Dear Beyonce

You're not Sasha Fierce. You're Beyonce. Are you an idiot or something?

Perplexed regards,
Davis.

PS - What on earth is that you're wearing?

Dear Rolf Harris

Seeing as how it's been a while since one of your wacky reinventions of a pop standard hit the charts, might I proffer a suggestion for your next musical venture?


With Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers having finally been pronounced dead in recent months, there can surely be no better way of paying tribute to the doe-eyed, arm-carving berk than by issuing your own track-for-track re-work of The Holy Bible.

I mean, just picture it - what could possibly surpass the majesty of hearing you bust out that heave-ho wanking-rhythm we all know and love while your Grandfatherly 'tache/goatee combo scats heartfelt lyrics like "He's a boy; you want a girl, so cut off his cock / Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want"?

Frankly, there are few things in this world that would please me more than to hear you getting out the wobble-board for an irreverent crack at Of Walking Abortion (though I suspect it'd only work if you chucked in that mouth-flicking thing from the start of Rolf's Cartoon Club too). If you're feeling fruity, you could even lob in a blast of the Animal Hospital theme and round the whole thing off by snivelling "Sadly, the goth died!"

Give it some thought.

Hopeful regards,
Davis.

PS - Is there any truth to that urban myth about the student at one of your University gigs walking in on you getting a blow-job?

Dear DJs of the world

I’ve just about had enough.

I've endured your tired, uninspired musical shamblings for too long now and feel it's time for a little tough love. I have compiled the following shortlist for handy reference purposes - apologies in advance if it renders your career behind the decks obsolete, but the simple truth is that if you voluntarily play any of these songs under circumstances which don’t include violent coercion with a bread-knife, you are a clueless, bumbling idiot who has no place in a DJ booth. You have failed in your quest to bring music to the masses and have been reduced to a performing chimp whipping out his cock because the crowd finds it funny.

Please pay attention, as I will list these 15 key atrocities only once. The next time it has to be mentioned will be in the form of a broken bottle upside your head while the crowd obliviously goes about that slow-clapping bit in Come On Eileen.

DAVIS McLELLAND'S DJ SHITLIST

1) Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now

Or, to put it more accurately, “Don’t stop me now - it’s the work ’do, I’ve had five vodka-lemonades and I suddenly feel an uncontrollable need to tell everyone how I’m havin’ a good time, havin’ a good time…” Not even a posthumous appearance in Shaun of the Dead is enough to redeem the kicking I’d happily dole out to Freddie Mercury for crimping out this stinking turd of a song. The most overplayed record in the history of mankind, bar none. Scientific teaser: if a deadly virus was worming its way into your system and you had the power to stop it, would you do your darndest to be rid of it or simply let it have its way with you? Mr DJ, just because the people demand it, doesn’t mean you have to play it. "The people" are idiots.

2) Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Pop quiz, hotshot. There are 500 idiots in the room, every single one of whom describe their music taste as “eclectic” because they listen to artists as diverse as Alicia Keys and Nickelback. Whaddayou do…? Yes, you do what any third-rate hack would in your situation - you reach for the Whitney. That intolerable but ever-reliable scream of excitement goes up when its opening bars ring out, but there’s a hollow feeling deep down inside that you just can’t seem to shake. A nagging voice starts to whisper deep in your subconscious, repeatedly asking the one question you can't bear to answer: you’re not really trying at all, are you?

3) Usher – Yeah!

You can always spot the stupidest individual in any club – it's the platinum-blonde with jet-black roots who’s just tottered up to the DJ in a pair of unwieldy heels and requested Yeah! Don’t humour her. It’s the only song she knows.

4) Guns’n’Roses – Sweet Child o’ Mine

A serious contender for the very worst record ever made, and a prime example of rock music for people who don’t like rock music but think they have a bit of an edge because they once bought a T-shirt from Topshop that had “BAD GIRL” written across the tits. This song was the sole reason why Nirvana had to happen. Show Kurt a bit of respect by refusing to propagate Axl’s vile tripe any longer.

5) Bryan Adams – Summer of '69

Yeah, man. “Classic tune”. Got my air guitar out and everything. Pointing to the ceiling like I was actually there that fine summer. Whoooo! Isn’t it great to work for Price Waterhouse Cooper? LEGEND! (See also Jovi, Bon - Livin' On a Prayer).

6) Robbie Williams – Rock DJ

Not even Robbie Williams – a man who can barely bring himself to sing half his own output without wanting to hack his wrists with a copy of Rudebox – can stomach this song. That should tell you everything you need to know. Can I kick it (hard in the crotch)? Yes, you can.

7) Reef – Place Your Hands

“Can you play Put Your Hands Up by Supergrass...?” No, love, and I’ll tell you why not. Firstly, because you don’t even like the song enough to bother learning its title, and secondly, because that isn’t even what he’s singing. Frankly, you shouldn’t even be allowed to listen to music. Here, have some John Zorn instead.

8) Dolly Parton – 9 to 5

Bona-fide anthem for a generation of idiots conditioned to believe that it’s okay to give your entire life over to a job you have no emotional connection with or interest in. Hey! It’s just like Dolly’s singing about you! No doubt one of Paris Hilton’s favourite songs to bust loose to at the end of another hard week. 

9) The Proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Perennial pox of a song, much beloved by cunts who can never seem to figure out where the first “Da-ba-da-da!” bit comes in. Try to set an example by not playing it for once. No-one will miss it, because they don’t actually like it that much. They only sing along because it’s there. (See also Hawkes, Chesney - The One and Only).

