The Daily Star’s Joe Mott: Has It Really Got This Bad? by Nick Bryans

It's weird, I never imagined anyone would consider Guy Fawkes a style icon.

At Shouting at Cows, we have a morbid obsession with pop culture. With TV reviews for the likes of Made in Chelsea, Hotter Than My Daughter and a number of shows starring ‘actor’ Will Mellor; we’ve watched more B-list TV vehicles than you’ve had hot dinners. Had we used that time productively, we could have…I dunno…built……something. I guess. Anyway, we know it’s dirge and instantly forgettable, and most of our reviews tend to be acerbic rants full of swearing, but when it’s early evening and there’s nothing else on the box except Tool Acadamy re-runs, what else are you going to do with yourself? Talk to people? Interact with the outside world? Pfft, yeah alright, mate.

However, some people approach this theme of pop-culture/mainstream society aimed at base interests without a fucking hint of irony; holding the opinion that unless something involved a member of JLS, it isn’t worth talking about. It’s mainly low grade tabloid fare, as after all, tabloid readers need a bit of variation in their reading diets. They can’t spend ALL day shaking their fist about disabled, gay asylum seekers that YOU pay for; sometimes they want to see a contestant from Big Brother 4 falling out of a nightclub. Varied palettes, these people. Joe Mott is the shining light of the Daily Star’s pop-culture section. Describing himself as ‘Mr Know it All’, Joe tackles all sorts of tough subjects, from AV to N-Dubz, proving that anything this man sets his mind to, he can make a cataclysmic fuck up of. Takes a real skill, that.

Joe, only beaten to top billing on the Star’s columnist section by Gary Bushell (though, anytime a publication feels you’re a lesser asset to them than Gary Bushell, it’s a probably a sign you should find a new career), Joe shins his big light of knowledge at various subjects in the public eye, then proceeds to get his torch of knowledge and smash it to pieces with his inability to form congruent arguments (I think that’s probably one metaphor too many). Initially coming into the spotlight after he drew parallels with Ricky Gervais’ weight loss and a homosexual AIDS victim (though I should add, it’s alright though, because he has gay friends. So he can’t be homophobic), Joe has gone from strength to strength, becoming a daily read for EDL members up and down the country (I have no idea who else buys the Daily Star).

Joe this week approached the story no-one is talking about; a member of the N-Dubz being on the panel of a judging show.

NEW X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos will have my backing no matter how naughty she is in her spare time.

And I’ll tell you why. Not because she’s hot, nor because she speaks her mind, nor her credibility as a judge – or even her choice of frocks. But because of what she did for her mum.

I made my mother some banging French toast once, Joe. You reckon I could be the next Louis?

Big fans, this lot. Big fans.

What starts as an attempt to talk about the, quite honestly, highly applaudable work Tulisa did in caring for her ill mother, degenerates into a bizarre mess of plugs and offensive remarks. He firstly mentions how;

I spent a fair amount of time with the star interviewing her for the official N-Dubz book.

So he’s written an editorial on someone who he has a vested interest in. Nothing wrong there. Nope, nothing at all. No conflict on interests at all. Furthermore, in an attempt to claim that people are too quick to place those with disabilities in care, he remarks – brace yourselves – that:

It’s a totally un-PC term but when was the last time you saw a village idiot? A real one I mean – not George Bush or any of the people on The Only Way Is Geordie Shore via Essex.

I’m talking about the people who are not quite right, perhaps mentally not all there or just a bit slow.

The chances are, you haven’t in this country, because we’re all very quick to stick them in a home and let them be someone else’s problem.

Fucking hell, Joe. Fuck. King. Hell. It’s a bit like having a conversation with your nutty gran, who thinks it’s great that ‘dem poofs are getting work on TV’. Stunning levels of stupidly.

