Immigrant Avenue & Fela Kuti

This is Fela Kuti, a passed musical genius from Nigeria doing 'Water has no Enemy'. He came to mind when I was out shopping today and overheard a couple of typical taxi drivers slobbering down their Latee Coffees and moaning about how the 'f*cking Africans (sic)' were taking over their jobs.  I was listening to this through one half of my MP3 player at the time.

Thankfully, they didn't use the 'N' word'...

It may be kind of true that 30% of city-centre Dublin cabbies come from Nigeria these days, but at least you can ask them to turn off Sh*te 104 on the radio, and put some good music on - most of the guys can whip out a Fela or King Sunny Ade CD in seconds.

My thinking/experience is that if you show the slightest bit of interest in someone else's culture, then you may get some respect back.

From hundreds of trips, I have only had 4 bad experiences with Nigerian cabbies - one insisted on playing religious instruction CDs, two tried it on with me (invitations which I politely declined but took as back-handed compliments)  and one went on a wild visit three times around the Harcourt Street vicinity.  I got out and paid immediately on all occasions.

In the whole, I have had nothing but good laughs with taxi drivers from the new sides of our community in recent years.

Just wish that those dinosaurs would get over it...

Oh yeah - it would be great as well if RTE could put a believably representative immigrant family in Fair City. I know they had a Nigerian family a while back, but in the couple of shows I saw, the 'actors' looked like they were heavily sedated and had wandered in to the wrong place, expecting to do some contract cleaning. I think they did the same thing with poorly-written Eastern European characters who were usually all villanous by nature.

Alternatively just invent a new show.They could call it 'Immigration Avenue', 'Romanian Road', 'Lithuania Lane', 'African Avenue' , 'Polish Place', 'Filipino Flats', 'Chinese Close', 'Generally-Latino Square' or something along those lines...

Just throw some stereotypical Eastern European navvies and Roma folks with poor accordian skills into the plot and we'd really have an award-winner.

Anyhoo, I jest a little - just going to dig Fela for now.

Gok-Wank in shock after eye surgery

Why didn't anyone tell me I was so revolting looking?

Channel 4 presenter Gok-Wan, who has made his name for humiliating frumpy housewives on his TV show, was reportedly under heavy sedation last night, following the results of eye surgery to correct issues with his vision.

A hospital source commented:- "Once the bandages came off, he demanded to see himself in a full-length mirror. He shrieked and became hysterical when he realised that he looked more of a fashion disaster than any of the ladies he had ever insulted on his show. "This mirror is f*cked, he sobbed. I look practically emaciated, my clothes are sh*te and what's going on with my hair?"

The camp presenter sufferred from myopia for all of his life but was apparently convinced for the last several years that he had the charismatic looks and style-sense of an oriental Brad Pitt.

This delusion gave him great confidence on his TV Show 'How to look good in the F*cking Nip', during which he chided middle-aged women for such crimes as not using the correct skin toner, wearing the wrong heels, under-emphasising their cleavages, having large hips and wearing striped blouses in the wrong season.

A senior staff nurse who did not wish to be named commented: "Poetic Justice - this limp-wristed freak of nature has finally realised that it is he himself who needs a drastic makeover.

He was highly abusive when he first arrived here - asking one young nurse exactly what abbatoir she had escaped from. He also reduced a cleaner to tears by asking if she gets all her clothes from Oxfam, told her that she had hair like like a really butch lesbian and asked her to do something to cover up her varicose veins, as they were making him ill".

"We will not be sad to see him go"...

Sly and the Family Stone

Sly Stone was always one of the most interesting characters of the 60's musical revolution. He was a brilliant composer and multi-instrumentalist (a Mozart-like genius, in my opinion) but when he got into cocaine and heroin, things hit the slides big time. 

His performance at festivals like Woodstock made him into a legend. He also had the guts to resist all calls to make his band 'less female' and/or 'less caucasian', despite stupid political oppostion.

Here he is in 69, before he got real bad, doing a medley of hits.

Things did get so bad within the band that Sly once arranged for a group of his goons/bodyguards to give a real hiding to super-bassist Larry Graham, who was having an affair at the time with the wife of Sly's brother - Freddie (who is playing the beautiful Gibson on this). Also Sly resented Graham for getting more female attention than he was getting at the time.

Anyhoo, one of their roadies got wind of the plan and managed to spirit Larry and his girlfriend away down a hotel backstairs on the night in question, to save them from Sly's posse.

Larry Graham left to do his own thing after that and ended up years later playing bass with Prince. Sly kept sinking and sinking, but he's still alive, albeit in in really poor health...

Chris de Burgh surprised by critics

Ireland's number 1 balladeer, Chris de Burgh admitted today to being quite stunned by the reaction to his recently-released album of cover versions 'Footsteps', on which he interprets songs by a diverse array of artists such as the Beatles, the Byrds, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.

"To be honest, I've never had a decent review for any of my work, so I was quite shocked when the Irish Times referred to my new album as 'almost listenable'. To have the NME call it 'surprisingly inoffensive bland MOR' was also very weird."

"When Rolling Stone gave it two stars out of five, I knew I was on to something big. They had famously referred to my work in the past as combining the very worst elements of the Bee Gees and Cat Stephens. Very, very hurtful, at the time."

Chris was further boosted by reviews from other respected elements of the printed press:-

'Not half as shit as you would have expected from this unctuous clown' - Spin magazine.

'This one is a keeper - will give it to my aunt as an xmas gift' - Sunday Times.

'I didn't puke once while listening to this.  I think I need to see a doctor' - Evening Herald.

'Of course, it's shite but I found myself humming along to a couple of the tunes. Think I'll self-harm now...' - Hot Press

'Actually almost liked a few of the tunes on this. Early signs of dementia on my part?' - Evening Standard

'Oasis and Blur are great. Chris de Burgh is OK' - Q Magazine

'For some reason, and I can't quite put my finger on it, this is not too bad' - Dave Fanning

'Have lost the will to live after listening to this and actually liking some of it' - Mojo Magazine

'F*ck me. How did he manage to make a half-decent album? I expected it to be as shit as the wretched crap done by my stable of  performers' - Simon Cowell

Whilst admitting that he is grateful for all of the positive feedback from the media, Chris is determined to continue his long-running battle with Irish Ferries, encouraging his fans to refuse to pay the Ferry company, until you actually reach the other side (normally Holyhead). "Don't payyyyyyy the Ferry Man" he bellowed. At this point he excused himself as he had a nanny to feck console...

Lay me your money down

Tillakeratne Dilshan - a really nice bloke, by all accounts

Wahoo! Won a good K+ on Sri Lanka in the cricket today, when they trashed South Africa in a 50-overs game. They were as long as 15/8 at the start so I lumped on, and threw more at it during the game until they got below evens.

One of those times when the outcome was just so bleeding obvious, it was too good to resist...

Just p*ssed off that I didn't put 5 K on it, but the Lankans, for all their talents, can f*ck it up some times, so caution is usually required.

Anyhoo - thanks Dilshan, Mahela, Sanga, Mendis and especially Paddy Power; Give me some money! I shall save it all for a rainy day. Actually, I'll put a couple of hundred on Colarado in the early morning Baseball also. Will see how that works out...