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.

Every Sperm Is Sacred

Earlier this year, my lovely friend Sam met some American nuns in a chipper during the Eucharistic Congress. He took their picture because I think we could all agree that a photo of nuns in proper old school habits waiting for a batter burger in a chip shop would be deadly. It was. He subsequently emailed it to them, but then ended up on a mailing list and was sent an anti contraception video by the order. In the meantime, the video has done the rounds online, appearing on Jezebel and The Huffington Post and it is genuinely the MOST INSANE thirteen and a half minutes you will ever experience IN YOUR LIFE.


Now I'd be the first person to say balls to that on seeing that a YouTube clip was running anything over three minutes and doesn't even feature a cat doing something cute, but SERIOUSLY, stick with it because you will not regret watching this entire thing. Although you might get a pain in your face from laughing and pulling faces of disbelief. I know I did.



So let's have a little look at these alleged truth bombs being dropped all up on us by the good sisters, shall we?

According to the video, women who take contraceptives don't give off sexy fertility pheromones any more, so the menfolk are all confused.

"What is a man to do when the majority of women are contracepting and he no longer finds them desirable?"

Aha! So THIS is why no-one fancies anyone anymore and everyone in the world has stopped having sex, right? Finally, the truth! However, contracepting is not a word.

"Contracepting women degrade themselves through immodest dress and action in an attempt to attract men who are confused from a lack of fertile women." (Seriously, not an actual word.)


Those WHORES. With their slutty wine and their slutty make-up, painting their GODLESS FACES. And you'd think that if they're going to degrade themselves they could at least do it in a decent pair of shoes.

Now, before you laugh off the video's claims like the feckless tramp you undoubtedly are, they're about to drop some SCIENCE on you. In the seventies, a researcher injected some lady monkeys with a contraceptive, which caused the alpha male to stop being attracted to them. Then ALL the lady monkeys were injected and as a result, the alpha male started having GAY MONKEY SEX because he lost interest in all the females. So if your boyfriend is a chimpanzee and you're taking the Pill, then congratulations you hussy, you've just turned your monkey boyfriend GAY. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Also, your pill will KILL YOU.

If you're trying to be serious, maybe fluorescent pink isn't the best choice.

"It is impossible to calculate the number of deaths due to contraception because mortality is often attributed to another cause."

Like, say, oh I don't know... the ACTUAL cause?

But nevermind all that, because just taking the pill in the morning means that you're KILLING BABIES. Don't you see that preventing an egg from becoming fertilised is THE EXACT SAME as trampling over newborns every day and stabbing them in the heart with the heels of your whore shoes? WELL IT IS. BECAUSE SCIENCE.

"It's impossible to calculate how many millions of babies have died [from women using contraceptives]."

But wait! There's more! Those fiendish contraceptabots are peeing oestrogen into the water supply and making everyone infertile! Surely a fate worse than neon pink DEATH!

I'm not sure what's more offensive, every claim made by this video, or the fact that they had the audacity to use the Jurassic Park typeface.

By the way, that scrolling Star Wars list reads: adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted disease, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted disease and promiscuity. So good they listed everything thrice. In case you missed any of them the first time around.

Something else this video taught me is that placing the word FACT in front of any old bullshit automatically MAKES IT TRUE.

Exhibit A:


According to the video everyone in the WORLD could live in Texas quite comfortably. WHAT A GOSH DARN RELIEF, GUYS. I'm off to get my cowboy hat and see if JR Ewing will put me up in Southfork.

There's also a great part where they bring up different birth rates for countries. Apparently Japanese people are in danger of becoming extinct. Then there's the statistics for each country and the USA one is particularly great.


Because ewww brown babies don't count, obviously.

So, there's not enough babies in the world and selfish trampy women deciding that they want to get the ride and not be knocked up are ruining everything. However, if you DO want a baby but have to use IVF, well God is STILL mad at you.You seriously cannot win with these nuns.

"This creation of life comes with a price. For every single child born, thirty are created. The other twenty nine are either killed or frozen."

IVF IS KILLING SPARE BABIES. Except they're not actually babies at all, but let's not allow logic or facts to get in the way here.

Oh and because of this "birth control mentality" (i.e. doing what you like and not being constantly pregnant), some guy in California fucks his dogs and it's our fault for some reason.

Wait a second, they weren't talking about doggy style at all! They want to have sex with tigers and bonobo monkeys! Those crafty BASTARDS!

One of the most jaw-dropping quotes from the video (and there are SO FUCKING MANY of those) is the following:

"If you had a valuable racehorse, because of its worth, you'd want it to have as many offspring as possible. But the value of a horse is nothing compared to the infinite value of each and every person."


Oh and this one is pretty good too: "We're not stray cats that need to be neutered. We should want to procreate."

Ladies! You're more important than racehorses and you're not cats and as such you must be pregnant AT ALL TIMES or God will smite you right in the vagina. And then you'll be sorry.

Also, this:


Yeah, let that sink in, sluts. Welcome to Deathtown, population: YOU.

I have to say, I sure hope the voiceover lady was seconds away from going into labour while recording for this video, or at the very least she should have been heavily pregnant while breastfeeding one of her eight small children. Otherwise, she's no better than us contraceptive-using, non-pregnant floozies, right? Right!

