22-28th November 2011

Welcome to another weekly digest from the realm of popular culture. This week in a desperate quest for attention Zeitgeist Tapes went a bit 2.0, so you can now follow us on facebook and twitter.

POP MUSIC

• Rihanna and Calvin Harris remained at number one on the singles chart. That’s three weeks now for ‘We Found Love’. Zeitgeist always wonders who is still buying records like this three weeks in but there you go.
• Rihanna has had a busy week, her new album got to number one, leaving Westlife’s Greatest Hits to debut at number 4. Poor old Westlife. If they’d called it a day when Brian left they could be on their comeback tour now, but instead they are a case study for the law of diminishing returns.
• The NME published their cool list. It’s worth a read because it has a picture of Lana Del Ray holding an awesome cat in it. ZT suggests reading the list whilst watching ‘Being a Dickhead’s Cool’ so as to feel better about things.

X FACTOR

• Viewers will have witnessed Tulisa’s annoying arm gesture at the start of the show, in which Tulisa brandishes a tattoo of the words ‘The Female Boss’. Ofcom fear this is not necessarily just a lady showing off a tattoo, but are concerned that it is an attempt to promote Tulisa’s new perfume, coincidentally called ‘TFB’. Having had Tulisa’s tattoo waved in their faces week in, week out Zeitgeist Tapes suggests that viewers with HD TV should probably check their receipts in case they have purchased it subliminally. Saturday night ITV programming is an Escher-esque, near-fathomless network of cross-promotion, sponsorhsip and advertising, (as this article explains under the heading ‘Institution’) so Tulisa’s embodiment of branding – literally having the name of her perfume stained in the skin of her body – is at the cruder and more straightforward end of the scale. On Saturday’s show, Tulisa showed how seriously she took the allegation that she had abused her position to promote her own product, daubing a message of support for her remaining act onto her other arm.
• This week’s themes were ‘heroes’ and ‘guilty pleasures’. Janet Devlin was kicked out after messing up the words to one of her songs. This was totally understandable because she picked a really tricky song with really complicated lyrics. She sang ‘Mmm bop’ by Hanson and blamed her mistake on feeling like she was going to vomit.
• Louis Walsh is still employed.

TV

• I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here may yet turn out to be the making of The Only Way is Essex participant Mark Wright. Apparently he comes across rather well with his inept attempts to chat up other contestants. I’m a Celebrity… is a very difficult show to describe. This Sunday’s episode included harrowing footage of a cockroach going up Fatima Whitbread’s nose, with a reaction shot from Pat Sharp and Ant’n’Dec. Thankfully Dr Bob was on hand to help remove a worm and a cockroach from Fatima’s nose.
• David Walliams and Dannii Minogue have apparently been signed up as judges on next year’s Britain’s Got Talent. It’s been a quiet week.
• Anita Dobson was kicked out of Strictly Come Dancing this week. ZT finds it hard to care but apparently 11.5 million people watched the program on Saturday last week so perhaps it will be useful to know something about it.

FAMOUS PEOPLE DOING THINGS

• Lily Allen (now called Lily Cooper) had a baby daughter, an event which Lily took to twitter to describe as ‘Totes Amaze’. Zeitgeist Tapes can’t help but be happy for Lily.
• Lady Gaga discussed the attributes she looks for in a partner. She is quite candid, as you would imagine. (link).
• Matt Smith split up with Daisy Lowe.
• George Michael has been ever so poorly and has had to postpone dates from his tour. Here is a link to a video of happier times.

OUTRAGE

• This week people were outraged about the British Press and the ineffectual Press Complaints Commission. Which, for once, was fair enough. (link).

SHIT FILMS

• Diablo Cody (she wrote Juno) has been talking about the Sweet Valley High film coming out next year (link). Zeitgeist Tapes was more excited about this project when David Bryan (keyboardist in Bon Jovi) was going to make a musical version but nevermind, any Sweet Valley is good Sweet Valley and perhaps the film will ignite more interest in the musical.
• Ice Age 4: Continental Drift will come out next summer (link). Wonderful news and good to see that they are sticking with the joke about the squirrel and the nut for the tenth year in a row. Perhaps someone can use the example of Westlife to explain the situation to 20th Century Fox.
• The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 has apparently caused a spate of seizures. When ZT went to see it all it got was fits of giggles and outright laughter, which spilled out of the cinema after the film into a kind of street party vibe in which groups of people stood around recounting their funniest moments. In case you missed it, ZT wrote about Twilight here.

FURTHER READING

• Marcus Brigstocke talking about the Leveson enquiry on BBC radio 4’s The Now Show (link). The section starts at 08:25 and lasts eight articulate minutes.