"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

[evilC]

No.

Fuck off.

Ah well - it's an occupational hazard of being on Myspace, I suppose. On balance it's worth it, but moments like when I saw that mail in my inbox, with the title I used for this thread, do give me pangs of doubt sometimes.

I see he was born in Cheshire. Ho hum.

[Wyatt Earp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Can you actually say "No. Fuck off."?

[Wyatt Earp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

In response, on Myspace, I mean. I know you can say it in real life.

[evilC]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Wa ayat al Urbi wrote:

Can you actually say "No. Fuck off."?

There isn't a 'button' for it, no. There should be, by rights.

To be honest, once I had confirmed that it was indeed Hull's most famous gurner and not an unfortunate namesake, I hit the 'deny' button as fast as my reflexes would allow.

"I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the baneful words seared my reeling brain: 'Paul Heaton'."

[Wyatt Earp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

You did absolutely the right thing.

[delicatemoth]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

The thing is, you can imagine him writing a sneery song about people who send friend requests on Myspace.

[G-Man]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Apart from the sneering, what exactly is wrong with Paul Heaton?

It's an honest question. I never liked the Beautiful South much. A case of utter indifference. I do like the Housemartins though. I can't see how they were objectionable. Did Heaton do ghastly things as the Beautiful South guy?

[Taylor]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

You can't see why The Housemartins might be considered objectionable??? Maybe you have to have grown up in Britain.

Can't stand The Beautiful South, but I was introduced to P. Heaton in a hotel bar in Finland once, and I have to say he was excellent company. Friend on MySpace might be pushing it though.

[G-Man]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

You can't see why The Housemartins might be considered objectionable??? Maybe you have to have grown up in Britain.

Did they run the Mosley Youth? I'm intrigued by that statement. And a bit worried. But, yeah, explain.

[Taylor]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Just that their appearance, manner and music suggested a certain kind of drab, English, mustn't-grumble spirit, somehow combining the most annoying kind of cheeriness with the most annoying kind of joylessness. Like a bad sitcom or a British holiday. They would protest that the lyrics actually attacked this kind of shitheaded, weak-tea twattishness (which they did), but so what? That's still what we were looking at, and listening to. They were so aggravatingly earnest, too.

It's hard to pin down, culturally - it's in the cardigans and the stupid dances and the proudly unremarkable nature of everything - but I'm pretty sure there'll be something roughly equivalent in Germany, if not South Africa.

[Bored Of Education]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

I'd go for a drink with him. Maybe not be his friend on MySpace

[G-Man]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

My life would have been a lot richer if the cultural nadirs in Germany or SA were marked by people like The Housemartins.

[Lucy Waterman]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Just that their appearance, manner and music suggested a certain kind of drab, English, mustn't-grumble spirit, somehow combining the most annoying kind of cheeriness with the most annoying kind of joylessness. Like a bad sitcom or a British holiday. They would protest that the lyrics actually attacked this kind of shitheaded, weak-tea twattishness (which they did), but so what?

Ah, come on. That's an interesting tension between form and content.

[Guest]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Everything shit about the Beautiful South is encapsulated in that horrible little slap-bass squiggle at the beginning of 'Perfect 10'.

They're the musical equivalent of a really dismal motorway service station cafe.

[Houdi Elbow]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

what exactly is wrong with Paul Heaton?

He wrote the foreword of a Sheffield United 'hoolie porn' book justifying their activities - the usual nonsense about 'working class culture', etc.

[Duncan Gardner]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

I like the Beauts so much that I can even tolerate Heaton's side-project (droning on about how he used to run with Sheffield United's firm in the early 80s).

5 You play glockenspiel, I'll play drums
4 Hold on to what
3 I love you but you're boring
2 Rotterdam
1 Tupperware queen

Edit- crossed with Houdi there.

[Disco Child Ballads]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

I like the Beautiful South too but even I must admit that 'Perfect 10' is a dreadful song and Paul Heaton doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant human being. 'One Last Love Song' is still one of my favourite songs of the 1990s though.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

vennegoor strokes wrote:

Everything shit about the Beautiful South is encapsulated in that horrible little slap-bass squiggle at the beginning of 'Perfect 10'.

That album was produced by Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook, so I'm guessing he was responsible for stuff like that.

[evilC]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

The visual equivalent of The Beautiful South:

[Wyatt Earp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

I think the aptly initialled BS may actually be my least favourite band of all time. Everything about them is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I mean you can't say "apart from the sneeriness". The sneeriness is woven into Heaton's fabric as a songwriter and as a singer of his own songs. But this is only one of the myriad ways the man annoys.

Good Christ alive, in the last few weeks I've chuckled indulgently over BBC programmes on British prog and Greenwich Village coffee-bar "folk", two genres my younger self would have said were irredeemable. But if I ever chuckle indulgently over a Paul Heaton retrospective, shoot me.

[Duncan Gardner]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Aye, Folk America's not half bad at all. Did you spot the Weavers singing the Auld Orange Flute?

[imp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Bloody hell, we're a crotchety lot. Great little pop band, the Housemartins. On the other hand, I can see why someone might despise The Beautiful South, even though I loved their first two albums and the fourth, I think (Miaow?). The rest were strangely dreadful, and I remember taking one with a blue cover back to the record shop and demanding an exchange, the one and only time I've ever done that.

You have to be choosy about your friends on MySpace, though. I've only ever accepted one or two invitations - I mean, it's not something you can spread around like margarine. 300 friends, my arse. Bet you wouldn't get a round in if you met them all down the pub at the same time.

[Pants]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

Totally agree with imp. The Housemartins were great, Beautiful South veered from not so great to totally dreadful. Taylor - you seem to have missed/ been impervious to the gag, which was that The Housemartins were kind of ordinary blokes railing at the mediocrity of ordinariness. In a similar way to Dexys, they seemed to be reaching for something more than the lives mapped out for them.

It's possible that it's because I listened to it when I was a teenager first experiencing the ups and downs and young love, but to this day I think I'll Sail This Ship Alone is one of the most poignant loved/lost songs ever, bar none.

[Wyatt Earp]

"Paul Heaton wants to be your friend on Myspace"

imp wrote:

Bloody hell, we're a crotchety lot.

Not really, we just disagree.