This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/oct/16/drakes-tattoo-potatoes-a-glum-curtain-dapper-gentlemen-boris-johnson-reviewed
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Drake's tattoo, potatoes, a glum curtain, dapper gentlemen, Boris Johnson's tackle – REVIEWED | |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| The plurality of possible permutations of pommes de terres | The plurality of possible permutations of pommes de terres |
| Items that are made of potatoes – REVIEWED | Items that are made of potatoes – REVIEWED |
| Raised as a child in the secretive Church of the Glorious Tuber, I used to think everything was made from potatoes. Bridges, aeroplanes, Katy Perry, the lot. I know better now. But, still, a lot of things are made from potatoes and the range is so diverse it would seem perverse to give them a rating based on a random sample. Still, that’s what I’m going to do. | Raised as a child in the secretive Church of the Glorious Tuber, I used to think everything was made from potatoes. Bridges, aeroplanes, Katy Perry, the lot. I know better now. But, still, a lot of things are made from potatoes and the range is so diverse it would seem perverse to give them a rating based on a random sample. Still, that’s what I’m going to do. |
| Mashtags Birds Eye product that shapes potato into @ and # symbols, thus finally giving children the opportunity to pretend they’re posting on Facebook while eating their dinner. Presumably at the same time as actually posting on Facebook. Sad indictment of our times. | Mashtags Birds Eye product that shapes potato into @ and # symbols, thus finally giving children the opportunity to pretend they’re posting on Facebook while eating their dinner. Presumably at the same time as actually posting on Facebook. Sad indictment of our times. |
| Mash By mixing potato with milk, butter, seasoning and raspberry jam you can take the humble potato and turn it into a smooth, substantial and utterly disgusting dish. Madness. | Mash By mixing potato with milk, butter, seasoning and raspberry jam you can take the humble potato and turn it into a smooth, substantial and utterly disgusting dish. Madness. |
| Potato battery You can power a tiny clock for a small time by plugging copper and zinc poles into your humble spud. In other news, they sell Duracells at the shop. Bad. | Potato battery You can power a tiny clock for a small time by plugging copper and zinc poles into your humble spud. In other news, they sell Duracells at the shop. Bad. |
| Mr Potato Head A toy from back in the day when children only had root vegetables to play with, Mr Potato Head was definitely better than Mrs Parsnip Leg. Nowadays, though, it’s laughable. | Mr Potato Head A toy from back in the day when children only had root vegetables to play with, Mr Potato Head was definitely better than Mrs Parsnip Leg. Nowadays, though, it’s laughable. |
| Potato-based art Actually this can often be better than the works of Damien Hirst. Nice. | Potato-based art Actually this can often be better than the works of Damien Hirst. Nice. |
| Chips The emperor of all foodstuffs. Divine. | Chips The emperor of all foodstuffs. Divine. |
| Cumulative potato rating 8/10, largely because of chips. | Cumulative potato rating 8/10, largely because of chips. |
| PM | PM |
| Obtuse physical metaphors for Conservative policy | Obtuse physical metaphors for Conservative policy |
| Boris Johnson’s rugby tackling prowess – REVIEWED | Boris Johnson’s rugby tackling prowess – REVIEWED |
| Just look at him. Look at his face. Look how hard he’s trying. If that were Barack Obama, he’d have cheekily held the ball above the child’s head for a few seconds like a cool and boisterous uncle. David Cameron would have dad-run around for a bit like a fat horse, before handing the nipper the ball and scruffing his hair, safe in the knowledge the cameras definitely caught him not being evil just then. But no. Not Bojo. Bojo wants this try. He wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. He doesn’t care who stands in his way – and it so happens that the only person in his way is a comparatively minuscule boy, utterly defenceless against the rolling alabaster tsunami of hair and lovehandles tumbling inexorably towards him. The little shit’s going down. It’s an inevitability. It’s already happened. | Just look at him. Look at his face. Look how hard he’s trying. If that were Barack Obama, he’d have cheekily held the ball above the child’s head for a few seconds like a cool and boisterous uncle. David Cameron would have dad-run around for a bit like a fat horse, before handing the nipper the ball and scruffing his hair, safe in the knowledge the cameras definitely caught him not being evil just then. But no. Not Bojo. Bojo wants this try. He wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. He doesn’t care who stands in his way – and it so happens that the only person in his way is a comparatively minuscule boy, utterly defenceless against the rolling alabaster tsunami of hair and lovehandles tumbling inexorably towards him. The little shit’s going down. It’s an inevitability. It’s already happened. |
