WHAT KATY DID NEXT...

Revelations

2012-01-28T06:38:00.003+08:00

I don't often link to the lovely Nick Lezard's "Down and Out in London" column for the New Statesman. The link is permanently down there on the right so I figure you can click it whenever you like if you have the urge. However, I make an exception for this week's column, which served as a fresh, almost profound, reminder that it is possible to meander through 29 years without ever having realised a simple truth about yourself. In this case I find myself shocked to realise: I have never in my life defrosted a freezer.

It's true I've been awake for 3 hours...

2012-01-28T06:29:00.004+08:00

... and it's only 6.30am. (I don't know what's up with that - insomnia is a bitch and I have a theory, which I'll expand on another time if you're very unlucky, that lying awake in the wee hours for hours at a stretch changes a person.)

But trust me when I say it is not just my sleep-deprived brain telling me I must have these shoes.

People who make me roll my eyes and die a little inside #34

2012-01-22T10:51:00.007+08:00

People who say they "like black and white movies". I know I'm not being fair. There are, of course, loads of great black and white movies and His Girl Friday, Sunset Boulevard and Manhattan (oh God, I wish I was watching Manhattan right now) would all be near the top of my list. But there are also loads of shit ones (the b&w classics that are still so popular today survived because they were, you know, classics) just like there are plenty of great colour movies and loads of shit ones. So when I hear people saying they just loooove black and white movies, you know, just generally, all I hear is the wanky film snob equivalent of a dude I once knew who turned me off forever with the immortal line: "I don't watch TV, I really only watch documentaries". I die, I die.

Things I hate about my downstairs neighbours having a domestic late at night...

2012-01-22T10:37:00.003+08:00

1. It's really, really, really hard to hear what they're arguing about.

Women Be Shopping

2012-01-20T09:14:00.005+08:00

News out this month to surprise absolutely no one who has ever met another human being: men and women are not the same.

Yes, apparently it’s taken science to confirm what every sub-par stand-up comedian appears to have been onto for a while now.

The source of this astonishing claim is a study published on the Public Library of Science website and called “The distance between Mars and Venus: measuring global sex differences in personality”.

The boffins behind this study crunched the numbers on personality tests taken by 10,000 people. And in a break from past research – which suggested the personality differences between men and women were minimal – found men and women have firmly entrenched characteristics.

Living up to stereotypes women scored higher than man on sensitivity, warmth and apprehension, meaning they’re more likely be sentimental, deferential, attentive to others and worry more. On the flipside men scored higher on dominance, aggression and - though I can scarcely believe it - emotional stability.

The two sexes were roughly the same when it came to perfectionism, liveliness and abstract versus practical thinking.

Obviously it’s worth pointing out that the findings do not, of course, apply to everyone. There are plenty of aggressive and dominant women out there who don’t give a fuck about anyone just as there are sentimental men I could mention who go to pieces while watching Beaches. I won’t name names.

Nor are the findings uncontested, particularly by the scientists behind past research, who have criticised the methodology behind the latest study.

Not being a scientist (I know - I surprise you) I won’t make any claim for the veracity of this latest study’s findings.

What I DO wonder is who, exactly, is funding this kind of research? And, more importantly, why?

Probably I'm being too cynical and this kind of research is making a valid contribution to society's collective knowledge.

But it seems to me the only people who benefit from this kind of bogus pseudoscience are the journalists, who use these kind of studies to write harmlessly inane dross like this, this and this. (As my favourite character from my new guilty pleasure TV show Happy Endings might say "Women Be Shopping".)

Of course now I've written about it on this bloody blog, thus adding to the collective inanity. Sometimes I hate myself.

Question:

2012-01-13T11:50:00.001+08:00

Does this "Fuckin' Sale" (courtesy of a Japanese store, apparently) just mean a really big fucking sale or are they actually selling fucks? Enquiring minds want to know.

That's a dealbreaker

2012-01-11T22:08:00.018+08:00

The second time I broke up with someone I had to do it twice.

The relationship was pretty serious - he was seriously into The Smiths and I seriously considered ending it all via a note slipped under the door, like an early Martin Amis hero ("It's just not on, is it? It's nearly on but not quite"). I did it in person, in the end, but - for reasons I really won't go into - the first time didn't take and so I had to do it again at a party. The worst part? Driving him home afterwards.

I wish I could say that was my least well-executed break-up but I'd be lying. Tragically it was actually a step up from the first time when I had to... and then I.... and later played "Walking on... well, no, perhaps I won't go into it.

I'm terrible at breaking up with people is what I guess I'm trying to say. And I hate it. Obviously. (Although I guess only sociopaths actually enjoy breaking up with anyone.)

Perhaps that's why I so greatly enjoy reading this awesome Dealbreakers series in which people explain why they broke up with exes, albeit usually in kind of shitty and/or pretentious prose. And the reasons for the 'break-ups' are... well, okay I can honestly they make my reasons for my (very teeny tiny handful of) past-breakups (I hate him, he only ever wants to go to the fucking pub, he's way too into Suede in a way that sometimes makes me think he might be secretly into dudes) look incredibly sane.

Damn you, sun...

2012-01-09T22:15:00.003+08:00

I understand that sometimes journalists have to write things they don't necessarily agree with. I understand that in quite news time of the year, like January, sometimes it becomes necessary to engage in some shameless beat-ups. I understand that getting angry at the Daily Mail for incredibly poor journalism is like getting angry at the sun for being hot.

But the DM has outdone itself this time with this shocking (no, seriously) expose on how kids cartoon Peppa Pig is corrupting the nation's children. Or something.

I mean, come on, either this is a massive pisstake -

"One father spoke of his despair at how his four-year-old son had taken to splashing in what he gleefully called ‘muddy puddles’ on his way to school – copying Peppa’s favourite pastime.

"Others reported that their children had started shouting ‘chocolate cake’ whenever they were asked what they would like for breakfast – just like George Pig. ‘The more I see, the more alarmed I am at the choice of behaviour put into this “cartoon”,’ one mother wrote on parenting website Mumsnet.
‘George Pig, who my son loves, says “yuck” at vegetables and only wants to eat chocolate cake."

- or it's one of the signs of the coming apocalypse. Best stock up on some canned beans to be on the safe side.

I am not worthy

2012-01-05T10:28:00.003+08:00

Sometimes one is so struck by something so simply amazing that all one can do is marvel in silence. It happened to me the first time I saw Cillian Murphy's cheekbones and the first time I read The Great Gatsby. It's happened again now I've read this, which is just... I'm speechless. I am... without speech.

Things I am looking forward to more than seeing the new Michael Fassbender movie "Shame".

2012-01-01T15:08:00.002+08:00

1. Absolutely nothing.

UPDATED: With a pic of Fassy that came across my desk. Because... well, why wouldn't you?

Token Smokin' Hottie: "Malcolm Tucker"

2011-12-20T12:39:00.003+08:00

What is it about a man swearing that is so hot? I have no fucking idea, just as I have no idea why exactly it is I fancy the hell out of Malcolm Tucker, the sweary, craggy-faced Scotsman who gets all the best lines in the brilliant TV series The Thick Of It but could not enthusiastically be deemed "conventionally attractive" by any known measure.

Probably this crush of mine hints at something disturbing, like a secret desire to be shouted at and knocked into the kitchen cabinets. Maybe I should be seeing a therapist.

Things I think but do not say to the woman who sits across the aisle from me #34

2011-12-19T09:23:00.003+08:00

I KNOW THIS TIME OF YEAR IS REALLY BUSY AND CRAZY FOR EVERYONE BUT SERIOUSLY IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU DISCUSS THE PROGRESS OF YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING FOR ANOTHER 5 FUCKING SECONDS I AM GOING TO EXPLODE. OR IMPLODE. DEFINITELY ONE OF THE TWO AND EITHER WAY IT'S GOING TO BE MESSY. I'M NOT TRYING TO BE A BITCH BUT SERIOUSLY HOW IS IT THAT I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BUYING EACH OF YOUR NEPHEWS? THAT'S INSANE: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M BUYING MY OWN NEPHEWS AND, FRANKLY, A) THE PERSONAL DEODERANT PREFERENCES OF YOUR VARIOUS RELATIVES IS INFORMATION I COULD REALLY REALLY DO WITHOUT AND B) A LYNX MULTI-PACK IS KIND OF A BULLSHIT GIFT TO BEGIN WITH.

Sweet Valley... Cry?

2011-12-15T09:08:00.004+08:00

You can’t go home again. But that doesn’t stop us trying.

Earlier this year bookstores across the world took delivery of a slim novel called Sweet Valley Confidential — a title that may mean little to many but means a great deal to women of a certain age and disposition who had the date March 29 circled on their calendars for months beforehand.

The novel in question was the long-awaited (uh, by someone I assume) follow-up to the insanely successful Sweet Valley High series of books that shaped the teenage lives of millions growing up in the 1980s and 1990s.

The series should never have worked, focused as it was on the lives of nauseatingly beautiful and irritatingly popular twin sisters growing up in California. With one twin a boring goody two-shoes (Elizabeth) and the other a thrill-seeking tramp (Jessica) many of the books culminated in preachy conclusions that had readers believing girls who rode motorbikes were doomed to wind up — at best — in a coma and — at worst — suffer an identity crisis that would have them believing they were their own twin sister. Seriously, that actually happened.

But the series was hugely successful, running to more than 150 books, spawning a TV series (god that was bad), a slew of spin-off books and leaving in its wake a generation of fans whose formative teenage years would be forever entwined with that of the Wakefield Twins.

So perhaps we should be thoroughly unsurprised that publishers wanted to cash in on the nostalgia of those fans with the release of SVC, which picks up ten years from the end of the series.

The assumption at the heart of that decision — that the girls who once gasped over Jessica’s selfishness or swooned over Elizabeth’s weirdly sexless relationship with her beige boyfriend Todd will want to know what happened next — was probably not entirely correct. But even if the book does make squillions (and, er, the jury's still out on that one) there's something a little bit gross about dipping so thoroughly into the nostalgia well.

Nostalgia itself is a positive thing — even science says so.

After a brief stint in the 17th and 18th century where nostalgia — the term comes from the Greek words for return (‘nostos’) and pain (‘algos’) — was viewed as a serious illness modern science has gone in the other direction and decided that it’s good for us. Studies have shown that reminiscing about happy times past can give us a sense of belonging, increase self esteem and boost our happiness. According to a recent study daydreaming about happy past memories can even help us deal with fears about our own mortality, imbuing our empty, pointless lives with something resembling meaning.

But — and it is a big but — there is a difference between indulging in nostalgia and trying to recreate the success of a past phenomenon whose time has come and gone.
Even the most devoted fan of the original SVH series would have to concede that the material has not aged well. Attempting to drag the Sweet Valley universe into modern times is only going to expose all the flaws that fans failed to notice as innocent teenagers: that the Wakefields were vapid brats, that Jessica might have been a sociopath and that having one sip of alcohol in the front seat of your boyfriend’s convertible will not necessarily turn you into a drunk slut who is throwing her life away.

Though it shames me to admit it, last night I finished reading SVC and it was... one of the weirder books I've ever read. I genuinely couldn't work out whether it was deadly serious (Liz cries after she orgasms? Really?) or taking the piss (I'll admit it, I laughed when the Wakefield's insufferable mother, Alice, screamed at her husband to "bring out the fucking cake, Ned" after her mother's 80th birthday party goes off the rails).

So the book didn't make me want to kill myself. But neither did it fill me with a warm glow of love for the original material. Instead it made me faintly embarassed to have SVC sitting in my bookcase alongside the likes of War and Peace. Doubly so as I've never, er, got around to reading War and Peace.

If we have learnt nothing from the travesty that was the last three Star Wars movies it is that some things are better left alone.

We need to preserve our happy memories where they belong — in the past — and where we can enjoy them through rose-tinted glasses, not try to cash in on those memories, fail, and ruin them for good.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Ryan Gosling

2011-12-04T21:48:00.007+08:00

I know what you're thinking: I'm surprised it's taken me this long too.

How is it that I've not yet tapped Ryan Gosling as a token smokin' hottie, given the extreme depth of my crush? I blame the fact that I'm quite a slow developer, having only stumbled onto Gosling in 2006 in the movie Half Nelson, a couple of years after everyone else had already fallen in love with him for his turn in the guiltiest of pleasures that was The Notebook.

Since then my crush, initially simmering on the back burner over a medium flame, has exploded into some kind of, uh, fireball? I'm going to say fireball. The reason for this is simple: suddenly Gosling is motherfucking EVERYWHERE.

