You know who shits me? Ben Fucking Elton. How long can one man rely on Margaret Thatcher being a cunt and writing some of Blackadder? Blackadder gets you some slack for bringing out one crap book, but surely not thirteen. He was cringeingly bad on GNW last week, and then the prick apologises to the Queen for jokes that weren’t even offensive AND moves to Fremantle permanently. He’s trying to make Tim Winton look good.
Worst Stats
- 6,074,354 eyefuls since 29th September 2007
Worst Talk
AHC McDonald on Nork Nozzled Anonymous on Nork Nozzled AHC McDonald on Nork Nozzled Anonymous on Nork Nozzled AHC McDonald on Save Our Blank Walls Anonymous on Save Our Blank Walls AHC McDonald on Save Our Blank Walls Anonymous on Save Our Blank Walls Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on A Short Stack of Crap paulie48406 on Pizza Showtime! AHC McDonald on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! Anonymous on Pizza Showtime! The Worst of Perth Twitter
My Tweets-
Recent Outrages
Worst Categories
- *Worst of Australia (35)
- *Worst of china (15)
- *Worst of New Zealand (36)
- *Worst of Qatar (1)
- *Worst of The World (72)
- Art Galleries (8)
- Best of banned by The West (23)
- Buy The Worst of Perth (8)
- C&B (13)
- Cuban Book Burning Book Club (2)
- free piss (7)
- Galleries (9)
- Herb's Missing Links (1)
- irrational hatred (6)
- Mermaid breasts (2)
- multiple worsts (32)
- not worst (178)
- Open Worsting (2)
- Perth Galleries (8)
- phwoar (7)
- played (6)
- PoVi (Post Vibrancy) (21)
- Snuff's Missing Links (52)
- Snuff's missing links (2)
- SO PLAYED (3)
- The Worst of New York (13)
- The worst of Perth TV (3)
- The Worst of Perth Twitter (10)
- Uncategorisable Worsts (978)
- Uncatetorisable worsts (45)
- vanished worst (73)
- Verges & Registered Lawns (7)
- Wall murals (15)
- Wednesday Wintoning (1)
- weekend worstoff (225)
- worst advertising (387)
- worst animal (26)
- Worst apostrophe (1)
- worst architecture (171)
- worst art (297)
- worst band (7)
- worst beach (5)
- worst boat (2)
- worst book (51)
- worst brothel (8)
- Worst buttocks (4)
- worst car (228)
- worst carpark (15)
- worst carpet (7)
- worst christmas (26)
- worst church (30)
- worst classics (21)
- worst clock (8)
- worst design (37)
- worst drink (49)
- worst entertainment (11)
- worst fashion (96)
- Worst Fish (2)
- worst flag (2)
- worst food (105)
- Worst for sale (6)
- worst furniture (39)
- worst garden (74)
- worst graffiti (402)
- worst graphic design (161)
- worst house (65)
- worst ideas (10)
- worst interior design (15)
- worst journalist (104)
- worst kerning (14)
- worst language (48)
- worst letterbox (40)
- worst logo (19)
- worst mill (1)
- worst movie (9)
- worst music (44)
- worst name (36)
- worst neglect (1)
- worst newspaper (152)
- worst objects (88)
- worst of christmas (4)
- worst of perth (529)
- worst of the UK (1)
- worst of the worst (16)
- Worst Parking (8)
- worst people (78)
- worst personalities (17)
- worst photo (19)
- worst plant (7)
- Worst poetry (12)
- worst politician (46)
- worst politician (19)
- worst pronunciation (1)
- worst pub/hotel/design (41)
- worst public art (140)
- worst radio (9)
- worst restaurant design (12)
- worst school design (3)
- worst sculpture (183)
- worst shop design (23)
- worst sign (570)
- worst spelling (83)
- worst sport (3)
- worst street (17)
- Worst suburb (69)
- worst theatre (8)
- worst toilet (44)
- worst town (15)
- worst toy (15)
- worst transport (53)
- worst tree (62)
- worst tshirts (14)
- worst twitter (4)
- worst typography (4)
- worst venue design (6)
- worst wall (11)
- worst web Sunday (1)
- worst website (20)
- worst writer (9)
Search for Worsts on this Blog
Comment Feed
Top Posts & Pages
Online Now
The Asia Beat
- Museum of Winds Opens
- Vagina Steaming to go on despite diarrhea outbreak.
- Dog movie “racist”.
- Liquid food blogger enrages Sing. Chef
- Sushi Train Wreck
- Snake of the year spat turns nasty
- Aussie icon may cure sick
- Singapore admits, “National Service all about shooting Malaysians.”
- Asian firm sparks “wife beater” brawl.
- Actors protest over MH370 delay
I thoroughly enjoyed Stark, at the time. Gridlock was okay, and the rest is absolute tosh.
FOWF, Ben, FOWF.