Despite his inability to even talk about N-Dubz without coming across like a dribbling simpleton, The Mottster decides to have a bash at politics as well. In an 81 word article entitled ‘AV is a no brainer’, Mr Know it All feels that AV ‘might just be an improvement’. It might be an improvement? Well that’s a no brainer, then. In another article, Joesph is getting into a tizzy about D-Cam, in a piece that reads like a cross between a William Burroughs novel and one of those vox-pop ‘speak your brain’ vignettes you see on day time TV, where Lorraine Kelly thrusts a microphone into someone’s face and they harp on about how Britain is broken.

Joe starts with this contrived and ill-thought out metaphor about Birds Eye Potato waffles and builders, which is neither appropriate, nor makes and sense whatsoever. In fact, anytime you open an editorial on International Relations with the line;

BIRDS Eye potato waffles, they’re waffly versatile.

you really have to accept that you’re probably not going to take over from Dimbleby on Question Time. Sigh.

Dimbers; Reads Mott, breaths sigh of relief.

Motty is bloody peeved that Cameron had Obama over for a state visit, and the fascist scumbags played table tennis and cooked a barbecue. In an argument which had all the nous and delicacy of a 15 year old in a Che Gevara t-shirt ranting about ‘tory scum’, Joe presents this perspective on the state visit;

The PM helping his mate from America dish out a barbecue and then play some pingpong? To use Twitter speak – WTF?

Why aren’t they locked away in Downing Street sorting the UK out, rather than wearing sharp suits and looking earnest/cheery on TV while being feckless?

Maybe we should treat them like toys with naughty children? We’ll confiscate the table tennis and barbecue set until they sort out the country, then they can have them back. We’ll stick them in my garage. I have plenty of space since we got rid those old golf clubs.

To justify Joe’s column with any more critical assessment would be futile. It’s the stupidest tripe I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. It’s populist, reactionary, nothing dirge that should be presented with some sort of self-serving catch-phrase like ‘Seeing the world through my eyes’, which gives the author caveat the write any load of rubbish they can conjure up.

If Cameron was a builder you’d have sacked him ages ago for gassing on the job.

Yeah but he’s not a builder is he, Joe? He’s a million miles from a builder. He couldn’t be any less like a builder.

But for me it all gets too much when they invite a foreign builder over to have a look at what they haven’t been doing.

Oh just fuck off.

Luckily, Joe returned to his bread and butter shortly after his ill-fated dalliance with ‘stuff that actually matters’. His next piece was on Imogen Thomas, in which was principally him shouting ‘LOOK! I’M MATES WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE!’. More arse-licking ‘journalism’ by Mr Knows Fuck All.

I’ve known the model and Big Brother star for more than four years and – since we both live on the same road – I’ve often chatted with her. But on Friday afternoon it was different.

The girl I spent an hour with in our local café was frightened, shaky and suspicious of everyone. Even of our waitress, who barely spoke English and certainly had no idea that  Imogen is currently embroiled in a court case over an affair with a married Premier League footballer.

So in two paragraphs on an article about super-injunctions, we hear about Joe Mott’s latest hob-nobbing and get another classic casual xenophobic quip. Top stuff, Joe.

This shot says to me 'fierce'. The hat says to me 'twat', mind.

As we watch the man with the camera take shots of us through the window, she tells me about the hell she is living through.

I ask her if the rumours about going on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here are true. She hasn’t heard anything about the show wanting her and looks at me as if I’m mad when I ask if she’s using the situation to further her career.

Her lawyer calls twice and at one stage she looks close to tears. She’s been asked to appear on  Newsnight – an opportunity she’s passed on as she doesn’t want to come across as feeling sorry for herself. Not that she could have said much anyway.

Is Joe Mott really anything more a glorified PR man that has got a gig with a newspaper?

Well, there you have ‘reporter’ Joe Mott in his own words; narcissistic, self-serving and – quite honestly – thick as mince. His showbiz stories are nothing more than PR spin and a list of his semi-famous mates, whilst his serious journalism is either so small you could write it on the back of a fag packet, or garbled nonsense which can have its central tenet deduced down to ‘YEAH…..bloody, Thatcher…..and that’. I mean, it really is beyond awful. He is, quite honestly, the worst journalist I have ever read. Awful.

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