He's schmoozing it up as an insanely well-dressed charmer in Crazy, Stupid, Love - the romantic comedy I loved to pieces until the last half hour. He's cruising behind the wheel in Drive, definitely one of my favourite movies of the year and the turning point at which my Gosling Love morphed into Gosling Mania. He's even storming down the halls, West Wing-style, in The Ides of March, the film I finally got around to seeing tonight and thoroughly enjoyed, not least because it poured Gosling into a delightful black winter coat I can't stop thinking about.

The thing is, in some respects Gosling is not spectacular looking: he's got nice facial symmetry, yes, and a cute smile (definitely my achilles heel when it comes to the boys) but if you look at a still photo of him you can start to see that there's nothing so spectacular about his looks. His jaw could definitely be stronger. His eyes tend towards the squinty. He even, although it pains me to say it, looks pretty fucking creepy with a goatee. Then again, doesn't everyone?

What makes Gosling work is that he has charm, oodles of it, so much charm it probably drips into his bed sheets at night and he wakes up in a puddle of it, so much charm he can afford to put it all up there on the screen and still walk away with charm to spare, so much charm that he manages to make George Clooney - George Clooney - look unappealing just by virtue of that fact that Gosling is standing next to him onscreen.

That right there is quite an achievement, in itself making him easily one of the most worthy holders of the TSH crown.

UPDATE: As Bec points out in the comments, I totally should have pointed to this.

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

2011-11-27T07:50:00.016+08:00

As I suspect many other do, I often judge books by their covers. I'm not being metaphorical. When I'm browsing in a library or book store I'm prepared to overlook a dud cover if I've heard good things about a book or I already like the author. If, however, I'm flying blind then I'm more likely to pick up books with covers that interest me or convince me they're concealing the kind of novel I want to read.

With that in mind, I've been looking at different covers over the years used for one of my favourite Philip K Dick novels, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. The premise of the book is that insanely famous television star, Jason Taverner, wakes up one morning to find that nobody knows who he is. It's a great read and a classic of the genre but, seriously, the cover art that's been used over the years? Cracked. OUT.

Going only by the title (Dick is soooo good with the titles) and the cover art what the hell would I make of these if I stumbled across them for the first time?

A homoerotic look into the psychology of body building triplets as they struggle to get off the 'roids so they can join the police force, just like their father always wanted...

Jason Taverner was just another good looking cop who plays by his own rules until a chance encounter with the mob sends him fleeing to the Amalfi Coast where he goes deep under cover by becoming an art dealer. But he's about to find out you can't always outrun your enemies...

In which Jason Taverner is a banker hopelessly late for an important client meeting. CAN HE MAKE IT?...

Jason "Babyface" Taverner never wanted to be on the force. But when he gets sent undercover to investigate a series of attacks at the local high school and encounters the free spirited Kelly Ripper he's going to find out that some things are worth fighting for...

So I guess the police are the puppets... or are they the puppeteers? Can puppets feel pain? Let's find out...

KHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!!

Things I like Slightly More than My Job Tonight

2011-11-21T23:26:00.005+08:00

My (still kinda new) pair of shoes, even though they don't go with anything.

My morning Epic Espresso soy mocha, even though it costs $6.70.

My afternoon diet coke.

The new Jeffrey Eugenides novel, The Marriage Plot.

Turning off the light at night when I'm really, really tired.

Waking up on a Saturday morning with nothing much to do.

The so-so couscous salad I had for lunch today.

Taking out the recycling bin.

Cleaning out the regular kitchen bin.

The super painful cut on my foot that I managed to get while (literally) running to be on time for my haircut at the weekend.

Having my wisdom teeth removed.

Token Smokin' Hottie (by proxy): Paul Newman

2011-11-21T22:06:00.004+08:00

So I agree with more or less everything in this charming article on the lovely Paul Newman, and this bit made me laugh -

"Racing fast things, however, added the needed counter-point to Newman’s otherwise steady image. But just in case you thought he might be getting too wild, DON’T WORRY, he’s also making salad dressing. Yes, that big, broad, smiling face on your food items? That is an aging Paul Newman, so eager for you to make a Caesar Salad so that all proceeds can help ill children go to summer camp."

(The only part I disagree with is the two second throwaway reference slagging off X-Men: First Class, which I enjoyed thanks almost entirely to all the crazy hot Ho-Yay chemistry between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender). But, yeah, Paul Newman. Faaaawk.

Reasons why I am madly in love with the new drama/soap/trashfest show, Revenge

2011-11-21T18:03:00.003+08:00

1. It's (supposedly, anyway) based on Alenxander Dumas' awesome (though nuts long) novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.

2. As you might imagine from the above point, the main character is uh kind of a sociopath who pursues revenge at the expense of her own happiness.

3. Its supporting cast includes a skinny, shaggy-haired software billionaire who dresses like the preppiest prep you've ever met and utters this line - "I'm about a three on the Kinsey scale myself" - just before he totally nails some random scheming dude to get him onside/stop him from medding.

4. It's the soapiest show on TV right now and I mean that in a very good way. People scheme, other people die, mistresses get thrown off balconies and then creepily taken in to recuperate by the very people who (albeit unintentionally) were responsible for her getting thrown off the balcony in the first place. In short: IT'S AMAZING WHY AREN'T YOU WATCHING IT RIGHT NOW?

For the love of... Annie Hall

2011-11-15T22:43:00.012+08:00

It seems like kind of a cliche to list Woody Allen's 1977 film, Annie Hall, among my favourites. It's a critically beloved film, recognised by some as one of the great American movies, so I'm hardly breaking new ground. If I was smarter I'd say I enjoyed his earlier, more screwball/insane movies. I like his old stuff better than his new stuff etc. Actually I should be doubly embarassed because the only reason I got into Woody Allen in the first place was a boy: he was smart, bespectacled, older and more or less indifferent to me - with good cause. I was a dorky teenager sporting (at various times and - for a bad year or so - all at once) glasses, braces and orthodics. But he was always sweet to me and would chat about books, music and movies while I daydreamed about what our wedding would be like. So it was because of him (he was hugely into Woody Allen... he actually kinda looked a bit like Woody Allen) that I sat down one sleepy Saturday afternoon to watch Annie Hall.

I'm not sure what I expected: this object of my affection was a lot smarter than me and seemed so serious and bookish that I guess I was bracing myself for two hours of turgid screenplay I didn't understand, no plot and certainly no laughs. Instead I found... oh man, what did I find?

1. Happiness
This sounds like an aside but it's not: Antonia Quirke, in her very good novel Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers, said something true about Woody Allen and his ability to write happiness.

"Happiness in movies is a bit like love - the camera's always cutting away. You hardly ever get to see it. All you get those ultra-casual but ever so slightly speeded-up kitchen sequences over breakfast just before Harrison Ford's wife gets murdered by a terrorist or his kid gets crushed by a hit-and-run HGV. Instead we have happy montage sequences, like the one in Manhattan where Woody Allen dangles a hand into Central Park lake and comes up with an armful of muck. Woody was the master of these sequences. So happy they've been playing on the inside of millions of skulls for twenty years."

Quirke wasn't writing about Annie Hall in particular but she was so right: is there a better scene of what a happy relationship can look like than when he and Dianne Keaton are in the kitchen with the lobsters? Or any more depressing than when he tries to recreate it with another girl?

2. A Great Hook
Movies (and indeed books) are like relationships: if they're not great at the start I have no faith that they're going to get better and no enthusiasm to see if they do. I love the start of Annie Hall: not so much the flashback stuff but just that stupid joke he tells at the start and the way he rolls it all out there. It still draws me in, even when I know how it's going to end. The only one of his movie's that did it better was Manhattan and that was, you know, pretty fucking amazing.

3. Jokes
Before I got into Woody Allen I think I had a vague feeling that movies couldn't be serious AND have jokes. But Annie Hall is a serious movie, or at least it has something serious to say, and yet it's also really funny, just packed with one-liners I mostly missed the first time around and long dopey jokes that shouldn't work but somehow do.

4. Romance
Rom-coms these days are a pretty sad bunch. For every good romantic comedy I've seen I reckon I've seen five bad ones, or maybe two truly bad ones and three that just stopped short of making me want to stick a fork in my eye. For this reason I hesitate to call Annie Hall a romantic comedy but of course it is. And unlike the vast majority of bullshit rom-coms I see these days, Annie Hall makes the stakes feel both real and high. It even kinda made a love interest out of Woody. I... might not have thought that was possible. The scene on the balcony with the subtitles still holds up, I think, pretty damn well.

5. A Perfect Ending
I won't go into details, in case someone who reads this hasn't seen the movie but this is just perfectly done. Just like the starting sequence, it gets me every time.

The Angel and Devil on my Shoulders: A Conversation

2011-11-15T20:39:00.007+08:00

Angel: You definitely do not need this beautiful, beautiful Cambridge Satchel Company satchel.

Devil: Don't you?

Angel: No. You have plenty of bags already, including a perfectly fetching black handbag that you only bought a year ago.

Devil: But do you have any... satchels?

Angel: Satchels are for uni students or pretentious wannabe writers who sit around in coffee shops ostentatiously scribbling in a notebook or tapping away on a laptop.

Devil: YOU could be one of those pretentious wannabe writers... if only you had this satchel.

Angel: Dude, that's not a good thing.

Devil: Isn't it?

Angel: Anyway, it's leather: you don't wear leather.

Devil: But, looked at another way leather could be the environmentally responsible option. You can buy a cheap synthetic bag every year, one that falls apart and will end up in landfill, or you can buy a handmade leather beauty like this and keep it forever.

Angel: Or you can use your perfectly fine existing bags and not buy a new bag at all.

Devil: But you can have these satchels embossed...

Angel: I really don't think... did you say embossed?

Devil: With one's initials. Or...

Angel: Or?

Devil: Or one's name.

Angel: You sure are saying 'one' a lot.

Devil: That's because I own a Cambridge Satchel Company satchel. You too could talk like this. If you owned a Cambridge Satchel Company satchel.

Angel: I.. you've beaten me.

Scenes from my street

2011-11-15T08:48:00.002+08:00

Random dude walking past: Hey, how're you going?

Me (standing next to my car, clearing out glass from the window that some dicksnaps smashed in overnight): Oh, I'm doing great, obviously.

Random dude walking past: Yeah you're really living the dream.

Is it me you're looking for?

2011-11-11T22:20:00.001+08:00

So I don't usually just post links to other blogs but this is highly amusing.

The moment that just blew my mind

2011-11-11T21:58:00.005+08:00

Watching the (thoroughly enjoyable) 2007 sci-fi movie, Sunshine, and thinking "hey that dude looks like a hot version of Chris 'I brought my own mic' Evans" before realising that, Holy Shit, that fucking IS Chris Evans.

Hey, what can I say: I live a simple life.

An open letter to my new office neighbour

2011-11-10T18:23:00.002+08:00

Let me start by saying that I know it's not your fault that you've been kicked out of your cushy office and moved to a cubicle directly opposite mine. I'm sure that sucks for you and you're miserable about it, although I'm happy to see you've managed to bring those blown up photos of your(?) cats along with you.

Let me continue by saying, however, that things cannot go on like this. I am not a hateful person but we've been neighbours for four days and already I hate you.

I take that back: hate is a strong word and I'm sure you're not hateable. If I'm honest, instead of being nasty, you seem harmless enough, even sweet, certainly friendly and well-intentioned if kind of... dumb. No, wait, I take that back too. I'm sorry, it's just that I've honestly never heard anyone call up the Coles information line to ask them how you can order Coles groceries online before.

My real problem, when I get down to it, is not so much the cat photos or the random calls or your voice (which is WEIRD by the way, I'm sorry if nobody's ever told you that) or even your perpetual snuffling. It's... the way you drink your coffee. Okay so I know that sounds like maybe I'm the one with the problem here but hear me out. It's not that you slurp it, or that you drink a lot of it or that I hate coffee. It's just that when you drink it you, for some reason I cannot fathom, feel compelled to stand up at your desk and stare directly at me across the aisle like you're staring into my soul.

Do you... think I don't notice a grown woman staring at me from three metres away? Or do you just... not care? What are you thinking about? Are you staring into space randomnly or staring at me in particular? Do I have lipstick on my teeth?

These are the kinds of questions I just can't afford to waste time thinking about. Yet these are the questions that have been plaguing me all week.