LikeLike
I tried to read Stark, expecting it would be good, but could nly manage about a quarter of it.
Yes, I should have made that the title, FOWF
LikeLike
In fact I have changed title. Would make a nice Tshirt
Ben Elton, Fuck Off We’re Full. Might make one now.
LikeLike
the references to FOWF really mean “fuck off we’re full”
i thought it was a western suburbs thing – “fellate only western force’
LikeLike
i actually have enjoyed most of his books and think that his writing has improved noticeably since the first one.
but then again i also like tim winton, so what would i know?
LikeLike
How do you think I feel?
My name is one letter different from Tim Winton’s and I have been told I look like Ben Elton.
Both their names in one post is almost too much for me to bear.
LikeLike
I really hope your name is Tim Wintox.
LikeLike
or Tit Winton
LikeLike
Or Tim Wintzn.
LikeLike
Tim Wanton?
LikeLike
well according to highbeam, tim wanton is australia’s best loved novelist:
Article: The writer and the sea: Australia’s best loved novelist invites us to be “changed” by a marine wonderland, and to protect it from gross tourist development.(Tim Wanton and the Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia)(Brief Article)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-87079031.html
i shit you not:)
LikeLike
Inn Tit Wow?
LikeLike
Bim Winton would also be good.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bim
LikeLike
would you be referring to definition no 6. TLA?
6. bim
a slut to the highest degree
LikeLike
Yeah, let’s go with that
LikeLike
in his defence, the recent fuss about him was generated by the Daily Mail, who like to villify anyone who doesn’t fit their cosy view of English society.
Jan Moir’s piece about the death of Steven Gately was about as low as you can go.
anyone criticised by The Mail is a hero in my book, although I agree that Stark was pants.
and don’t forget the musicals – truly toe-curlingly awful.
apparently he is working with Lloyd-Webber on a sequel to Phantom of the Opera.
Phantom 2: The Organ Strikes Back, perhaps
LikeLike
But why isn’t he saying fuck off daily mail rather than “I was taken out of context”? Oh yes, how could I forget those musicals.
I don’t know why I’m saying irrational hatred again.
LikeLike
perhaps this explains it:
http://www.nosacredcows.co.uk/profiles/366/ben_elton.html
LikeLike
The New Statesman says “Baring in mind.” Civilisation is over.
Moves to freo, causes a council furore with his solar panels.
I hated the Jam Tarts too.
LikeLike
Solar panels, you say?
LikeLike
SOrry if I’ve missed a double entendre bento.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229111/Now-Ben-Eltons-upset-Aussies-Comic-installed-solar-panels-1m-home-permission.html
LikeLike
that story is months old. The Mail are scraping the barrel.
LikeLike
Single entendres are more my style, PL, so you probably won’t miss them.
I was alluding to Mr Shazza’s involvement, of which I have some knowledge.
LikeLike
Ummm Mr Shazza, may, have had some small (or not so small) part to play in the solar panel excitement. That aside I like Ben.
LikeLike
New category:
Worst foreign entertainer who lives in perth & gets undue press time for being a foreign entertainer. I mean doesn’t them living in Perth just scream that they’re washed up?
Ben Elton
Guy from the Shadows
Richard Burton’s widow
Guy who played in the Clash for 10 minutes in their decline and now owns wanky clothes shops
Guy from Sky
Yeah Ben Elton wins.
LikeLike
I forgot also:
Guy from the Tea Party, probably the worst band ever.
Maybe a guy from the seekers?
LikeLike
what about the bloke who is Peter Mc? shacked up with the Wheels and Doll Baby woman? he was in the Divynyls,
cutting edge? maybe c-list
LikeLike
but he is a local.
can we deport them?
LikeLike
if you diss Lucky Oceans I may have to ask you to step outside
LikeLike
Put the glass down skink.
He gets undue press time cos he has his own show, and he’s a great musician. No need to step outside about lucky.
LikeLike
I’m calm now
LikeLike
guy from happy mondays
LikeLike
Hank B Marvin
Sally Burton, but let’s face it Richard Burton has a few widows to his credit.
Nick Shepherd
Kevin Peek
and the Divinyls bloke is Mark McEntee
Lucky Oceans does deserve to be on this list, despite his Grammy
Pete Carroll ex-Happy Mondays always seems to be chatting up the 720 arvo shift Bernadette Young
Elvis Presley
Jeff Buckley
Kamahl, ok that was dumb. Wiki even have a “people from Adelaide” link, and there is no Perth one.
LikeLike
Quite a list Orbea. I see a new shirt TLA,
‘Perth – Where washed up Muso’s come to die.’
LikeLike
Come on now. Lucky Oceans doesn’t deserve to be on the list, he’s quite good. And he’s never really been famous, either.
LikeLike
Pete Carroll? He’s from RTR – an alt-Perthonality, if you will. As far as I know he wasn’t in the Happy Mondays. I thought one of the Ryders lived out Sth Geraldton way.
