...and some Little Mermaid sanitary towels too, please

What. The. Fuck.

Roland VIMA: just what's the point?

I love Roland. No, it's not a homoerotic fantasy. I love the Roland Corporation, musical instrument manufacturers.

The first Roland product I owned was an E-30 keyboard, back in 1989. That was replaced by an E-70 in 1991, and then an EM-2000 in 1998. A keyboard which I still own, and still use professionally. It has been battered and bruised through 10 years of gigging, and the only problem was when the power supply fizzled out a year ago.

Along with this, my pedal board is a Roland PK-7, my mixer is a Roland VM-3100, and at home I have a Roland G-70 workstation so that I can make music during the day as well.

So when Roland announce a brand new product range in the UK, I should be excited. In fact, I'm bemused.

That product is Roland VIMA, and it has been around in the US for about two years now. And it's completely and utterly pointless.

I'm not going to bother explaining what it is, because Roland have already done that in a handy video which can be found on YouTube - here, in fact. Take a look and then read on.

Firstly, and something that isn't mentioned in the video, I have a problem with the specification of VIMA. The keyboard contains 128 orchestral sounds. That's the same number as my E-30 contained. Twenty bloody years ago! By comparison, there are nearly 1,600 voices in my G-70, and over 1,100 in my 10-year-old EM-2000. This specification is, quite frankly, crap.

But my real issue with VIMA is that it doesn't actually do anything of value. It certainly doesn't do anything that you can't either already do, or can do with a PC a whole lot cheaper than a VIMA keyboard costs (about £4,995 in case you're wondering).

Let's take a look at what the YouTube video says VIMA can help you do:

Authentic Sound
I've already mentioned this - the sounds will be very good (Roland's sounds always are), but there aren't anywhere near enough of them to justify the price of the instrument.

The non-VIMA alternative: Roland's own low-end electronic pianos offer the same weighted keyboard and can be linked to a sound module for hundreds more voices than VIMA offers. A saving of at least £3,000.

VIMA Tunes
These are just glorified MIDI karaoke files, and you can download thousands of them free-of-charge by doing a quick Google search. Pretty much any decent keyboard these days can play back karaoke files, and most of the higher-end ones have a TV output so you can see the lyrics on a big screen. Failing that, a free PC program such as vanBasco's Karaoke Player can play back MIDI karaoke files through your PC's soundcard and display the lyrics too. All VIMA adds is the ability to overlay the lyrics onto still pictures. Is that really worth £5,000?

The non-VIMA alternative: You're reading this, so you have a PC. Download vanBasco's Karaoke Player and grab some .kar files from the web. Total cost - £0.

VIMA's ability to display the score or a "virtual piano roll" (an utterly pointless display if ever I saw one) is matched by high-end Roland and Yamaha keyboards and electronic pianos. These will set you back pretty much the same amount of money as VIMA, but are vastly superior instruments. If you're happy to forsake the weighted keyboard action, you can cut the cost considerably. With a PC, downloadable program MIDI-Notator (which only costs $20 to buy) lets you take a MIDI file, pick some tracks and print out the score.

The non-VIMA alternative: How about a Yamaha PSR-S900? A saving of about £4,000 - and a much better instrument than VIMA.

Audio CDs
What?! It can play Audio CDs and you can play along with them?! Wow. The only other way to do that is to play an audio CD and then play along with it. You know, like you can do as long as you own a CD player. No point whatsoever.

The non-VIMA alternative: Play an audio CD. Then play along with it using any musical instrument you care to mention.

The ability to remove the vocal line from commercial CDs is always massively fudged in adverts such as the VIMA video. The only way to remove the vocals is to remove all the parts of the original recording that are panned to the centre of the stereo spectrum. This removes the lead vocal, but may also remove any number of other parts. Usually, what it fails to remove is the effects (echo, reverb, and so on) that were applied to the lead vocal in the studio, leaving you with an ethereal-sounding version of the original. And, of course, if the original was a mono recording, this doesn't work at all. Regardless, a free add-on is available for the also-free WinAmp that does exactly the same thing, and which works with mp3, wma and wav files as well as audio CDs. There's also a free add-on that lets you change the pitch and tempo of any sound file as it plays back.

