red lemonade

Quelque Chose #17

2012-02-12T20:42:00.001Z

Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson were the soundtrack to my childhood, thanks to my parents and their musical tastes. Dad was always a huge Whitney fan. Mam loved Jacko, she even got to see him live twice. Twice! My brother and I never quite forgave her for telling us she was at a Civil Defence meeting when she was actually going to the Dublin date of the Dangerous World Tour in 1992 without us. Such betrayal!

Anyway, the cover of Whitney's eponymous debut album is one of my strongest memories from rifling through my Dad's vinyl collection. I loved looking at the picture of her on it, all regal and gorgeous in her peach dress with her hair slicked back.

Poor Whitney. R.I.P.

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Double Love

2012-02-09T12:04:00.001Z

Just to keep things confusing, the second part of my Sweet Valley High Revisited series deals with the first book. Like I said before, I'm doing this as I get the books, so the order isn't going to make any sense at all, m'kay? Let's do this!

Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love

The story begins with Jessica Wakefield whinging into the mirror about how fat and disgusting she is. But FEAR NOT fellow mortals, for we are immediately reassured that Jessica is in fact preternaturally beautiful. This being the first book of the entire series, the descriptions of the soon-to-be-legendary Wakefield hotness are particularly heavy handed. For example, we are informed that Jessica's reflection is actually that of "the most adorable, most dazzling sixteen-year-old girl imaginable". Those are the actual words used. She's just SO RELATABLE. When all her moaning causes her twin sister Elizabeth to doubt her looks, a glance in the mirror quickly sets everything to rights again. "If Jessica were such a hopeless case, she might be in trouble, too. But the image she saw reflected in the mirror was hardly cause for alarm." PHEW. Bullet. Dodged.

Anyway, the school's superhot basketball star Todd Wilkins rings the house looking for Elizabeth. But Jessica answers the phone and immediately proceeds to cockblock the fuck out of Liz by lying about her being in the shower so she can't come to the phone and gloats to Liz afterwards that Todd wanted to wish her luck with getting into some sorority that day. Now, I thought that sororities were a college thing in the States, but then again, Sweet Valley doesn't exactly adhere to reality at the best of times. So Elizabeth gets all quietly upset because she fancies Todd but now she thinks Todd likes Jessica and not her. "And why not? What girl could possibly compete with the dazzling Jessica Wakefield?" Hmm, well let's see...HER IDENTICAL TWIN, PERHAPS? Elizabeth is already being an infuriating pushover and it's only page eleven.

Look! It's the EXQUISITE LAVALIERE NECKLACES! They're just boring gold pendants. What a non-event. Also, note that Jessica is quite clearly the slutty, wayward twin with her edgy stonewashed denim jacket, while Elizabeth is being all sensible and sincere in her wooly jumper. Jumpers = Sincerity

The twins go about their day at school and Todd arranges to meet (not meet meet, just actually meet) Elizabeth that evening after class. However, Elizabeth is running late and by the time she gets there, she sees Todd getting into the car with Jessica. So instead of being furious with Jessica for abandoning her, leaving her to walk home and OBVIOUSLY hijacking her hook-up with Todd, her heart sinks and she gets all emo about it, instead of strapping on a pair, telling Jessica to cop the fuck on and asking Todd why he bailed on her. The next day at school, the place is abuzz with the news that Jessica and Todd are Sweet Valley's hottest new couple, causing Elizabeth to cry like, ALL THE TIME and mope about how she won't stand in their way and "do the decent thing. Die." Oh my GOD, Liz. Meanwhile, Jessica repeatedly hints to Todd with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer that she wants him to take her to the upcoming dance, but Todd keeps asking if Elizabeth has a date. To deter him from her sister, Jessica makes her out to be a cock hungry skank, saying she's always rushing off to meet guys and she can't keep up with her trampy schedule. When he still doesn't get the hint and ask her to the dance, Jessica storms off home and decides to walk there, swinging her hips so creepy guys will pay her attention from their cars and she'll feel validated. Insert facepalm.

Enter Rick Andover. He's cool and dangerous, he dropped out of school and has an eagle tattoo, so you KNOW he's bad news. She gets into his car after this dynamite chat up line: "Pardon me, Heaven - which way to Mars?” Be still my beating knickers! Nothing gets a girl going like astrally inclined direction requests. Am I right, ladies? He drives her home, saying that he makes a habit of "knowing where all the foxiest chicks in Sweet Valley live". Which doesn't at all sound like something a sex offender might say. The next night he takes her out to a scuzzy roadhouse bar called Kelly's, gets shitfaced after ONE shot of whiskey and starts a bar fight. The cops show up and an officer takes Jessica home, but mistakes her for Elizabeth. I sense a classic mix-up here, folks.

The school gossip overhears the cop calling her Elizabeth when she gets out of the car, so the big scandal in school the next day is that Elizabeth Wakefield was arrested for starting a riot at Kelly's. Rather than seeing that it might make her kind of a badass, the school's population act like she murdered someone and unquestioningly buy that it was the boring, sensible sister that did it, rather than her CARBON COPY who is always pulling shit like this. Elizabeth confronts Jessica who then does precisely fuck all to dispel the rumour, while Elizabeth just bends over and takes it, even hugs her all tearful later, telling her how wonderful she is. Are you KIDDING ME Elizabeth? These girls are MESSED. UP.

Meanwhile, the twins think their lawyer father is screwing his work colleague, Marianne, who they keep referring to as a "divorcée", because you just know that being a "divorcée" makes her a no-good, sex-crazed, Ned-stealing homewrecker. Also, the Patman and Fowler dynasties are scrapping over the school's football field because the school is run by incompetent halfwits who allowed the lease to run out and now both families want to buy the land and build a decorative garden or a factory on it, respectively.

Anyway, while everyone at school is giving Elizabeth a hard time and banging on about how "unforgivable" the whole thing was (Sweet Valley High students are a big self-righteous pint of no craic), Jessica eventually starts to show some signs of a guilty conscience, rather than acting like a remorseless sociopath, and breaks down in front of Todd, telling him it was her that went to Kelly's with Rick. Todd thinks she's being noble and taking the blame for Elizabeth, so he proceeds to shift the face off her and ask her to the dance. Also, he's an idiot. After hearing about Jessica and Todd scoring each other in the middle of the school, Elizabeth cries a bit more and agrees to go to the dance with resident class clown, Winston Egbert. Who, by the way, sounds terrifying in this book. When they decide on a time for him to pick her up, he "turned and raced madly across campus, screaming like a deranged chimpanzee." I'm sorry, WHAT? Does that sound like normal behaviour to anyone else? Yeah. DIDN'T THINK SO.

So on the night of the dance, Todd keeps eyeing up Elizabeth, which winds Jessica up no end. When he takes her home and pecks her on the cheek, she decides that he's humiliated her beyond reason and tells Elizabeth that he tried "just about everything" and that she had to beg him to stop groping her. Guys, Jessica is an actual psychopath. Her boyfriend-stealing attempt doesn't pay off so instead of dealing with it and getting on with her ridiculously charmed life, she cries rape. She's just the WORST kind of person.

Back in school, Todd tries to talk to Liz and tells her that he forgives her for going out with Rick. FORGIVES HER! Who the HELL does he think he is? Asshat. Anyway, Elizabeth keeps ignoring him because she thinks he assaulted Jessica, so suck on that, Toddface.

In subplot-land, the fight over the football field goes to court, with the twins' father representing the school or whatever, along with sexy divorced Marianna. The school wins the case so they get to keep their football field. Yay! Ned announces at dinner that night that Marianna is being made a partner in the law firm, which explains that all the time he's been spending with her was work-related and not sexy divorcée sex after all. Yay! Case closed.

A few days later, Elizabeth and Jessica are driving home from Dairi Burger (what kind of a name is that though? A dairy burger sounds weird. Like a burger of yoghurt. Or cheese. Cheese. Maybe they're on to something, actually) and they notice a car following them. When they stop at a light, they realise it's Rick, who somehow manages to jump into the car and start driving it, because the Wakefields have never heard of door locks. He's drunk and tries to drive them to Kelly's, careening through the Dairi Burger (someone bring me some CHEESE) car park on the way, where Todd happens to be and he sees that the twins are terrified. He drives after Rick and beats the shit out of him outside Kelly's. Elizabeth, who at this point, remember, still thinks Todd tried to rape her sister, is all "whatevs, that was totally hot, Todd" and lobs the gob. Back at the Wakefield house (it's split-level, you know) Todd and Elizabeth work out through brilliant reasoning that Jessica has been lying her ass off to the pair of them, Elizabeth is not actually a dirty whore and Todd did not actually get all grabby with Jess.

Elizabeth then concocts a tremendous revenge scheme against Jessica, where she basically tricks the school into throwing Jessica into the swimming pool fully clothed. That's it. That's her big payback for her psychotic sister who tried to take her boyfriend for herself, lied about him trying to rape her, let the entire school think Elizabeth was a hobag and generally acted like a spoiled, selfish brat the entire time. Yeah, wet hair TOTALLY evens everything out. Elizabeth would be the worst vigilante ever. Murdered someone, eh? Well how do you like it when your ICE TRAYS ARE EMPTY!

Ugh. They both suck.

Notable outfit:
“This sounds like a job for my new tuxedo shirt,” Elizabeth offered. “Could I wear the pants, too?...And the little bow tie?”

*dies laughing*

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 159
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 8
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 8
References to Elizabeth's tears/the fact that she's crying: 19
Amount of times people blush:15

Adora Borealis

2012-02-06T17:10:00.000Z

On a recent night out, a conversation between The Incredible Mulq and I turned to She-Ra. What immediately followed was a spate of frantic Googling on iPhones in an effort to remind ourselves of character names and the fact that She-Ra was actually He-Man's twin sister and not his cousin, as we both originally thought for some reason. Halfway through the conversation I excitedly (read: slightly drunkenly) proclaimed that I would write a blog post about She-Ra. So here we go!

Princess Adora is She-Ra's real identity. She was given the Sword of Protection, which enables her to transform into She-Ra, via the powers of the mystical Castle Grayskull. Interestingly, while He-Man used to shout "By the power of Grayskull!", She-Ra's battle cry was "For the honour of Grayskull!" So her brother might have the power, but she'll honour the fuck out of that castle. Which is fine, I guess.

Part of Adora's transformation into She-Ra included her horse, Spirit, who was upgraded to talking super-steed Swift Wind whenever she changed. When we were talking about her horse in the pub that night, I was recounting the fact that he had wings. When we looked it up, it transpired that not only was Swift Wind a talking flying horse, he was a GODDAMN TALKING FLYING UNICORN. I had completely forgotten that he was a unicorn. A UNICORN!

Another great part of the She-Ra cartoon was the vast array of friends and allies that Adora had, each with their own brightly coloured leotard, awesome hair and a handy special power of some sort. Kind of like Jem and the Holograms crossed with X Men. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE? First up are mother and daughter duo, Queen Angella and Glimmer.

Angella has wings for some reason, but it appears that her daughter was genetically screwed out of an ability to fly. She does have lovely pink hair though and both of them have the ability to manipulate light, so they can fire lasers and shit (not actual shit - that would be horrible) out of their hands which is pretty cool.

Frosta is a blue haired ice queen with a deadly pointy cape. She's immune to cold temperatures (which is just as well, seeing as she lives in a snowy kingdom and her costume is a boob tube onesie) and she can freeze things at will with jets of ice. She also fancies the furry red knickers off He-Man. Castaspella is a sorceress with shiny gold bracelets that help her to focus her magic powers. The clue is kind of in the name with these characters.

Netossa doesn't really have a superpower, but she...erm...throws nets really well, which appears to be enough to help in the crusade against the Evil Horde. That and a costume that looks like you have wings on the side of your head. Mermista is a (guess, go on, guess!) mermaid (yaay!) who can turn herself into a human, can control water and has a telepathic connection to sea creatures. Not someone you'd bring to a sushi restaurant.

Scraping the bottom of the superpower barrel, we have Peekablue, who has a peacock tail that supposedly gives her enhanced sight, Perfuma, who can control plants, Sweet Bee, who is dressed like an Eighties club kid and is an intergalactic Bee Person (I don't even want to think about how that honey-making process works) and Flutterina, who has butterfly wings and may or may not get trapped behind windows.

The main villain was the gloriously wicked Catra. Captain of the Evil Horde, she can turn herself into a purple panther by pulling her cat mask over her eyes and has telepathic control over felines. She would eat those last four birds for breakfast given half a chance.

She's also sexy as hell.

As a child and without The Channels (i.e. anything other than RTE 1 and 2 - unless I was in my Nanny's house), my main source of reference in terms of She-Ra was a Ladybird book called Catra's Ice Palace. I'm sure it's since been given away, but during my hunt for She-Ra images, I happened upon scans of each page of that very book. EXCITEMENT SHE WROTE.

It's filled with all these gorgeous illustrations of Adora and her ridey friends, just look at Frosta being all brilliant with her magic sceptre and look at all that giant hair!

Castaspella puts in a brief appearance, although she looks nothing like she did in the cartoon, because continuity is for SQUARES. It also features Catra shaking her fist a lot.

Raaar!

There she is, all giant hair, spectacular cheekbones and fury. The big pink lion is her pet, Clawdeen, who is referred to as a she, even though she has a mane. It's all either a) a bit confusing or b) tremendously progressive and Clawdeen is actually a transgender character, which would be amazing. When I was small and in love with this book, I thought Clawdeen was the most fantastic name in the world and decided that if I ever had a daughter, that's what I'd name her.

Clawdeen, come in for your dinner!

Yeah, that totally works.

Stop SOPA Ireland

2012-02-01T13:41:00.000Z

An Open Letter to Sean Sherlock TD
Courtesy of Boob.ie and Pop Culture Monster

Dear Mr Sherlock,

Further to the recent debate on January 31st at Dáil Éireann, we are presenting to you this letter as an appeal for you to reconsider your Statutory Instrument on Copyright in Ireland.

Before we go any further we are not what you have deemed us to be. We are not “keyboard warriors”, shouting blindly that any new proposed copyright law goes straight to the bin, because we don’t feel that way. We are concerned citizens of Ireland. And we feel we are not being treated as such.

Stating that the Statutory Instrument would be signed regardless of the 80,000 signatures from the general public in opposition and regardless of the issues and concerns voiced by your peers in office at today’s debate is demoralising. It forces us to believe that our voices, the voices of the people who put you where you are today, are not being heard. It forces us to believe that we are being ignored. It forces us to believe that you simply do not care. Surely the outcome of a Dáil debate, and subsequent vote, should determine whether or not the subject either goes forward for signing, back to the drawing board, or into the bin.

Let me assure you that we are all for protecting copyrighted material. We believe that all copyright holders should be compensated for the work and effort put into making their material. What we don’t believe in, however, is the manner in which this law is being proposed and put through. It’s undemocratic to believe using secondary legislation loopholes to push through a bill that is the best way to go about this.

We are not opposed to changing legislation. What we are opposed to is the vague wording of the legislation, leaving the net cast far too wide for interpretation and abuse.

As Junior Minister for Jobs, Enterprise, Innovation and Research it might be advisable, Mr Sherlock, to put some real research into a new law. Find out how to narrow it, so that situations where it is open to abuse cannot arise. You assured us today that despite the vague wording, it would not be abused. My question to you is, why word it so that it can be abused, and therefore have to assure us it will not? Why not rather reword it so that it cannot and therefore will not be abused?

And by doing so you might just implement a law that can be followed, enforced and adhered to in the manner for which it was intended. If that is achieved then perhaps it would help, instead of hinder (or indeed terminate) the creation of employment in this country. Particularly in a sector that is world renowned in providing highly qualified and innovative people.

There’s the word, Minister. Innovation. Let’s be innovative about this.

We are not calling for the copyright laws to remain the way they are, as they are presently being changed regardless of your Statutory Instrument. There is no point denying that the copyright laws currently in place have to change.

Simply stating that a party can apply for a court injunction if they feel an infringement has taken place will cause nothing more than a backlog in the courts, major costs to the tax payer and a fear that anyone with a blog, forum or website will be subject to attack from a party with deeper pockets.

Will a website be taken down for linking to a video on YouTube if the copyright holder seeks an injunction against YouTube? With this new legislation amendment, linking to copyright infringement is no less a crime than handling a stolen television set.

Will a website be blocked for using a freely available picture?If the main social players on the internet such as Google and YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter decide not to get involved in such disputes, will it block their sites from being used by anyone in Ireland?Will it block our websites, blogs, forums and other media from partnering for advertising or linking within their platforms?

Or will they just write off their investment in this country and move their headquarters to a state that isn’t run by corporate lobbyists, taking their jobs with them?

The fallout from DELL leaving under the old government was devastating. The fallout from the potentially dangerous legislation you’re proposing to implement is inconceivable. No doubt, it would end with you and your party being disgraced.

Many websites are under threat from this new legislation. Young websites that were established by people trying to make a way for themselves; people hoping to gain employment in national or international media; and people hoping to become self-employed and self-reliant. Websites that at this time do not have advertising budgets and rely on the free media of Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other social networking websites.

You mentioned a national online forum today (boards.ie) who have stated that they will not be able to support themselves in legal fees should they be taken to court under your new legislation. It’s not just boards.ie who could be forced to shut down, give up and walk away or start from scratch. It’s potentially millions of website owners. With your new legislation, you are affecting millions of Internet users. You are threatening millions of people’s livelihoods and sources of income.

