The Ministry Of Truth

Unbelievable.

{Programme Name:}   Sarah Kennedy
{Transmission Date:}  19 - 11 - 08

{Comments:}
At around 7.10am on 19 November, Sarah Kennedy wondered how, given that ’so many Muslims are called Mohammed’, teachers could differentiate between them in class.  Mohammed is indeed a fairly common Muslim name, but Sarah is a fairly common English name - indeed, I was once in a class with two Sarahs.  My teacher then differentiated between them by calling them ‘Sarah A’ and ‘Sarah M’, cunningly using the first letter of their surnames.  Why would or should this be any different with Muslims or children called Mohammed?  Does Ms. Kennedy consider Muslims to be special cases in some way?  I consider Ms. Kennedy’s singling out of Muslims in this manner to be - at best - passively racist.

Ms. Kennedy has form in this area and regularly comes out with ‘ambiguous’ statements that are open to misinterpretation: indeed, just a few moments before this comment Ms. Kennedy needlessly announced a record by Tanita Tikaram (born in Germany, grew up in Basingstoke) in the sort of mock Indian accent that I thought had died with Peter Sellars.

Given the new puritanism currently sweeping the BBC (and Radio 2 in particular) please can the BBC explain why this sort of output is considered appropriate?

Regards,

[The Minister]

From:  reception@bbc.co.uk
To:    [The Minister]
Date:  Sat, 27 Dec 2008 5:54 PM

Dear [Minister]

Thanks for your e-mail regarding the ‘Sarah Kennedy’ programme.

Firstly, I should apologise for the delay in getting back to you. We realise that our correspondents appreciate a quick response and I’m therefore sorry that you’ve had to wait on this occasion.

I understand that you were offended by comments made by Sarah during the programme concerning children with the name Mohammed. I note that your concerns lie with her comments as to how teachers would differentiate between the many children with this name and that you feel that Muslim children were being singled out in this instance.

The editor responsible for this show passes on the programme’s apologies for any offence caused. He has also spoken to Sarah about this.

I can assure you that your complaint has been registered on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your feedback.

Regards

[name removed to protect the innocent]
BBC Complaints
____________________________
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Each December the man who is julesallen puts together a Cultural Review Of The Year, with contributions from friends, acquaintances and hangers-on.  The Director’s Cut of this year’s Ministerial contribution is reproduced below for your delight and amusement.

Written Word

I put together a fine share purchase agreement this summer: does that count?

Stage

I failed to set foot inside a theatre all year.  The theatrical world did not complain.

Cinema/DVD

I don’t think it was a great year for Cinema overall - The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia and Quantum Of Solace all made me pray for death to come - but I enjoyed quite a few DVDs.

The year started well, with me catching up with the brilliant Tell No One and The Lives Of Others on DVD.  Juno deserved its success and I thought Ellen Page’s performance was terrific.  No Country For Old Men was just excellent in every respect.

I really enjoyed 2 Days In Paris and Paris, Je T’aime.  I liked Vantage Point until the final 20 minutes.  Venus made me laugh a lot, as did Stranger Than Fiction and Priceless.  Rendition was a well made movie, notwithstanding the presence of Meryl Streep.  I surprised myself by liking Catch And Release: chick-flick producers take note - cast Kevin Smith in a romcom and even I’ll watch it.

My favourite movie of this year, though, was Lars And The Real Girl.  I only finally saw it on DVD in October but I loved every frame (even, surprisingly, those frames in which Emily Mortimer featured).  Ryan Gosling is one of the five most interesting actors working today and, while I’m automatically well disposed towards any movie that emphasises the importance of society and socialism, this was just a smashing story, well told.

Website

I’ve really enjoyed the writing on Popdose throughout its first year, a collective effort from a network of lovers of popular culture.  Lifehacker continues to feed my inner geek.  One of the many music blogs I visit, The B Side, introduced me to many new pieces of great music and the incredible life story of ‘Sir’ Lattimore Brown.

Above all, though, three websites made the US general election for me: Politico and FiveThirtyEight.com were invaluable resources, while Things Younger Than Republican Presidential Candidate (Oh, And Did I Forget To Mention War Hero?) John McCain was a daily treat that occasionally had me weeping with laughter.