| You can almost pinpoint the exact moment Bojo regresses from a 51-year-old nobbish mayor of London to a gangly, plum-cheeked 13-year-old oik from Ashdown House boarding school. You can see him careering backwards though time to rugger practice; to bigger boys called Quentin, and Sebastian, and Timothy; to a thousand brutal towel-flicks across the rump; to the endless jibes the young Boris – ungainly, uncoordinated, one of those inflatable Air Dancer men found outside US car dealerships made flesh – must endure, day in, day out. Boris lost every game of rugby he ever played, and the indignity of it all haunts him to this very day. It’s the fire in his belly. He sees all this anger, this humiliation, manifested in the kind face of this really spectacularly tiny boy. I’m a man, he thinks. A powerful man. A mayor! “Watch this Timothy!!!” his id screams like lit magnesium as his fingers clasp the 3/4-sized ball and he eases into the canter that will be his redemption, “WHO’S BLOBBY BORIS NOW!!!” He charges. He drops the shoulder. Contact. It’s beautiful. | You can almost pinpoint the exact moment Bojo regresses from a 51-year-old nobbish mayor of London to a gangly, plum-cheeked 13-year-old oik from Ashdown House boarding school. You can see him careering backwards though time to rugger practice; to bigger boys called Quentin, and Sebastian, and Timothy; to a thousand brutal towel-flicks across the rump; to the endless jibes the young Boris – ungainly, uncoordinated, one of those inflatable Air Dancer men found outside US car dealerships made flesh – must endure, day in, day out. Boris lost every game of rugby he ever played, and the indignity of it all haunts him to this very day. It’s the fire in his belly. He sees all this anger, this humiliation, manifested in the kind face of this really spectacularly tiny boy. I’m a man, he thinks. A powerful man. A mayor! “Watch this Timothy!!!” his id screams like lit magnesium as his fingers clasp the 3/4-sized ball and he eases into the canter that will be his redemption, “WHO’S BLOBBY BORIS NOW!!!” He charges. He drops the shoulder. Contact. It’s beautiful. |
| The boy takes him down. And that’s Boris’s problem: he’s clearly still very crap at rugby. Great, he thinks. Another mortifying failure to add to the list. You win again, Timothy. Revenge will have to wait until another day. It’ll have to wait, he thinks, until I’m prime minister, for instance. “You’ll see,” he whispers to the abyss of his soul. “You’ll all see....” He forces a smile for the cameras. His id cackles like Vincent Price. God help us all. 10/10. | The boy takes him down. And that’s Boris’s problem: he’s clearly still very crap at rugby. Great, he thinks. Another mortifying failure to add to the list. You win again, Timothy. Revenge will have to wait until another day. It’ll have to wait, he thinks, until I’m prime minister, for instance. “You’ll see,” he whispers to the abyss of his soul. “You’ll all see....” He forces a smile for the cameras. His id cackles like Vincent Price. God help us all. 10/10. |
| LH | LH |
| Inexplicable curtainry | Inexplicable curtainry |
| NHS cutbacks – REVIEWED | NHS cutbacks – REVIEWED |
| Remember being ill as a child? It’s weird; a disorientating and almost hallucinatory experience. Particularly if you have to spend time in hospital where you wake up, already discombobulated by sickness, in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by unusual sights, sounds, smells and sensations. What fragile young minds in such distressing circumstances need more than anything else is some fragment of comforting normality to cling onto. Like some nice curtains, for example. | Remember being ill as a child? It’s weird; a disorientating and almost hallucinatory experience. Particularly if you have to spend time in hospital where you wake up, already discombobulated by sickness, in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by unusual sights, sounds, smells and sensations. What fragile young minds in such distressing circumstances need more than anything else is some fragment of comforting normality to cling onto. Like some nice curtains, for example. |
| With that in mind, consider these bad boys. They’re like a nightmare rendered in cheap acrylic fabric. Look at the terrifying maribou stork, hiding in the spiky tree and preparing to pounce on the orange blob creatures and tear them to pieces. Check out the upright hippo chatting up the armadillo and imagine the hideous spawn they’re about to create. In short, imagine the unbearable dreams of the poor children forced to gaze at these demonic drapes as they drift off to heavily medicated sleep. We’re warned that our beloved NHS faces a winter meltdown this year. But we had no idea things were so bad that hospitals are now reduced to scaring children until they beg to be taken home. “Good morning little Johnny. It’s time for your lumbar puncture.’ “Thank Christ for that. At least it’s not the curtains…” 8/10. | With that in mind, consider these bad boys. They’re like a nightmare rendered in cheap acrylic fabric. Look at the terrifying maribou stork, hiding in the spiky tree and preparing to pounce on the orange blob creatures and tear them to pieces. Check out the upright hippo chatting up the armadillo and imagine the hideous spawn they’re about to create. In short, imagine the unbearable dreams of the poor children forced to gaze at these demonic drapes as they drift off to heavily medicated sleep. We’re warned that our beloved NHS faces a winter meltdown this year. But we had no idea things were so bad that hospitals are now reduced to scaring children until they beg to be taken home. “Good morning little Johnny. It’s time for your lumbar puncture.’ “Thank Christ for that. At least it’s not the curtains…” 8/10. |
