The part that has started to amuse me (sad, I know) is the Search Engine Terms section. This keeps a log of the words people have typed into their search engine which led them to my site. (There are, for example, a fair few people who — for reasons best known to themselves — type “spacemonkeygaz” into Google, as opposed to the far more laborious task of typing it in the address bar and adding “.com”)

But that’s not the bit that amuses me. Oh, no — t’would be tragic were that the case. The bit that amuses me is the list of the things people out there in Internet Land are searching for when they arrive at this site and, in particular, the thought of the disappointment on their faces when they do.

Some nerds

Here are some of the best search engine terms that — for whatever reason — brought people to spacemonkeygaz.com:

• jedward appearances december 2009
• gavin and stacey curry
• crowning turd
• cheeky girls get fucked
• gavin & stacey clubbing in leeds
• who plays hywel jones in gavin and stacey
• jedward theme for sony ericsson
• i hate welsh men
• fun house pat
• jedward fucked
• ironic stripping
• jedward gay
• joe bastardi blog entry
• he man the cartoon characters

I swear the above list is, while not exhaustive, completely and 100% genuine. Even the “i hate welsh men” one (which to be fair is the type of thing I’d say) is real and not slipped into the list for comedic effect.

The worrying thing for me is that someone felt compelled to search for “jedward fucked” I hope they meant metaphorically fucked as opposed to… well, you know what I mean.

Irony

In literary terms irony (also called dramatic irony or tragic irony) is a technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.

A friend of mine gets especially annoyed when people misuse the term irony.  It is, by his own admission, his bête noire.  Irony is not a footballer scoring a goal after having scored an own goal earlier in the same game.  It’s definitely not rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you’ve already paid or, indeed, good advice that you just didn’t take.  It’s not even ironic that the programme Gavin & Stacey is not a comedy about the characters Gavin and Stacey, but more a self-serving vehicle for writers James Corden and Ruth Jones to hog all the supposed best jokes for themselves.  “Oh.  What’s occurring?”  “Gav-lar!” etc.

Corden and Jones take a breather between takes

It’s also not ironic when someone hands you a job application for your PERFECT JOB three days after the closing date for application of said job expired.  That’s called just plain fucking annoying.

The job itself has attracted widespread interest due to this article on the Telegraph website.  For those who haven’t work out that the blue words in bold are relevant and fascinating links that enhance the spacemonkeygaz.com experience, I will pick out the salient points from said article.

“The University of Leeds is advertising for a lap dance researcher…”

 

“…prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry is essential.”

THIS WOULD BE MY PERFECT FUCKING JOB.  And I’m almost convinced it’s not a wind-up, due to it appearing on the University of Leeds job vacancies website.  It could of course be a honey-pot to catch sex offenders, but it’s got to be worth the gamble.

The job title (and how good would this look on a business card?) is Research Officer – The rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy.  That even rivals “Joe Bastardi: Long Range and Extreme Weather Expert” (although he now appears to have been promoted to the less impressive-sounding Expert Senior Meteorologist), in the how-good-would-that-look-on-a-business-card stakes.

From the Job Description:

You will work on an ESRC funded study on the rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy. The post will involve qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. It is based in Leeds, although some travel to other cities may be necessary.

I can do Leeds, although the thought of toothless, tattooed Yorkshirewomen gyrating to R&B is less appealing than, say, Prague, Las Vegas, or Inside My Head.

Typing “leeds strip club” into Google images returns a photo of a malodorous old cretin

The JD continues:

 “Blah blah etc blah…  good interviewing, communication and organisational skills…  female sex industry…  interviews will take place on December 14…  £31,513…  equal opportunities etc blah.”

But like I said, the closing date has been and gone, so I decided to send a begging e-mail to the brilliantly named Dr Teela Sanders.

Teela from He-Man. Up there with She-Ra and Jessica Rabbit as the fittest cartoon characters ever. Not that I’ve, you know, thought about it.

Then I decided not to, because I neither have a relevant degree nor any research experience, and while £30-odd grand for interviewing strippers would be pretty good I’d quickly find it a chore and it would completely ruin the strip club experience for me in future. 

Plus the e-mail would be a complete piss-take and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first ‘hilarious’ individual to send a jokey speculative e-mail describing in detail my vast experience of conducting research in the female sex industry and so on.  I am prepared and willing to work long and hard hours, I’d decided I would write, but then I realised that sometimes the obvious jokes just don’t need to be said, something the writers of Gavin & Stacey would do well to note.

On a completely unrelated note, the stats package on this blog shows me all the search engine terms, i.e. “terms people used to find your blog.”  Yesterday someone had stumbled upon the blog having typed in “jedward appearances December 2009” and today I notice someone found it by simply searching for “cheeky girls.” 

Brilliant.

