Beautiful Liar...?

Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Queen Bey, but I'm also cynical about the celebrity culture which demands that singers must also be writers, producers, dress designers, perfumiers etc etc. Elvis Presley just got up and sang, after all...

So, the truth is out: Beyoncé's spectacular performance at the President's inauguration was a big ol' mime. It's not really a big deal – even Aretha Franklin said (between giggles) that "for most singers that is just not good singing weather". (It's just a tiny bit awkward that fellow performer Kelly Clarkson did a stellar live job, then.)

A visibly rattled Beyoncé was called upon to explain herself at a press conference and did so with aplomb, first singing the song again (just to prove that she could) and then defending her reasons for faking; she's a perfectionist, she didn't have enough time to rehearse with the orchestra, and after all, it was about the President. Ain't no room for errors!

We know Beyoncé is no auto-tuned amateur – the video below proves that not only is she stunning to look at without the help of airbrushing, she also has an incredible voice (and range) without the aid of backing tracks. But what grates more than the lipsyncing is the disingenuous way she did it. Jezebel led the accolades for the highlight of her performance: "She tears out her earpiece mid-song and proceeds perfectly like it's no big thing. What a pro." This dramatic move is what made the performance a "lie" – Bey was essentially implying that her pitching skills are at almost superhuman levels when she "proved" that she didn't need to hear herself in order to hit every note perfectly.

 

Mrs Carter has been the subject of controversy more than once; from the beginning of her career, there have been (unfounded) rumours that she’s really much older than she appears. (Probably because nobody believed that any 16-year-old could be that preternaturally talented and self-assured.) More recently, there have been clamours that her "songwriting" consists of changing a word or two of existing songs before claiming a writing credit. And of course, she was never really pregnant.

Our fame-obsessed society seems to be cynical and utterly credulous in equal parts; we'll believe any crazy story if it fits in with our "celebrities live in a different reality" mindset. For instance, I understand why Beyoncé might be under suspicion for not carrying her own child. A self-confessed workaholic might resent taking the requisite time out when there's an option to hire a surrogate or preferably, a magical test tube in which to manufacture the perfect child. It just seems like the sort of thing we expect from Hollywood types.

Despite the rumours, THAT clip shows a dress which clearly folds into pleats as she bends. Plus, if someone with Beyoncé's riches and PR team wanted to fake a pregnancy, you can guarantee they'd have a better method than strapping a folding polystyrene pillow onto her front. (To me, this is a more convincing point than the conclusion she had "a mother's joy you just can't fake.")

Yep. Pretty sure they could do better than this if they were really trying.

Queen Bey isn't the only singer to casually mention “When I wrote this song....” when actually the song has several writers credited. It's just that she seems to get into lawsuits more often than anyone else. As well as a legal wrangle for breaching a contract regarding Des'ree's original song Kissing You, Beyoncé upset Ne-Yo when she introduced Irreplacable with the words "I wrote this for my girls". He explained "I wrote all the lyrics. Beyoncé helped me with the melodies and the harmonies and the vocal arrangement and that makes it a co-write."

In a Marie Claire interview, she was asked if the lyrics "I can have another you in a minute. Matter fact, he’ll be here in a minute", referred to Jay-Z.  She replied  'I’m sure people think I wrote it about (Jay-Z) or something, but… the obvious person is not the person at all." Which cleverly made it sound as if she did write it, without actually saying anything which would make her sue-able. Back in her Destiny's Child days, the group settled out of court when Rickey Allen alleged that they'd ripped off his song Cater 2 U.

Beyoncé's debut solo single Crazy in Love was allegedly written in 2 hours by producer Rich Harrison, who had suggested using the now-famous horns sample from The Chi-Lites Are You My Woman (Tell Me So). In fact, Beyoncé's solo album is full of tracks based on old-skool tunes or samples, with echoes of Shuggie Otis and Donna Summer apparent in Be With You and Naughty Girl, respectively. (Don't even mention the latter to Sean Paul. He's still hurt he didn't get asked to perform with her for MTV.) 

But sampling is the cornerstone of today's top hits. (It's kind of like adapting a book into a movie; you already have a good idea of what the audience reaction will be.) Pitbull's new single Feel This Moment only has A-ha's Take On Me sample and the voice of Christina Aguilera to make it worth listening to. (Why does he even bother showing up?)

