Music, theatre, cinema, architecture: all regularly get “the rule” run over them by the Guardian’s sneering team of critics. But there’s always something that slips through the cracks, and fails to get the kudos (or kicking) that it deserves. So, each Friday, we take your suggestions for things which deserve our consideration, and then review them for all they’re worth. A pamphlet? Some slang? A crude straw? No matter what it is, our team will review the bejaysus out of it. Starting with this lot …
Recreation
REVIEWED: FESTIVAL LATRINES
We’ve all heard the festival loo horror stories: groups of evil-eyed Slipknot fans at Reading who overturn portaloos while innocent are squatting, precariously balanced, inside. The poor, poor lamb who skidded and faceplanted down a longdrop at Glastonbury. The disapproving looks you get as you reach for a second scoop of sawdust. Or just the ever-present probability that you’re going to get a bit of wee on yourself.
But in 2015, festival toilets appear to have had a word with themselves. They have turned over a new leaf. They’ve “fixed up, looked sharp”. This year I’ve seen more of festival loos than I have my own bathroom and I can say, with certainty, that they are no longer fortresses of sheer terror. Green Man’s toilets are never without loo paper. Latitude’s are so clean you can probably lick them (don’t though). They’ve gone so plush that I’m expecting the toilets at End Of The Road next week to come with their own bidets.
Of course, it’s telling that the more family-friendly the festival is, the better the bogs. T In The Park’s, I’m pretty sure, are doom quagmires where the bit where the girl comes out of the television in The Ring transfers to real life. Except with urinals. For the most, part, though, I no longer dread the queue for the loo, knowing that when I open that portaloo door, there will be paper and hand sanitiser and – wait for it – I might even be able to sit down. If this is what happens when festivals gentrify, with more buggies than druggies, then TBH I’m all for it. 8/10. KH
Facial Topiary
REVIEWED: SIMON COWELL’S NEW BEARD
Two weeks, two contemporary icons of masculinity grow new beards. First, we had Ed Miliband’s holiday stubble, then this week, at an X Factor launch event, Cowell steps out in a pair of Aviators, the widest flares seen outside a branch of Miss Sixty for approximately a decade, and some grey-flecked facial hair.
The way the media seized upon these two news events is telling. Miliband’s beard occasioned work at the bleeding edge of internet journalism. The Independent went with the Vice-like syntax of “Ed Miliband is growing a beard and people cannot handle it”. The Mirror plumped for the hive-mindish “Ed Miliband has grown a beard and everybody’s freaking out”. While Metro opted for the postmodernist functionality of “Ed Miliband has grown a beard”.
In Cowell’s case, though, the headlines were old-school. The Mirror showcased its capslocking abilities: “Simon Cowell ditches smart for scruffy with BEARD and baggy outfit at glamorous X Factor launch”, it huffed. Meanwhile, Metro tried to milk the beard for tawdry gossip value with “Simon Cowell’s beard got Caroline Flack and Nick Grimshaw all weak at the knees”.
Both beard-owners are frontmen for similarly flagging franchises: 9m votes meant an embarrassing defeat for the Labour party in this year’s election; 9 million viewers spelled the lowest X Factor finale ratings in 10 years last December.
Yet, Ed Miliband’s beard’s tribute Twitter account now has 235 followers. A similar paean to Cowell’s facial hair sports a meagre 15. That means Twitter finds Ed Miliband’s beard approximately 16 times more interesting than Cowell’s.
It’s probably because in Miliband’s case the beard was clearly not a publicity stunt. We don’t even need to question whether he was promoting anything; he couldn’t flog an ice-cold Fanta in the Sahara. The reveal of Cowell’s beard, on the other hand, was almost definitely engineered in order to generate publicity for the new series of the X Factor.
Cowell’s beard, therefore, represents the old guard: big business dictating what constitutes entertainment to a mindless public. Meanwhile, Miliband’s beard represents the democracy of the public finding fun on its own terms. It’s a tale of two beards – and the thoroughly modern Miliband comes out on top. 4/10. RA
The Arts
REVIEWED: THE SPIKE TV CHANNEL
Ever since Men & Motors suffered the quivering collapse of its last sofa-bound boner in 2010, there’s been a gap in the market for a TV channel exuding essence of pure bloke. And this April, after five inexplicably wasted years, Spike arrived.
Four months have now passed which is clearly enough time to pass definitive judgement. It can’t be a coincidence that during these lost years, Jeremy Clarkson transitioned from popular TV presenter to ultra-libertarian cause celebre. This is clearly the fault of squeamish commissioning editors who failed to construct an adequate firebreak separating “gormless bloke” from “gormless bloke with a dangerous rightwing agenda”. So, approximately four-and-a-half years too late, here’s Spike.
Shows about bars. Shows about wildly aggressive cops. Shows about fighting. Shows about Hell’s Angels. But no. Nice try Spike, but it hasn’t worked. The genie’s out of the bottle and it’s stumbling around, punching producers, making racist quips, demanding extortionate fees from Amazon Prime, and occasionally deigning to present Have I Got News For You?. But at least you tried. Maybe after all this madness is over, your reward will be to catch Richard Hammond on his way back down? 6/10. PH
Technological symbiosis
REVIEWED: THE SEGWAY
Have you ever ridden a Segway? I have. I’m that guy. After an hour on one somewhere near Edgware I was given a certificate of Segway proficiency, which doesn’t get me as much action as you’d think. And as an experienced Segwayer, I feel I’m the only person qualified to review the Segway, particularly in light of yesterday’s cataclysmic events.
That moment when your newborn babe clutches your thumb for the first time? That moment is garbage – agonising abdominal cramps compared to the thrill of catching some bitchin’ air on a Segway. The flutter of love – like molten electricity bubbling through the diaphragm – as you glance at the person you know, right then, you want to spend the rest of your life with? That person is toilet. That moment is toilet. A Segway is not toilet. It’s brilliant. Ride a Segway and you’ll spend the rest of your days rueing the cruel hand evolution has dealt you in giving you two clumsy fleshy clubs for locomotion.
Unfortunately, the problems with Segways are as numerous as their merits. They’re expensive, limiting their appeal to the rich, eccentric and annoying. They can still be ungainly even to the experienced wrangler, proven yesterday by the back of Usain Bolt’s ankles and also by the fact that Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, died in a freak accident after riding one off a cliff. And, with the best will in the world, no one has ever looked at someone riding a Segway and thought “I’d like to breed with that person over there on that Segway”. Although even the best sex obviously pales in comparison to the life-refracting joy of a Segway, the fact you have to choose between the two is unfortunate.
Segways, I love you, but like Icarus you flew too high, making your lows seem all the lower. 6/10. LH
- Send your suggestions for next week’s Review Anything to @guideguardian