I'm not saying that I have all the answers or that I'm a perfect neighbour myself (I know the Phoenix ringtone gets on other peoples' nerves too, it's been brought to my attention). But what I am saying is this: sit the fuck down when you drink your fucking coffee or I'll throw it in your fucking face.
Regards,

Your neighbour

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-11-08T22:22:00.009+08:00

So I've been a very slack blogger lately because I've been distracted by very dull, very unpleasant things, most of which centres around a bit of unwanted change that has been foistered upon me. Have I mentioned how much I hate change? I hate, hate, HATE it. I hate it like I hate.. well, let me see.... what DO I hate?

Not being able to sleep

The smell of seafood

Suped up ("souped up?") cars and the people who drive them

Gin

Tonic water

Laziness, especially my own

Unrequited love (well, come on)

Cockroaches

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul (otherwise known as Sunday evening, TM Douglas Adams)

Finishing a book you love

Calories

Needles

Pins and needles

February heat

Early nights

Not having a dishwasher

Peas

The novels of Dean Koontz

Summer TV

People who cut in line, particularly at bars

Mess

My hair

Coming home from an awful day to find no wine in the house

The dripping tap in my bathroom

People who walk across the road reaaaalllyy slowly

Drivers who don't indicate

Moths

Rudeness

The day after my birthday

Day-after drunken text remorse

And when you take all of that - the insomnia, the too-bitter drink, lying in bed trying not to hear the drip, the creepy, creepy, creepy crawling bugs and the loafing around listening to Elliot Smith and weeping in the bath - and it's still nothing compared to how much I hate change.

Quiz Night Shame or Why I Should Probably Read More Thick Books

2011-11-01T09:06:00.004+08:00

Questions I got right:
1. Recognising Eminem lyrics.
2. A question about The Sound of Music.

Questions I got wrong:
1. Flags of the world.
2. Everything else.

Things I Bought Last Night or Why I Should Not Drink And Shop Online

2011-10-30T15:29:00.008+08:00

1. The most least practical pair of heels that I have ever seen. I literally cannot imagine a single outfit that I own with which they might work and I don't even know for sure if they're going to fit. But they are very very cute. Plus, you know, who DOESN'T need a pair of green-and-cream heels with a giant red bow on the front. Am I right?

2. Lawrence Sanders' entire back catalogue. Because can you have enough comic mystery novels in your bookcase? No. No you cannot.

3. A USB port thing shaped like a robot. I... don't even know.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Cillian Murphy

2011-10-28T21:50:00.001+08:00

How much do I love Cillian Murphy? Let me count the ways.

1. I love his eyes. Holy SHIT his eyes are amazing. If he was my boyfriend I can just imagine being mid-fight and maybe snapping something like "look at me when I'm talking to you!" and then melting instantly as soon as he glanced my way. Sure, this would probably mean that he could get away without lifting a finger around the house and, I don't know, maybe knocking me around once in awhile, but would it be worth it? Totally.

2. Every interview I've ever read with him makes him sound like a total sweetheart - neither an up-himself prick nor one of those dudes who tries to hard to be all I'm-not-Hollywood-I'm-Just-a-Regular-Guy-Like-You-Even-Though-I-Fuck-Supermodels: just nice, well-spoken and sometimes a little bit funny. He doesn't have to try to hard and I think a certain 'effortlessness' is an underrated personality trait. Obviously I'm deluding myself but I feel like maybe if we got stuck in a really long queue for, uh, the bathroom or something we could maybe have a little bit of chat.

3. I really loved 28 Days Later. That's... it. I just seriously love that movie - it's such a perfect zombie film - and him in it. And I think I quite like his taste in picking movies generally: even though he's been in some movies that weren't exactly successful in either the critical or the commercial sense I feel like they were all at least interesting failures (well, maybe not so much with Tron: Legacy but, eh, we all make mistakes).

4. According to IMDB his mother is a French teacher. This delights me because, in my mind, he is also fluent in French and flits about the house saying things like "Bonjour Mama" and... no, wait, I don't know anymore French.

5. Ye Gods, I just went back to stalk him some more on IMDB and he bloody IS fluent in French. And Gaelic. Be still my beating heart.

6. He's vegetarian, which automatically makes anyone ten times hotter. True story.

7. He's really, really, really good looking. Don't look at me like that: you know that Token Smokin' Hottie always comes back to looks in the end. If anything I almost feel like maybe he's just a little bit too pretty to seriously fancy a few flaws in someone's face usually make them much more attractive to me. That much said, if I had to be a dude I'd want to look exactly like him and it's not just the eyes. His cheekbones are, obviously, pretty freaking striking but there's also his beautiful skin, so pale you can just imagine how adorable he'd be if he blushed. Plus, looking a little bit further south (still on his FACE, get your mind out of the gutter) he also has a really cute smile and if there's one single thing about a boy that makes me go absolutely weak at the knees - forget about the skinny, forget about the eyes and the cheekbones and a decent wardrobe and a cool personality - it's definitely a cute smile.

How To Do A Remake Right (or Why I Sorta Loved The New Footloose Movie)

2011-10-25T23:43:00.013+08:00

1. Choose a movie to remake that wasn't so great to begin with. Oh, sure, Footloose is an iconic 80s movie and all but it's also uh... not that memorable when you go back and sit through it in the cold hard light of 2011. The story, about a town that has outlawed dancing, is obviously ridiculous, the dialogue lame and there are seriously whole stretches of that movie where Nothing Happens. Repeatedly. Also barring Kevin Bacon's general awesomeness and John Lithgow, who brings it as reliably as ever, it's full of a bunch of actors who, call me crazy, probably didn't go onto bigger and better things for a good reason. (Yeah sorry, Lori Singer I'm kinda looking at you).

2. Cast a hottie hot hot hot as your star. Okay, so Kenny Wormald (ugh, Kenny, change your name already) doesn't look like much if you check him out on IMDB but I swear onscreen he's really got a certain something something. That something something may or may not include a certain resemblance to - call me crazy - James Dean and/or James Franco. Boyfriend Andy would like it on the record that he strongly disagrees but for my two cents he has the kind of gravitas onscreen that makes you want to watch him instead of anyone else. It doesn't hurt that his dancing is pretty ace. Also, despite playing a teenager in the film, he's not even jail bait so you don't have to feel creepy: dude is 27.

3. Put black people in the movie. Hmm, yeah, okay it looks like kind of a gross thing to say when I see it on the page, like the next thing I'm going to say is how black people just have a great natural sense of rhythm. But the thing is, when the original film was made there were seriously ZERO black people anywhere in the movie: maybe it didn't seem weird at the time but in hindsight it's... odd. Plus, the black chicks in the new version are about ten times better dancers than any of the white chicks, who mostly just writhe around and look like they're thinking about fucking their partner's belt buckle.

4. Recognise That You're Not Making Citizen Kane. Part way through watching the new movie I leaned across Boyfriend Andy to hiss at my friend Alex (who, God Bless Him, sat through both Burlesque and Step Up 3D with me... and secretly loves this sort of thing just as much as me) something along the lines of "Shit just got real". Onscreen the movie's first proper dance scene was just about to kick off and I was both nervous and excited: nervous because there is absolutely nothing lamer than a tasty bit of trash that takes itself too seriously and excited because I didn't think Footloose was going to fall into that category. It did not: I don't think anybody making this movie had any illusions about what kind of movie they were making and so, for the most part, the serious bits of the movie were outweighed by the deliciously ridiculous. How many movies could pull off an awesome segue from "teenage boy who just watched his mother die of cancer" to "now he's racing an on-fire school bus around a race track for no apparent reason"? Well, this one does it.

5. Inject some (desperately lacking in the original) INTENTIONAL humour into the film via a wise-cracking best friend. Okay, so I know I crapped on a bit back there about Kenny Wormald but, I must confess, I think Miles Teller is the real scene stealer of the film. From the moment he appears on screen, smacking into our hero in the school halls, this guy had my lips twitching. He does everything you want a Funny Best Friend to do: crack jokes, be awesome and make the hero look better just by being friends with him. I don't want to spoil the end of the movie or anything but in the final scene his character, Willard, and Kenny's character dance together and... I don't even know. I may never recover from seeing those glorious two minutes. And I mean that in a very good way.

An open letter to the douche outside Epic Espresso this morning,

2011-10-24T09:14:00.001+08:00

If this (alleged, probably fake) "big deal" you're (allegedly, probably not) working on is really so fucking "top secret" (read: does not exist) then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't stand on Outram Street for 15 fucking minutes SHOUTING ABOUT IT INTO YOUR PHONE. You were wearing a very nice suit, though: I will give you that.

That awkward moment where you walk in on a male stripper getting changed at a hen's night

2011-10-24T09:11:00.004+08:00

You (trying not to stare at his Good China): Oh, shit, sorry!

Him (trying to cover said Good China): Don't be shy...

You (by now approximately the colour of a ripe tomato): Um, you had really good comic timing out there. Seriously, good work. Um, I'll be over there.

"How can I stay mad at you?"

2011-10-21T08:16:00.001+08:00

(Screen-shot courtesy of Eye on Springfield)

Token Smokin' Hottie: Freddie Mercury

2011-10-18T14:04:00.006+08:00

It's not exactly a secret to anyone who has read this blog for awhile and/or heard me crap on about the subject in person that I dig the HoYay.

So a big part of my love for the late Freddie Mercury is surely his penchant for shagging dudes, much in the same way that Zachary Quinto has weirdly become even more attractive to me since he (very recently) came out. (Then again Quinto has always been hot: he appeared in What's Your Number for approximately 2 minutes and yet he was - far and away - the sexiest thing about a movie ostensibly all about sex. It was hard to get very involved in the movie's storyline when I couldn't help but feel sorry for Anna Faris for her serious downgrade from Quinto to Chris "I wish they taught shopping in school" Evans. Who would rather watch Evans work on his fucking abs for the three hours a day he presumably spends at the gym than stay in bed with Quinto for hot vegan sex? The mind boggles.)

I'm wandering from my point. What I started to say was that there's something undeniably appealing about knowing that you can't have someone. Even assuming I could click my fingers and turn myself into some kind of Mila Kunis-meets-Charlize Theron-via-Monica Belluci sex bomb and, you know, bring Freddie back from the dead, he probably still wouldn't be into me, by virtue of my not being a dude. Seriously I don't understand why EVERYONE'S not into HoYay, unless all the chicks I know who claim to find the concept of two dudes utterly unappealing are just lying about it. It's all very weird to me. (In case there are any raging Freddie fans reading this, which uh seems unlikely, I should recognise that yeah OKAY, so he was apparently bi not gay but whatever - reality shouldn't stand in the way of a good fantasy).

Again I wander from my point. Tokin' Smokin' Hottie status is not just about being unavailable: it's also about being hot and in this respect it doesn't hurt that Freddie ticks several of my boxes (and you can insert your own 'he can tick my box any day' joke here) in that he's kinda skinny, dark-haired and decidedly snake-hipped. His face is... well it's weird, I guess is the only way to describe it. I'm not being mean but he had a very weird-looking face that really shouldn't work: I guess that's an overbite that makes his mouth so prominent but it certainly is a whole LOT of overbite. Then on top of that he has just about the poutiest pair of lips that every pouted. Seriously: dude looks like he's just snogged a bee hive. And then there's the moustache, which... no. Just no. But somehow all these ridiculous elements work together to make him, at the very least, extremely interesting to look at. (He also, now that I come to think about it, looks a very very little bit like my first boyfriend. Holy Shit, I can't believe I only just noticed that. But in the unlikely event that you're reading this, Jason, seriously: no hard feelings. I think it might just be the overbite).

Then there's the fact that Freddie was clearly uber talented and a very large part of Queen's success must be laid at his feet. If you have four free minutes I highly recommend watching the film clip for This Thing Called Love in which Freddie has never looked better. Who doesn't love a dude who can dance and, at the same time, give the impression that he wants to fuck everyone else onstage. Even the chicks. The whole film clip is one of the campiest thing I've ever see and it's also completely awesome, right down to Freddie's facial expressions, the motorbike (dear LORD, the motorbike) and the way his shirt keeps getting more and more ripped off. Dude even makes a hairy chest look like a brilliant idea.

How does he do all of this? I have no idea but it's super hot and I really wish someone else who's still around today would learn how to do it too.

In lieu of me having anything interesting to say today: a little Philip Larkin to ease me back into the week.

2011-10-17T17:36:00.005+08:00

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can.
And don't have any kids yourself.

(Philip Larkin)

A question for any dude wearing this (admittedly kinda cute) T-shirt emblazoned with the cover of The Sun Also Rises....

2011-10-10T22:00:00.002+08:00

... Soooo, you do know that book was about impotence. Right?