Televisual Entertainment

I’ve all but given up on TV.  If I had my way the Ministerial Residence would no longer have a television: now I’ve finally learnt how to use proxy servers and torrents it’s just a big, irrelevant box in the lounge that used to insult my intelligence.

For lack of anything better to watch over dinner I sat through and quite enjoyed Reaper (E4) and Chuck (Virgin 1) but neither pulled up any trees.

30 Rock was and is immense, though why it’s taken Five so long to show the second series is beyond me.  Fortunately, copyright-bending technology means I’m already onto the third…

The only other thing I’ve gone out of my way to watch is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (More4).  161 editions in 2008 and about 120 of them were laugh-out-loud funny, which is a mighty strike rate.  I suspect Stewart is even more gutted than me that the show is on hiatus when someone threw shoes at Dubya…  It’ll be interesting to see if the producers can keep up the standard when their fella moves into the Oval Office.

I feel I should like Gavin & Stacey, as lots of people I respect rate it very highly.  However, every time I see a clip it leaves me cold.

Sport

For the first time ever I don’t have a single football memory from the year: the game has eaten itself and barely interests me anymore.  Padraig Harrington retaining The Open was great viewing; for a few hours on one Sunday in July, I became a tennis fan - the Wimbledon final was astonishing; it was lovely to see Paula Radcliffe win the New York Marathon, particularly after her insane insistence on completing the Beijing race despite being unable to walk had me in tears at 3am one Sunday; and the last lap of the season’s last Formula 1 grand prix was like something out of Boy’s Own.  (That said, I’m delighted the nonentity of a man that is Lewis Hamilton was beaten to the BBC Sports Personality award by Chris Hoy, who not only deserves it for his brilliant achievements but also seems actually to have a personality.)

Otherwise it’s the Olympics.  Lots of great moments - Michael Phelps, Christine Ohuruogu, Rebecca Adlington (you can take the girl out of Mansfield, but…), the rowers, the sailors, the breathtaking performance of our cyclists (I’ve become a big fan of Victoria Pendleton) - but the stand out was the performances of Usain Bolt.  Sometimes your brain can’t quite comprehend what your eyes are seeing and I had to re-watch his performance in the 100 metres final a few times before I believed it.  Thank God he appears to be clean.

Music

Best Album
Raphael Saadiq – The Way I See It
Mark Ronson has inexplicably built a career and reputation out of slapping some half-hearted horns on a karaoke backing track and claiming that this lends it a Sixties/Seventies Motown/Philly vibe.  Raphael Saadiq (Charlie Wiggins to his friends) shows the preening prinny how it’s done and has produced some blissful tracks that at times stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the output of Holland-Dozier-Holland and Gamble-Huff.  As the beatspermil.com review says:

The Way I See It is a good record to give to your dad, it’s a good record for making love, and it’s a good record for your wedding reception. And it won’t make you want to blow your brains out after you hear it at your fifth high school dance. Because this isn’t just a retro throwback – Raphael Saadiq has out-mastered the masters. Play it for your girlfriend – you’ll get laid.

Very Good Albums
The Killers – Day & Age: shouldn’t work but it does
The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age Of The Understatement: at times sublimely good
Snow Patrol – A Hundred Million Suns: strictly by the numbers but no less listenable for that
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand: I hope this is a one-off because I’m not comfortable liking anything with which Plant is involved

Good Half-Albums By Those Who Could Have Done Better
Bon Iver – for Emma, forever ago
Neil Diamond – Home Before Dark
Ray LaMontagne – Gossip In The Grain
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Cardinology
Adele – 19
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
Kings Of Leon – Only By The Night
Kaiser Chiefs – Off With Their Heads

Partial Returns To Form By Those I’d Long Since Written Off
R.E.M. – Accelerate
The Verve – Forth
Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul

Those Whose Back Catalogues I Have Explored In Depth For The First Time And Greatly Liked
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Chic

A year on and I still can’t decide about Duffy.

I’m going to shoehorn radio into this category.  I love radio but have despaired over the paucity of British commercial radio for years.  While BBC Radio 2 has diversified and widened its scope and - in so doing - become the most popular radio station in the country, commercial radio has responded by constantly narrowing its computer-generated playlists in an attempt to elminate any risk of alienating its core audience without ever attempting to attract new listeners.