The non-VIMA alternative: WinAmp and the add-ons are free.

Slide Show
Now we enter the realm of complete and utter pointlessness. A slideshow on your TV with musical accompaniment? Let's see now...

Pretty much every digital camera comes equipped with a cable that lets you connect it to a TV set. They also have a slideshow mode that lets you view all of the stored images as a slideshow. So connect your camera to the TV, put it in slideshow mode, and then play a CD along with it, or something. Or whatever musical instrument you have to hand.

If VIMA let you record the results, it would have a point. But it doesn't! Utterly, utterly useless.

The non-VIMA alternative: Play the slideshow and play music along with it. It won't cost you any extra money. If you have a current-generation games console (XBox360, Wii, PS3) it's even easier - and at least £3,700 cheaper than VIMA!

Video
See above, but substitute the word "slideshow" for the word "video". This is even more pointless, because absolutely every digital video camera comes with TV connection cables!

Portable Audio Device
Oh good grief - it gets worse! £5,000 for a glorified iPod dock?! They're just taking the piss now.

The non-VIMA alternative: Connect your mp3 player to a TV or hi-fi using the cable that came with it (or one that will cost <£10 from Maplin if it wasn't provided).

Karaoke
Well, this is just an amalgam of some of the things mentioned above (although what's the point of being able to connect the live feed from a video camera to your TV set? You're in the same bloody room as the resulting picture... can't you just look at it?!). The section about VIMA Tunes pretty much covers all of this. The only thing that you might need to match the capability of VIMA is the ability to connect a second microphone. No problem; a microphone mixer (which would allow you to connect up to four microphones) costs about £12 from Maplin.

The non-VIMA alternative: see above, plus that £12 mic mixer!

Sorry, Roland, but is the massive compromise in terms of the quality of the actual keyboard instrument really worth the extra £4,000 or so over a "normal" keyboard just for the ease-of-use that putting all of these (mostly pointless) features into one device? When a decent keyboard and a laptop can do all that and much, much more for much less money?

I'll get excited about a new Roland product range just as soon as they find the plot again.

And this year's Eurovision winner is: Estonia

Thus the country chooses Jade. A decision that Lord Lloyd Webber clearly made a very long time ago.

Jade is a good performer. But she won't win us Eurovision. It's not her fault; the song's crap, and the only chance we had was with the novelty value of The Twins.

So, well done Estonia. Eurovision winners 2009.

Possibly.

It's His Tripe Now

Lord Lloyd Webber has chosen. Chosen who is not the act to win Eurovision, that is.

You can take the man out of musical theatre, but you can't take the musical theatre out of the man. That is aptly demonstrated by the song that Lloyd Webber has written for our 2008 Eurovision attempt. And, to be blunt, it's deeply mediocre. Dull, repetitive, and did Diane Warren phone those lyrics in or what? Twelve-year-olds write better stuff in English classes.

And here is the problem. Mark was trained in musical theatre. Take a composer with a background in musical theatre, and get him to write a song which sounds like it should come from a musical, and get it performed by someone trained in musical theater, and guess what... it sounds like musical theatre. Well, there's a bloomin' surprise. And so, very neatly, the Lord has engineered it so that - even if Mark wins the chance to represent us - there's no chance of him winning Eurovision. There is, however, a high liklihood of him sending the Baltic states to sleep.

Jade's performance was fine, but the song's still dull regardless. You can't polish a turd.

Which leaves me with The Twins. And you know what, their version of Andrew's song was really very good. They performed it excellently, and the harmonies made it seem much less dull than it does when performed by a soloist.

I said it last week: give them a slow song and tell them not to move. Bugger me, it worked. Can you believe that I'm about to vote for them?!

I'll blog again as soon as the show's over. Fingers crossed, folks...

Hate, Facebook and spelling

Sometimes I worry about humankind.

Today, this happened when one of my friends signed up to the Facebook group, "The man who raped and killed his 8 day old baby needs to be killed!!!".

Regardless of the crime, the group itself is deeply hateful. But what makes matters worse are two very, very important facts:

1. The "crime" happened over two years ago, and people are still joining the Facebook group.
2. The man in question was completely cleared of all charges due to a complete lack of evidence.