10) The Clash – London Calling

Dull, plodding, snarl-by-numbers thud-along much beloved by floppy-haired Smiths fans that find the likes of White Riot a bit too hard to stomach. Hey, aren’t you clever? You played The Clash. Shame you couldn’t summon the good sense to plump for Janie Jones instead, you guileless piss-wit. Which leads us nicely onto…

11) The Smiths – This Charming Man

The very worst of Morrissey and Marr’s many continued offences against the indie disco. Tuneless, directionless amble of a song which also sounds utterly anemic when pumped through any form of amplifier. This, over Bigmouth Strikes Again or Ask? You don’t really know anything, do you?

12) The Cure – Lovecats

Formerly a quirky, subversive exercise in pop music’s outer limits, now reduced by DJ overkill to a shit, annoying tune terrifyingly reminiscent of The Hoosiers. For the love of God, play In Between Days or Close to Me, you dolt. Or A Forest. Hell, play Worried About Ray for all I care... (Actually, don’t. A friend of mine met The Hoosiers’ drummer in a club once and he said he was only wearing gold shoes because the record company told him to).

13) S Club 7 - Reach

Great pick if you’re playing to a roomful of 10 year-old children ingesting Haribo as if it were crystal meth at the school disco. Except you’re not playing to a group of 10 year-olds, are you? You’re playing to a troupe of pissed-up 30-somethings in Zanzibar with no fucking interest in music whatsoever. They really ought to know better by now, but of course having all the self-awareness that comes with the highlight of one's week being the £2/min phone vote on Britain's Got Talent, they don’t. Is being humoured when they ask for this song really what these fine specimens of humanity deserve? No. Chemical castration would be more fitting. Save a little for yourself while you're at it.

14) Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

“ 'Scuse me, can you play sumthin’ a bit more cheesy, y’know, that everyone can dance to?” Oh, I see you’ve gone for Wham!, sir, a band who weren’t any good in their heyday and certainly don’t fair any better now. Excusable only by virtue of the fact that it’s marginally preferable to the execrable Club Tropicana, though even that's a fairly moot point when everyone thinks this song is actually called "Jitterbug". Who is it that keeps buying George Michael records? I know these people exist somewhere. They have to.

15) The Foundations – Build Me Up Buttercup

Of all the great records made in the 1960s, this is the one you go for? Oh, just end it all now, you worthless cunt.

...Here comes Dexy's... !

Warmest personal regards,
Davis.

Dear Lord God Almighty

Lord, please bring hypothermia to all those who queued outside a high street store at the arse-crack of dawn these past few days just to get their pathetic, grasping hands on a Gucci handbag at 50% off. Smite down the management team at Next, too, for having the gall to open their sale doors at 5am, thus ruining Christmas for their employees and making an all-round sterling contributing to the general decline of civilisation as we know it.

Bring them a miserable shivering death, Lord, as penance for being some of the lowliest cunts to have ever been shat into existence. And while you're at it, please take out Candice Bushnell and the entire cast of Sex and the City as penance for what they've done to the world. Darren Star's let off the hook for the time being for writing the Teen Agent screenplay, but one more hint of a Sex and the City sequel and you can nail his ass to the wall.

I know I don't believe in you, Lord, but for granting this humble wish, I'm willing to try.

Prospective devout regards,
Davis.

Dear Joe Dante

Where are you? Where have you got to, you wild-haired weirdo? Where, after such a prolific run of corkers, have you vanished? And have you taken Rick Moranis with you?

You got Dennis Quaid pissed, bunged him in a capsule and had him boom Sam Cooke records through Martin Short's colon. You gave us John Goodman pioneering rumble-rama in the midst of the atomic age. You sent River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke flying over the set of Tron before sticking them in a giant Malteser and having them sail into space to meet aliens raised on pop culture. You gave us the best-ever episode of Eerie, Indiana - you know, the one where the kid gets a new retainer and starts hearing dogs talk. You can't desert us now.

We need you. We need your oddball repertory cast of Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Wendy Schaal and Rick Ducommun to offset the litany of cack-handed supporting players that pass for entertainers nowadays. We need you to save us from the onslaught of teen-slasher tat, mindless blockbusting maulers and all Reese Witherspoon movies post-American Psycho. What is Hollywood good for if we're repeatedly deprived of your skewed tales of mogwais versus gremlins, Petersons versus Klopeks and Quaid versus indigestion?

We need you to deliver another of your off-kilter, faintly subversive attacks on bourgeois materialism. We need you to run amok in suburbia with another wittily-shot, Goldsmith-scored destruction of the American dream. We need you to resurrect Zach Galligan, Grandpa Fred and that wacky Japanese dude for Gremlins 3. Work a camera?! I am a camera!

I hope that you will hear my plea.

Faithful regards,

Davis.

PS - Was it Small Soldiers that did it? 'Cos that was pretty good, you know. I'm just saying.

Dear Harold Pinter

I wonder if anyone mistook your silence this morning for an artful pause.

...Too soon...?

Warmest festive regards,
Davis.

Dear Steve Guttenberg, Tom Selleck, Ted Danson

Rumour has it you're hawking a script around for a third installment of the Three Men franchise, tentatively titled Three Men and a Bride. I cannot emphasise firmly enough what a poor idea this is, or indeed how few people will give a shit.

That said, if Robin's grown up to be a steaming hottie and it's a creepy sex farce about three aging bachelors battling it out for one last crack at her before she trots up the aisle, I for one will be first in line. Call me a sick fuck, but a climactic spit-roast in which you all realise your deep-seated love for one another would be a surefire Oscar bet round these parts.

Hopeful regards,
Davis.