Radio 2 plays 750-800 different tracks each week, whereas in the week to 27 September, Capital Radio played just 234 different tracks and repeated them an average of 9.7 times.

When Virgin Radio re-branded as Absolute Radio it bucked this trend.  In its final week as Virgin, it played 500 unique tracks and repeated them an average of 3.5 times.  In its first week as Absolute, it played 732 unique tracks with an average repetition of 2.4; in its second week it played more than 900 unique tracks with an average repetition of 2.  Whether this approach will work remains to be seen, but the station has become much more listenable at least for the time being.  I’m enjoying it while I can.  (Absolute also employs Iain Lee, whose Sunday night phone-in is the funniest thing on the wireless.)

Cultural Highlight

Undoubtedly, the US Presidential election result.  Enough has been written on that subject by far better writers than me (indeed, more than enough has been written previously by me): suffice to say I had a smile on my face on 5 November, 6 November, 7 November, 8 November…

I’ve quite liked how a fun-sounding little “credit crunch” has turned into the most profound failure of free market capitalism in history.  Still, never mind, eh?  We all make mistakes with other people’s money.

In the same vein, it was nice to see a few Chancers getting their comeuppance, even if another dozen filled each gap they left.  For example, Richard Branson’s increasingly tarnished marque was rejected by the people who bought his Megastores and the people who bought the radio station – meaning that he lost two massively lucrative trade mark licence fees in the space of nine months: that should make for interesting reading in the group accounts.  Oh, wait a minute: he doesn’t publish his group accounts, does he…?

Gideon Osborne was exposed by one of his Bullingdon chums as the Chancer he is after his Club Med freebie; the Barclay brothers got the caning they deserved by the serfs of Sark and promptly showed just how much they respect democracy; the twonk who co-founded the Carphone Warehouse eventually learnt that public companies are not private playthings, while that nice Conrad Black chappie is nine short months into a 78-month prison term for failing to learn that lesson himself.

And Jim Beresford and Douglas Smith, partners in the Doncaster-based Beresfords Solicitors, were struck off for ripping off hundreds of invalided ex-miners and their families to the tune of tens of millions of quid.  Shame.  My heart will bleed even more for them when those funds are traced and find their way back to their rightful owners.

Let’s hope 2009 holds a similar fate in store for Satan Cowell.

A late contender for cultural highlight came from Muntadar al-Zeidi who managed to hold Dubya to greater account with a pair of size nines than any of the American legislature, the American judiciary, the American people, the United Nations or the International Court in The Hague.  A marvellous piece of old-fashioned political protest.  I loved the fact that CNN reported it with the explanation: “In Arab culture, throwing shoes at someone… is considered an insult,” as though doing so in Pig’s Knuckle, Arkansas is a sign of affection.

Cultural Nadir

Manuelgate.  Seriously: WTF?

Cock it. If ever a radio station lost its way, it’s BBC Radio Five Barely Alive:

BBC Radio 5 Live will make changes to its morning schedule from the New Year, it was announced today.

The new schedule includes a changed role for Nicky Campbell who will once again take calls from listeners in an extended 5 Live Breakfast.

Campbell, who hosted the 5 Live phone-in between 1997 and 2003, will take an hour of calls from listeners on the big news story of the day between 9.00 and 10.00am in a reshaped breakfast programme.

5 Live Breakfast is extended, from 6.00 to 10.00am weekdays, with current co-host Shelagh Fogarty opening the programme at 6.00am, and Nicky Campbell joining her at 7.00am.

Victoria Derbyshire’s programme (weekdays, 10.00am-1.00pm) will focus on original journalism – much of it coming direct from 5 Live listeners.

Midday News on 5 Live is now taken out of the schedule but Aasmah Mir will continue to be an important part of 5 Live’s team of presenters, hosting a range of programmes on the station over the coming months.

Nicky Campbell said: “It’s great to be taking calls from listeners and hosting debate which I love doing, and still to be able to work with Shelagh is a double bonus.”

Still, it’s less time for him to spend on his writing career, I suppose.

Darn that gotcha media:

Foreign relations never were her strong suit, so perhaps it’s understandable that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin actually appeared to believe that French President Nicholas Sarkozy would call her out of the blue to talk about “unting” and “Joe le plumber.”