LikeLike
Pete Carroll is a Madchester hanger-on, and you’re right, wasn’t in the Happy Mondays, probably out of it
LikeLike
Pete Carroll is Shaun Ryder’s cousin, and produced most of his recordings:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2003/jun/20/artsfeatures
LikeLike
John Butler
LikeLike
I thought he lives in “The U.S.”?
LikeLike
Pretty sure it’s Freo
LikeLike
Yes clairee, Beaconsfield to be specific. You can see him most Friday nights having dinner in Freo.
LikeLike
Oh Shazza, how I feel for you
LikeLike
Well, you can see him if you also happen to be at the Juicy Beetroot Vegan Cafe. I’ve never seen his stinky arse at Benny’s, that’s for sure. Probably on account of their ‘no comb, no shower, no shoes, no service’ policy.
LikeLike
I suspect only ‘out of towners’ eat at Benny’s as I don’t know anyone who would queue for a very average pizza.
As Iv’e said on TWoP previously, although I’m not a big fan of JBT’s music, I can vouch for him being a very nice fellow.
I’m impressed you even know the Juicy beetroot exists Bento. They do the best Vegie Burger in Perth. As a meat eater I think that’s a big tick.
LikeLike
Can there be an un-juicy beetroot?
LikeLike
If you grow your own, and don’t pick them in time, my word yes there can.
LikeLike
Pfft – you know I just Woogled them both. As if I would eat beyond the Beaufort Street Arrondissement.
LikeLike
Can I be bothered to do an official irrational hatred of Bono Butler? If someone has an original photo…
LikeLike
Guy from The Thompson Twins.
LikeLike
Really? Now that is worth a media storm.
LikeLike
Michael White.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_White_(author)
LikeLike
again, in his defence, Elton has been living here, off and on, for more than a decade without anyone noticing (until the solar panels)
as with most of that list, they come to Perth for a quiet life with their families out of the limelight. It’s not like they are shouting “look at me, look at me” and showing up to “A List’ parties to mix with the weather girls
LikeLike
Yeah I don’t really care about Ben Elton, although he should stop trying to pretend to be cutting edge. I guess the worst was more about the perth media than the foreign subjects.
That said, I don’t want the tea party and their sub-Doors ilk allowed in. Fuck off we’re full of bad bands already.
LikeLike
It’s OK PL. Most of them move to Freo. Which isn’t Perth really.
We welcome them as they maintain some semblance of grunge balancing out the increasing advance of the metro into the port city.
LikeLike
True, and Freo has always been full of bad bands.
LikeLike
I came for the jugglers, but stayed for the smell of sheep shit…
LikeLike
Blind Faith was pure genius and anyone caught up in this blogosphere should at least read it and/or appreciate it.
LikeLike
Was that the ripoff of 1984 based on facebook?
I liked it too. And Stark and Gridlock. I vote this hatred irrational.
LikeLike
You haven’t experienced the musicals obviously.
LikeLike
which is the Ben Elton book with vaginal fisting?
LikeLike
that would be ‘dead famous’, and the book would have been a lot better without it.
LikeLike
Yes indeed it would have curious – but as it stands, I would have thought Dead famous was right up TWOP’s alley – so to speak.
LikeLike
Past Mortem
a shocking waste of EVOO
LikeLike
sorry, i stand corrected!
and indeed, a criminal use of evoo.
LikeLike
Anyone who says ‘blogosphere’ is clearly a cunt.
LikeLike
harsh, but most likely true bento……
LikeLike
I think I want that on my headstone.
LikeLike
Nice try, Bento.
LikeLike
You totally beat me to it.
LikeLike
I’ll keep lobbing them up, and you keep smacking them out of the park, Snuff.
LikeLike
No, he’s right. I’m a complete cunt
LikeLike
no shame in that jasper, none at all. should be more of it. “i’m a cunt and i’m proud” should be a global catch cry. everyone else gets a fair run.
LikeLike
I shall shout it from my juliet balcony. Or is that someone else’s domain?
LikeLike
oddly enough i do believe there were such things as juliet balconies prior to TWOP. So shout away i say!
LikeLike
Ira Levin with knob jokes
LikeLike
I notice Stephen’s returned to the UK, probably to hang out with Nick.
LikeLike
I see Nick Cave has been shortlisted for this year’s bad sex award:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/19/bad-sex-factor-prize-shortlist
somebody gave me a copy of his latest book that they had cast aside in frustration and bet me ten bucks I couldn’t finish it.
LikeLike
Thanks for the link Skink.
Cave’s book should win a comedy award.
LikeLike
and a ‘worst cover art’.
LikeLike
All that bad writing is really making my head hurt, not to mention never want to have sex ever again.
LikeLike
Just finished reading Cave’s latest while holidaying on Rottnest – I kept seeing the guy who plays TV’s Earl in in the role of Bunny.