Songs that initially sound upbeat but are actually kinda depressing when you start to think about it

2011-10-10T08:30:00.009+08:00

Belle and Sebastian, Jonathan David

The only thing worse than unrequited love: unrequired love when the object of your affection fancies your best mate. Got to love the understatement of "I thought she liked me but somehow I was wrong". BURN. (Also, I don't mean to be harsh but, based on this music, video, the girl made the right choice because LORD Stuart looks as good as he's ever looked).

The Cure, Boys Don't Cry
Sure, nine of ten Cure songs pretty much make me want to slit my wrists but this one lures you in with its jangly guitar and Robert Smith dance moves. Only halfway through do you get sucked into a massive downer without quite knowing why.

The Smiths, You Just Haven't Earned it yet, Baby

See above entry for The Cure's Boys Don't Cry. The perkiness of this song makes me want to dance, while the line "you must stay on your own for slightly longer" fills me with the simultaneous desire to drown myself in the bath.

Nina Simone, Love Me or Leave Me
These days you can humiliate yourself by sending a dozen crawling mails/texts/voicemails to the (indifferent) object of your affection, who will politely ignore them. On balance I think I prefer Nina's approach.

Dear religious leaders of the UK,

2011-10-06T10:52:00.002+08:00

When English PM David Cameron, a conservative politician who looks and sounds like the biggest toff that ever toffed, is "emphatically" in favour of gay marriage then maybe, just maybe, you're out of touch.

Regards,
Kate

Things I think but do not say to the security guard on reception at work #34

2011-10-02T22:53:00.001+08:00

You're playing solitaire on your computer, really? That's the absolute best you can do?

Dude of the week: Sean Maher

2011-09-29T17:22:00.005+08:00

The delightful Sean Maher, who I will love forever for his involvement in short-lived sci-fi TV series Firefly came out in EW magazine this week and the interview gives you a nice idea about how completely balls it must be to be a gay man in Hollywood, where pretty much everyone wants you to stay in the closet ("My agent was also like, ‘It’s best if you keep your options open. Maybe bisexual?’") So naturally I'm slightly gutted that the chances I will ever get to sleep with Maher have dropped from 0.1 per cent to 0 per cent but you've got to respect a man with balls. Plus, you know, he's still kinda smoking.

Only 113?

2011-09-27T19:55:00.007+08:00

Have I linked to this post, 113 Reasons To Lead A Barren, Childless Existence That Ends In Your Death, by the charming Tara Ariano before? I feel like I have but... fuck it, I want to do it again. From now on whenever someone asks me why I don't want kids I plan to direct them to this link and say nothing more.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Milo Ventimiglia (again)

2011-09-25T20:52:00.006+08:00

If you've never seen the short-lived TV show The Bedford Diaries then I URGE you from the bottom of my heart not to do so. Although filled with a lot of very attractive people the central concept of the show - it follows the lives of a bunch of students who all attend the same sex seminar at Bedford University - is just too super creepy to get over.

It's not just that the sex class is RIDICULOUSLY unacademic but that the Professor who runs the class and is, I'm pretty sure, supposed to be cut from the awesome-if-unconventional Dead Poets Society vein, instead comes off as a total perv who gets off on asking his super hot students to make video diaries about their sex lives. You just KNOW he's "reviewing" those homework assignments with one hand. The stupid show even tries to convince us that this class is one that simply eeeeeveryone in the entire university really wants to get into, although exactly why that would be is a complete mystery. Hilariously although the class appears to consist of about 15+ people, the show only follows the lives of the good-looking ones. Every now and again you get a shot of the rest of the class - the ugmos and fatties, basically - and it's pretty clear why those extras aren't playing a starring role.

The Bedford Diaries is a really shit show, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So why then have I just sat through the entire first (indeed only) season? Two words: Milo Ventimiglia.

Milo has appeared on this blog once or twice before because he is an extremely good looking boy and if this blog is about anything it's about extremely good looking boys and the women who ogle them (me). I loved Milo in Gilmore Girls as the tough-though-very-short rebel Jess who steals Rory away from Dull Dean and loved him even more as Peter Petrelli in Heroes, where he managed to stand out even among a cast of super hot hotties by virtue of a)being the hottest of them all, b)getting to play an adorable character with a heart of gold and, even better, Issues.

The reason Milo's cracked another mention as a Token Smokin' Hottie now is that his work in The Bedford Diaries (which predates Heroes) just goes to show how impressive he really is, and I don't just mean his delicious bone structure. Even saddled with some GODAWFUL dialogue that I really can't do justice to here, Milo is the one person onscreen you just can't take your eyes off. The plot of this show is, as I say, completely ludicrous, and yet I found myself caring what happened to Milo's character, not just because he's hot but because he's a decent actor who has, most importantly, something nobody else onscreen does: gravitas.

Also he is really, really good looking.

Songs to which you cannot listen and be sad

2011-09-25T13:59:00.009+08:00

Belle and Sebastian: "I'm a Cuckoo"

It's no secret that I love love me some Belle and Sebastian in a way that is largely unaffected by some of their, er, more questionable output. My love for B&S can't be compared to the way I feel about other, newer, almost certainly "better" bands because it's tied up with a lot of nostalgic memories and this song is no exception. For my money it is a near perfect example of what B&S do really well and rivals some of my other B&S favourites. Also, I'm a real sucker for cute dudes who run, so this film clip hits all my buttons.

Talking Heads: "And She Was"

It's embarrassing to include a song that once appeared - I believe - in Look Who's Talking, but this is pretty fucking good. Objectively I don't think it's the band's best song but Jesus it makes me want to dance around just a little bit every time I hear it.

DJ Fresh: "Gold Dust"

This is by no means my usual taste in music this is just one of those songs that can't HELP but cheer you up. If I'm getting ready for a night out but kind of, you know, not really in the mood, this is the song that I crank up. Plus, those two girls with the afros and the pulled up socks are fairly damn rad (yeah, that's right RAD - I'm bringing it back).

The Crew Cuts: "Sh Boom"

When I was much, MUCH younger (honestly, can't put enough emphasis on the "much") I had a huge, long-running crush on an older boy. Being pretty dopey I used to spend/waste a lot of time daydreaming about this bit of buttery bit of crumpet but because I was, as I may have mentioned, somewhat young at the time, instead of daydreaming about having hot, sweaty, monkey sex with said crumpet I daydreamed about the day when we'd get married and... dance to this song at the wedding. That may not have quite worked out as planned but I still really love this song. Plus, I should mention that it makes a truly inspired appearance in one of my favourite guilty pleasure movies of all time, Clue (seriously, that movie is gold and if you don't agree you should watch this and reconsider), so what's not to like?

Noah and the Whale: "5 Years Time"

Kind of the same deal as with Talking Heads: I don't think this is Noah and the Whale's best song or anything but it's the one that make me feel happy/want to run away with Charlie Fink. Although, to be fair, most things in life make me want to run away with Charlie Fink. (Just ignore this stupid excuse for a video, for some reason the official video won't embed and I'm not tech-savvy enough to figure out a way around it).

Tell someone who cares, Sweetheart...

2011-09-23T17:37:00.003+08:00

Have you seen these ads for the Advertising Standards Bureau? I love how they've used a photo of what appears to be the prissiest little priss who ever prissed, like even the people behind said Advertising Standards Bureau think that anyone who can be bothered to complain about an ad is kind of a drag.

Look at me

2011-09-19T16:43:00.004+08:00

You'd think that after two decades of wearing glasses, an eye exam would no longer freak me out. I have sat in that cool black chair too many times to count, alternately fumbling my way through that teensy tiny bottom line of text that I can barely see (sometimes, I'm ashamed to say, actually CHEATING: I mean really what's the point there exactly?) and judging the respective sharpness of two images that look, half the time, very very similar to me. I have gone through half a dozen pairs of glasses: the Harry Potteresque look in my early years, tragically long before Harry Potter existed; the giant blue monstrosities in late primary school for which I will never forgive my mother (she claims they were my choice - I demand proof); more recently a neat pair of black ones that I still like, even though I may well look back on them with abject horror in another decade or so. The point is, I've been wearing glasses and having dudes look at my eyes for a very long time.

And yet, both the prospect and the reality of said eye exam still freak me the fuck out. Given the choice I'd rather have a freaking pap smear and pay a licensed professional to get up close and personal with my good China (sorry for the visual, squeamish boys) than subject myself to another eye exam in the immediate future. Nevertheless, that's exactly what I did today and did facing up to my fear help cure me of it? No. No it did not.

It started badly enough when the optometrist (or was she an opthamologist? I don't know, let's just call her Ms O) asked me a simple yes-no question and I responded with a nervous 5 minute unasked for ramble of response beginning with the day I was fitted with my first pair of specs to the moment where I had walked in the door two minutes earlier. Naturally, being the kind of person who blushes when nervous/uncomfortable/embarrassed/self-conscious/running late/embarrassingly early/addressing someone on whom I have a crush/addressing someone on whom I don't have a crush/addressing shop assistants/I could go on, I was already by this stage an unappealing shade of dusky pink. And as anyone else who blushes as much as I do will know, just knowing that you're blushing makes you blush ten times worse.

Then the tests began and LORD do I hate the tests. The thing is... I never think that I can read the letters properly - I always assume that while I'm confidently reading "E... C.... H..." off the eye chart, the person monitoring my responses is snickering to him or herself and mocking my crappy vision. As a result I have developed a bad and really really pointless/actually quite destructive habit of remembering the letters when I see them with my good eye and sort of... recalling them when asked to read the same string of letters with my bad eye. I know, I know: I'm only screwing myself but my fear of having slightly-too-weak lenses is weaker than my fear of getting the answers wrong. This explains many things, including why I am a nerd and have always been a teacher's pet.

Those of you who have had an eye test before knows what comes next: a series of tests in which you're asked to distinguish between two images and say which is clearer. The nature of the image changes but this test goes on for approximately 300 years so that by the time it's finished you're desperately shouting "uh 2... no I mean 1... can I see 2 again?" If you've ever seen the episode of Arrested Development where Michael Cera's character George Michael (not the singer/songwriter) gets glasses then it's basically exactly like that.

It ended eventually, of course, and I celebrated by getting the hell out of there. I felt pretty good and having done the thing I'd been putting off for years, happily ignoring the reality that I could, in fact, see better without my glasses and the implication that CLEARLY my eyes had changed in recent years. But I was also disappointed in myself for being so lame and nervous, for blushing and sweating and stumbling over my words - most of all for pathetically trying to impress Ms O just like I did as a kid and I was more focused on getting the right answers than getting glasses that might actually help me to see the whiteboard.

Either way, I thought I deserved a little something something for my efforts so I went out with the intention of buying myself a book and returned with a celebratory (if highly unnecessary) Alannah Hill cardigan. Yes it is adorable, yes it was sort of an indulgent purchase I can't really afford right now and yes I did blush when the sales girl made a cute comment about my cute earrings. Sometimes I worry about myself.

Possibly the most joyous moment of my weekend:

2011-09-18T21:48:00.003+08:00

When (alleged trash-hating) Boyfriend Andy defended the integrity of 2006 teen rom-com John Tucker Must Die with these immortal words: "Honey, you can't really start picking it apart."

Not mother?

2011-09-18T18:27:00.004+08:00

No Ruprecht, she's not our mother.

This isn't supposed to be a depressing post, honest

2011-09-15T12:16:00.010+08:00

I think that one of the terrifying things about growing up is the day you realise that life doesn't have meaning: that, unlike a novel or a film or even a bloody good computer game, there's no purpose you're put on this world to achieve and nothing left behind when you go except what gets burnt up at the crematorium.

This isn't to say that your life has to be filled with despair and depression: it's still possible to have fun even if you know you're know part of someone else's greater plan. But it's still a sobering realisation that if you want to find purpose in your daily life you're going to have to work hard to put it there yourself. Some people find meaning through having kids, creating art or helping others. Some people just do their best not to think about it and muddle on doing whatever feels good, which I think is actually not a bad strategy. (Of course if you believe in religion, which you shouldn't because it's all shit, you may well disagree with all the points made above).

It's a subject I think about quite a bit, which is why I was delighted to see it covered by Sydney Morning Herald columnist Sam de Brito in recent column, a column he claims a friend said was the closest thing to a suicide note the SMH had ever published.

"Man, I'm gonna be glad to put this year behind me; wipe it off like a putrid paste I've pushed into the porcelain. And flush. If you read this blog regularly, you've probably discerned it's been a cracker of a 12 months for me, in which my relationship dissolved and I lost daily contact with my child..."

