His Master’s Voice

HMV shocked no-one by announcing that the administrators were being called in. Always thought that was a bit of an odd phrase – I mean most businesses have administrators in. They do the admin. I know it’s different, just one of those differents where they maybe need to think of a different word.

Much like Woolworths, Our Price and Virgin I have spent a lot of time in HMVs looking at the covers of CDs, DVDs and books – and to a lesser extent posters, t-shirts and packs of blank cassettes. So there is no joy at the news that HMV falls like these other fallen warriors. But…they didn’t mind ripping everyone off when there was no competition did they?

This isn’t joy. I am just saying: they made hay while the sun shone. And it’s fucking dark now and we all download our sun illegally and make out own hay. This metaphor has got really confused, I’ve got to be honest I don’t really know where I am up to with it.

What I am trying to say is twofold:

(1) HMV tried to bleed us all dry with what they charged for CDs and DVDs for a long time; (2) They wouldn’t be in this position if everyone wasn’t buying everything off the internet/stealing it off the internet – point (2) kind of happened because of point (1) before anyone beats themselves up too much about it. And because ASDA sold the Adele album at a loss so you bought their carrots.

The Queen of Starts

Now this is apparently a news story.

The Queen’s Bentley failed to start following a Sandringham church service – until a bishop blessed the motor.
This is a fair opening – if we’re going to analyse the story – sums up the story. Let’s not get fussy at this stage.

As her chauffeur got nothing more than “throaty rasping” noises from the engine, the Queen laughed and pointed at the stricken limo.
Describing the process of a car not starting in some extra detail than is strictly necessary.  Why is the Queen laughing? It’s HER car. Perhaps she stands in front of her mirror laughing saying, “you’re going fucking senile you old cunt.” Or maybe she thinks all her cars are owned by the chauffeurs who just like ferriting her about – and she is mean spirited.

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, stepped forward and gave a blessing.
This is the kind of behaviour that you can’t really judge unless you are there. At this point if you are thinking ‘no, it’s definitely the act of a plum – a fucking plum’ then imagine someone like Vic Reeves doing it. Oh, it’s OK now isn’t it? But I know what you mean, he does seem like he might be a fucking plum. If he wasn’t joking then it seems like a massive misuse of God’s powers. God was probably about to stop some child-killer in Paraguay but got distracted by having to start an old woman’s car.

At that point the car burst into life and the Queen commented: “Don’t let it stop.”
Thanks for that your majesty. The plan had been to stop the thing we really need to not be stopped the moment after it stopped being stopped, ie when it started. Maybe there is a God though, eh?

Bishop Cottrell said he was standing with the Queen waiting for the Bentley to pick her up.
I don’t think this bit of information is needed this far into the story. I think we had all assumed BishCotz was stood quite near the car when he blessed it. Of course he fucking was, simpering all over Liz “thanks for coming your majesty, I fucking love it when you come to my prayer shop.”

He said: “He [the chauffeur] got into the car, put the key into the ignition and it made that kind of throaty rasping noise that cars make when they are not going to start.
Just put ‘the chauffeur got into the car’, if you’re going to put the full phrase in brackets after the pronoun then you’re just wasting my fucking eyes reading this shit. And we’ve been told all this already. If anything you’re going into more detail than earlier – we get the point: the car sounds like a choking smoker; the car wasn’t starting properly.

“So he tried again and again it makes the noise… three or four times.
I take it back – this is a thrilling story, I wonder what happens. No wait – I already know.

“At this point, really for a bit of fun, I just took a little step forward and made a blessing over the car, which got a laugh from the crowd.
Well, he cleared up that it was a bit of a joke. He doesn’t take his faith very seriously does he? I am not sure he should have his position in the church if he thinks a sacrament is a bit of a joke. Very keen to tell us it got a laugh from the crowd isn’t he? So to sum up this bit: he doesn’t take his real job seriously and could thinks he could be a professional comedian.

“The chauffeur tried the key again and it started. So then there was a great round of applause.
Are they applauding the car starting or the man who asked God to make it work? I think we all know what the Bishop thinks. All I am saying is I hope no-one depends on him to start a car when it really matters powered only by God’s will. If it’s a straight choice between Bishop Cottrell and The AA I know which one vehicle owners should be contacting. (And did the chauffeur ‘try the key’? Do you try a key in this sense? If you had a bag full of keys and you didn’t know which one was the right key, you would be trying keys but in this case the chauffeur is trying the car’s starting mechanism.)

“It is one of those nice little incidents,” he said. “We all saw the funny side of it.”
It’s a nice summing up by the Bishop. A nice little incident. No one of those nice little incidents. How was it? It was one of those nice little incidents. What kind of incident was it?  A nice little one. I doubt the chauffeur saw the funny side of it – driving that miserable old bastard all over the place to no laughter/applause and then everyone laughing at him when the car doesn’t start and then everybody loves the fella in the black doing a cheap gag.

Not the Bishop’s fault though is it? What do you want him to do? Not make a decent joke just so he doesn’t hurt the feelings of a chauffeur? OK, it is the QUEEN’S chauffeur but he says prayers for GOD (admittedly under franchising agreement from QE2).

And this light-hearted piece kind of quietly reinforces that religion is real and that the Queen is better than everyone. Smash the system, kids.