It’s made me think twice about the merits of Avril Lavigne’s vagina.
Twas a good read… not as dark as When the Ass Saw the Angel.
LikeLike
You used to be funny too, until you started saying cunt every second word.
LikeLike
Long time no hear/here Cingali. Not liking the cunt?
LikeLike
I note Ben has about 1800 Facebook fans, but Tim has about 7500.
How many does TLA have?
LikeLike
Bah. You didn’t mention The Young Ones.
LikeLike
Once I get my Book Club book out of the way, I intend to move onto Ben’s, The First Casualty. Any opinions on this novel?
LikeLike
largely unbelievable detective crime fiction set in the trenches of WW1
suffice to say the title is very descriptive of the plot and theme
LikeLike
As I see it, when Ben Elton was part of the emerging comedy scene he had the perspective to analyse and critique the establishment, the yuppies, the thatcherites and added a great deal of knob jokes – he was pretty good at making the funny. Then he got rich and lost the perspective, became part of the establishment. All he was left with were the knob jokes.
Moral of the story for you LA, don’t get rich because you lose the funny.
LikeLike
AP, I understand what you mean, but your theory would relegate all successful comedians to the same fate. E.g. Billy Connolly, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Seinfeld, Bill Crosby etal. You can get rich and stay funny. I suspect people who aren’t wealthy just suppose you will ‘sell out’, and lose your edge, I don’t see so much evidence for this. I think, if anything, it’s more about ageing.
LikeLike
and apologising to the queen ffs
LikeLike
None of the other comedians you list defined themselves as ‘anti-Establishment’, unlike Ben Elton. Which meant they could become rich, successful, and part of the Establishment, without compromising the premise on which their comedy was based. Elton built his whole stand-up career on railing against Fatcher’s Britain and the old guard – palling around with Tony Blair and Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to be a case of ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’.
Which is why he arouses irrational hatred, I guess.
LikeLike
I think Python was anti-establishment.
LikeLike
All Pythons except Gilliam came from Oxford/Cambridge, so were definately Establishment, as well as being poofs and communists spies with soupcon of cunt.
The elton/mayer/mayall/sayle/french and saunders/henry/ et al were anti-establishment in the sense that Griff Rhys Jones/ Mel Smith were not.
Did Elton work on Comic Strip? Keith Allen is a legend in that series
Bernard Manning/ Roy Chubby Brown etc etc working mans clubs my mothe in law is so fat
LikeLike
So it automatically applies if you study at Oxford/Cambridge you can’t be anti-establishment?
LikeLike
I did and I am
LikeLike
You are of course the best example. Richer than Patti Patti and hilariously anti.
LikeLike
Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean all turned out pretty ‘anti-establishment’ after their time at Oxbridge.
LikeLike
Excellent point Gilbo. Coming to drinks?
LikeLike
fraybento’s?
LikeLike
Fraybento’s?
LikeLike
I had viral issues on my Dell so was posting on Mr Shazza’s laptop.
LikeLike
whatever you were doing on his lap does not explain fraybento’s
apostrophe and all
LikeLike
Which drinks? When and where?
LikeLike
These ones, Gilbo.
LikeLike
As Snuff points out, been and gone Gilbo. See Thanks Mates thread.
LikeLike
But I believe there’s another show on Dec 10th
LikeLike
Indeed there is, G’day. Thanks for the reminder.
LikeLike
Bugger – Thursday is selections night for my cricket team. Thanks for the heads-up though.
I’ll keep an eye out for any get-together over Xmas though as we have a break from mid-Dec to 9th Jan. Is there a specific thread for these?
LikeLike
No LA like to keep these things mysterious. You have to keep your finger on the pulse.
LikeLike
Perth has a pulse?
LikeLike
Only til 5pm.
LikeLike
it would have been six, but no without daylight saving.
LikeLike
ha ha excellent curious.
LikeLike
Shazza, you are absolutely right. I now submit a new theory that he just got lazy.
LikeLike
Ageing will do that to you AP.
LikeLike
Definitely laziness over aging. Otherwise, how come Larry David’s still so good?
LikeLike
TWOP. The whipper snipper of fame.
LikeLike
Yeah, this post has a certain amount of tall poppy syndrome to it. Tall, sell-out-who-writes-boring-shit poppies. Do you think Ben Elton & Brian May spend nights cuddling, telling each other that they’re still cutting edge and important?
LikeLike
I’m sure Brian May still has trouble getting his solar panels through council.
LikeLike
I went to the British Lawnmower Museum in Southport last year. It was ace. I had been wanting to go for ages. Brian May has donated his mower to the permanent exhibition. If he’s being cutting edge, it’s not with that…
LikeLike
78 (now 79) comments on an entirely irrelevant topic by a mob of wanna-be’s who are even less relevant…………..
Has to be a worst of the worsts.
