Corden Bleurgh
Here I go again. I can't help myself. It's got to the point where me complaining about Corden's ever-presence on my television via Twitter is probably so prevalent that it's more annoying than he is. But look, I swear I'd see less of the cunt if I was actually him. Yes yes, I realise that he is just some geezer on television. I know this. I know all of it. And I even thought Gavin & Stacey was rather good. That is, also, irrelevant as far as this discussion goes. What I'm really pissed off about, more than anything, is the ubiquity.
There was a time, older readers will remember, in the early 90s, when you were never more than five seconds away from Tony Slattery, whatever TV channel you were watching. Ah, yes. I can imagine the blank looks on some of your faces. Tony who? Slattery? Doesn't even ring a bell, I suppose. But yes, there was about a six-month spell in about 1991 when he was on everything. I mean everything. You ended up going down the shops and expecting him to be serving you at the counter. Not that there was much wrong with Slattery, you understand; and I'm sure he's a delightful enough cove in person - but it's the omnipresence that did for him in the end. It got to a stage where he was more well known than the Queen, than Jesus Christ himself... er, all right, I'm exaggerating, but you get the general idea. And now... well now, not so much. As I say, probably a charming chap, didn't really do anything offensively bad... it's just that he was everywhere, and we all got sick of him.
It's the same with Corden. Sometimes I expect him to come leaping at me out of the fridge when I come home from work. "Not now, Corden!" I scream, battling with him in the kitchen, my foot skidding in the cat litter tray... you know the kind of thing. You can't switch on a television set without his big gurning face looming at you. It's off-putting. It's creepy. It's like that bit in that rubbish Doctor Who episode where everyone ends up getting the same face - speaking of which, he's even on that bloody programme this weekend.
There's no escape. Before you know it, Corden will be reading out the Shipping Forecast, presenting Rugby Special and doing the Lottery numbers. He's everywhere. He's everyone. He is everywhere you look. Everywhere you go, it's Corden. It's beginning to drive me slowly insane.
I'm trying to develop a new product, the CordonBlock device. It's in the early developmental stages, but I hope you'll bear with me. My idea is that it's an intelligent piece of software that scans your TV looking out for signs of the great man. As soon as you hear a lot of shouting in a regional accent that makes no comical sense, but which is inexplicably greeted with roaring laughter, like a Cockney Max Boyce, it immediately launches a jug of boiling water into your eyes. And thus you are spared having to see him.
People following my childish rants on Twitter have already quite rightly pointed out the CordenBlock's flaws. Firstly, while you're spared the sight of him, you're not spared the sound of his voice yelling away in a high-pitched fucking nonsense. Even worse, the CordenBlock has rendered you helpless and blind, meaning that you're unable to locate the TV remote to get rid of him. A nightmare, given that there's a pretty good chance of him being on 28,000 successive fucking programmes, contributing precisely nothing to each and every one of them, and in all the ad breaks as well, and in your nightmares, like that scary old couple from Mulholland Drive, boring into your very soul...
Secondly, the sheer amount of boiling water required could deplete the world's resources to a dangerously low level. Given that he's on TV about a billion times every half an hour, the power surges and water used could very easily bankrupt everyone who owns the CordonBlock, and put Britain even further into recession. (And we can't have that. It'll mean our Coalition Government targeting even more poor people and badgers, for a start, while ensuring their millionaire City mates who caused the whole fuckup in the first place are safely cosseted away from any pain.)
Anyway, many readers have suggested to me an alternative means of removing Corden from TV: a 'CordonBlur' device which obscures his entire face from the screen whenever he's on it; or a 'CordonBleu' device which turns the entire screen blue, just to be sure he can't be seen in the slightest. Others say that a giant opaque dome should descend from the ceiling, covering the TV, while flashing lights and klaxxons warn of the impending danger. Further suggestions have been made of a "CordenCordon", an exclusion zone that could keep viewers a safe distance away from the scene of the crime.
A great idea, but the most creative suggestion came from reader @glsurman, who said bait could be laid in HMV for our hero, and the device could be called "Cordenatrapnoturningbacklostinmusic". Genius.
Perhaps I might offer another, cheaper, suggestion: a network of spotters, linked by Twitter and Facebook, who can warn others to Corden's presence on a nearby screen. The message could go like this: "C*RD*N ITV1 NOW: THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL".
Together, the hive mind can defeat him. Oh he'll try. He'll try and turn up wherever we least expect it. In a cereal box. Down the bottom of the garden, next to the radishes. Under a patio stone. Hidden under the dining room table. Oh, he's a slippery one all right, but we can work together to defeat him. Who knows? Maybe only having him on TV every few weeks might make him, you know, bearable again.
Until then, though, keep em peeled. We can fight this menace together.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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June 7th, 2010 - 14:14
Never seen him nor heard of him. Sorry.
June 7th, 2010 - 16:38
Nor me.
Life without a TV is great.
June 7th, 2010 - 14:18
Personally I’m far more pissed off about the bleeding ubiquity – or is it ubiquousness – of that idiot Jeremy Vine. Not only an unpleasant manner and nasty, whiny voice, but thick with it. Surely the only TV presenter who could think that a ‘VC and bar’ was referring to a medal and the pin it hangs from!
June 7th, 2010 - 14:25
Some good suggestions, but I fear that most of them will be too conspicuous, and less-emotionally prepared individuals will begin to panic wildly, causing stampedes that are likely to cause more damage than the original Corden threat (yes, even more).