Regular readers might have noticed I've suddenly started banging on about de Brito, of whose work I am a longtime fan, far more than usual. The reason for this is that de Brito has been going through something of a crisis over the past nine-odd months after splitting up with the mother of his child. This has presumably been a pile of shit for him but it has also thrown up some really interesting - if sometimes depressing-as-fuck columns - for the rest of us to read.

A case in point: the column linked to above is effectively a plea to readers for some suggestions about how he can get some purpose back in his life.

"I care about very little except my daughter now, and my life feels increasingly like a misty vale, pierced every couple of days by the sunlight of her visits.
Everything else? I can take it or leave it. Now, some people might say I was depressed, but I've been this way, deep down, for the better part of 10 years, and I've still found direction, meandering as it usually was.

"Now? I truly don't give a f---, except to pile up cash to provide for my daughter's education and future... Don't go telling me to "see someone" - I've done that. And no, I'm not bloody suicidal. I've taken the friggin' pills, I've talked to the shrinks and you know what? It boils down to the same question for me - what's the point?

"They all say the same thing - every book and counsellor and concerned friend and guru says the same friggin' thing: we are the architect of our own salvation, you have to give your life its own meaning. And that's where I've lost the thread, for now. Yes, the point is my daughter, but that's 19½ hours a week.
There's got to be more than that."

For once the comments left behind by readers are every bit as interesting as the column itself and well worth a read for anyone feeling a bit directionless and lacklustre of late.

The uncomfortable conversation with the woman giving me a facial that preceded me spending an obscene amount of money on various ointments and gunk

2011-09-13T14:28:00.003+08:00

Her: So what's your skincare routine?
Me: When you say 'routine'?
Her: Do you cleanse, exfoliate, moisturise?
Me: I.. moisturise. I wear sunscreen-moisturiser during the day.
Her: Good. Anything else?
Me: Uh. I soap.
Her: (Silence).
Me: I... use soap.
Her: Right. Now, you're going to feel a slight itching sensation...

Things I plan to do on my Holiday in Perth but probably will definitely not do on my Holiday in Perth

2011-09-12T14:56:00.004+08:00

1. Start/finish The Great Australian Novel.
2. Start/finish cleaning my car.
3. Read books to improve my mind, as opposed to loafing around with David Nicholls and copies of Vogue.
4. Renew my gym membership.
5. Get out of my pajamas.

Charming, much?

2011-09-07T21:18:00.000+08:00

In other news

2011-09-07T19:13:00.003+08:00

Some people don't deserve to fuck nerds.

Things that are more exciting than this blog when I haven't written anything all week

2011-09-02T10:26:00.001+08:00

1. Anything.
2. See above.

An Open Letter to the Hipster Couple Who (Unapologetically) Scared the Shit Out of Me On Beaufort Street Today,

2011-08-28T15:49:00.004+08:00

You're not in a fucking BELLE AND SEBASTIAN FILM CLIP, you stupid dicks. I wasn't charmed by your boyfriend's stupid hat as he sped past, not by your girlfriend's stupid ankle socks and three-sizes-too-big cardigan as she nearly side-swiped me. If you can't or won't ride on the road maybe you should SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.

What My Boss Probably Meant When He Told Me I Looked "like a party girl" At Work Today

2011-08-25T19:54:00.003+08:00

1. Your dress makes you look like a slut.
2. Your heels make you look like a slut.
3. Are you a slut?

WeirdER, I mean

2011-08-21T18:21:00.006+08:00

So I can't say I've ever been super tempted to have a threesome. But if this utterly adorable Swedish hipster couple were up for it... I don't know, I think I'd probably give it a whirl. Of course then I'd be forced to steal her amazing bag, his jumper and that awesome suitcase too and then things might get, you know, weird.

"I bought him a bottle of baby oil, which I could tell got used a few times, but then it just sat on the counter with the level never changing..."

2011-08-17T18:23:00.003+08:00

It's easy to get down on our spouses and the state of our relationships sometimes. Spend enough time with anyone and they'll get on your nerves. Go out with someone long enough and, sooner or later, you'll be sitting across from them at the dinner table thinking "I hate you so much right now" and wondering whether you should jam the fork into their eye or your own. That's why I plan on keeping a copy of this letter, which featured in Dan Savage's Savage Love column this week, around for a very long time to remind myself that things could be worse. Like a lot lot lot worse.

Questions I have after reading Miranda Devine's gross column for the Daily Telegraph this week:

2011-08-16T13:13:00.005+08:00

She wrote: You only had to see the burning streets of London last week to see the manifestation of a fatherless society.

I ask: How do you know they don't have fathers?

She wrote: Fatherless families in underprivileged boroughs of London are the norm.

I ask: No, seriously. How do you know?

She wrote: It is politically incorrect to say so, but the ideal situation for a child is to be brought up in an intact family with a father and a mother.

I ask: Why?

She wrote: Marriage is not just a private relationship: it is a social good.

I ask: Why?

She wrote: blah blah blah

I ask: HOW DOES THIS SHIT GET PUBLISHED???

Love will... tear us apart?

2011-08-15T09:36:00.005+08:00

It's no secret around here that I am a big fan of sex advice columnist Dan Savage. I started reading his column a year or so ago and while I probably started reading it for the fetishists and the weirdos I stayed for the funny but thoughtful advice: a particular kind of advice that I've never read anywhere else. Since then I have devoured his books, raced through about five years of archived columns and I listen to his podcast every week. I'm hooked. I've also expanded my vocabulary to include words like pegging and santorum. I'll let those around me decide if that's a good or a bad thing.

Anyway, the lovely Mike recently returned from a US jaunt with a copy of the New York Times Magazine under his arm. The cover story was by reporter Mark Oppenheimer, titled "Married, With Infidelities". It's a really interesting read that kicks off with a bit of rehashing over the Anthony Weiner case but then gets into some seriously interesting stuff on marriage, monogamy and why can't all admit a bit more often that actually monogamy is really bloody hard work sometimes. It quotes Savage a lot - Oppenheimer is clearly also a fan - and without some of the snidey commentary that sometimes happens with mainstream journos write about Savage. It also points out sometime that I think a lot of Savage critics maybe don't think about: that despite being gay and only monogamish, Savage is also kinda... conservative and believes in marriage, couples staying together for the sake of the kids and lots of other things you might not expect.

The article was so interesting that I started to retype some quotes from the magazine before realising I could use my mad interweb skills to track the online version down here. Here is a taste:

Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes that our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner, he writes, just as some people need flirting, others need to be whipped, others need lovers of both sexes. We can’t help our urges, and we should not lie to our partners about them. In some marriages, talking honestly about our needs will forestall or obviate affairs; in other marriages, the conversation may lead to an affair, but with permission. In both cases, honesty is the best policy.

“I acknowledge the advantages of monogamy,” Savage told me, “when it comes to sexual safety, infections, emotional safety, paternity assurances. But people in monogamous relationships have to be willing to meet me a quarter of the way and acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted.”

It's really interesting stuff regardless of whether you're married, unmarried, having sex with lots of people or only thinking about how nice it would be to have sex with lots of people.

Venn Digram Monday

2011-08-15T09:34:00.001+08:00

Dear True Blood,

2011-08-10T12:42:00.004+08:00

It's not you, it's me. No, that's a lie: it's not me, it's you. It's so freaking you - what are you doing to yourself? Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I positively pined for you, daydreamed about you when you weren't around and a mere five minutes in your presence was enough to make me blush. Now I find myself reluctant to spend much time together and distracted when we do.

Where did it all go wrong?

Things started off so well. As a big fan of the Charlaine Harris novels on which you are based, I was thrilled with the direction in which season one seemed to be going. The world I saw onscreen was the world of the books, more or less, but with enough changes to keep things interesting. Sookie was charmingly ditzy, Bill was pompous but hot and Eric - once he got his hair cut, anyway - was, of course, a smoking piece of arse who got all the best lines.

Then there were pleasant surprises along the way: Jason Stackhouse, kind of a superfluous character in the book, managed to be sexy and stupid and funny all at the same time in the hands of Ryan Kwanten and his involvement with the religious nutjobs in season two was a delight. Lafayette, who dies early on in the first book, stuck around for some good comic relief and Sam, who bores me to tears on the page, turned out to have a certain somethin'-somethin' going on.

At your best it felt like you had something new and interesting and genuine to say about desire - desire for sex, power, immortality, meaning, love - and when you were good you were very very good.

Things started going off the rails somewhere about the second half of season two and I think we all know where the blame lies: the clusterfuck that was the fucking maenad storyline. What the FUCK? God was that bitch ever annoying. Admittedly I was pretty zoned out by the time the series finale rolled around but I woke up long enough to emit at least a half-hearted cheer when Sam finally took care of that shit, albeit approximately 300 episodes too late.

But the pain continued because by now you simply had TOO MANY CHARACTERS and instead of deciding to, say, throw the likes of Tara, Andy, Arlene, Sam's moronic brother Tommy and the entire population of Hotshot off a cliff and call it a day, you felt like you had to continue to GIVE THEM STORYLINES. Welcome to Snoozetown, population me.

Things really started to come undone for me this season, which I had been anticipating because of the subject matter. The Eric amnesia storyline in the books, although inherently silly, is also incredibly hot. One minute Eric's running down the road naked, the next he's nailing Sookie in the shower and - unlike you, dear True Blood - the books didn't feel the need to paint it as this lovely and bewdiful romance, at least not in the early stages. Once again, it's really all about the desire of two hot people to Have Hot Monkey Sex, not sit around mooning at each other about how rare and beautiful their love is. (That much said, it would be rude of me not to say that I do appreciate the Alexander Skarsgaard nudity).

In closing, I don't know if I can keep doing this. Every week I think that things will get better and go back to the way it used to be and every week you find a new way to disappoint you. I don't want it to end like this, I want to believe that we can still find a way to get through this rough patch and be happy again. I'm just not sure that's ever going to happen. Don't call me for awhile - I need to be alone.

K

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?

2011-08-09T12:59:00.004+08:00

Plans for a remake of eighties classic DirtyDancing appear to be inexplicably still steaming away, much to my confusion and mild concern.

But don't worry, fellow, DD fans, I'm sure the remake is in safe hands, the kind of hands that will deliver a better-than-the-original remake as was the case with, say, the brilliant Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or the charming Ocean's 11. Or at least they'll manage a so-so job along the lines of The Birdcage, The Thomas Crowne Affair or The Italian Job.

Or... maybe not, considering it's apparently been placed in the hands of High School Musical director Kenny Ortega. Zac Efron, presumably, is busy working on his lifts. No, wait, Beiber, I'm tipping Beiber to be the new Swayze. (In related news, I'm also tipping a swathe of mass suicides among children-of-the-eighties.)

In the wake of this devastating news (and coming so soon on the travesty that was The Karate Kid) I've come up with my list of the Top Five Eighties Movies I Never Want To See Remade In My Lifetime.

1. The Princess Bride. A true gem of a film that you either love or... haven't seen. In my mind an all-but perfect film that works not only in spite of its flaws (see: the slightly shoddy special effects. Rodents of unusual size anyone?) but because of them. My only hope is that studio execs realise that the film is now SO well known and loved by many that any new actors pushed into the familiar roles would seem like imposters.

2. Ladyhawke. Try and explain this film to anyone who hasn't seen it ("there's a dude who's sometimes a wolf and then Michelle Pfeiffer is, at other times, a bird...") and you sound nuts. Okay, the plot IS nuts and the film only works because of the brilliant casting and actors who seriously commit to material that could be, in lesser hands, slightly giggle-worthy. See Matthew Broderick's charm, Rutger Hauer's smoldering intensity and Pfeiffer's general, you know, hotness.

3. Bladerunner. Because no, just no.

4. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I keep expecting this one to happen. I'm sure that in a studio office somewhere it has been pitched and wisely rejected. Sure, at the moment it seems ridiculous that anyone else could step into Matthew Broderick's shoes and try to recapture the pure joy of the original but I swear it's only a matter of time. And ten bucks says they use CCI to fake the crowds in the parade scene...

5. Heathers. Luckily I really can't see this one flying in a post-Columbine world ("Wait, they wanna do WHAT?") but you never know. No, you don't, Heather, you never know...

Spotted

2011-08-07T13:27:00.008+08:00

I think many of us have probably, at some point in our lives, locked eyes with or shared a smile with a hottie on public transport or walking down the street and thought I wonder...