Quelque Chose #18

In 1932, at the age of 22, an Irish girl called Margaret Kelly was a showgirl and choreographer at the Folies Bergère in Paris. She was nicknamed "Miss Bluebell", because of her striking blue eyes and created her own dance group, called the Bluebell Girls. She employed the tallest girls she could find, often recruiting classical dancers who has grown too tall to become professional ballerinas. In 1948, she moved the Bluebell Girls to the Lido and was notoriously protective of them, as rich men quite liked the idea of having a Bluebell Girl for a wife. She often repeated the line "My girls are my girls." To this day, the Bluebell Girls still dance at the Lido, an apparently unmatched record of longevity in show business.

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.

Brief Exchange - Wait, Put Your Pants Back On!

I recently took part in an exhibition organised by my brilliant friend Noeleen, called Brief Exchange. Rest assured there was no knicker swapping involved, as the idea here was for a group of 23 designers/illustrators/whatever you're having yourself-ers to each write a brief for a poster design. The briefs were then mixed up and distributed to the group, so everyone had a new brief to work on. It was a huge amount of fun and the resulting exhibition enjoyed a great run in both Cork and Dublin. So now that the posters are coming down this evening, I decided to post my design here.

The brief I was given was to redesign one of the Top 10 Worst Album Covers Of All Time, which included delights such as Prince's wistful, elfin (oh, and NAKED) form reclining on some flowers on the cover of Lovesexy and Millie Jackson straining with her knickers around her ankles (with one shoe in her hand for some unknown reason) while sitting on the jacks for the charmingly titled Back to the Shit.

Also on the list however, was Michael Jackson's HIStory. It was an obvious choice for me, seeing as I love Michael Jackson. When we were younger, my brother and I used to call each other for dinner by singing it in the air of Thriller. i.e. "DINNERRRR! Diiinnerrrtime!" And neither of us are quite over the fact that Mam told us she was going to a Civil Defence meeting in 1992 when she was actually going to the Dublin date of the Dangerous World Tour without us. BETRAYAL. We were only small at the time, but still. BETRAYAL.

Anyway, here's my poster:


I ran with the slightly Soviet feel that the big statue on the old cover gave off, along with making it a sort of gallery of his most iconic looks from over the years. I was really happy with the end result, even though I ended up in a bit of a panic, as we had two months to get it done, so I was all "Oh, there LOADS of time sure, I don't need to start yet...OHJESUSTHERE'SAWEEKLEFT."

I think I'm particularly happy with the Smooth Criminal and Bad era Michaels. I like the Smooth Criminal one because it's so simple and I actually like the Bad one for the opposite reason, because it was so bloody complicated, what with the four million belts and buckles he was wearing.


So that was my poster for the project. The brief that I wrote for it was to design a public information poster dealing with zombie attacks, which went to Alan B, an absolutely brilliant illustrator. He took it in a great direction and designed a poster to publicise a book for children about dealing with the post-apocalyptic issue of zombie relatives, called Uncle Fred Undead! He knocked it out of the fucking park and I think you'll agree:


Super deadly, am I right? If you want to have a look at all 23 posters from the exhibition, there's an album on Facebook here.

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 12)

Well now, would you look at that! I've actually, finally made it to the end of the bucket of shite that is Fifty Shades of Grey. Thanks a million to everyone for all the brilliant comments, tweets and emails, you've been deadly. So here we go, the home straight, Volume 12.

Catch up: Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.


Now then. Where was I? Ah yes, Christian has just informed Ana that he can't make it to dinner at her mother's house, as he has to go back to Seattle because he has a "situation" to deal with.

The last ‘situation’ he had was my virginity. Jeez, I hope it’s nothing like that.

JEEZ and HOLY FUCK Ana, me too. One ridiculous virgin bitch is quite enough to be dealing with. There is only so much hatred I can handle, after all. The word "situation" gets used so much here that I start to wonder if he's got a meeting with this guy:

They could start a company together. Douchebag & Cuntface Inc. Their business plan is too piss off EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.

That afternoon, Ana is relaxing by the pool and we're met by another sentence that enraged me the exact amount as that awful "I take a moment to admire the pretty" one back in Volume 6 did.

"As I lie in the sun, endeavoring to lose the pale, I think about yesterday evening and breakfast today."

Endeavouring to lose the pale. THE PALE. Well fuck me Anastasia, you're looking well for a wan who ruled 15th century Dublin and wished to relinquish that control by constantly sunbathing, because that is THE ONLY WAY ANY PART OF THAT SENTENCE MAKES ANY FUCKING SENSE.

Goddammit EL James, what the fuck did the English language ever do to you to deserve this?

Anyway, Ana starts to wonder why Christian is suddenly so willing to try "more" (gag) with her and what could have changed his mind about it. Then she remembers that he had dinner with Elena and goes into an utterly inexplicable rage because HOW VERY DARE SHE help Ana get exactly what she has wanted this whole time. THAT DEVIOUS WENCH. There's another three pages of emails where she asks him to tell her what it was that she said in her sleep, he says no, blah blah blah, she gets all annoyed and thinks how he's "Fifty shades of exasperating". Fifty Shades of DIE IN A FUCKING FIRE.

