Ask a Stupid Question...

Please?

Christ on a bike, I was treated to some supreme inanity today. I was in my local coffee shop, which runs various music channels on its TV, whereupon the winkle-eyed, mouth breathing Olly Murs appeared (on the telly, not behind the counter). He was being interviewed by some off-camera goblin and do you know what he was asked? "What's your latest single about?"
Now, you could forgive said goblin for asking this question had Murs been bleating the lyrics to Hotel California or The Times They Are a-Changin'. But no, Murs latest single is called Dance With Me Tonight, leading most sentient beings to believe that he's singing about dancing. With someone. Quite possibly tonight. 
Oh, for fuck's sake. Dumbing down has never been so dumb and has never made me feel so down. Who in the giddy crevices of hell asked such a glaringly retarded question? What the fuck are they doing in paid employment? And why haven't their organs been harvested for those who need them to lead useful lives?
Assuming the goblin in question did his research beforehand (by reading back copies of Heat) he'd have known that the penetrating lyrics include the lines I just wanna, oh baby/ I just want you to dance with me tonight/ So come on, oh baby/ I just want you to dance with me tonight before inviting some lucky laydee to run her acrylic nails across his permanently broiling wedding vegetables. 
So, my celeb-whoring goblin, what did you expect the boy Murs to say in response? "Actually, I'm highlighting the heinous crime of female genital mutilation,"? Or perhaps, "I was so excited about the possible discovery of the Higgs Boson that the lyrics to this song came to me in just ten minutes. It'll also form the basis of my next concept album."
In fairness to Murs, when asked the question he sounded as dumbfounded as I felt listening to it. He blathered something about walking into a pub. Or club. Or bar. Then asking someone to dance with him.
Look, I don't expect searingly in-depth questions on a music channel (or on any channel when it comes to ex-X factor wannabes) but I sure as shit don't expect the sort of questions a toddler would snort at. Perhaps acting hip, shuffling like your piles are seeping and wearing the contents of Top Man/ Shop are enough to bag you a job on the likes of MTV or VHM. How fucking depressing is that (and I know what depressed is, by Christ)? 
So could somebody direct said gremlin to, I dunno, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan or Jackson Browne? I'm not a fan but with any luck the gremlin in question will have a meltdown at a song being about more than clumsy bollock nudging, sparing us valuable oxygen on this withering planet. it's not the only remedy I have. But it is my only legal one.

Hack Attack

Gaze into my navel,
not around my navel...

Speaking as an ex-journalist, d'you know what I find really fucking irritating about journalists? This stupendously egotistic idea that no one ever really experiences parenthood/ depression/ cancer/ poverty until they have. You know this from the endless stream of weekend features about said subjects with the appropriately stricken hack gawping at you from some double page spread or other.
Christ, it's unbearable. If I have to read Giles Coren banging on about his newborn again, as if fatherhood had been freshly minted in his back bedroom, I'll have to replace my eyes with dung beetles. And there are other journalists I know who have turned their offsprings' development into entire blogs, actually listing - yes, writing lists - of their kids' achievements. As if anybody gives a shit. Chances are that most parents won't have time to read said bollocks because they are too busy weeping over their own kid's terrifying ability to produce a pint of snot per sneeze. 
Why do journalists do this? Or why do editors want to run with this stuff? OK, if said hack has gone through a lightning-strike type of experience, let 'em write about it. Take Melanie Reid in The Times who writes a weekly slot on living with her crippling injuries after breaking her neck and back in a horse riding accident. It's genuinely a window into a world most of us have no knowledge of.
You can hardly say that of a yet another hack's skirmish with childbirth can you? Look, unless you gave birth while swinging from a trapeze during which you have to plead with Iran's Ahmadinejad for your release from captivity don't bother me. I've given birth, I've had depression, I've been broke... your tales of feeling a pinch low because you couldn't afford to host a dinner party just aren't cutting my brand of mustard.
And yeah, I admit that when I was a hack I wrote about myself once in a very, very long while but at least these were justified by my suitably freakish circumstances or relevant to a national issue which formed the bulk of the story. They weren't the prurient outpourings of someone who simply thinks that they are important enough to accompany a random reader's breakfast. Fuck cracking my boiled egg. I'd be happier aiming for Coren's writing hand.