How to pretend you're cool with your friend getting a glamorous media job

3rd February 2023

HAS a close friend just got a cool job in the media and, in your mind at least, is now one of life’s winners? Here’s how to pretend you’re not hideously twisted with jealousy.

Tell them of your joy in no uncertain terms

Say you’re really happy they’re hanging out with Alex Jones or Richard Osman or whoever now. Tell them right to their smug bastard little face. Also compliment them on the amazing attributes that got them the job, such as having rich parents. Above all you’ll always be there for them if they need a plus-one for a star-studded BBC party. You might meet Dan Snow. F**k!

Blabber on to everyone

To make sure there’s no room for doubt about your feelings of happiness for your lucky f**k of a friend, repost their big news on your own feed with sickly comments about how proud you are. Remember, the more exclamation marks you use, the more enthusiastic you will seem!!!!!!!

Show your support

Now they’ve bagged themselves a cool TV job, show how supportive you are by pestering them for live-record audience tickets and backstage passes. Post photos of their glamorous working environment on all social media. If you happen to catch them in unflattering poses, such as scrabbling around on the floor like a dog while wiping up Clare Balding’s spilt tea, so much the better.

Blot out their showbiz anecdotes

Deep meditation involving hours of monotonously repeating mantras will block out incredibly impressive anecdotes like them walking down a corridor past Timothée Chalamet. If devoting your life to Theravada Buddhism doesn’t work, try repeatedly slamming your head against a wall. That should erase all memories of them happily chatting with John Bishop about Twixes at the vending machine.

Get horribly competitive

Prove you’re totally cool with your friend’s success by single-mindedly becoming more successful, ruthlessly stomping on anyone who gets in your way. Maybe a match-winning Lioness, a Hollywood A-lister or President of the United States? If those careers inexplicably don’t pan out, find new friends with boring HR jobs.

Six half-decent bands shite towns won't shut up about

3rd February 2023

MANY places in the UK are cultural dead zones, so when a band comes along with three okay songs everyone goes mental. Here are six legends in their own postcodes.

Kasabian and Leicester

Sub-sub-Oasis wannabees Kasabian burst onto the scene with Club Foot, Fire and probably some other ones too, continuing their city’s rich musical legacy of Showaddywaddy and Engelbert Humperdinck. The most interesting thing about them recently is kicking out their lead singer, but if you meet a Leicesterarian it’s handy to mention Serge and the gang to stop them droning on about that time Jamie Vardy & Co won the Premier League.

The Beautiful South and Hull

Located in the arse end of nowhere, Hull is generally somewhere you only visit if you fall asleep and forget to change trains at York. This former City of Culture hasn’t produced a passable band in the last 30 years, so it’s no surprise the locals cling on to this naff bunch of 80s plodders. Karaoke nights in the pubs of the city consist of people singing Rotterdam, Don’t Marry Her and Perfect 10 on repeat, forever, like some kind of musical purgatory.

Arctic Monkeys and Sheffield

Alex Turner and the boys exploded onto the scene with a smash hit debut album and have been running on the fumes of it for 15 years. Their output has been album after album of inaccessible tut, with the exception of that one album where Turner affected a weird American accent. That hasn’t stopped the words ‘Mardy Bum’ appearing on posters literally everywhere in the Steel City. Imagine what the reaction would be if they ever released something good again.

The Verve and Wigan

Until The Verve, the town was mainly noted for the ‘Wigan Kebab’, literally a meat pie served inside a bread roll. With a diet like this, the oldest residents of Wigan must only be about 50 years old, meaning they were in their early 20s when Bittersweet Symphony came out and too young to remember the Stones’ song it’s entirely based on. The video showed Richard Ashcroft tensely walking down the street – possibly attempting to escape from Wigan itself.

Slade and Wolverhampton

With a dearth of musical talent in their town, the people of Wolverhampton wheel out the yearly anecdote of how much Noddy Holder makes in royalties every Christmas. Fair enough, because Merry Xmas Everybody is a certified banger, but you shouldn’t be dining out on that (and their other 1973 hit Cum on Feel the Noize) 50 f**king years later. Noddy would be turning in his grave. If he was dead. Which he isn’t. Did you know he’s still making £500,000 every December?

Robbie Williams and Stoke-on-Trent

Robbie, the boy wonder of Stoke. Or ‘the fat dancer from Take That’, depending on taste. Normally people in the Potteries only get respect for hand-painting a tea cup or darts, but Robbie dared to dream. A bona fide, nailed-on, multi-platinum superstar (disclaimer: 25 years ago). But he is still Stoke’s favourite son, apart from Stanley Matthews. Robbie is so in love with his native town he now owns a $50m mansion in LA, having lived in the States for several decades.