It isn't a programme we'd normally watch, but last week on BBC1's The One Show, we stumbled upon a performance by a comedy musical act. You know the sort of thing: a bunch of people stand around a piano in suits and evening dresses, and harmonise a song that's supposed to make middle class people chuckle.
Frankly, we couldn't even begin to tell you what the song was about, because 20 seconds into it we had to turn over, or we'd have put our knees through the telly screen... at roughly the height of the performers' throats.
That might seem slightly excessive, but such things push the same buttons in us as - just plucking some examples out of the air here - Ainsley Harriott, Annie Lennox and Dynamo the "Street" Magician.
"Oh look at me, grandad, look - I'm floating! Not really - ha ha! It's just a trick: I'm hanging from some wires, and... oh. Grandad! Grandad, I pooed my pants again!".
Tell us: how is that "street" or "magic"? You can't put a skinny man in a hoodie, and film him doing card tricks with a rapper, and expect us to buy that he's some urban tough... any more than you can sell us that Ainsley Harriott is anything other than a profligate, snake oil, opportunist, who has mistakenly assumed volume and stupid voices are qualities essential to being a TV chef.
Something else you can add to our list of things that stoke an unreasonable amount of homicidal rage in us is this thing: acapella groups.
Frankly, we couldn't even begin to tell you what the song was about, because 20 seconds into it we had to turn over, or we'd have put our knees through the telly screen... at roughly the height of the performers' throats.
That might seem slightly excessive, but such things push the same buttons in us as - just plucking some examples out of the air here - Ainsley Harriott, Annie Lennox and Dynamo the "Street" Magician.
"Oh look at me, grandad, look - I'm floating! Not really - ha ha! It's just a trick: I'm hanging from some wires, and... oh. Grandad! Grandad, I pooed my pants again!".
Tell us: how is that "street" or "magic"? You can't put a skinny man in a hoodie, and film him doing card tricks with a rapper, and expect us to buy that he's some urban tough... any more than you can sell us that Ainsley Harriott is anything other than a profligate, snake oil, opportunist, who has mistakenly assumed volume and stupid voices are qualities essential to being a TV chef.
Something else you can add to our list of things that stoke an unreasonable amount of homicidal rage in us is this thing: acapella groups.
Indeed, it cannot be overstated that there are few things in life ruffle our ire quite much as acapella performances. It's hard to quantify, or put into words, the extent to which it makes our blood foam and boil, like a volcanic fissure made from molten displeasure. To our ears, it's the aural equivalent of someone slowly thumbing a boiled hen into our eyeballs.
We dunno. It probably has to do with the insufferable smugness of these people, coupled to the sheer, profound artistic vacuum they create upon the cultural landscape.
For no reason other than as a social experiment, here's a selection of video game themes rendered through the medium of vocal-only performances. We defy you to watch them without murdering someone.
We dunno. It probably has to do with the insufferable smugness of these people, coupled to the sheer, profound artistic vacuum they create upon the cultural landscape.
For no reason other than as a social experiment, here's a selection of video game themes rendered through the medium of vocal-only performances. We defy you to watch them without murdering someone.
Fortunately, this effort (performed, it would seem, by former contestants of SyFy's entertaining King of the Nerds reality show) adopts a marginally more disrespectful tone:
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