Best Of

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LOL that “Coldplay concert” is the #1 trend this morning, and it’s all because a billionaire is about to get divorced.

Imagine being so bad to your wife that you went to a Coldplay concert.

Imagine being her divorce lawyers, you’d be happier than a pig in muck.

“Give my client what she wants or we will publicly reveal it’s actually the second time you’ve been to a Coldplay concert.”

Why are people so absurdly snooty about Coldplay

It’s a middle middle class affectation, I think. A slightly insecure signalling of “superior” taste, done by people who are, perhaps subconsciously, nervous of their social status

We had the same with Bee Gees. It was fashionable amongst the middlebrow to diss them. Now we all accept they were musical geniuses. Which they were

Well I'll bite on this, cos I'm a massive music snob.

I'd argue the disdain for Coldplay is of a different stripe to that for the BeeGees.

Coldplay are *fine*. They do some well-crafted pop songs. It's just that I can't imagine how anyone could be so enthused by them as to want to shell out vast amounts to go and listen to them live (apart from a 15 year old autistic boy I know, who is very very keen). In most cases I wouldn't go out of my way to turn them off as I would with, say, something by Stock Aitken and Waterman. But nor would I ever choose to listen to them. They are well-crafted background music. They are music for people who don't like music.

Whereas the Beegees are the opposite. Both brilliant AND ridiculous. They are both loveable and hateable depending on taste, which is a far superior thing to be.

Back in 2023, I had a Telegraph subscription, and it was worth it for this article alone - a review of a book about the Bee Gees by Bob Stanley of St Ettiene fame - though how much of my enjoyment is down to the reviewer and how much to Bob Stanley, I don't know (I never got round to reading the book - perhaps I should):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/bee-gees-children-of-the-world-by-bob-stanley-review/?msockid=2e08108726996980126002ac27a16810

Highlights of the review included:

- Musings on the name "it sounded like someone was trying to say Beach Boys, but then lost heart"
- Reflections on the uneven hand nature had dealt the three brothers - one of whom looks like a 70s idea of a heartthrob, the other two looking like circus freakshows.
- The very strangeness of early Bee Gees lyrics e.g. Massachusetts:
"And the lights all went out in Massachusetts
And Massachusetts is one place I have seen" - starts off profound and quickly falls away to inane.

Their biographies were full of oddness. And, just go and look at some BeeGees videos on Youtube. Just look at them and try to keep a straight face.

A friend of mine once lived in a house in Chorlton owned by the BeeGees, or at least whichever of them were still alive. Decent landlords, by her account.

Anyway, the BeeGees. Definitely worthy of anyone's time but also definitely ridiculous.

If one is creative, it’s always preferable to have people hate one’s work, than to be indifferent to it.

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LOL that “Coldplay concert” is the #1 trend this morning, and it’s all because a billionaire is about to get divorced.

Imagine being so bad to your wife that you went to a Coldplay concert.

Imagine being her divorce lawyers, you’d be happier than a pig in muck.

“Give my client what she wants or we will publicly reveal it’s actually the second time you’ve been to a Coldplay concert.”

Why are people so absurdly snooty about Coldplay

It’s a middle middle class affectation, I think. A slightly insecure signalling of “superior” taste, done by people who are, perhaps subconsciously, nervous of their social status

We had the same with Bee Gees. It was fashionable amongst the middlebrow to diss them. Now we all accept they were musical geniuses. Which they were

Rush of Blood to the Head is a legitimately good album. I never cared for their music before or since. I mean it's fine, inoffensive stuff, there's just far far better stuff out there. But that's true for many artists. The reaction, I think, is more to the Everything Sounds Like Coldplay issue that we had for a while.

Sometimes something mediocre can get really annoying when everywhere and popular. I dislike Turin Brakes with a fair amount of passion as I had a flatmate at uni who was obsessed and played them all the effing time!

But even this isn’t true

Viva La Vida is one of THE great pop-rock songs of the 21st century

https://youtu.be/dvgZkm1xWPE?si=-d_Iq-lZmogCna16

You cannot hear those opening, stirring, staccato strings without thinking “OMG yes what a song”

If Mayoral elections are elected by SV that would be ironically good news for Tory candidates in Mayoral elections in new unitary areas. In Essex next year for example Reform would likely win the Mayoral election under FPTP but the Tories could win it with Labour and LD preferences.

In London it may help Khan though as LD and Green voters will likely be more than Reform votes if likely Conservative candidate Cleverly wins on first preferences

Alternatively (!) it may help Labour in Essex as the erstwhile Tory votes splits and lets Labour scrape into first place, topped up with LD transfers.

The basic problem is that it treats electoral disaffection as a technical issue, where it's actually many people regarding all the established parties with some distaste. People will find a way round any system if they're sufficiently fed up.

