Bluebirds
Well-Known Member
In the Guardian no less. A more balanced critique which, like the interview, doesn't really mention the Chinese comment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/sep/24/morrissey-simon-armitage-mojo
Say what you like about Morrissey – in the privacy of your own home, out of earshot of his lawyers – but there's no denying his claws still leave a mark. While the most self-consciously newsworthy element of his recent encounter with the poet Simon Armitage was his apparent attempt to alienate the world's most populous nation, this interview was actually far more notable for its less generalised acts of aggression.
As if refusing to allow the publication of photos of himself and Armitage together (in my opinion quite rightly, as the attempt to put interviewer and subject on the same photographic footing is one of contemporary journalism's most vainglorious miscalculations) didn't make Morrissey's intentions towards his star-struck interviewer clear enough, the Stretford sourpuss generously supplied a substitute shot wherein he posed in front of a piece of card with "I'm the real and proper poet laureate" written on it (this picture appeared in the Guardian newspaper on the same day as his Weekend magazine interview). And when Armitage – himself once a prominent contender for that very position – attempted to round off their conversation by ceremonially presenting Morrissey with a copy of his own latest "slim volume", having somewhat rashly concealed a CD by his band between its pages, the former Smiths frontman let the unwanted disc fall to the floor with a crushing "Did you know you'd left this in here?"
Simon Armitage is just the latest in a long line of celebrity interviewers to look in the mirror after a brush with Greater Manchester's most feline exile and see a face covered in scratches. One of the defining characteristics of the post-imperial, Napoleon-on-Elba phase of Morrissey's career has been that the less respect he seems to command among the populace at large, the more illustrious have been the champions the nation's media outlets have sent into battle with him.
Morrissey always brings his A-game to these encounters. In fact, all the energy he saves when obliged to cancel live appearances due to illness or because his sensibilities are offended by the smell of barbecuing meat seems to go into them. And as a consequence they generally unfold roughly along the lines of the classic Medieval Times jousting sequence in The Cable Guy – with the hapless interviewer playing the role of a bewildered Matthew Broderick, only too belatedly coming to terms with Jim Carrey's willingness to employ deadly force.
From Morrissey's thoroughly entertaining recent tussle with Desert Island Discs' Kirsty Young (who was finally undone with the help of a Stooges' song-title: "You may not know this Kirsty, but your pretty face is going to hell") to his gruesome stalemate with the author Douglas Coupland in the OMM a few years back, the common feature of each of these journalistic mismatches has been a misguided attempt on the part of the interviewer to establish some kind of common ground. It is a founding principle of Morrissey's pathology – or his genius, depending on how you look at it – that no other human being can ever trespass on the sacred terrain of his individuality, and woe betide the man or woman who tries it. Coupland's attempt ended with the Canadian challenger smote in twain by his own halberd, vainly insisting that "interviewing Morrissey pinpoints the bankruptcy of interviewing as a form of expression". Well OK, Douglas, maybe when you do it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/sep/24/morrissey-simon-armitage-mojo
Say what you like about Morrissey – in the privacy of your own home, out of earshot of his lawyers – but there's no denying his claws still leave a mark. While the most self-consciously newsworthy element of his recent encounter with the poet Simon Armitage was his apparent attempt to alienate the world's most populous nation, this interview was actually far more notable for its less generalised acts of aggression.
As if refusing to allow the publication of photos of himself and Armitage together (in my opinion quite rightly, as the attempt to put interviewer and subject on the same photographic footing is one of contemporary journalism's most vainglorious miscalculations) didn't make Morrissey's intentions towards his star-struck interviewer clear enough, the Stretford sourpuss generously supplied a substitute shot wherein he posed in front of a piece of card with "I'm the real and proper poet laureate" written on it (this picture appeared in the Guardian newspaper on the same day as his Weekend magazine interview). And when Armitage – himself once a prominent contender for that very position – attempted to round off their conversation by ceremonially presenting Morrissey with a copy of his own latest "slim volume", having somewhat rashly concealed a CD by his band between its pages, the former Smiths frontman let the unwanted disc fall to the floor with a crushing "Did you know you'd left this in here?"
Simon Armitage is just the latest in a long line of celebrity interviewers to look in the mirror after a brush with Greater Manchester's most feline exile and see a face covered in scratches. One of the defining characteristics of the post-imperial, Napoleon-on-Elba phase of Morrissey's career has been that the less respect he seems to command among the populace at large, the more illustrious have been the champions the nation's media outlets have sent into battle with him.
Morrissey always brings his A-game to these encounters. In fact, all the energy he saves when obliged to cancel live appearances due to illness or because his sensibilities are offended by the smell of barbecuing meat seems to go into them. And as a consequence they generally unfold roughly along the lines of the classic Medieval Times jousting sequence in The Cable Guy – with the hapless interviewer playing the role of a bewildered Matthew Broderick, only too belatedly coming to terms with Jim Carrey's willingness to employ deadly force.
From Morrissey's thoroughly entertaining recent tussle with Desert Island Discs' Kirsty Young (who was finally undone with the help of a Stooges' song-title: "You may not know this Kirsty, but your pretty face is going to hell") to his gruesome stalemate with the author Douglas Coupland in the OMM a few years back, the common feature of each of these journalistic mismatches has been a misguided attempt on the part of the interviewer to establish some kind of common ground. It is a founding principle of Morrissey's pathology – or his genius, depending on how you look at it – that no other human being can ever trespass on the sacred terrain of his individuality, and woe betide the man or woman who tries it. Coupland's attempt ended with the Canadian challenger smote in twain by his own halberd, vainly insisting that "interviewing Morrissey pinpoints the bankruptcy of interviewing as a form of expression". Well OK, Douglas, maybe when you do it.