LikeLike
Yeah, you loosers should get a life.
LikeLike
Not quite, rolly. That honour would have to be reserved for any comment claiming that someone who (often) resides in Perth, and whom apparently appeared in an Australian newspaper yesterday, is not relevant to a blog entitled The Worst of Perth.
LikeLike
Seems as relevant as any other topic. More than some.
LikeLike
Hear hear.
I’ve been telling them for ages.
You WAnkers shouldn’t sit around and snigger.
LikeLike
Hey Rolly,
FIFO.
LikeLike
Christ, I’ve read all of the Elton novels except his latest. Expect him to soon be making appearances at the North Fremantle Centre on Stirling Hwy as the club patron.
I’d like to see a TLA v Elton face-off…
LikeLike
can we get him in time for the bowls event? perhaps a combined book reading/ball rolling? with quokkanilia for sale.
LikeLike
Pam Castlearse was back in Teh West today bagging Ben Elton.
what the fuck is she doing back?
I thought we had said ‘good riddance’ to her, only to find her parrotting the Daily Mail saying ‘good riddance’ to Elton leaving the UK.
so what happened?
did they realise that nobody can do that smug mummsy Daily Mail Hyacinth Bucket suburban self-righteousness quite like Pam?
LikeLike
Ha! – searching ‘Pam Casellas’ in Teh Worst’s website turns up TWOP as the third hit.
LikeLike
what about murray?
LikeLike
I am starting to warm to Mr. Elton.
being bagged by the Mail is one thing, but being bagged by Casellas trying to out-outrage the Daily Mail from the comfort of her Rtirement Home for the Bewildered, is something else.
any enemy of Pam is a friend of mine
she just qualified him for Not Worst
LikeLike
Crikey, she’s like the John Farnham of journalism.
LikeLike
Pam, stop beavering away already…
LikeLike
Pam’s pussy obviously isn’t enough to keep her busy these days. She needs to get a doggy.
LikeLike
she’s the voice
LikeLike
Oh dear, I actually really liked Stark and This Other Eden. Then it all went horribly wrong. But, in fairness, if I had anything to do with Blackadder I’d probably coast on it for the forseeable future too.
LikeLike
Get those stockings by the way.
LikeLike
S.T.’s showing, you really got me going, TLA.
LikeLike
Oh, stocking tops – ah hah!
LikeLike
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MuppetsStudio&annotation_id=annotation_938537&feature=iv#p/c/E598D394FAF95D7B/0/zSDj7bjAv2s
LikeLike
This video is awesome.
LikeLike
Gold!
LikeLike
not what I meant to post
try this:
LikeLike
Speaking of Fremantle and it’s environs, this is NOT how to promote the Greens Uranium Policy.
LikeLike
Didn’t the Labor bloke Ben W want nukes and was told to keep quiet? and hasnt peter garrett approved a new nuke mine? Martin Ferg wants nukes as well. At least the Greens have a consistent policy on nukes.
How does the ALP promote their nuclear policy Frank?
LikeLike
They’re in the process of revising it.
Like always, it will be somewhat obscure, though eventually every one will see through it.
It’s called their “New Clear Policy”.
LikeLike
Better than the greens shabby attempt – it’s one thing tp have a policy, but to be taken seriously as a political party you should not talk like a 12 yr old speaking at an assembly and you definately don’t use silly examples such as cheese.
LikeLike
right the ALP have a cheese policy and won’t export to France? I dont understand you. Does Ben Elton even like cheese? Venezuelan Beaver cheese? Merino casino cheese?
The Young Ones did a piss take of the Monty python cheese shop sketch – ‘Well thats that sketch knckered then’
LikeLike
Frank, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are Greens really bigger duds than Labor?
LikeLike
Watch the video, it makes Barry Hickey’s Homllies look like an Acadamey Award winning film.
LikeLike
But I LIKE ACCA DACCA videos
LikeLike
Sorry, I suppose that’s a bit like asking Cookster if Angus burgers are as shit as they look.
LikeLike
hmmm…snouts…
http://www.watoday.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/they-burgered-it-up-monster-meal-loses-two-cheese-slices-and-67g-fat-20091125-jrwf.html
LikeLike
I’m all for transparency, especially in glass houses.
LikeLike
Have been holidaying for ten days now and it has gotten the point of needing to do something else so I thought I might share a story with youse about Ben Elton.
Sure it probably won’t fit the Twop policy but the wolves haven’t had much to howl about lately so here is a bone to chew on for a while.
A few years ago, I think 96, I spent a couple of months traveling around Pakistan and found myself in the the Chitral region of the the North West Frontier Province.
The area currently occupied by those notoriously unhumorous cunts, the Taliban.
Staying a backpacker hostel that would horrify Bin Laden I struck up a friendship with an English couple that were traveling across the sub continent on motorcycles, she on a 72 Triumph Bonneville and he on a AJS for fucks sake!