Perhaps her first hint that it was actually a crank call should have been “Sarkozy’s” admission that “from my ‘ouse, I can see Belgium.”

“You know, I can see you as President one day,” the caller cooed, in an accent like Pepe Le Pew.

Palin giggled.  “Maybe in 8 years!” she said.

Pepe said he’d love to go hunting with her.  She readily agreed.

“I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done,” Palin told him.  “We could kill two birds with one stone that way.”

“I just love killing animals, take away life, that is so fun,” the phony Sarkozy said.

Palin giggled.

“I’d really like to go,” he said, “as long as we don’t bring vice president Cheney!”

“No,” Palin reassured him, “I’ll be a careful shot.”

The fake French president told Palin his wife, Carla Bruni, was jealous he was calling her. 

“Give her a big hug from me,” Palin said.

If you’re wondering how the Manuelgate controversy will end (and I suspect you’re as uninterested as me, except to wonder why such a desperately poor “comedian” as Russell Brand is in employment at all), a clue could be heard on this morning’s 7am BBC Radio 2 news bulletin.

The answerphone messages were described by a BBC newsreader as being “obscene”.

Broadcasts that are “obscene” are illegal.

Ergo, broadcasters making “obscene” broadcasters cannot be permitted to ply their trade on the BBC.

But I’ll lay odds that it’ll be Brand who pays with his job rather than Ross.  First, Brand does not present two primetime BBC One shows, isn’t one of the major forces behind Comic Relief, doesn’t win Gold Sony awards, and isn’t the planned successor to Sir Terence for things like Children In Need.  Second, Brand’s contract will be a lot cheaper to buy off.

Strange how a “23-year-old glamour model” (a member of a dance troupe called the Satanic Sluts, no less) and Max Clifford are central to the way things have played out, isn’t it…?

A final thought: politicians seeking to use this pathetic non-story for cheap column inches that are not connected to economic meltdowns and/or the ineptitude of their best mates are beneath contempt.

The current roll call of shame (from the ‘quality’ press only, as I can’t bring myself to look at the redtops):

Arrivederci Gordon (New Scum)
Posh Boy Dave (Scum)
Nadine Dorries (Scum)
David Hanson (New Scum)
John Whittingdale (Scum)
Andy Burnham (albeit half-heartedly) (New Scum)
Dennis Skinner (tangentially) (Old New Scum)
Philip Davies (Scum)
David Davies (Scum)
Paul Farrelly (New Scum)
Andrew Mackinlay (New Scum)
Nigel Evans (Scum)

I love the fact that our politicians have apparently decided that nationalisation and governmental intervention is actually the only sensible route to take in certain circumstances, but that none of them will actually say so.

Fannie May and Freddie Mac have this week followed Northern Rock into national ownership: there has been barely a whiff of political or economic dissent to the astonishing development.

Some stuffed shirt or another from Goldman Sachs told the Today programme yesterday that governments have a “duty to intervene” in circumstances such as those that have developed in America, where free markets have failed working people.

That, once again, from Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs, the investment bank.

(I’m sure they said much the same circa 1978 a propos British Leyland and British Steel. The tape of that interview probably just got wiped.)

Most interestingly Dave Cameron’s barely locatable, let alone jumping up and down on the Six and Ten, yelling to Huw about the Trots in Number 10 and the White House and their evil machinations designed to thwart the unchecked progress of global capitalism.

Don’t tell me that the fucking Tories are going to be to the left of Labour at the next election: I’m on a diet and I don’t have the strength to take that…

This week I have been 19,000 people.

Since rising on Monday I have been wandering around clutching a strange little booklet in which I have occasionally scribbled Xs and lines on a series of complicated grids.

I am one of 2,500 adults taking part in the RAJAR/Mori National Radio Listening Survey.

Last Saturday afternoon a silver haired gentleman in a salmon blazer knocked at the Ministry’s front door and asked if - for the incentive of being entered into a free prize draw to win £100 at odds of 2,500-1 (still better than the National Lottery) - I would trot through the motions on behalf of broadcasting’s least attractive sibling.

Given the desperation clearly visible in his face as he tried once more to make the prospect seem appealing to another householder eyeing him suspiciously, he couldn’t really have hit a richer seam - a radio addict, a former radio activist and someone (just about) intelligent enough to understand the methodology all in one rotund, sweaty, balding package.