If you're on a bus or a train then having someone cute to stare at during an otherwise-boring trip makes the time go faster, which is nice. Plus you can always daydream that he or she has become entranced by your beauty and/or impressed by that copy of Crime and Punishment you're pretending to read. As someone who never gets hit on by charming boys in public places (I'm pretty sure that having someone scream "nice tits" out of a car window doesn't count) I find the idea of people who meet at bus stops, street corners or whatever and run off and be happy together utterly endearing.

So perhaps this story courtesy of Perth Now should make me happier than it does. If you can't be bothered clicking the link, the gist is that a British man who spotted "the girl of his dreams" on a Perth bus appealed in last week's Sunday Times to try and find his wench and now some girl has come forward, saying it might be her.

IT was the chance encounter on a crowded Perth bus that could turn into a great WA love story. Not only has British man Chris Barnes located the "girl of his dreams" but she's single and happy to be friends, at least on Facebook. After launching his search for a brunette who caught his eye on the 400 bus to Scarborough, student Vivienne Smith, 20, has come forward, believing she could be the one.

Heartwarming stuff I'm so sure but there are a few things that concern me about this story.

1. Anyone who thinks that they have found the girl/boy of his/her dreams based purely on seeing someone at a distance is potentially a little bit cracked. Looks matter and all - and I can't imagine falling for someone with a lovely personality if I didn't also want to jump them just a little bit - but, come on. Just because someone looks hot does not mean that he or she is not a dick/nazi/mouth breather. Maybe a quick conversation before you declare undying love, eh?

2. The girl involved claims that she "instantly recognised" the description the guy had used when she read the article. How did the guy describe her, you might ask?. He said: "The Glendalough girl was just such a beautiful creature." Maybe I just have low self esteem but unless you're Heidi Klum I think that anyone who reads the words "beautiful creature" and thinks "that's SO me" has some... problems.

3. So this girl has come forward but neither she - nor the guy - is quite sure if she is the right girl or not, even after pictures have been exchanged. She mentions that she looks different now because she's had her hair extensions taken out (hmmm) and at no point mentioned if she even noticed him on the bus. For his part he says he is "pretty sure" that the girl in the photo "could well be" the same girl and hopes to make it back to WA, uh, maybe later this year. Wow. I mean, just WOW. That's love, right there. If these two crazy kids can't make it work then I don't know what the world is coming to.

Make it Work

2011-08-07T12:43:00.006+08:00

It's back: reality TV show extraordinaire and one of my all-time favourite guilty pleasures, Project Runway, has returned to our screens. I know it's the done thing to be all snoot-snooty about reality TV but, as far as I'm concerned, Project Runway is The Shit.

Much of the credit has to be laid at the feet of the judges and in particular, I suppose, Heidi Klum, who fronts the show and does her best to anchor it. The thing to understand about Heidi is that she likes to wear very very short dresses. I mean, okay, maybe that's not The Thing but that's definitely A Thing you should remember about her. Do not try to make Heidi cover up her legs or suggest she should wear something that covers The Good China or you will regreat it. No, the other thing about Heidi is that she just seems like she's having a great time. While her fellow judges fret and frown Heidi constantly seems like she's just back in town after spending a week having cocktails and hot monkey sex with Seal on a beach somewhere. Even when she's ripping into someone she keeps that beautiful smile on her face and that twinkle in her eye. Plus, you know, she's really pretty. How does she do that?

Nina Garcia is also a hot piece of arse but in a different way. She's very glossy, very serious and can basically shoot laser beams out of her eyes/cut a bitch. If you want to impress someone it's probably Nina because unlike Heidi she's not half cut on pre-show cocktails and unlike Michael Kors she hasn't spent the past hour coming up with cutting one-liners. Nina actually seems to care about the clothes. In many ways this means she has the most boring, least rewarding role on the show but the net result is that she plays a great straight woman to a) Heidi's hilarity b) The Madness of Michael Kors.

Because Michael Kors. Oh. My. God. Never let it said that the man is not talented because, yes, he's a hugely successful designer. But on Project Runway Kors shines not just like a man whose love of fake tan has reached dangerous levels (although, seriously) but like a man who has just come off his meds. This is a man who is not afraid to stick the boot in when he doesn't like what the designers have served up. The following are things Kors has actually said on the show about designs created by designers who are standing right in front of him.

“She looks like a Pole dancer in Dubai”

“She looks like an Amish Cocktail Waitress”

“She looks like a transvestite flamenco dancer at a funeral”

“She looks like her ass is in her front.”

“She looks like Barefoot Appalachain Lil’ Abner Barbie.”

But it's not all about the judges. The thing that makes Project Runway good and the reason that I watch it is that the contestants actually have talent. I mean oodles and oodles of talent. The things they can do with a bedsheet or a bunch of plastic cups and some thread are truly mind-boggling and some of the clothes they produce in about 24 hours are staggeringly beautiful. Yes, others manage to churn out some Red Hot Messes but that, naturally, is part of the appeal. Unlike some famewhores I can mention the vast majority of designers also appear to be there to, you know, become better designers or to have a shot at their own line, as opposed to a burning desire to Become Famous. Accordingly the editors do, thank Christ, do their best to avoid endearing backstories until the last few episodes and concentrate on the competition and the clothes, which are bloody exciting enough thankyou very much.

And acting as a bridge between the judges and the contestants, mugging for the cameras and weeping when his favourites depart is the loveable Tim Gunn, mentor/voice of reason to the contestants and silver fox, if you like that sort of thing. I know I said earlier that Heidi does her best to anchor the show but forget that, it's Tim who really holds it all together with his nods to the viewing audience and the blend of devastatingly criticism and wishful-thinking praise he doles out to the contestants. Although he appears onscreen Tim somehow manages to be that best of all things: the snide friend, sitting on our couch and drinking wine, saying what a bitch that Gretchen is and how he hopes Wendy Pepper dies in a freak yachting accident. Grab us another glass, Tim, and microwave me some popcorn while you're at it - the show's about to start.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Bradley Cooper

2011-07-29T11:42:00.002+08:00

Honestly, I'm as shocked as you are. I'm not supposed to fancy Bradley Cooper, I know that. I like skinny boys and he has muscles. His jaw is square and I like pointy chins. His skin is golden and for the most part I like pale boys, unelss we're talking Gael Garcia Bernal. And the hair? The hair is too much. I guess what I'm trying to say it that BC is... he's just too... look, I don't know how to say this but he is just too damn handsome, okay? And yet...

I fancy him.

I don't know how this happened but I do know when it happened: while I was watching The Hangover II. The film was... not great but BC almost managed to carry it off, such was the force of his charisma. When he smiled his smarmy-yet-dopey smile I swooned just a little bit. When he (er, spoiler?) got shot I suggested quietly that perhaps he should take off his shirt. Dude has gravitas.

Then I saw Limitless which, again, is not a fantastic bit of filmaking (but is, I think, a fairly enjoyable romp). Once again I was entranced by BC, who plays the lead role, alternately between a loser writer and a smarmy rich git. Sure, I swooned over him as a loser writer but I even fancied him when he was being a dick and driving sports cars super fast! Also for the first time it occurred to me that he's actually a pretty good actor. And the eyes! My god he has pretty eyes.

So now I don't know what to think - my world has been turned upside down and I'm left feeling alone and confused. I don't know who I am, what I stand for and what to believe in anymore. But I do know one thing: I fancy the pants off Bradley Cooper. And so should you.

Lady Solitude

2011-07-26T20:29:00.004+08:00

I've always enjoyed being on my own and I don't understand people who don't. It's something I miss since I've moved in with Boyfriend Andy: because I leave the house in the morning before him and generally return to it after he is already home I don't have much time to myself. Even if I'm sitting on the couch, with BA in another room, I'm aware of him, wondering what he's doing, thinking about what we should do with the rest of our night.

Which may be why this excellent essay by William Dersiewicz, called The End of Solitude, interests me so much. Dersiewicz's essay is, more or less, an argument on the benefits of solitude. A much shorter, much more readable version of Walden maybe, but factoring in the influence of the internet and television age.

"If six hours of television a day creates the aptitude for boredom, the inability to sit still, a hundred text messages a day creates the aptitude for loneliness, the inability to be by yourself. Some degree of boredom and loneliness is to be expected, especially among young people, given the way our human environment has been attenuated. But technology amplifies those tendencies. You could call your schoolmates when I was a teenager, but you couldn't call them 100 times a day. You could get together with your friends when I was in college, but you couldn't always get together with them when you wanted to, for the simple reason that you couldn't always find them. If boredom is the great emotion of the TV generation, loneliness is the great emotion of the Web generation. We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude."

You can read the rest if you follow the link above. I should also mention that I stumbled onto the essay thanks to Sam De Brito's latest column for the Sydney Morning Herald, which you can find by clicking on the links on the right hand side of the page.

The sun'll come out tomorrow

2011-07-15T20:59:00.006+08:00

I was having an awfully shit time at work recently. After more than three years doing the same job I was bored and my motivation was at an all-time low. I mentioned this to my boss (in slightly more delicate terms than I've used above) and he suggested something very simple and, in hindsight, very obvious.

"Book some holidays," he said. "You need something to look forward to."

He was right and not just about work. I know the healthy thing is supposed to be to live in the moment and neither linger in the past or obsess about the future. But the problem with this theory, for me at least, is that without anticipation I'd go mad.

I refer you to the late great Alfred Hitchcock (and as an aside: MAN does Rear Window still hold up as amazing movie), who said: "There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it."

Somehow everything is better tomorrow: In Tomorrowland I'll somehow be more successful, smarter, prettier and come into a large sum of money donated by a dead rich relative I never knew I had. That cardigan I ordered from ASOS will arrive and be awesome, that party next month will be better than all the other parties I've ever been to.

It's not really about cardigans, obviously, but if I didn't think I had something to look forward to I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning.

The downside is that sometimes this kind of attitude translates into a complete failure to enjoy the good times when they arrive. The cardigan/party/holiday comes and I'm already anticipating the cardigan unravelling, the next day hangover or my return to work. Or I'll be in the middle of my Good Time, whatever it is, and start to wonder: am I having enough fun? Is this as good as I thought it'd be? What will I do next?

Tomorrow I fly out to Broome for the week for a much-anticipated family holiday: my first in years and years. But what should I be happy about? The fact that I'm sitting on my couch right now, sipping a tasty Rose and watching the Tour de France with narry a care in the world? Or should I be happy because I'm already anticipating the plane touching down in Broome tomorrow, wondering what my room will look like and if the Staircase to the Moon is really that awesome?

These are questions to which I have no answer. But I do know this: I am not going to think about bad it's going to feel when it's over. I am not going to think about how bad it's going to feel when it's over. I'm not going to... well, I think you get the idea.

I'm on holiday

2011-07-15T13:40:00.002+08:00

Normal service should resume in, er, a week or so. Until then I give you smoking hottness of one Monica Belluci, just to make up for all those Token Smokin' Hotties my male readers have had to put up with over the years.

Hot Air

2011-07-13T19:02:00.004+08:00

I'm so sick of talking about the carbon tax. It's getting to the point where I'm dreading social situations because I'm scared that someone's going to ask me about it and I'm going to implode. It's not that I don't care about the issue, it's that I can no longer quite bear to read page upon page about it every morning or - worse - listen to some of the morons who call into talkback radio bleat on about things they don't understand. I think the final straw was watching footage on the news tonight of Julia Gillard being heckled at a shopping centre. Forget about the issues, I couldn't take my eyes off the hideous lime green jumper her heckler was wearing. And the hair! Don't get me started.

That much said this article about the carbon tax, passed on by Dave, made me laugh, which is a first. I'm particularly fond of the phrase "a dozen retards trying to fuck a doorknob". Nice.

This is apropos of nothing but...

2011-07-10T09:32:00.003+08:00

This is the worst bit of advice I've ever fucking heard from a sex columnist. Try googling "cuckholding" you moron. I can only wonder what the wonderful Dan Savage would make of it. Bah!

It wasn't enough

2011-07-08T10:46:00.002+08:00

I was driving around town yesterday running some errands when I started crying. It started with a sniffle and a bit of redness around the eyes. It ended with me absolutely BAWLING. No I wasn't having a mental breakdown, I was cryng because I was listening to The Moth podcast on my iPhone. For those of you who aren't familiar with The Moth it's a group run by some people who are interested in 'the art of storytelling' so they hold nights on which people - sometimes randoms, sometimes famous people - get onstage in front of a crowd to tell stories on a variety of topics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes just weird. In this case the podcast I was listening to was by a woman called Charlene Strong. I don't want to spoil it by going into any detail on what she was talking about but if you're interested you can click here to listen to it and you really really should. Don't cry!

