Liam & Mozzer: Separated at Birth?
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I had to chuckle over this on the tube in this morning.
Was gonna make the point about Morrissey himself being the son of Oirish immigrants and he himself having lived in LA and Rome in the past ten years, but seems that's repeated here anyways.
Amusingly Mozzer's manager has threatened to sue the NME accusing them of doing a stitch-up job on him.
I read about this earlier. The guy who did the interview asked for his name to be taken off the story, as he thought the re-write was too heavy (the implication being that Morrissey's comments were taken in the wrong context).
If anyone gaave a shit about the NME or Morrissey's daft opinions, this might be something worth thinking about.
Meat is dinner 
It is a hatchet job. The phrase '...complained of not hearing "British accents" on the streets' is an example. It's entirely possible to state that many people in Britain do not have British accents without complaining about it.
The problem with our country isn't immigration, it's our crappy media and their relentless desire to create scandal where none exists, making it impossible to address important issues in an intelegent manner.
The legal system is rubbish as well 
BIGINOIL wrote: The phrase '...complained of not hearing "British accents" on the streets' is an example.
An example of what? You use the word 'complain' to interprete for the reader how Morrissey utterred said phrase. Shirley? If they'd instead said he'd 'ranted' it would've made him look even worse.
Is Morrissey saying that he was just stating a fact then? 
Remember...immigrants are okay...as long as they have the same colored skin...
I can't speak for the Brits (obviously), but I remember in the 70's, there was a huge backlash against the Asians that were moving to Texas (especially the Vietnamese that took over the shrimping business)...
now, it's the Mexicans...
of course, this is a vast overgeneralization...an nobody should ever take anything I say seriously...
Does this mean Mozzer is pitifully hung also?
This could run and run,but it's not really fair...... on Mozzer...
Maybe Mozzer got the lion's share of the gene pool,loin-wise
This could run and run and run..... Childish,but amusing....mildly.
He should not stay in Roma...
Eurostat figures point out that, since 2001 : Spain is the country where immigrants go the most (when I was in Primary school, Spaniards and Arabs were "our" immigrants... I almost forgot the Portugeses) Italy is second. Germany, third.
What the hell is he doing in Roma ? Did he not notice that the Italians do not speak with an Italian accent no more ?
He should move to France. Here, we have English colonies everywhere, in some peacefull villages the French are less than the English. And since stupid c****s elected Sarkozy, we have a Minister of Immigration (sounds like the good old time when Nazis were welcome by the 40's).
"My favourite actor is an Israeli, Lior Ashkenazi, and my favourite singer was born in Iraq and now lives in Egypt. So I'm not a part of Little Britain. And by that, I don't mean the show, obviously."
Hmmm... isn't that like the guy in the pub who's just told a homophobic joke to blank stares, backpedalling and claiming that 'Some of my best friends are gay'.
If Morrissey didn't say it, then he's been hard done-by.
If he said it, he's a twat.
Maybe with his failing career, he should contact Lucas and 'Walliams' before their bubble bursts too...
Chris Nash wrote: Maybe with his failing career, he should contact Lucas and 'Walliams' before their bubble bursts too...
Er, his last album went #1 in the UK and he's just convincingly sold out all five dates at the Roundhouse in London; hardly the sign of a failing career, Chris! His (recording) career did die on its arse post-97 but any band or musician would kill to get as successful a comeback as 2004's Quarry was.
As for this latest controversy, I'm inclined to agree with Col. Apparently a freelance journalist conducted the original interview which NME subsequently "heavily" re-edited; so much so the freelancer requested his name be taken off as it was so far removed from the original piece. He (apparently) sent this to Mozzer's management as stated on his official site True To You:
Hi Merck, Hope you're well. I should mention that for reasons I'll probably never understand, NME have rewritten the Moz piece. I had a read and virtually none of it is my words or beliefs so I've asked for my name to be taken off it. Just so you know when you read it. Best, Tim"
There is the distinct whiff of an NME stitch up here and let's face it, this is a publication that is a shadow of its former self. In recent years it's sharply declined from being a relatively credible, varied music publication to an indie Smash Hits aimed at 12 year old Gossip fans. The last time I remember NME being indispensable was at least five or six years ago and frankly I wouldn't wipe my arse with it these days.
I mean, the "Cool List"? Let me get that straight, a 'list' telling me what is cool? Style guides on what to wear so you can look like every other Babyshambles-esque twat with a trilby? Fuck off!
I'm more than inclined to give Moz the benefit of the doubt at this stage... mind you I'll definitely be buying NME next week purely for the letters section and all the - never mind keyboard - biro warriors!
There's a few chuckles to be had there I reckon
Sorry, didn't know about his number one. Shows how much impact it had on me
I don't really listen to all this 'modern' music any more...
What's a "British Accent" anyway?
The "received pronunciation" once so prevalent on the BBC!?
A while ago I was in Aberdeen and half the time I didn't have a snifter what they (Aberdonians) were saying to me, the same goes for people from Arbroath and Anstruther (and I'm Scottish), and numerous other places on the east cost of Scotland.