Anyway the next morning I was woken at about five in the morning by the sounds of gunfire, at first a few random shots with a hand gun and then a rifle or two which then was joined by various semi autos, within minutes there were AK 47,s being emptied without pause and then it seemed like the whole town joined in.There was literally hundreds of guns being fired and countless thousands of ammo being shot.
I laid in bed trying to make sense of it all before coming to the conclusion that the army must being having a training execise or something but the sound of bullets falling on the roof convinced me that they were firing into the air which meant a celebration of some kind.
Turns out that Beneziar Bhutto had been deposed as PM and the locals were simply expressing their joy at this event. Just another day in Pakistan!
By six oclock the fun was over and it was going to be difficult to keep up the same level of excitement so I decided to borrow a book from the English couple, it was “This Other Eden”. Despite having a brief fascination with the Young Ones I had never heard of Ben Elton but I was instantly absorbed by this book. Better still I had only six hours to read it before giving it back because they were leaving so it got my full attention, maybe it was the intense concentration or maybe the hash but I thought that book was the best thing I had read for years and I still do.
LikeLike
excellent!
LikeLike
Nice yarn and I have to say, I’ve been reading Elton’s books ever since I was a purple overall wearing hippy arts student living in a ramshackle house on the cliffs over the river in North Freo.
Indeed, I believe Stark was a composite of the many house mates who spent time in the notorious Phyllis Street ‘shacks’ in the mid 80s.
Indeed, Ben frequented many a party hosted by Cookster Snr who began the Phyllis St tradition.
LikeLike
From The Guardian’s feature; “People who ruined teh decade No. 5”
BEN ELTON Turned rock history into a ‘jukebox musical’ cash cow:
“The Matrix meets the Arthurian legend meets Terminator 2,” was how Ben Elton hilariously described his Queen musical when it debuted in 2002. A more honest commentator might have pegged We Will Rock You as being a bit like Suzi Quatro directing a particularly stupid episode of Deep Space Nine using a cast entirely drawn from the Camden branch of Fresh & Wild. By blowing off any regard for plot, cliche or character arc, Elton took the genteel traditions of musical theatre and rock’s outsider chic, and served them up as a mindless MOR smoothie. Marketing men realised there were plenty more theatregoers too old to rock’n’roll, yet too dumb for Sondheim. And so, as Tonight’s The Night et al followed the idiot-proof recipe drawn up by WWRY and its close predecessor, Mamma Mia!, Elton – rather wisely – relocated to Australia. Now, if you stand in the West End on a Saturday night and tune out the muffled chorus of Hoover salesmen singing Bohemian Rhapsody, you can hear Theatreland creaking towards a new cultural low
LikeLike
I rather enjoyed Mama Mia.
LikeLike
Nice try skink but I believe I am still just in front with abstract stories about Ben Elton, who, IMO can stay if he wishes.
LikeLike
And Here is Young Beb on Stateline.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/02/19/2825346.htm
LikeLike
I know I’m described as anti success, and a looser, but what about that Ben Elton show eh?
http://mumbrella.com.au/ben-elton-live-from-planet-earth-dead-on-arrival-39238
LikeLike
I suppose nobody bothered to tune in and revel in the hating?
LikeLike
Why tune in when one has Eastern friends’ status updates on facebook to warn one well away…?
LikeLike
And with Packed to the Rafters being on at the same time.
LikeLike
There was a brilliant set piece in Ashes to Ashes last night, where policewoman from the future raids an underground comedy venue and gets cheeked as a fascist pig by a young Ben Elton. She slams him face first into a wall and tells him that in 20 years’ time he’ll be bald, fat and writing soft-rock musicals. Team RubyRuby high fived all round…
LikeLike
thanks for the tip – just watched it on ABC iView
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/714271
at 13:50
kneed in the balls, and then shot. Not a very good impression – too tall
LikeLike
I highly recommend the Mumbrella hate elton thread.
“I though I hit Channel 31 by mistake.” Ouch.
LikeLike
Pingback: Dick Payne | The Worst of Perth
Channel 31 is SBS1 if you didnt know that.
LikeLike
And then channel 12 is Channel 11 what the hell!
LikeLike
Blimey, all this bile about poor old Benny Elton. In his time he was a great comedy writer who buoyed the British people through the dark, dark days of Thatch; enlivening the Young Ones, saving Blackadder from being merely an OK show and doing pretty decent stand-up routines with the rest of the British Friday/Saturday Live crew – in those day he had a shiny suit and long black hair. What I saw last night was, partly, a rehash of those earlier shows, the Girl Flat sketch looked like a cross between the Young Ones and Sex in the City, both of which were funnier.
Perhaps you haven’t heard of The Man From Auntie, a show format that looked strikingly like the one on Channel 9, if only it’s been on ABC it could’ve been the Man From Auntie Again. It was after this show that Mr Elton turned to writing, I think he couldn’t be bothered with comedy anymore. I tried his book Stark, which was OK, but it didn’t really work. Then he went for We Will Rock You that was the very end for me.