Appearances of the phrase "fifty shades": 14


Ana gets dropped off at the airport by her mother and Bob. She sits down on the plane and starts thinking about how her mother reckons Christian is in love with her but she doesn't think Christian is properly capable of love. She uses the phrase "my mother’s words waft like a zephyr through my mind" and the existence of this book wafts like a fart through my life.

According to her, being into BDSM and a spot of bondage means you hate yourself and feel like you don't deserve to be loved, which seems like an outrageously insulting thing to say about people who partake in such sexual endeavours. Ana emails Christian to update him on the fact that she's sitting down, so they go back and forth for seven emails about fuck all, where the only thing we learn is that "the situation could be better".

Appearances of the word "situation": 22 (That's just excessive.)

Ana realises that the only empty seat in first class is the one beside her, which was also the case when she was flying out to Georgia.

"I shake my head as the thought crosses my mind that Christian might have purchased the adjacent seat so that I couldn’t talk to anyone. I dismiss the idea as ridiculous – no one could be that controlling, that jealous, surely."

Hey, maybe she's just been sleepwalking her way through the entire relationship up to this point, because I can't begin to imagine that anyone could actually be that fucking stupid.


Ana eventually gets to Christian's place and he immediately demands that they take a shower together, but they end up fucking against the wall. Right before this though, he does the following:

"He steps out of his shoes and reaches down to take each of his socks off, never taking his eyes off me."

This line makes me burst out laughing every time I read it, because someone staring at you while they take their socks off is fucking hilarious to me and I honestly have no idea why. Possibly because I keep thinking of how they would end up hopping forward on one foot and trying not to faceplant into the floor during the process. Afterwards, they get into the shower and Ana ruins the sexy moment by bringing up José The Potential Rapist's photography exhibition and asks Christian if he'd like to come with her to it. He grudgingly agrees to go and Ana mentions how he seems to be "on the jealous side" when it comes to José.  

“Yes, I am,” he says darkly. “And you’d do well to remember that."

FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR, GREY.

After they've eaten dinner, Christian tells Ana that he wants her to be ready and waiting in his playroom in fifteen minutes. While she's waiting for him to come in, she gets nervous about what he's going to do with her.

"After the last few days… after all he’s done, I have to man up and take whatever he decides he wants, whatever he thinks he needs."

NO YOU FUCKING DON'T. YOU DIDN'T ASK HIM TO UPGRADE YOU TO FIRST CLASS OR FUCKING FLY TO GEORGIA AFTER YOU LIKE A TOTAL PSYCHO SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GROW A GODDAMN SPINE.

Holy fuckballs, it's like feminism never happened.

He goes over the safewords that they have agreed on if she wants him to stop at any point. Once that's all sorted, he ties her to the bed, puts a blindfold and headphones on her, so she can't see or hear what he's doing and while he explains to her that he'll be able to hear what she's listening to on the headphones, he holds up "a small, flat device that looks like a very hip calculator".

ALSO KNOWN AS A FUCKING REMOTE CONTROL. CHRIST.

There's a bit of light flogging and Ana comes like a motherfucker, as she is wont to do. Later on, she wakes up alone in Christian's bed at five in the morning and finds Christian playing sad music on his piano. She tries to get him to talk about his childhood, he decides he wants to fuck on the piano, she decides she wants to talk about their relationship and the contract. He says the contract is moot at this point and he just wants her to follow the rules section of it. She asks what will happen if she breaks one of the rules. He says she'll be punished but that he'll need her permission to punish her.

She asks "What if I say no?" and he replies “If you say no, you’ll say no. I’ll have to find a way to persuade you.”

OR HEY, HOW ABOUT THIS: YOU BACK THE FUCK OFF AND RESPECT HER WISHES FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, YOU UTTER TURD OF A HUMAN.


Ana rolls her eyes at this, which gives Christian a raging horn because according to his logic, now he gets to spank her. She has already told him that she really REALLY doesn't like to be spanked, so she runs around the room with him chasing her, acting all coy and teasing him even though she's genuinely trying to get away from him and not just playing along. I honestly have no idea why she does this. Although, nothing else in this book makes sense so there's hardly any point complaining about it this late in the game.

She tells him that she feels about spanking the way he fells about her touching him. This upsets him greatly, so she backtracks a bit and tries to explain that she's worried that he'll hurt her if he's punishing her. He says he wants and needs to hurt her, but not beyond anything she can take and he won't tell her why this is because he's afraid she'll leave him. Oh and apparently Ana begged him not to leave her in her sleep. That's what has been building up for the last few chapters, a big pile of nothing. And for fuck's sake, what kind of idiot bases their relationship on something the other person said IN THEIR SLEEP? YOU'RE A FUCKING TOOL CHRISTIAN.

So Ana decides that she wants him to punish her and to show her how bad it can get, because she's labouring under the delusion that if she does this for him then she'll be able to CHANGE him or SAVE him or some such bollocks. He's - understandably - completely confused by this and repeatedly asks her if she's sure, she repeatedly says yes, EVEN THOUGH SHE'S NOT and he tells her he's going to hit her on the arse six times with a belt. So he does it and it sounds horrible and she's screaming and crying from the second blow onwards, instead of using the safewords he had drilled into her just a few hours ago.