This legislation has to have its wording tightened, because to put it bluntly Minister, it feels like this is EMI using you to push this through. After all, Eircom currently blocks its customers from using The Pirate Bay. So targeting UPC is the next way to go, we suppose.

If the law is there to protect the big companies from losing revenue due to illegal downloading, then by all means state that outright in the wording of the legislation.

We implore you bring it back to the drawing board, research it and come up with something that is concise and not so wide open to interpretation.

What we need now is for you to wait, patiently. The new copyright laws are being drawn up. Wait for them. And integrate a narrower and more focused version of your Statutory Instrument that doesn’t curb and limit freedom on the Internet; that won’t force businesses to take themselves elsewhere; that won’t limit creativity; and that won’t give rights of censorship by large bull-headed businesses.

We who operate on the internet on a daily basis understand how it works. We understand what’s frowned upon and what is downright illegal.

We understand that most of those who create original content want credit over compensation. Those lobbying you for this law are only concerned with the compensation, and that’s business, that’s fair enough. It shouldn’t however, prevent the (largely) self policing internet from doing what it does best - providing a platform for millions to express creativity and even free advertising for the big businesses in some cases. (Surely they don’t want to have their cake and eat it too?)

It’s those who do not understand the differences that this law is required for. Sad that it’s the same people who were slow to understand and grasp how much the internet would change their business. Sad that instead of embracing it and trying to understand how to integrate it into their business, they want to try and stop it altogether.

The videogame industry is constantly coming up with ways to combat piracy, and they’re beginning to work. But EMI et al, don’t need us to point that out to them. After all, their material is licensed on thousands of video game titles worldwide.

Perhaps if the record companies were proactive in their fight against piracy they might just discover an innovative way of doing so themselves.

And there that word is again, Minister.

Minister, we are a group of concerned bloggers, writers, artists, columnists and professionals who understand the need for greater copyright protection, but are fearful of the cloak and dagger way you seem to be attempting to implement it.

Protection of the people is the job of the government, something our Taoiseach has no problem telling us when there’s more bad financial news on the way. Protecting business is another, and we get that.

It just needs to be handled a lot better than it has been.

In closing, Mr Sherlock, what we’re looking for is full disclosure and due process all the way. You and your colleagues in government were elected for change and this behaviour is something that reeks of your predecessors. What we want is protection for the small operator and not just for the big business, who can afford their protection regardless of the cost or effort.

We don’t expect you to answer or even acknowledge this letter Mr Sherlock, but we do call on you to acknowledge that there are people at your disposal who can help you with this law and legislation.

Please don’t do what we fear you’re doing, and run this through thinking you know what you’re at.

Sincerely,

Ireland’s Internet Community

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Out Of Control

2012-01-26T12:54:00.000Z

The other night, while looking through the bookshelves for something to read in bed, I came upon a Sweet Valley High book that I had recently bought while charity shop shopping. It was number 35 in the series, Out Of Control was the title and I thought to myself, "why yes, I'll have some of that". What followed was an immediate nostalgia buzz. The opening line was about Elizabeth Wakefield brushing her blonde hair, with the following pages repeatedly beating me over the head with the fact that she and her twin had the most amazing blue-green eyes OF ALL TIME.

I had already posted about the genetically superior Wakefields here, back when I first heard that Diablo Cody was writing a Sweet Valley High film and then I included Crazy Margo in my list of favourite lady villains here, but I wanted to write about them again. All those long denim-clad legs and peaches-and-cream complexions and insane storylines are just TOO DELIGHTFUL. Which is why I decided to track down as many books from the series as I can and review each one as I read them. They won't be in sequence, as I'll just be picking up whatever I can find, but hopefully that won't matter all too much.

So without further ado, here is the first installment of a shiny new series: Sweet Valley High Revisited!

Sweet Valley High #35: Out Of Control

We are introduced to the Wakefield twins in the usual style and assured of their golden blonde hair, dazzling blue-green eyes and matching lavaliere necklaces. I had to look up what exactly a lavaliere is and it would appear that it's just a fancy way of saying pendant necklace. (Thanks for making that unnecessarily confusing, Francine.) So once we've established what a pair of rides Elizabeth and Jessica are, it transpires that Jessica has decided to get involved in selling Tofu-Glo, a line of natural health and beauty products made from soybeans, which is IN NO WAY a scam.

Elizabeth drives to the school to watch her boyfriend Jeffrey at football training (well, soccer, if we're going to be all American about it) and "deftly" pulls the car into a parking space. I love how they felt the need to say how brilliant she is at parking, for not only are the Wakefields amazing at life, their spatial awareness is SECOND TO NONE.

Anyway, Jeffrey's teammate and best friend Aaron has been super cranky lately and keeps shouting at people for like, no reason and even though Elizabeth KNOWS that this is because his parents are splitting up, she moans about how much time Jeffrey spends with him and can't seem to get her head around why he's still friends with him. Eh, maybe because his best mate is having a really hard time at home, you insensitive wagon. She's also really mean to Aaron's girlfriend Heather, dismissing her as a vain, shallow twit based solely on the fact that she dresses well (too well for Elizabeth - "wasn't it a little elaborate for the Valley cinema?") and wants to be a fashion designer. Elizabeth is in no position to snark on what Heather wears. Just look at the state of her pants on the book cover.

Exhibit A.
Are those even pants? Either way that is one HIGH ASS waistband, woman.

Oh, and Heather has the nerve to try to be friends with Elizabeth, which seems to piss her right off. Doesn't she realise that it's up to The Glorious Wakefields to decide if you're worthy to be their friend, not the other way around? FOOLISH HUMAN. Elizabeth then proceeds to take the piss out of Heather behind her back by doing a cruel impression of her at Jessica's Tofu-Glo party, when all Heather has ever done is have the cheek to be nice to her. I have to say, for the twin that's meant to be the sound one, Elizabeth is a right little geebag in this book.

Continuing in this bitchy vein, Elizabeth then writes an article about Aaron punching a teammate on the pitch during training, explaining how he's going to be booted off the team if he has another outburst. She half-assedly debates whether or not she should publish it, as it'll make Jeffrey and Aaron really mad at her, (Aaron already has enough to be dealing with what with his parents' divorce and all, not that she gives a chocolate covered fuck) but she has some notion that she's a totally hardcore journalist, honour-bound to report the facts and not actually a teenager writing a gossip column for her school newspaper. As expected, Jeffrey and Aaron are pissed off with her and when she and Jeffrey have a big row, she blames Aaron for it! For real! She held him entirely to blame for causing this argument. What the actual FUCK, Elizabeth? However, Heather thinks it might be what Aaron needed to get him to cop on to himself. Elizabeth then realises that Heather is actually really creative and sweet, which is what everyone else who wasn't a judgemental asshole already knew.

To reassure herself that she did the right thing, Elizabeth consults her favourite teacher/school paper's advisor, Mr. Collins. They have a brief exchange where his eyes seem to twinkle an inordinate amount and he playfully says "Oh please! Never call me that!" when she refers to him as an authority figure. Dude, you're a teacher. Cop the fuck on. Also, he winks at her when she's leaving. It's all pretty inappropriate. I got the feeling that if they ever got freaky together she'd probably call him Daddy mid-fuck. Shudder.

In the meantime/story that nobody really cares about, Jessica has sold her Tofu-Glo tat to half the town, who are now demanding their money back seeing as the products are a load of shite and were meant to be kept refrigerated.

ANYWAY. Elizabeth and Jeffrey kiss and make up, but then it all kicks off when they run into Aaron and Heather. Aaron demands an apology from Elizabeth for writing her stupid article, Jeffrey tells him he's acting like a spoiled brat, everyone gets a bit het up and Aaron decks him and runs off crying. Of course, punching his mate now means that Aaron is off the football team. Oh no! There's a big game coming up and everything! Heather talks him into seeing the school's guidance counseller, while Elizabeth lords it over Jeffrey that she was right all along. "Do you believe me now?" Elizabeth asked, her voice gentle. There was no satisfaction in being proven right. Get ta fuck, Liz! You're only loving it! What's the weather like up on that high horse of yours?

So everybody makes up with each other and Aaron goes off to Mrs. Green, the counsellor. They have a chat and when he asks her if she thinks he has an emotional problem, she LAUGHS IN HIS FACE. Where the hell does this high school get their staff from? If they're not creeping on sixteen year old girls, they're taking the piss out of troubled young fellas. Anyway, after she's laughed at him, they straighten the whole thing out and he gets to stay on the football team. Sweet Valley win their big match, Aaron's rage problems seem to have dissolved entirely and everybody's friends again. Yay!

Oh, and Jessica ended up stuck with all that Tofu-Glo crap, in debt and having to pay for it all to be taken away to the dump. BUT it turns out that the twins' dad Ned conveniently made some enquiries and discovered that there's a big lawsuit going on against the company and all the suckers that bought into the scheme are getting settlements, so she gets all her money back plus damages and doesn't have to learn any life lessons. Double yay!

Notable outfit:
Seeing as Heather was the fashionable one who made her own clothes, this is her moment.

The dress, of pale peach cotton, fell gracefully from a dropped waist. A collar made of dozens of overlapping "petals" in white and pink added a lovely flowerlike quality to the otherwise simple design.

Erm, yes. Lovely.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 154
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 4
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 6
Amount of times Elizabeth shakes her head: 13
Appearances of the words "eyes" or "eye": 75

Crabapple Sauce

2012-01-20T14:56:00.000Z

It appears that I have a new girl crush. Although this one is also an art crush, which multiplies things considerably. Molly Crabapple is a New York illustrator, fine artist and total badass. She created the alternative drawing salon Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School, an inspired mash-up of cabaret performances and life drawing which has gone worldwide (including Dublin - I really need to get to one of these nights, quick smart) and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Marvel comics.

She's also a great big ride.

Her style of illustration is like a great big whimsical Victoriana steampunk sandwich filled with French Rococo decadence, intricate curls, smirking lips, creeping tentacles, corseted waists and stripey stockings. It's beautiful, breathtaking, saucy and smart. I want to eat it.

It's just outstandingly gorgeous. All of it. Just when I thought I couldn't love her work any more, I came upon portraits she has done of four of my favourite women of all time, three of which were part of her Saints and Sinners project (where she sketched 66 notorious figures from history).

SWOON ALERT

Look! It's Tura Satana, Luisa Casati, Lola Montez and Kiki de Montparnasse! ALL of whom I've written about at some point or other. I got very excited when I saw these. There's also an amazing sketch series of the Faces of Occupy Wall Street on her site. Everything on it is worth checking out, in fact. It's all solid gold.

There are even Molly Crabapple iPhone covers, with these two being my favourites. I think I'd be too terrified to actually use them though (if I ever got my hands on one), for fear that it'd get as scratched and chipped as my current Hello Kitty one. I'd be too afraid to ever get drunk in case I dropped it. The horror!

She's seven kinds of deadly. I've become such a fangirl. New favourite lady.

All images from mollycrabapple.com

Silent Night

2012-01-17T16:45:00.002Z

Last night, the Bear and I finally got around to seeing the much hyped silent film The Artist. Dangerously enough, I was expecting to love it from the get-go and luckily it didn't disappoint. When I wasn't busy stuffing popcorn and Minstrels into my gob as quietly as I could manage, I was enthralled by the music, the amazing dog, leading lady Peppy Miller's dazzling smile, and the tremendous expressions of the monochrome epitome of a dashing matinee idol, George Valentin.

The handsome bastard.

Bérénice Bejo is outrageously endearing as Peppy, the star on the rise in Hollywoodland, as she swiftly adapts to talkies and sparkles her way to the top. Predictably enough, the wardrobe of a vivacious 1920s ingénue is utterly gorgeous.

I loved that the story revolves around the introduction of sound and the impact it had on the careers of various stars, as I've always found that era of Hollywood history particularly fascinating. I would have written a post specifically about it after seeing The Artist, only I already did one last year. So if, like me, you find it all terribly interesting, it can be found here, for (what I hope will be) your reading pleasure.

Quelque Chose #16

2012-01-13T15:48:00.000Z

"20 year-old South African stripteaser Kathy Keeton (1939–1997), performs at London’s Embassy Club… while her mother, who moved to London “to keep an eye on her daughter” sits in the audience, sewing G-strings for her daughter. c. 1960."

Awesome.

(via bhof)

Me and the Future Mrs Jones

2012-01-10T16:53:00.000Z

While watching (and being deafened by - it was so LOUD, whatever was going on with the speakers) Raiders of the Lost Ark in the IFI at the weekend, I found myself thinking what a great character Marion Ravenwood is. A hard-drinking, no-nonsense bartender in a dodgy Nepalese watering hole, defiant in the face of creepy Nazis and handy with a frying pan.

She's pretty much the exact opposite of the shrill, shrieking, painful waste of a female character that is Willie Scott in Temple of Doom. (Don't even get me started on Shortround. The Scrappy Doo to Indiana's Scooby.)

But back to lovely Marion. During the buildup to the big chase scene in Cairo, I found myself enamoured with yet ANOTHER pair of harem style pants. For someone who decided long ago that they were stupid, here I am writing about them again, mere weeks after I was all agog at Lady Sybil's blue Jasmine outfit. Although to be fair, neither of these have that ridiculous dropped crotch/full nappy effect. So if Sybil was blue Jasmine, that makes Marion red Jasmine, but without the unpleasant Jafar's sex slave part.

I was so entranced by her red pants that I noticed a great bit in one of the fight scenes where Indiana is being all manly and fighty and just a big ride in general, Marion is over to the right of the screen just repeatedly bashing a villain over the head with a tin box. The scene goes on for quite a bit, with all the action focused on Indiana's scrap and all the while Marion is there in the background resolutely whacking this guy over and over for the duration of the whole scene.

Smashy smashy.

Something I also noticed was during the scene where she's being held captive in a tent and Belloq unties her so she can eat. It seems that Pirates of the Caribbean completely rips off that entire sequence when Barbossa eats with Elizabeth Swann. Both women are given new frocks to put on, both women humour their captors by playing along and eating dinner with them, while surreptitiously hiding a knife, which both women then use to threaten the bad guy and attempt escape only to be immediately foiled. HMMM.

Coming To A Doctor's Waiting Room Near YOU!

2012-01-06T14:05:00.002Z

I get excited about lots of things. Like the fact that I'm going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark on Sunday in the IFI, or when they have Wispas in stock at the coffee dock in work. But right now I'm REALLY excited that I've been featured in this week's issue of Woman's Way, as they have most kindly decided to include me in their 12 New Faces for 2012 article.

Look! There I am!

In case anyone was wondering, the post about Obama is here and the mermaids one can be found here. I'm happy dancing in my chair right now. Woo!

Shinier Than Your Average Bear

2012-01-04T16:00:00.000Z

After eating my way through Christmas at home and drinking my way through New Year's Eve in a windswept cottage in the wilds of Joyce Country, it's back to Dublin, back to work and back to bleary-eyed early mornings where I'm counting down to the soonest time I can sleep in. I have to say though, Christmas was wonderfully good to me this year. By Christmas I mean the Bear and by good to me I mean gave me a present that has since become my most favourite thing ever.

Once I had pulled the wrapping paper off, I was left with this tin box. This gorgeous tin tea box, which had been beautifully decorated with typewritten quotes and cutout images of bears.

Completely puzzled as to what it could possibly contain, I opened it to reveal...

THE MOST AMAZING SILVER RING IN THE WORLD.

A motherfucking BEAR, no less! It transpired that my crafty, brilliant boy had employed the services of our astonishingly talented friend Mirjam, a superhero silversmith who designed and handcrafted this ring as a jaw-dropping custom made piece.

I die! (Inset photo by Mirjam Schiller. The big legend.)

It's huge, it's heavy, it's utterly amazing. I LOVE IT TO PIECES.

Merry Happy!

2011-12-23T14:25:00.001Z

Last night we attended a most delightful outdoor screening of Elf in Meeting House Square and as if going to see an amazing Christmas film in a gorgeous outdoor setting wasn't enough, there was free popcorn and hot chocolate being handed out. Free! That never happens! After Irishing up mine and the Bear's tasty hot chocolates thanks to a handy hip flask, we settled into our seats with enough sweets to induce a mild case of diabetes. During the film I was reminded how much I love Dreamgirl Deschanel's pink elf outfit at the end.

Cute!

Anyway, I'm off home to Waterford to stuff my face with Roses and Pringles and anything else within reaching distance, while also drinking far too much Tanora, now that they've thankfully seen sense and restored the flavour to its original awesome Christmassy self after scaring us all half to death with that disaster of a marketing move in June. So thanks everyone for reading and commenting and what have you all year and have a TREMENDOUS Christmas!

You Can Always Go...Downton

2011-12-20T20:37:00.001Z

Late to the party as ever, I've been catching up with the rest of the world and haring through Downton Abbey recently in an effort to get it all watched before the Christmas special. I've only just started the second series so for GOD'S SAKE don't say anything about anything that happens in series two or I will end you.

Predictably enough, I'm completely enamoured with the show. The dresses, the impeccable hair, the elbow length gloves, the beautiful stately rooms, Thomas being such a BASTARD, Maggie Smith as Violet being so delightfully cutting, I love it all.

The costumes are so sumptuous it must be like wearing a diamond encrusted cake, or possibly something a little less messy. In terms of the characters, the rebellious, burgeoning feminist Lady Sybil was always going to be my favourite and it's to her that I can attribute the so-amazing-I-might-have-clapped-when-I-saw-it fashion moment of the series so far.

