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Here's that video of Richard Blackwood zesting the inside of a lemon. I have watched this video maybe 15 or 20 times now. It might be 25. I have watched this video more than I've watched this .gif of Messi scoring the most Messi goal of all time – Messi more than human now, Messi essentially Jesus tap-dancing on water, Messi now just squinting at the universal rules of physics and the base rules of football and just turning his body into electricity, in six short seconds rendering the mighty oak of Athletic Bilbao down into a splintered stump – because this is better. Richard Blackwood is the Messi of fucking up zesting a lemon.Richard Blackwood doesn't know what zest is. — Mike (@pyskick)May 31, 2015
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This is the internet age, and despite a 19-second video being literally embedded 113 words behind you, we have to go through the Japanese tea ceremony of me describing the video to you, in case you are at work and without headphones, in case you have somehow managed to not yet see that time Richard Blackwood fucked up zesting a lemon. Skip this bit. We open with Richard Blackwood slicing a lemon. He is telling Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer some story about how EastEnders is good. They are cooking and chatting. Lads, you know. This is what lads do now. And then he asks: "You want me to just squeeze the juice in there?" And Rimmer goes: "Just the zest." "Just the zest, yeah?" Blackwood says. "Alright." Then he slices the lemon again.
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Who is Richard Blackwood? What is Richard Blackwood? He is a comedian, ostensibly, but also a presenter, a rapper, an actor. In 2000 he was touted as the UK's answer to Will Smith – a celebrity polymath, speaking any language of entertainment he might turn his hand to – but instead he sort of became a semi-famous temp, trapped in a world where he was too renowned to get an actual job (Can you imagine Richard Blackwood working in a bank? You cannot. Can you see him working in a kitchen? No.) and not quite likeable enough to make a full-on crack at fame. Richard Blackwood, stranded in fame limbo. Richard Blackwood doing pick-up gigs around central London. Richard Blackwood telling you your kids might smell of hammers. Richard Blackwood's wilderness years. Richard Blackwood, long-time Shrek donkey. Then he got a gig on EastEnders and zested a lemon wrong on live TV.Now would be a good time to revisit Blackwood's 2000-era fun pop single, 1-2-3-4 Get with the Wicked, because it is the most 2000 thing to ever happen. You've got the "Ladies? Fellas?" call-and-response that Justin Timberlake obviously cribbed for Senorita. You've got the refrain "What, what?" and you've also got the refrain, "Who, who?", shouted as though chanting the ancient words and curses that summon up the Baha Men. You've got a Deetah guest verse. You've got Blackwood's enduring hubris – "RB runs the show," he claims, which is a lie, because Richard Blackwood does not run any show – and you've got some calypso drums. It is a thousand bad songs at once, and it could only happen in the year 2000. The year 2000, when people still bought CDs, before they figured out properly how to Napster everything. When money still flowed into the economy. When a music exec with a ponytail stood silently in a room listening to a demo of Richard Blackwood barking "WHAT WHAT? WHO WHO?" and went: "Yes. Let's pay money to make this a thing." The excess of pre-financial crisis Britain, summed up in one three-minute, 36-second long chase for the ethereal, unknowable concept of "the wicked".Trending on thump: If You're Staring at the DJ, You're Getting Dance Music Wrong
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I mean fuck. It's only zest, isn't it? Not everyone knows what zest is: it is fine. I cannot poach an egg still, despite watching multiple YouTube videos. I quite often forget to put salt in things, despite salt being the most important ingredient there is. We all have culinary blind spots. We all don't know things. But after the long, tortured redemption of Blackwood – a phoenix diving into the embers of the post-millennium world of excess and being birthed anew on stage dressed as a donkey in Shrek the Musical – this feels like a particular kick in the teeth. Because we have all been there, haven't we? Making a fool of ourselves at a party while trying to both maintain breezy smalltalk and load up a crisp with hummus. We've all just had our brain do a hard reset at an inopportune time and we've forgotten how basic fruit grating techniques go. We have all, one time or another, done this. Watch this video and think: are we not all just humans toiling against the face of God? Are we not all, sometimes, Richard Blackwood zesting the inside of a lemon?@joelgolbyMore stuff from VICE:Hostgator Dotcom, the Man Covered in Porn URLs, Is Getting His Face BackBanksy Bought My HouseThat Viral Photo of the Guy Proposing at Someone Else's Wedding Is the Exact Moment Love DiedTrending on NOISEY: Fuck London – British Music is Booming Right Now