‘But my dear Miss Woodhouse, can I not prevail upon you to stay for a further turn around the parkland?’, asked Miss Weston, her unaffected eagerness to spend every moment she could with her friend and mentor, was written touchingly throughout her ever candid features. As ever, Emma could hardly fail to be warmed by her friend and confidante’s high regard for herself, however she had a very definite plan already set for that same afternoon, one that she could not involve her friend in, no matter how agreeable she found her company.
‘My dear Virginia’, she began ‘I only wish that my time was mine own to dispose of in such a fashion, nothing would give me greater pleasure, as I hope you well know’. Emma’s light laugh betrayed a slight undercurrent of agitation Miss Weston thought.
‘I did not mean to be selfish and keep you here all to myself. Especially if you have some diversion of your own devised, but pray confide in me and let me know the nature of your engagement’, she persisted. Here Emma, turned towards her companion, taking her gloved hand in her own.
‘It is a most curious thing but I am riding out with Master Flint and Captain Howlett this afternoon in the Phaeton and I intend to get right royally fucked up on cheap drugs, commit several acts of gross public indecency in Highbury, culminating in pissing in a Peeler’s helmet on the very steps of the assembly rooms!’
‘Oh what larks, Miss Woodhouse! What larks!’ (Excerpt from Emma (Unexpurgated) by Jane Austen, John Murray Publishing, 1815)
Prodigy Baby’s Got A Temper was a hotly-anticipated release back in July 2002, I bought it the day it came out. It was bollocks, derivative of the band’s own best moments, sonically uninteresting and worst of all, it just smacked of a cheap attempt to drum up outrage in the British tabloids. All those references to Rohypnol as well as being, at best, grossly insensitive were predictable and dull. Compare this to the impact Firestarter had*, or the genuine danger of Smack My Bitch Up, Liam Howlett ended up disavowing the single and taking it off their next album.
It reminded me a little of Marilyn Manson, someone else just desperate to offend and upset the moral majority to the point where it was starting to be pathetic. Like a little boy running around shouting ‘Big willies!’ and/or ‘Dog shit!’ at old ladies in the high street, grow up! The lyrics of Baby’s Got A Temper just read like they were created by using Microsoft Random Controversy generator v2.3 … Naah, naah, naah, Nazi tits suicide anus, naah, naah, naah, royal family funeral, naah, naah, naah, Rohypnol.
Piss poor effort.
Why did I keep it? especially when I’ve very recently bragged about being a ruthless man of steel when it comes to getting rid of records I don’t like. Hope, I think. Hope that one day I’ll wake up and this ugly caterpillar will have become a beautiful swan over night**.
525 Down.
PS- it is actually better musically than I remembered it being from the three times I played it 13 years ago.
*sampled here.
**Note to self: check the science bit before publishing.