The Voice UK. Discuss.

Now then folks. The Voice UK. Addictive viewing isn’t it! (Note: “addictive” does not necessarily mean “nice”, I mean take crack cocaine for example.)

Danny, the incredibly handsome and charming Irishman, has his big chance to become more mainstream. This roughly translates as: Danny, of whom most of us have been hitherto unaware, has suddenly erupted into the nation’s (mostly female) consciousness because, let’s face it, we all secretly want to ruffle his hair.  Can he actually sing? We have no idea and it’s mostly irrelevant since it is unlikely to diminish our enjoyment of him on our screens every Saturday night.

Most viewers of my age or above may have felt a certain amount of relief when Will.i.am mentioned “The Peas”, and particularly when he mentioned “starting The Peas”, because we have heard of the Black Eyed Peas even if we have not up to now considered ourselves cool enough to call them “The Peas”. But at least from that point in the programme on we felt considerably cooler because he is, of course, Mr Cool out of all the coaches, and now we can place him as well. It’s a win-win.

Jessie J is Boxer’s favourite singer, so I for one knew all about her, as did, I imagine, most Mums of little girls. It’s difficult to determine if it’s cooler to know about Jessie J or not to know about her. I mean, she is very young, and her target audience is very young, but on the other hand she is strangely likeable on the programme, mainly because she knows she cannot name drop like the others and is very self-effacing about it (“Woo! I met Justin Bieber once!”), and because she weeps on prime time TV. Also, it turns out she can actually sing! Clearly this means that she is not quite the manufactured young female pop star we have been subjected to over recent years, which makes us like her even more.

Sir Tom Jones. The only man on the planet, and definitely the only person on the coaches’ panel, who has enough charm and wit to name-drop with impunity. So what if it’s a thinly disguised way to attract a younger fan base by appealing to the BBC’s audience on prime time Saturday night TV? And if he has to lower his standards by singing someone else’s songs in an oddly-matched, randomly assembled quartet, then so be it. Sometimes these sacrifices just have to be made. It just leaves me pondering what on earth possessed Sir Tom to take up The Voice UK cudgel. I mean, I cannot believe he’s in a tight spot, financially. He’s not short of fans or renown. Does he need an extra million to buy a racehorse or a 747? I seriously doubt it. Someone talked him into it. Someone who should be brought in at once to sort out Afghanistan by talking the Taliban into abandoning their life of crime and suppression, chucking their weapons into the sea and retiring to the mountains to tend goats and grow organic tomatoes.

However, let us not beat about the TV ratings and general broadcasting skulduggery bush. The main reason we are so enamoured of The Voice is because it beats Britain’s Got Talent into a cocked hat, and it means that we now have at our disposal some blindingly brilliant diversionary tactics with which we can effectively distract our children from the awful cringe-worthiness of BGT and in particular Simon Cowell’s pathological inability to be respectful to anyone. And by the time they have realised that BGT is on, it’s past their bed time and we don’t need to subject ourselves to it at all. Four yesses!

Money for Old Rope

Gosh dear Reader, hasn't it been a long time? Doubtless you have missed my pointless ramble, much like you miss a verruca when it finally goes away and stops bothering you. Sadly, I am back though, much like a verruca usually is if you use a public swimming pool without dousing your feet in Agent Orange before and afterwards. I cannot guarantee I shall be back for long though (much like a verruca....etc). This time it's about money. Again.

As ever, like any good Scot, I am keenly in tune with value for money, I do love a bargain, and it physically hurts me to part with money for old rope.

I’m not talking about obvious things, like being sold payment protection insurance back in the day when everyone was flush and thus apparently not scrutinising every tiny area of possible belt-tightening in their finances. Or like the “payment processing fee” or the “administration fee” which is added on to every online or telephone transaction for virtually anything where the retailer imagines they can get away with it, even though we all know that the entire transaction is automated and no single human finger has to be lifted in any way in order to complete it. I’m talking about the sneaky methods we encounter every day in order to make us part with Money for Old Rope…

This morning I made the mistake of telephoning my current car insurance company in the naïve assumption that I might get a better deal on the insurance for a second car by going to someone with whom I already have a policy and a 7 year no claims bonus. Not so, it would seem. Not only did they charge me £25 for the privilege of making such a small amendment to my details on the policy that it made absolutely not a scrap of a difference to the premium (that’s right folks…), and once I had said it I couldn’t really unsay it and leave the policy as it was, but also the quote they gave me was approximately 2.5 times more than the quote of the first competitor I approached. So much for customer loyalty. Annoyed, I attempted to cancel my policy, but was told that would cost me £59 to cancel it now, and £84 if I wanted to cancel it in 10 days’ time in order to coincide with the start date of the second car’s insurance policy. Why? I was way too furious to have my ears in gear, so I have absolutely no idea why. I know it’s in the small print, because my customer services adviser kept helpfully pointing that out, like somehow that would render me less annoyed, and less mindful of the household cash flow. Money for Old Rope…

I read an article recently about olive oil. Sad, I know. However, it seems we should all be on the alert because the Olive Oil Burglars are alive and well! An independent panel of tasting experts blind-tasted a whole bunch of different olive oils, from one priced at £137 for a half litre (seriously? Do people really have this much money??) to a much more normal £1.99 one. Whilst the £137 one was nice, it was not actually the nicest – they reckoned that accolade went to a humble £6 one from one of the supermarkets. No, I didn’t note which one, because I am the least likely person to select olive oil on any basis other than how cheap it is of anyone on the planet. The fact remains though that we are being collectively fleeced by the olive oil market. Money for Old Rope…

Now then. Is it me? Or is it really, deeply, mind-wrenchingly annoying to pick up a book by an author who is new to you, only to find the story peppered with references to previous exploits by the leading character in a clear attempt to get you to rush out and buy all the previous books by this author? In fact, I find this annoying to the point of wrecking the entire reading experience because I am so furious about the author’s blatant attempts to ferret more money out of me that I forget to pay attention to what the story is actually about, thus rendering the whole thing destined to fail because if I do make it to the end of the book I can’t remember if I enjoyed it or not, and am therefore extremely unlikely to read any more by the same author. I realise of course (before I drown in a sea of furious criticism from all you authors out there, a breed to which I bow in awe and whose ranks I fear I will never be disciplined or creative enough to join, since I cannot maintain a weekly blog for any serious length of time) that sometimes it is important to the story line to explain something which happened in a previous book and I am perfectly ok with that – my fabulous friend Ceci Jenkinson (Oli & Skipjack’s Tales of Woe) does this very legitimately, as does JK Rowling – but senseless name-dropping is tooth-grittingly annoying, so just don’t do it. Unless of course you happen to be Tom Jones on The Voice UK and you can do it with charm and flair. Otherwise…Money for Old Rope!