Videos

Girls aloud!

Video April 10, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Amazing things about April 11

» Hoorah! It’s Whigfield’s 33rd birthday. Head for a provincial gay nightclub this weekend and do the Saturday Night dance in her honour. Sharing her big day is Jill Gascoine, from CATS Eyes and The Gentle Touch (66) and Delroy from Five Star (33).

» EastEnders began its slide into creative oblivion with the addition of a third weekly episode in 1994. As with all notable episodes of the show, it featured Frank Butcher either leaving or coming back, but we forget which it was now.

» This time three years ago, Westlife were comfortably perched atop the charts with Fool Again. Will they ever get there again?

» A year ago, Jonathan Wilkes (he’s Robbie’s best mate, you know) revealed that Robbie was looking for a serious girlfriend and would love to have someone to come home to every night. Someone who wasn’t Jonathan Wilkes, presumably (he was Robbie’s flatmate, you know).

Uncategorized

Well bugger me gently

Video April 7, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Amazing things about April 7:

» Lynne Perrie, alias Ivy Tilsley out of Corrie, is 72 today. No doubt she will be getting drunk and touching up young men to celebrate.

» It’s also Duncan from Blue’s birthday (he’s 24). As he is one for the laydeez, perhaps Ivy Tilsley could allow him a celebratory feel of her tits?

» It’s four years since Mr Oizo was a No.1 with Flat Beat, the Flat Eric song. Mr Who? Flat what exactly?

» Ellen DeGeneres became a lesbian on this day in 1997.

» On April 7 1979, the Three Degrees appeared on the pitch at West Bromwich Albion.

» Just a year ago, Pop Idol flop Hayley Evetts announced she had only just become aware of the extent of her fame. The rest of us are still waiting for a similar moment of clarity.

2013 UPDATE: Duncan from Blue, of course, turned out to be none for the laydeez.

Thora Hird, 1911-2003

Video March 15, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Sadly, Dame Thora Hird has died at the age of 91.

The well-loved character actress will be remembered for her high culture triumphs, including her memorable appearance in an Alan Bennett Talking Heads monologue and the touching ITV drama Lost For Words, in which she played a stroke victim.

She also dabbled in the world of lowculture, with similar success. Many TV sitcoms in the 1980s were instantly forgettable, but we still have a soft spot for Thora’s turn as Captain Ridley in the Salvation Army sitcom Hallelujah – especially the opening sequence, which featured a cheerful Thora marching down the street with her pals from the Sally Army band.

We will also remember her for a long-running role in Last of the Summer Wine and, of course, her legendary stairlift adverts – the back pages of the Saturday newspapers will seem empty without them.

Dame Thora – we salute you.

Hubble bubble

Video March 14, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

It’s the end of another eventful week in Crossroads.

Dave, TV’s most unlikely adulterer, is still knocking off Tracey behind Oona’s back. We hope that, when his infidelity is exposed, Oona uses the Friday night karaoke as a forum to damn the deceitful pair, in song.

Meanwhile, Betty is concocting a love potion, which looks like something the McWitch would have produced in Rentaghost, coming as it does in a comedy cauldron that belches green smoke.

Elsewhere, Rocky’s evil twin has arrived, played by the same actor in an ill-fitting wig, Angel has been shagging the handyman in the basement, and barmy Beena has built a shrine to Ryan in her bedroom.

This stuff is pure dynamite, and how they can even think of taking it off is a mystery to us.

Incidentally, our obsession with Kate’s shot in the opening credits has taken a sinister turn. We realised yesterday that when she does her big toothy grin, we can’t help smiling along with her. We’re thinking of buying a clipboard and a nice burgundy trouser suit for extra authenticity. Say a prayer or something.

Music

Get those tills not ringing

Video March 14, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Shania Twain’s new single, Ka-Ching – out this week – is a scathing analysis of our society’s buy-now-pay-later spending culture.

Shania is angry that we’re all greedy, and run to the shops all the time to spend money on things we don’t really want or need.

lowculture quite agrees, and our economising will begin this weekend when we go into town and don’t buy her stupid single. We might try to save even more money by not buying her album either.

