The Vids Are Alright

Cherri V ft Wiley - Skool Daze.

Wiley and Cherri are in detention, tsk tsk. Probably for talking - it seems ludicrous now, but TALKING was the most prolific and therefore worst crime committed at my school (cumulatively, at least). Apart from maybe smoking in the loos. Anyway, Wiley has to do lines on the blackboard like Bart Simpson (ok this is probably ancient interweb errata already but why does Bart run out of the classroom when the bell rings? Surely he is staying behind after school to write said lines, and therefore the bell has already rung?) whilst Cherri has to content with some CGI yearbook/playground/lockers/corridor action. I love her little hopscotch dance at 3.18 though.

Roots Manuva - Witness (One Hope).

Best of 2001: If Can’t Get You Outa My Head is the most iconic video of 2001 then this is the funniest. Rodney is in serious training to quite literally triumph over his childhood traumas: with the raw talent of Usain Bolt, the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher and the underhand tactics of the Spanish Paralympic basketball team, Rodney finally gets what he deserves in the egg and spoon race. Ha-haa - in your face, small children.

V - You Stood Up

Agreeable (but alas barely-remembered and ultimately un-googleable) boyband V appear to have joined the Dead Poets Society, but instead of studying sonnets and feelings and hanging themselves with their purple and yellow striped ties, they are all members of the school Fencing club. Yes, fencing. (Why not get their butlers to do it for them?)

There is an intensely complicated plot going on here regarding a girl they all fancy and get in trouble over (as fits the mournful tone of the song), but it’s resolved in time for them to work together as a TEAM in order to facilitate some semi-erotic locker room scenes for their, ahem, target demographic.

Basically this is an episode of Saved By The Bell: The Eton Mess Years. See if you can spot which one is meant to be Zack.