1995: directed by Damien Hirst

Zoom in on a tower flat somewhere in London... inside the flat, a woman draws the yellowed net curtains shut. Focus on Graham, in a blue stripy polo shirt, reading a magazine with the single cover on the front. Damon reads the newspaper, turned to a headline about Chelsea football. Go Blue Menace! Alex and Dave sit on the couch, in front of a low table with some cups and a board game spread out on it. The game is "Escape From The Rat Race". Alex shakes some red six-sided dice in a cup and deals them out on the board game surface. Graham puts down the magazine and tells us, "This is how the story begins." Oh, it only it were that simple, Graham.

On a life-size replica of the board game, Damon, in a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, points his fingers at us as he begins to sing. Behind him, City Dwella Successful Fella, played by Keith Allen (whom you may recognise from the films Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, or as a member of Fat Les along with Damien Hirst and Alex James), walks past in suit and bowler hat. Behind them are paintings of what looks like a huge condom and a skull. Oops, he's got a lot of money, which spills out of his open briefcase. Super cute brown rats hang out on a pink "rat race" square; CDSF steps carefully around them. A bevy of Page Three models in really short skirts and tight T-shirts flutters past. The girls run past a traingular street sign with "The Limit" printed on it; behind them hangs a painting of the red dice. Wow, are their skirts ever short and their chests mighty and milk-fed.

Damon's a professional cynic, which makes him smack himself upside the head. CDSF runs smack into the Limit street sign. Double ouch. The Page Three girls are trapped in a big red shuttlecock which descends from the ceiling. Meanwhile, in the dungeons of Uncool, Alex, Dave, and Graham are being tortured as they see their hip days piss away. CDSF walks past, unconcerned. A cobweb-coated skeleton, hanging on the wall, shows the effect of making too much money, because you can never be too rich or too thin.

CDSF walks past a country estate, and the camera zooms in super fast and opens the door. Behind the door, a neon sign blinks "YES NO WIN LOSE". We will call this "Neon Shot" for the purposes of brevity. The camera focuses on "WIN", because yes, Blur won this round, and "Country House" went to #1 and beat Oasis, and while this is great, it cost Blur their street cred for years and years.

Back on the board game, a living room is set up with a sofa, a fireplace, a clock, and some chairs. Dave sits on the couch with CDSF and Graham in milkman garb; Damon slouches against the fireplace mantel. CDSF watches a blue man running in a wheel on TV while he noshes on popcorn. A little bald scientist guy turns the wheel on an infernal mysterious yellow device and pours what looks like packing popcorn all over CDSF. Little Bald Scientist Guy brings over a huge sheaf of paper, assumedly CDSF's analyst bills, drops them on the table impatiently, and walks off again. The always-suave and sophisticated Steven Alexander James rides on the back of a pink, immaculate hog with a red heart painted on its flank. Alex can not stay on the pig. He just can't. The world cannot accept this. He falls off. Damon jerks his thumb back at Alex, as if to say, "I'm not the only dumb-ass in this band, see?" Sitting on bales of hay, two unbelievably beautiful Page Three girls wiggle and show off their extreme cleavage. The camera pulls back, and we see it's a Hee-Haw love fest, with all the girls and the band hanging out on the hay bales. Alex is so, so happy. Dave doesn't mind. Graham wishes the ground would open and swallow him up. Damon is fairly chuffed, and he gives us jazz hands as if to say "I've already snogged every person in this video, what have you done today?" Alex beams, and Damon grins and chews on a fragment of hay, thanking himself for being Damon Albarn and getting to number one in the charts.

CDSF walks past a huge candle and a painting of a rat, while Damon lies on his side and sings. "Morning glory" is symbolised by Damon giving a huge thumbs-up. Uh-huh. In case the Viewer doesn't have some kind of Glory, the Page Three girls scramble about on the hay bales, showing all kinds of thigh and belly and cleavage. Jackanory! CDSF climbs to the top of the hay bales, only to find the Mortality trap door up there, which he steps on and then falls through. Oops! The skeleton jiggles. Grave markers pop out of the ground.