2013 UPDATE: No idea what I was on about here – I fucking love this song.

Of all the things we were ever planning for …

Video March 13, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Can you pinpoint the exact second you realised that last night’s Coronation Street was going to be the best soap episode ever?

For us, it was when we realised that Richard planned to gas himself, Gail and the kids to death to a soundtrack of the You And Me Song by (wait for it) The Wannadies.

And how brilliant was that underwater stuff? Awards all round, we think.

The TV drama was shocking enough, but there was much more to come this morning, as anyone who bought the Daily Star will know.

If anyone had told you this time last year that topless pictures of Helen Worth, alias Gail, would be splashed across two pages of a tabloid newspaper, you would probably have laughed in their face, and then been sick.

But there they were, in full glorious colour. We will never see their like again (hopefully).

lowculture has had a smashing day going round the office flashing the pictures at people and watching the look of horror spread across their faces – that’s got to be worth 25p of anyone’s money.

Sweet memory, please come back to me

Video March 10, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

According to newspaper reports, poor little Sonia has fled back to the UK in shame after finding herself at the bottom of the heap after the first Reborn in the USA. She’s been given a couple of days to think things over and decide whether she wants to stay in the competition.

We hope she decides to give it another go. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best performance of her career (that remains her triumphant Eurovision-nearly-winning version of Better The Devil You Know), but Dollar were much more annoying – Therese even sang a line about singing out of key out of key.

Dollar are also moaning to the press about how Gina G only got the most votes because she had the cheek to wear a revealing dress that flashed her arse – a tactic which, of course, has never before brought a fading artist major, career-reviving success.

This dreadful pair must be stopped. Do the right thing and text vote sonia to 83200, or call 09011 155 402.

Although the idea of them only getting through by default if Sonia pulls out also has a certain perverse appeal.

UPDATE: Hoorah! Sonia is feeling much better and has rejoined the tour. Turns out she didn’t fly home after all. The sympathy vote is surely hers for the taking.

Music

H, Claire in ‘not dropped’ shocker

Video March 8, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Don’t ask us what we were doing at the official H&Claire website, but we were. Anyway, it contains this message, dated March 3:

“Hey there!

“Hope you’re all well :o) Sorry to have been out of touch for so long. We have noticed a lot of misinformed speculation on the message board lately which seems to be upsetting some people. For the record, we are currently taking a break but we are still with WEA Records and you guys will of course be the first to know what we’re going to be up to next. So keep it here!”

Well, that’s all right then.

2013 UPDATE: Liars! They never released anything else.

Music, TV

Gareth vs camp dancing

Video March 7, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Since the sad demise of Steps, there’s been something lacking from the world of pop – ie camp-as-tits dances that we can all do when we’re visiting provincial gay nightclubs at the weekend.

Happily, this situation has now been rectified – and nobody is more surprised than us that our saviour has turned out to be Mr Gareth Gates.

We’re talking, of course, about the video for Spirit in the Sky, which would be fantastic if it didn’t have those krazy Kumars being ‘amusing’ in the background.

Our favourite move is that one where his hand’s up by his face and he’s moving it to and fro. It’s made us see the boy in a whole new light, so we’ve decided that his throwing to the pop dogs can be postponed indefinitely.

Sweets

Eggstatic

Video March 2, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

For many years, lowculture has been hoping for innovation in the Easter egg market.

Where, we wondered, were the Creme Egg offerings that were actually filled with creme, so you had to set about them with the aid of a spoon?

Well, we’re happy to report that something startling has happened this year.

There we were, innocently browsing through Sainsbury’s when we noticed a strange flash on the latest Maltesers eggs, promising New Crunchy Shell.

Closer inspection revealed that the shell actually has all bits of Malteser in it. Fan-fucking-tastic!

It gets better. The Fruit and Nut eggs have fruit. And nuts! The Crunchie eggs contain bits of Crunchie. And so on.

It was back down to earth with a bump, though, when we came to the official Blue egg. It doesn’t have little bits of Lee, Duncan, Simon or the other one mixed into it. It does have a rubbish plastic radio, but we know which we’d rather be getting stuck into on Easter morning.

lowculture