 One of these people doesn't need to be here.

The rueful song-writing joke "change a word, get a third" was never more true than when John McLaughlin let Bey use his song Smack Into You. She changed it to Smash Into You and, er, that's it. It's claimed she "re-worked" the song, but the difference is minimal; if you play these videos in synchrony from the first line, they duet rather prettily for most of the track. 

 
There has long been an internet rumour that during a TRL appearance, Beyoncé claimed that she had written Emotions – perhaps in the belief that the young audience wouldn't be familiar with the Bee Gee’s greatest hits. No video footage is available and it sounds too ridiculous to be true, but I wouldn't be completely gobsmacked if it had happened. Beyoncé seems to be confused by the difference between "wrote" and "arranged"– so if she was the one who pointed at Michelle and Kelly and said "OK, you sing this line, and I'll sing that one," it's not inconceivable that she might decide she had "written" the track. 

Her writing credit on Listen from the Dreamgirls soundtrack was ignored by the Academy when the song was nominated for an Oscar. They say the "new rules" mean that there could only be three nominees per song – with those who made the smallest contribution getting bumped first. 

Hip hip producer Soundz told That Grape Juice that selling a song to Beyoncé is akin to entering a payola scheme. "She promotes the record to the highest level. She’s the best in the game at promoting a record and when she does one of your records you’ll get a single, radio, commercials and movies. There are so many different types of money that comes with Beyonce when you do a record for her so it’s kind of like the price of admission – the price to get all the other aspects is that you have to pay a little bit. She’ll want a little publishing and that’s guaranteed; she’s going to ask for it and you’re going to give it to her; no ifs, ands or buts. She’s going to make that record the biggest hit in the world so give her that publishing. She’ll take about 20%." 

So that's "Lose 20% of potential millions when a megastar sings your song" versus  "Make 100% of the nothing you earn playing it yourself in dive bars." It's a no-brainer. 

It's not just song-writing which has earned the superstar her "Stealoncé" moniker; clear parallels have also been made between her videos and previous work. As we know, all music videos copy each other – and Bey has obviously taken to heart the maxim "good artists borrow, great artists steal."

Copying Audrey NEVER counts as plagiarism, otherwise the 
entire fashion industry would be in big trouble.

Her Countdown video appears to have been choreographed directly from the work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who was not amused; "I didn't know anything about this. I'm not mad, but this is plagiarism." She softened the blow by saying "Beyonce is not the worst copycat, she sings and dances very well, and she has a good taste!" but that "there are protocols and consequences to such actions, and I can't imagine she and her team are not aware of it." 

Beyoncé did respond, pointing out that she had taken inspiration from many sources for the video. (MTV even made a comprehensive list.) While she has laughingly admitted to "stealing" from shows, she's obviously aware of the old saying "If you steal from one (author) it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research." (But Bey honey, you need to mix it up more! Nobody will notice you've copied moves if you don't put them together in exactly the same sequence...)

There is nothing new under the sun, and dance moves are often borrowed from old movies – for instance, Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal video was an obvious homage to Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953) and he continued to find inspiration in Fred's work, as this video shows:

 

 
But Fred and Michael were kindred spirits – both dedicated professionals with respect for each others' work. Fred's sometime choreographer Hermes Pan revealed that Fred was so impressed by Michael's 1983 Motown performance of Billy Jean that he called him up to congratulate him. 

Beyoncé famously borrowed some Bob Fosse choreography for the Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) video (she also weirdly implied that the video is actually one continuous take, which is clearly not the case). While she cheerfully acknowledged the origins of that routine, she tends to pick slightly more obscure artists for her everyday "tributes". 

Her 2011 Billboard Award performance of Run the World (Girls) borrowed heavily from a video from Italian singer Lorella Cuccani. Which in turn was strongly reminiscent of a performance of Black Sun from Japanese artist / dancer duo Kagemu. (Is it me, or are choreographers getting kind of lazy in the age of Youtube?) The video for Get me Bodied is strikingly similar to a scene from Fosse's Sweet Charity.  

Although "Stealoncé" gets the ridicule for copycat dance sequences, we must remember that she has professional choreographers, directors and producers whose job it is to come up with the ideas (not that they're remembered when her vids win awards, but still....)

