirement. I
would
support any move by the government to
compensate these people but I’ll be blowed if the
fat cats in the City should be given a penny. Don’t
they read their own small print on their literature?
Sometim es it is the small changes
which end up having the greatest effect. David
Blunkett’s first steps down the road to
decriminalising cannabis could lead to a massive source
of revenue for future governments and might encourage the
troubled young residents of Oldham, Bradford and Burnley
to chill out a bit. New Labour seems to have gone cold on
the idea of associating itself with icons of Cool
Britannia, otherwise Ali G would surely have been
appointed as the new Drugs Csar.
Early in the year it emerged that Princess Margaret is
paralysed and practically blind. I took no notice as I
thought the newscaster said she was "paralytic and
blind drunk", which would not be news at all. If she
lives as long as her mother she’ll spend almost 3
decades in near darkness - something she could have
achieved earlier in her life by moving somewhere such as
Blackburn.
My own theory about the Queen Mother’s longevity
is that she is such a bedrock of the monarchy’s
rapidly diminishing support that they can’t afford
for her to die. As a result they have used a succession
of look-alikes over the last 30 years to maintain the
myth of her enduring vitality. I can’t think why the
Soviet Union did not think of this earlier with Stalin.
 Jill
Dando - no longer with us
In the USA they electrocuted the Oklahoma Bomber; in
Britain we imprisoned Barry George for the murder of Jill
Dando. This was a premature imprisonment, in my view, as
there was so much more work for him to do - Cilla Black,
Vanessa Feltz, Carol Smiley, Anthea Turner, Carol
Vorderman, Anneka Rice, Gloria Hunneford and Graham
bloody Norton.
Carol Vorderman - always bloody with us
One imprisonment that was long overdue was that of
Jeffrey Archer. He was in danger of surpassing Robert
Maxwell in the Getting Away With It For An Unfeasibly
Long Time stakes. As every wag observed, the downside
to his imprisonment is that he could emerge from prison
with a new book. Seeing as I seriously doubt whether he
writes his own books anyway I don’t think this is a
worry and besides no one forces you to read Jeffrey
Archer novels. The real downside is that he is not
sharing the prison cell with Graham Bloody Norton.
Archer really is a shameless shit, but even I was
surprised at him persuading his mother to pop her clogs
so he could go for the sympathy vote when the sentencing
came around. Which brings us on to the Celebrity Snuff
List.
DEAD
FAMOUS
Actors etc.
Jack Lemmon (the Tom Hanks of his generation, only
much, much better)
Caroll O’Connor (Archie Bunker)
Michael Williams (Mr. Judi Dench)
Nyree Dawn Porter (actress, best known for her part in
the Forsyte Saga)
Anthony Quinn (not a great actor but still ful of
spunk at 70)
Charlotte Coleman (actress, Four Weddings And A
Funeral)
Nigel Hawthorne (star of Madness of King George and
victim of one of the most pointless "outings"
ever perpetrated on a gay actor)
Stanley Kramer (director of Guess Who’s Coming
To Dinner and others)
William Hanna (of Hanna-Barbera cartoon fame, creators
of some of the worst low-rent cartoons ever seen on TV)
Thuy Trang (the yellow Power Ranger. Died in a car
crash; not wearing a seat belt)
Dale Evans (Mrs. Roy Rogers)
Jack Haley Jr. (film producer, once married to Liza
Minelli. Was son of Jack Haley, the Tin Man in Wizard
of Oz)
Musicians
George Harrison (all things must pass, even an
immortal member of the Beatles)
Perry Como (so laid back he practically sang in his
sleep)
Sir Harry Secombe (one of those voices that always had
me reaching for the off switch, but a marvelously jolly
man)
Isaac Stern (violinist and occasional chat show guest)
Chet Atkins (was once told by a man who stopped to
listen to him play, "You’re good, but
you’re no Chet Atkins")
Glenn Hughes (Village Person, the biker)
Joey Ramone (more influential than he was given credit
for)
John Phillips (driving force behind the Mamas &
The Papas)
John Lee Hooker (Boom, boom, out went the lights)
Larry Adler (raconteur and mouth organist)
Aaliyah (rising hip-hop star who died in a plane
crash)
Novelists
Gordon R. Dickson (a favourite SF novelist of Kevin
Warne’s)
Poul Anderson (another SF maestro)
Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over
Seaman’s Head The Cuckoo’s Nest)
Auberon Waugh (genial old foey)
Robert Ludlum (am I the only person in the world not
to have read one of his novels?)
Douglas Adams (may have only had two real moments of
grand inspiration but that’s two more than most
achieve)
Miscellaneous famous people
Hank Ketcham (creator of American comic strip
character, Dennis the Menace)
Dr. Christian Barnard (his hearts were always in the
right place)
Emilie Schindler (wife of famous list keeper; should
have married Nick Hornby)
Victor Kiam (liked death so much, he bought it)
Sport
Lord Cowdrey (not for nothing was Michael Colin
Cowdrey given the initials MCC)
 Sir Donald Bradman
(probably no sportsman was so superior to his
international peers. A test average of 99.94, for
Christ’s sakes!)
Michele Alboreto (enjoyed a long largely unsuccessful
Formula One career
Joey Maxim (former Light-heavyweight World Champion)
Sandy Saddler (former Featherweight World Champion)
John McKay (first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
And so to the awards
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