Tacky Chinese pirates attempt to clone Madonna…

`As you know, I am a purveyor of some of the best and the worst of music. Sometimes I’ve found some albums which have clearly been bootlegged. As in, not genuine. Someone with access to a pressing plant thinks they can make a quick quid by doing what is, usually, quite a good job of knocking out a CD or two. Usually they make a decent job of it, and sometimes… well.

Today, while on my almost-daily peruse of the local charity shops, I came across this. Because this is quite clearly a bootleg CD, and the guys over in Asia-land just really aren’t trying. I bring you… THIS Madonna “Greatest Hits” album…

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The first thing you’ll notice is that the sleeve is in the case upside-down. Yeah, that was me. I took it out, and couldn’t get back in the normal way. Even the case isn’t very good. Firstly, look at that choice of picture. I sincerely doubt ol’ Madge would be happy to have that image on the front of an album. I know she’s a show off and all that, but it doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination.

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So, onto the back of the case. Same photo on the back, but the errors start to become clear. “La Isla Bonnita”, for instance, and where on earth is “Los Angelis”?. And from what I can see, there was never a Star Records there.

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And finally, the CD. I’ve saved the best until last. Just look at it. Take it in. Look at the track names.

PAPADONT PREACH
LAISLABONNITA (again)
JUSTRFY MY LOVE
OPEN YOUR HEATR
CRAZY FER YOU

No, I haven’t listened to it. And to be honest, I don’t think I ever will. I have a sneaking suspicion this didn’t originate from 24-bit digital masters…

Being John McCririck for the day

Following on from my absolute disaster yesterday, I almost never put a bet on today. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

Still, if you want to flush a fiver down the toilet, without the effort of going upstairs, you can’t go wrong by putting a bet on these…

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Good luck! You’ll need it!

UPDATE: If you backed any of those, even each way, you’d have came out penniless. Oh well. Here endeth my Aintree updates. And now, back to stony silence for another several months while I think of something to post about.

Aintree pt2: Well that was a complete disaster…

I did intend to just post an update on the previous post, but I went on a bit longer than I intended.

As expected, my fiver went down the pan. Thankfully, my horse in the Topham chase made it all the way round, unlike two poor horses who may, or may not have left Aintree on the back of a dog food lorry. Admittedly, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the Grand National is based in France. Any horses that get put down can just get shipped off to the local butchers.

It did leave to one of those “Oops” moments on Channel 4 though. Naturally, the fall looked rather nasty when it happened, and so Channel 4 omitted Becher’s Brook during the in-depth replay that they have.

Someone in charge of the slo-mo tape machine must have got their fences mixed up though, as when they said “And onto Valentine’s”, they cut to a close-up of the fatal incident. Whoops.

Takes me back to memories of the 1989 Grand National, where the late Julian Wilson commented that they were omitting Bechers Brook due to a “dead horse”. Let’s hope they go and quickly do some training before tomorrow.

Usually, I don’t watch the Grand National itself while in the house. Last year, I was in a random pub in Manchester. Unfortunately, this year, it looks like that isn’t going to happen. I shall be watching the race in front of the telly, and I presume the laptop. I’ve yet to pick out my horsies. I’ll probably do that in the morning. I think I’ll just go for a random five.

Oh, and because it’s not exactly necessary, but I’ve already uploaded it, here’s the worst betting slip in history.

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