It seems barely credible at this stage of technological evolution that we still measure radio audience numbers manually but there we are.

So all week I have had to try to remember in which precise 15-minute segment of the day I switched from Station X to Station Y.

Thus, when I drove home from work on Friday and retuned from Radio 2 to Radio 4, when exactly did I do so?  I remember I was driving through Wootton Green but I don’t know the precise time for certain because I was WATCHING THE ROAD, STUPID!

And when I wandered into the card shop earlier today and caught five minutes of the Jonathan Ross show, was it between 11am and 11.15am or between 11.15am and 11.30am?  As if I’m timing my every movement in the middle of the town centre on a Saturday morning when I’m trying to prevent pensioners from elbowing me in the ribs, kids from vomiting on my shoes and Big Issue vendors from accosting me every 16.3 yards.

Was I in the butcher’s queue long enough to have heard the requisite five minutes of Classic FM between 11.30am and 11.45am today, or was I probably only waiting three or four minutes?  (If you don’t listen to something for at least five minutes of the 15, you don’t record it.)  Who knows, or even dares to care?  Besides, I had sausages that required prompt refrigeration - no time to dawdle clock-watching.

But still, RAJAR expects 2,500 participants to remember so they can sit down with a cuppa in the evening and try to complete their little booklet semi-accurately.  Mental.

But not half as mental as the fact that I represent 19,000 people.

And by a quirk of timing, this means that Virgin Radio’s figures are going to get a shot in the arm this quarter.

As mentioned earlier in the week, I’ve started to become something of a fan of Iain Lee’s work for Virgin on Sunday nights.  This week, however, he also broadcast on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights as a stand-in for a holidaying colleague.  I therefore - atypically - listened to Virgin for at least two hours on each of three nights during the survey period.

Ordinarily I would have listened more to 6 Music, Radio 2 and Five Live, but they’ve just magically lost 19,000 listeners from this quarter’s figures.  Sorry, people: it’s nothing personal.

Plus, the fact that I listened to podcasts originating from Radio 4, Radio 2, Virgin and LBC during the week counts for nothing.  Because - while listening to live radio streams via t’Internet is deemed to count - there is no way to record podcast listening on the National Radio Listening Survey.

Every bloody radio station promotes its podcasts incessantly, investing vast sums of effort and expense in the format, yet the industry-sponsored listening figures entirely fail to take account of the genre!

While there is less than a tenth of the money in radio that there is in television, these 19,000 blips do nevertheless actually impact on people’s livelihoods.

Heavy hangs the responsibility around the poor Minister’s shoulders.

And Iain Lee owes me a pint.

Things The Minister Never Expected To Say Part 7075943520a:

This man…

…might just be the best broadcaster on British radio at the moment.

Sundays, 10pm, on the soon-to-be-renamed-Virgin Radio*.

He also has a podcast. (And it’s free, the Minister’s favourite price.)

And yes, for the absolute avoidance of all doubt, that’s the same Iain Lee who presented RI:S(E):IB:LE.

[* Virgin Radio - Genius Business Decisions Of Our Time; bought in March 2000 by Scottish Media Group for £225,000,000; sold in June 2008 by Scottish Media Group for - ahem - £52,000,000.]

I am a little concerned.

This is the twelfth week of 2008.  Essentially, a quarter of 2008 has passed us by and the Minister’s record collection has not yet been enhanced.

The Minister last purchased a new album in December 2007.

While this would not necessarily be an unusual state of affairs for most people, the sheer volume of CDs cluttering up the Ministry means that I must have bought an average of around 100 albums each year for the past decade (and, in some years, far more than that).  While I’m not into John Peel territory I have, literally, thousands of CDs.

This year represents the thirtieth anniversary of me as a purchaser of pop music.  I genuinely can’t remember the first record I bought (and they were vinyl records in 1978) but every week I would sift the racks of cheap, ex-jukebox singles in Beeton’s newsagents for things that had been hits a month or two before.

I can’t claim to have been the coolest six-going-on-seven-year-old in the pre-Thatcherite East Midlands but I do remember buying Figaro, Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs, My Life (Billy Joel), Rivers Of Babylon/Brown Girl In The Ring, Y.M.C.A., Forever Autumn and - of course - the Grease soundtrack album, which I played incessantly all summer, and which led me to buy Olivia Newton-John’s A Little More Love at the end of the year.