When he's finished, he tries to comfort her and she freaks the fuck out, because she's furious with him, even though she ASKED HIM TO DO THIS. For once, this is actually not completely Christian's fault. She calls him a fucked up son of a bitch and stiffly storms off to her room and bawls her eyes out crying. She's all distraught and reckons she needs to leave him but doesn't want to and thinks stuff like "Oh, this is a dark morning of the soul for me" because she's the worst female character ever written in anything, ever.

He eventually follows her into the room all sad and tells her she should leave him, she says she doesn't want to and that she loves him, he's "horrified" (because he doesn't deserve love, I guess?) and says he can't make her happy, she says he DOES make her happy (which flies in the face of THE ENTIRE BOOK SO FAR seeing as all she's done is cry and be confused about everything) but she eventually makes up her mind and packs up her shit.

She gives Christian back the laptop, Blackberry and car keys, which also horrifies him. Then he tells her that Taylor will drive her home, she refuses and with "barely-contained fury" he says "Are you going to defy me at every turn?" At which point I think to myself, GO FUCKING FUCK YOURSELF, GREY. It's bad enough that he controlled her every move while they were together, but thinking that he can keep doing it when they're breaking up is just taking the piss. Who the fuck does he think he is?

The remaining few paragraphs of the book contain possibly the most hilariously melodramatic writing of all time. When she's getting into the lift to leave the apartment, it doesn't just go down to the basement, oh no. 

"It whisks me down to the bowels of the basement and to my own personal hell." 

Reading this book has been MY own personal hell.

"Embarrassment and shame washes over me. I’m a complete failure."

YES. YOU ARE. AT EVERYTHING. INCLUDING BEING A RELATABLE, LIKEABLE CHARACTER THAT I COULD GIVE A TWIRLY FUCK ABOUT.

"I had hoped to drag my Fifty Shades into the light, but it’s proved a task beyond my meager abilities."

So is understanding the concept of a remote control.

"The enormity of what I’ve done slowly washes over me. Shit – I’ve left him. The only man I’ve ever loved."

She met him ONE MONTH AGO.

"I fall onto my bed, shoes and all, and howl. The pain is indescribable… physical, mental… metaphysical… it is everywhere, seeping into the marrow of my bones."

METAPHYSICAL PAIN, YOU GUYS. She's so incredibly sad that she's completely given up on making any fucking sense AT ALL.

And that's it. The book ends with her throwing herself on her bed, clutching a deflated helicopter shaped balloon and crying her fucking face off. THE END.

References to Christian's eyes being grey: 102
References to Christian's pants hanging from his hips: 7

Appearances of the word "blush": 34
Appearances of the word "flush": 94

Amount of times I had to put this book down and say "Oh for FUCK'S SAKE" in an exasperated manner: 4,583 (Probably.)

So there you have it. A terrible story with a terrible message, terrible characters and a terrible ending. It was originally supposed to be called Master of the Universe. Sound familiar? Well it should, because Masters of the Universe is basically He-Man. You know what would have made a better story with a better message and better characters?

ANY STORY ABOUT HE-MAN.

Fifty Shades Of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 11)

So here's the thing. I'm still in third place in Best Blog Post. I made it into second place yesterday for a while, which was deadly and quite exciting indeed, but unfortunately I slipped back to third again by the evening. I had been nominated for Best Humour Blog and Best Pop Culture Blog too, which was brilliant, but then the shortlists were announced during the week and I didn't make the cut on either one, which was quite disappointing. So Best Post is now my only shot at an award and I have to say, I really bloody want one. It's not a particularly cool thing to say, but there you go. Also, the two people ahead of me have been shortlisted, so they have other chances to win. I don't. So if you enjoy these ragey Fifty Shades posts of mine, then PLEASE VOTE and you can vote once a week. And again, if I win, I'll read and review Fifty Shades Fucking Worse.

Catch up: Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.


So Ana predictably follows Christian up to his hotel room after knocking back the last of her Cosmo with her mother. For some reason, he greets her with "complete surprise". He's also bossing various people around on the phone, which gives Ana the opportunity to describe the hotel room to us.

"The furnishings here are ultra modern, very now. All muted dark purples and golds with bronze starbursts on the walls."

It sounds fucking horrible. This is meant to be a fancy suite in an expensive hotel in Georgia and it sounds like my how I painted my bedroom when I was fourteen.

Once he gets off the phone, she asks for an answer to her question and it turns out that no, he didn't love Mrs Robinson so she can calm the fuck down. Ana still wants to talk but Christian is just TOO DAMN SEXY so they end up boning instead. How and ever, Ana started her period yesterday, so he leads her into the bathroom, strips her off, gropes her a bit and then and then...

"He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string...what! And... gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet."

WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING FUCK.



If that was me, he'd be getting a roundhouse kick to the face for that while he was down there. FUCK away OFF, you creepy fucking FUCK. JESUS. However, Ana being Ana, she's all "holy fuck" and "oh my" as per usual. Anyway, he rides her and conveniently waits until afterwards to ask her if having period sex bothers her. SOUND. It turns out it doesn't bother her, which seems a bit strange seeing as she can't even say the word "sex" out loud without congratulating herself.

