Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Gordon in the morning: Six inches of fun

Great news for people who enjoy dollies and JLS - or "less discerning children" - there are plans for JLS dolls to be in the shops by Christmas.

Gordon is excited:

GIRLS, you'll all soon be able to get your hands on the JLS boys.

The lads will be up for grabs as a range of Action Man-style dolls. Class.

A trio of small plastic figure with a fixed grin and limited range of movements that rely on the whims of children before they can do anything? And now they're having dolls based on them?

The manufacturers have high hopes:
A [Vivid Imagination] spokesman said: "We worked with TAKE THAT 17 years ago and generated sales of more than 200,000 dolls in one year.

"It very much looks like JLS will dwarf that number."

I'm a bit disappointed he didn't say "JLS will make that number look like a scale model", but perhaps he was too busy crossing his fingers and making silent deals with god that they've not made a terrible mistake.

Meanwhile, the Sugababes have got someone to make the Worst Desi Remix Ever of About A Girl and so have done a photoshoot wearing saris. That's a wee bit clunky, but perhaps Gordon can help lift the picture beyond a cliche:
SUGABABES aim to curry favour with their fans by spicing the act up with an Indian-style makeover.

Elsewhere, Gordon gets to write a piece about the election, which you might have heard about in the grown-up news. Admittedly, it's just an incoherent piece about Noel Gallagher's incoherent views, but it's still election coverage:
The fanatical Man City supporter said: "Me and the missus were talking about it because we've got to vote this week.

"She was going, 'Who are you voting for?' and I said, 'I'm not voting for anyone'.

"I'm just going to take my voting card and I'm going to put in massive letters 'Tevez is God' and throw it in the polling station. I'm voting Tevez."

He's quite the wit, isn't he?

Although this is slim pickings, The Sun seizes on it to try and shove it into James Murdoch's preordained narrative. So Gordon takes a weak gag, and tries to work it up into something that might actually have political importance:
EX-OASIS star Noel Gallagher is ditching Labour for the Blues
[...]
Noel was seen as a key figure in the Nineties Britpop scene, which New Labour tried to cash in on.

I think it's fairly safe to say that Creation-Oasis and Blair-Labour enjoyed something of a mutual circle jerk, isn't it? Although I'm not sure New Labour ever "cashed in" on Britpop, unless I missed Prescott flogging Menswear albums out the back of van. If Gordon means "tried to use to promote their agenda", that might be fair. But then, so did the press, didn't they? In fact, you could argue that lifting an interview with Noel Gallagher from an FA website to have a weak slap at Gordon Brown's campaign is pretty much a working example of "attempting to cash-in on Britpop".


3 comments:

James said...

Of course, the fun part of the JLS dolls story comes when you fast-forward to Christmas, and you find the dolls on the shelves of Toys R Us (or, depending on how it goes between now and then, Wilkinsons) (alright, Poundland) (actually, thinking about it, there's a 99p Store just opened in the old Woolworths).

Whenever a group is cast into plastic, the best bit is finding out which member is least popular, based on which doll remains well-stocked long after the favourite member has sold out amidst minor riots. I remember the bargain bins full of Howard Donalds. I remember car-boot sale stalls laden with marked-down Posh Spices. I remember the sorry piles of unsold Zag puppets. What better barometer of public opinion than the pick-your-favourite-member-no-just-pick-one-no-of-course-you-can't-have-all-of-them-have-you-seen-how-much-they-cost-I'm-not-bloody-made-of-money doll?

I don't know much about JLS, but I'm fairly sure the cute, short one is the most popular. So which member is the Ken? And will Simon Cowell be offering him support when he discovers he's the only one being given away free when you buy the other three? He's still young; For all the cars, women and fame, it must still be tough to find out that, of your group, you're the Terry/Craig/Danny/Mikey/Sleeperbloke/any of Blue.

Anonymous said...

"Noel was seen as a key figure in the Nineties Britpop scene, which New Labour tried to cash in on."

Ehm, so Labour using a Labour supporter (who probably wasn't forced to pop down to 10 Downing Street for tea) to promote is somehow less acceptable than publishing an utterly twisted article to promote your own agenda based on some off the cuff joke cracked made in an online video by him. I'm honestly not somebody who usually defends Gallagher but I just had to watch the video to see exactly what was said and it's just a joke. Actually, now that I think about it, I hope that it is being twisted for the Murdoch agenda because otherwise I'm quite worried that Smart has been taking everything Noel has ever said literally and has quite possibly spent the last fifteen years wondering what a wonderwall is and where he can get one.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

"I'm going to make some dreams - I'll be chained to a mirror and a razor blade for a couple of hours..."

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