Blunt as a BreadKnife

Watching telly in the comforting glow of my gas fireside last night, I felt a great urge to consult my thesaurus. The first word I sought to explore was 'insipid'. Alas, there was no entry. I ventured subsequently towards 'bland'. Here is what I found:

'Insipid, flavourless, mild, dull, boring, uninspired, uninspiring, unoriginal, unexciting, tedious, nondescript, trite, vapid, mediocre, humdrum, weak'.

Fitting and all as many of these epithets were, none conspired to meet the requirements of what I was watching. I chanced upon 'dangerous'.

'Perilous, unsafe, hazardous, precarious, unsound, alarming, ruthless, nasty, treacherous'.

Here I found myself getting close to the source. In a desperate attempt to find the words I was looking for that would mirror my sentiments as I watched RTE 2 between 11.30 and 12.30. After searching high up and low down, I found them under a particularly fitting word.

'Edgeless, candid, forthright, bluff, tactless, rude, abrupt, insensitive, weak'.

What was the word?

The word was Blunt. James Blunt. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

James Blunt assaulted my television screen with his hopelessly awful blend of cat-cries and aural sodomy for nearly 25 minutes. Friends of mine have remonstrated with me over my sustained attacks on his music, his views and his haircut. 'He's harmless they say'.(Innocuous, non-toxic, mild, non-irritant, inoffensive, unoffending, innocent, blameless, gentle).

James Blunt is none of those things. He is evil. He is Satanic. He is vile. (nasty, unpleasant, disagreeable, obnoxious, odious, repulsive, repellent, repugnant, sickening, monstrous.) He has plumbed new depths. When someone like John Kelly, an ardent champion of all things alternative, indulges this bastard child of the mainstream, you know the rules have changed. There are many out there who believe this sucking blunt to be out there at the cutting edge of singer-songwriting. After a year in which we have been blessed with one of the most hauntingly brilliant albums of the last decade, the average punter on the street will generally respond to queries about Funeral by retorting, 'Arcade who'? while plugging in their Ipod headphones to listen to 'You're Beautiful'.

Something is rotten in the State of Music.

So, in order to strike back, please tune in to Other Voices on 15th Feb. After witnessing Horslips (ground-breaking, playful, insightful, accomplished, visionary, epic, melodic, life-affirming, influential, great, brilliant, exceptional etc etc etc) play their first electric set in 25 years, cast your vote to bring them back for the final episode of the series, and to keep Blunt away from young ears. It's the only way they'll learn.