Afterwards, Ana notices small round scars on his chest and realises that they're from cigarette burns. She immediately asks if it was Mrs Robinson who did it to him, rather than, say, the crack whore biological mother he mentioned that one time and that was never brought up again. Christian gets all huffy and cross, telling her it wasn't Mrs Robinson and getting her to drop the subject when she refers to her as "Mrs Pedo". More sex, more boring chit-chat, this time about how he's paid for sex in the past, and when Ana gets all pouty because she doesn't have anything to shock him with, he reminds her how shocked he was when she wore his underpants and when she met his parents with no knickers on. My GOD, she's such a rampaging WHORE. Eventually, they go the fuck to sleep and despite the fact that she's just found out that Christian has had WAY more sexual partners than she first thought and has just told her he's paid for sex in the past, Ana has NEVER been happier in ALL HER STUPID LIFE.

The next chapter begins with a dream where Christian is in a cage, "his chest and feet are mouthwateringly naked" and he's holding a bowl of strawberries. Mouthwateringly naked feet might be the most unsexy image I've encountered since whatever the last unsexy thing in this book was, and honestly, who the fuck can keep count? It's like EL James is on a mission to ruin sex for everyone. He tries to give Ana a strawberry, only she's tethered by some unseen force and can't reach him and IT'S JUST SO DAMN MYSTERIOUS, WHAT COULD IT ALL POSSIBLY MEAN?

She's woken up from her dream by Christian, who wants her to get up because he has a surprise for her. She whines that she wants to take a shower but he doesn't let her because apparently he'll just want to have one with her and they'd end up fucking and they don't have time for that. She's SO unreasonable, doesn't she realise that he has no control over his dick? POOR CHRISTIAN.

They get into the car waiting for them outside and Christian tells Ana to choose some music, as the opera they were listening to was too depressing. Ana puts on Toxic by Britney Spears and there's this awful "Toxic, eh?", "I don't know what you mean" bullshit exchange, before he tells her that he didn't put it on his iPod, Leila did. Turns out Leila is an ex-sub of his who he finished with because she wanted "more" and he didn't. You see, he NEVER wanted more until he met Ana and her magical vagina. Also, it turns out that Mrs. Robinson is actually called Elena and for some reason this makes her even more of a threat in Ana's head, because now she's "all foreign-sounding". Wow.

They arrive at an airfield and Christian announces that they're going to "chase the dawn", as if anyone in real life who isn't an utter tossbucket talks like that. It turns out that he's going to take her flying in a glider. She looks around and describes the sky, behind "childlike clouds", which would be...clouds that look like babies? Yeah? Anyway, he gets her into her seat and she keeps going on about how bossy he is, which is normally true, but to be fair, he's an experienced pilot and she hasn't got a fucking clue what she's supposed to be doing so I'll give him this one. They get in the air and it's all lovely and peaceful and what have you. And just in case you were wishing that Ana would compare herself to Icarus again (seeing as she hardly EVER mentions it), there's this, just for you:

"The plane banks and turns as the wing dips, and we spiral toward the sun. Icarus. This is it. I am flying close to the sun, but he’s with me, leading me. I gasp at the realization."


I gasp at how fucking terrible this entire thing is. I need someone to construct a face for this book so I can punch it.

Afterwards they go for breakfast and bore me to tears with their talk of "more" and "I love that you want more" and so on. Ana then asks if she can treat him to his pancakes and his response is just hilarious, while also neatly summing up what an absolute tool this character is.

“Are you trying to completely emasculate me?”

I very nearly fell off my chair laughing at that part. She wants to pay for PANCAKES, not your mortgage, so chill the fuck out. Her not wanting to feel like a freeloading hooker is NOT ACTUALLY an affront to your manly manliness. Imagine, women wanting to PAY for stuff! As if they were EQUALS or something! Madness!

He drives her back to her mother's house without asking what her address is. "He knows it already, stalker that he is. When he pulls up outside the house, I don’t comment. What’s the point?" The POINT, Anastasia, is that STALKING IS NOT SOME CUTE AFFECTATION, YOU ABSOLUTE UNBRIDLED IDIOT.

She thanks him for the "more" and gets out of the car and there are claw marks on my desk from these fuckers constantly using the word "more" as a noun. Ana goes to her room and kicks off another email merry-go-round of assholery, where Christian mentions that she's been talking in her sleep and Ana promptly freaks out, wondering what it was she said. Even though everyone who isn't a raging moron knows that ALL sleep talking is absolute nonsense and has bollock all to do with how you actually feel about anything. For example, one time when the Bear was falling asleep, he mumbled "Do pandas....have tails like worms?" So shut up Ana.

She goes food shopping with her mother, to get stuff for dinner that night, which Christian is meant to be coming over for. Her phone rings and it's a job offer from the second place she had an interview for. When she hangs up, she tells her mother that she's gotten a job.

“Congratulations, darling! We have to buy some champagne!” She’s clapping her hands and jumping up and down. Is she forty-two or twelve?

You know what, FUCK YOU Ana. For all her innocent and shy and "Oh I'm absolutely clueless about everything except English literary heroines" schtick, she's actually a right little bitch. Her mother is excited for her and all she can do is sneer at the manner in which she is being happy for her daughter. What an absolute wagon.

Anyway it turns out that while she was on the phone, she missed a call from Christian, so she rings him back. "“Hi,” I murmur shyly." Fucking speak up, you murmuring twat. It transpires that Christian has to go back to Seattle because of some "situation" or other and can't make dinner. And while we're on the "murmuring" thing, I think it's high time we had ourselves a little word count.

Appearances of the word...

"Mutter": 50
"Mumble": 12
"Murmur":100 (ONE. HUNDRED.)
"Gasp": 46
"Whisper": 100 (WHAT THE FUCK)

How the Jaysus does anyone hear what anyone is saying in this monumentally stupid book with all this mumbling and whispering and gasping? SERIOUSLY. Fucking ri-goddamn-diculous.

(Please vote for me! Thank you!)

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 10)

Thanks everybody who voted for me in the Blog Awards! You can vote once a week, so any more votes you could throw my way would be HUGELY appreciated. (Click here for the voting page.) I had a lovely big leap in votes the last time I posted, but now I'm about 300 votes behind the leader, so another jump would be AMAZING. And the deal from last time still stands, if I somehow manage to win this thing, then I'll read and review Fifty Shades Darker and get furious with it here and invent new swearwords to describe Christian and Ana for your entertainment. I PROMISE.

Catch up: Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.


Ana eventually arrives in Georgia without the plane crashing, despite the fact that she left her Blackberry on the whole time in order to covertly check her emails like a selfish bitch to whom the rules don't apply. She meets her mother at the airport and immediately starts crying. This is the eighth time she has burst into tears so far and it's by no means the last.

They go to the beach together and Ana's mother asks her to tell her about this man that has her "in such a spin". "How can she tell?" wonders a typically bewildered Ana, when really it's hardly rocket science since every time she's spoken to her so far in the book she's been bawling crying. "He’s very complicated and mercurial." says Ana. Mercurial. Who the fuck talks like that to their mother?

"Well, how's things with this new fella of yours?"
"Jaysus Mam, he's fierce mercurial altogether."

Right.

Let's have ourselves a little word count as to the ways in which Christian is described throughout the book.

Mercurial: 5
Beguiling: 3
Handsome: 5
Hot: 13 ("freaking hot": 4)
Beautiful: 30
A despicable psychotic fuckface: 0

Anyway, Ana's mother gives her some stupid fucking advice that isn't "ditch him, because he's a horrible person with no respect for you, your wishes or your privacy", but some bullshit about taking him literally instead of wondering what he means all the time.

"I gaze at my mom. She is on her fourth marriage. Maybe she does know something about men after all."

The more I read this sentence the less sense it makes.


Later that day, as she's getting dressed for dinner at a golf club with her mother and her mother's husband Bob, she exchanges some more emails with Christian that make me roll my eyes more times than the entire cast of this book have, combined. (That's twenty nine, in case you were interested.) It's basically the lamest cybersex ever, consisting of one-line emails about him unzipping her dress and the pair of them changing the subject line of each email to "Panting", then "Groaning" and finally "Moaning", before Ana has to leave for dinner and right before I've chewed my arm off in annoyance.

Oh, and just in case you were under the illusion that Ana might actually be wearing her own damn clothes for once, when she comes out of her room, her mother says she looks lovely and the following conversation occurs:

“Oh, this is Kate’s dress. You like it?”
Her frown deepens.
“Why are you wearing Kate’s dress?”

EXACTLY, ANA'S MA. EXACTLY.

“I’ll take you shopping tomorrow,” she says.
“Oh, Mom, you don’t need to do that. I have plenty of clothes.”

Well in that case, stop borrowing Kate's stuff you FUCKING LIAR. The fact that she gets her knickers in a twist over Christian constantly buying expensive things for her might be a little more believeable if she wasn't CONSTANTLY fucking sponging off Kate.

When they get back from dinner, the monotonous email exchange kicks off again, with Christian finishing off by saying he's meeting an old friend for dinner. Ana immediately freaks out because he's probably meeting "Mrs. Robinson", the older woman that seduced him when he was fifteen, who he's now friends with. She does a Google search for Christian in an attempt to find a picture of her and scrolls through EIGHTEEN pages of results like a total fucking nutjob.

During her search, she comes across the photos of Christian that José took for the student paper and wonders "How did they get on the Internet?", because she's a fucking moron. She also finds a picture of herself with Christian that was taken at her graduation and thinks "Holy cow! I’m on Google!". Please just let me physically reach into this book so I can choke a bitch. She emails him asking who he's having dinner with and "despondently" goes to bed, like the melodramatic pain in the hole she is.

The next day, after going shopping (let's see if she actually wears anything she owns now), Ana and her mother go for cocktails in a fancy hotel. While her mother is in the bathroom, Ana checks her emails and finds one from Christian, confirming that it was Mrs. Robinson he had dinner with. This sends Ana off into another ridiculous rage, prompting her to angrily order another Cosmopolitan and send him an unhinged message that goes like this:

She’s not just an old friend.
Has she found another adolescent boy to sink her teeth into?
Did you get too old for her?
Is that the reason your relationship finished?

His reply is positively chilling.

This is not something I wish to discuss via email.
How many Cosmopolitans are you going to drink?

FUUUUUUUUUCK! He tracked her down and is IN THE HOTEL!

My reaction.

Ana's reaction.

She actually thinks to herself "He's really here - for me.", whereas I'd be thinking "Holy fucking Christbags, he's here to murder me." Words cannot describe how much of a twat this girl is. She introduces her mother to him as Carla, and he immediatey calls her Mrs. Adams, when even WE didn't know what Bob's surname was until this point. This man is fucking TERRIFYING.

Anyway, Carla practically wets herself when Christian smiles at her, instead of slamming a mallet into his balls for stalking her daughter halfway across the country and making her cry all the fucking time. Next thing, Ana is suddenly worried that he'll be mad at her for having a drink with her mother.

"We decided on a few cocktails this evening", I mutter, feeling that I owe him some sort of explanation.

YOU DON'T OWE HIM AN EXPLANATION YOU GOWL, YOU'RE A GROWN FUCKING WOMAN. Carla invites him to have dinner with them the following evening and excuses herself so the two of them can talk. Ana goes back to being mad at him for seeing Mrs. Robinson, he explains that they're just friends and that she was a good thing for him at the time and what he needed, and not an evil paedophile like Ana keeps insisting she is. She asks him if he was in love with her, but he doesn't get to answer because Carla has just returned.  

"Did he love her? I think if he did, I will lose it, big time."

Because HOW DARE HE have loved someone over TEN YEARS before he ever met Ana. The absolute CHEEK of some people. Christian says goodbye to them and goes back to his room. Carla reckons he's a catch and doesn't seem at all concerned by the fact that he's a stalker because when you're rich and good looking that kind of behaviour is totally romantic, obviously. She even fans herself "theatrically" and says "the UST in here - it's unbearable". I had to look up what UST means. The first result is University of Santo Tomas in the Phillipines, but I suppose it's hardly that. The fourth result seems more likely, and it's an entry in the Urban Dictionary.

"Unresolved Sexual Tension. Abreviation used in fanfiction, mainly for X-Files stories, to describe the status in a relationship."

Ah, OF COURSE. You know who reads X-Files fanfiction? NO ONE.*

*Alright, that's probably not entirely true, but you get my point. 

(Also, please vote!)

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery (Vol. 9)

Apologies for the lack of posting last week folks, I'm on holidays from work at the moment and was busy having fun in Belfast, bouncing up and down to Foo Fighters. Anyway, exciting news! Volume 1 of Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery has been nominated for Best Blog Post in the Irish Blog Awards! It's a public vote and you can vote once a week. I'm pretty far behind at the moment but I'd really appreciate it if you could throw a vote my way. Aaaand seeing as I'm so far back right now, if by some mad miracle I manage to catch up and actually win, I PROMISE that I'll review Fifty Shades Darker. Until now I had figured that the risk of it making me want to jam a pen in my eye would be too high, but if I win, I'll bloody well take that risk. You can vote here or there's a link over there on the sidebar. So, onwards to Volume 9!

Catch up: Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.


So after Christian and Ana are done gnawing on each other's faces in the lift, they head for bed. Christian removes Ana's dress "like a magician" i.e. pulls it over her head. Ana then decides that she doesn't want "to fuck", as Christian puts it, but wants to "make love". Urgh. Not only that, she also wants to touch him, which he never lets her do because he's all weird about her going near his chest. He gets all cross with her so she goes off to the bathroom, only to be surprised, nay SHOCKED by her reflection. "After all I've done today, it's still the same ordinary girl gaping back at me." Close your fucking mouth, Anastasia. Or don't. With any luck a fly might buzz down your throat and choke you to death.

Christian pouts for a bit because he's an overgrown fucking brat, so Ana bargains with him and says that if he tells her why she can't touch him, she'll let him spank her. He produces a set of Ben Wa balls, puts them in her mouth and then his in order to lube them up, at which point Ana thinks "Fuck, this is sexier than the toothbrush". She brushed her teeth with his toothbrush earlier. Apparently this is a sexy thing to do. I'm losing the will to live.

He gets her to walk around a bit with the Ben Wa balls inside her, Ana says "oh" about a million fucking times and makes the following observation: "There's a foil packet, ready and waiting, like me." Apart from the fact that that line is HILARIOUSLY terrible, the similarities end there, seeing as a condom wrapper probably has a higher IQ than she does. Anyway, Christian spanks her, it's "a quagmire of sensation" (SEXY, RIGHT?) then pulls the balls out and fucks her. Afterwards, she demands he keeps his end of the deal. Here's what he says:

"The woman who brought me into this world was a crack-whore, Anastasia. Go to sleep."

Oh right, grand. GOODNIGHT SO.

Also, this:



Ana wakes up alone the next morning and thinks about how she's "in this fantasy apartment, having fantasy sex with my fantasy boyfriend". Even though she keeps going on about how the apartment is more like an art gallery than a home and repeatedly calls it a "mission statement", so it's not actually her idea of a fantasy apartment at all. She never even considered sex before meeting Christian, so I'm at a loss as to how it's fantasy sex that she's having and she's almost constantly treading on eggshells around Christian, who is always either scaring her or giving out to her, so would we really call him a fantasy boyfriend? REALLY? Anyway, she wanders off to find Christian in his study being all obnoxious and business-y on the phone and within three sentences, she uses the word "beautiful" five times while looking at him. FIVE times. In THREE sentences. JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST.

They end up having sex on his desk, before which we're notified of the foil packet being pulled out of his pocket, just like in every other sex scene up to now and hey this foil packet is just like me, being torn apart by how fucking awful this book is.

Appearances of the words "foil"/"foil packet": 16 (SO sexy.)

As she's coming, Ana tells us how he's "pushing me higher, higher to the castle in the air" after already saying "castle in the air" and "castle in the sky" since the start of the chapter. Which was two and a half pages ago.

They have breakfast together and he asks if she's bought her ticket to Georgia. He tells her he has a jet and she says she'd rather take a scheduled flight. He asks if she'll miss him, she says yes, then thinks "He's got right under my skin...literally."


Ana has interviews today for jobs in publishing houses before she catches her flight to Georgia and when we meet her again she's waiting to be seen at the second one. She's brought into the room by a woman with "long, black, pre-Raphaelite hair" even though pre-Raphaelite hair is red, but whatever. Also, Ana describes how she's wearing Kate's dress for the interview and I've actually just snarled a bit at this book. The interview goes fine, although she's unnerved by the dude doing the interviewing because he said her name softly and used the word "indulge" during their conversation. I suppose given the fact that every other man she knows is constantly trying to have sex with her, maybe it's understandable that she's wary of anyone with a penis.

She gets back home and mentions how beautiful Kate is (which she's being doing all along by the way, but dammit I can only make fun of a certain amount of things at a time) and tells her to cop on and stop antagonising Christian. Kate admits that she's doing it on purpose in order to somehow help him with his commitment issues. She's definitely trying to have her murdered for contstantly taking her clothes. Ana goes off to her room and has us endure about three pages of boring as fuck emails between her and Christian, which basically boil down to her asking if his sexy housekeeper is an ex-sub of his. She's not. There. That took three pages.

Later on, Kate drops Ana off at the airport and discovers during check-in that she's been upgraded to first class. Which would be nice, only for the fact that it's obviously Christian's doing and he's a terrifying psychopath who has managed to find out what flight she's on despite her not actually telling him what time she was leaving or which airline she was taking.

Ana has herself a massage and a manicure in the first class lounge and opens up her laptop "hoping to test the theory that it works anywhere on the planet".



Then again, this is a girl who was quite recently amazed to have her own email address so maybe she's not ready for the concept of wi-fi just yet.

She sends Christian an email making light of how his "stalking knows no bounds" (because being stalked to a disturbing degree is SO ADORABLE YOU GUYS) and mentions that she's had a back massage. He replies immediately asking who gave her a massage because all other men who touch her must be destroyed on sight. Ana hugs herself with "mischievous glee" and sends him an email specifically to wind him up, going on about how a "pleasant young man" gave her the massage and is all delighted with herself that he's "going to flip out". Even though five pages ago she was giving Kate shit for doing EXACTLY THAT. I hope her plane fucking crashes.

Christian replies with a threat to lock her in a crate the next time she goes on a plane and she's not sure if he's serious or not, which, you know should be yet another clue to RUN THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM. Also, she continues to email him on her Blackberry after being told by cabin crew to put it away because the lives of everyone else on board clearly don't matter to her. Also, when the "disembodied voice" (INTERCOM, Anna. They've been around for like EIGHTY YEARS) of the flight attendant says "cabin crew, doors to automatic and cross check" she wonders "What does that mean? Are they closing the doors?". Can we PLEASE tie her to the runway and have the plane taxi right over her face? PLEASE?

And breathe. Also don't forget to vote! Thank you!

The Flags Are Dead, Long Live The Flags!

One of my favourite bands, The Dead Flags, are soon to be no more. After almost five years of working their collective asses off, the lads have decided to call it a day.


Around four years ago, the first time I saw them play I was just going along to a gig with my new boyfriend to see his friend's band. As soon as they burst on to the stage (possibly to the Top Gun theme, although that might have been a different time), I wished I knew the words to every one of their pop/punk/just-plain-deadly songs. In the time since then, I've been to countless gigs of theirs, helped out wherever I could, either with graphic design or cutting hundreds and hundreds of fish shapes out of coloured paper for a video shoot and every time, I was only delighted to be of some use to the Dead Flags cause, as they've become some of my very favourite real life people. (I had to qualify the real-life bit, otherwise Ron Swanson might have the edge.)

They're playing their final gig, a big farewell show in Whelans tomorrow night. That's tonight, if you're reading this tomorrow, or Friday 17th August, to avoid any confusion. It's going to be an amazing night of fantastic music, special guests and the brilliant Gentlemen's Club album from start to finish. Admission is but 8 eurobucks and The Dead Flags will be taking to the stage for the final time at 9 o'clock.


Here are some of their fantastic videos and songs for your enjoyment.

The video for You Got It Wrong, in which they recreated the Enchantment Under The Sea dance from Back To The Future, hence the previously mentioned cutting out of paper fish:



The brilliant Anymore:



And the joyous O My Love! O My God! with it's wonderful slo-mo-tastic video:



I honestly can't recommend this final gig enough, it's going to be all kinds of fun, to the point that we're going to take all the fun and there'll be none left for anyone else for the weekend. SO THERE. I'll probably be quietly crying into my pint at their demise and then remember that I'll need to make the most of this gig and as such will dance my goddamn socks off.

Godspeed, you lovely Flags.