As I’m new here I’m surprised about the amount British programming on Australian TV, especially comedy, it feels like I’ve moved here to watch more of the BBC, even the Goodies are still on and funnier than Benjamin Charles Elton.
LikeLike
Well welcome citizen. Many UK expats here. The musicals are truly awful. Surely he has enough money that he doesn’t have to…wel, be crap now.
LikeLike
Thanks for that, I’ll feel at home here. Even the thought of the musicals is wrong. Your last sentence reflects my sentiments exactly, can’t we summon up the young Ben Elton to plead with the current one to, ‘Please, please stop’, in a whiney voice to camera. He used to do that sort of thing so well.
LikeLike
the Young Ones and Sex in the City, both of which were funnier
ouch – YO aside, it’s pretty hard to be funnier than SntC
can’t we summon up the young Ben Elton to plead with the current one to, ‘Please, please stop’, in a whiney voice to camera
if only – so well put
LikeLike
The Goodies made a recent come back, they have not been playing continually since the 70’s.
LikeLike
And some of the shows are magnificent, and some are well, embarrassingly racist. But you know, yoni and Lingham eh?
LikeLike
Yes, some of the episodes were classics; Kitten Kong, Kung Fu Kapers, Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms et al. Their dedication to visual comedy was admirable but the appearance of the shows is a bit dated.
I was about nine when the Goodies started and I’d been watching Monty Python from its start the previous year so I think the racist elements passed me by. Certainly in comparison with other programmes of its era, the anachronistic Black and White Show – which the Goodies lampooned, Love Thy Neighbour – intended as a critique of racism but now widely regarded as racist or any of the stand-up comedians of that time. It is perhaps more the case that they relied on clichéd stereotypical characterisation rather than overt racism. Those sorts of things are still around today – Mike Myers Fat Bastard being a case in point – and will remain an easy comedic option.
Hmm…, seemed to have slipped into a critical analysis of comedy of the seventies, that wasn’t what I intended. I came in here looking for the worst pub in Perth. Any suggestions?
LikeLike
Really like to see if “Enders” is as bad as it looks.
LikeLike
“This horse is so black, and such a beauty, we should call it…
Nigger!”
Was one I bit remember
LikeLike
That’s probably my fave episode.
LikeLike
The horse smoking a joint, drinking a cocktail with syringes stuck in it was funny in that one, along with them all bashing into the jumps.
LikeLike
Yep, and when Beauty is snatched and Tim goes running towards the house into the open arms of Graham only to shove him out of the way as he gets to the doorway. In my defense I was only about 10, but I thought that very funny back then.
LikeLike
It’s all here. Hilarious episode. Claimed to be a preview, but was the whole show. Graeme ripping off a strip of dog fur and putting it in his pipe was a highlight, as was Bill pouring garbage over Beauty and then shooting him with a machine gun.
http://www.veoh.com/collection/TheGoodies/watch/v1634647N6nDK7Aw
LikeLike
I was being a bit facetious about the Goodies, sorry. They were not repeated for years in the UK , much to their chagrin. Forever in the shadow of their mates in Monty Python I fear.
LikeLike
As was I Citizencains.
LikeLike
Bill Oddy waxes quite bitter about the lack of repeats in his appearance in Fun at the Funeral Parlour… It could be on that YouTube site somewhere?
LikeLike
yeah that sucks why is that channel 11 is 12.
LikeLike
Not to incite more irrational hatred, but did anyone else have the misfortune to hear him bleating about his show on 94.5 this morning. My other half flicked the radio stations and settled on there, so I had no choice but to listen to him whinge how the network was running late and caused people to switch off before the show already began. He was pretty much comparing himself to the Young Ones, making a comment along the lines of, “If the Young Ones had been subjected to Twitter, they would have been finished in seconds”, when someone commented on the poor reviews. Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that the show was genuinely not funny. The morons hosting the breakfast show seemed to be patting him on the back, like “Poor you Ben, I’m sure you’ll do better this week. We love you, even if the public don’t.”
LikeLike
Well he aint Tim Mincin , nuddied up with the Bummingham Phillymoany Norkestra, that’s for sure.
LikeLike
But he had Timbo on tonight, singing a lullaby. He had to read a disclaimer beforehand, though. I think that may have been an attempt at comic effect. Hmm. When did Tim turn into a blond version of Russell Brand?
LikeLike
‘Ben Elton hits back at critics’
but then invokes Godwin’s Law
fail
http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/elton-hits-back-at-critics-20110215-1auen.html
LikeLike
“I do think this idea that something has to be judged instantly sort of gladiatorial thumb up or thumb down is astonishing. You couldn’t do that to a good album, you couldn’t do that to a good film. And you can’t do that to comedy.”
