Apparently I Need a Hero

So, in case it hasn't been totally clear before now, I kinda fucking love theme parks. The thing is, I usually end up being so busy trying to get on every rollercoaster as often as possible and generally being overexcited and breaking into a run without quite meaning to, that I invariably don't get around to having a proper look in the park shops until it's half an hour before everything closes.

The day we went to Islands of Adventure while in Florida was no different (apart from the almost passing out from the heat and being wheeled to the backstage medical area bit) and this time there were Harry Potter and superhero shops to be frantic in.

While scuttling around the Marvel shop, intent on getting myself a t-shirt, I realised that getting one with, say, the Captain America shield logo or Thor or Storm on it was looking less and less likely. Because the only lady sized t-shirts were these ones:

The fuck, guys? I mean, yes, Wolverine is a big massive ride and all and The Avengers was basically Arm Fest 2012, but surely it wouldn't kill you to throw in a few options that AREN'T about boning superheroes and basically the cotton equivalent of twirling your fucking hair and giggling like a twat.

Oh wait, they did.

LADIES NIGHT? Are you serious? Invisible Woman, Hellcat, Storm and Spiderwoman are already pretty fucking cool and don't actually need a lame caption that makes them sound like a drunk hen party. The worst part is, I was actually half tempted to get it, as it was the only ladies top in the whole place that wouldn't make the wearer sound like a simpering groupie.


It was doubly annoying because the men's t-shirts were really cool but in my case a man's t-shirt + a big rack is not particularly conducive to not looking like a sack of potatoes. Now, I know there's plenty of decent superhero themed ladies tops online and in other places, but I don't think it was unreasonable of me to expect that I'd be able to get something with Jean Grey or literally any other female hero on it, when the outside of the shop looks like this:


Come on! There's a giant, fuck-off, kickass Rogue cutout on the stupid place and they can't even stick her on a t-shirt? BOO. What's worse, when I was looking for pictures for this post of the tops I saw that evening, I ended up on Marvel's official online merchandise shop, to find that they have all of FOUR different t-shirts for women and uh oh, what's that, little girls who like superheros? Oh, I'm sorry, according to MarvelStore.com YOU DON'T EXIST.


Whatever. I got a Gryffindor top and gloves instead.

Orlando Boom

After a gloriously fun holiday in sunny, stickily humid Florida, I have now returned to grey, also fairly stickily humid Dublin. Yay. However, I've returned to find that I've been nominated in the Pop Culture and Humour categories in the Irish Blog Awards, so genuine thanks and awkward hugs to the kind people who saw fit to throw my blog into the ring. You're sound.

Anyway, the holiday. I'm not even sure where to start. It involved four theme parks, one alligator sighting, two evenings of pirate-themed crazy golf, eight hours of wandering around the Kennedy Space Centre, two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts and me almost passing out from the intense heat while queuing in Hogsmeade. Of all places. I ask you.

So here are a few of the things I learned in the city of Orlando:


My family and I are kinda brilliant at theme parks.
Florida in August = enormo-queues. But we didn't stand in line for more than half an hour or so for anything, bar two rides that broke down while we were mid-queue (shakes fist at E.T. and Ariel), however that's just down to sucky timing and couldn't be helped. Fastpass tickets (the free Disney ones, not the Universal Studios ones that they charge you for. NEVER those ones), single rider queues and just waiting until later in the evening are all handy queue avoidance techniques.


Also, there is a FANTASTIC rollercoaster in Universal Studios that allows you to choose a song to listen to while you're being flung upside-down at a frankly alarming height. The Bear and I both ended up picking Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. I had a sore throat the next day.

I will judge people based on their bumper stickers.
For example, when I saw one that said "Obama is what happens when you allow idiots, illegals and welfare recipients to vote", I came to the conclusion that the guy driving that jeep was a racist, backwards and deeply unpleasant dickhead.

Florida laughs in the face of subtlety.


LAUGHS. HYSTERICALLY.

There's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!
You need to take either a ferryboat or a monorail to Disney World from the car park. We took the monorail (because, obviously) and were then trapped on it for a very sweaty extra ten minutes when the monorail ahead of us broke down (because....obviously).


We got the boat back when we were leaving.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is AH-MAY-ZING.
Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park is already eleven kinds of deadly, but throw in Hogwarts and the village of Hogsmeade and you've got yourself one overexcited me.


Admittedly, our day there didn't start off too spectacularly, seeing as I got walloped with heatstroke while queuing for the first ride of the day, a Hippogriff rollercoaster. It was completely unexpected, as I've never had a weird reaction to heat before. I was drinking water and lemonade since we arrived at the park and we were standing in the shade when it happened, but out of nowhere I got really lightheaded and dizzy and just felt sick. My hands seized up and my fingers, feet and face went all tingly, so I was left with useless numb crab claw hands that had to be prised open by the Bear so I could hold a bottle of water. Disaster!

My first proper look at Hogsmeade was from a wheelchair, while being bumpily escorted over the cobbles to the first aid area by a big burly paramedic dude. It wasn't exactly ideal. However, after around twenty minutes and a lie down in an air conditioned room, I was fine again. Anyway, it actually all worked out in the end, because thanks to my little episode we got to skip the queues for the Harry Potter rides for the rest of the day. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

NASA is super cool.
We expected to spend around half a day at the Kennedy Space Centre, and yet found ourselves traipsing around the Atlantis shuttle exhibit at seven o'clock that evening.


Shortly after we arrived home, Armageddon was on telly and showed Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler dry-humping in one of the blasters on the base of the rocket in the photo above. "Get out of Apollo 8, you jerks!" I said. They didn't listen.

America is terrible at chocolate (Ok, I already knew this). 


BUT DEAR GOD THEY RULE AT ALL OTHER KINDS OF JUNK FOOD.

There is a Disney-built town called Celebration.
As we were driving to and from the theme parks, I kept noticing road signs for a place called Celebration and remembered a documentary I'd seen years ago about this creepy town built by Disney where everything was perfect and the people living there were Disney obsessives.


So, naturally we went there for breakfast one morning. It's actually kinda deadly. There's ACTUAL white picket fences all over the place, the houses and buildings are all painted in ice-cream shades of pastel and the signage has a decidedly art deco twang to it. It's like Disney meets Stepford Wives. I liked it.

Their wall sockets look like worried little faces.

"Oh nooo!" They all said.

Also, we saw Jesse Metcalfe while we were killing time waiting for our flight home in the airport in Chicago. The Bear was the one who noticed him, because he was being an aggressive dick to the woman who was with him, who we later reckoned must have been his PA or something. Dad refused to believe that he's a douchebag, because he loves him on Dallas. He was a douchebag though.

CELEBRITY GOSSIP. BOOM. You're welcome.

There's Been A Murder

In a stroke of total genius, my parents got myself and the Bear a murder mystery weekend as a Christmas present. Having been itching to get my Jessica Fletcher on since the start of the year, the weekend in question finally arrived and OH THE FUN. It took place in Faithlegg House Hotel, just outside Waterford city, which is probably the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed in and perfectly lends itself to a weekend of murder scenes and clue-solving, because, y'know, LOOK AT IT:

It's just so...murdery.

When we were checking in on Friday evening, the people ahead of us were duly sent off to their numbered rooms, but when our turn came we were handed a key and informed that we would be staying in the Cornelius Bolton room. The whatnow?

HOLY SHIT OUR ROOM HAS A NAME AND NOT A NUMBER, thought I.

It turns out I wasn't getting excited for nothing, as the room was MASSIVE, had a super high ceiling, four huge windows, an enormous bathroom and most importantly - A MOTHERFUCKING FOUR POSTER BED. You see, it has long been an ambition of mine to sleep in a four poster bed, so my parents, the big legends, only went and saw to it. Achievable goals, people. Achieveable goals are entirely the way to go.


After jumping up and down on the bed for a bit (because...obviously) and having The Best Steak Sandwich Of All Time in the bar, it was time to get acquainted with our host, Detective Inspector Lazarkie. The theme for the murder mystery was a medical one, as it was set in a Chicago hospital. We were informed that a hotshot surgeon had been murdered, handed a list of suspects and split into named teams. I was raging that we weren't on Team Fletcher. RAGING. Instead, the Bear and I found ourselves on Team Ace Ventura, which was ok really, seeing as he's probably my second favourite detective. I guess.

On Saturday, we could inspect the murder scene, while different clues were posted on the wall of the "incident room" (i.e. hotel ballroom) throughout the day, which provided bits and pieces of backstory and motive for each suspect.

Dun dun DUUUN!

We had most of the day to ourselves, so we hung out in our amazing room, had a go of the jacuzzi, steam room and sauna and generally lolled around the place like fancy bastards. The only time we left the hotel was to procure a bottle of Jameson and two dusty bottles of ginger ale from the nearby shop. Best. Day. Ever.

On Saturday night, there was a press conference where we were introduced to the suspects, and got to question them between courses at dinner. It was a fancy dress dinner, so in the week beforehand, we decided to use costumes we already had in the house, namely a dog suit for the Bear and a sheep costume for me. Not just any sheep though, Chris the Sheep from Father Ted, as in KING OF THE SHEEP.

However, as the rest of the sixty-odd participants filed into the room, it turned out that they either didn't bother dressing up, or adhered to the hospital theme and arrived in scrubs or sexy nurse outfits. While the Bear and I sat at the table dressed as a dog and King of the Sheep.

ANYWAY.

By the end of dinner, the suspects had been narrowed down to two possibilities, so we had to fill out solution sheets with who we thought the murderer was and what their motive might have been. After a bit of disagreement with the rest of the team, in particular one woman who wouldn't let go of her theory that the male murder victim and one of the female suspects were the same person and then insisted that it was actually a particular character's mother who WASN'T EVEN A SUSPECT, LADY we settled on an answer. (The same woman said she didn't like Jessica Fletcher earlier on in the day, which elicited gasps of horror from both me and the Bear. Seriously.)

We got to play Operation at dinner. Most fucking fiddly game ever.

The next morning, the killer was revealed, but all the teams had chosen correctly. So the winners were determined by two quiz rounds from Friday night where we had to identify celebrities from photos where we could only see their eyes, and name the TV shows and films that ten theme tunes came from. Team Ace Ventura kicked ass at both rounds and we were declared the winners, snagging a bottle of wine each for our efforts. Hooray! A tremendous weekend was had by all.

A Long Overdue Paris Post

A few weeks ago, myself and the Bear, along with Billy and The Incredible Mulq went off to Paris for a few days and I'm only getting around to posting about it now because, well, I'm easily distracted. Also, I recently fractured my ankle, which isn't really an excuse seeing as I've been confined to the couch since then, but still. Anyway, Paris was all kinds of fun and there were many many Taken jokes. "Where's my scarf?" *Liam Neeson voice* "It's been TAKEN."

The Friday was spent in Disneyland, where I kept breaking into a run without really meaning to, because I was so excited and just love it there so goddamn much.


There was quite a lot of running around to get a go (and a second go) on all the rollercoasters, in fact at one point the Bear and I were told to stop running by one of the Indiana Jones rollercoaster staff, like we were bold children. It's the park's 20th birthday this year, so there waas a big parade halfway through the day, which we didn't think we'd have any interest in as we were busy making our way to Space Mountain and Star Tours at the time. That was until The Incredible Mulq and I saw the floats coming down the street with Ariel and Rapunzel waving at the crowds and found ourselves drawn in and taking about a million photos.


However, the real birthday celebration spectacle was right before the park closed for the night, where a light show was projected onto the castle, alongside the big songs from Disney films over the years. It was genuinely one of the best things I've ever seen. At one point the castle had red brick chimneys and dancing chimney sweeps projected onto it for Step In Time from Mary Poppins. I involuntarily started dancing at that point, it's physically impossible to stay still during that song. My review of it at the time was something along the lines of "The parades can go fuck themselves, THAT was amazing." It's pretty hard to describe what the whole thing was like and almost impossible to get a decent photo to do it justice, but here's one anyway from when it went all steampunky and I nearly passed out from excitement. 


During the last minute flurry of not needing anything but wanting to buy everything in the shops on our way out, I noticed a pair of knickers with a face on them. Not just any face though, the face of Marie from The Aristocats. A kitten with a child's voice. Pretty weird.

Ladies and gentlemen, a Disney pussy joke.

It rained for the rest of the weekend, so Saturday was spent at a covered flea market, almost having lunch in the cafe from Amelie, until we got there and found that it was jammed with people and overpriced to boot and making our way to Sacre Coeur, where it stopped raining long enough for us to see the view and amble to the nearest pub.

A necklace I bought at the flea market.

On Sunday, the Bear and I attempted to do a photos with landmarks day, but the unrelenting rain was making it a lot less fun that it should have been. We got as far as Notre Dame and saw a ferret though, so that was cool. I think I'd quite like a ferret now.


While taking shelter from the rain in the swanky shopping mall under the Louvre, we used the free wifi to try to find something to do indoors and discovered that the Decorative Arts museum nearby was running an exhibition of Star Wars toys. I was trying to find out more on my phone when the Bear just looked at me said "What are you still reading for!? There are TOYS there and they might let me PLAY WITH THEM."

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to play with anything, but it was still awesome. We actually did it backwards by accident, as we ended up in the room with the toys from the recent films first and zipped through that pretty quick because really, who gives a fuck about those toys. The area for the original films was properly deadly though. There was original poster art, promotional shop signs from the seventies, moulds for action figures, concept art and printers proofs for packaging.


We totally win at being in Paris.

From Hell

Towards the end of next week the Bear and I, along with Billy and The Incredible Mulq, are skipping off to Paris for a few days and I am SO GODDAMN EXCITED. It's been three years since my last trip there and I'm having serious Disneyland withdrawals. Anyway, quite by coincidence, I came across this totally fucking bonkers and amazing Parisian restaurant online a few days ago. The downside? It closed somewhere around 1950. Boo.

Café de l'Enfer was a Hell-themed restaurant and opened in the late nineteenth century in Pigalle. It was possibly one of the first ever themed restaurants and doesn't it look like it was about a bajillion times more fun than Planet Hollywood or the Hard Rock Cafe?

Just look at this fucking awesome door! It might just be one of the best things I've ever seen. Raaawwr! THANK YOU INTERNET.

The interior was described by National Geographic as having "plaster lost souls writhing on its walls", the doorman wore a Satan suit and greeted customers by saying "Enter and be damned!" and the waiters were dressed as devils. Also:

An order for three black coffees spiked with cognac was shrieked back to the kitchen as: "Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!"


Ok, to be honest, all the screaming and the lost souls eyeballing you while you eat your dinner might have made for a somewhat stressful dining experience, but Jaysus it would have been tremendous craic too.


Some smart arse went on to open a cafe next door called Heaven. It looks lovely and all, but I know which one I'd rather go to. I'll see your starry celestial entrance and raise you a FUCKING GIANT DEMON MOUTH.


Apparently a Monoprix supermarket stands on the site these days. It's a goddamn crime that a building facade as awesome as that was ever torn down. Fuck you, Paris.*

*Not really, I love you Paris, please don't rain all over us when we are in you.

Images yoinked from Retronaut.

London Fundon

The weekend before last, The Bear and I skedaddled off to London for a lovely long weekend. Arising at stupid o'clock on the Friday morning (the Bear kept waking up through the night as he was too excited to sleep properly - aw!) we made our way Londonwards, the first stop on the agenda being the Harry Potter Studio Tour at Leavesden Studios. (Hence all the excitement.)

YOU GUYS. Every Harry Potter fan needs to go here. The tour took us around three and a half hours and you get to wander through at your own pace, which is totally perfect. The only problem was all the fucking PEOPLE, as you accidentally bump into them and get bumped into approximately four million times as you make your way around. But it's a really great setup and even though, as Nicola informed me on Twitter, they don't let you fondle Snape's robes, we had an absolute blast. I'd suggest that anyone who plans on going should try to avoid looking at too many photos of the tour, as the less you know, the more amazing surprises you'll get and the more often you'll exclaim: "Holy crap! It's THIS THING THAT I LOVE! LOOK AT IT!" As such, I'm only putting a handful of pictures up here and they don't really give anything major away, so it's safe to look.


There's a deadly gift shop at the studio too, where you can buy all manner of overpriced Hogwarts paraphernalia, but they don't quite seem to have gotten the hang of sufficiently stocking the shop just yet. I wanted to pick up a few fridge magnets as small presents, but there were none left. So I figured a little keyring might do, but they were completely sold out of Gryffindor keyrings, or indeed anything small and affordable that was Gryffindor related. And I was hardly going to give someone a present of a Hufflepuff keyring, sure I might as well just slap them in the face and be done with it at that rate.

Our lovely friend Brenda was kind enough to put us up for the weekend, although on the first night I woke up at one point to find her cat, the bauld but very cute Ógie standing next to my head and eyeballing me. I may have told him to fuck off. Sorry Ógie.

This was the view from the back of Brenda's place. AMAZO.

Saturday's entertainment came in the form of the British Female Crown performances for the World Burlesque Games, which just HAPPENED to be on while we were over. It was a total coincidence, I SWEAR. There was also much entertainment derived from the fact that the show was taking place in Bush Hall. Heh. Bush.


The show was fantastic fun and each performer did a truly amazing job. My highlights were Chi Chi Revolver, a goofy, tattooed, hula-hooping dynamo that looks not unlike Lady Gaga and definitely deserved a place in the top three. Robbed, she was! Here's a video that shows just over a minute of her act (I don't know why the person filming didn't record it all, because they bloody well should have) :



Billie Rae, a red haired, fire breathing ballerina doll was another of my favourites, you can see her Forgotten Ballerina routine here:



The winner of the competition was Eliza Delite, a dead ringer for Lynda Carter who blew everyone away with a beautiful Virgin Mary routine.



While it sounds deliciously sacrelicious to combine Holy Mary and burlesque, it was actually just gorgeous and the crowd went fucking nuts for it. The glittery sacred heart was a nice touch too.


On our last morning, I plotted our route back to the airport via Holborn. For I had previously found a Krispy Kreme donut shop along High Holborn a few years ago and you may recall how obsessed I am with these particular roundy Original Glazed hoops of happiness. After traipsing up the busy street with our suitcases in tow, I was getting worried. There was no sign nor smell of a doughnut to be found. It turned out we were at the wrong end of street, for as soon as we ventured to the other end, LO! There it was! The Bear had walked straight past it, but my doughnut senses were on the ball and I spotted it in time.


We bought twenty four doughnuts that morning and after a quick spot of suitcase Tetris at the airport, we managed to make enough room to stuff the two boxes into the Bear's suitcase. It was a GOOD DAY.

Also, I noticed that the lifts in the airport were made by a company called Schindler.


SCHINDLER'S LIFT!

I'm here all week. Try the veal.