WLEECH
Sucking the blood of popular entertainment .i'mt! w i,
I So. farewell then. Magnus Magnussori. You started, you finished and somewhere inbetween you delivered the finest reading of Flaubert this literary Leo Sayer ever heard. 'Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to. while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.’ you sternly intoned. when a simple ‘incorrect' WOUId probably have sufficed. Even so. the Leech was inspired. and since then has bewitched veritable picnic processions of grtZleGS. koalas and pandas with funkier compositions than even James Brown, whose increasineg funky corpse remains SIX feet above due to familial wrangling over his will. OK. so this wretched purple tossprose will never elicit celestial sympathy. But the Leech's metaphors have sent more bears mad than all the zoos in the old Soviet Union! And just look at what it's done to KT Tunstall in the picture above! Read closely and y0u can almost hear the Fife songfox howl!
I The Leech was recently reminded of Magnusson's place in the pantheon alongside Galileo Galilei, Zinedine Zidane and Andy Pandy. as someone whose parents' nominative cruelty spurred their offspring to tremendous achievement. Indeed. the mentalist French football
More reasons to hate your parents
12 THE LIST 18 Jan 1 Feb .9007
magician was uppermost in the Leech's thoughts when contacted by a researcher on the BBC series Bt'i/derdas/i 8} Piff/e. a programme previously cherished for informing the Leech that 'Naft' comes from the Polari abbreViation of ‘Not Available For Fucking”. ie an obVIoLis. ()bliVious heterosexual. Fantabulosa. eh? Anyway. the show is striVing to find the earliest recorded use of the phrase “Glasgow Kiss'. Oofll
I Now. as the phrase in question refers to using your bonce as an instrument of medieval siege. yOtl may be surprised to learn that the earliest Citation the Oxford English Dictionary uncovered is from 1987. coincidentally when OED boffins last ran amok in Scotland. Stranger still perhaps is their discovery of ‘Liverpool Kiss'. dated 4.13 years i.)reViously and responsible for driving yet another potentially diVisive wedge between Celtic and Liverpool FC. whose fans already butcth contest the historical initial shrill of the Rodgers and Hammerstein number 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on then terraces. Regardless. if you received a Glasgow Kiss before 1987 and had the wherewithal to calmly register the date before lapsing into a coma. please email balder<lashiaibbc.(:o.uk .
I ‘You're useless!‘ “You look a state!‘ ‘You’re a waste of space!’ The Leech's ears long ago grew deaf to these observations from your correspondents significantly angiy other. partly through repetition. partly through sheer volume. But the Leech is keen to clarify that these phrases' appearances on billboards across Scotland highlight the important issue of domestic abuse. Not an escalation in the Leech's own domestic war of attrition. Or. indeed. a belated tribute to Paul Le Guen.
JERMAJESTY JACKSON
There‘s a little part of us that hopes our parents looked down on us at birth and thought: ‘This one is destined for great things.’ After Jermaine Jr, Jeremy, Jourdynn, Jaafar and, erm, Autumn Joi, big Jermaine Sr clearly thought his new bairn needed some kind of regal twist so he called him Jermajesty. Moon Unit Zappa and Fifi Trixibelle Geldof never sounded so plebeian.
Who are you? Who are the people buying so many Jeremy Clarkson books that he’s ended up with two in the top ten? Is there a man surrounded by Clarkson‘s texts, poring over his wisdoms, while a Jim Davidson DVD plays in the background? We must find this person and stop him, before Clarkson begins to think his flatulent opinions actually matter.
5 SHORT LIVES
Paul Le Guen's time as Rangers‘ manager may only have lasted 198 days. but some other public shelf—lives make that reign seem positively epic.
Britney Spears ‘It'll never last' is the usual cry when two young 'uns get hitched. But in 2004 when Ms Spears became Mrs Jason Alexander (her school buddy. not the baldy guy who played George in Seinfeld), no one could have predicted that the coupling would be annulled some 55 hours later. That ‘s how long it takes for people to sober up in Las Vegas. apparently.
Boris Yeltsin In 1998. during a fit of political pique (or a voddy-induced haze). Bozza sacked his prime minister and plonked himself in the jOb. It took someone just four hours to realise that what had happened was marginally unconstitutional — at best — and Yeltsin stood down. Or. more probably. he collapsed into a comfy hammock.
Carl Douglas A massive hit in both the USA and UK, 'Kung Fu Fighting' ensured that 00's recording glory would only really last for three minutes in 1974. It appeared that he had returned with a vengeance during the OJ trial in 1994 when one of the prosecuting attorneys shared his name. but it was merely coincidence and that rumour was firmly given the chop.
Brian Clough In footballing terms. PLG had nothing against OBE (Old Big 'Ead) who. again in 1974, endured 44 days in charge at Leeds United. a club he had previously taken great pleasure in publically slagging off. All too spookily. Jock Stein took the job at Elland Road four years later and stayed for the exact same number of days.
Michael Jackson For a whole 14 seconds. the second strangest member of the Jacko clan (after La Toya. surely?) gave humble thanks for being awarded MTV's Artist of the Millennium. Except the award didn't exist and he had simply misheard Britney as she heralded him onstage. Three months later he was dangling his child out of a hotel window. Oh well.