Cute Wednesday

2011-07-06T13:03:00.001+08:00

Sometimes I like to use this blog to expolore some controversial or contentious topics. At other times I just like to post youtube clips of an insanely cute Boston Terrier having its belly rubbed.

Nice to meet you, I'm a total dickhead

2011-07-05T18:09:00.003+08:00

First impressions count.

Earlier this week a guy I have worked with in the same office for years - but have never previously spoken to - was a rude c*nt to me for absolutely no reason and over something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. It's too complicated/boring to explain here but basically he fucked something up and then gave me attitude for not immediately fixing the problem for him without being asked.

He must have seen the What The Fuuuck expression on my face because he came over to my desk later and apologised. But if someone asked me today what I thought of him I'd say - despite the fact that I've always admired his work and despite his apparently genuine apology - that he seems like a prick.

Is he a prick? I have no idea. A prick probably wouldn't have apologised but because this was the first proper interaction I've ever had with him it's coloured how I see him in a very particular way.

This is terrifying, really, when you consider how many first impressions we must all make on people all the time. I like to think I'm generally a nice and reasonably friendly person but when I'm in a foul mood or am having an awful day, then no doubt I too can act in an unpleasant way. To me it seems fair enough if somebody I know well enough thinks I'm rude or a dickhead or a moron because, hey, that's their perrogative and maybe I am. But the idea that someone might think badly of me based on one stupid interaction, when maybe I was just really tired or sick or just had a fight with my boyfriend, is a little depressing.

On the flipside, it's worth remembering that while first impressions count, they don't have to last forever. once upon a time I met a guy at a friend's place who thought I was (he told me later) both way too loud and dressed unappealing like a tomboy. Nine years later that poor sucker is my boyfriend.

Quiz nights: the best and the worst

2011-06-27T16:26:00.003+08:00

THE BEST: When you know the answer.

THE WORST: When everyone else in your team also knows the answer and you wind up shaming yourself by saying it really loudly, just to prove you know it too.

THE BEST: When you know the answer to a kind of obscure question.

THE WORST: When it turns out that answer you "knew" was actually wrong and the answer your teammate suggested, which you mocked, was right.

THE BEST: Learning kind of cool - if trivial - facts.

THE WORST: When the questions relate to something you couldn't give two shits about, such as the AFL. I mean, sure it might be nice to be able to list the teams in order of where they're placed on the ladder but wouldn't you rather know which world city drinks the most booze per head of population?

Venn Diagram Wednesday

2011-06-22T10:02:00.003+08:00

This is water

2011-06-21T22:16:00.002+08:00

I've been finding it hard to come up with blog topics lately. I'm not sure why. Probably it's just because, although I actually have loads of shit going on, very little of it is stuff that I can blog about. So instead I've reprinted here (an edited version of) a speech delivered by American essayist and novelist David Foster Wallace, widely regarded as a genius, who killed himself a little under three years ago. He delivered this speech to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio and it's interesting stuff, much better than anything I could write here but with lots of ideas I agree with. I wish someone had busted out this stuff at MY graduation.

"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete ...

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues". This is not a matter of virtue - it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centred, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home - you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job - and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your cheque or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etc, etc.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.

Or if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just 20 stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks ...

If I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do - except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible car accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a much bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am - it is actually I who am in his way.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible - it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some intangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichÃ©s, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water.""

"You can't respect somebody who kisses your arse."

2011-06-19T18:06:00.004+08:00

I'm not going to talk about why Ferris Bueller's Day Off is not just an awesomely engaging and funny movie but a brilliant guide for how to live your life (although if you're interested, read this). All I know is that it's impossible to watch this parade scene and not feel just a teensy tiny bit happier.

"Maybe someday, maybe not": the immortal lines of Dylan McKay

2011-06-13T14:12:00.005+08:00

Look, either you were young enough and sad enough to fall madly in love with Dylan McKay in the seminal 90s teen drama Beverly Hills: 90210 or you were not.

If you were not then there's really nothing I can say that convince you that Luke Perry's portray of Dylan as 90210's disaffected rich bad boy made teen girls around the globe go week at the knees. I mean, I was one of those girls and looking at Perry's craggy face and remembering how he used to have this impossibly lame answerphone message ("This is Dylan, you know the drill... *beep*") even I have the decency to be embarassed.

That much said Hello Giggles has come up with a list of the Top Ten Best Things Dylan McKay Has Ever Said and it's almost enough to rekindle my love for the pretentious bastard.

Here's just a little taster of some of the bon mots he has to offer.

Brenda: “You want to take a walk on the beach or something?”
Dylan: “Yeah and check out the HOMELESS PEOPLE that would be GREAT.

Oh, Dylan, even when you're being a dick to some girl you're supposed to like you still know when to mix in a bit of social commentary to keep shit real.

Pros and cons: the literary clutch

2011-06-12T13:24:00.004+08:00

Pro: These clutch bags made up to look like famous books, by France's Olympia Le-Tan, may be the single cutest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Con: They will, however, make you look like you're simply carrying around a hardcover book to dinners, parties and the like. Which is to say that you will look like the world's biggest wanker.

Pro: But they're so purty. Plus Lolita is genuinely an awesome book and Moby Dick is... well I hear good things.

Con: 950 euros apiece. Which is quite a lot of money to have people think you might be a pretentious tosser.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Charlie Fink

2011-06-12T00:02:00.009+08:00

It's a cliche to say that dudes start bands in order to get laid. And yet I can only imagine that it's working wonders for Charlie Fink, lead singer of delightful British band Noah and the Whale.

Sure it doesn't hurt that he's already got a certain something something with the hair, the eyes and a cheeky smile. (Of the denim shirt he is attempting to rock in the above photo I will not speak). It doubly doesn't hurt that both Charlie and the rest of the band seem completely fucking adorable, as evidenced by this delightful interview. ((Yes I am a complete sucker for anyone who professes to love the film Rushmore as much as I do but it's more than that: there is pretty much nothing sexier than a dude who can be spontaneously funny. Seriously, I think I'm in love with the entire band, particularly his super hot brother Doug who has sadly since left the band to save lives or something.)

But, really what it comes down to is that I've been listening to quite a bit of Noah and the Whale lately and I would give just about anything to be able to do what they do. And yet if it was a choice between waking up one day with a big fat bundle of musical talent or getting to spend a filthy weekend with Charlie, several bottles of wine and a big fuck off bed I can't say for sure I would do the right thing. I mean, seriously, getting to touch the hair alone would be totally worth it.

Personal information I now know about the woman who waxes my Good China after one 20 minute appointment

2011-06-09T08:54:00.003+08:00

1. She has never been to Bali
2. She never wants to go to Bali
3. She is happily coupled-up with an older man who is not very fit
4. She and her partner enjoy 4WD holidays in WA.
5. She and her partner have twice (twice?!) had to be rescued while on 4WD holidays in WA
6. She does not have kids
7. She could not recognise an expression of pure agony on a fellow human being's face to save her life.

Weiner

2011-06-08T12:54:00.004+08:00

I am, I have been told, a bit of a flirt. It is, I guess, kinda true although I prefer to characterise it as just being a big, big fan of boys.

Perhaps for this reason* I have taken a lot of interest in the media circus surrounding the hilariously-named Congressman Weiner who has, as it turns out, been taking photos of his junk and sending them to women who are not his wife. Classy guy. But one of the things that none of the commentators can seem to agree on is whether Weiner, who claims he never met any of the women face-to-face but 'met' them online, was technically cheating on his wife or not.

The Washington Post has a great article on this very issue, which looks at the tricky subject of the "e-ffair" and Weiner in particular. It also makes some good points about how easy it is in the modern day to fire to use technology to do something stupid that will later come back and bite you in the arse. A (coupled-up) friend of mine ran up against this very issue recently when, while drunkenly Facebook chatting with a colleague who had a crush on him got a bit carried away and wrote something along the lines of "I want to fuck you" before presumably passing out. The way he tells it he woke up the next morning horrified. But I meander from my point. To the Post...

"It was wrong, and it would have been wrong 20 years ago, and it would have been wrong 200 years before that. In previous millenniums, if a married caveman had carved a picture of his junk onto a bone and thrown it into another woman’s cave, that would have been similarly wrong. Private-part self-portraiture: gross in every eon.

"But 20 years ago, Weiner would have had to load his Nikon with film before pointing it at his crotch. He would have had to take this film to the Fotomat, wait 24 hours before picking it up, find an envelope, lick a stamp. In every preceding era, there were built-in checkpoints, moments in which one could ask oneself, “Is this a good idea? Does she want to see my dog in a sweater? Am I a congressman? Should that influence my decision?”"

You get the gist but the whole article is great and you can read it here.

* (AlthoughI hope I don't have to mention that my flirty behavious has never yet triggered me to take a photo of the good china to send to randoms).

Nerd Appeal

2011-06-07T10:56:00.005+08:00

It was suggested to me recently that I should write a post about The Appeal of the Nerd. Having pretty much exclusively gone out with nerds in my 28 years I thought that was a cracker of an idea but when I sat down to write the post I found I didn't know what to say. Why are nerds so appealing? What is it about a kinda dorky looking guy, ideally skinny and bespectacled, that makes me go a bit red around the edges? Why did I spend the first season of The OC lusting after Seth Cohen (before he became insanely annoying by about episode 1 of season 2)? I had no fucking idea.

Then I met Carol. Carol is not, I hasten to clarify, a nerd. Carol is a girl I happened to be sat next to at a recent work dinner. And after 10 minutes of talking to her I wanted to open my throat with the butter knife.

There was nothing ostensibly wrong with Carol: she was chatty and friendly enough. But she was also impossibly dull. Regardless of the topic - and we weren't talking about fucking peace in the Middle East - she had absolutely nothing of interest to say. She was also, from her long blonde hair and skinny body to her big boobs, pretty conventionally attractive (even if, in my opinion, a bit of a Monet).

Rightly or wrongly it occured to me, listening to the way she interacted with the people around us, that Carol had probably been hot her whole life and, as a result, had never bothered to develop much in the way of a personality, beyond a gormless smile and an ability to say "I totally agree" a lot.

This - it occured to me in something of a Lightbulb Moment - goes some way to explaining the nerd appeal. I wholeheartedly believe that people who aren't gorgeous and popular as kids and teenagers make for more interesting adults. (Yes I might be a little bit biased but shut up, this is my blog). Those of us who have had to struggle to fit have naturally had to work harder at making friends, being interesting, making people laugh. We had to do more than simply show up to make people like us.

Nerds take that a step further by also being smart. I don't mean just that they can fix your computer/phone/TV (although, seriously, thanks for that Andy). I mean they know things that you don't. They have read books you haven't, seen movies you haven't and ideally played computer games you never even knew existed. They have views on things, even if those things are on the utterly dorky side.

Then there is the vulnerability thing. Because, based on my experience, no matter how cute or successful a person may become in later life, nobody who has struggled through his or her early years entirely loses that sensitivity to what others think about them and their place in the world. And is there anything more appealing than a red hot cutie with low self esteem? No. No, there is not.

Tits! On a fashion magazine!

2011-06-03T10:33:00.004+08:00

Truth be told I'm often a little bit bored by the whole Plus Size debate. While I do think there are too many messages out there in the fashion world that very, very skinny is the only way for a girl to be desirable, I also think that by the time most of us get to a certain age we realise that actually plenty of boys still want to shag us even with our soft corners and excessively-generous tits and we stop worrying about it so much.

That much said this photo of the cover of Italian Vogue, passed on by the sumptuous Jayne, is a nice reminder of how good - and rare - it feels to see a girl who isn't model skinny made up to look super hot and sexy.

The only downside is that regardless of what I do to myself I know I will never ever look like that girl in the middle who, to my mind, is a dead ringer for a young Sophia Loren. At least when I stare at whippet thin models I can tell myself "I could look like that if I got really sick for a few months". With this girl... no, short of having a new face it's just not going to happen.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Michael Fassbender

2011-06-03T08:50:00.006+08:00

What is wrong with me?

Once upon a time I knew what I liked and that was skinny boys, the scrawnier the better. Give me a jutting hipbone, a concave chest and, just for funsies, a pair of Buddy Holly glasses, and I'd be happy.

But, like the Pulp song goes, something changed. Obviously I still like skinny boys: they are still the ones that made me turn in the street and go a little bit weak in the knees when they serve me at Epic Espresso (oh yeah skinny barista with the adorable smile, you know who you are). But somewhere along the line I appear to have developed a taste for, um, I don't quite know how to say this... muscles.