| PH | PH |
| Unnecessary sartorial excellence | Unnecessary sartorial excellence |
| Elderly men who dress in a suit, shirt and tie just to go to the Post Office or clear some chip wrappers from their paths – REVIEWED | Elderly men who dress in a suit, shirt and tie just to go to the Post Office or clear some chip wrappers from their paths – REVIEWED |
| If there’s one last frontier of the “anything” that this feature claims to “review”, it has to be human beings themselves. Artists might take things overly personally, but most critics sleep at night knowing they have spent their days slamming a product, performance or abstract concept rather than a person. That is because it’s widely accepted that nobody is so transcendently great as to qualify to pass judgment over humanity. Except maybe the Pope, and, judging by a recent New York Times profile, Rihanna. | If there’s one last frontier of the “anything” that this feature claims to “review”, it has to be human beings themselves. Artists might take things overly personally, but most critics sleep at night knowing they have spent their days slamming a product, performance or abstract concept rather than a person. That is because it’s widely accepted that nobody is so transcendently great as to qualify to pass judgment over humanity. Except maybe the Pope, and, judging by a recent New York Times profile, Rihanna. |
| But now I have to critique old men who dress up in formalwear to do mundane tasks. I have to provide a verdict on the relative merits of people who treat the minutiae of life with the kind of significance most would only afford to a major and glamorous event. Well I have to draw the line somewhere, and offering feedback on pensioners who either a) are clutching desperately at the customs of an all but faded society in order to give themselves even the vaguest of bearings in the modern world, b) have so little else to occupy their time that clearing up rubbish from outside their front door counts as an occasion, is something I’m just not in a position to do. Think of this as a kinder reviewing; criticism for the Corbyn era (despite him being an older man who, somewhat ironically, refused to wear a tie for his entire leadership campaign). | But now I have to critique old men who dress up in formalwear to do mundane tasks. I have to provide a verdict on the relative merits of people who treat the minutiae of life with the kind of significance most would only afford to a major and glamorous event. Well I have to draw the line somewhere, and offering feedback on pensioners who either a) are clutching desperately at the customs of an all but faded society in order to give themselves even the vaguest of bearings in the modern world, b) have so little else to occupy their time that clearing up rubbish from outside their front door counts as an occasion, is something I’m just not in a position to do. Think of this as a kinder reviewing; criticism for the Corbyn era (despite him being an older man who, somewhat ironically, refused to wear a tie for his entire leadership campaign). |
| Or failing that, ask Rihanna instead. 10/10. | Or failing that, ask Rihanna instead. 10/10. |
| RA | RA |
| Sycophantic corporeal scribblings | Sycophantic corporeal scribblings |
| Drake’s BBK tattoo – REVIEWED | Drake’s BBK tattoo – REVIEWED |
| Here is what I imagine was running through Drake’s mind when he decided to get the acronym for legendary UK grime crew Boy Better Know as a tattoo. “Pfft, so what if Kanye got all those grime lads onstage with him at the Brits. So what if A$AP Rocky went on tour with Novelist and JME. And so what if Pharrell is in the studio with Skepta? None of them have a BBK tattoo on their shoulder do they. DO THEY FAM?” | Here is what I imagine was running through Drake’s mind when he decided to get the acronym for legendary UK grime crew Boy Better Know as a tattoo. “Pfft, so what if Kanye got all those grime lads onstage with him at the Brits. So what if A$AP Rocky went on tour with Novelist and JME. And so what if Pharrell is in the studio with Skepta? None of them have a BBK tattoo on their shoulder do they. DO THEY FAM?” |
| Then later, as he settled on its gothic script: “Fuck that minimalist tattoo trend, man, let’s bring back that David Beckham shit.” And finally, as he strokes its grainy, inky likeness, casting an eye over the temporary transfer tattoo paper wetted and then discarded in the bin and refreshing his Instagram feed as the likes come flooding in, he chuckles to himself. It looks 100% genuine. “We got away with that one, Drizzy. They will never leave me out ever again.” 10/10. | |
| KH | KH |
Previous version
1
Next version