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Very British
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As an experienced seafaring nation, the British of course also know how to effectively repel pirate attacks. I found the following newspaper article on the subject:
„Even if Britney Spears’ music is not to everyone’s liking, few would have expected that the pop singer’s songs could actually be used as weapons. But British cargo ships really do use songs by Britney Spears to drive Somali pirates away, as the “Sunday Mirror” reported. When an enemy pirate boat approaches the freighters, the singer’s music blares from the loudspeakers across the sea. “These guys hate western culture and music, especially Britney’s hits,” said the second female officer of a large Scottish tanker. She added: “The loudspeakers can be turned individually so that they only bother the pirates, not the crew. “Britney Spear’s songs “Baby One More Time” and “Oops!…I Did It Again” proved to be particularly effective: “They are so effective that the security forces on board hardly need to resort to firearms. As soon as the pirates are blasted with Britney, they leave as quickly as they can,” the officer said. The use of other artists as pirate deterrents had also been considered, but the plans were jettisoned for humanitarian reasons. “I think using songs by Justin Bieber is against the Geneva Convention on Human Rights,” the newspaper quoted Steven Jones of the “Security Association for the Maritime Industry” (SAMI).”
So let’s start a little self-experiment: imagine we are a Somali pirate and then let the following song have its effect on us. It would be interesting to know how many of us make it to the end of the song. I am definitely one of them. The music is not that bad…, although Britney’s loneliness is not only killing her, but also one or the other synapse in the listener’s brain.
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Jurgen,
That is fascinating!! I curiously searched YouTube for the most annoying song and got this. I wonder which song the pirates would prefer.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Diana Geertsen.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
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Hard to say, Diana. After hearing Britney Spears the pirates just jump overboard. With this song they sink their own ship and still have fun doing it.
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That’s funny!!
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Diana Geertsen.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
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The English-American comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy provided many unforgettable moments in my childhood. I love their quirky and anarchic humour. They are said to have produced a total of 107 films in the course of their career (movies and short films). Stan Laurel was considered the creative head of the duo. He wrote most of the sketches, the scripts and also directed some of them. No wonder the performances and films of the duo often came across as very British.
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Another great source of British humor… or “humour”, as they humorously spell it:
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Oh yes, the Babel fish David. I unfortunately lost mine somewhere near Betelgeuse many years ago (and I left my towel there too). If only I had paid more attention, I would have been spared frequent leafing through the Oxford Dictonary and many a film subtitle. I love HHGTTG. The BBC production rather not. I watched it on TV as a teenager and thought it was pretty idiotic (I almost didn’t read the books, it would have been almost as awful as the Vogons digging up my garden). Someday I read the books after all. And I understood: 42.
I also like “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” very much (by the way, the German title of the book is: “Der lange dunkle Fünfuhrtee der Seele”. German book publishers have the bad habit of giving translated books a different title. This one still works, but some books or films are simply unrecognisable from the title). I am also a fan of Stanislaw Lem (Polish physicist and writer). Maybe you know him too. His humour is at least as weird as Douglas Adams’. I can recommend: “The Futorolgian Congress” and “The Star Diaries”.
This song was used in a shortened form by the BBC as the title for their version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
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Juergen, I had no idea that the Hitchhiker’s Guide theme song was taken from an old Eagles song; I thought it was original!
I have to say that I do really like the BBC series, but that may partly be because I saw it in the same era that I was learning about the Beatles and Monty Python, so anything British and funny was appealing to me.
I’m not familiar with Stanislaw Lem, but anyone who is both a physicist and a humorist is someone I would enjoy investigating!
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David, a little addendum to Lem: he studied medicine, not physics (I made a small editorial mistake there. But it doesn’t matter, because the two courses of study are so similar, it’s so easy to make a mistake). But Lem has written fantastic science fiction books, I’m almost certain of that. His classics are „Eden“, „Solaris“ and „The Invincible“. And again shortly for the BBC production of THHTTG: as I said, I was a teenager. Maybe I should give the series another chance, now that life has made me mature and wise.????
Where Douglas Adams is, Terry Pratchet is not far away (wasn’t he also a physicist? ha,ha). I particularly liked the novel “Mort” from the Discworld cycle. There is also a nice film version of a part of his novels with the melodious title “The colour of magic”. I guess you know it.
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You’re really expanding my literary horizons, Juergen! I don’t know Terry Pratchet either.
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David, I know, I know, this is a music forum, so one last time Literature: Tom Sharpe, born 1928 in London. If you know him well, then you certainly know his fictional character Henry Wilt: a not particularly assertive vocational school teacher. Surrounded by resigned colleagues and ignorant students who are interested in everything but school, in his free time he dreams of getting rid of his callous wife. Until one day he slips into an almost real murder case and suddenly, to make matters worse, the London police are on his heels and he has to realize: the life of a vocational school teacher can be uncomfortably exciting. Where Tom Sharpe is, Ben Aaronovitch isn’t far either. Also a London writer. He is best known for his book series “The Rivers of London”. This is about Constable Peter Grant from the Metropolitan Police in London, who, together with his superior, the magician Nightingale, solves crimes committed by ghosts, vampires and other supernatural beings. Seasoned with a lot of black English humor. Very British, and here the right music to go with it:
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Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin was born in London on 16 April 1889 and shot most of his films in the US. However, he brought his English humour with him in his hand luggage. Incidentally, he founded the film company “United Artists” together with several other artists and is considered one of the founding fathers of the Hollywood dream factory.
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George Harrison and his rockin’ living room:
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I was so pumped when George released his Cloud Nine album! It had been two or three years since I had discovered the Beatles, and at that time George appeared to be retired from making music, having not put out anything in several years. So it was a great treat to hear some new stuff from him, and this song and video in particular were so much fun!
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Yes David, Cloud Nine is somehow a special album. Some of George Harrison’s previous releases, which I also like very much, sometimes sounded a bit melancholic. This album seems somehow different: fresh, unspent and full of optimism.
Maybe not the best song on the album, but the music video is again full of whimsical, funny ideas.
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Yeah, I remember when that video came out. So cool!
Of course, the sight gag with Ringo and the long keyboard wasn’t very original:
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I remember the Ladder Sketch ????. Grover is his name? I only know him as “Grobi”. Hectic little guy. I always liked him.
And another very special Beatles presentation:
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