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LOL that “Coldplay concert” is the #1 trend this morning, and it’s all because a billionaire is about to get divorced.

Imagine being so bad to your wife that you went to a Coldplay concert.

Imagine being her divorce lawyers, you’d be happier than a pig in muck.

“Give my client what she wants or we will publicly reveal it’s actually the second time you’ve been to a Coldplay concert.”

Why are people so absurdly snooty about Coldplay

It’s a middle middle class affectation, I think. A slightly insecure signalling of “superior” taste, done by people who are, perhaps subconsciously, nervous of their social status

We had the same with Bee Gees. It was fashionable amongst the middlebrow to diss them. Now we all accept they were musical geniuses. Which they were

Well I'll bite on this, cos I'm a massive music snob.

I'd argue the disdain for Coldplay is of a different stripe to that for the BeeGees.

Coldplay are *fine*. They do some well-crafted pop songs. It's just that I can't imagine how anyone could be so enthused by them as to want to shell out vast amounts to go and listen to them live (apart from a 15 year old autistic boy I know, who is very very keen). In most cases I wouldn't go out of my way to turn them off as I would with, say, something by Stock Aitken and Waterman. But nor would I ever choose to listen to them. They are well-crafted background music. They are music for people who don't like music.

Whereas the Beegees are the opposite. Both brilliant AND ridiculous. They are both loveable and hateable depending on taste, which is a far superior thing to be.

Back in 2023, I had a Telegraph subscription, and it was worth it for this article alone - a review of a book about the Bee Gees by Bob Stanley of St Ettiene fame - though how much of my enjoyment is down to the reviewer and how much to Bob Stanley, I don't know (I never got round to reading the book - perhaps I should):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/bee-gees-children-of-the-world-by-bob-stanley-review/?msockid=2e08108726996980126002ac27a16810

Highlights of the review included:

- Musings on the name "it sounded like someone was trying to say Beach Boys, but then lost heart"
- Reflections on the uneven hand nature had dealt the three brothers - one of whom looks like a 70s idea of a heartthrob, the other two looking like circus freakshows.
- The very strangeness of early Bee Gees lyrics e.g. Massachusetts:
"And the lights all went out in Massachusetts
And Massachusetts is one place I have seen" - starts off profound and quickly falls away to inane.

Their biographies were full of oddness. And, just go and look at some BeeGees videos on Youtube. Just look at them and try to keep a straight face.

A friend of mine once lived in a house in Chorlton owned by the BeeGees, or at least whichever of them were still alive. Decent landlords, by her account.

Anyway, the BeeGees. Definitely worthy of anyone's time but also definitely ridiculous.

…

LOL that “Coldplay concert” is the #1 trend this morning, and it’s all because a billionaire is about to get divorced.

Imagine being so bad to your wife that you went to a Coldplay concert.

Imagine being her divorce lawyers, you’d be happier than a pig in muck.

“Give my client what she wants or we will publicly reveal it’s actually the second time you’ve been to a Coldplay concert.”

Why are people so absurdly snooty about Coldplay

It’s a middle middle class affectation, I think. A slightly insecure signalling of “superior” taste, done by people who are, perhaps subconsciously, nervous of their social status

We had the same with Bee Gees. It was fashionable amongst the middlebrow to diss them. Now we all accept they were musical geniuses. Which they were

I think it’s more a British thing about snootiness to Coldplay, I don’t mind them, have a few of their albums on CD, was at UCL the same time as them and probably saw them playing in one of the unions in an early incarnation. I don’t think they are mocked to the same level internationally.

They are however a cipher for a sort of “meh”. Like people might fling around “centrist dads” as a trope for that middle of the road, not overly exciting but large scale phenomenon they allow for a bit of piss taking.

Their music isn’t edgy, it’s very well done and they’ve evolved into a huge stadium band.

I don’t think it’s any sort of middle class affectation just easy ribbing due to them being a bit non-edgy. The Bee-Gees have an amazing canon of work which they fronted or wrote for others, don’t know how they were viewed at their peak, Barry Manilow was supremely popular and talented but is a bit of a joke culturally. It will always happen with pretty clean cut successful entertainers.

Turns out tariffing Brazil has knock on effects.
Who could have guessed ?

Brazil triples rare earth exports to China as Washington-Beijing rift ripples through trade
https://x.com/DavidLe76335983/status/1946020953655304322

Like the 50% tariff on copper, making raw materials imports more expensive is the least efficient way possible to use tariffs to encourage domestic industry.

China is by some distance the cheapest refiner/processor of rare earths. This just further entrenches their competitive (and strategic) advantage.

Being the only high tariff economy on the planet, while the rest of the world practices something pretty close to free trade, is a potentially disastrous strategy, even for a continental economy like the US.