Should I be most disturbed by the fact that people are still signing up and demanding that an innocent man be executed? Definitely, and I certainly am. But it seems that quite a large proportion of the group members have signed up because they are appalled of the same thing. Some of the discussion board threads on the group are utterly brilliant, although they are definitely not for the easily offended. Reading beautifully eloquent posts belittling those that appear and text-speak death threats to an innocent man is surprisingly uplifting.

Without a doubt, the best thread is this one:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7828982116&topic=7248

The thread title - "Watch thsi video if you like rapping kids" - is 100% accurate; the opening post links to a YouTube video featuring some kids performing a rap. But the fact that there were people who think that "rapping" is the correct spelling of "raping", or that YouTube would host a video of such a thing, is troubling. Mind you, some of the responses by sane people in that thread are superb.

Facebook is full of groups like this, and if the owners had any sense of decency they'd make it a breach of the T&Cs to start a group that demands the killing of someone. Or any hate-related groups, for that matter.

Or would that "offend their core demographic"?

Perhaps I should start the "People who create Facebook groups demanding that any person/group of people should be killed, should be killed"...!

Eurovision: Your country needs help

As I type this, Mrs Steve and I are just getting around to watching last Saturday's episode of "Eurovision: Your Country Needs You". We saw it for the first time last week, and were mainly struck by the fact that none of the judges (including Lord Lloyd Webber himself) were capable of saying anything really bad about any of the acts, even when they were bloody terrible.

Would things improve this week? Well, each act has two songs to sing, so let's start with song one!

Mark
The complete package; a brilliantly performed song. Emma Bunton (professional mother, former ballroom dancer) thought he was a little to uptight to be "cool". Since when has "coolness" been important in a Eurovision act? And who made you arbiter of coolness? You're older than me, for fuck's sake!

Jade
Now that we've got HDTV, is it possible to throw pies at the acts? I've seen more meat on a Chicken McNugget. Apart from the first note, this was a well performed song. I'm not a fan of the breathy if-I-try-and-use-my-chest-voice-I-won't-hit-the-note style of singing, but I'll not be too fussed if Jade ends up representing us.

Emperors Of Soul
They're great, but they're not a Eurovision act. Hopefully fame will follow their appearance on this show - it will be richly deserved after this performance.

The Twins
Oh, where to begin! Is it the fact that they're crying over the song being "a bit hard" when Palastinians are being blown to fuck in Gaza? Is it the fact that their entire performance was so out of tune it sounded like a sack of kittens being slowly minced by a rusty food processor? Or was it the fact that none of the judges had the decency to say, "Fuck me, that was the biggest pile of shit I've ever been subjected to in my entire life"?!

In an attempt to justify their performance, the Twins told us that they'd demonstrated their versatility by "performing in lots of different genrés", neglecting to add the crucial word, "badly". Lord Andrew of Theatreland said, "you do something very, very special when you sing together in harmony". If only they'd tried doing that during the song, eh?

Thank God that this was followed by the second song for each act, and thus we got to listen to a singer who was familiar with the startling concept of "singing in tune".

Song number two:

Mark
Excellent stuff, as expected. If this guy doesn't win, well, thinking about it, I wouldn't wish travelling to Russia to get beaten in a singing competition by Estonia ('cause that's what'll happen) on anyone. If he doesn't win, he'll still go far.

Jade
I'm surprised. Really. That was a great performance. Fair play, Skinny McThin.

Emperors of Soul
The opening harmony was quite painful, lads. In fact, I say that the lead line singer only accurately hit 50% of his notes in the entire song. Shame; despite all of this, you each still have more talent in your little finger than the Twins would have if you cloned each of them 12 times and added it all together.

The Twins
Oh dear. They've not even started yet, but I get a terrible feeling of despair in the pit of my stomach, when Graham Norton announces that they're singing "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers - a song you should only attempt if your harmonies are spot on. As opposed to sounding as if you've each spent the week practicing the song separately whilst listening to the other one on a broken tape recorder.

Well, bugger me! It's not bad at all. So, Andrew, we've cracked it: if they win, write them a slow song and tell them not to fucking move! However, the last note sounded like it was falling down the stairs, and the one singing the harmony needed to be told to hit the note straight off (rather than sliding up to it in a crooning style) because her sister was doing likewise with the melody line and it sounded odd.

