The Richard Burton Effect

That Morthos Stare writes:

Let me get it out of the way first. I did go see Jeff Wayne's latest version of his only hit, 'War of the Worlds' and, yes, I was a little disappointed. When the holographic ghost of Richard Burton is a better actor than the main cast and the singing (with the exception of the Parson's Wife) is terrible-bordering-on-dire then you know something is wrong in the world of stageshows.

And no, I didn't attend the V Movie Marathon. I'm sure it was grand but I had a prior engagement. And I'm not so keen on sleep deprivation anymore.

And yes, I do know the identity of Anika Moa's lesboid ex-lover.

Which is why I want to talk to you all. I'm sure most of you realised that the article was just a PR puff piece designed to get Moa back on the musical map. What was bizarre was that it really did read as if Moa was hitting on the interviewer.

'I like men... but I prefer women,' Moa said, sliding her hand up my thigh and winking like Rowan Atkinson in that Shakespeare sketch he used to do in the days when he was edgy.

Which really sums up the Herald at the moment. A few months ago we had the credulous story that low-level vibrations cure smoking addiction and the week before last the preview of the new play 'Murder by Chocolate' ended up being an advert for Cadburys.

Contentiously, languages shape reality (just as some notion of reality shapes languages) and the discourse within languages feeds back into how language will change and shape our future concepts. That puff piece about Anika Moa (and wasn't it huge and strangely focused on what she was and had been wearing) shows that our standards aren't just slipping, critically, but sliding sideways into a world where such discourses as Climate Change Denial aren't just an affront to good science but seemingly credible spin.

But I digress. Surely the most important question now is whether 'Fall in Love Again' is going to be re-released with the following lyrical changes.

There's a girl in every town
No wonder I get around
I'm seeing me for the first time

--

After such a cheap joke Brother Morthos was promptly shot in the head until certified dead. The executors of his estate wish to proffer their apologies and promise that Zombie Morthos will not transgress such social mores again.

The preceding paragraph is, of course, a lie.