(It’s crippling to admit this, incidentally.  I could have just lied through my teeth and claimed my shopping basket contained Ever Fallen In Love by The Buzzcocks, The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks, White Man In Hammersmith Palais by The Clash, Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer and Patti Smith’s Because The Night.  But I still stand by My Life, Y.M.C.A., Forever Autumn and Grease.  Quality control improved significantly in 1979: much to my mother’s horror I bought a Sex Pistols single - albeit a poor Eddie Cochran cover version with the by then very dead Sid on “vocals” - and, more acceptably, fell in love with Debbie Harry.)

There has been a bit of Ministerial downloading in 2008: new albums from Adele and The Feeling have already been dismissed (can you blame me?), the Duffy album is still under consideration (love the voice, not so sure about the material), as is the Goldfrapp album; but the only one certain to become a permanent addition to the Ministerial iPod is the Juno soundtrack.

(For the record - pun intentional - I tend to download things initially, listen to them a couple of times and then ditch the stuff I don’t like and buy the stuff I do.  While I don’t claim for one second that is anything other than unlawful under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, I would point out that it’s no different from what everyone did 40-50 years ago by availing themselves of listening booths in record stores before parting with their cash.)

I have a modicum of interest in hearing the Hercules and Love Affair album and as previously discussed I’ll give the R.E.M. album a whirl (in fact, an - ahem - “pre-release” of it is downloading as I type this post) but there’s nothing coming up that really excites me.

On top of that, I have voluntarily agreed to sort through the aforementioned CD-related clutter with a view to offloading about half of it.  Let’s face it, I haven’t actually played those Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Death Cab For Cutie CDs since the first week I purchased them and I could probably live without them.

A friend once said that his parents’ record collection ended in 1970.  That was the year in which he was born.  He realised that his parents probably had neither the money, the time or the energy to buy new music once he came along and they fell out of the habit.

Being without an heir, I don’t have the concern of Junior Ministers interfering with my music appreciation but a genuine thought occurs: at the age of 36, do I now basically have 90% of the music that will see me through the second half of my life?

I’m sure there will be things that come along from time to time that pique my curiosity.  And I hope some of the artists I already like will produce stuff in the future that I will also like.  And I expect that there’s already plenty of music recorded about which I am currently unaware and that I will stumble across in the future.

But seriously - is that it?  Have I been there and done that?  Am I - whisper this quietly - Radio 2’s target audience…?

There are not too many up sides to insomnia.

One of the few is the better class of radio content generally available in the middle of the night.

Between 2am and 3am on Tuesdays, Radio Five Live’s Up All Night programme features a technology magazine called Pods And Blogs.

Tuesday’s edition came from the SXSW (South by Southwest) “interactive festival” in Austin, Texas and featured an interview with Jonathan Coulton, one of the growing number of independent, unsigned musicians making a living from t’Internet despite - and take a deep breath before you read this, Mr. Record Company Suit - making most of his music available for cost-free and DRM-free download.

Coulton is a talented songwriter, a thoughtful person and deserves every success for demonstrating to the refusniks in the RIAA and its ilk that the digitization of music is not necessarily the end of the world or the end of income generation.

While he’s now largely charging $1 a song, Coulton gives away a lot of his music and it is legally copy- and distribute-able under a Creative Commons licence.  By inviting people to donate if they like his music, Coulton is proving that PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR MUSIC IF IT’S GOOD ENOUGH, something record labels simply cannot or will not grasp.

Kevin Kelly’s blog recently even set out a fucking business plan for these gimps.  Still they prefer to sue schoolchildren, though.

The show contained an excerpt from Coulton’s most popular song, Code Monkey, inspired by his previous job as a software engineer, which had the Minister almost choking with laughter at 2.30am.

Code Monkey get up, get coffee.
Code Monkey go to job,
Have boring meeting with boring manager Rob.
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
But his output stink;
His code not functional or elegant -
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager oughta write goddamn login page himself.
Code Monkey not say it out loud:
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud.

Here’s an acoustic rendition:

Enjoy Mr. Coulton, his website and his music.

And if you like it, pay for it.

He’s playing Dingwall’s in London a week tonight: tickets available here.