KC would rather publicly fall out with her record company than 
appear to plagiarise anyone else's work.

Inauguration pals Kelly Clarkson and Beyoncé were inadvertently involved in a plagiarism dispute back in 2009, when Ryan Tedder wrote Halo for Beyoncé and then used the same backing track on a song he wrote with Kelly, Already Gone. When Kelly heard Halo, she was furious: "No one's gonna be sittin' at home, thinkin' 'Man, Ryan Tedder gave Beyoncé and Kelly the same track to write to....' they're just gonna be sayin' I ripped someone off." Amusingly, Ryan claimed  "I would never try to dupe an artist such as Kelly Clarkson or Beyoncé into recording over the same musical track, the idea is both hurtful and absurd." Plenty of Youtube mash-up artists disagree, Tedder!

  
So is working with Beyoncé akin to signing a deal with the devil? Or is she an easy target for people who want to get their names in the paper? There is a certain petulance to the people who have been "ripped off" by Beyoncé...

For instance, wannabe recording artist BC Jean wrote If I Were a Boy and later made a big noisy fuss about not knowing that Bey was planning to release it as a single and not being happy about the situation.  I'm no expert on how these things work, but I'm pretty sure this couldn't happen unless she'd signed something which allowed it to happen. Lesson learned: If you don't want someone else to release your song, don't sell them the rights.....?!

Bootylicious producer Rob Fusari was upset that *his* idea to use a Stevie Nicks guitar riff on the track was later claimed by Beyoncé on a Barbara Walters interview. However, he does comes across as a whiny little git, complaining that Beyonce's manager father Matthew Knowles wouldn't let him re-record the riff in order to get the royalties for himself rather than, er, the original musician.  

However, his moaning does bring up an interesting point. Apparently Mr Knowles told him "People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offence, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything."

Is this why Bey is so determined to be known as a songwriter? Is being totally gorgeous, a gifted vocalist, a talented actress and all-round Queen of the world not enough for her? Or is is just the lure of all that lovely shiny money? 

One thing's for sure for songwriters and choreographers: If you liked it then you should have put a © on it....

Convincing myself I'm a music critic

I started out my internet ramblings by reviewing stuff at Dooyoo.co.uk (for about 50p a pop) so it's fitting that my latest contributions to the interwebs involve analysing new albums for The Digital Fix. Yay! Check 'em out:

Brooke Sharkey (great name!)

and the very summery looking San Cisco.

Amazingly, even after listening to them over and over again, I still like both of these records... and I love finding new music!

2013: My wishlist

I would like to go back to this now please.

2013 has only just started, but Christmas feels like ages ago and miss it already. I might have to be one of those nutters who has (or at least, they tell the tabloids they have) “Christmas every day” complete with full roast dinner and the Queen’s speech on a loop. Except if I was going to choose one Christmassy day to repeat Groundhog Day-style, I’d probably pick one in the hazy, timeless period between Christmas and New Year. It’s better than pre-Crimbo, when you’re running around like a lunatic making goat’s cheese nibbles and buying one more packet of nuts and running out of sellotape just before you’ve finished wrapping your presents. It’s better than Christmas day itself, which can be a bit anticlimactic. After Christmas you can relax and play with your new toys (er, electronic equipment) and watch Jurassic Park every time it’s on. You can also still watch Santa movies because technically you’re still in the festive season. Life is awesome.

But now we’re well into the new year, what do we want to achieve? Here's my wishlist:

1) I want just one media reference to Christina Hendricks which doesn't use the word “curves.” It doesn’t have to be a whole article or anything – hacks are only human – but I think journalists everywhere should make a collective effort to see if they can just manage a picture caption or something without the “C” word. (But don’t say full-figured, because she hates that.)

Christina Hendricks: She looks nice.
(There, that wasn't so difficult, was it?)

2) Next time we have some sort of Comic Relief telethon in which celebrities do “amusing” things, I would like to see all the TV chefs swap personas. It would make me chortle to see Nigella lisp about “getting these bad boys in the oven – bish, bosh, done!” and Delia licking the spoon seductively as she waxes lyrical about the plump, succulent nature of, say, a pan of rice. TV execs, can we make this happen?