No, I don't know how it happened either.

Anyway, the latest object of my lust is Michael Fassbender, the German-Irish hottie smoking up screens in X-Men: First Class. I first saw Fassbender in the delightful Inglorious Basterds but while he was fantastic in the role it didn't really occur to me that he was hot until his turn in X-Men. Obviously it helps that he gets to play a young Magneto: easily one of the cooler dudes in the X-Men universe. It also helps that he has sizzling chemistry with the quietly scrumptious James McAvoy (who plays a young Charles Xavier) to the point where I was actively waiting for an onscreen snog. But what also helps is, let me be frank, Fassbender's fairly sick body which is constantly lurking there beneath his clothes - out of sight but never out of mind.

Watching the movie I found McAvoy - on whom I have long nursed a quiet crush - boyishly charming. But it was Fassbender I was always watching onscreen, bemoaning the lack of shirtless scenes and wondering how a man with shoulders that broad could possibly have such narrow hips. Only time will tell whether I still find him hot in Jane Eyre as - of course - Mr Rochester, where presumably there are very few opportunities for him remove his clothes. Tragically.

Just in case anyone has the sheer cheek to be happy on a fucking shitty day like today

2011-06-01T15:19:00.001+08:00

"Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad."
(Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight)

Yeah she loves it in the face

2011-05-30T14:56:00.003+08:00

Look, I'm not going to lie. I have no idea if this alleged retro ad is real or fake. All I know is that it has the single greatest tagline in the history of advertising. Don Draper would be green with envy.

I mean "ashamed": Really, girls?

2011-05-29T22:25:00.005+08:00

Most of the time being a woman is awesome. Every so often, however, I read something like this (courtesy of the Daily Maily) -

"Women find happy men significantly less sexually attractive than those who swagger or brood, researchers said today. They are least attracted to smiling men, instead preferring those who looked proud and powerful, or moody and ashamed, according to a study."

- and feel a teensy bit embarrassed for how lame we are.

Dilemma #2

2011-05-24T14:05:00.004+08:00

I'm sure that this US couple who are attempting to raise a 'genderless' baby mean well. But Jesus Fucking Christ wouldn't you just want to kill yourself if you got sat next to them at a dinner party and had to listen to them saying things like this:

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs"

And this:

“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.”

And THIS:

“Everyone keeps asking us, ‘When will this end?’” says Witterick. “And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?”

Jesus fucking WEPT.

Because I am easily amused

2011-05-22T10:27:00.001+08:00

Courtesy of Wikibombs.

Self respect

2011-05-16T14:34:00.005+08:00

"To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves." (Joan Didion)

You can read the rest of this essay, "On Self Respect" here and it's a really good read. I'm not even just saying that because they mention The Great Gatsby.

The ladies do love a good old smasher stuck on them

2011-05-15T08:13:00.011+08:00

Greek philosopher Sophocles had a theory that, on balance, it would have been best never to be born at all. His view on the matter went something like "Never to be born is best for man. And next, in haste, return to whence he came". I was a terrible (and extremely short-lived) philosophy student but I gather his point was that the shitty parts of life outweigh the good so it wasn't really worth suffering through.

Sometime I agree with his sentiment but today I could not disagree more because I have just learned that this exists. Yes, I'm talking about the World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Because, seriously, who would choose not to live in a world where an event like this exists. Where 150 people come together in Norway - (Norway! I can't quite say why that tickles me but it does) - to compete over the lushness and complexity of their facial hair. I think the best part is that there are 17 categories. 17 categories: just imagine it!

The second best part is that people like Michael "Atters" Attree (he's the sexy bitch pictured above and also apparently a British actor and satirist) not only compete in this competition but go about saying things like this to journalists:

"Beards are hideous things if you ask me," says Attree, who sports a traditional English moustache. "I have my moustache because I bloody well can. Plus, the ladies do love a good old smasher stuck on them."

They sure do, Atters, they sure do.

Muppet Annie Hall

2011-05-14T18:00:00.004+08:00

Nothing I say here can improve this image. This beauty comes from Nerd Boyfriend - a sweet, sweet site passed on by Mike, otherwise known as one-third of my blog readership.

How to feel old

2011-05-12T22:34:00.000+08:00

Hang out with someone who has never seen The Princess Bride. I don't know whether to feel more sorry for me, for being old as fuck (although seriously I was 5 when the movie came out so it's slightly unclear to me how I've managed to since see it about a dozen times), or him, for never having experienced the joy of Cary Elwes' delivery on the line: "Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist". Oh WESLEY.

Dilemma

2011-05-08T21:06:00.004+08:00

PROS: He dresses like a dream. Seriously, the fit on those pants is just fucking amazing.

CONS: He is almost certainly a huge, giant, just gigantic wanker.

PROS: How does he get his hair to stay like that while he's cycling? I want to bury my face in it, even thought it would doubtless end up smeared in whatever kind of product he's got going on there.

CONS: Seriously, I just can't believe he doesn't sometimes wank to a photo of himself or - at the very least - wink at himself in the mirror.

Seething rage behind those eyes

2011-05-08T20:27:00.002+08:00

So I can't say I've ever bought anything off etsy but it seems like a nice enough idea and all: people make shit, people buy shit. All is well. But did you ever think about the poor bastards who have to model the homemade crap their partner has made? This dude has and the result - 20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends - is pretty good.

Suck it, Trump

2011-05-02T16:52:00.001+08:00

Maybe I just need a change, maybe I just need a new cologne

2011-04-30T22:27:00.006+08:00

It's a very weird feeling when the woman you have paid to mess about with your Good China stops her work to compliment you on the scent of your cocoa butter moisturiser.

HER: Did you use coconut shower wash or something?
ME: Uh... what?
HER: Did you use coconut shower wash?
ME: Oh, um... uh yeah cocoa butter moisturiser maybe?
HER: Ahh, it smells nice.
ME: Um... (thinking: please God let me out of here)

At the time I was so busy gritting my teeth against the pain - and, just to be clear, the woman I'm talking about here is a bikini waxer, not a high class hooker - that I couldn't really come up with what felt like an appropriate response. Obviously it was a simple enough compliment, mindless chatter even, but it felt weird, like a doctor stopping mid-pap smear to say you have lovely eyes.

It also felt weird because I couldn't remember the last time someone had complimented the way I smelt, or the last time I had complimented anyone else on the way THEY smelt.

By coincidence, shortly afterwards I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a bit who smelt, I don't know how else to say it, amazing. I have no idea what it was that made him smell that way but it smelt like freshly cut grass mixed with a little bit of sweat and... it was a delight. This friend is a cute enough guy but this scent, whatever it was, made him seem suddenly sort of hot. Needless to say I didn't tell him any of this because it would have been, you know ten types of weird.

Which brings me to my point: why do so few men seem to wear cologne or aftershave anymore? I have to have coffees or lunches with a lot of random men as a result of my job and most of the time I don't notice the way they smell until - blammo - I sit down to someone who smells great. I'm not talking bathed in scent but just sort of... faintly delicious in a subtle way that means you only get a whiff of it every now and again. Most of these guys I meet through work are the opposite of what I find attractive in a boy/man but the smell thing - and maybe partly the fact that you know they've gone through the ritual of aftershave or cologne instead of just rolling out of bed and spraying on deoderant - is super appealing.

You'd be hard pressed to find a girl who doesn't own a perfume or two or, at the very least, a scented moisturiser to be dutifully slapped on, but so few boys I know even bother. No doubt if they realised how much ussy-pay they're missing out on as a result all this would change.

Some men

2011-04-27T12:28:00.002+08:00

Generally speaking man-bashing really gives me the shits. You know what I mean by man-bashing: women (because it's nearly always women) who take an All Men Are Liars/Bastards/Rapists/Generally Pathetic kind of approach, blackening an entire sex because they had a couple of dickhead boyfriends or their father walked out on them when they were a kid.

Most women have probably encountered a few women who see nothing strange or rude about indulging in this kind of ranting and it's always super uncomfortable and - above all - excruciatingly dull. The weirdest thing is hearing these women talk about men as though they were an entirely different race, as opposed to just being, um, people. (Needless to say it goes the other way: cynical men who think all women are psychos/hysterics/gold-diggers are just as boring and stupid as their female counterparts.)

So I feel a trifle guilty for reprinting this corker from Dorothy Parker, which is not exactly PRO-men, and yet I can't resist. For all that I love boys/men and hold individual boys/men responsible for some of the best things that have happened to me in my life, lately it seems hard to argue that I have spent much of that life waiting around for some damn man.

CHANT FOR DARK HOURS
(Dorothy Parker)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Book shop.
(Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Crap game.
(He said he’d come at moonrise, and here’s another day!)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Bar-room.
(Wait about, and hang about, and that’s the way it goes.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Woman.
(Heaven never send me another one of those!)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Golf course.
(Read a book, and sew a seam, and slumber if you can.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Haberdasher’s.
(All your life you wait around for some damn man!)

Of course sometimes the waiting turns out to be the best part. But it never bloody seems so at the time.

I want to be alone (at the movies)

2011-04-25T10:24:00.005+08:00

Going to the movies by myself is one of the things I really love to do.

It hasn't always been this way. The first time I went to the movies alone was only a couple of years ago. I can't even remember what film I saw. I do remember feeling incredibly self-conscious and convinced that everyone was staring at me, wondering why I hadn't brought along a friend or a boyfriend. I kept remembering a story my sister had told me about when she went to the movies by herself and this group came up to her, asked if she was saving the seat next to her for someone else and she had to respond that, no, actually she wasn't waiting for anyone.

For anyone who doesn't make a habit if going to movies solo it's hard to explain why it feels so nice. I like seeing movies with other people too, it's just that there's something super-indulgent about doing it alone, particularly because it's often at slightly odd hours of the day: like a Sunday afternoon as opposed to a Saturday night or in the middle of a working day - one of my favourite pastimes when I have a day off from work. There's something good, too, about feeling completely autonomous, that makes it more enjoyable. If I think a movie's shit I can walk out. I don't have to worry about whether the person I'm with is enjoying the movie and laughing in the same places I am. I don't have to discuss the movie or offer an opinion after it's over. I can just enjoy it (or not), think about it (or not) and then get on with my day or night.

With all that in mind it occured to me yesterday while I sat in one of the cinema as Luna Leederville watching Barney's Version, that there is a right and a wrong way to go to a movie alone.

1. Don't get there too early. Nothing will make you feel more self-conscious than sitting by yourself in a cinema for 15 minutes before the film starts, especially as the cinema starts to fill up around you with couples and groups of friends. You will be convinced everyone is staring at you and depending on how weird and uncomfortable you look, you may be right.

2. Don't get there too late. I arrived late for a solo screening of Let Me In, a remaked of Let the Right One In. It had been a sudden decision to go (I was in Leederville, it started to rain) and so by the time I entered the cinema the credits had already started. Unfortunately the credits were really really dark and I couldn't see A THING. I had to feel my way to a chair only to realise as the room gradually lightened that I was sitting... almost on top of of the cinema's only other (male) occupant, who presumably thought I was some kind of weird sexual predator.

3. Look nice. I always check out other people who are at the movies by themselves, whether I'm there solo or not. Rightly or not I have a tendency to group them automatically into two classes: people who enjoy seeing movies by themselves and people who have no choice but to see movies by themselves. Generally speaking the former look respectable, well-adjusted and don't have weird stains on their pants. They also look like they might have taken a shower in the last week or so.

4. Don't see Barney's Version. Seriously. Scott Speedman is insanely hot and charming, Paul Giametti is good and Dustin Hoffman is excellent but the last movie I saw with this much forced mawkishness was Forrest Gump. And I really didn't care much for Forrest Gump.

One of my favourite (long) quotes from one of my favourite (longish) books ahead of a long, long weekend

2011-04-21T12:20:00.003+08:00

"There are blonde and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blonde as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk.

"There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very, very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you found about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial.

"There is the soft and willing alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne.

"There is the small perky blonde who is a little pale and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review.

"There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading the Wasteland or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provencal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindesmith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them.

"And lastly there is the gorgeous show piece who will outlast three kingpin racketeers and then marry a couple of millionaires at a million a head and end up with a pale rose villa at Cap d’Antibes, and Alfa Romeo town car complete with pilot and co-pilot, and a stable of shopworn aristocrats, all of whom she will treat with the affectionate absentmindedness of an elderly duke saying good night to his butler."

(Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye)