Jesus fucking Christ.  I think I may actually have a badger living in my mouth.  Or a muskrat.  Or one of those little yappy dog bastard things which always make me want to feed them to our bloody cat.  Gin is raping my brain.  Fucking bastard.

To make matters worse, that insufferable weasel Mrs. Toad is malingering at home, lolling around in bed, watching movies on iTunes and generally just doing bugger all.  I WANT TO GET SICK!  I never get fucking sick.  If I ever have time off work it’s either because my back is crippling me, which doesn’t feeling like being sick at all because it doesn’t give you proper sick voice, or I am skiving.  Now, however, I feel a nap in the disabled loos coming on again.

Actually, writing the word loo in the plural form there makes me think, not all that surprisingly of… Rebecca Loos!  The disabled Loos!  I think her pig-wanking episode was the pinnacle of reality TV – the ultimate in self-parody by a medium already happily digesting its own sphincter.
For those who missed it, there was a reality TV programme over here a good few years back called On the Farm or something like that, where the same old cast of desperate E-Listers moved into a farm for a bit and spent their days doing ordinary, everyday farm jobs.  No-one, however, seemed to think through the implications of showing one particular everyday farm job live on television: that of inseminating livestock.

So a woman, who was effectively famous for no other reason than the wielding of her vagina, ended up masturbating a pig live on television, and with that particular act removed from the utilitarian farm environment and brought into the realm of entertainment (particularly the realm of ‘salacious entertainment for the means of getting ahead despite being devoid of any observable skills besides the possession of an enormous pair of breasts’, which is Miss Loos’ specialist genre) it turned from tedious chore into bestiality.  Which was brilliant.

Why was it brilliant?  Well apart from the ‘Christ has anyone thought about what she’s actually doing?‘ factor, which was pretty good in itself, it was such an amazingly clear illustration of what is actually going on in reality TV.  These people, basically, are humiliating themselves in order to become famous.  They are sufficiently desperate for fame – and fame in and of itself as opposed to fame as a by-product of having a particular talent – that they consider having the entire nation point and laugh at them on live television to be a suitable price to pay for that fame.  How much humiliation will they collectively be prepared to tolerate?  How desperate are they to be in the public eye?  Well Rebecca gave us our answer – desperate enough to wank off pigs on the telly.

1. Most dignity-free celebrity moment on reality TV.
2. Invent a new reality TV programme.
3. Most pointless celebrity.
4. Favourite trashy celebrity (being even slightly worthy disqualifies anyone from this, so choose carefully please).
5. Biggest surprise celebrity attention-whore who turned up on reality TV despite you previously thinking they had some dignity.

This week’s five songs are taken from a compilation I made about seven years ago, comprised of stuff I ended up selling on because I had no room left on my CD shelves.  Looking back at what’s on it though, I do wonder what the fuck I was thinking.

Lift to Experience – Waiting to Hit

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Willard Grant Conspiracy – St. John Street

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Dan Bern – New American Language

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Solomon Burke – Diamond in Your Mind

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Pete Yorn – Strange Condition

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Hrrgh.  I left a gig early last night because I was so tired from constant late nights this week, editing Samamidon session videos (3am every night, and one early morning meeting at Proper Job thrown in for good measure).  The plan was to head home and get some sleep, but it didn’t work.

What are your plans this weekend then, Toadlings?  Since the session our house has gone to hell, because I have been too focussed on the videos to do things like clean or tidy, and Mrs. Toad does fuck all unless I particpate.  And, frankly, who can blame her.  We need a wife.  Then on Sunday there will be football and some music plotting with a couple of friends of mine.  Not very exciting, I have to admit.  There probably won’t even be much drinking because, honestly, I’m too tired.

I am currently listening to the new albums by Antony & the Johnsons, Animal Collective and Andrew Bird, all which are no better than okay.  I’ve not listened to them all that carefully yet, nor, crucially, in the right order.  My phone is old and has a bizarre quirk of only playing songs in alphabetical order, which can be good for albums, but often just messes with the artist’s intent.  So I am not writing them off just yet, and will almost certainly review them once I’ve given them a proper chance.

So, please de-lurk and chip in with your Friday Five, and if you want to suggest next week’s five email me at the address on the contact page.

1. Best work hangover coping strategy.
2. When you give your house a ‘mother-in-law clean’, just how clean does it get?  If there’s no mother in law, who is your closest approximation?
3. Most trendy/haircutty band you actually like.
4. Most famous/stadiumy band you actually like.
5. Most annoying word people add ‘y’ to because they can’t be arsed thinking up a suitably adjective.

These all come from my time living on a fantastically cool Humber Keel Barge on the Thames, during my wild youth.  They look a bit like this, but without the mast and are deceptively large on the inside.  It was very, very cool.  This is a compilation I made of albums I wasn’t all that into, but which had some very good songs nevertheless.  I like that kind of mix – they make you remember an album quite fondly when otherwise you might never play it again.

Preston School of Industry – Straits of Magellan

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Obi – Incredible Jack

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Dan Bern & the IJBC – Crow (IJBC apparently stands for International Jewish Banking Conspiracy – the card)

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Lucinda Williams – Ventura

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Day One – Ordinary Man

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And, just to send you off into your weekend with a snigger, try this little snippet on for size. Barack Obama might be cooler than I thought – the dirty little pervert: