Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 3)

Alright, let's do this.


The next morning, Ana wakes up in Grey's hotel suite and compares him to a courtly knight, despite the fact that he brought her to his place instead of hers and took her pants off. He responds with "Dark knight, maybe", which would have been the perfect time to say "I am Batman" and swoop out of the room in a cape that we didn't previously know he was wearing. But that would be too much fun, so instead he informs her that "if you were mine you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled". I'm amazed that they can actually see anything at this point, what with all the goddamn foreshadowing going on here. He gets all cross at her for not eating before going on the lash the night before, saying "You need to eat. [...] It's drinking rule number one." ACTUALLY Christian, I think you'll find that eatin' is cheatin' is drinking rule number one. So shut your damn billionaire mouth.

Anyway, in the meantime Anastasia's subconscious has magically taken on a life of her own, as earlier on when Christian showed up at the bar after tracking her ass down, she was "figuratively tutting and glaring at me over her half moon specs." Clearly half moon spectacles aren't just for Santa and Professor Dumbledore any more. However, now the thought of boning Christian has her subconscious "doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt". She may or may not be playing a ukelele, it's not completely clear.

Ana's subconscious could look like either of these people at any given moment. You might not recognise her until it's too late. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

It's a clunky and irritating literary device that just makes Ana look like she has split personalities, all of whom are just as fucking annoying as she is. Her subconscious is mostly a disapproving character in her head, wagging her finger at her and telling her to cop on, even though the whole idea of your subconscious is that you're unaware of it. Hence the SUB part. Clue is in the name there, E.L.

Here are the other things that her subconscious does throughout the book:

• stares at Ana in awe 
• screams at her, arms folded, leaning on one leg and tapping her foot in frustration
• whines at her in a sneering mood
• has emigrated or been struck dumb or simply keeled over and expired (if only)
• swoons and passes out somewhere in the back of her head
• purses her lips and mouths the word ‘ho’ (THREE TIMES)
• glares at her over her wing-shaped spectacles (She must have fancied a change from the half moon ones. Either that or the author hasn't actually READ HER OWN BOOK and decided that continuity is for squares.) 
• glares at her, wagging her long skinny finger, then morphs into the scales of justice (No, really.) 
• screams at her like a harpy
• runs, screaming, and hides behind the couch (WHAT FUCKING COUCH?)
• peeks out from behind the couch, still registering shock on her harpy face
• quails in the corner
• nods sagely, a you’ve-finally-worked-it-out-stupid look on her face
• quakes at the knees
• is furious and Medusa like, with hair flying and her hands clasped around her face like Edvard Munch's The Scream (LOOK AT ME, I KNOW STUFF ABOUT ART N' CULTURE N' SHIT) 
• whistles with her hands behind her back, looking anywhere but at Ana (even though she can't actually look ANYWHERE because your subconscious is NOT A PERSON)
• anxiously bites her nails
• has her Edvard Munch face on again (Jesus fucking Christ)
• relaxes and then collapses, slumped into an old battered armchair (what happened to the couch?)
• frantically fans herself
• finds her Nikes and is on the starting blocks (I can't remember why)

So Ana takes a shower and her subconscious (just typing that is making me feel stabby) sneers "You’ve slept in his bed all night, and he’s not touched you Ana. You do the math." as proof that he doesn't fancy her. So, wait, she WANTS him to grope her while she's passed out drunk then? What? I'm finding it hard to hear her over ALL THE HATE I have for this TOTAL SPANNER of a woman. And her fucking subconscious.

They have breakfast together, he harasses her again about not eating enough, there's some lame sexual tension (mostly him growling some bullshit about how she should stop biting her lip because he wants to do that and her practically creaming herself at the thought) and then he announces that he's not going to touch her until he has her written consent to do so. Which doesn't seem to strike Ana as the right moment to make her excuses and get the fuck out of there. When he mentions that he doesn't normally sleep in his bed with anyone else, and that her sleeping beside him was a novelty for him, Ana says: ""Not having...sex." There - I said the word." SERIOUSLY? Congratulations Ana, you're a 21 year old woman who can say the word sex out loud. Hang on there till I find you a FUCKING MEDAL.

Despite this rule that he's just announced, as they're leaving he grabs her in the lift on the way downstairs and shifts the fuck out of her, "his erection against my belly", murmuring "You. Are. So. Sweet. [...] each word a staccato". Which. Is. Both. Hilarious. And. Really. Stupid. He stops kissing her when the doors ping open, and the fact that he can sufficiently regain his composure makes her wonder "Is he totally unaffected by my presence?" Well Ana, he LITERALLY just wore the face off you and LITERALLY just had his boner shoved against you, so yes, I guess he's totally unaffected. You clown.

Between her going for a shower and him jumping her in the lift, Ana says "oh my" seven times over those eight pages. She is CONSTANTLY saying "oh my", to the point that I started to picture George Takei every time she did while simultaeneously wanting to strangle her with my sock.

Appearances of the phrase "oh my": 71


Right after the lift, we meet her inner goddess. Her inner goddess is the free-spirited dancing gymnast gobshite to her subconscious's spectacle-wearing judgemental librarian, and "sways in a gentle victorious samba" after the surprise kissing attack. This is not the last we will hear of the inner goddess. Not by a long shot.

I realise I haven't moved that far along in the story with this post, as I got a bit sidetracked by being angry at her stupid subconscious and the outrageously idiotic idea of it. I will endeavour to get this over with a little better in future posts, although I can't promise anything as the next one features all the fucking moronic things her inner gobshite does.

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 2)

Right then. It turns out that Fifty Shades is certified blog catnip. The reaction to the first post about it was ridiculously amazing, so thanks so much and inappropriately long hugs to everyone who commented and shared it, you're a big shower of rides, the lot of you. (Also, I quite heartily recommend Karen's glorious Irish version, Fifty Shades of Shite on Ramp.ie, first part here and second part here.) So, onwards to Volume 2!


After the photoshoot, Christian asks Ana to join him for coffee. She eventually agrees and on the way thinks to herself "I am going to have coffee with Christian Grey... and I hate coffee." I hate coffee too Ana, but guess what? Coffee shops sell OTHER DRINKS! Christmas is saved! They get to the coffee shop and she orders tea, English Breakfast Tea, to be precise because she thinks she's so fucking fancy and special.

"I pop the teabag into the teapot and almost immediately fish it out again with my teaspoon."

Reason number #87 why I hate Ana: She can't even drink tea properly. THAT'S JUST HOT WATER, YOU GEEBAG. That quote is immediately followed by this:

"As I place the used teabag back on the side plate, he cocks his head gazing quizzically at me. “I like my tea black and weak,” I mutter as an explanation."

Now COME ON, that is just the perfect set-up for someone to say "Like my men". The fact that neither one of them makes that joke just proves what humourless twerps they both are. I honestly have no idea why Christian is so interested in her at this point, because so far all she has done is stare down at her hands (how bloody rude) and blush, for the entire coffee shop conversation. In fact, she has blushed six times between agreeing to go for coffee and them talking for a bit once they get there. In that small amount of time her face has been "beet red", pink, crimson and scarlet. Ana and her magic multi-coloured stupid face.

He mentions that he doesn't "do the girlfriend thing" as they're leaving. Almost immediately, dopey Ana trips over FUCKING NOTHING and falls towards the road. But Christian's ninja-like reflexes spring into action, so she narrowly misses getting hit by a cyclist and finds herself pulled to his manly bodywash-scented chest for safety. She suddenly realises that "for the first time in twenty-one years, I want to be kissed". Oh PLEASE. You're 21 and you have NEVER wanted to be kissed until now? GET TO FUCK. Throw her into the goddamn traffic, Christian.

She tries to eye-bang him into kissing her but he pulls away, leaving her "bereft" (drama queen) and says she should steer clear of him. Even though it was him that turned up at the hardware shop and him and that asked her out for coffee, but whatever Christian. Anyway, Ana gets back to the garage where her car is parked and feels so rejected that she curls up into a ball on the GROUND and sobs for a while because she's a ridiculous human being and can't sob in the car like a normal person.

He gets it.

When she gets home all red-eyed from the crying, Kate asks her what's wrong, at which point Ana thinks to herself "Oh no… not the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition." Because a friend showing concern for you when you're quite obviously upset is EXACTLY like being chained up and tortured for heresy. By the fourth time that exact phrase appeared, with a "Christian Grey Inquistion" thrown in along the way, I wanted to beat E.L. James to death with a thesaurus. This is without doubt the most repetitive book I have ever read.

No one expects the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisistion!

Ana eventually finishes her exams and comes home after her last one to find a mysterious package waiting for her. It turns out that it contains three first edition volumes of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, which she has been referencing on every second page all this time, in an attempt make her sound intelligent and interesting. It doesn't. Unsurprisingly, the books are from Christian Grey, because the best way to get someone to steer clear of you is to send them a present worth a fuckload of money.

Ana and Kate go out and Ana proceeds to get shitfaced for the first time ever (do join me in an eye-roll) and drunk-dials Christian. He quickly deduces that she's drunk, what with it being late and her slurring her words and all and demands to know where she is, like it's any of his damn business. She hangs up without telling him where she is and goes outside to get some air, with José creeping behind her like a cartoon burglar. José charmingly chooses this moment to initiate Mission Get Into Ana'a Pants, taking advantage of her drunken state like a total fucking asshole, gets all grabby and kisses her. She's trying to pull away and he won't let her go, and now he's another character that I hate and want to throw hammers at.

Enter Christian Grey, rescuing her just in time and giving her the opportunity to jump from the frying pan of potential rape into some controlling dickhead stalker fire. Er...hooray? Next thing Ana starts vomiting everywhere, due to the five margaritas and champagne she'd been drinking. She wishes that the azaeleas in the flowerbed she's vomiting on would swallow her up and so do I, because then this book would be over and we could all get on with our lives.

It would have been so amazing if it was a flowerbed of these.

After she's done, Christian tells her "this is beyond the pale" (because people talk like that) and berates her for having the nerve to get hammered the day she's finished college. It turns out that he found her by tracking her mobile phone. HOLY FUCK, RUN AWAY ANA. Instead of being alarmed by this frankly very worrying behaviour, she agrees to let him take her home. JESUS CHRIST ANA.

When she insists on telling Kate that she's leaving, he inexplicably drags her out onto the dancefloor for an impromptu bop, despite the fact that she's just gotten violently ill. It turns out that his brother Elliot, who he brought along on his creepy-ass quest is also on the dancefloor and with Kate, who is doing her sexy moves all up on him. Ana is normally a terrible dancer, what with the TOTALLY adorable clumsiness that has already been established and that makes me want to punch her in the face. However, she suddenly CAN dance now that she's with Christian and he's made of sex magic and is part unicorn after all. Then this happens:

"In the back of my mind, my mother’s often-recited warning comes to me: Never trust a man who can dance."

What kind of stupid fucking advice is that? Boys who can dance are SUPER FUN.

Case CLOSED, motherfucker.

When they're about to leave, Ana looks over at Kate who is now in Elliot's arms and thinks: "Even in my inebriated state, I am shocked. She’s only just met him." She's IN HIS ARMS! She's probably PREGNANT now! Fuck's sake Ana. She also says that she has to talk to Kate before they leave, because "I need to do the safe sex lecture". Which is hilarious, because Kate's a grown-ass woman who, unlike Ana, has actually gotten the ride before. So no, Ana, you don't need to do the safe sex lecture, you TOTAL SAP.

And that concludes Volume 2. I'm tired now from being so mad at this book and everyone in it. I need a nap.

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 1)

I know. I know. But with all the talk of Fifty Shades of Grey and all I was hearing about repeated references to eye colour and the terrible writing in general, I kind of HAD to give it a whack. As it were. And I hated everyone in it and E.L. James for writing it and very nearly gave up on it more than once out of sheer BOREDOM, but powered through in order to comprehensively take the piss out of it here. I intended to make it a Sweet Valley High style post, but it's turned out to be super long because I didn't want to leave anything out and there's just SO MUCH to make fun of. I still haven't actually finished it (the big-ass post, that is), so I'm splitting it up into a few separate posts, of which this is the first. So let's do this.


Anastasia Steele is a fucking idiot and absolutely no craic whatsoever. She's about to finish college and has managed to get to that point without ever getting drunk, kissing anyone or fancying anyone. She mopes about how she doesn't fit in anywhere yet she has people falling over themselves to be her friend and two good looking male friends trying desperately to get into her boring knickers. A fact which she seems oblivious to because, in case I wasn't clear before, she's a FUCKING IDIOT. She also says really stupid things like how her stepfather Ray is "the reason I know the difference between a hawk and a handsaw". Apparently this was something that had to be explained to her.

Anyway, her roommate Kate, who is all no-nonsense and go-getting and says stuff like "capiche" (no one says capiche unless they're in a bad gangster film), needs her to fill in for her and interview mysterious CEO Christian Grey for the student newspaper. So instead of at least Googling this man she's about to interview and has never heard of before in her stupid life, Ana spends some time complaining about her unruly hair and her blue eyes "too big for her face" (because big eyes are, like, SO UNATTRACTIVE YOU GUYS).

When Ana enters Christian Grey's office building for the interview, E.L. James does the most hilariously terrible job of describing it, by saying the words "glass" and "steel" over and over AND FUCKING OVER.

"It's a huge twenty storey office building, all curved glass and steel, an architect's utilitarian fantasy, with Grey House written discreetly in steel over the glass front doors. It's a quarter to two when I arrive, greatly relieved that I'm not late as I walk into the enormous - and frankly intimidting - glass, steel and white sandstone lobby."

Seriously.

After waiting around for a bit, feeling inadeqaute and describing a token African-American man with dreads (of course), Ana makes her way into Grey's office when summoned and falls arse over tit in the door for no reason other than the fact that she's SO ENDEARINGLY CLUMSY. Grey helps her up and the very first physical description of him is "long-fingered".

Better get used to the idea, because his long fingers are mentioned NINETEEN times in this awful book.

We're told how young and attractive he is and Ana is now all flustered and makes a balls of setting up the recorder for the interview. She eventually gets her shit together and asks Kate's questions, whereupon he's all arrogant and self-assured and says stuff like "I'm a very wealthy man, Miss Steele, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies", which as Karen pointed out on Twitter, makes him sound like Ron Burgundy. They finish the interview, his eyes "blaze" a bit and then he as good as offers her a job as an intern, despite knowing precisely fuck all about her.

That Saturday, while Ana is at her part time job in a hardware shop - just as well she knows her hawks from her handsaws, so - Christian shows up with "a ghost of a smile on his lips". He's described that way four times during this book. I think his mouth is haunted.

Artist's impression of Christian Grey's mouth.

Also, his voice is "warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel... or something". Or something. Jesus Christ, it's like reading a lovesick fifteen year old's diary. Although saying that is actually an insult to lovesick fifteen year olds everywhere. I'm sorry lovesick fifteen year olds, you didn't deserve that.

He proceeds to buy cable ties, masking tape, rope and overalls, which doesn't at all make him sound like someone who has a cheerleader tied up in the back of a Ford Transit outside. Throughout the whole sorry endeavour, Ana is all fumbling and self-conscious and generally unable to interact with another human being properly. They arrange a photoshoot for Kate's article, an exchange during which "he looks lost somehow, and the Earth shifts slightly on its axis, the tectonic plates sliding into a new position". HOLY SHIT, CHRISTIAN GREY CAN CAUSE EARTHQUAKES.

At one point during his little spending spree on murder/kidnap paraphernalia, Ana's so embarrassed that she thinks to herself "I must be the color of the communist manifesto."

Oh really?

I wonder if that means that she was green, like the first edition? Or maybe her face went orange and stripey and a penguin appeared on her chin? Or maybe she DID just turn red, but there was a saucy black gradient around the edges of her face. She's SO talented.

Anyway, the day of the photoshoot arrives and Ana's friend José (one of the dude friends trying his hardest to bone her) has been coerced into being their photographer. Ana, Kate and José arrive at the agreed location, a hotel suite and when Grey walks in, Ana reacts like no one has ever worn a white shirt and grey pants before.

"Holy crap! He’s wearing a white shirt, open at the collar, and grey flannel pants that hang from his hips."

Something you should know about Christian Grey at this point, is that his pants are all too big for him. Every single pants-shaped thing he wears "hangs from his hips". You'd think a billionaire could afford clothes that fit. Also, yet another thing I hate about Ana is that she constantly says "crap" or "double crap". There's even a "triple crap" thrown in for good measure. It's incredibly annoying. As is her constant use of the word "jeez".

Appearances of the word "crap": 94 ("Holy crap" count: 41)
Appearances of the word "jeez": 81

It's fucking ridiculous.

And that's your lot for the moment kids. Stay tuned for Volume 2.

Suits You, Shaw

In today's Beaut.ie post, I mentioned that I really liked Prometheus. Yes, there's heaps of holes and unanswered questions that can be picked through after seeing it, but I really enjoyed watching it. Fassbender was great as a sexy robot and I think I held my breath for the entire alien abortion scene. Noomi Rapace's wobbly English accent and the fact that Guy Pearce was all dressed up like an elderly nutsack instead of just hiring an old dude actor were minor irritations (it turns out that Pearce's character was supposed to appear all young in a dream sequence that ended up being cut, so that's why he was all olded up as Weyland) but overall I was a happy cinema-goer.

The actual point of this post though, is to see if it was just me that thought Elizabeth Shaw in her jumpsuit...


...TOTALLY REMINDED ME OF...


...April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame! Incidentally, it's damn near impossible to get a decent picture of the original cartoon April, as a Google Images search for her just brings up creepy fan art of her with her rack bursting out of her clothes or bound and gagged for some reason. I guess that's the internet for you sometimes.

Land of the Five Dollar Shake

The other day I fell down the rabbit hole that was the amazing and absorbing thread on Reddit about fan theories. It's a great but rather long read, so naturally enough, bits and pieces from it were picked out and made a fuss of by other sites. Broadsheet covered one of my favourite ones, which deals with the universe that Quentin Tarantino's films take place in and neatly slots Inglourious Basterds into that universe's history, making it an alternate reality of sorts. I had actually read this theory before on Cracked.com, but managed to completely forget about it, so I got to be amazed all over again.

There have always been indicators that his films are connected, little threads like Red Apple cigarettes and Big Kahuna Burger have drifted by in the background pretty consistently.


Tarantino himself has said that Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs and Vincent Vega of Pulp Fiction are brothers and now it seems he's previously said that he considers From Dusk 'Til Dawn and Kill Bill as movies within that universe. I quite like this point in particular: "Kill Bill, after all, is basically Fox Force Five, right on down to Mia Wallace playing the title role." And it's completely right, once you swap out Budd for Sofie Fatale.


Mia: "Fox Force Five." Fox, as in we're a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in we're a force to be reckoned with. Five, as in there's one, two, three, four, five of us. There was a blonde one, Sommerset O'Neal from that show "Baton Rouge", she was the leader. A Japanese one, a black one, a French one and a brunette one, me.

SEE?

I really like all the little links and references, like Alabama from True Romance being mentioned in passing by Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs. There's also the fact that part of the landscape of Tarantino's Death Proof is the selection of Jungle Julia's billboards peppered along the roadsides promoting her weekday morning show on the local radio station. Each one has a theme of sorts, including...


...a Kill Bill parody, which further feeds into the idea of Kill Bill being part of that reality's pop culture. Ta dah!

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.

Sweet Valley High Revisited - All Night Long

Due to popular demand (and the fact that people keep telling me to hurry the feck up with these SVH posts) here I am, finally getting around to ripping the piss out of the next Sweet Valley High book in the Revisited series, book the fifth...

Sweet Valley High #5: All Night Long


This book cover promises so much, between the sexually loaded title, the fact that it's apparently all about sexually loaded Jessica and the STATE of the sexually loaded Freddie Mercury porn star dude on the cover. Unfortunately, and much like Jessica, this book is essentially a great big cock tease.

It starts off reasonably exciting, Jessica has been invited to a party at the lake by college boy Scott Daniels. Scott drives a red Firebird and has a MOUSTACHE so he's totally older and sophisticated and manly as fuck and all that. Mammy Wakefield has said she's not allowed to go because...y'know...LOOK AT HIM, but it being Jessica, she fabricates a cover story and goes anyway. Elizabeth does her usual bit of nagging, this time she's worried because the twins have a test the next morning which Jessica hasn't studied for yet and they have to pass it to become Sweet Valley tour guides. LAME.

As well as the exam, Elizabeth is freaking out about Jessica going out with a college student because Enid told her about how her cousin went to a college dorm party that got out of hand and was like "a grown up pyjama party, with everyone wearing nightshirts and nightgowns and the floor strewn with mattresses for them to sit on." OH MY GOD THOSE LUNATICS. I was at a party in college where we kicked a giant hole through a wall and spent the rest of the night drunkenly jumping through it and surprising people. Beat that, Enid. It was fine, the house was supposed to be demolished at the end of the year so the hole didn't matter. Until it turned out that it wasn't going to be demolished after all and the guys living there had to get it fixed. But back to Sweet Valley!

Jessica is out in the sunshine with the college kids, who are drinking beer and passing a joint around, so Jessica realises that "she'd gotten into the fast lane now" and to prove that she's not a baby and is just as sophisticated as the other girls, she throws mud at Scott. Right. Totally mature, Jess. Also, the book keeps mentioning Scott's moustache, just to remind us how grown-up he is. And there's this amazing sentence when he comes out of the lake: "Droplets of water clung to his moustache and his hair stood out in dark, wet ringlets." Holy shit, TAKE ME NOW, SCOTT.

Anyway, after the mud-flinging, he chases her around the beach and even though just two pages ago she thought to herself that "he wouldn't be so easy to fend off if they were alone" and his embrace is described as "disturbing" she agrees to go off to an isolated boathouse in the woods with him. Don't do what Jessie Don't does, kids.

Scott slips his hand down the back of her bikini bottoms (SAUCY!) and loosens the strings of her top (SUPER SAUCY!) but by now Jessica has realised she's in over her head and not in control of the situation. She tries to fight him off, but it all gets a little rapey and when he eventually stops pawing at her, the book wanders into victim blaming territory, where he sneers at her for coming with him to the boathouse in the first place and says no one will believe that she didn't want to get all sexed on. When she demands that he takes her home, he laughs and tells her the party's an all-nighter, then ditches her in the woods, but not before saying "just be glad it wasn't worse". TOTAL. GENTLEMAN. Jessica is left stumbling through the woods alone in her bikini and decides that it's all Elizabeth's fault. Because she's Jessica and she's CRAZY, remember? She eventually finds the college kids in a nearby cabin, but Scott is shitfaced and everyone else is off riding each other. There's no phone there so she can't call anyone to rescue her and Scott falls asleep while she's shouting at him for being a horrible jerk. I have no idea why she doesn't steal his car keys and get herself out of there, but she ends up sleeping miserably on the bare floor of the cabin, presumably still in her red string bikini.

Seriously, was this even a good look in the Eighties? What's got a creepy moustache and a rapey demeanour? THAT GUY.

From here the book takes something of a nosedive, as all the potentially interesting Jessica-being-a-psycho stuff is over and now it's all about Elizabeth covering for Jessica and we know what BAGS OF FUN she can be. For example, she wakes up the next morning from a dream where she's kissing her boyfriend (BORING) and makes a mental note to write "I rose from the warmth of my dreams to the chill dawn of reality" into her journal. Don't bother, Liz. Also, "chill dawn"? Really? Life must be SUCH a struggle when you're a ridiculously beautiful and popular sixteen year old living in a split level house in a California town where it never rains. Anyway, Elizabeth realises that Jessica still hasn't come home and figures she'll be in as much trouble as Jessica if their parents find out, so she goes downstairs and has breakfast as herself, then sneaks back upstairs and comes down again as Jessica. Alice Wakefield can't tell her daughters apart after sixteen years. MOTHER OF THE YEAR.

So Elizabeth spends the day at school switching between being herself and Jessica, depending on who she's with. She takes the tour guide test, which is on in the school for some reason, but when Jessica still hasn't turned up when her allotted time for taking the test arrives, Elizabeth decides to bail her out by taking it again as her. BUT right before it she has a big row with Todd, because he calls her out on being such a fucking doormat when it comes to her twin and tells her it's cheating if she takes Jessica's test. They break up during the argument and a distressed Elizabeth takes the test as Jessica but makes a balls of it due to all the emotional DRAMA.

Afterwards she bumps into Olivia Davidson, who I'm only mentioning because of the description of her: "Olivia was big on things like anti-nuke rallies and organic food. [...] Her lunches invariably consisted of things like wholegrain bread, meatless spreads and alfalfa sprouts." Such completely unnecessary detail! WHY, FRANCINE? Or ghostwriter, as the case most certainly is.

Anyway, Jessica eventually resurfaces and when she finds out that Elizabeth failed the test she took for her but passed her own, she freaks the fuck out and accuses her of failing on purpose so she could have Scott for herself. Which doesn't even make the tiniest bit of sense, but then again, a bit of Insane Jessica action is always entertaining. Everyone is cross with each other for a bit, but then Todd and Elizabeth make up and Jessica gets to retake the test because the teacher who was supervising could see "how sick" she was and figured that was why she flunked it. It seems the world just conspires against Jessica EVER learning her lesson. Although she does get a dose of poison oak from her wandering around the woods half naked and misses the big surfing competition at the end, the build-up to which barely made for a subplot throughout the book.

Notable outfit:
Dana Larson runs away with the trophy again, this time while rocking the following:

"An oversize t-shirt over a red-striped miniskirt, purple tights and black suede ankle boots. An enormous gold loop dangled from one pierced earlobe, the other sported a tiny silver star."

YES.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 117
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 4
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 3
References to Scott's moustache: 4
Number of times someone bites their lip: 4

Draw Baby Draw

At the end of April, the Bear and I finally got around to attending a Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School session, in this case Disco Inferno, which was spurred on by the news that founder and art superhero Molly Crabapple was going to be in town at the time and giving a talk the next day. The Bear kept pronouncing her name as Molly Krabappel all weekend because he just loves winding me up.

The mirrorball-strewn sketching session itself was tremendous fun, upstairs in 4 Dame Lane is a gorgeous venue and with €5 whiskey sours on the go, what more could you want? (Seeing as neither one of us had done life drawing since the Leaving Cert all those years ago, we practiced drawing each other while drawing each other a few days beforehand because we're SO GODDAMN META.) Once I settled into it and stopped panicking because the poses were only lasting a minute to begin with, I really enjoyed it and the three hour striptease (as host Scarlett Nymph referred to it) totally flew by. I used to be reasonably good at life drawing and this has made me want to scrape all the rust off and get much better at it.

Sade O'Sapphic and Sophia Disgrace were the disco diva models.

Some delightful drag king action from Phil T. Gorgeous. Note the dude in the red scarf, because that's Alan Cumming, who was there to film a documentary. ALAN CUMMING! Sebastian from The High Life and/or Nightcrawler! So brilliant.

The idea of Dr. Sketchy's is a brilliant and empowering one and it was fascinating listening to Molly herself explain at her talk the next day how the idea was formed. As a model herself, she was annoyed with how drawing class subjects were faceless and unnamed, with Female Nude Model #1 being the height of the credit they got. Dr. Sketchy's revolves around the models, they're the stars of the show, being whooped and cheered for every saucy pose they strike and deeming which sketches are to be rewarded with cupcakes or tequila shots.

As the poses got longer, my drawing got less frantic and I slowly got somewhat into the swing of things. The last two 20 minute pose sketches are the ones I'm happiest with, so they're the only ones of mine you get to see.


I was always going to love it though, something that can be described as a mix of art, burlesque and whiskey is like pulling my favourite things out of a sparkly top hat at random and having them all work spectacularly well together. The next Dr. Sketchy's session is Miss Havisham themed, which sounds utterly fantastic. It looks like I'm not going to make it to that particular one unfortunately, but you can bet your sexy ass I'll be at the one after that.

All session photos are from the Dr. Sketchy's site and were taken by Cherry Sedition.

Downstairs Cabaret

On a lazy Sunday a few weeks ago, I re-watched Coraline as it was being shown on telly. My favourite characters in this film have got to be the two batty old ladies living downstairs from the blue-haired heroine, former showgirls April Spink and Miriam Forcible. The pair are delightfully dotty, voiced by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and own a scatter of little Scottie dogs.


When Coraline goes through the door to the Other World, she meets the Other versions of Spink and Forcible, who put on a spectacular show for her and transform into their former younger and rather sexy selves.


But going back to the old lady versions of them, when they lead Coraline through their apartment, you can see posters on the walls of the saucy shows they performed back in their vaudevillian heyday, posters which I instantly demanded to get a proper look at at. BECAUSE THEY'RE GORGEOUS. And beautifully illustrated. And pun-tastic. And here they are!


Hot stuff, comin' through.

Also, I'm now writing for the very lovely Beaut.ie and the nostalgia-laden Where's Grandad? which goes some way to explain the frankly SHAMEFUL neglect of this blog for the last while. I'm sorry! Don't leave me!

The Walking Women

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AOOGA! SPOILER ALERT! 

If you haven't already seen series one and two of The Walking Dead and don't want it ruined for you then I suggest you skip this post. There's other ones there in the circles on the sidebar a bit further down that are about girls jumping out of cakes and Catwoman and fashion in Star Trek and all kinds of other stuff. Try some of those instead!

***

As you probably know by now, I quite enjoy a zombie tale or two, even though they scare the actual pants off me. I've been voraciously tearing my way through The Walking Dead comic series, whispering "Oh noooo!" to myself and quietly whimpering in fear as I turn the next page. If it was a pop-up book I'd probably have a heart attack. So naturally, the Bear and I watched the first two seasons of the TV show. Which I also enjoyed quite a lot, and yet there was something bothering me. Something other than Carl aka The Dumbest Child in the World aka "For Fuck's SAKE Carl!", who, incidentally is actually kind of cool and not the least bit annoying in the comic.


The something in question here is the bloody rampant sexism in the show. It's something that creeps into the comics too, which I have to say I didn't really notice while reading, but looking back on it there are quite a few instances of patriarchal bullshit. Such as Glenn remarking that there's "not that many women to go around". What the hell, Glenn? Women to go around? The women you speak of are participants in surviving the goddamn zombie apocalypse, just like you, not inanimate supplies or tins of beans to be distributed amongst the menfolk, you fuck. And I actually like Glenn. Most of the time. Although in the TV show, he did ask Dale if all the (understandably frazzled - what with the impending threat of zombies wanting to eat their faces) women were on their period at the same time, because, y'know, bitches be crazy and all.

Shut up Glenn.

Among those women survivors is Lori Grimes, wife of group leader Rick and mother to "For Fuck's SAKE Carl!". Comic book Lori undergoes something of a transformation, as at first she looks to be decidedly Native American but eventually morphs into a more Caucasian version of herself.


She's Rick's voice of reason and while she's not a particularly stand out character, she's not even half as awful as TV show Lori. TV show Lori is nagging, self righteous and generally an allstar pain in the hole. She gets up in everyone else's business and berates Andrea for having the cheek to not do all the washing up, childminding and laundry with all the other wimmin and wanting to guard the camp and shoot zombies in the face. Because it's not like EVERY DAMN PERSON in the camp should be learning to defend themselves and evenly dividing the group's duties between them. Oh no, according to Lori "the men can handle it anyway, they don’t need you". Go fuck yourself, Lori.


Andrea's a total badass in the comic books. She becomes the best shot in the group and keeps them all safe in her role as a superhero sniper. However, in the TV show, she has Dale confiscate her gun because he's decided she can't be trusted not to top herself, while For Fuck's Sake Carl!, a ten year old idiot, is allowed to carry a gun. She has angry sex with Shane, who is the kind of person who tried to rape Lori earlier on in the first series and then she shoots Darryl after mistaking him for a zombie. OH THAT SILLY WOMAN.

Further instances of the TV show females being lame include Carol clinging to her abusive husband and once he's killed off, clinging onto Darryl like a barnacle with very short grey hair and opts out of making any sort of decision when the group is trying to vote on what to do with their prisoner. Maggie entered the show swinging a baseball bat at the undead while galloping along on horseback, like a zombie-slaying superstar and now she's a hysterical mess, flinging Lori's morning after pills at her in in a rage shouting "Here's your abortion pills!" as part of a grim little pro-life slant. I mean, yes, she and Glenn got jumped by an undead bastard while on their run to the chemist, but that outburst and subsequent storyline (Rick being super angry at Lori for even considering the abortion attempt) rang pro-life to me. And if a zombie apocalypse isn't reason enough not to go through with a pregnancy then I'm fucked if I know what is.

There IS a ray of hope though. A katana-wielding, bandana-wearing, stone cold ass-kicking ray of hope. When Andrea was scrambling through the woods in the finale of the second series, she was saved from being an imminent zombie snack (zombie bag of Tayto, perhaps) by a mysterious hooded figure leading two armless, jawless walkers with chains around their necks. The hooded figure in question here is Michonne, and her entrance is super exciting, as she and Andrea are easily the strongest female characters in the comic series.


Danai Gurira has been cast in the role, so hopefully she'll be able to pull off Michonne's immesurably cool and devastating approach to zombie chopping and generally taking care of business.

Because this here on the left is how awesome Michonne is.

Somehow I don't see Lori lecturing Michonne on how she's supposed to be washing socks with her and Carol instead being amazing at decaptitating walkers. All that being said, I really do enjoy the show, the zombies are brilliantly done and spectacularly scary and I do like the fact that the storyline veers away from the comics from time to time, otherwise there'd be no surprises for the readers. I just wish the writers would cop the fuck on when it comes to the female characters and with Michonne and her giant can of whoop-ass, hopefully that's what will happen.

Wild Things

There was a time before celebrities had to give their babies mental-sounding names to show us how much better they are than us regular folk. A time before pesky possession of exotic animals laws were brought in. Which means a time when famous people could look cool as fuck parading their fancy wild animal pets around the place.

SUCH AS

Audrey Hepburn and her pet deer, out doing the weekly shop.
  Beatrix Potter with her pet rabbit (well OBVIOUSLY), named Benjamin Bouncer.

Legendary dancer/singer/actress/badass Josephine Baker with her pet cheetah Chiquita.

John Barrymore (Drew's grandad) looking awfully dapper with his pet monkey.

Another pet cheetah here, with American actress Phyllis Gordon doing a spot of window shopping.

Frida Kahlo chilling out with her per deer, Granizo. Which, according to totally reliable online translators, means "hailstones". Cute!

Salvador Dali with his pet anteater. Of course. He'd hardly have a pet Jack Russell now, would he?

And finally, what has to be my absolute favourite of these photos...

Burlesque superstar Zorita, OUT WALKING her pet snake. That's right, she's taking a SNAKE for a WALK. Because Zorita doesn't give a FUCK.

Lots more brilliant ones over at Retronaut. I would now like a pet ocelot, please.