Last night I wiped away the tears as loveable, talentless goons Jon & Edward were finally eliminated from the X-Factor singing contest/talent contest/entertainment show/freak show (delete based on opinion).  In the immediate aftermath of their elimination, I saw a smile spread across one of their gormless faces.  Their relief was palpable.  No longer would they have to stumble around on stage looking confused to a chorus of boos and jeers (not until the X-Factor Live Tour 2010, anyway).  It was as if they thought the pain was finally over.  Well, sorry boys, but it’s only just beginning.  And here’s what will prove to be an eerily accurate prediction of how I think it will all pan out.

In the week or two after their X-Factor eviction they’ll move from magazine interview to TV interview to magazine interview.  They’ll make a bit of money out of it, too.  They’ll quickly become flavour of the month, touted as the new Ant and Dec.  (Privately, Ant and Dec will rightly find this hugely insulting.)  There will be rumours (entirely fabricated by the tabloids) of them wanting to record and release a novelty Christmas single, but — the papers will claim — their X-Factor contract won’t allow them.  Possible headlines:

JEDWARD FURY AT SINGLE BAN

SCARED COWELL VETOES JEDWARD SINGLE

EIGHT DIE IN JEDWARD PROTEST CARNAGE

In the first week in December Jedward turn on the Christmas lights in their home town of Lucan, as well as similar appearances in a couple of depressing-sounding places like Ramsgate, Liverpool and Cardiff.  A typically shambolic live medley of their X Factor songs performed live on the 2009 Top Of The Pops Christmas special becomes the most downloaded video in the history of the internet, when one of the brothers falls off stage and breaks his arm.

February 2010 sees Jedward release their debut single, a cover of Sam Fox’s Touch Me, which hits number one in the UK.  The brothers become red-top regulars as they’re photographed leaving various nightclubs in the early hours with high-profile female twosomes like the Cheeky Girls, Samanda and Mel and Martina from Funhouse.

Pat Sharpe from Funhouse. You think he ever, you know, with the twins? I bet he tried.

After being the undoubted stars of a hugely successful X-Factor Live Tour, Jedward begin working on their debut album.  The lead single — a duet with Lily Allen titled A Dog With Two Dicks — goes straight to number one, followed a week later by the album.  By the end of 2010 Jedward have completed their own sell-out World Tour and the album Our Dream is already the biggest-seller of all-time.  All fourteen songs from the album are released as singles, and all fourteen hit number one in the UK charts.

2010 also sees Jedward’s first movie, Two 4 One, released to huge critical acclaim.  The film becomes the first to make a gazillion pounds on its opening night, and goes on to single-handedly drag the UK economy out of recession.  Both brothers are given honorary knighthoods in the new year honours list.

The second Jedward album, Who’s Laughing Now, Hey? is another global smash, but with worldwide sales of only forty-five million units, there are fears that the Jedward star is beginning to fade.  After writing Jedward: The Musical — Our Inexorable Rise To Massive Fame And Glory And Riches, the brothers decide to take a showbiz hiatus, moving to California and marrying Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, or "Markshley", to continue the Jedward theme.

When a two year-old mobile phone video of Jedward ‘roasting’ a female student is sold to a British tabloid, The Olsen Twins file for divorce.  The grainy footage — filmed by the one of Jedward who’s taking her from behind — is found on a Sony Ericsson C902 which one of Jedward send to envirofone in exchange for a thirty pound Argos voucher.  Jedward are barely recognisable in the video until they start singing Oops I Did It Again whilst thrashing around clumsily, high-fiving each other and exclaiming, “We’re just trying our best and having the time of our lives here.”

Jedward return to the UK to find their popularity has nose-dived.  Soon, they find themselves in fifth position on E4’s 100 Thoroughly Detestable Celebrities Show, sandwiched between Gary Glitter and Robert Kilroy Silk (but behind Shirley Bassey).  By the end of 2012, Jedward are stripped of their honorary knighthoods, and flee to Ireland, begging for privacy.

Jedward, in case you had no idea who I was talking about

By 2018 the world has completely forgotten there ever lived a musical entity called Jedward, until a chance meeting with Louis Walsh when the smug music manager walks into a Dublin Subway restaurant to be offered jalapenos, gherkins or olives by one of Jedward (the other one is working on the till as he’s a bit more senior.  You know, the slightly less stupid-looking one.  No, I mean, if you look really hard, one looks slightly less stupid than the other.  Trust me.  He’s the one who used to fall about the least whilst ‘dancing’).

Jedward and Louis hit it off together instantly, and begin planning their comeback album, We’re Sorry Please Buy Our Records Again, which is released to a huge fanfare in November 2019, neatly coinciding with the ten year anniversary of the twins’ relentless shitness first being unleashed onto the British public.

A multi-million pound advertising campaign is launched to propel Jedward back into the public consciousness of the world.  At 9pm on November 22^nd 2019, exactly ten years after Dannii Minogue drawled the words, “The act I’m sending home is… Jedward,” images of the twins are simultaneously projected onto various landmarks around the world, with the words JEDWARD ARE BACK! written in whatever language is generally considered to be most prevalent in the country in which the image was being projected.  At once the whole world looks up at the towering image of Jedward (in their Ghostbusters outfit, probably).  They look up, and together, all the people of the world, united in one glorious emotion, merely shrug and carry on with their lives.  The comeback fails.  Louis Walsh, having thrown everything he owned into the Jedward reunion, is ruined.  Fortunately Jedward manage to get him a job being the one who asks what bread you want in Subway before cutting it in half.

THE END

Dannii Minogue: yeah, I probably would

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X-Factor — and brace yourselves now — is an ENTERTAINMENT show.  It has not nor never will be a TALENT show.  Simon Cowell cares less about how many records the X-Factor win sells than he does how many people watch X-Factor.  This is why he wants the aforementioned gurning idiots in his show, and this is why, last week, he handed them a lifeline.  They’ll tell you it’s a talent show, but last week pretty much proves it isn’t.

Cowell isn’t stupid.  He knows that people talking about X-Factor — be it good or bad — makes people watch X-Factor.  Front page headlines expressing outrage at Jedward (as I believe it’s cool to refer to them collectively) still being in the competition at the expense of a far superior singer and performer — the quite lovely Lucie Jones — can only be a good thing.  He doesn’t care if the public hate him for effectively keeping Jedward in the competition, if the haters keep watching his show.

Lovely Lucie Jones

The phrase “they’re so bad they’re good” has never rung truer.  Last night I almost cried with laughter when one of Jedward (I really don’t care which) tripped over as they burst through a paper screen at the start of their song.  And for once I thought they weren’t bad.  They weren’t especially good, but they weren’t especially bad.  They were, arguably, the highlight of the show.  

The other acts aren’t that great, and none of them are truly entertaining (arguably Olly aside).  That Sting last week referred to the stars of X-Factor as karaoke singers was something of a compliment.  Karaoke singers try to sing along to the actual song — our X-Factor ‘stars’ seem to have the song dropped a key or two to fit their range/not show up the fact that they’re not fit to lace the boots of the original artist.  Comparing the X-Factor finalists to Freddie Mercury (arguably the greatest singer of all time) would be unfair, but it was embarrassing to hear Danyl last night start singing ‘We Are The Champions’ what seemed like an octave below the original version.  It’s not just him — they’re all the same, all a bit samey.

Which is why Jedward are such a breath of fresh air in a show — and an industry — that seems to take itself too seriously, at least externally.  I do think Cowell’s insistence that he “did the right thing” last week by passing up the chance to dump Jedward out of the competition and instead referring to the public vote, is bordering on insulting to the audience.  But to let the façade slip would take away half the fun.  It’s a bit like WWE wrestling.  We all know it’s fake, we all know it’s shit, but somehow it’s entertaining to see people making idiots of themselves.

WWE: a grown man making an idiot of himself, brother

For every person who hates Jedward there’s a person who loves them, and therein lies the beauty of the voting process.  Let’s take Big Brother as an example.  If you hate a housemate you have the chance to vote to evict them.  Not so with X-Factor.  If you hate Jedward the only way to *evict* them would be to vote for every single one of the other acts.  If you’re really that bothered about booting Jedward out of the competition then it’s more money for Cowell.  The other great thing about the way the show works is that the judges always retain control of who goes and who stays.  And it’s Cowell’s show at the end of the day.  It means that a million people a week vote, but the judges ultimately decide who goes out of the competition.

So if you’re a member of one of these GET JEDWARD OFF X-FACTOR groups on facebook, then I think you’re an idiot.  You’re an idiot because you’ve missed the point.  It’s an entertainment show, and Jedward are, if nothing else, entertaining.  X-Factor is at worst, a modern-day human freak show.  Let’s laugh at the poor, deluded idiots who whore themselves out before the nation for a feeble shot at stardom.  It’s cruel, but it seems somehow acceptable to wheel out these idiots to make twats of themselves on stage.  It’s — as I said — entertainment.

So tonight, at the risk of looking very foolish indeed (because chances are by the team you read this someone — perhaps Jedward — will have been kicked off the show), I will be sitting, hoping Jedward get through.  They won’t win it, but I hope they’re dancing around out of time and singing out of tune for a few weeks yet.  And after all my ranting, maybe I’m the idiot.  I just voted for them.  GO JEDWARD. 

And, FYI, Lloyd should go this week, not least for admitting last night; “I’d never heard of Queen to be honest.”  I mean, FFS.

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