An irregular, irreverent, post-modern account of the surreal, the ordinary, and the bizarre happenings on and around the Felia lavender farm in Crete

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Just like Lemmings

There are a couple of things I like about Cliff Richard: first, he has never bred and so we do not have the prospect of more of that ilk; and second, he either doesn't record anymore or else I don't hear him if he does. But when I read this ( link to BBC) this morning it fair made my blood boil over with the distaste I always had for him as a performer when he was alive.

Is it not enough that these no-talent performers are paid vast sums of money to do what they do so badly while they are working? And that they continue to reap financial benefits of those appalling performances for 50 years thereafter? Clearly not! No way. THis superannuated creep wants that extended to life plus 70 years. That's right life plus 70 years. In point of fact he, and a lot like him, want to be treated as if they were artists - like the people who wrote the songs that he made all of his huge piles of money from originally and many of whom probably died in penury. Artist my arse. Most genuine artists have a limited ability to produce the works of art for which they are paid - and usually they are badly paid at that. But this clown and others like him can go on churning their crap out for years while there remains a gullible market for it.

One of the justifications that he cites is his "pension" - well I'm sorry but I don't know of many jobs where your pension is paid for 70 years after you die. If I did I'd take one. It gets worse though, the god bothering Cliff opines - "Sometimes I'm absolutely fed up with singing Living Doll, but I have sung it constantly since '59 because every time I sing it live that generates sales of the original record and that brings royalties to me and the writer", note the order of precedence of the beneficiaries - are we supposed to believe that he sings it to keep the writer in beer money? Are we supposed to pity him having to sing a song that he's fed up with - join the world and get a job Cliff - that's what work is about for a lot of people. My heart bleeds.

Sanctimonious, greedy gutted, git. Copyright is a veritable con that has for too long been extended to people that it was never meant to protect and brings them in frightening amount of unearned wealth. It is time that this particular loophole - rather than being widened and extended for more lazy, useless sods to crawl through - was drawn tight around the chicken skin necks of these ungrateful, idle sods.

Just as a footnote Cliff, if you're fed up with Living Doll how do you think the rest of us feel?

2 comments:

  1. Be fair! Cliff does a lot for Jesus, whoever he is, and he also gives 10% of his vast earnings to charity, though whether that is before or after the tax relief it attracts I don't know.

    Frankly I think that performers are grossly overpaid, whethere they be geriatric crooners like Cliff or tax-evading (third-rate)actors like Sean Connery compared to those who actually create the material they perform.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just read the link. Love the hubris of the man, summed up in this quote, "We are as important to a song as the writer is because we give it life," said Sir Cliff. No, mate, it is the writer who conceives it, nurtures it, and finally gives it birth; you just sing it reasonably competently, that's all.

    ReplyDelete