The blue outfit that shocks the entire house, as it incorporates PANTS, the feckless hussy. I just think it's supremely gorgeous. I don't even like harem pants but these are effing tremendous, not to mention the bodice and the headband. SMOKIN'. It looks like what would transpire if Princess Jasmine decided to try her hand at a lifestyle as a fledgling flapper girl.

Well played, costume people. Exceedingly well played.

Quelque Chose #15

2011-12-15T17:25:00.000Z

Every so often when a burlesque show came shimmying into town, theatre owners in the more conservative areas of 1940s/50s America were forced to work a little magic on promotional photos for newspaper ads and what have you. The solution to this little conundrum was adding clothes to the bodies of the brazen showgirls in question with pen and ink. This picture shows a performer in a bra and knickers that were added afterwards, with the untouched photo shown in the inset. I don't know about you, but I love the idea that it was someone's actual job to draw clothes on previously more nudey ladies.

(via bhof)

Snow White Smackdown

2011-12-08T14:13:00.004Z

As Hollywood is wont to do from time to time, two more than similar films are coming out quite close to each other next summer. We've had Armageddon vs Deep Impact battle for Asteroid Film Of The Year, Friends With Benefits vs No Strings Attached tussle for Friends-Who-Ride-Each-Other Film Of The Year and soon we'll have Mirror Mirror vs Snow White and the Huntsman bate the heads off each other for Snow White Film Of The Year. On one had, Mirror Mirror features Lily Collins (daughter of Phil!) and Julia Roberts as the princess and the evil Queen, while Kristen "I'm delighted to be a highly paid actress, no really I am" Stewart and Charlize Theron are squaring off and throwing dirty looks at them as their respective rivals.

Each film has a very different feel, Mirror Mirror is decidedly lighter, fluffier, funnier and Nathan Lane-ier, whereas Snow White and the Huntsman is an altogether darker, grittier and really rather deadly looking take on the story.

Lily's Snow White probably looks more like what you'd expected from a classic princess story, but Sourpuss Stewart definitely has the look of a girl who's about to do some damage rather than burst into song.

Sorry Julia, your red peacock ballgown loses out to Charlize's pointy black getup. Not least because she looks like she'd stab you in the face just for the craic.

In the Evil Queen category, Julia Roberts is playing her as a neurotic, insecure diva, which is all well and good, but to be fair Charlize Theron wipes the floor with her as a malevolent, properly wicked and scary witchy woman. She's eating someone's soul right out of their FACE in the trailer for flip's sake! No contest!

In the Obligatory Handsome Bastard corner, we have Armie Hammer with the big Disney prince head on him playing...twist!...the prince. The handsome bastard of Snow White and the Huntsman is none other than the Hunstsman himself, played by Kim from Home & Away. Or, y'know, Thor.

I have to say, I really like the look of both of these films. Snow White and the Huntsman looks great because of the big medieval style battles, the armour, the injection of darkness into a previously sweetened fairytale and the fact that Charlize's Evil Queen looks like she's going to be an utter DELIGHT to watch, what with the soul eating and milk bathing and general sultry divilment.

Whereas Mirror Mirror looks great because of the GIANT ASS DRESSES, the Nathan Lane comic relief and the fact that it's all so shiny and fun looking. It's also got Sean Bean in it as the king, which means he's probably going to die at some point, because it's Sean Bean and that's what he does in EVERYTHING. Seriously. Just watch THIS if you don't believe me. You just try to name something that he doesn't die in and I'll call you a damn liar.

Puts The Sexism Into Tea

2011-12-02T13:36:00.002Z

There's a certain ad campaign of late that manages to instill a huge amount of annoyance and anger in me. It's not Ivan Answer (this time) and it's not even that awful, insipid "I love shopping.ie" radio jingle, even though that does send me into a panicked lunge for the mute button with a speed that could only be matched by my haste for the remote when the Hollyoaks theme tune starts.

But I digress somewhat. It's the most recent Lyons Tea tv and radio ads. Their whole "Richer Talk" campaign was all fine by me up until the point that they decided to air ads with such a passive-aggressively misogynist undercurrent that every encounter with them results in me thinking "FUCK YOU, LYONS TEA. FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR".

This is one of the tv ads in question. There's another one where the HILARIOUS Dad character makes a crack about his wife having the utter cheek to spend money on her hair. HA HA HA. Sure don't women only care about shoes and hair anyway! And if someone does decide to get her hair done, then OF COURSE she should be undermined in front of her child for doing so. HA HA FUCKING HA.

Fuckface.

Even worse is the radio ad that begins with Hilaro-Dad reading Mary Had A Little Lamb to his daughter, which prompts him to wistfully lament the fact that his white Ireland away jersey is now pink because "your mother" put it in the wash with red socks. Hey Mr. Dad, here's a revolutionary thought: why don't you do your own fucking washing in the first place and maybe then you won't be so traumatised you COCK.

In short, fuck you Lyons Tea Man.

Words With Friends

2011-11-23T13:38:00.003Z

I actually meant to post this video ages ago, but was most likely distracted by something shiny. And/or chocolatey. Shiny chocolate, perhaps. The following video is for The Friend Song by EleventyFour. It was filmed on a drizzly Sunday in Rathmines, where the Bear and I joined an assortment of Eleventy's friends and partook in some frisbee throwing in the rain, eating so many Refresher sweets that our jaws were temporarily glued shut (that might just have been me, actually) and frantically miming our way through a game of charades.

The charades game was particularly fun, as I hadn't played it in years. The Bear and I weren't allowed to be on the same team though, as the others had decided to hold our track record of being really good at Cranium together against us and so we ended up on opposing teams. Those jerks. Each team was then given the task of coming up with the things the other team had to mime. Which means that it was ENTIRELY the Bear's fault when I pulled out a piece of paper for my turn, unfolded it and froze in horror.

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.

Are you fucking KIDDING ME. As I steeled myself for what was going to be the most embarrassing miming ever, two more friends of Eleventy's arrived, whom I've NEVER MET BEFORE IN MY LIFE. They sat down, joined a team each and looked at me expectantly from the couch.

And so I began.

Play....three words....first word....the!....third word....three syllables....

................

................

................

I had nothing. I was drawing a complete blank as to how I could possibly convey the word "monologues" with my increasingly erratic gesturing. With a resigned sigh, I signalled that I was moving on to the second word.

And pointed at my crotch.

They got it immediately. Thanks a lot Bear, you ASS.

Dial M For Moneypenny

2011-11-14T20:14:00.001Z

I'm sure you're all aware by now that the next James Bond film is to be called Skyfall and that Javier Bardem will appear as a villain. All well and good, but what I was happiest to hear is that the (previously missing from the Daniel Craig reboot) character of Miss Moneypenny is back. Yay! English actress Naomie Harris is taking on the slinky secretary role, who turns out to have played the very cool Tia Dalma in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Well, she was cool when she was a Jamaican voodoo priestess at least, I wasn't crazy about the part where she turns out to be the goddess Calypso, grows eighty feet tall and turns into thousands of crabs, but there you go. (Insert your own STD joke here. I won't judge you for it. Ahem.)

Apparently Moneypenny is based on a few different women that Ian Fleming knew. In his first draft of Casino Royale, she had a completely different name and was called Miss Pettaval, inspired by the director of MI6's personal assistant Kathleen Pettigrew. Another possible inspiration was Joan Astley, a pretty badass old girlfriend of Fleming's who ran Winston Churchill's Secret Intelligence Centre during the war and was renowned for being warm and welcoming when senior officers came to her office to view top secret papers.

The first actress to play Moneypenny was Lois Maxwell, who flirted her way through a massive fourteen Bond films with Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Although you may think Moneypenny is little more than a lovestruck assistant, the character is actually a Lieutenant in the Women's Royal Naval Service, so clearly she can kick some ass when she needs to.

Caroline Bliss took over the role of Moneypenny in the two Timothy Dalton Bond films, The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill. Bliss was a much younger actress,but hardly appeared in either film at all, with her role essentially reduced to a cameo. Boo.

When Pierce Brosnan became 007, the aptly named Samantha Bond took on the Moneypenny mantle in the next four films. I always had a soft spot for Moneypenny, particularly when I was in college and utterly sick of being single, as I identified with her as being the girl who never got the boy she liked. Of course, that's all changed now, but I was still disappointed when there was no sign of my girl in Craig's Casino Royale.

There were two other actresses that portrayed Moneypenny, but they're deemed unofficial, as the films weren't real Bond movies per se. Barbara Bouchet appeared in the 60s spoof Casino Royale as a frankly outrageously sexy sixties kitten style Miss Moneypenny and Pamela Salem played her in Never Say Never Again.

Look at Barbara here, for feck's sake. She's wearing what appears to be a see-through bejewelled nightdress when she's meant to be ON BUSINESS. MOST unprofessional. Get your head in the game, woman!

Apparently, the shiny new Miss Moneypenny will start out as an MI6 field agent, before becoming M's go-to girl, so it sounds like she'll be doing more then sitting at a desk looking pretty. A more than welcome update of the character, I'm sure you'll agree.

The Curious Case of Madame

2011-11-09T17:21:00.001Z

Over the Halloween weekend, between watching copius amounts of films and a sunny Sunday morning trip to the Hellfire Club, the Bear and I went charity shop shopping along our usual route. On this particular venture, we were on a mission to find Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books for my brother, although seeing as this meant intently perusing the bookshelves of all the charity shops on Capel Street, we ended up with enough books for ourselves to almost break the plastic bag that held them. However, as we made our way through all the second hand James Pattersons, Alexander McCall Smiths, Patricia Cornwells and Cecelia Aherns (SO MANY Cecelia Aherns) in the first shop, a certain book in perfect condition grabbed my attention.

THIS book, to be precise:

So many questions. Such as the back to front Es and WHY? They bewilder me entirely. They make me want to shake the book until they rattle back into their rightful position. What's the deal with Miss Floating Cloaked Girl here, out of proportion with everything around her? And why is there a tiny glowing map of Ireland hovering above the larger of the confused Es? As if all that wasn't perplexing enough, check out the back cover.

What the HELL is going on here? Did they copy and paste the text in and then forget to finish it? Also, I hate to sound like a mean and snarky bitch here, but that author photograph is HILARIOUS and missing an exposed chest and gold medallion. I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Having replaced the book on the shelf after shaking my head in puzzlement at it for several minutes, I noticed another copy. Like the first, it was in no way second hand. The spine was flat and smooth, the pages unthumbed and the cover all shiny. I thought it was a bit unusual, but off we ambled to the next shop. And the next. And the next. There are at least five charity shops on Capel Street and this book was in EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Multiple copies of it in fact. Scattered throughout the shelves, all of them in mint condition. It was only in the second shop that I decided to take a picture of each sighting in each shop. And check this out:

It was EVERYWHERE! It's all so MYSTERIOUS! Are they haunted books, planted in charity shops to trick the elderly and those who dig bargains into bringing one home and slowly take over the world with some manner of spooky book ghost mind control? Theories are more than welcome, but if anyone has Jessica Fletcher's number, you get her on the case quick smart before we're all doomed, ya hear?

Your Kids Are Gonna Love It

2011-11-02T16:46:00.001Z

Way back in April, I was regaling you all with tales of a weekend spent cutting something like two hundred fish shapes out of coloured paper, sacrificing faithfulness to original film set design as my instinct to stay inside the lines while painting a banner took over and generally dancing till my feet were about to explode. It was all in aid of a terrifically fun video shoot for The Dead Flags and if you managed to somehow bypass me enthusing about the finished result on other quarters of the internet, well WORRY NOT.

But first some stills, as I'm super delighted with how the room looked in the final video and so glad that the wrist pains from all the scissors action and steady-handed letter painting totally paid off.

The Bear and I managed to pop up a fair bit in the video, jiving up a storm and doing our best not to trip over. There's also a bit where the lower half of my red dress looks quite cool and swishy, if I do say so myself.

Now, for your viewing and listening and Back To The Future loving pleasure, You Got It Wrong:

Day Of The Deadly

2011-10-28T16:26:00.002+01:00

At this spooky time of year, when pumpkins are the decoration du jour and dressing as a sexy {insert random profession/ fictional character here} is the default option for far too many, the people of Mexico are gearing up for Día de los Muertos. On the 1st and 2nd of November, family and friends gather to honour those who have died, with sugar skulls and flowers playing a large part in the tradition. La Cavalera Catrina (The Elegant Skull), an etching from 1913 which portrays an upper class woman as a skeleton has since become a staple of Day of the Dead imagery and is one of the most popular figures associated with the traditional holiday. She's also a fantastic character to take on for our own autumnal celebration, Halloween.

The original 1913 etching and Catrina figurines. Eat your heart out, Tim Burton. What an odd and Halloween appropriate phrase that is.

There are some really beautiful takes on the Cavalera Catrina look, with the illusion of sewn lips and a painted skeletal face executed in a very elegant and decorative manner. It's almost like an intricately floral voodoo zombie look, with a bit of New Orleans Mardi Gras and gypsy fortune teller thrown in for good measure.

In terms of a Halloween costume, I'm determined to take it on some day, as it makes for a gorgeous and creative look and just going back to the unnecessarily sexy costumes, anything's got to be better than this, right?

I'm sorry to say that your eyes are not in fact deceiving you. That is indeed a "sexy" Brian from Family Guy costume. A SEXY VERSION OF A CARTOON DOG. STOP IT.

Fair City's Finest

2011-10-21T17:00:00.004+01:00

You may remember that some time ago I designed EP artwork for the very lovely EleventyFour. Part of that design consisted of her new logo, a depiction of Eleventy driving a forklift against a Rubik's cube background in honour of her song Forklife, which concerns her stealing a forklift and using it to do good deeds.

Since then, the wheels of EleventyFour's plan for world domination have been well and truly set in motion, with her whimsical influence most recently reaching as far as...

FAIR CITY

I have been reliably informed that this charming young man is called Wayne. As someone who doesn't actually watch Fair City, I can only assume that he's something akin to Carrigstown's version of The Fonz.

Here we see Wayne heroically consoling his friend who is quite clearly distraught over his choice in cushion pattern. If Wayne had been there at the time, his cushions would be amazing. Because Wayne knows the entire Ikea catalogue off by heart.

Wayne about to rescue a barrel of puppies from rolling down a hill.

Considering I was excited to see something I designed on iTunes, I can safely say that it now pales in comparison to to the brilliance of SUPERWAYNE and his excellent choice in logo t-shirts.

Storm In A Cupcake

2011-10-18T14:18:00.000+01:00

Girls bursting out of huge cakes is such a common trope in films and TV at this stage that I reckon if you wheeled a giant cake into a room full of people and it turned out to be an actual cake the whole way through, the disappointment would be palpable regardless of demographic. I'm certain of it. In fact, if anyone wants to bake a giant cake for me to prove my point, please go ahead and I definitely won't eat it all instead of doing what I said I would. Definitely.

Ladies in varying states of undress (or gender, in the case of South Park) have popped out of cakes ineverything from Singin' In The Rain, Boardwalk Empire, Cheers and even Xena: Warrior Princess.

What immediately comes to mind for me though is Erika Eleniak and if the name doesn't ring a bell then simply saying "that scene in Under Siege" certainly should. There must be VHS tapes of Steven Seagal's finest work strewn across homes in which Erika's interrupted cake dance has been reduced to fuzzy static due to excessive pausing and rewinding.

There she is now, with nobody to look at her bottom only Casey Ryback and he's got a battleship to save so put some damn clothes on, woman!

Anyway, in case you've ever wondered where this propensity for oversized cakes with a sexy girl filling came from, allow me to inform you. Towards the end of the 19th century, Gilded Age New Yorkwas rife with ridiculously wealthy gadabouts and grande dames, all trying to outdo each other with hugely elaborate dinner parties and soirees for the city's elite. Mamie Fish, a legendary hostess with a flair for divilment once held a dinner in honour of a mysterious prince, only for her guests to arrive and discover that the prince in question was a monkey dressed in white tie and tails. Equestrian enthusiast CKG Billings celebrated the opening of his stables in 1903 with a dinner on horseback in the exclusive Sherry's restaurant. For real. A room in the restaurant was decorated to look like the countryside, complete with grass on the floor, waiters dressed for a fox hunt, sterling silver menus shaped like horseshoes and specially designed saddles that incorporated trays fitted to twelve live horses.

Look at these mad bastards! Steps up to the horses and everything.

However, the most notorious stunt by New York's wealthy ne'er-do-wells was what transpired the night of a stag party organised by Stanford White, a well known architect. The dinner was attended by a host of American impressionist painters, Wall Street brokers, photographers, illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson Girl) and badass inventor Nikola Tesla. Apparently the dinner was a twelve course affair, with four banjo players and four singers providing entertainment and two girls to pour the wine, a brunette for red and a blonde for white. Classy. When dessert rolled around, the singers began to chant "Sing a Song of Sixpence" as a huge pie was carried into the room. At the line "Was that not a dainty dish to set before the king?" sixteen year old Susie Johnson burst out of the giant pie, accompanied by four and twenty actual birds and danced up and down the table with a stuffed blackbird on her head, feathered toe rings on her bare feet and while some accounts claim she was dressed in sheer black gauze, other stories say she was "covered only by the ceiling".

An illustration that appeared in a newspaper afterwards. I see they went with the non-nudey version of the story.

Although the guests and staff were sworn to secrecy, the story eventually made its way to a newspaper office and what became known as the Pie Girl Dinner exploded, lifting the lid on the shenanigans of the city's VIPs, scandalising the rest of the town and setting a precedent for dramatic desserts that has endured and adapted all the way to now.