I still get the feeling that there's the real danger of Jemini all over again if The Twins end up representing us, though.

On browsing the Your Country Needs You website, it appears that The Twins made it to the X-Factor boot camp in 2008. Now, consider the utter shit that Simon Cowell has given recording contracts to. The Twins are, according to Simon, worse than any of them. Worse than Robson and Jerome. Worse than Leon Jackson (who, I hear you ask). And probably worse than you.

Apparently they have each taken over 80 driving lessons and still don't feel ready for their tests. Oh, and they chose the lead-up to their first performance to pass on their plan of a double wedding to their two boyfriends. Sorry, I mean ex-boyfriends. Well, I reckon probably are by now. Not the sharpest tools in the box, then.

Until they start singing, of course. Then, and only then, they are sharpness personified.

Bad taste TV

Tonight, Panorama will feature a special report by Frank Skinner about the current "state" of television in the UK - namely, is there too much swearing and general bad taste.

Last Friday, Tonight did something not dissimilar, inviting a cross-sectional panel of TV viewers to vote on whether certain clips should have been broadcast or not.

Interestingly, the panel voted 8:4 in favour of the airing of the two clips from Friday Night with Jonathan Ross that had attracted the most complaints.

There was a different outcome when the panel were shown a clip from Little Britain USA, though. The clip in question was one featuring two over-pumped bodybuilder types comparing their bodies in a mirror. For this, both Matt Lucas and David Walliams were wearing full-body prosthetics to give them both a steroidally-boosted muscular look and - comedy alert - a tiny, tiny penis.

Now, you may not find this particularly funny (and I think Little Britain jumped the shark after its first series), but that's not the point. The question is, should it have been shown in a programme that aired at 9:30pm on BBC1?

Only two people voiced their opinions. One, a bloke in his 60s, threw his voting card down in disgust, stating, "I don't want to see this kind of debauchery on my TV screen" in a very I-read-the-Daily-Mail-and-hate-young-people kind of way. Well, no-one's making you watch it, are they? The controller of BBC1 didn't come 'round to your house, turn on the TV, staple your eyelids open, nail you to the sofa and force it upon you, did they, you feeble-minded plank?!

The other opinion came from a woman in her early 40s:

Woman: I'm just bothered by full-frontal male nudity.
Host: You realise it's not real nudity? That those are fake bodies?
Woman: It doesn't matter. I don't want to see male nudity on my TV at any time.

And we're meant to value the opinion of someone who is so ashamed by the human form that they find a plastic cock to be one of the most offensive things they've ever seen? Sorry, dear, but you're not projecting your own social immaturity on me quite that easily.

The problem with complaining about TV and radio shows is that there's no ability for those of us who weren't offended to "counter complain". It's estimated that four million people have heard at least part of the Brand and Ross radio show, and that 37,000 people complained about it. That's less than 1%. If I was asking 100 people what they thought of something and only one of them complained, I wouldn't need to take any action. So why did the BBC suspend Ross? Fuck knows. They're hardly taking a liberal-friendly attitude towards the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal for aid in Gaza.

So, what we need is an "anti-complaint" option. The chance to contact OFCOM about a possibly offensive show and let them know it didn't bother us. Only then do we have a chance of saving our TV viewing freedom from the kind of deeply hateful, sad and lonely individuals who channel surf in the hope of finding something to complain about.

How else did Babestation become the recipient of a £150,000 OFCOM fine because one of the "models" accidentally exposed her toilet parts? If you're the kind of bloke who finds these hideous plastically-enhanced mingers the least bit attractive, are you going to be sufficiently repulsed by a glimpse of ladygarden that you immediately reach for the phone to complain? Of course not - you're too busy trying to balance a pizza and a box of tissues.

So, dearest Daily Mail reader, or dearest member of MediaWatch, the next time you see something that you think might be offensive on the TV set, don't reach for the telephone and the speed-dial to OFCOM's complaints line. Just reach for the remote control, and press "channel up". Or "down". Or "power off". Some of us might just find Jonathan Ross asking David Cameron if he'd ever wanked at a picture of Margaret Thatcher funny.

And a damn sight less objectionable than having to listen to the opinions of a group of fuckwits who still think homosexuality is "a disease".