An' wit aboot ma ain accent, west coast Glaswegian, 's that "British" enough fir him?
Is Scots Gallic, Manx, Geordie, Scouse, etc etc etc British accents?
Or is it just if your skin happens to have a slightly different pigmentation that you don't have a "British" accent?
Wit a ham shank!
"Hang the manky Manc, 'cause the shit he constantly spouts says nothing to me about my life"!
Finally, someone with the guts to give the NME the ass-kicking it deserves. It's been getting away with murder for years and thinks it can do whatever it likes to bands and artists. I hope Mozzer takes them for every penny.
Isn't a huge proportion of Morrissey's US fanbase made up of Mexican-Americans, i.e. immigrants?
I read the interview (in the shop, never buy the NME anymore, as poster above says its aimed at 12 year olds now, though admittedly it used to be aimed at 19 year old slightly pretentious students - presumably it took an exitorial decision to move in on the old Smash Hits audience once that mag folded?).
Didn't think the guy said anything actually racist, he just sounded very conservative.
404 error wrote:
Didn't think the guy said anything actually racist, he just sounded very conservative.
So he's not a kettle; just a bit of a pot!
Within reason, expressing an opinion on immigration which happens not to be massively left wing or liberal is not racism; it's just a different point of view. You don't have to agree with what he said but slinging the racist tag at him as some people have been is a bit tenuous.
Mozzer's statement is better written than anything I've read in NME in the last ten years and as is echoed in most of these Guardian blog comments it's a magazine that quality-wise hit the skids a long time ago and should really go.
I only bought it recently when a band I liked was on the cover but the recent AHW "tribute" was the last straw really. It was like they scribbled it on the back of a pub napkin then passed it to the printers.
If it ain't a Pete Doherty, Amy Skankhouse or Arctic Monkeys related story at the NME then it's fucked
Funnily enough, I nearly bought the damn thing on Sunday, just to see exactly what the article said.
I went for the Fraggles magazine instead. It's a much better read.
Good reply from the man; helps put to rest some of the worries people (me included) had about him with the BNP stuff in the 90's.
GreenBlueGrey wrote: Good reply from the man; helps put to rest some of the worries people (me included) had about him with the BNP stuff in the 90's.
BNP? I always saw him more as an NF man meself.
Nice summation of the situation by Billy Bragg -
"Do I think he's a racist? No. Do I think he's foolish to say these things? Yes I do. He's someone who used to be able to articulate an Englishness that's attractive and charming. No, he's not a racist, he's a bore. And to the old Morrissey, that would have been even worse, and I speak as a Smiths fan."
I don't think the guy's a racist. He did sound ridiculously conservative in that interview though, as if any kind of change is always bad. I suppose its partly a pose with him though isn't it?
But immigration is hardly changing the face of Britain, the country is still over 90% white and over 80% English (I think there are some other indiginous nations in the UK, but their names escape me at the moment and anyway they're not statistically significant and even worse at football than England).
The country would be changing even if all immigration stopped tomorrow, 'cos of little things like technology and global capitalism. And was it really that great in the first place?
My only doubt about immigration is about how crowded this country is. I really envy the space the Yanks have with their huge houses and cars, cheap land and wide open wilderness. But even with no immigration this country is always going to be pretty cramped for space.
(I don't know why there's this myth that the US has a liberal immigration policy - the country is 40 times the size of the UK and only takes about 4 times the number of legal immigrants each year and about the same number of asylum seekers. Its partly cos the US has historically had quite a tight immigration regime that is population density is still 1/8th of the UK's. Yet for some reason there's this idea that the US is more 'open' to immigrants than we are.)
One take might be that Mozz just likes the idea of the Knighstbridge air being filled with British accents just like he seems nostalgic for many icons of Britishness that are long gone.
It's not considered un-pc to point out that nobody seems to wear a trilby any more, or even to express regret about such a fact. Or to complain, even, that footballers aren't as gentlemenly as they could be.
I don't see the problem in pointing out in certain parts of the country which were once considered to be symbols of that country's identity have changed.
It's the way in which these opinions are expressed that holds the key to any nastiness.
Jonez seemed to be sitting on the fence until Mozz called him dribblynose. Now the gloves are off and he's actaully claiming that the NME toned down his peice. Brilliant.
Ironically, can anyone think of anything more British than a nice gentlemanly round of libel writs?
The Americans may have lead the way in daft personal injury claims and ugly divorces, but it's lovely to see someone is still hilding a torch for the old ways.
The best outcome would be a three year fight, an award of one guinea to Morrissey and the blasted NME dissapearing into a cloud of legal costs.
404 error wrote: I think there are some other indiginous nations in the UK, but their names escape me at the moment and anyway they're not statistically significant and even worse at football than England).
Ahem, I think you'll find they usually beat England, including my own little backwater, who's "national" side is drawn from a popujlation base smaller than that of Southamption.
So, poo to you with nobs on 
Well, I'm not sure where they dig up these NME journos these days, but any music journalist worth his salt would have least have known about David Bowie..
Tim Jonze (when asked about Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday"): "Oh, I don't know anything about David Bowie."
WTF?