And Jamie can channel my Mum: this means learning basic hygiene, like 
not licking a spoon and putting it back in the bowl. Also occasionally doing
 something radical like removing the seeds from a pepper before serving it.

3) Also re: TV, I think I speak for us all when I say I want the The X Factor to go away now; the format is old and tired. This isn’t the fault of the contestants, but the Producers. We’re all hip to the old “Let’s keep in one talentless fame whore just to make things interesting!” gag now. It’s been faithfully recycled year after year (Jedward, Wagner, Rylan...) and is much less interesting than a simple competition between 12 really talented kids that you genuinely root for, because you wish they could ALL win. The trend in 2012 was to keep voting in the charisma-free Christopher, just for a laugh. It’s kind of like those lions at the zoo who always very deliberately spray at the gawking hordes (yes, I watched a lot of You’re Been Framed over Xmas. I never said I was classy): we may be a captive audience, but we can always find a way to express our contempt.

Telephone voting: cleaner, but probably not as much fun.

4) Much as I am appalled at Derren Brown’s apparent disregard for ethics, I’ve got a blinder for his next project. I was inspired by Christmas TV (of course) and thought how cool (but mean) it would be to create a fake It’s a Wonderful Life / The Family Man scenario. The latter would be easier because you’d only have to sneak your unfortunate, comatose victim into a strange house and wait for him to wake up alongside people who would claim to be his wife and children. (I fear that the It’s a Wonderful Life set up would require too many acting skills (and no giggling) from the guy’s existing family and friends.) After he’d spent a few weeks adjusting to life in the suburbs, away from the glitz of his city job and midnight martini-drinking, you’d be like “Psyche! You have to go back to your whiny girlfriend and joyless existence now!” it would be hilarious.

It would also be funny if you never let on that it was fake, and he spent the rest 
of his life believing that he had supernaturally glimpsed his other potential life.
 I BET somebody somewhere will one day make this a reality TV show.
 

4) We REALLY need a change in the law regarding donor cards. At the moment, there is always a shortage of vital organs, which means that people die unnecessarily (and sometimes even die after being given the lungs of a chronic smoker, because any lungs are better than none.) This is madness. I know some people don’t like the idea of themselves or a loved one being cut up into pieces after death, but to be blunt, your former body is going to be either worm food or ashes soon anyway, so why not save some lives first?

An acquaintance once told me very earnestly that her mother (a nurse) had told her to NEVER carry a donor card, because if you come in after an accident, the doctors won’t try very hard to save you because they’ll be thinking gleefully of all the organs they can harvest – the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Apparently this lady had “seen it happen” many times. Sounds crazy, but who knows? The Liverpool Care Pathway seems to have neatly bypassed the Hippocratic Oath. 

It’s obvious that the system should default to everyone's bodies being used for organ donation automatically, with an “opt out” choice available: organ shortage problem solved overnight. Plus, if your heart or eyes go to help another person, and then they also donate when they die, it’s kind of like your cells living forever, in lots of different people. Immortality, sorted.

5) And finally, I want a puppy like this one please. Happy new year!

So, wearing underwear is mandatory now?

This week, I have a new hero. Anne Hathaway is my new go-to girl for how to handle awkward situations with perfect poise and diplomacy.

It all started when she was photographed getting out of a car at the Les Misérables premiere. She was wearing a tight dress which obviously needed to be a VPL-free zone. Unfortunately, it also had a large slit, which meant that she exposed more than she meant to. A photograph then circulated and was added to the gleeful gallery of accidentally exposed "lady bits" as the magazines insist on calling them.

The first interview after the incident was with Matt Lauer on the Today Show. He kicked off the interview with "Seen a lot of you lately!" This seemed an unnecessarily jaunty way to open the conversation, when she was clearly feeling pretty violated by the event. (It makes me wonder how someone like Matt Lauer would greet a rape victim. "So, I heard you've been getting around a bit lately....!?") But because Anne Hathaway is such a lady, she actually said "Sorry about that". 

SHE said sorry. She apologised for the fact that someone had taken a picture up her skirt.

He blithely carried on, "What's the lesson learned from something like that...? Other than you keep smiling, which you always do."