It’s precisely in regards to the desirable immediacy of live comedy that we should do that Ben. And how dare he compare himself to Shakespeare. Cunt.
LikeLike
Channel 9 has it on again tonight?
fail
LikeLike
So, I watched the second half. I’ve been drinking and I’m on some strong medication. The funniest bit was how Elton kept saying that it was 100% Australian content, but he was the one hogging the mike.
Sweet sleep, where are you, to deliver me from care?
LikeLike
Youre such a biatch sometimes.
LikeLike
The pommie git wants to be funny??
He could do worse than take a look at the audience capturing skills of Adam Hills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxpkgqBSOPY&NR=1 as a small token.
LikeLike
That’s a Richard Cheese routine. He’s tinkling away on the piano ” I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo” when he turns to the audience, and says in a confidential tone ” You know I’ve got an artificial penis ?”
LikeLike
I heard Ben Elton on the radio yesterday reminding everyone to tweet and facebook their friends after the show to tell them how funny it was while making such a virtue of the fact that it’s live, live, live – did he mention it was all live and the only live comedy sketch show in the world? Plus it’s live and also live to air.
The thing is I don’t get why it has to be live, it doesn’t make it funnier (or even funny) and only adds a breathless quality to the show in general and expressions of “thank god we got through that without fucking it up” to the faces of the actors at the end of every sketch.
LikeLike
Quite right, the emphasis on the live aspect of the show is wasted on us here in Perth anyway. The pressure to produce a show like that undermines the consideration needed to create better comedy. I still he’s harking back to the good old days of Friday/Saturday Live – where the burden was shared more equally with the other performers – in the format of his later shows where he was the centre of attention. I voted with my bottom and stayed at the computer working rather than watch the second show.
LikeLike
Newsflash: Ben axed.
LikeLike
He can use some boned jokes now. At home.
LikeLike
Well that took two weeks too long. Shame – I thought they had literally taken to Ben Elton with an axe. Now that would have been funny.
LikeLike
I laughed at some of his jokes last week, and the Elaine character is worthy of more of a go. Disappointing they couldnt run this harder and give him more of achance to really end his career of LIVE did we tell it was live TV with costume changes and everything?
So will Ben be compering a comedy show at the North Freo bowl club anytime soon?
And will the Gare tribe be there.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t live-to-air, but recorded/performed live during the week (ie no cuts or re-takes).
Anyway, it totally stank last night, or at least the 10 minutes that I wasted on it. They couldn’t even manage to find a studio audience that would laugh.
LikeLike
No, I think it went out live, which was more of an insult to us, because it was delayed here.
LikeLike
Last night? Ha missed it. I’ll wait for the ‘best of’ DVD to come out.
LikeLike
If you boil down all the criticism of the blog idiots it amounts to one thing : they don’t like Ben Elton. They just can’t tolerate the sucker. He’s been Wintoned.
LikeLike
this would never have happened to Shakespeare etc.
I note that Ben Elton was commissioned for six episodes
Christopher Marlowe only wrote six plays, and was then stabbed in the eye in a pub brawl
just saying
LikeLike
For some reason the phrase “Talk about Oscar Wilde!” springs to mind.
LikeLike
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death…
LikeLike
http://www.thescrivenersfancy.com/scarcely-relevant/2011/02/23/elton-rifles.aspx
Tony Martin writes forth.
LikeLike
Thanks Orbea, this seems like a fair and reasonable analysis to me. I hate The Family Guy. Watched it once for about 10 mins then couldnt go on.
LikeLike
I saw a trailer for Adam Hills show. Tony Martin was a guest and was billed as ‘comedy genius Tony Martin’
I like him, but he’s no genius, unless it’s said in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice:
‘Tony, he’s a cheenius’
LikeLike
Opportunities missed. Rosebud and Schwarzenegger imitating Orson Welles jokes stuffed .
LikeLike
Martin has turned into an old fart himself.
LikeLike
we scored free tickets to a preview of Ben Elton’s Gasp and fuck me, it’s dreadful.
He’s recycled a play he wrote in 1990, relocated it to Australia, thrown in some ‘topical’ gags about Tim-Tams and ‘commie lezzies at the ABC’, and passed it off to Black Swan as a ‘new Australian work’. When we got home we carbon-dated one joke as being from Doctor at Large 1957.
Typical zinger: ‘I remember the day we first met at the cricket and I tried to kiss you on the oval.’
That joke was used FOUR TIMES in the first act.
LikeLike
Going tomorrow spoiler features. Very glad it’s terrible.
LikeLike
Are you going with Sticky McGlue? He’s flogging it to death on the wireless in Dad’s old spot so you know it’s a dog.
LikeLike
that would explain why we were the youngest people in the audience.
LikeLike
He’s the Tim Winton of comedy. Make sure you yell out “You suck!”
LikeLike