The truth about 2024 – part 1
Wonka. Wicked. Wet. Winning. W•nker.
Mood Ring – my waspish roundup of what’s been going on – is back by popular demand! Well, small demand. But still! And rejoice: it’s a 2024 festive special!
WILLY WONKA
Pity the poor Willy Wonka Experience scandal, which came rather too early in the year to feature heavily in Halloween costumes. Several classic scamming genres converged at this roundabout of fuckery back in February.
The use of AI in the posters, creating images that only someone who’d never been outside could possibly have believed were realistic, and copy written by a crazed robot or someone up for three nights after mixing Pro Plus, tequila and Appletiser. The gullibility of Facebook users who accept anything languishing in their news feed as gospel. Out-of-season, maybe, but this was pure ‘Winter Wonderland’ despondency, overseen by a chancer with golden ticket ambitions but parking ticket imagination. Plus, an execution so inevitably terrible, the only surprise is that the building wasn’t also on fire.
Needless to say there will always be one star who rises the top. Enter ‘sad’ Oompa Loompa girl, Kirsty Paterson, an aspiring actress tasked with posing in a green wig, and, despite playing an Oompa Loompa possibly the most restrained fake tan I have ever seen in Glasgow, beside what looks like a meth lab. Kirsty captured the heart of the country and perfectly summed up the mood of the UK in 2024 as she dolefully gazed into the abyss while doling out singular fruit pastilles to dismayed children. I hope this queen is fully booked this panto season.
MOOD: WONKY
MID ELECTION
Were 2024’s handing over of the keys to 10 Downing Street the most mid election ever? How uninspiring it was, to switch one roll of magnolia anaglypta for another.
The long overdue dethroning of the Tories was like waving goodbye to the irritating neighbours who performed viral dances on their patio for TikTok and hung wind chimes off the wayward leylandii they planted upon moving in, only to have them replaced by the kind of people who decorate everything in seven shades of greige, report you to the council for lighting a cigarette after 9pm and tell you they don’t have the emotional bandwidth to take in any ASOS parcels for you.
The sun blazed on polling day, yet the turnout was still the lowest in decades. However, the result was perhaps better than the American version of this conundrum, the equivalent of finally gaining control of a long bout of explosive diarrhoea only to discover that you now poo exclusively barbed wire and shattered bottles of Beck’s.
MOOD: Same old biscuits
WET OLYMPICS
Paris, arguably the most beautiful city in all Europe, and the envy of the world – were some of us maybe a little pleased that their long-awaited (by them) moment in the Olympic spotlight was dampened by relentless rain of all volumes during their interminable, incomprehensible opening ceremony? It was the same delight the less kind among us may feel when someone very beautiful starts crying and immediately looks like one of the gargoyles that dangles off the side of Bradford City Hall.
Rain or no rain, Paris still emerged victorious, however, thanks to Céline Dion, who valiantly sang none of the songs everyone was hoping for, albeit very beautifully, standing at the top of the legs of the Eiffel Tower, regal and effervescent even as buckets of Europe’s finest sky piss lashed around her.
MOOD: Vive la Reine! Vive Céline!
WICKED PRESS TOUR
If you have ever taken Tramadol for an injury of some kind, and then forgotten you were on it and had a couple of (strong) vodka martinis and then keyed some ket up your schnoz just to be sociable, before running your hands under the tap and sticking your fingers in the toaster, you are around halfway to the bonkers comedown that the Wicked publicity machine seems to have left in its wake.
The straights discovering Jonathan Bailey and his ability to flirt with just about any object. Jeff Goldblum giving full ‘Grandpa has spent the inheritance on Gucci cardigans and vintage Krug’ vibes, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo bursting into tears whenever someone stresses the second syllable of a word. Journalists saying INSANE things to get reactions from the cast. The furore over the fan art. The made-up theories about pay. The two very different vibes of the tour – bromantic whimsy with the boys yet for some reason intrusive psychoanalysis and verbal waterboarding for the women. The stylists working triple overtime to get the stars’ red carpet looks on their front pages. Jonathan Bailey’s shorts. Ariana Grande’s manicured claws clinging onto Cynthia Erivo’s finessed talons. The battle over to sing along or not to sing along. The reels and reels of backstage footage on social media determined to wring the last speck of magic stardust out of the whole endeavour.
It’s been, it feels, a full three months of being forced at gunpoint to engage with this film, which for me, having never seen the musical, read the book, or ever stayed in the same room as ‘Defying Gravity’ playing the whole way through, has been an unsettling, if exhilarating, experience. It has made me both intrigued to see the film, and desperate not to ever hear the word ‘wicked’ again unless I am being called it by Dame Joan Collins in full Alexis drag. See you all this time next year for the sequel – however will they top it? Cynthia Erivo’s nails are gonna get longer and Jonny Bailey’s shorts will likely be hot pants. We’re holding space for it all.
MOOD: Knackered
A FULL ANALYSIS OF THE MASTERCHEF SCANDAL
Prickk.
Thank you for reading me in 2024. Part 2 coming in a couple of weeks. Next week: something else.
Here are all four of my books. Lovely, aren’t they? One or all of them would make someone an ideal Christmas present. If you’re not a Bezos fan but want to buy online, Bookshop.org give money to indie bookshops from every sale or something. Otherwise order it from your friendly local bookseller. Or even your unfriendly ones – maybe they’re just misunderstood. Links below the pretty picture.
Buy Leading Man ⭐️ Buy The Last Romeo ⭐️ Buy The Magnificent Sons ⭐️ Buy The Fake-Up ⭐️ Maybe even sneakily preorder the Leading Man paperback, but it will not arrive in time for Christmas.
Author Mo Fanning rated Leading Man as one of his 2024 favourites – see who else made his list.
golden ticket ambitions but parking ticket imagination has killed me off 🤣
Great read, that image from Willie Wonka experience is pure gold…