What's the lesson for Anne Hathaway to learn? Because it was obviously her fault, right?

Her answer deserves to be printed in the celebrity survival handbook (if such a thing exists....):

"It was obviously an unfortunate incident," she said. "It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it, and do the decent thing, sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to 'Les Mis,' that's what my character is, she is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and there's no social safety net."

Well played! Shifting the blame back to the perpetrator and bringing the conversation back to the film, in one breath. Bravo!

However, this incident is one more very telling moment in the "War against women". (Which, like, totally doesn't exist. It's a complete myth, right? 

I don't recall anyone calling Kanye a slut who should have been wearing trousers which fit him properly.

Well, let's take a look at the media reaction. Entertainmentwise used the headline "Where is your underwear?" and said "Do you think Anne's vag flash was accidental or intentional? Take a look at the graphic photo in the gallery below." (I PROMISE you this is the exact wording.)

Gawker's headline: "Anne Hathaway shows her vagina to distract from her hideous outfit." Wow, slut shaming, misinformed biology and fashion advice, all in one go! (As many commenters pointed out, nobody could see Hathaway's vagina without a speculum and a torch. It's VULVA, people! I may seem overly pedantic, but using the wrong word is like constantly referring to your ankles as your "knees". )

The words "wardrobe malfunction" and "flashing" were used frequently. No mention of "Anne Hathaway violated by perv with a camera" or "Woman's clothing choices used to justify sexual violation. Again." 

The general consensus seems to be that it's all Anne Hathaway's fault, because she "should" have been wearing underwear.  I do realise that if you don't want pictures of your undercarriage to be widely circulated, going out knickerless and then exiting a car may not be the best way to go about it.  But even if the photo had clearly showed her wearing panties, it would still no doubt have created a stir.) And while she has been called upon to explain herself like a naughty girl caught flashing the boys in the next classroom, the guy who made money from selling the picture has never even been named. 

Naturally, when someone works in an industry which occasionally requires them to be naked and / or simulate sex, and this earns them millions of dollars, all bets are off. They're "asking for it." And money makes up for every possible infringement on your privacy, yes?  

There is also the small point that celebrities in general, but women in particular, are considered public property. As challengers to this view, my other heroes are Will Smith and  Jada Pinkett Smith – parents of Willow. (No, I don't like her music.) Jada recently used her Facebook page to answer critics who objected to her "letting" Willow getting a buzz cut. 

"The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don't belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It's also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother's deepest insecurities, hopes and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be. More to come. Another day."

Back in May, Will Smith also spoke up on the concerns of raising a daughter, telling Parade: "When you have a little girl, it's like, how can you teach her that you're in control of her body? If I teach her that I'm in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she's going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she's going out with a command that is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives."

I love this couple. (Even if that goes against every instinct I have about the kind of people who name all of their children after themselves.)

Jada also wrote brilliantly about how the "War on Women" is also detrimental to men:

"How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye's of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only. The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection. There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can't recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer. He doesn't recognize that the create of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize. He doesn't recognize that it's his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man's heart and a man's heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER outweigh love."

Wise woman. AND she gives me hope that I too can look better when I'm 40 than I did at 20! Hooray for Jada!  

Brilliantly Bonkers

So, it was my birthday a couple of days ago, and while I can't say my new age without inserting an expletive between digits, I had a great time. (Even if the final part of Breaking Dawn was a somewhat disappointing experience. Michael Sheen's ridiculous giggle is still echoing in my head.)

One of my pressies was Katzenjammer's Le Pop album, which I discovered on my beloved Spotify and have been playing obsessively ever since. And when I say obsessively, I mean it's on my stereo when I get up in the morning, I carry the CD downstairs so I can play it in the kitchen while I'm making breakfast, and keep my MP3 player to hand at all other times during the day. It is awesome.

There are other words to describe it. "Insane" would be one. Theatrical, Original, Energetic, Addictive. These are some talented Norwegians.

Is it folk? Is it Klezmer? All I know is that it's impossible to listen to without jigging about a bit. And underneath all the craziness, they actually have beautiful voices.

 

This video cuts off before the end of the song, but you get the gist. I can't help feeling that this video should be part of a longer movie, one in which the oddly disconcerting characters on stage would flit between worlds via a magic portal. Kind of Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus style.

