OFF: The Weller/Kilmister controversy

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 11:19:43AM +0000, Carl Edlund Anderson typed out:
> The bizarre thing in that online comparison was that Lemmy seems to have 
> lost points for being revealed as not a sensitive New Age guy in the 
> lyrics to "Jailbait", but then appeared to gain points for sleeping with 
> thousands of women.  Go figure!

	On that score, this particular piece of quality journalism 
doesn't annoy me half as much as a column from years ago in FHM, which 
for the non-UK readers is quite possibly something you don't really 
have, a glossy magazine aimed at young adult males which mainly covers 
(or uncovers) supermodels, fast cars and designer lagers, as well as 
putting in occasional artciles about how to shave properly for the 
pubescent teens trying to learn adolescence who constitute a big part of 
their market... Anyway. They had a colum called the Bloke Test, where 
they put two icons of the carefree male lifestyle up against each other 
similarly to the Weller/Kilminster thing. They had Lemmy on one side, 
and on the other... Noddy Holder from Slade.

	Final scores were within a point of each other, but Lemmy lost, 
because to the question `what did your last girlfriend chuck you for?' 
he answered, "She never told me, but then they never do do they?" 
whereas Holder had answered something along the lines of "chuck me? *&!* 
that, I just got up and went mate", and FHM decided that was more 
deserving of their applause. Ah, British journalism at its socially 
responsible best....

> Carl, who has a kind of intellectual respect for the Jam's achievements, 
> though their musical appeal never really crossed the Atlantic to him.

	They had some good songs, and it's really quite hard to explain 
what happened to Weller after that, or at least it is to me. Yours,
								    Jon

ObCD: Inner City Unit - _Passout_
-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk