Dear FUNtastic!,
Three days ago I had never heard of your band. Two days ago, my little boy unwrapped a Christmas present from his grandparents to discover a copy of Jingle Bell Baby, the Christmas carol board book and accompanying sing-along CD on which you perform.
It's a beautiful book, one which I am sure we will treasure for years to come. But I need to have a serious word about the CD.
Now, I do realise that you are all highly trained fine young singers from 'Europe's leading school for rock and pop musicians' (whatever that means), and I am a comparatively fossilized, poker-arsed choral-singing Nazi, with a generic music degree, but please bear with me.
It may well be the case that my only foray into the world of professional recording to date has been as a backing singer on Roberto Alagana's Christmas Album, and I probably wouldn't have done that if I hadn't needed the fee to get my car released from Croydon Council's car pound (the bastards), but that's another story entirely. As an accomplished choral singer, I've sung for the Pope, won an international choral competition, and had a 4* review in The Times. By and large, I do feel qualified to offer some constructive criticism here.
I've seen more than enough Fame Academy, Pop Idol and X Factor in my time to know how you crazy kids like to sing these days. And you can can sing, I grant you that. But please note the following very carefully, and take it on board for any future sing-along CD projects.
All that swooping and scooping up to every single syllable, the manic over-embellishment and general improvised faffing around with the timing makes the sing-along CD utterly impossible to actually sing-along with. It simply can't be done. And even if it could, there's not a hope in hell I'd encourage my little boy to wreck his voice with pop-star warbling before he's even old enough to understand the difference between bel canto and con belto.
I did wonder if I was being a bit too high-brow choral-anorak about it, so I played the extracts from your website to The Husband, who happens to be an accomplished rock musican in his spare time.
He was sat in the bath, unable to reach the volume button, but his confused and increasingly frantic mutterings of 'Karaoke Mariah Carey' and 'Please. Make. It. Stop.', were enough to tell me that it's not just me.
On a serious note, I love the concept of what you're doing, and I really hope you can find a way to make the idea work. Keep it simple, remember that your sing-alongers are mostly ordinary parents and grandparents, who can't (and won't) swoop around every note like a pub & club circuit Whitney Houston impersonator doing I Will Always Love You after a few too many Bacardi Breezers, and I think you might be on to a winner.
Kind Regards,
Melissaria.
Thursday, 27 December 2007
A Musical Interlude
Monday, 17 December 2007
The goose isn't the only one...
Christmas is coming,
And my arse is getting fat
Half a stone in just ten days,
I can't go on like that!
I've had three Christmas dinners,
And a number of mince pies.
I guess those second helpings
Helped to pile it on my thighs.
But still, with 9 days left to go,
Perhaps if I am good;
Have healthy food, less wine - my jeans
Might fit me as they should.
By Christmas Day, I'll look superb,
Those extra pounds all gone,
Then I'll eat the Christmas Pudding,
And pile them all back on!
Friday, 14 December 2007
Gift Receipts Get My Goat
This week, I have spent just about every spare moment immersed in Christmas cards, envelopes, address books, stamps, wrapping paper, tags and presents. I have made good progress, and am now just about tolerably organised considering that there are still 11 days to go before the F&?*!ve Season really gets underway.
The upshot of which is that it's now time for a little blog-based Grinching and general Bah-Humbuggery.
Today's topic is Gift Receipts: Contemporary Tokens of Thoughtlessness and Ingratitude.
I do understand the logic behind the extending to a third party of the right to return non-faulty goods. That 's not the issue. The problem with gift receipts is that their very presence tramples all over the twin concepts of generous giving and grateful receiving.
It's probably not fashionable to say so, although that doesn't usually stop me, but I believe that the latter aspect of the gift-based transaction is just as important as the former. The receipient of a gift has the ability and the duty to give pleasure to the buyer by way of their grateful acceptance. Even, or indeed especially when the present itself is a complete horror.
There's nearly an argument in favour of gift receipts when it comes to clothes. As we all know, one shop's size 12 can be another's 10 or yet another's 14. But I think that if you can't be absolutely certain that something is the right size, shape, fit, style and colour for your friend or relative just by holding it up and looking at it, then you don't know them well enough to be choosing their clothes. Buy something else. See below for suggestions.
The gift receipt also carries an uncharitable message of its own. 'Look!', it says. 'This person couldn't be bothered to find something they knew you'd really like'. It's a cop-out that allows your recipient to mentally paint a big, bold thought-bubble above your head at the moment you bought the present and fill it with the words of the well-known Christmas Eve Lament 'Fuck it, this'll have to do'.
I also reject the argument that it saves awkward and embarrassing moments when you have to ask for the receipt. Just how rude do you have to be to ask for the receipt? Really, the gift giver's job is done once they've wrapped the present and handed it over; if you don't like it when you open it, that's your problem, not theirs. Re-gift it, donate it to charity, sell it on ebay if you must, but please, spare me from the tyranny of the gift receipt...if it becomes a socially expected norm, then my cheapskate re-gifting tactics will be screwed, and I'll have to spend even more money, buying everything brand new, just so that I can include the sodding receipt.
And that's my real reason for disliking them so much; I sense a conspiracy to keep us consuming and spending, spending and consuming, We don't need it.
For those of you who might be struggling to find something good for an awkward individual such as myself, might I suggest having a look at the Oxfam Unwrapped Goat? For £25, you can buy a goat for someone who needs it far more than your friend or relative needs another jumper, CD or bottle of bubble bath, no matter how heavenly. I wish that everyone I know would buy goats on my behalf, rather than stuff to unwrap that I don't really need. I would genuinely love that.
Finally, I do solemnly swear that anyone who asks me for a receipt for any present I have bought them will find that next Christmas, a goat bearing their name will be sent directly to a more grateful recipient.
Baaaaaaaaaaaah. Humbug.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
The F-word and the Grinch
It's Grinch Day again. It seems to come earlier every year, but checking back through defunct blog and paper diary pages, I find that actually I'm pretty much on schedule.
Monday, 12 November 2007
It's started already.
Someone on my street has started decorating the outside of their house for Christmas. Last time I looked it was barely mid-November. I haven't fallen asleep and missed a month, have I?
On the 61st day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