I do like a good fantastical story, and while Hollywood generally prefers to stick to the tried-and-tested (Hobbits, Narnians, Hitchhikers) there are some amazing brain-twisting novels out there. I'd highly recommend Scarlett Thomas – starting with The End of Mr Y. Magic ahoy! Which makes it the perfect literary accompaniment to a band who style themselves after cartoon characters, play countless different instruments and laugh in the face of manufactured pop. Hurrah for them!

Hands up who's zombie-proofing the house right now?

When I was a kid, my parents let me watch one of those horrendously low budget Christian films called A Thief in the Night, all about the "Rapture" – an event in which Christians will apparently fly up to Heaven*, avoiding the apocalyptic reign of Satan which will occur just prior to Jesus' second coming. As a child I found it terrifying (there was a lot of screaming when people’s clothes were left behind, signalling their ascension to Heaven, although I seem to remember there were a few false alarms where people had just stripped off their cardigans etc.) I'm pretty sure that if I watched it now, the comedy value would make it worth the price of the rental.

*I know regular churchgoers who have never even come across Rapture teaching, as it's more "American Evangelist" than Church of England. Apparently the predictions for the end of the world are in the book of Revelation, although there are as many interpretations of that bizarre chapter as there are Christians. If you're interested, the much-mocked Left Behind books are quite good yarns (if you fancy the equivalent of a Pentecostal Dan Brown novel). And if any self-proclaimed Christian ever tries to tell you that they know the date of the end of the world, you can remind them of Matthew 24:36 "However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."

It has been pointed out that “w” is the 6th letter of Arabic and Semetic alphabets, which casts an interestingly Omen-esque slant on the World Wide Web, doesn’t it? Much as I adore the interwebs and can't imagine how I ever coped without its many life-enhancing qualities, I can see it has some tricky loopholes. Just as Jeff Goldblum predicted in Jurassic park, we're doing things because we can, without asking if we should.

I just wanted an excuse to use this picture. *Girlish giggling*

People are always freaking out about privacy, for instance. There has been a disclaimer doing the rounds for AGES which we are encouraged to copy into our FB status. It says "In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, graphics, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!" Of course, Snopes has the real low down – as you might expect, the message has as much power as signing a contract and then sticking on a post-it saying “Didn’t mean it!” 

But why all the fuss over FB? People tell me, wide-eyed with horror, that “Facebook officially owns all your photos!” Um, like any other website you’ve used to upload pictures? Once they're “out there”, ANYONE can save them to their own computers, thus “owning” them – not in a moral or legal sense, but in the sense that they can make a dartboard out of them, or photoshop them in any way they choose. Removing yourself from FB will not erase them – and even if you’re not there to be tagged, pictures of you can still be featured in your friends’ albums, open for all to see. The only way you can avoid this is to run and hide from any camera.

If you can.... Oh, the irony!

While the very name “Facebook” sounds like something George Orwell dreamt up, it’s not the only aspect of modern life we would associate with 1984. You'd have to be miles from civilisation before you could be sure there were no CCTV cameras nearby, and if you use an Oyster card, every tube stop you've made will have been tracked. Slightly creepy, yes – but as we've seen in murder cases, it’s actually really useful for police to be able to see where you have been. (Not to be morbid or anything.) Obviously, you'd have to avoid any kind of public places or transport if you were doing a fugitive-style flight from the FBI. (This is actually a long-held fantasy of mine. I just really like the idea of emerging from a public bathroom with a totally new hairstyle, you know?)

And it's one of my fave movies EVAH!

Another Facey B fact which has everyone in a panic: if you try to leave, your profile will remain, and can be re-activated at the flick of a switch. (Yikes! It never dies!) But isn’t this just a good business policy? I have friends who are forever declaring that they have had enough and are leaving FB forever – only to come crawling back in a matter of weeks or days. I can only imagine the level of moaning I’d have to listen to if they had to re-input all their info each time. While we all hum Hotel California, has anyone actually tried deleting all their information before attempting to duck out of the system? I haven’t, so I don’t know if it works, but it’s worth a try, no?

It used to be quite common to get messages threatening “Facebook is going to start charging you money! Copy this into your status!” although apparently now everyone has realised that it will always be free. This leaves us with the question: How does FB make any cash?

