Why Owen Jones is leaving Labour, by someone unfortunate enough to sit next to him on a train

21st March 2024

YEAH, that Owen Jones? Writes for the Guardian? He’s leaving Labour, I know because I was on a table seat with him, Stockport to London. Never f**king shut up.

Resigned his membership and everything, so that’s £5.71 a month they won’t be getting. But in case they fail to notice that very clear signal and don’t send Starmer straight round to ask ‘Why, Owen, why?’ he’s telling everyone, at bloody length.

So why is he leaving? Dunno. He spent most of the time from Macclesfield to Stoke-on-Trent banging on about his family history and how Labour they all were. Funny to think it ends with a bloke who’s a regular guest on the fascist pensioner’s favourite show, Jeremy Vine on 5.

Then from Stoke to Milton Kenyes he was on about the 2017 election manifesto and the promises made and broken and carefully never once mentioned Corbyn. Unless he did when I went the onboard shop for a BLT and a latte because I needed a f**king break.

Mind you he was still on about it when I got back seven quid lighter. Then he moved on to Gaza and Christ, I never thought I’d be nostalgic to hear the squeaky prick banging on about ‘fiscal rules’ but I very soon was.

We’d passed Watford by the time he stopped for a breath. I said ‘Come on, Owen. Truth is you thought Jeremy was the second coming of socialism but Britain hated the twat. Accept it and move on.’

I’ll keep my gob shut next time. He was still in full flow as I hurried away down the platform at Euston. Anyway, if anyone from Labour’s reading this, he’s pissed off. Pass it on.

Victoria Beckham's Out Of Your Mind, and other songs that don't deserve a Saltburn-style comeback

21st March 2024

A RASH of 20-year-old tracks, such as Murder on the Dancefloor and Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten, are in the charts again. But which should remain firmly in the early 2000s?

Out of Your Mind by True Steppers and Dane Bowers feat. Victoria Beckham, 2001

UK garage seemed an unlikely musical segue for Victoria’s first solo single and it now seems incredibly dated, and not in a cool, ironic way. It was pretty popular at the time, but sadly not quite popular enough to reach number one, getting pipped at the post by Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), which had the unfair advantage of being in some way memorable.

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, 2006

This miserable, meandering ballad was utterly ubiquitous in 2006 and made you want to top yourself, which isn’t a great combination. The noughties were knee-deep in limp indie bands stuffed full of sad-eyed boys with straggly hair and ripped jeans, which seem to have largely been consigned to history, thank f**k.

My Humps by Black Eyed Peas, 2005

The awfulness of My Humps has penetrated so far into our culture that, rather than it making a comeback, you could ask if it ever went away. However, what it’s certainly not going to be doing is soundtracking the climactic final scene in a sexy murder film about the English aristocracy, however alluring Fergie claims her ‘lovely lady lumps’ are.

I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in my Hair) by Sandi Thom, 2006

From the 30-second long a cappella intro to the asinine lyrics that conflated punks with hippies, who hated each other, and harked back to times when ‘computers were still scary and we didn’t know anything’, this song is terrible. Thom lamented that she was ‘born too late into a world that doesn’t care’, and, unfortunately for her, it still doesn’t.

Axel F by Crazy Frog, 2005

Crazy Frog was an animated character originally marketed by a Swedish ringtone manufacturer, and was originally known as ‘The Annoying Thing’, which is f**king spot on. This cover of the Beverly Hills Cop theme tune is so deeply, horribly irritating that even Gen Z’s rabid enthusiasm for everything Y2K cannot resurrect it.

Ooh Stick You, Daphne and Celeste, 2000

Bratty Americans Daphne and Celeste were everywhere in the year 2000, welcoming in a brand new millennium with lyrics like ‘In your ear with a can of beer, up your butt with a coconut’. They were so hated that a performance at Reading Festival saw them showered with hundreds of bottles of piss, so the UK is probably safe from a comeback from these two.