Alex reads a huge volume of Balzac; packing popcorn falls out of the book, and a third mysterious hand comes up and puts a tab of acid in Alex's mouth. Well, OK, the Author doesn't know that it's a tab of acid. Maybe it's an antipsychotic. Or maybe it's just packing popcorn. Where are the girls? We need more girls.

Ah! There's one. Blonde swingy wig, nurses' cap, a crate of milk bottles, blue uniform open down to THERE. Wow, she's so shiny. Damon describes the century's remedy by tracing a big circle on his front, making sure he catches both nipples. The girls mince about. Th soul of CDSF, lying dead on the floor, rises to take his revenge upon the living. Neon Shot, slightly different this time because CDSF is skipping and clicking his heels as he approaches it. The dead hate the living. Go get 'em, CDSF.

Meanwhile, back on the board, Damon sits in a bathtub, annoyingly full of bubbles, with a Page Three girl on either side of him in bathtubs of their own. Look! Look at Damon's hairy armpits and chest! Ooh la la la! The girls, who are getting pretty boring by this point, even though they're (assumedly) naked and in bathtubs covered in bubbles, simper at us and make porn star faces. CDSF doesn't drink (so his pint vanishes) or smoke (so his cigar vanishes) or laugh (but he wasn't laughing to begin with) as he sits in his own bubble bath. He glances from side to side, wondering where his good times went. Oh there they are! All of Blur are in bubble baths now on either side of CDSF, and the Page Three girls pour teakettles of water into them! Kinky! Damon is quite comfortable, and Graham, with a dot of foam on his chin, seems, at last, not to mind too much. Perhaps it was the Prozac packing popcorn? Dave is fully enjoying himself, getting into it, washing himself. He's so sorted! Alex moues at us. Your good-looking days are numbered, Alex James.

And some fucking chaos as everyone runs arond the board like a bunch of morons! the Little bald scientist dude chases the Page Three girls. Graham dives a Milko milk truck, Dave has shotgun, Dames and Alex ride on top in flagrant violation of safety standards.

And then, Blur proves that they are Queen(s), as the video becomes "The Bohemian Rhapsody". This is by far the best part of the video.

Neon Shot.

More of the same. CDSF eats a sandwich. The Page Three girls run. Neon Shot again. Damon sings, Alex keeps torturing that poor pig, the house, a marching band goes across the board, led by little bald scientist dude, they walk past CDSF lying in his bathrobe in the middle of "Escape From the Rat Race". Damon also has a tab of acid packing popcorn in his mouth and he and Alex goof around on the hay bales.

STILL FRAME ALERT: cutest moment of Alex. Ever. He's just sitting there with this silly grin on his face and he looks so incredibly dreamy. Treasure this moment.

Back to the tower flat, where Alex sullenly picks up the dice and rolls again... Graham's still reading the magazine, which seems to be completely blank. we zoom back out and CDSF pulls the curtains open again.

Damien Hirst is one of the Author's favourite modern artists. That's what makes this video so hard to stomach, but Hirsty has never really been about acceptability, especially not within the narrow strictures of good taste. The Author is not sure why sectioned cows in formaldehyde, a cubicle filled with cigarette butts, and close-up shots of grisly bullet wounds are groovy, and yet this video is not. The Author does indeed know about art as well as knowing what she likes; she does not like the video for "Country House". Blur holds the same opinion as the Author, but even if they didn't, she still would not like it, Sam-I-Am. And it's not just that it's tasteless - the Author enjoys many tasteless things. But there's something so very wrong about everything about this. The Author also does not enjoy Benny Hill, for precisely the same reasons, and the Author is a big fan of beautiful girls wearing not very much. But something about it grates.

CUTE FACTOR: pretty damn high. Alex destroys the curve, anyway.
VIDEO QUALITY: looks really expensive. Too expensive. And not enough payoff for having probably paid Hirst a buttload of money, not to mention Keith Allen and the girls and the marching band...
FUCKED UP FACTOR: quite probable; a vodka and some cocaine would make all this make sense.
OVERALL GRADE: D