So, Facebook gets money from advertisers eager to know all about the habits and desires of their prey customers. But if people want to show me adverts, that’s their problem:

They cannot make me buy anything.

If it’s a well-chosen advert, it may benefit me, so it’s win-win. (I admit that I did find it a tad sinister the first time Boots sent me vouchers for THE VERY THINGS I’d been buying while diligently gathering points on my advantage card. But they were for things I wanted, so why complain? People whinge that offers like this are unfair to those vulnerable people who JUST CAN’T SAY NO, and will HAVE to use the vouchers even if they don’t want / can’t afford that product. But we’re all adults. (Except the kids whose parents let them fake their ages to have a FB account, obv.)

Finally, a lot of people were shrill and indignant about the fact that FB could use your picture “in adverts”. This is a little misleading – you’re not going to suddenly find your likeness quaffing beer on the telly – it just means that when you “like” something, that piece of information will show up on your friends’ newsfeeds, thus acting as a quasi-advertisement. (Of course there is always the embarrassment factor that you may have liked something uncool.)

This is why I love shopping in the run up to Christmas.You can pretend you're buying
for an elderly relative, when really, it's just that Neil Sedaka made some bangin' tunes.

But if you think about it, it’s a pretty reasonable exchange. Often the “liking” is what you have to do in order to enter a contest or get frequent updates. You could just go to the product’s website and sign up for email updates, or you could make a daily pilgrimage to check on the site. “Liking” on FB is simply the easiest and most convenient way to keep an eye on the latest developments. The price you pay is that people are informed that you like it. Is that so terrible? We’ve been doing it for years – every time we carry a bag with a shop’s logo on it, or clothing with a brand name. So why don’t we just enjoy all the ways FB makes our lives better, instead of whining like spoilt brats?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some shopping to do before the end of the world. We'll need plenty of tinned food, bottled water and ammo for when we're all, um, dead......

Happy Halloween!

Some of you know that I occasionally write stuff about movies. The fantastic Den of Geek is one of the lucky recipients of my work, and you can read my latest offering (of 25 spooky movies) here.

I hope y'all appreciate how many scary films I had to watch in order to write the list; I now pee my pants if I hear a floorboard creaking in the next room, and if I see a kid with long straggly hair, I'm OUTTA here. Which reminds me... apparently this makes a prank which really will make grown adults scream....

Doesn't anyone think it's kind of odd that something spooky should so closely resemble a movie stereotype? I wondered the same thing watching Derren Brown: Apocalypse. In a nutshell, some poor sod has been deemed to "take life for granted" by his sanctimonious family as well as the TV hypnotist. So with mind-bending cruelty, they *apparently* set him up to believe that a huge meteor shower was due (with the possibililty of this introducing  a "virus" from space). Apparently confident that his only news source would be a particular website, they hacked into his phone and computer, and later planted passengers on a train carrying fake newspapers. (Really? You wouldn't be worried he was going to buy a paper himself? Or use google?)

Admittedly, they were fiendishly clever – employing XFM newsreaders to record fake stories which would then be playing on a radio in a cafe that their victim (Steven) went into. The culmination of the elaborate hoax came when Steven was on a minibus and the "asteroids" started hitting the ground. Derren Brown sneaks up, hypnotises him in 2 seconds, and the next thing he knows, he's re-enacting the opening scenes of 28 Days Later. (Or if we're going to be fair to John Wyndham, scenes from his 1951 novel, Day of the Triffids.)

I can't help thinking that anyone in Steven's position would say "Wait, I've seen this, It's zombies, right?" However, many people (well, teenage boys) believe that a zombie apocalypse could be upon as at any time, so maybe it would seem like the most natural thing in the world.)

Naturally, there are cries that the guy is a stooge, it's all a set-up and we're the ones who are being fooled. Derren Brown strenuously denies it. (But then, can you trust a man who happily admits to victimising a stranger with a faux apocalypse? I think not.)

As with  Keeping up with the Kardashians, my overriding thought was "Thank GOD my family isn't like that." I also couldn't help thinking that being hypnotised into believing you're in life-threatening danger could one day be the latest stunt for thrill seekers. Just as long as somebody hides all the machetes...