Fuck Yeah Daenerys Targaryen

2011-10-09T21:33:00.001+01:00

So, Game of Thrones eh? The Bear and I have just rocketed through the first series in a matter of days and have now joined the hordes of beleagured fans waiting impatiently for the next season. Although it's a bit confusing, (e.g. Hang on, who were their parents? So, who's after dying? Wait, that's her BROTHER? That dirty BITCH!) it's also riveting and bloody and sexy and brilliant. As Trace Dogg so cleverly put it, "it's like Lord of the Rings but set in a brothel 48% of the time". There's many a character I want to punch in the face, due to them being such complete and utter BASTARDS all the time. However, there are also fantastically likeable characters such as diminutive chancer and charmer Tyrion Lannister, fiesty nine year old tomboy Arya Stark and my definite favorite (and flipping nightmare to spell) Daenerys Targaryen.

Aside from being the ethereal, silver-haired and otherworldly RIDEBAG that she is, I seriously loved her transition from fragile, subservient bride, taking shit from her dickhead brother, powerless to stop the events determining the course of her life, to kickass, fearsome tribal queen, taking no shit from nobody, as it were.

Are yeh startin'?

She's also well able to rock an ensemble that looks like it was made out of some manner of potato sack as well as she rocks flowing silky maxi dresses, a rather impressive feat, I'm sure you'll agree.

So she's ridiculously gorgeous, a fierce (in both the Tyra and regular sense) queen, has a killer wardrobe to boot and ALSO has a trusty troupe of sexy handmaidens for backup. One of whom is rather well versed in the art of fucking and with a quick spot of educational dry humping, instructs lovely Daenerys how to cowgirl-shag her way to authority. Handy handmaidens indeed.

Handmaidens....ASSEMBLE!

I won't go into the other reasons that she's the silvery bomb, as it would mean enormous spoilers for those of you who may not have seen it yet, but she's one ferociously badass lady and I can't believe I have to wait as long as I do for them to hurry the fuck up and make the second series.

You Got It Wrong

2011-10-05T17:16:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago I was delighted to be asked by Billy Flag to design an EP cover for The Dead Flags. Seeing as I had so much fun designing one for EleventyFour not so long ago, I jumped at the chance. The band wanted something a bit Hitchcock, a bit Saul Bass and a bit retro in style. After a few listens to the tracks I zeroed in on the idea of using hands in the design, as each song is linked by references to either hands, touching or holding. And here's what the result was:

The finished CD case is a much brighter blue than the photo suggests (empty cider cans from last night's Presidential debate drinking game are just about out of shot) and I'm really happy with how it turned out. The EP features the bouncy, fifties rock 'n roll-tinged title track You Got It Wrong, the supremely sing-a-long-able What's It All About and a terrific funk-drenched remix of Let's Start A Fire Tonight by electro sexfunk overlord Jack Samson.

It's already been clocking up mighty favourable reviews on Pop Culture Monster, Boob.ie and MutantSpace, but don't just take their collective words for it, come along to the launch gig in Whelan's on the 26th of October! If you click attending on the Facebook event page here you'll even get a discount on the admission price and you can hardly say fairer than that now, can you? Head over to their website for more tour dates and a listen to the tracks. They're a tremendously fun live band and I for one will be found in Whelan's on the 26th, drinking on a school night and dancing my socks off.

Stormageddon Style

2011-10-02T18:12:00.000+01:00

During last week's episode of Doctor Who, while the Doctor and James Corden were dashing around the place dodging Cybermen, I noticed that baby Alfie (or Stormageddon for fellow nerds) had superb taste in rainwear. For a character who didn't utter a word, he managed to steal the show entirely thanks to the Doctor's ability to speak Baby and a dynamite choice of coat.

Baby Alfie working that star pattern.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that I happen to own what is essentially THAT VERY COAT myself.

Me acting the maggot in my Dunnes raincoat after a bellyful of Odessa french toast.

You see what's happened here is that Alfie liked the look of my coat and got his own version, it's not that I dress like a giant baby. Just so's we're clear.

Moisture Is The Essence Of Wetness

2011-09-27T14:54:00.002+01:00

When I hear the word mermaid, I pretty much automatically think of Disney's irrepressibly cute Ariel, representing for redheads in their twinkly canon of princesses.

While the original shell bikini-ed Ariel is lovely and all that, there are two non-movie incarnations of her that I really love. One is from a Disney campaign shot by Annie Leibovitz which casts Julianne Moore as the underwater princess, all ethereal and pale skinned with flowing red hair.

The other is a decidedly saucier version, in which artist J Scott Campbell re-imagines her as a devastatingly sexy aquatic temptress with a set of knockers that must be damn near impossible to submerge.

I keep expecting the ship in the background to tip over from the sheer force of her outrageous rideyness.

I quite like it when mermaids appear in popular culture, where they seem to either be unfeasible love interests or enticing predators. Most recently they were featured in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Darryl Hannah flopped her tail fins around in Splash! and both Sade and Lady Gaga have put in turns as lovelorn mermaids in their music videos.

Larry: I just thank the Lord she didn't live to see her son as a mermaid.
Derek: Mer-man! (Black Lung cough) Mer-MAN!

Anyway, what prompted me to fish out (Haha! Oh COME ON, it had to happen sooner or later) pictures of foxy sea dwelling ladies in the first place was cinema's first mermaid, Annette Kellerman.

Annette was an Australian swimmer, high diver, stuntwoman, model and star of vaudeville and film who revolutionised women's swimwear and invented synchronised swimming too while she was at it. In the early 1900s, women were expected to wear woollen dresses and pantaloons while swimming, all in order to protect their collective modesty. *shakes fist at patriarchy* Annette, a world-class swimmer, was having none of that stupidity and fashioned her own swimming costume by sewing stockings onto a men's racing swimsuit. Take that, squares!

That saucy wench, flashing her KNEES! Someone think of the children!

However, one day in 1907 she was swimming at a beach in Boston wearing one of her fitted one piece suits without the leg coverings and was promptly arrested for indecency.

I love that she's making it as awkward as possible for that jerk to bundle her into the paddywagon.

Undeterred, she went on to create her own line of women's swimming costumes, encouraging ladies swamped in layers everywhere to ditch the stupid woolly sailor dresses and go for a one piece that they could actually move around in, paving the way for modern swimwear. She became a major film star, appearing in many underwater adventure movies as a mermaid, designing her own costumes and developing the first swimmable mermaid outfit for camera. She was also the first well-known actress to do a fully nude scene in 1916's A Daughter of the Gods.

As if all that wasn't enough, she also wrote several books on swimming and beauty, a book of children's fairy tales and opened a health food shop in Long Beach, California. Considering all Ariel managed to do was catch a touch of laryngitis and marry Prince Eric, I think it's safe to say I have a new favourite mermaid.

Quelque Chose #14

2011-09-23T16:47:00.000+01:00

Random Fact: In the mid-seventies, a teenage Michelle Pfeiffer worked in Disneyland, playing Alice in Wonderland in one of the park's many parades.

(via Mental Floss)

Truly Truly Truly Outrageous

2011-09-19T13:10:00.000+01:00

One of my more recent charity shop finds and one that I was particularly delighted with was a VHS tape in a battered case with a special offer sticker from days gone by half peeled away. But not just any tape, for this was in fact the all-singing all-dancing ninety minute extravaganza that is the first five episodes of Jem. Girls born in the Eighties, brace yourselves.

I watched it on Saturday afternoon and can confirm that it is exactly as cheesy, sparkly, demented and brilliant as I hoped it would be. It was a bucket of glittery nostalgia being thrown in my face, interspersed with one minute music video segments and I LOVED it. The outfits are bitchin', the hair is enormous and multicoloured, the pop songs are insanely catchy and the storylines are utterly bonkers. Just to recap, Jerrica (Jerrica? Seriously? Not even a real name) Benton's father dies and she inherits half of his record company and a house full of orphaned girls. As you do. She then receives a mysterious gift of earrings that lead her to a supercomputer called Synergy, designed by her late father. The computer can project holograms and transforms Jerrica into pink-haired pop sensation Jem.

Look at the SIZE of that hair! The sheer weight alone would be enough to snap any normal person's neck.

Jerrica's makeover and an evil music executive trying to take over the company then results in the formation of Jem and the Holograms, comprised of Jerrica's redhead sister, the Eighties-tastically named Kimber (who doesn't seem to mind that her dad left her fuck all in the will) on keyboards and their friends, blue-haired guitarist Aja (who I thought was Eastern European from her accent but is actually supposed to be Asian) and purple-haired Shana (who immediately hooks up with the only other black character in the show) on synth drums. Synth. Drums.

The rival band in the show, and the one I remember best from my childhood are The Misfits. They're the punky, brazen and mean counterparts to Jem and her do-gooder Holograms, led by the perpetually snarling and scheming green-haired frontwoman Pizzazz. The rest of the band is made up of white-haired bassist bitch Roxy (who seems to display slightly sociopathic tendencies, as she very nearly steamrollers Jem and the Holograms to death just for the hell of it at one point) and my favourite character from when I used to watch it, blue-haired keytar player (KEYTAR!) Stormer, who is actually the only nice member of the Misfits. Although watching it as an adult, I realised that she's actually a total pushover and could do with copping the fuck on and not putting up with Pizzazz and Roxy's bossy bullshit.

The Misfits were my strongest memory from the show, which may be partly due to their magnificent entrance in the first episode. They smash into the record company office on not-at-all-unwieldy GIANT GUITAR MOTORBIKES and threateningly circle Jerrica, bursting into their first song. Incidentally, their songs are far better than those of the Holograms. While Jem's numbers simper over love and friendship, the Misfits sing about causing trouble, winning at all costs and other assorted divilment. The music videos in the show seem to provide either an opportunity for a montage or even better, actually just reuse footage from previous episodes and videos, often completely irrelevant but shoehorned in nonetheless in what had to be cost saving measures. Needless to say, eight year old me didn't notice at the time. Twenty seven year old me was most amused by it all.

Giant guitar bikes. The only way to travel.

An aspect of the show that seemed to go over my head as a child is the love triangle storyline between Jerrica, her boyfriend Rio and Jem. Winning the award for most oblivious boyfriend ever, Rio has no idea that Jem and Jerrica are the same person, even though the only difference is their hair and a bit of pink facepaint. However, he seems happy enough to cheat on his girlfriend with...eh...his girlfriend in disguise, shifting the face off Jem at every given opportunity. Which isn't really cheating at all, but HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT. If he'd just get his dopey horn under control for all of five minutes he might realise that his beloved Jerrica is inflicting the biggest mindfuck of all time on him.

Anyway, once I had finished the video and was searching the internet for pictures for this post, I realised that there were TONNES of episodes I had never seen. Later into the series there were even new band members added to both the Holograms and the Misfits. Raya, a Latina drummer temporarily replaced Shana, who later rejoined the band and Jetta, an obnoxious Brit sax player with a brilliant Adam Ant style lightning bolt across her forehead was added to the Misfits line-up.

And, AND as if that wasn't enough of a surprise (for me anyway) there was A WHOLE NEW BAND introduced to the series in the form of The Stingers (supposedly based on German metal band The Scorpions), led by frontman Riot with a head of hair that would outgay both Siegfried and Roy, accompanied by Aryan hotties Rapture and Minx.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! At one point Kimber and Stormer, both feeling unappreciated, temporarily leave their respective bands, record an album together and embark on a tender and exploratory love affair. Alright fine, I made up that last bit but that would have been an amazing storyline.

I don't know about you, but the picture on the left screams "INTENSE SEXY LADY LOVE!" to me anyway.

Other new developments to me include Clash, a Misfits groupie and henchwoman with bloody MARVELLOUS hair who uses disguises to sabotage whatever Jem and the Holograms happen to be up to at the time.

There's an 11 disc Jem boxset due to be released in October, which I'll be most unsubtly dropping hints about in the run up to the C word. (Christmas, not cunt. In case you were wondering.) But for now, I'll leave you with some shots of the outrageously ferocious Eighties explosion that is the fashion from the series. Leggings and side-ponytails a go-go!

To Boldly Dress

2011-09-15T16:45:00.001+01:00

Last week marked the 45th anniversary of Star Trek and as such, last Friday night, I experienced what was undoubtedly the nerdiest evening of my entire life. To honour the occasion, a screening of The Wrath of Khan was planned, with the film projected on to a bare wall in Billy Flag and Jack Samson's Rathmines apartment, which as it happens is one of the best ways to watch a film ever. I say it was a nerdfest of an evening, but obviously that also means that it was a huge amount of fun. The main event was preceded by an episode of Deep Space 9 and an episode of the original series. The DS9 episode was one that saw the crew go back in time in order to infiltrate the Kirk-era Enterprise and featured the character of Dax giving herself a sixties Starfleet makeover in order to blend in. When she emerged in her red Mary Quant style minidress and shiny beehive, EleventyFour turned to me and said "That's going to turn up on your blog, isn't it". And GUESS WHAT….she was RIGHT! She knows me so well.

I've actually written about Star Trek once before on this blog, and have posted about sci-fi fashion over on Blaubushka, when I looked at the shiny dresses of Forbidden Planet, but this post is all about the wondrous wardrobes of the women from the original Star Trek series. For example, the most famous wearer of said red minidress, Lieutenant Uhura. There may have been a constant threat of ass cheek, but if anyone could rock it, it was she.

Anyway, the other episode we watched before KHAAAAN! was the one in which, as Jack Samson puts it, "Spock is so horny he might die". This particular episode also features the enchanting T'Pring, a Vulcan bird that Spock was betrothed to when they were both children, but in a fit of wagonry (I may have just made that word up, but you know what I mean) has decided she'd rather hook up with Kirk. All this is beside the point though, as I think my mouth fell open every time she was on screen. She's utterly GORGEOUS and sparkly and lovely and…just look at her for Jaysus sake, she's amazing. Kind of a bitch, yes, but amazing.

The hair! The clothes! The FACE!

Of course, enthralling as T'Pring and her outfit were, the series had its fair share of dodgy wardrobe choices, not least those of Andrea the Android and her criss-crossed mostly-not-there bodysuit, Shahna the stern, green haired gladiator trainer in her silver nappy and the tin-foiled state of this random blonde slave girl.

Speaking of slave girls, there were also green skinned Orion Slave Girls who appeared in the original series, all bouffant hair and looking like an alien version of Goldie Hawn when she used to appear on that 1960s sketch show. They also popped up in an episode of The Next Generation, however this time around they were updated and dropping it like it's hot as if they were the Verdigris Pussycat Dolls.

In fairness to Star Trek's costume department though, the ladies weren't always nearly naked, and oftentimes their more modest outfits were properly gorgeous, such as Dr. Miranda Jones and her cool beaded dresses (one of which was displayed in the Smithsonian as part of their Star Trek exhibit), finished off with a weird but cute topknot.

Former Catwoman Lee Merriwether also lucked out when she appeared on the show as Losira in a deadly purple cutout dress and utterly awesome eye makeup that totally reminds me of sweets from the 90s like Fruit Salads and Drumsticks.

Finally, one of my favourite Star Trek looks belongs to warrior woman Nona who, apart from being ridiculously beautiful, looked astounding in black leather, bright orange fur like she's just been Muppet-hunting and a Native American style necklace, finished off with sparkles on her face. GLORIOUS.

However, for every superb costume, there's a horrendous one too. While Nona's outfit used brightly coloured fur in a tremendous way, the following picture illustrates the exact opposite of that.

Step away from the Fraggle showgirls, McCoy. Just. Step. Away.

Gotham City Girls

2011-09-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

When Eli Mordino pointed out earlier today on Twitter that the Joker in the poster for the upcoming Batman Live stage show was channeling a serious Caesar Romero vibe, it reminded me that I had been meaning to investigate Catwoman's costume for the same event.You're probably aware by now that I'm pretty gay for this particular slinky villain, what with the big rambling post I've previously written, which detailed all her different incarnations since her first appearance. So naturally, I had to know what this production went for, especially after being so very underwhelmed by the recent image of Anne Hathaway's costume from The Dark Knight Rises.

Ehh, Anne, I don't know if you realise this, but your costume is seriously lacking a pair of kitty ears and y'know, A GENERAL AIR OF AWESOMENESS.

However, I was rather glad to see that the live tour has gone for the current comic book outfit of a shiny black catsuit and a pair of feline goggles, giving the look a tiny tasty lick of steampunk.

While I was happy enough with Catwoman, I'm not quite sold on Poison Ivy's costume, in that she looks more like a vaguely garden-themed stripper rather than an alluring, albeit demented scientist/eco-terrorist with dominion over all plant life.

That being said, however nonplussed I might have been with Poison Ivy, the absolute STATE they made of Harley Quinn's costume is nothing short of disastrous. Allow me to remind you how brilliant and amazing and kickass Harley Quinn usually looks.

Now, have a look at the manky, monstrous, Pippi Longstocking-runs-away-with-the-circus atrocity they've inflicted on her for the live show:

I hate the pigtails, I hate the stupid skirt and I hate that she's not all red and black or wearing her jester hat. In essence, I've got a bag full of NO especially reserved for this thing. Just...no. NO!

Hectic Picnic

2011-09-09T13:11:00.005+01:00

I think it's pretty safe to say that Electric Picnic is essentially a weekend of guaranteed merriment, regardless of how demented the weather has decided to be at that given point in September. Of this I am convinced, having had spectacular fun at the the wet, muddy, cold version in 2009 and the earlier ones around 2005 and 2006 where there was actual honest to God SUNSHINE for most of the weekend and I have the photos and rather hazy memories to prove it. Anyway, that's enough preamble. For this was yet another shenanigan-filled three days, which involved the following...

> Santigold taking the roof off the Electric Arena on Friday night, such was the ferociousness of her electro/superfunk set, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Her show was made all the more amazing thanks to her two backing dancers that would out-fierce Tyra herself, bopping along in perfect time with matching golden pom-poms which were soon exchanged for giant hammers, which then gave way to lassos for the part when the pantomime horse came onstage and danced to the music. Yes. A DANCING PANTOMIME HORSE. I want to live inside Santigold's head.

> The Salty Dog shipwreck stage being its usual decadent, dreamy and brilliant self, where we caught Jerry Fish and The Mudbug Club, a Cajun band I can't quite remember the name of and most importantly, the three delightful cancan dancers that frequent The Burlesque and Cabaret Social Club. Jackpot.

> Getting our disco on at the glittery, sparkly wonderfulness of Bitches With Wolves. I seriously can't get enough of this band, not to mention frontman James O'Neill's AMAZING Eighties Madonna dance moves. Eighties Madonna but miles better, in fact.

> Ambling past someone in the full bespectacled, stripey jumpered Wally outfit passed out asleep under a tree.

> The sheer joy of getting to see the very lovely and tremendously talented EleventyFour play both the Peace Pagoda and the Love Letter Stage in Body & Soul. Both of her sets seemed to attract the most random, bizarre and brilliant of happenings, what with the man dressed as a tiger raving to her sweet, funny, folksy stylings, a zombie bridal party stopping by for a listen, a conga line of people disguised as a deck of cards scampering through the audience, and that's actually only the half of it. She handled all the distractions marvellously with her witty banter and the audience most firmly on her side for the Eleventy vs Loud Drumming Bastards debacle. She's recounted the whole thing on her own site and it makes for most surreal and entertaining reading. Also, I completely missed the fact that I had been sitting near Pop Culture Monster at her gig, who I would've loved to have met properly. Next time, purple monster!

> Mr. Billy Flag distracting the drunk-ass headwrecker that kept asking us all what our favourite Bruce Springsteen song was by pointing to the middle distance and shouting "What's that over there!?" whereupon we all legged it in the opposite direction. It was the only way, there was just no getting rid of this fucker.

> Tieranniesaur stomping some amazing funk pop into the main stage of Body & Soul, with bass lines so big and delicious I wanted to eat them. The bass lines, not the band. There was also a brief appearance by frontwoman Annie Tierney's brother Mick Pyro, which was rather class.

> Discovering the genius that is Abandoman in the Comedy Tent. An improv hip-hop duo that stormed through a series of amazing on the spot songs, earning themselves three standing ovations from the delirious crowd. After that astounding performance, MCs Andrew Stanley and Damien Clarke led the audience through the first verse of Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, with the entire tent taking over when they forgot the rest of the words because we all knew it by heart, obviously. David O'Doherty's meandering lo-fi whimsy followed, which was hilarious as ever and topped off what was possibly my favourite ever stint in the Picnic's Comedy Tent.

> Lords of Lightning BLOWING MY MIND entirely with their genuinely awesome lightning bolt performance as they duelled atop a giant Tesla coil each alongside the fire-breathing Arcadia stage. Yowza.

What the Jaysus fuck? Amazing, is what!

> Dancing my socks off in general, but particularly to Gordon Gano finishing out his set with Blister In The Sun, Public Enemy lashing out Don't Believe The Hype, Pulp treating us to Disco 2000 and pretty much all of Beirut, as I do love a bit of brass.

> The Brownbread Mixtape knocking it out of the park in Mindfield with their inspired comedy sketches (in particular the reconstruction of Amanda Brunker's already laughable appearance at Oxegen, punctuated with the YouTube comments from her video. There's really nothing like seeing the unnecessary rage of the YouTube commenter brought to life) the gorgeous poetry and music and the most rousing end to a performance that I've ever seen, in the shape of their alternative Irish anthem My Blood Is Boiling For Ireland. It mostly involves the crowd shouting "Ireland! Ireland! Ireland, FUCKIN' IRELAND" and a fantastic call and response bit as Gaeilge. Go h-ana funky ar fad.

All told, it was a typically fantastic Electric Picnic weekend...'till next year, Stradbally!

Festival Frolics

2011-09-02T01:07:00.003+01:00

Well I'm off to Electric Picnic, prolonging my absence from the blog even further. A massive THANK YOU to all the people I haraunged into voting for my Heineken bottle design. Without you all I wouldn't be Picnic-bound at all. I'm sure that once I'm back I'll have many a tale with which to regale you all, but for now I'm trying to decide just how much rum we'll need to bring and where the hell I left the hand sanitiser after Oxegen.

Till next week, when I'm in need of shower and quite bleary eyed.

Quelque Chose #13

2011-08-16T22:03:00.004+01:00

Unlucky for some, #13 goes out to 19th century Irish courtesan/dancer/saloon owner/temporary ruler of Bavaria and all-round hussy Lola Montez, about whom I've written a guest post for The Anti Room.

"Her aforementioned temper has become the stuff of legend, stories abound of her carrying a whip everywhere she went, like a sexed-up, slightly unhinged Indiana Jones and using it to strike men across the face if they annoyed her. In essence, you didn’t fuck with Lola Montez."

Her name was Lola and she actually WAS a showgirl.

The Houseboat That Rocked

2011-08-15T18:44:00.008+01:00

Well that little holiday was the fastest five days in the world ever. It's taken me forever to get around to this post because I've been too busy boring the arse off people by going on about how AMAZING our holiday was and how we didn't want to leave. I swear time speeds up in Amsterdam. As was to be expected we had a most enjoyable time, rife with tomfoolery.

SUCH AS:

* Staying on a houseboat. Let me just say that anybody going to Amsterdam NEEDS to stay on a houseboat. This one in particular was only brilliant. (And it was called Little Bear! How ridiculously perfect was that?)

Shazam, motherfuckers!

Like a little timber bungalow with beaded curtains and hippy cushions and a most delightful terrace on which we could sit out in the sunshine, eating cheese and grapes, waving at the passing boats manned by people eating cheese and grapes and watching little rows of ducks swim past in single file. They didn't have any cheese or grapes though.

* Staring in awe at the beautiful Tuschinski cinema, an explosion of Art Deco decadence and gorgeousness, inside and out. I actually whimpered "I want to live here" to the Bear. I could totally live in an Art Deco cinema, surviving on popcorn and ice cream. What? I COULD!

* Spending an entire brilliant day in the Efteling theme park. I have to be kicked out of bed to get up for work in the mornings, but tell me to rise at seven in order to catch a train to a place I can go on rollercoasters all day and I'll spring out of bed five minutes early, bright of eye and bushy-tailed as fuck.

Ca-caw!

Much like last year's trip to a Dutch theme park, we were being whirled upside down, screaming our faces off and whipping around breakneck corners all before breakfast again, running between thrill rides and taking care never to queue for more than half an hour for anything and totally succeeding. We manged a spin on one particular rollercoaster five times. Tremendous.

* Ambling along the canals and canal houses with their varied angles of leaning in search of lunch and mischief, stopping every minute and a half so I could take yet another Hipstamatic photo.

* Taking a wander around the dark wooden spiral staircases and chequerboard floor tiles of Rembrandt's house, despite the Bear's protestations that had no interest in it seeing as "there's an entire wing of paintings by Dutch masters in the museum at home that I could go to for free and I couldn't be arsed going to that". He was glad we went in the end though, as the Rembrandthuis is actually incredibly interesting. I for one learned that people in the 17th century were much smaller and slept half sitting up, which explained all the short little beds secreted around the house. The tiny eejits.

* Being woken up at all hours by the honking, squawking, giant flappy geese bastards that patrolled the canal, eyeballing houseboat residents for a potential mugging, or possibly bits of bread.

We're going to have to construct some manner of excuse to get ourselves back there quick smart. I even miss the geese.

Dutch Divilment

2011-07-31T21:20:00.007+01:00

Come 9.45 tomorrow morning, the Bear and I will be squeaking with excitement as we board a plane that'll take us to Amsterdam for five days of mischief and frolics on a houseboat. A HOUSEBOAT! In a shock twist, I'm actually packed and everything which is very unlike me, although I ended up doing it in my underwear due to constant trying on of clothes I was bringing as I seemed to have completely forgotten what everything looked like on me.

A few days ago I came to the conclusion that I had absolutely NOTHING to wear for fuck-acting around Amsterdam and its tremendous environs and did what any reasonable girl would do. I panicked and tried on around 38 different things in Penneys. After getting annoyed at the fact that I appear to be a size eleven in AWear, finding myself trapped in a pair of Topshop skinny jeans, buying and then returning a floral dress from Forever 21, I eventually calmed down by picking up this spotty navy gúna in River Island.

Yes. This will do nicely.

Given the indecent amount of fun we had the last time around, the odds are pretty much in our favour that it'll be at LEAST twelve kinds of amazing. At LEAST. Hooray!

Hero In A Half Shell

2011-07-30T17:09:00.011+01:00

In American burlesque of the forties and fifties, competition was fierce among dancers constantly trying to outdo each other. It became the age of the prop, with sights like Rosita Royce and her bikini of trained doves that would fly away on her command, Linda "Cupid Doll" Brigitte who would swirl about in a giant champagne glass and Lili St. Cyr who playfully splashed around in a transparent bathtub all performing to packed houses. My favourite story from this age of extravagant props and imaginative dancers concerns Kitty West, who performed an act as Evangeline The Oyster Girl in New Orleans.

Kitty West aka Evangeline The Oyster Girl

In 1949, Evangeline was the headliner of the Casino Royale burlesque house on Bourbon Street, with a routine that involved her rising up out of a giant oyster shell, stripping to a jazz soundtrack and dancing with a giant pearl. She even dyed her hair green for a while, to evoke the idea of seaweed. However, a rival water-themed act soon came swishing into town in the shape of Divena and her 300 gallon water tank in which she performed an underwater striptease.

Divena "The Aqua Tease"

OH NO THEY DI'INT.

Evangeline mid-performance. (Note Divena's tank on the right. Not only was she trying to muscle in on The Oyster Girl's claim to aquatic fame, she was encroaching on her stage space! The WAGON!)

The management at the Casino Royale immediately gave Divena top billing, a move which Evangeline was having absolutely none of. One night, while Divena was doing her nautical thing, Evangeline had decided "balls to this" (possibly not in those exact words, however) and marched onstage wielding an axe.

"I just wanted to break the tank into a million pieces, and I did. I went out there and I just started pounding away at the bottom. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I was just in such a rage that I didn’t want her to take all the spotlight."

The furious stripper smashed the tank open, sending water crashing over the edge of the stage, drenching the audience and leaving a bewildered Divena spluttering at the bottom of it. Apparently, before the startled performer even had a chance to crawl out of the destroyed tank, Evangeline reached in and pulled her hair, as if she hadn't already gotten the message loud and clear.

Take that, you soggy bitch!

Yeah. You better recognise.

Conveniently, a photographer from Life magazine was in the attending crowd and managed to capture the entire incident, making it headline news the next day. Evangeline has always denied that it was a publicity stunt and insists that she had no idea that there was a photographer in the audience. Saying that though, cameras in 1949 weren't exactly the most discreet of apparatus, so he can't exactly have been Mr. Inconspicuous.

A look that seems to suggest that one should not fuck with The Oyster Girl unless one wants their head caved in from a sudden change in water pressure.

Evangeline was promptly hauled off to prison where she was photographed again and fined $10, which, considering the nationwide publicity and cover of Life she got out of it, was a total bargain.

***

Incidentally, I've been rambling on about the sexy publicity stunts pulled by the brazen ladies of the 30s, 40s and 50s over on Boob.ie, most of which involved their boobs. So that particular post contains pictures of boobs, just so's you're warned. Boobs.

Amy Amy Amy

2011-07-24T22:21:00.005+01:00

The first time I heard an Amy Winehouse song was when Ian Dempsey played Rehab during his breakfast-time slot for Today FM. I was living just off Anglesea Street in Cork and slowly getting my act together for work that morning in my tiny bedroom that overlooked an alleyway frequented by drunk old homeless men. I remember being genuinely amazed by the voice that came streaming out of the speakers and I'm pretty sure I did that stupid thing where you stare at the stereo as if doing so will help you hear what's coming out it that bit better. Up to that point, I was vaguely aware of Amy as a brassy, mouthy London jazz singer but had never actually heard her.

There's been a huge amount of beautifully worded tributes written about her that say everything far more eloquently than I ever could (Russell Brand's piece is particularly moving), and to be honest, I still can't quite believe what's happened. As much as I love Back To Black, I really just want to watch this video for In My Bed, from Frank, where Amy slinks around an empty hotel, all Coca-Cola bottle curves, showgirl legs and raw, spectacular talent.

Gorgeous.

Oxemorons

2011-07-15T14:12:00.012+01:00

Well how about that. I actually went and achieved my aim of making it out of Punchestown both alive and relatively unscathed. (Save for a smattering of sunburn on my shoulders - I know, SUNBURN at an Irish festival! It's unheard of!) I genuinely wasn't sure if that would be the case after the helpful and terrifying comments on my last post and hearing that Oxegen is the only festival that the security guards are required to wear stab vests at, but we somehow pulled it off.

As I sat by the tent drinking cans with T Cup and her sister, observing the festival attendees passing through the campsite, it felt a bit like a wildlife programme. That is, if David Attenborough wore giant sunglasses and the wildlife in question consisted of drunk, half naked teenagers.

It seems that boys favour walking around with a hand down the front of their pants. Or in one case, BOTH hands. BOTH hands were actually shoved down the front of his pants as he wandered about. What the holy fuck is all that about? The less skangery variety seem to think that everyone wants to hug them, and much of the weekend was spent humouring seventeen year olds with high fives for fear of being called a cunt. The girls inexplicably appear to enjoy writing on each others arms and legs (who brings markers to a festival? WHO?) and wear denim hotpants with the mandatory two inches of ass cheek hanging out. I swear their shorts were wedged so far up their arses they must have been able to taste the frayed denim. All weekend it was wall-to-wall ass on show.

Anyway, aside from just not getting kids today, there was some most enjoyable music to be encountered, at which I found myself:

* Dancing in the Electric Ballroom while Bitches With Wolves were their usual exuberant, sparkly and ferociously fun selves, with their cover of Toca's Miracle sending the crowd into a disco frenzy.

* Catching Weezer play My Name Is Jonas and a cover of Teenage Dirtbag, at which point I sniffily decided that this crowd of kids probably thought they were actually Wheatus.

* Having Joyce Country Céilí Band lodged in my head until Tuesday after seeing The Saw Doctors.

* Coming to the conclusion that The Black Eyed Peas and Foo Fighters are actually the polar opposites of each other in terms of live performances. You see, will.i.am and his motley crew are probably the worst band on the planet, but their live show is actually sort of entertaining, thanks solely to an abundance of lasers and great visuals, even though their songs are criminally awful. Whereas Dave Grohl and the lads crank out hit after tremendous hit with inescapable charisma and enthusiasm and no reliance whatsoever on fancy light shows and as such, rock the pants right off you.

Dave can rock my pants off any time he damn well likes.

* Squawking along happily at Fight Like Apes and their typically raucous and demented set. May Kay emerged onstage dressed like a version of Morticia Addams that had decided to take up crime-fighting, with the boys in the band wrapped in technicolour morphsuits. Their performance was an obscenely fun mix of whacking giant iron bars together, the title sequence from California Dreams and a trailer for Plan 9 From Outer Space being played on the big screen and May Kay clambering onto a surprised security guard's shoulders from the stage, from where she finished belting out her song.

* Being taken completely by surprise at how much I enjoyed Beyonce. Seriously, when Twitter was set alight during her Glastonbury performance, I didn't even bother changing the channel to see what all the fuss was about, and yet there I was whooping, dancing around and singing along to the Destiny's Child medley, Crazy In Love and Single Ladies, out of my mind with happiness. I have to hand it to her, girlfriend puts on one HELL of a show.

Honourable mention must go to Tinie Tempah, Two Door Cinema Club, Swedish House Mafia, Manic Street Preachers and Coldplay (who were surprisingly fun) as well as the outdoor screening of The Life Of Brian which was exactly what we needed on Sunday morning. But not Arctic Monkeys, seeing was they were shite. So despite the surrounding knackpocalypse and being wary of everyone in the crowd in general, a great weekend was had, and yet...and yet...it's still no Electric Picnic. Which can't come soon enough.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention that Imelda May was fantastic as ever and Slash & Friends was like watching a quite good cover band. Except for the part where Fergie Ferg joined them onstage, at which point it was more like listening to a bag of cats being swung against a wall.

This Ain't No Picnic

2011-07-07T15:45:00.016+01:00

Earlier this week, a free ticket to Oxegen was most kindly bestowed upon me. Having never been to this particular festival, and having been spoiled by year after terrific year of solid gold fun at Electric Picnic, I find myself both scared and excited about the weekend ahead. I made the mistake of reading this article a few days ago, which served to frighten the bejaysus out of me and envision a three day stint spent as a paranoid wreck, but nevertheless to Punchestown I go.

The weather forecast is awful and I'm well aware that the surrounds will be nothing like the fairy-lit forest or rolling green hills of Stradbally. The only rolling green things I expect to encounter are discarded cans of Tuborg. Then again, with a hipflask of rum stuffed into each cherry-print welly boot, I'll make it my mission to ascertain the perfect level of fucked up and enjoy myself enough to be undeterred and unfazed by the myriad shitfaced teenagers. Also the prospect of Fight Like Apes, Bitches With Wolves, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Foo Fighters will surely make up for any amount of mud. Right?

If all else fails I can just throw things at Amanda Brunker.

Flight Club

2011-06-27T21:37:00.014+01:00

There once was a time when air hostesses weren't synonymous with blue eyeshadow, orange tide lines on their necks and cranky Ryanair staff. Instead of all that they were mile-high glamourpusses, coiffed and beaming as they sashayed down the aisles in gloriously silly go-go boots, pill box hats, or even hotpants depending on your choice of airline.

They appeared to be quite partial to a spot of lounging around in plane engines, which was surely somewhat irresponsible at best and downright dangerous at worst.

In even more flagrant flouting of air travel safety procedures, they also seemed to enjoy entirely blocking the steps to the plane in immense numbers, but boy did they look all pretty and coordinated in doing so.

Jeri Ryan and Zooey Dreamgirl Deschanel both rocked the retro stewardess style delightfully in Down With Love and Almost Famous, respectively.

However, American Airlines damn near ruined the experience by availing of their trolley dollies in a tremendously creepy manner for their ad campaigns.

Weird, weird, WEIRD.

(Loads more vintage air hostess pictures here, should it take your fancy.)

Tanora No More-a

2011-06-23T12:51:00.009+01:00

Things are afoot in the Irish soft drinks industry. Very bad things. Club Orange's dopey boobfest ad has outraged and irritated everyone with at least the smallest ounce of cop on, but there's much more sinister developments that have gotten underway. It began as a rumour. Rumblings of recipe changes. Worries aired on Twitter that something wasn't quite right. However, the worst has indeed happened.

TANORA HAVE CHANGED THEIR RECIPE AND RUINED IT FOREVER.

I've previously extolled the virtues of Tanora and the very special association it has with Christmas for everyone in my family back home in Waterford. However, due to pernickety EU regulations and some top class fuckwittery, they've removed the artificial colouring that gave it it's tangerine power, rendering it useless and manky and reportedly no longer tasting like happiness, Yuletide or otherwise. I say reportedly as I haven't tasted it myself (nor do I have any intention to) but I do have it on good authority from cousins who know what they're talking about. Cousins who have since developed a thousand yard stare at the mere mention of new Tanora. One of them gravely warned me not to drink the new concoction as it will (and I QUOTE): "ruin Christmas for you". Those are not words to be taken lightly, people. Not one little bit.

Not content with having decimated the drink itself, they've also gone and fucked with the packaging, making it look like some nasty brand of Irn Bru from the eighties. The only good thing about the new label is that it distinguishes the classic delicious drink from the new muck.

The new one is on the left by the way, in case you're not familiar. And now you never will be. Waaah! Also, the old bottle shown here was swiftly added to the trolley seconds after this picture was taken. Obviously.

Members of my family are stalking the aisles of supermarkets across the county and buying up any stray remaining bottles of REAL Tanora in desperation. My mother currently has seven two-litre bottles of it stashed away at home for Christmas (seriously), seeing as it'll be the last artificially tangerine-flavoured one we will ever have.

My aunt actually rang them to complain. Furious Facebook users have descended on the Tanora fan page, reporting that the standard response to their complaints is:

"Tanora - Cork’s favourite Tangerine-flavoured sparkling drink – has recently been enhanced to make it 100% natural. As part of this, an artificial colouring has been replaced by a natural variant."

Yeah, if by "enhanced" you mean "pooed in". BASTARDS.

So. To summarise:

Not cool, guys. Not cool AT ALL.

Yes She Can

2011-06-16T12:59:00.005+01:00

As much as I love pin-up girls like the winking, oopsie-my-skirt-blew-up cuties that adorned the walls and plane noses of WWII soldiers, I also have a soft spot for Rosie the Riveter. The be-headscarved lady of the now famous We Can Do It! propaganda posters encouraging women into the workforce, who looked like she could snap an Elvgren girl in two.

What I didn't know was that tough-girl Rosie's image was based on a photo of a seventeen year old hottie who worked as a metal presser in 1942 to help the war effort. Oddly enough, the girl in question, Geraldine Doyle, didn't know she was the inspiration for the poster either until she was 59 and completely by chance, happened upon a magazine article that explained Rosie's origins.

Geraldine actually packed in her factory job after two weeks, as she played the cello and feared an injury to her hands. Since then, the image of Rosie has permeated pop culture big time, becoming an eighties symbol of feminism and empowerment and so recognisable that Christina Aguilera, Pink and Beyonce have all referenced her in music videos over the last while.

I think my favourite incarnation is this Princess Leia version of the poster though. She'd make bits of the aforementioned pop tarts without a hair of her twisty Danish buns getting out of place.

While I couldn't say with certainty who'd win an arm wrestling match between Original Rosie and Leia Rosie, they'd both beat me and you hands down.

Mystic River

2011-06-12T17:40:00.015+01:00

Back in April, there was a brilliant post on The Anti Room about great female TV characters, where Lisa listed eight of her favourites. Since the crafty bastards of Doctor Who have now left us hanging until autumn with their infuriating mid-season break, I've come to realise that I very definitely have a new TV heroine that would rank most highly indeed if I ever got around to compiling such a list of my own. I refer, of course, to the bouncy-haired, wisecracking, ass-kicking, Doctor-baiting River Song, played by Alex Kingston.

I have to admit that when River made her first appearance, stomping into the David Tennant-era episode Silence In The Library with her white spacesuit and spoiler-laden diary, I found her smug and kind of annoying. However, now that she's turned up so frequently in the new series as she works her way back along the mind-bending timeline she shares with the Doctor, I've realised that she's actually a fantastic addition to the series and a marvellous character in her own right.

River is a time-travelling archeologist adventurer, kind of like Indiana Jones in space, and a ferociously smart, funny woman who's more than a match for the Doctor. She switches with ease between guns (laser or otherwise) and hallucenogenic lipstick, leaving anyone who gets in her way either dead or completely bewildered as to what's just happened. She's not a lady to be trifled with and will do anything to save those she cares about.

Apart from the fact that she's a strong, fearless, astoundingly fun and relentlessly flirty character, she also has by far the most impressive and varied costume wardrobe on the show. She's liable to pop up in anything, ranging from a saucy cat-burglar outfit, a Victorian gown, a delightfully steampunky white jacket and brown leather combination, or a campy Egyptian queen disguise, having tricked some centurions into believing that she's Cleopatra, through the use of her bewitching lipstick.

On top of all that, she also gets some of the best lines since the beginning of the entire Doctor Who reboot.

Anita: How do you know they're not androids.
River: Because I've dated androids. They're rubbish.

Lux: Professor Song, why am I the only one wearing my helmet?
River: Because I don't fancy you.

River: Like I said on the dancefloor, you might want to find something to hang on to.

The Doctor: You graffitied the oldest cliff in the universe!
River: You wouldn't answer your phone!

The Doctor: Oh and this is my friend River. Nice hair, clever, has her own gun. Oh, and unlike me she really doesn't mind shooting people. I shouldn't like that, kinda do a bit.
River: Thank you, sweetie.
The Doctor: I know you're team players and everything, but she'll definitely kill the first three of you.
River: Oh, the first seven; easily.
The Doctor: Seven? Really?
River: Oh, eight for you honey.

Quelque Chose #12

2011-06-02T18:57:00.005+01:00

River Song: Right then. I have questions, but number one is this - what in the name of sanity have you got on your head?

The Doctor: It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.

***

Incidentally, there happens to be a fantastic reason to wear a fez this weekend, as Film Fatale are organising a screening of Casablanca in The Sugar Club on Saturday night, followed by a 1940s party. Dressing up, interacting with a film, dancing and cocktails. What more could you possibly want? Tickets here and more info on their Facebook page here.

Pendragon Female No. 4

2011-05-31T09:54:00.002+01:00

Back in October, when I was working part time, I somehow managed to get a callback from an open casting for Camelot extras. I say somehow managed because I went to the casting day with the Bear, and if anyone would be expected to get a callback for a series set in the days of beardy, burly, long haired men, it's him with the beardy, burly, long haired head on him.

Nevertheless, t'was I who got the call to spend a day drinking tea in a Portakabin in Bray. I had a costume fitting the previous day and was assigned a spectacularly unflattering light green scratchy dress and a heavy brown cloak in which to wander about Pendragon Castle for a spell. I got needlessly excited when I was sent on my way to the hair and make up trailer, as the hair and make up in question really just meant backcombing the shit out of my hair to give it that Middle Ages rats nest look, with a few small plaits thrown in, and brown make up smushed into my face and hands to give me an authentic smudgy, dirty mush and fingernails. So hot right now.

The scene we were required in called for us to enter the set of the big hall, all agog at the impressive interior and wander along our given routes looking amazed, for we were but local merchants and had never encountered such grandeur. The direction of my track brought me right past Sinéad Cusack as the duplicitous nun and I managed to get in the way of her exit at least eight times or so. Thankfully we were eventually rearranged and it was someone else's go to be that infernal extra that kept crossing in front of her path. All my determined concentration not to step on the dress worn by the girl in front of me or knock anything over OR be distracted by how tiny and gorgeous Eva Green is actually paid off and last Friday night, who was to be seen doddering past in the background?

Me, that's who! Pendragon Female No. 4, all up in yo business! Delighted, I was. I'm still waiting to hear back about my idea for my character's spin-off series, The Girl With The Pendragon Tattoo.

Ahem.

I'll see myself out.

Away With The Birds

2011-05-28T15:58:00.009+01:00

For quite some time now, I've been admiring the fun and quirky t-shirt designs of Lady Umbrella and when they very kindly shared a promotional code for a 15% discount on Twitter I figured that was as good a time as any to pounce. Their bright blue "Lady Umbrella Is Away With The Birds" t-shirt won me over with its turbo cute birdcage design, as well as the fact that I can be somewhat away with the birds myself from time to time. Only a few days ago a co-worker was trying to say hello to me while I was on my way to the office and had to whack me with her newspaper to get my attention.

Their customer service is faultless and tremendously friendly, as I discovered when I cleverly managed to order the wrong size from their online shop. There was no problem exchanging it and the t-shirt even arrives with cute as a button badges to boot.

The Lady Umbrella online shop can be found here and they're also at the Loft Market in Powerscourt. The Facebook and Twitter pages are definitely worth a click of the Like and Follow buttons, since they're always running great competitions and discounts. So now you've no excuse not to support a great independent designer. Consider yourself informed.

Barack Attack

2011-05-24T22:05:00.008+01:00

As Obamarama and yet more general traffic mayhem gripped the country yesterday morning, I had one eye on the live coverage and the other on the work I was supposed to be doing. All of a shot, an envelope with my name printed on it was thrust into my hand. "Eh..thanks. What's this?" said I, with a bewildered look on my face. "It's a VIP ticket to Obama's speech" came the wondrous reply. I opened the envelope, which went down a little something like this:

To be honest, I still don't know how my name ended up on the list of people in work on which these magic tickets would be bestowed, let alone on the front of that envelope. Maybe there's a gremlin in someone's computer that's taken a shine to me for some reason.

Anyway, off I skedaddled to College Green with Cartman's voice singing "I got a golden tiiicket" firmly lodged in my head. The VIP area was ridiculously close to the stage. Like, properly ridiculous. I was so excited that I didn't even mind having to watch Westlife croon and sway in unison through sideways rain.

THAT effing close, like. Wahh!

When it transpired that Mr. Rockstar President was actually coming down off the stage to meet and shake hands with us mere mortals, the crowd damn near lost their mind. Myself included. My panicked surge towards the barrier was paid off with a proper and brilliant handshake from Michelle (stone cold fox, by the way) but I just missed out on one from Barack, as he was busy being so incredibly lovely to the three little girls in front of me and I didn't want to interrupt as he was telling one of them that she had "the most spectacular blue eyes". I'm not going to lie, at that moment I was really quite jealous of an eleven year old. Nevertheless, my face made it onto the live coverage on RTE. And check this out:

Boom. That'd be MY famous hand, that would.

Along Came A Spider And Sat Down Beside Her

2011-05-22T21:38:00.011+01:00

As you'll no doubt have gathered from my Winchester Mansion post not so long ago, I do rather enjoy stories that entail a mysterious old house. So while I was skipping about the internet looking for pictures of Tura Satana for my last post, I happened upon a link that led me to the story of the Spider Pool, a strange and elusive site secreted in the hills of Los Angeles that was also the setting for thousands of cheesecake and nudey camera club photos in the fifties. And I thought to myself, "Why yes indeed Mr. Internet, I'll be having some of that."

In 1920s Hollywood, John McDermott, an actor-turned-director of silent films, had seen his fair share of beautifully designed movie sets being used for an hour or two and then unceremoniously consigned to the scrap heap. Balls to that, thought he, and he proceeded to build himself a crazy-ass house in the Hollywood hills constructed of the various pieces of sets he collected. The result was an amazing, rambling house that was Algerian looking one minute, Navajo next and Egyptian too just for the craic, along with dozens of other styles. There were three canons mounted on a parapet, tombstones from the set of The Hunchback of Notre Dame built into a wall, a tunnel staircase that spiralled up to a mirrored bedroom that had a fireplace under the bed and most importantly, a gorgeous swimming pool area that featured a huge mosaic of a spider with a hornet embedded in the tiled web.

The dwelling became known locally as The House That Jack Built and gained notoriety for the wild parties thrown by McDermott. A Hollywood columnist wrote an account of her visit to the house for one of its legendary shindigs, in which she describes underground passages, trap doors, duck ponds and pieces of elk meat being roasted on a spit. Stories abound of party shenanigans such as dollybirds dressed as harem girls shimmying out of said trap doors to the sound of John beating a drum and also of the host surveying the beautiful pool from a throne atop the infamous spider mosaic, as apparently it was his wont to furnish lady guests with swimsuits that dissolved when they hit the water, the absolute HOUND.

So, it's that pool area that all of this is leading to. A few years ago, a group of people online were trading vintage pin-up and cheesecake photos and became fascinated by this one recurring location, the Spider Pool.

It was a hugely popular backdrop for girlie photography, the tiled spider wall had countless hotties in varying states of undress pout and pose on it and near it. Including my heroine du jour, Tura.

Anyhoodle, the various fans of this mysterious locale did their damnedest to work out where it was. As it happens, a relative newcomer to their cause, whose post was the first article I read about it, set off on a mission into the hills and only went and FOUND the bloody thing. After McDermott's death, the house passed through a few owners, barely survived a fire and eventually fell into disrepair at the hands of vandals and squatters, before ultimately being condemned and bulldozed to the ground. All that remains of the once wondrous home is the chipped and weathered spider wall, which still must have been overwhelmingly exciting to uncover.

It's a shame that there don't appear to be any pictures of the house itself from its debaucherous heyday, but I do love that somewhere hidden away in the hills of L.A. lies this weird memento and one time playground of showbiz stars and cheeky pin-up models. There's a hugely detailed timeline of the house here, put together by a member of the discussion group, and this is the post by the intrepid Jacy Young who rediscovered the amazing Spider Pool and took the present day photos above. Colour me obsessed.

Pussycat Dolls

2011-05-17T22:01:00.016+01:00

Last Friday, the Bear and I had quite a busy evening for ourselves. After getting work out of the way, we giggled our way through Spamalot from circle seats in the Grand Canal Theatre with a bottle of rum-spiked ginger beer, like some kind of degenerate Enid Blyton characters. When the show had finished, off we skittered to The Sugar Club for a Midnight Movies screening of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! starring the sadly late, tremendously great Tura Satana. I've previously oohed and aahed over her unbeliveably kickass life on this here blog, but this was my first time actually seeing the film. And boy, is it a riot.

First off, the Midnight Movies crew put on a fantastic screening. A girl goes from table to table beforehand selling cola bottle sweets and bags of popcorn from the Savoy with a tray not unlike my beloved cigarette girls. A Skype Q&A with Lori Williams, who stars as blonde firecracker Billie preceeded the film, which was then brilliantly introduced with trailers for Blacula and Barbarella and even the classic "it's too orangey for crows..." Kia Ora ad.

The opening scene shows our three pussycats go-go dancing up a storm, while a gravelly voiceover informs us that sexy sex is the most dangerous form that violence lurks beneath, or something to that effect. I can't remember exactly. (To be fair, cocktails were but a fiver in The Sugar Club at this stage.) It's a sleazy, turbo charged, grindhouse film with fast cars, impossibly sexy girls, camp, ridiculous dialogue and outrageously unnecessary violence. The dancers tear off into the desert, racing their cars, taking impromptu swims in a lake, catfighting for, like, no reason and ultimately karate-chopping a man to death for even less reason.

The leader of this demented girl gang is the ferocious Varla, played by Tura Satana, a somewhat psychotic, switchblade wielding Amazon of a woman. Mean, domineering and awesome.

Gas Station Attendant (while staring at Varla's astounding rack): Now that's what I believe in, seeing America first!
Varla: Well, you won't find it down there, Columbus!

Rosie, played by Haji, is the gorgeous Italian bird with kind of a thing for crazy Varla. Her accent is a constant source of hilarity throughout the film, as she speaks like Super Mario's long lost hot sister. i.e. I'm-a gonna spin-a-dry you out!

Rosie (having been offered a soft drink): We don't like anything soft. Everything we do is hard.

(Heh. In your endo.)

Lori Williams, as smokin' hot bubbly blonde Billie completes the trio of kitties. Cute, fun-loving and out for the craic, she has a bit more of a conscience than the other girls, but enjoys racing and boozing just as much as they do.

Billie: I'm of legal age for whiskey, voting and loving. Now the next election is two years away, and my love life ain't getting much better, so how about some of that one-hundred-percent!

It's trashy, silly and hugely great fun altogether. It's referred to as an exploitation film, and while it has no problem making the absolute most of the gravity-defying knockers and long legs of its stars, you'd be hard pressed to find a female character as unapologetically strong-willed, powerful and domineering as Varla. Officially great craic.

Tick Tock Toe

2011-05-14T17:41:00.007+01:00

The footpaths round our way have taken on the appearance of a spraypainted game of noughts and crosses of late. I say noughts and crosses only because I can't find a satisfactory way of either punctuating or spelling exs and ohs/x's and o's/xes and os. (See? None of them look right.) I'm presuming it's all part of the "sealing up every little thing in the ground that could possibly be opened" process in anticipation of Herself and the visit that's going to make getting anywhere eleven times more difficult for everyone next week. The Bear wisely suggested that they're nervously checking out all the sewers as a preventative measure against Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Over on the Southside, the area around Grafton and Nassau Street seems to be playing host to some manner of footpath Cluedo.

Twitchy Gardaí have been hovering two by two around the Holy Mary blue gates of the Garden of Remembrance for the last two weeks, with the place eventually being closed altogether "until further notice". She's swinging by my place of work on Wednesday, so I'm rather interested to see how much of the paranoid security measures I'll encounter when in her general vicinity. Personally I'm looking forward to it all being over with and her safely ensconced back in her fancy palace so everyone can chill the fuck out.

Smoke and Mirrors

2011-05-04T22:19:00.015+01:00

For someone who hates cigarettes as much as I do, I have something of an odd fascination with the cigarette girls that could be found in American nightclubs and cafes of the 1940s and 50s. Their outfits were cheeky and cute, rocking fishnets or seamed stockings and pill box hats, with a great big tray of sweets, novelty items and emphysema slung around their pretty necks.

Cigarette girls popped up all over the place in the 40s and 50s, celebrity hotspots, comic books, cartoons and pin-up art to name but a few pop culture appearances.

Ciro's was a famous nightclub and moviestar hangout in Hollywood from the forties through to the sixties, where little hotties like this could be found flogging tobacco.

An issue of the 1940s aviation-themed comic book Link Thorne featured this deadly sci-fi looking cigarette girl.

Foxy cigarette girl pin-ups by Enoch Bolles and Al Moore. Mega gorgeousness.

Hollywood starlets like Jayne Mansfield and Elizabeth Taylor were snapped posing as cigarette girls in nightclubs in the fifties at charity events, Audrey Hepburn had a bit part as a cigarette girl in 1951's Laughter in Paradise and even Betty Boop jiggled into the still-excellent Who Framed Roger Rabbit? brandishing a tray of cigars and Camels.

Josie Maran as a rather alluring Egyptian style cigarette girl in The Aviator and Audrey as her minor character in 1951.

I'm so in love with the look and reckon it would make for a rather terrific fancy dress costume, although I'd almost certainly get fed up of lugging the tray around. But it would look deadly altogether, which would be some consolation I suppose.

Z Day

2011-04-29T16:40:00.008+01:00

Here's the thing. I'm one of those people who quite often find themselves considering what the hell I would do when the inevitable zombie apocalypse kicks off. When the Bear and I had finished emptying out bags from Tesco after a particularly big food shopping trip, I surveyed our well stocked shelves of canned goods and fridge and thought to myself "We are so sorted if there's a zombie outbreak in the next few days." I even considered how we could concoct some manner of zip line to cross the street below our top floor apartment, over to Spar in case we ran out of milk or Jaffa Cakes.

Every so often I have dreams about zombies and most recently I had the best one yet. In it, the Bear and myself were holed up in a flat above a shop overlooking a street riddled with shuffling zombies, but we were accompanied by none other than the Mythbusters. Who better to improvise ways of blowing the shit out of the undead than those people? (Except maybe MacGyver.) I'm going to need to get Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman on board with my zombie survival plan, quick smart.

Anyway, my hypothetical plans have gone into overdrive lately, as I recently tore my way through the tremendously brilliant World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (a fantastic-as-usual Christmas present from the Bear). I never realised books could be scary, but there were quite a few parts of this one that freaked me the fuck out. It very nearly ended up in the freezer on more than one occasion. I also got scared while reading it on the train, as the realisation dawned on me that a train carraige is surely one of the worst possible places to be in a case of a zombie infestation.

Yesterday, the Bear struck zombie survival gold when he unearthed the most amazing and perfect zombie proof house and sent me the link to it. People, I give you "The Safe House", located in the outskirts of Warsaw and designed by KWK Promes, the marvellous bastards. Behold!

Big fuck-off wall to keep the damned at bay? Check.

Jaw-droppingly beautiful interior in which to comfortably ride out the plague of the undead? Check.

Exterior that can be sealed up to render it an impenetrable self-contained fortress of awesomeness? Check.

Oh, did I mention that it has a retractable walkway to the top floor? WELL IT DOES.

Suck on that, zombie jerks.

Back To 1955

2011-04-27T17:03:00.008+01:00

Oh my aching feet. Last night I, along with the Bear, T Cup, the Incredible Mulq and various others bedecked in fifties finery danced our sexy socks right off at the shoot for The Dead Flags and their ingenious Back To The Future themed video. The red and white dotty dress I wore to the Blog Awards was whipped out once again, this time with a ponytail and neck scarf to Class of '55 the bejaysus out of it.

Up until that point, I spent my long weekend pretty much offline, under the radar and armed to the teeth with scissors, glitter and paint as I was tasked with the aquatic style decoration of the venue. I found it most amusing that for someone who ticked the 'no religion' box on the census form, I spent a sizeable amount of Good Friday cutting different shapes of fish out of coloured paper. I think that between the Bear and myself, we cut out something in the region of two hundred fish, not including the bigger and be-glittered fish and seahorses that adorned the stage and pillars. It was ridiculous, but the upstairs of the Grand Social completely looked the part for the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, if I may say so myself. Here's a sneaky still from the shoot:

My banner has tidier lettering than the original, despite my initial intentions to match the movie version. When it came to painting them in though, my natural instinct to stay inside the lines took over entirely.

I'm extremely excited about seeing the final result for the video, the song itself is insanely catchy and has been rattling around my head for the last three days. Rest assured that as soon as it comes online I'll be shoving it in all of your lovely faces from every conceivable angle. In terms of the internet, anyway.

No McFlag ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley

2011-04-21T16:21:00.008+01:00

Continuing the theme of fantastic films from the eighties, I'm sure you'll all agree that Back To The Future is one of the greatest films of all time. If not, then I'm afraid things between us just aren't going to work out. Watching all three of them in one sitting is my idea of a day damn well spent. Only recently the first film was on TV, and I had switched to it just in time for the deadly Johnnie B. Goode scene at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, which delighted me no end, as it's one of my favourite parts. In which case, you can imagine my excitement when The Dead Flags revealed that the video for their comeback single will be a recreation of THAT VERY SCENE. Get outta town!

So, to pull off this most epic of tasks, they require people all dressed up in 1950s style finery to twist and shout for an hour or two in The Grand Social next Tuesday, 26th of April. I for one am chomping at the bit to get myself into my polka dot dress and high school ponytail for it.

The occasion calls for circle skirts, pearls, bobby socks, layers of tulle, corsages and dainty neck scarves for the ladies, and blazers, skinny ties and quiffs for the boys.

They just weren't ready for it yet, the moody bastards. But their kids are going to love it.

So throw together an outfit not unlike the ones worn by the Hill Valley posse above and get yo' sexy ass over to The Grand Social next Tuesday. Details on Facebook here. Be there or be square.

See Ya Later, Navigator

2011-04-17T17:10:00.009+01:00

Last night I experienced a most glorious nostalgia buzz. The kind of nostalgia buzz that only an eighties film from your nineties childhood can create. The eighties film in question being Disney's magnificent Flight of the Navigator. I think that, along with The Goonies and Batteries Not Included were mine and my brother's most watched videos as sticky little children.

We used to call it Night of the Flavigator, under the illusion that we were being hilariously witty in doing so.

The nostalgia was almost overwhelming (although at that stage the buzz was quite possibly fueled by prosecco as well as childhood memories), as I hadn't seen it since I was about nine years old. Imagine my surprise when it transpired that the cool older girl with purple in her hair that befriends David, our confused hero was actually Sarah Jessica Parker all this time. With one hell of a 1986 head on her.

Told you so.

Anyway, all of that is completely besides the point, as what really surprised me was that I had entirely forgotten about the Puckmaren and more importantly, HOW MUCH I WANT ONE. For those of you who also need their memories jogged, I am referring to the unbelieveably cute and weird looking little alien that David meets on board MAX, the spaceship.

I realise this post will make little to no sense for anyone who hasn't actually seen Flight of the Navigator and if that is indeed the case, then get the hell off my lawn until you have. There's a chilling rumour of a remake doing the rounds, which displeases me greatly. There's something so genuinely charming about these fantasy/sci-fi kid's movies from the eighties and nineties, in that you know there were actual sets and props and freaky-looking Jim Henson-y puppets involved, whereas nowadays everything is green screened and 3D'd to within an inch of its life. Leave well enough alone, Disney jerks. But get me a Puckmaren, dammit.

The Joy Imperative

2011-04-12T19:45:00.013+01:00

A little while ago, the ever delightful EleventyFour asked me to design the artwork for her debut EP, The Joy Imperative. It was officially released yesterday, the 11/4/11 (Eleventy Four Eleventy, obviously) and I got tremendously excited when I saw it for sale on iTunes.

I mean the design, of course, as the wonderful whimsical tracks within are obviously the superb work of Eleventy herself.

It was my first time designing for a CD case and I had so much fun doing it. It's so deadly seeing it as a real actual thing on a shelf in a shop.

I scattered references to the words of the songs on the CD throughout the collage style design, as well as the five icons on the cover and disc which represent each track. The "Around the World" ticket (Route 114, get it? Eh?) refers to a line in Small Wonders, "Put me in your pocket and we'll sail all over the world", while the loveheart sweets come from The Friend Song, the lyrics of which include indoor friends, outdoor friends, let's meet up for cocktails friends and myriad other friends which pop up represented as sweets here and there on the inside and back of the packaging.

The Joy Imperative is a terrific collection of sweet, funny songs which has been reviewed most splendidly in haiku form no less, over on Swear I'm Not Paul. As well as iTunes, it's available on Amazon and Bandcamp, where you can order physical copies as well as download it. It's also available to buy in Freebird Records (Secret Book & Record Store) and Tower Records, both on Wicklow Street, Wingnut Records in Galway and Plugd Records in Cork and 10% of the profits go to DePaul Ireland, so support your independent record shops now, ya hear?

Drawn This Way

2011-04-10T17:59:00.013+01:00

As most of you are surely well aware by now, I'm a tad obsessed with old school pin up girl art. I've previously mentioned that I wrote a dissertation in college about the origins of the pin up girl, the coasters on our coffee table are tiles adorned with saucy thigh-flashing hotties and for my birthday last year the Bear knocked it out of the park with a Vargas girl double whammy of a vintage deck of cards and a 1972 collection of Playboy centrefolds. So when I spotted a link on Facebook, courtesy of Anne-Marie, that contained a gallery of pin up girls and the photos on which the artist based them, I got a bit excited. It's a mad kind of before and after, where the artist quite clearly selects bits and pieces of the models in the photos to put together a winking, impossibly streamlined and downright gorgeous Frankenstein cutie.

If you want to see more, and let's not kid ourselves, of course you do, the full gallery is here.

Quelque Chose #11

2011-04-06T14:13:00.001+01:00

The Bear: Can I have a Stinger bar? Or will that ruin my dinner...

Me: Of course you can! Sure that's the beauty of being a grown up!

The Bear (returns with Stinger bar in hand): Did you just call me a grown up? How dare you.

Limp Biscuits

2011-03-29T17:08:00.012+01:00

Is everyone else as bewildered by the new Jacob's Mallows ad as I am? It kicks off with the fuzzy and familiar "Kimberly, Mikado and Coconut Creams" jingle, but before it ever gets a chance to lull the unsuspecting viewer into a false sense of security, we're assaulted with some sort of R&B auto tune disaster and a watered down Pussycat Doll rejects crashing the Mad Hatter's Tea-Party acid trip. Watch it below, if you dare.

It's bizarre. I'm all for rebranding and trying out a new approach for something, but personifying biscuits that are automatically associated with licking and sucking (easy, now) as a tacky girlband just feels incredibly inappropriate.

Genuine biscuit girls in your area, call now on 1800 69 69 69.

The whole Alice In Wonderland schtick falls flat and anyway it's been done to death at this stage. Even Harvey Norman ads at the beginning of the month were beating us over the head with Mad March Hare rubbish, and back in 2004 Gwen Stefani did it infinitely better in her What You Waiting For? music video. Their costumes, which are meant to represent their respective biscuits have the look of a lame Katy Perry rip-off, and just wait till you hear about their oh-so-diverse personalites. Apparently "Kim" is spicy and fun, "Mika" is naughty and mischievous and "Coco" is ditzy and fluffy. Reader, I'll rely on you to roll your eyes here for me, because if I roll mine any more they're going to clean fall out of my head at this rate.

Gwen and Katy give a far superior cutesy Wonderland vibe.

Kim, Mika and Coco even have a Facebook page where they inform us that they live together, which is all a bit Biscuit Girls of the Playboy Mansion, or y'know, a brothel run by Mr. Kipling. All their flirty winking and finger licking comes off as rather cheap and desperate, and I know ads are always using sex and tits to flog stuff, but some just pull it off (har har) better than others, like this Virgin Airlines ad.

Blow-job faces a go-go. Or as the Bear more succinctly put it when I showed him these photos, "insert cock here".

I honestly don't know what Jacob's were thinking. I know it's all meant to be a bit of light-hearted fun, but I find it jarring and unsuitable for what's been a family-favourite style product for as long as I can remember. There's also an excruciating two and a half minute music video that's an extended version of the ad, containing such lyrical dynamite as "I'm hip, I'm hot, I'm everything you're not" and "I'm a naughty girl and it's making me hot". You can watch it here, but you probably shouldn't, unless you're the type of person who gets a kick out of burning themselves with candle wax or poking their bruises. You have been warned.

Thunderstruck

2011-03-27T22:20:00.010+01:00

Years ago, when I was only small, I remember queuing up to get my face painted and when asked what I wanted to be, I answered "Cheetara". The face painter in question hadn't the faintest idea what I was talking about and my seven year old self must not have been much good at explaining the concept of Thundercats. I'm fairly certain I ended up with my face painted like a tiger. When I was in college I screenprinted the Thundercats logo onto a tshirt for myself and got excited when I found a Cheetara action figure in a Kinsale junk shop. Because that's how cool I am. (By cool I obviously mean a giant nerd.)

As it happens, Thundercats are making their way back to small screens later this year. The new show features a redesigned Cheetara and a much younger and somewhat anime-looking group overall.

I think I like the look of this new version, although I'm a bit torn, as the orange leotard is more or less synonymous with the character at this stage.

Granted, original cartoon Cheetara's hair was veering ever so slightly towards Mulletville, but her badass blue eyeshadow and orange markings were tremendously cool.

The eighties comic book version more or less ditched the "business at the front, party at the back" hairdid and became rather less orange as a whole.

The franchise got a reboot in 2002 with a new series, and Cheetara was drawn as quite the amped-up ride, all massive rack and deadly boots. The 2011 incarnation of my second-favourite cat lady is quite manga-ish in style which I'm not entirely sure about, and since I saw someone online describe her new look and shaggy blonde mane as something akin to Ke$ha, I can't quite shake the idea.

The bastards.

Quelque Chose #10

2011-03-23T18:39:00.004Z

"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."

Elizabeth Taylor

Sure who will we get in trouble with? The Blog Police?

2011-03-22T15:54:00.009Z

I may not have made it as a finalist in this year's Irish Blog Awards, but when yet another winner turned out not to be there on the night and Rick O'Shea was offering their big foam trophy to a crowd that remained seated, I skittered up to the stage to grab it. Fuck this, thought I, I'm having some manner of prize for myself. Although, after the ceremony bit the Bear did head for the stage and unattended glass trophies after saying "You deserve an award Kitty." If something is unclaimed and unguarded then it's not really stealing. Right?

I was the girl in the Minnie Mouse type dress, for those of you who were at the awards.

The Bear and myself had a ferocious amount of fun and it was brilliant meeting Eli Mordino, Hermia, notRuairi, White Rabbit and The Licentiate, to name a few. Jumping into a taxi to go back to a house with some of the above turned out to be an amazingly good call. There were card tricks, a mesmerising game with zombies in it and magic mind-reading a go-go. Let it be known that Nordies put on a damn entertaining show.

The next morning, whilst packing up our hangovers, the Bear noticed a crowd across the road from the hotel, staring up at the building. When you're staying in the most bombed hotel in Europe and a crowd of spectators are gathering below your eighth storey window, this might be a cause for concern.

The terrified blonde girl in a harness that appeared outside our window moments later solved the mystery right away though. For you see there was a group abseiling down the front of the Europa for charity that very morning.

I refrained from taking a picture of said terrified girl, for when I gave her a bemused smile, she looked less than impressed. She appeared to be somewhere between scared out of her wits and seething with anger for ever agreeing to the stunt and may have been likely to smash through our window and grab me by the throat. Or something less dramatic.

Seeing as this was the last year of the IBAs, I do hope that there'll be an alternative event of some description next year, as there are loads of bloggers I'd still love to meet. All we really need is an excuse for a massive piss-up, and ideally one with significantly less politics and martyrdom involved.

