Have a Shitty Weekend!

Photo by Milan Boonstra

I’ll tell you something for free: writing these intros is getting easier every week. You might think that by now I'd have run out of things to say, that there are only so many ways you can posit the sentiment "have a shitty weekend, you arseholes" before it starts to seem like maybe it isn't a joke, and that maybe I'm not just putting myself through this drudge to help you avoid having a bad time in your only free time of the week.

Luckily, the mire of god-awful events planned by delusional people is a mire that keeps on spitting out juicy pieces of crap for me to hoof around the kitchen floor. I mean, take a look at this lot, all of this fucking trash. Dull, boring, predictable fucking trash. Slagging it off so that we can all have a big laugh at it is the easiest job in the world.

In a way, it's comforting to know that although we live on a planet that is supposedly replete with wonder and excitement, everything gets old instantly. The second ride on a roller coaster will never be as good as the first. It’s gotten to the point where collectively we yearn for tragedy, a bomb going off nearby, a train crash, just to experience the exhilaration of death. Sure, going up the Shard and peering down at the bacteria-like formations of humanity in all their glorious meaninglessness is entertaining for a while, but once you get that lift back down to assimilate again with the dots and the ants, you’re just another moving mannequin, feeding off stimulus until you rot away forever. Here are three more things to avoid if you want to keep the wolves of despair at the door this weekend. MUSEUM OF WATER
Somerset House, the Strand, London – 6-29 June Come one, come all, and experience the magic of the Museum of Water! The kids want to go to the Harry Potter movie set exhibition? The wife wants to go to the V&A to see some outfits or whatever they have in there? Why not ruin everyone’s day and force them to think really hard about how scarce water can be in some parts of the world?

Among the exhilarating, transparent, H20-themed exhibits are "a melted snowman" and "droplets from a baby’s bath", which to me sounds less like a museum exhibition and more like the contents of a sketchbook belonging to a child murderer. It kind of looks like they’re just going to put water in different containers, which is almost heroically smug, and the listing reads like a Kensington yummy mum has written to impress her mate. "It’s all very relevant," it assures you, "what with the issue of access to fresh water increasingly becoming The Big Question."

Here’s a bigger question: What kind of terminal dullard would spend a second in this place when they can just buy a bottle of Evian and stare at it for an hour and a bit and have A Really, Really Hard Think? Not you, that's who; so don't give in to the hangover guilt that comes whispering in your ear tomorrow morning. DIGGLE BLUES FESTIVAL
Diggle, Saddleworth, Oldham – 5-8 June

It’s hard to take the piss out of a bunch of 40-50 year-old men playing covers of Cream – actually, no, it’s not. Diggle Blues Festival, "a weekend of free blues performances in the scenic Saddleworth village of Diggle, where blues meets greenery!", will look a lot like an annual Fathers 4 Justice get-together, but with more guitars and men trying to sing like their lives have meant anything at all.

That’s the thing about blues – it’s for black Americans who’ve had to endure historic hardships and gruelling lives of injustice, not vinyl dads with Guinness guts and a brand new Les Paul in the garage. I’ve always found something oddly creepy about these old man music fetes – like they could be the subject of a particularly pedestrian M Night Shyamalan movie, where the local teenage emo population get kidnapped by a Yardbirds cover band and forced to listen to Ry Cooder B-sides until they're dead.

If recent history has taught us anything, it's that children should stay away from the grey-haired ones.

Photo by Alex Sturrock

BRITISH KARAOKE IDOL
40 venues around the UK, May-September 2014

According to the listing, "Mix Karaoke Bar is one of only 40 venues to be picked to host the very first British Karaoke Idol." Wow, one of only 40?! Get the floats out lads, it’s time to throw these motherfuckers a parade!

I’m not sure what differentiates a "karaoke competition" from a "singing contest", tbh; do you get marked down for not being able to read or something? You’re singing to a backing track – if you’re serious about it you’d probably have already remembered the words anyway, so what’s the difference? There’s no showmanship in reading a screen. Is there a "reading a book out loud" competition as well?

Maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe the British Karaoke Idol competition will be fun: Friends and family getting together, getting smashed, having a sing-song, not taking things too seriously, and running up a nice big bar tab – maybe even a trip to the Big Stink, London Town, for the grand finale. Or it’ll just be full of depressing people necking snakebite and pissing down their legs.

Take your pick, dipshits, the choice – as ever – is yours.

@joe_bish