Indie-lympics |
They're skinny, they're whiny, and they're doing it for Blighty!
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 The Opening Ceremony
 It's an amazing sight. As guitar-shaped fireworks explode into each other overhead, the entire Indie-lympic village of athletes - including Athlete, funnily enough - shamble around the stadium. Each one is wearing their country's team colours, or more accurately, colour. Black trainers, black socks, black shorts, black vest and a black tracksuit on top. Thus it's very hard to spot which athlete belongs to which team, but seeing as their fringes make it impossible for them to walk in a straight line anyway, the entire procession is always in a muddle before they hit the first curve of the track in any case. Then they all 'jam' a version of the official Indie-lympic theme song, the Libertines' 'Time For Heroes'. Unmissable!
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 Track And Field Day 1
 What a spectacle! At one end of the enormo-stadium the competitors limber up for the first event, the Deck-Athlete. A hush descends as each member of the mimsy soft-poppers takes his podium, only to be biffed off in a variety of exciting ways, points being awarded for style, as always. The gold medal goes to Johnny 'Scrapper' Borrell, for his half-pike turkey twizzler, which leaves Joel Athlete laid out in the shape of Graham Coxon's spectacles.
Then the day is taken over by the throwing events. First is the 7" discus, in which spotty indie geeks compete to see who can throw a rare single by the White Stripes in the air and leave the fewest finger-prints. Then the punkers come out for the snot putt, and, after a clean up, everyone gets their townie-spears out for the final event of the day, the chavelin. Release the burberry hordes!
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 Track And Field Day 2
 After such an exciting first day, things can only get more thrilling as the competitors in the mic-stand pole vault come out of the changing rooms to deafening indifference from the notoriously un-impressable indie crowd. As usual, the event is dominated by Ricky Kaiser and Paul Maximo, each using their mic-stand to out-leap the other and pulling silly faces as they do so. Kele Bloc Party is disqualified after it's revealed he's not actually strong enough to lift a mic-stand in the first place.
In the end, it's Paul that wins the gold with a jump that also splits his trousers, pants and perineum. Then Noel and Liam Gallagher storm out of the changing rooms for a stunning display of their three specialty disciplines - the high grump, the long grump and the triple grump (which also features their brother Paul).
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 Racquet Sports
 As far as the TV coverage is concerned, there's only one court-side battle of interest, and that's the Dadminton doubles. On one side, the two Pauls - reigning champions and gold medal holders Weller and McCartney. It's an inspired pairing. Weller's grumpy attack perfectly matched by McCartney's wild reckless showmanship and faintly-annoying fancy tricks. On the other side of the net, the northern monkey squad of Richard Ashcroft and Ian Brown. Not technically as good as the Pauls, but playing with a rare passion and intensity, they swipe at more shots than they hit, and could win a medal for their swaggering alone.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the stadium, the indie fencing gets off to a poor start when judges are unable to work out which of the stick-thin apparitions before them is the athlete and which is the sword.
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 Synchronised Whinging
 Veteran gold medallist Morrissey (he won over nine hundred medals in this event alone) heads up the judging panel for the final event of another amazing display of indie skill. Reigning gold-medallist Thom Yorke is first to take to the moany-podium, and let loose with his trademark banshee wail. Then it's Chris Martin's turn, then Tom Keane, then Alex Parks, then matey from Thirteen Senses, and so on, until the entire stadium is filled with what sounds like the combined mating cries of all the sperm whales in the seven seas. Points are awarded both for sonic beauty, and total drippy wetness. And the final result is no surprise to anyone, another gold for Mr Martin, and an acceptance speech which is longer and soppier than his wife's when she got her Oscar.
And so another Indie-lympics draws to a close, with only the final echo of Indie-lympic committee head Sir Neil Young ringing in our ears, "heroic Indie-lympians, we salute you!"
Fraser M
17/01/2006
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It's Party Time!  |
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We're having a party to celebrate the end of TOTP Online and the start of the Chart Blog...look who's here! |
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Big Bother |
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The normal show's over for another year, but there's still time to get our requests in for the next Celeb Big Brother... |
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When Song Titles Go Silly |
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Abandon sense, all ye who enter here to see the strangest song titles in pop history... |
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Dream TOTP Presenters |
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If only we'd had these people on our side, history would have been VERY different *sniff*... |
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Web-Singers |
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Five acts whose very career can be blamed on modern technology. |
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Doing It For The Kids |
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Who Sean Did Next... |
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The 5 Stages Of ROCK |
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OR: Why the humble whistle is the ultimate factor in deciding what ROCKS and what does NOT ROCK. |
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Pop Conspiracies |
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Reality Pop Stars |
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They've braved the glare of wall-to-wall cameras and survived. Well, mostly... |
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Indie-lympics |
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They're skinny, they're whiny, and they're doing it for Blighty! |
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Daft Predictions: 2006 |
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What will 2006 bring for this bunch of celebs? Are you sure you wanna know? |
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Secret Santa |
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If we were to give these popstars the perfect Chrimbo gift, we reckon these Xmas crackers would do the trick... |
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Xmas Turkeys |
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The kind of festive chart-toppers that would make Cliff Richard turn Scrooge. |
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Toy Story |
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Abandon your pressies! We bring you the pop toys you really wanted this Christmas, you lucky things! |
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Rock School |
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Girls Aloud are taking Biology, but who's got Double Maths, and who's hanging out behind the bike sheds? |
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Name Academy |
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Five acts whose names could've done with a re-think BEFORE the CDs got pressed up. |
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Food Fighters |
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As Snoop launches his own brand of Hot Dogg, we wonder who else will put their money where their mouth is. |
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Arty Popstars |
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Oi You! Outside Now! |
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Grow A Spine! |
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Never let a pop star sit down with a pen, they don't know what they're doing... |
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Too Long Titles |
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When it comes to picking short sharp song titles, this lot thought more was more... |
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Oi! Cheer up! |
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It's a case of one grump or two for these pop moodychops! |
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Charlie And The Mock-late Factory |
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The pop stars who narrowly failed to get a part in Willy Wonka (and not in a bad way...). |
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Parent Repellants |
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Playing your music loud is one thing, but bring home one of these bad boys and you'll be grounded into space dust. |
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Non-Stop Popsters |
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Rolling Stones are 40 years and still going. So, which of these pop gippers will be around in 2045? |
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A cautionary tale for would-be dieters out there, in five easy to swallow pieces... |
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Kanye and Robbie have sampled 007, but who else could remix a Bond theme? |
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Endorse-Mentalists |
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Is there ANYTHING that popstars won't sell on the side? Apparently not! |
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Y Kant U Spel Proply? |
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We asked a linguistics expert to mark pop songs for spelling mistakes. Just for fun! |
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No doubt about it, there's little to top that Live 8 lineup. Except... |
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You Still Here? |
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The bands who went past their sell-by date, and then reversed... |
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Cover Calamities |
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If you love the song so much, why do you treat it so badly, popsters? |
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Skinny Indie Kids |
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Your mum thinks this lot could do with a good square meal, and she's not wrong... |
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