The not so hot one hundred

Holy fuck! Did you see the list of the 100 greatest Britons? Was that a sick joke or what?

John Peel (43, not his age) beat John Logie Baird by one. Boy George polled five places higher than King Arthur. David Bowie nipped in ahead of Guy Fawkes. Paul McCartney showed his back to Sir Alexander Fleming. And Robbie Williams was breathing down the neck of The Unknown Soldier.

Okey dokey, no problems there. Some folk in the anti-happiness league might complain, but Sam reckons that those voting patterns got it about right, the great god of the big beat being accorded its proper status in the all time pantheon.

John Peel invented The Fall, for example, whereas John Logie Baird merely invented the telly. Okay, so without the goggle box we’d have no Tony Soprano, David Brent or those terrific soft porn shows laughably masquerading as serious documentaries on Channel 4. On the other hand, we’d have no Lyrics Board either, and for that alone old Logie ought to have been tried and convicted for crimes against humanity. Then again, at their most extreme, Peel’s indie tastes rival the Lyrics Board for sheer ear-blasting horror, but he once wrote sleeve notes for a Tyrannosaurus Rex album, so in the great hot one hundred of life, that’s enough to put him back in front of Bairdy in my book.

Royal Groupies

Boy George five up on King Arthur? That’s cool. Old Arf may have attempted to unite all of Britain against the Romans, in the process inspiring one of the great mythical sagas of our time but, as against that, he didn’t take loads of smack, go out with Marilyn and record ‘Karma Chameleon’. In fact, if George had been around to advise King Arf, the latter would have realised that “war, war is stupid” and furthermore that “people are stupid”, and stayed at home shagging royal groupies and quaffing mead, instead of taking on the might of Lazio and going down on the away goal.

Bowie edging out Guy Fawkes? A close call. After all, one of them inspired millions of people to go out at night dressed up in weird clothes while the other… eh, okay, not a great example. Still, I think the punters got it about right again. Guy tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament and didn’t get away with it, whereas The Thin White Duke actually surivived and thrived after committing a much greater atrocity; I refer, of course, to ‘The Laughing Gnome’.

Next up, Macca versus Fleming. A bit tighter this. After all, Alexander only went and discovered penicillin, without which crucial jab in the ass many’s the rocker would never make the gig, owing to a bad dose of galloping knobrot. So, no question about Flem’s outstanding services to the rock industry. And when you think about it, Flem didn’t write and record ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ either; his thing was eradicating illness not causing it. However, Macca rallies and finally wins out on the grounds that ‘Yesterday’ has probably helped more people through long, dark nights of the soul than any number of swift jabs in the buttocks. Rock ‘n’ roll wins again. Hooray.

And then there’s the strange case of The Unknown Soldier beating Robbie Williams by one point. Sam can see both side of the argument here but his own inclination is to call this one a draw. And for why? Well, put it this way: Robbie Williams is famous for being famous, whereas The Unknown Soldier is famous for not being famous.

Nice chick

All that said, why then does Sam consider the ‘100 Greatest Britons’ to be nothing short of a bad joke? The answer, of course, is that at the time of writing, folk as diverse as Shakespeare, Brunel, Newton, Darwin and Lady Diana are all heading dear John Lennon in the people’s vote.

Can these fuckers be serious? I mean, how many of the above-named great ones actually have an airport named after them? John does.

Go through ‘em one by one and The Walrus comes out on top every time. Darwin? A feisty old fucker but surely no-one buys that monkey shit any more? Brunel? Sounds like a perfume to me. Newton? Bright bloke but you just can’t visualise him in the sack with Yoko Ono. Lady Di? Nice chick but a bit Ringo Starr in the brain stakes. Willy The Shake? Had a way with words to be sure but even at his most inspired could never have written ‘Imagine’.

And so it goes. Line ‘em all up against ol’ John and he knocks ’em down one by one. The greatest Briton who ever lived? Unquestionably.

With the possible exception, obviously, of Oliver Cromwell.

Your ever lovin’ Samuel J Snort Esq