National Drinkin' and Fightin' Day

2011-03-18T16:36:00.013Z

Yesterday, the Bear and I spent a most delightful St. Patrick's Day in Pea's wonderfully located apartment at the top of Dame Street. A day of drinking and divilment indoors is my preferred type of Paddy's Day, and the ridiculously great view of the parade from Pea's living room window as it passed underneath us made for some tasty green icing on the cake. Seriously, if I was outside on the street and looked up, I would have been so jealous of us. The theme of this year's parade appeared to be Big Scary Dogs, which made for some fantastic floats and there seemed to be a great macabre undercurrent throughout, with slices of steampunk and New Orleans funeral thrown in for delicious measure.

In what seemed like a weird coincidence, we had been talking about Falkor, the lovely big dragon doggy from The Never Ending Story (Atreyuuuuuu!) as it was on TV as the Bear and myself were leaving the house. We just managed to catch the heartbreaking scene where Atreyu's horse sinks to his doom in the Swamp of Sadness, a scene that damn near traumatised me with grief as a small girl. Anyway, moments later this evil version of Falkor was to be seen trundling towards us. Only he had a brass band and foxy corseted singer on his back instead of an enthusiastic child.

The remainder of the evening was spent feck-acting about on the Wii, where I topped the score board with my mad hula-hooping skillz and sucked ass at Guitar Hero. I challenge anyone to a Wii Fit hula-hoop-off as I will say here and now, I can guarantee that I will bring you down to Chinatown.

Just on the Wii though. I can't hula-hoop in reality to save my life. Useless skill #68.

(Title courtesy of Dave Flag's Facebook update.)

Under The Boardwalk

2011-03-15T20:07:00.014Z

I've been rather quiet on the old blogging front of late, mostly due to a mixture of being struck down with what I can only assume is consumption, a spot of childish sulking over not making it as a finalist for the Irish Blog Awards, busying myself with an exciting design project and being generally enthralled by Boardwalk Empire of an evening. It's Prohibition-era Sopranos created by the writer of The Wire, i.e. flipping DEADLY. Not only that, it's criminally gorgeous to look at, a veritable eyegasm of flapper fashions, sharp suits and art deco awesomeness. The title card alone is enough to make me swoon.

See? Gawjus. *thud*

Steve Buscemi is fantastic as Atlantic City's town treasurer, but Michael Kenneth Williams (as in OMAR! 1920s OMAR, people!) as booze-smuggler Chalky White steals every scene he's in, cutting a savage fucking dash with dapper suits, his class crimson fur-collared coat and brand new swear words that prompt a bemused Nucky Thompson to ask "What does motherfucker mean?"

But that's not to say that the other boys of the boardwalk aren't dressed to kill. On the contrary, in fact. Even the kids are well turned out. Look at this little fecker's amazing boots, like.

Which brings me to the Atlantic City ladies. Sparkly showgirls! Temperence League bags of no-craic! Arty bohemians trapped in lousy relationships! But looking lovely all the same.

Nucky's spoiled brat girlfriend Lucy, a pouty, shouty, nearly always naked pain in the ass played with mouthy relish by Paz de la Huerta will annoy the bejaysus out of you, but she certainly gets one of the better wardrobes. She's a filthy bitch to boot, with a creepy habit of calling men she's riding "Daddy". Weirdsville. Population: Lucy.

Ok, that quote is actually from an episode of the Adam West Batman series that I watched today, but it totally works for this picture.

Watch it. Watch it now.

Something Wicked This Way Struts

2011-03-07T21:21:00.012Z

Last week it was announced that Liz Hurley has been cast as villain Veronica Cale in the upcoming Wonder Woman TV series, which has prompted me to lash together a post about my favourite villainesses. I've previously prattled on about my love for Disney's most magnificent bad girl, Maleficent, so to avoid repeating myself and in no particular order, I'll run through some of the other wicked women that tickle my fancy.

Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry Potter Series)

To be fair, at least The Wicked Witch of the West had an understandable reason to have it in for Dorothy. If some dozy redneck flattened your sister with a house, you wouldn't take it too well either. In Bellatrix's case though, she's actually just a demented lunatic, hell-bent on fucking up Harry Potter and his mates, played with delerious glee by Helena Bonham Carter in the series of films.

Ursula (The Little Mermaid)

Interesting fact - and by interesting I mean mostly pointless - the proper name for a half-octopus person such as dragtastic Ursula here is a cecaelia. (Which is awfully similar to my middle name, although I'm mostly certain that I'm not part octopus.) Try to work it into a conversation today. I dare you. Anyway, Ursula is a fantastically camp breed of sea witch, representin' for the big girls and going strapless in quite a bold move for a lady as meaty as her. Then again, who's going to tell her to do otherwise, when she's the kind of woman who'll take a foolish mermaid's voice and keep it as a bitchin' accessory without so much as batting a giant false (presumably waterproof mascaraed) eyelash.

She's also dynamite at makeovers, transforming herself into the sexy Vanessa in order to screw Ariel out of marrying Eric. Take that, princess.

Christine (John Carpenter's Christine)

Alright, yes, this one is in fact a car. A possessed Plymouth Fury to be exact. But still. She has a girl's name and she KILLS PEOPLE, so for the purposes of this list she counts as a villainess. When my brother and I were younger, Dad was trying to get us into horror films. One evening he rented Christine on tape for us all to watch, confident that his memory of it was that of a great scary film. Unfortunately, nostalgia must have warped and rose tinted his memory, because it really wasn't. I think we laughed for almost the entire thing, sure the premise alone is pretty hilarious as it is. To be fair, it does contain some spectacularly entertaining swearing, such as Christine's nerdy owner Arnie Cunningham being referred to as "Cuntingham". Lovely, shiny, evil Christine gets points for being an unusual sort of baddie, seeing as she's an inanimate, albeit waxed and demonic object.

Margo Black (Sweet Valley High Series)

She's not Elizabeth at all! LIES!

I've actually mentioned the delightfully and completely deranged Margo before in a Sweet Valley High post, but I just couldn't leave her out of a list of lady evil-doers like this. To recap, Margo is a total psycho who just so happens to look exactly like the Wakefield twins, Jessica and Elizabeth, who are gorgeous, blonde and generally awesome at life. Crazy Margo randomly sees a picture of Elizabeth in a Texas newspaper (even though the twins live in California) and promptly decides to kill her and take over her life. As you do.

Ah God, I love these Sweet Valley book cover paintings. The DRAMA! Marvelous.

Her plan ultimately fails though, and she gets pushed out a window by Lila Fowler, after a bit of standing over both twins, being all demented while caressing a butcher knife. But you just can't keep a good villainess down, and Crazy Margo makes a comeback with yet another Wakefield lookalike in tow. Come on! This time the diabolical wench plans to kill BOTH twins and with the new doppelganger, take over BOTH of their lives. Unfortunately, the new girl (who I think is actually Margo's twin sister...ah the complexities of a Sweet Valley story arc) mistakes her for Jessica and kills her in some haze of confusion, because to be fair, there are now FOUR identical girls running around Sweet Valley. And so Crazy Margo meets her demise. For now anyway, bitches.

Leave No Doughnut Behind

2011-03-03T16:07:00.004Z

One of the things I loved about Berlin, apart from the drunken hijinks and gritty funkiness of the place, was the fact that it contained branches of Dunkin Donuts. This pleased me greatly, for 'tis often I lament the disappearance of that very doughnut shop from Dublin. Ireland just wasn't ready for doughnuts in the nineties. Strawberry frosting was regarded with naught but suspicion and Bavarian Creams could go fuck themselves. As for the colourful hundreds and thousands adorning them? Poison, surely! The Irish public were having none of this American muck, it would seem.

You delicious little bitch. I don't know how to quit you.

How and ever, subsequent trips to London and America have revealed a far superior breed of doughnut. Krispy Kreme, to be precise. The last time I was in London with the Bear, I practically sprinted through the Harrods food hall, past the fancy Kensington shoppers and lost Japanese tourists to get to the Krispy Kreme counter at the back. I even took a photo with my phone of the doughnut conveyor belt thing that brings them around from the oven and promptly texted it home to my parents to make them jealous. I've gotten more than a few gleeful picture messages of these particular doughnuts myself from both my brother and my Dad when they've found themselves in the vicinity of Krispy Kremes. They've actually been known to fly home from England with two boxes of doughnuts as hand luggage.

It's a fanaticism rivaled only by my family's obsession with Tanora. (An obsession that invariably leads to the purchase of, oh, about eighteen two-litre bottles at Christmas time. And a few extra in case any aunts or uncles haven't managed to stock up before the rest of the clan snapped up every remaining bottle of it in town.) I recently made the mistake of 'Liking' the official Krispy Kreme Facebook page, which has thus far served only to send me into a fit of envy and despair with every update, as they can't be procured here. It's so silly but by Christ they're delicious. Tim Horton can go and shite as far as I'm concerned.

Oh my giddy aunt. This picture is actually giving me palpitations.

Having made the decision to attend this year's Irish Blog Awards with the Bear in tow, (I have somehow managed to get myself shortlisted for Best Humour Blog, which I'm really nervously excited about, given the ferociously great blogs that populate that category) I figured there would surely be somewhere in Belfast that one could furnish oneself with a box of Original Glazed and perhaps a box of assorted others, just to be on the safe side, like. Right? Wrong. Unfortunately it would appear not. WOE.

Murder Most Strategic

2011-03-01T15:31:00.011Z

Last week, the Bear surprised me with a somewhat delayed Valentine's Day present. Totally unnecessary, seeing as I'm more than happy with a card on that most made-up of days. But pulling this particular present out of its box made me squeak with excitement. Those of you familiar with this blog and my fascination with a certain lady crime novelist and amateur detective will understand why when you see what it was...

Holy freaking chocolate covered baby Jesus!

That's right folks. A MURDER SHE WROTE BOARD GAME. Yes, the painting of Jessica looks a bit weird and un-Fletcherly in its slightly big-chinned pudginess. Nevertheless, "A Game of Strategy and Pursuit" that centres around one of the four to six players secretly playing the MURDERER and the other three to five playing JESSICA individually attempting to work out who indeed the MURDERER is sounds like eleven kinds of fantastic fun. I'm not quite sure how it works with a room full of Jessicas but it all sounds pant-wettingly exciting. Check out the lovely big colouredy board, detailing the island resort where all the murder and detecting takes place.

Various characters seem to populate this board, such as the suave Armond DeSoto, the dickie-bowed Walter Ludlow and the perky blonde Penelope Rumford.

I'm not quite sure if these people are suspects, witnessess or victims, but either way I wish Harold Dalrymple would put some Goddamn clothes on. He looks like a big fleshy tombstone with the head of a creepy ice cream seller.

The pieces include little Cluedo style pawns, Jessica cards, painted with a face that still isn't quite hers, some shady bastard in a trenchcoat who must be the murderer and dramatic little tokens with ALIVE printed on some and DEAD on the others. I can't wait to get hammered and give it a lash.

Quelque Chose #9

2011-02-27T14:13:00.005Z

***
Mega super shiny congratulations to my cousin Ciara Conway, elected to the 31st Dáil, the first woman TD in Waterford in over fifty years. Outstanding.
***

Get Your Vote On

2011-02-25T11:29:00.005Z

We've got until 10 o'clock tonight everybody! Fianna Fáil have spent the last thirteen years or so running the country into the ground and making up ridicuously high-salaried jobs for their mates. Fine Gael are more of the same, they simply have better timing and as Lucinda Creighton's recent bigoted, shortsighted cuntitude has highlighted, they couldn't give a sparkly fuck about legalising same sex marriage. We can surely do better than these two right wing conservative parties. Hooray for abortion and gay marriage says I.

Ich Bin Ein Brrrliner

2011-02-24T12:08:00.020Z

A 5am start isn't the most ideal way to begin a holiday, but it did kick off four immensely fun but freezing cold days in the funky-ass city of Berlin for TCup, Marzipan, Cloudy and I. Given the amount of sleeping and drinking we ended up doing, we also managed to cram in a fair amount of sightseeing between bleary eyed hangovers and buying armfuls of cheap Haribo. It went rather a lot like this:

* Whilst looking for a particular museum on the Friday, we had been following TCup's lead and arrived at an empty square with no sign of said museum. Confused, she rechecked the guide book and insisted that it should be here, because M for museum was marked in this location on the map. It wasn't until Marzipan and Cloudy had a look that we realised the M she was referring to was actually just one of the map coordinate letters across the top of the page. I'm in no position to laugh though, seeing as I have enough difficulty with left and right, never mind trying to make sense of a map. It was rather funny though.

* Ambling down Oranienburger Strasse after a few sensational mojitos, it took me longer than it should have to realise that the girls standing around in ski boots and somehow wearing very tightly laced and shiny black corsets over white puffa jackets weren't just oddly dressed goths but hookers, or as I just about recall exclaiming much, much later on "cailíní na h-oíche!". The word striapacha had obviously departed my brain earlier on in the night.

* Further down Oranienburger, we found ourselves in Café Zapata, a grimy, grungy bar in what turned out to be a former squatting compound. A six euro entry fee and "No Photographs" signs on the walls didn't exactly endear the place to me at first, but then there was all this vodka and suddenly Caracho happened.

As you can see, the whole "no photos" thing didn't really last.

While we were sitting in the outdoor area, we could hear a band taking to the stage inside. They sounded good. Really good, in fact. When we ventured in to investigate, we were flung into one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Crazy, sweaty, messy energy, bellowed German lyrics with badass heavy guitar and the entire crowd going absolutely nuts for it. A half English, half German cover version of I've Got The Power went down a fucking storm. But what sealed the deal entirely for me was a song towards the end of their set where the only line I could make out was "du bist meine katze" (you're my cat, I figured), the singer had donned a top hat, the guitarist was suddenly wielding a pink Hello Kitty guitar and the sexy girl (keyboards, I think) had come onstage dressed AS CATWOMAN. I nearly lost my shit. It's like they rifled through the filing cabinet of my brain and just smashed together a heap of stuff I love and fired it onto a stage. Catwoman proceeded to rip off the frontman's shirt and he finished by upending an entire bottle of beer all over her. Un...real.

* Having risen at five and only getting a two hour nap in the hotel, powered solely by booze and divilment we somehow manged to keep going on Friday night in Café Zapata until five o'clock the next morning. I'm not sure I've ever seen 5am from both sides in the one stint, but I guess that's one thing I can tick off the list now.

* While browsing through the fancy Taschen shop, Marzipan took The Big Penis Book off the shelf and opened it for a giggle as we all gasped at one appendage in particular and whispered "There's no way that's real!". Unfortunately for her, we abandoned poor Marzipan when the dust jacket slipped off to reveal a massive cock on the cover as well, leaving her red-faced and fumbling with the huge coffee table book, trying to hold, re-jacket and close it on her own, because yes, we're that mature.

* CityMaps2Go is the most genius iPhone app of all time, in terms of being in an unfamiliar city at least. The GPS on the phone shows exactly where you are and what direction you're facing, which for me with my aforementioned inability to read a map, was nothing short of miraculous. It became particularly handy when we just wanted to go for a drink somewhere. A quick flick through the search function on it brings up a list of the nearest pubs, bars, train stations, whatever. Typically, while standing shivering outside the hotel, the nearest pub happened to be a place called The Irish Times. It was cold. We wanted a pint. Don't judge us.

* Cocktails. Cocktails for less than a fiver make us a very happy foursome indeed. We only stretched to €5.90 in one particular case, because these were POWER cocktails. With 73% rum being a main ingredient. And they were called Zombies. Delicious.

* One of two things in particular that I learned about Berlin is that it's probably the only city in which you can flog any old piece of spray painted concrete and pass it off as a fragment of the Wall. If all those pieces in the shops and stuck to postcards were the real deal, they'd have gone through at least eight different Berlin Walls by now.

* The second thing I learned is that in Berlin, we all have amazing hair. Seriously. The German capital seemed to agree with our hair no end. Most likely down to the fact that although it was teeth-chatteringly cold, it was a dry kind of teeth-chatteringly cold, and as such there was ne'er a hint of frizz nor kinks to be had. Lovely.

* Fassbender & Rausch is one of the most amazing shops in the world. A fancy-pants chocolate shop that takes things to quite an extreme.

That's a giant chocolate bear and there behind those fancy sweets? Yes, that's a chocolate TITANIC for feck's sake. The lunatic geniuses.

* It turns out that Sunday nights in Berlin aren't exactly big drinking nights. Fuelled by power cocktails and Cuba Libres, at one o'clock we found ourselves outside the closed CCCP bar, having mistakenly thought it would still be heaving with banter and potential mischief. For want of a bar, or indeed anywhere to drink, we proceeded to arm ourselves with cheap corner-shop vodka that might as well have been petrol and drank ourselves stupid in the hotel room. I was a rather delicate cat for much of the following day.

* I confess, the hipster that surely dwells within me absolutely lost the the run of herself in Berlin with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. In my defence, the grimy, Soviet, darkened edges effect it produces really suited Berlin and its landmarks. Brilliant fun had by all, despite the minus six temperatures. Next time I'll go when it's warmer.

Quelque Chose #8

2011-02-17T18:35:00.003Z

Well kids, I'm off to Berlin at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning for a few days of fun and Teutonic frolics with three foxy ladies in honour of two of their birthdays. For now I'll leave you with this fetching picture of Marlene Dietrich while we go kick up a ruckus in her hometown. Back next week dahlings.