No Rock And Roll Fun

ALL RHODES LEAD TO LAUREN: It's that time of the week again when we get to inspect a new promo pic for the Orange Telephones Playlist Don't Ask If They Fry Your Brains on ITV.



We're suspecting that, in order to get wee Nicky and Lauren in the same frame, there's a fruit stall somewhere in central London that's missing at least three orange boxes. We wonder if they're both looking extremely knackered to try and fit the middle-of-the-night vibe of the programme's prestigous slot.

Nick tells Lauren about how September 11th 2001 changed the Duran sound:

"Some of the new album was written around the time of 9/11. In fact 'What Happens Tomorrow' was written very shortly after that. I think it influenced everyone in the world.
You couldn't be an artist and have it not affect you; it was all anyone was talking about all day every day. Until then we'd written a lot of uplifting Duran Duran songs and when 9/11 happened it made everything much more introspective."

As we write this, we're waiting for a fact-checking call to North Korea to be returned to ensure that everyone was influenced. We've got a funny feeling, though, that only Duran Duran found that an event which even made George Bush get out that funny round, spinny thing with the countries on it made them more, not less, introspective. Perhaps they were trying to work out how the world had not heeded the message of Planet Earth?

Nick then moves on to the more weighty matters, as in why Robbie Williams hasn't made it in America:

"I like Robbie very much, I don't know why he hasn't broken America.

"Maybe he hasn't put enough work in over there or possibly his style is a little too English for the Americans. Irony doesn't travel well across the Atlantic."

Two things, here, Nick: first, Robbie Williams isn't "ironic" - behaving like a twat, and then saying "ooh, I'm a twat" isn't ironic; it's so far from ironic that Alanis didn't even consider including it as a line in Ironic.

Secondly, and more importantly: What makes you think that irony doesn't travel across the Atlantic? You're not a stupid man, Nick, so why are just mindlessly repeating the hoariest old fib of them all. The trouble for Robbie is, actually, they do do irony in the States, but when they do it really well, and don't need to import some half-assed attempts to palm unpleasantness off as irony.