Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space, and other albums that are unlistenable without drugs

1st February 2024

TRIED listening to Spiritualized for the first time in two decades without the aid of copious amounts of weed? Best avoid these other albums too.

Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Spiritualized (1997)

Dreamy, hypnotic and psychedelic are the words most often used to describe this album. But only by people who have smoked a shitload of skunk before listening. Anyone who pops it on Spotify while drug-free will find themselves nodding off through sheer boredom rather than excessive consumption of THC.

Bitches Brew, Miles Davies (1970)

Jazz is hard work at the best of times, but this aural madness, once described as ‘Picasso in sound’, is on another level altogether. It sounds like multiple instruments playing different tunes all at the same time and has an album cover that students who have dabbled in LSD like to stick on their bedroom walls. Probably great if you’re high enough to hear shapes, otherwise best left alone.

Drukqs, Aphex Twin (2001)

This album is 100 minutes long, has an unpronounceable title and most of the track names are written in Cornish dialect, for example Jynweythek and Bbydhyonchord. On top of all that, it sounds like what you’d expect from Apex Twin, making the whole package perfect for crawling into a K-hole and struggling to get out again.

Tusk, Fleetwood Mac (1979)

Everyone thinks Rumours was Fleetwood Mac’s cocaine album, but at least that was chock-full of classic tunes. They followed it up with Tusk, which was comparatively lo-fi and a bit weird, maybe because Lyndsey Buckingham was doing stuff like taping microphones to the floor and cutting all his hair off with nail scissors. The kind of thing to listen to when you’ve snorted so much gak you’re halfway to psychosis.

Now That’s What I Call Music 115, various artists (2023)

Is your mate insisting you listen to a double album of torturous new music by the likes of the Jonas Brothers, Olly Murs, Ice Spice and Niall Horan? The only way to get through this horrible punishment is to bosh a load of MDMA as then you’ll think they’re the best songs you’ve ever heard in your life. Just be sure to snap your friend’s CDs in half the next morning.

The famous faces of Brexit: Where are they now?

1st February 2024

BREXIT is now reduced to idiots like Andrea Leadsom droning on about the ‘price of sovereignty’. So what happened to all the mad-keen Brexiters who were famous in 2016?

That blonde woman in Sunderland

Hoisted aloft in Sunderland, Samantha Adamson instantly became an iconic Brexit image. Loved by newspapers for being blonde and attractive, more importantly she proved that not all Brexiters were miserable old gammons. Although everyone else in the photo is a miserable old gammon. Whether Brexit has lived up to Samantha’s expectations is unknown, but we’re sure she’s enjoying all her lovely sovereignty.

Henry Bolton

Bolton was briefly leader of UKIP until a vote of no confidence by party members. He then set up a similar party called Our Nation which disappeared leaving less trace than f**king Atlantis, and in 2019 stood as an independent MP, getting 1% of the vote, which in many ways was the high point of his political career. Looking like an anonymous suburban accountant, it’s not surprising if you don’t remember Bolton, but don’t worry because he was only briefly famous thanks to…

Jo Marney

Blondes clearly have more concerns about a European superstate, because Bolton’s heavily peroxided, much younger girlfriend was firmly anti-EU. And also firmly anti having sex with a ‘negro’, according to her texts. She was also anti-Meghan Markle, saying ‘her seed will taint our royal family’. Marney’s current career is unknown, but ‘Eva Braun lookalike’ seems the obvious choice.

#EyeRollGirl

Birmingham University student Harriet Ellis went viral after rolling her eyes while sitting behind Nigel Farage in a Channel 4 Brexit debate. She wasn’t actually aware she’d eye-rolled, but even so it summed up many people’s reaction to Farage’s crap. People assumed Ellis was a Remainer, but it later turned out she’d actually voted for Brexit on the grounds of some Lexit garbage about the EU being racist, so she’s probably not too happy about Brexit being a tad racist itself. Still, who could have guessed?

The posh Brexit schoolgirls

Beatrice and Alice Grant, 15 and 17, appeared at numerous Brexit events. Young, pretty, privately-educated and from Kensington, they were an instant hit with Daily Mail readers, and the less you think about that the better. They promoted themselves as young right-wingers usually do: brave, out-of-step free-thinkers who prefer reading The Wealth of Nations to smoking weed. It’s all a terrible cliche, and sure enough, Alice was soon getting into climate change denial. It’s unclear what they’re doing now, but ‘Young Conservative meetings at uni’ and ‘interning at an insane right-wing thinktank’ seem like good bets.

The guy in the Union Jack suit

You’ve almost certainly thought ‘Who is that guy?’ at some point in your life. He’d been popping up for years at Royal occasions in his Union Jack suit, hat and shades, then started appearing at Brexit events. Well, the mystery is over. He’s Joseph Afrane, originally from Nigeria, and apparently a Labour party member who loves Brexit as much as he does Princess Eugenie. There’s no point asking where he is now, because the answer is obviously ‘hanging around London looking a bit mad’.