When there is a terrorist threat in public places there is often a code word/phrase used to alert those responsible for timely and calm evacuation to begin the process (when I used to work behind the bar at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield it was “Inspector Sands is in the building” or something). Could I suggest a similar approach is employed in this situation?
A few key individuals should be identified. These people go on Corden-watch in shifts (short shifts of 90% of his comic appeal. They will therefore suspect nothing, and the risk of his new media henchman “heading it off at the pass” will be minimised.
June 7th, 2010 - 14:29
As I pointed out last night, corporate sponsorship has been taken to the next level with James Cordon being given the role of Official Twat of the F.A. & England.
June 7th, 2010 - 14:41
Ooh, great Mulholland Drive ref. But they were inescapable because they could shrink to minute size, crawl under your door and then chase you to the bedroom, leaving you with no choice but to shoot yourself in the head.
Is Corden really that ubiquitous?
I am afraid.
June 7th, 2010 - 14:42
*patpatrubrub* It will be ok. As much as I love your filthy mouth on Twitter, I don’t want you stressed.
June 7th, 2010 - 14:45
Time to publish Cordon’s doodlings of Mohammed.
June 7th, 2010 - 16:36
I don’t think it will last. Corden was alongside Big Sam Allardyce and Dreary O’Leary on Sunday evening. It all looked very jovial, but I got the impression that Big Sam was beginning to get pissed off with the fat oaf.
The hilarity of “that funny bloke off the telly” wears off really quickly. Someone like Big Sam will hopefully land a big fist on Corden’s big lardy chin. It’ll be the highlight of the World Cup.
One other thought. Corden shares his initials: JC, with the son of God. Now if this JC really is the Second Coming and reincarnation of Christ, we’re doomed!
June 7th, 2010 - 17:36
He’ll disappear soon enough; remember at Christmas when David Tennant was everywhere. Now he is not everywhere. It’ll be the same with Corden.
June 7th, 2010 - 19:21
it’s not that bad yet surely? remember the peter kaye flood? that lasted years (or seemed to at least)! at least cordons dr who episode looks to be better than kayes was… not that this is an achivement mind.
June 7th, 2010 - 20:01
I kid you not; I saw your tweets on this subject last night. At precisely the same time, the missus and I decided that there was chuff all on TV and so scoured the film channels for something to watch. We found Simon Pegg’s ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ and gave it a go.
In the first five minutes. James. Fucking. Corden.
June 7th, 2010 - 20:20
I don’t have a telly either, but I do remember Tony Slattery on ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ and, er… ‘Just A Gigolo’? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear…
June 8th, 2010 - 21:12
Anyone remember Ps and Qs, the baffling etiquette quiz he hosted on BBC2? 30 minutes of questions about which fork is for what and whether you should offer the port to the Rear Admiral or the Field Marshall first. One of the team captains was journo Jonathan Meades, who spent the whole of the episode I saw looking as if he’d rather be on a rack somewhere.
June 7th, 2010 - 21:04
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich
June 7th, 2010 - 22:22
1) Max Boyce wasn’t just Welsh, he was actually quite funny (and yes I am a taff). I was only very little but surely he was never as ubiquitous as Cordon was he? Rugby matches don’t count. Cymru am byth!
2) I’m being very logical here, and would never intentionally defend Cordon, but it is his fault or the fault of the TV producers who are squeezing every ounce of something out of him before he self destructs (which I believe Slattery did). So, shouldn’t you be working on a product for them and their obviously crap taste, and utter disgust for us? I know someone with say it exists already and it’s called a remote….
June 8th, 2010 - 07:29
At least there was (sort of) a reason for David Tennant being ubiquitous- what with the big Doctor Who send off. Corden just seems to have become mystifyingly everywhere- appearing on Doctor Who being frankly just a coincidence.
June 8th, 2010 - 12:28
‘Rugby Special’? Now it would be impressive if Corden had the ability to spread his ubiquity into the past. How horrifying is that concept?
June 8th, 2010 - 12:30
Don’t rule it out. I can just see him rewriting history. He’ll be like Forrest Gump.
June 8th, 2010 - 14:37
Regarding Tony Slattery (who always came across as a really nice bloke)…
“In the mid-1990s, after leaving Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Slattery suffered what he described as a ‘mid-life crisis’, culminating in 1996 with a six-month period of reclusiveness, during which he did not answer his door or telephone, “or open bills, or wash… I just sat.” Eventually, one of his friends broke down the door of his flat and persuaded him to go to hospital. He was diagnosed as suffering from bipolar disorder. He discussed this period and his subsequent living with the disorder in a documentary made by Stephen Fry, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, in 2006; Slattery claimed that he spent time living in a warehouse and “throwing [his] furniture into the Thames”.
It would be terrible of me to wish the same fate upon Corden, wouldn’t it…?
June 13th, 2010 - 23:13
I read this article a while back and thought you were being a bit harsh on the bloke, but after a week of the media conducting what can only be described as a ‘shock and awe’ Cordenite bombardment I’m considering ditching my TV and moving to the top of a steep hill, where his lardy mass will be unable to follow.
June 16th, 2010 - 10:22
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-hate-James-Corden/235554007406?ref=ts#!/pages/I-hate-James-Corden/235554007406?ref=ts
Their are more people than you know that are sick of this parasite being the most untalented,borish and moronic face of bad taste on tv