Apparently I Need a Hero

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

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

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

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

Oh wait, they did.

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


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


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


Whatever. I got a Gryffindor top and gloves instead.

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Too Good To Be True

Ok, I know I've been ridiculously remiss in posting for the last while, but between holidays and a wedding and the superfun weekend that was Electric Picnic, I just haven't been able or inclined to get around to it. But here I am! And I'm making it up to you all with a Sweet Valley High post. Because yay! Also, at a slightly drunken work night out from a while ago, I promised some people that I would say hello to Karen, who is in either North Korea or Wellington, NZ (sure why not) and the ladies who play ultimate frisbee in Dublin. These are the details I found in the notes bit on my phone the next day anyway, so hopefully that still makes sense. Anyway, hi! And onwards we go!

Sweet Valley High #11: Too Good To Be True


House Wakefield is in disarray! Ned's old college roomate, Tom Devlin has suggested an exchange for spring break. His daughter Suzanne is going to fly out to Sweet Valley, while either Jessica or Elizabeth will go to New York in her place to visit the Devlins and stay in their swanky apartment. Needless to say, Jessica is declaring that she'll positively DIE if she can't go and is already imagining herself out at "some impossibly chic Manhattan disco" where she'll hook up with Mick Jagger (really) or be discovered by a modelling agency and become the next Cheryl Tiegs, because the references in this book are fucking gas. They end up flipping a coin for it and Elizabeth wins, so Jessica graciously congratulates her sister and tells her how happy she is for her, despite her disappointment. No wait, she bursts into tears and wails like a spoiled brat when Elizabeth tries to comfort her. Of course.

Later, Elizabeth even tells a still mournful Jessica that she can wear her new culottes while she's away (awesome!), but instead, Jessica manipulates Elizabeth's doubts about being away from Todd for two whole weeks (GOD she's so lame) and convinces her that Lila Fowler is going to get all up in his bizzniz while she's not there to stand guard over his crotch. Predictably, Elizabeth caves and then convinces herself that she never really wanted to go in the first place, and anyway "her sense of adventure and fun was far different from Jessica's". As in, Jessica, actually HAS fun every once in a while.

The Wakefields drop Jessica off at the airport and collect Suzanne when she arrives and half a page is spent detailing how hot she is.

"The most beautiful girl she'd ever seen"
"The girl had to be a professional model"
"Her features couldn't have been more perfect if they'd been sculpted by Michaelangelo"

Hyperbole, much? Also, she's got glossy black hair and enormous violet-blue eyes, so she's basically a sixteen year old Elizabeth Taylor. Suzanne and Elizabeth go for a swim when they get back to the house and Suzanne is so sexy looking in her bikini that "suddenly Elizabeth felt self-conscious about her own lovely size six figure". Oh boo fucking hoo Liz, are your diamond shoes too tight?

The next day, everyone goes along to a class picnic at the lake, chaperoned - of course - by Mr. Collins, who never seems to have anything better to do than hang around with a bunch of horny sixteen year olds. Get a hobby, dude. Naturally, everyone is in awe of Suzanne and Elizabeth notices that her buddy, plain ol' Enid is even attracting some stares of her own in her candy striped bikini.

"Though she wasn't stunning like Suzanne, with her shiny, shoulder length brown hair and enormous green eyes, she had a prettiness that was all her own."

Ouch! A prettiness that was all her own? Why don't you just slap her in the face and be done with it, Liz? Anyway, while Elizabeth is busy comparing Mr. Collins to Robert Redford, Suzanne gets into trouble while swimming. Mr. Collins springs into action, rescuing her and carrying her out of the water in his arms, dripping wet and ripped, like a goddamn hero. Elizabeth briefly wonders what the fuck is going on, as Suzanne was a super amazing swimmer in the pool back at the house, before engaging in some vom-inducingly cheesy canoodling with Todd. i.e. "I may need more mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." Bleh. Those guys suck.

Liz's stink-face here is a thing of beauty. That's some quality smell-the-fart acting.

Over in New York, Jessica has been left alone in the Devlins' swanky apartment, only for Suzanne's twenty year old fancy man Pete to pay a visit. He's super handsome and wearing a tight blue Lacoste shirt and says wanky things like "Chopin should come from the heart, don't you think?" So obviously Jessica is smitten and manages to wangle her way into a piano concert date with him that night.

However, her excitement wanes somewhat when Pete is half an hour late and doesn't even have the decency to fall to the ground and involuntarily come in his pants when he sees her in one of Suzanne's sexy black dresses and fancy make-up. In fact, the only comment he makes about how she looks is to point out that she's wearing Suzanne's dress. Jessica is most unimpressed, but still convinced that this rude douchebag is "the most exciting guy she'd ever met". They go for dinner and the concert bores the tits off Jessica, who is getting ever more frustrated that Pete won't make a move on her. He doesn't kiss her when he drops her off at the apartment, which leaves Jess utterly furious, as "she'd never been more humiliated in all her life" and could probably do with getting a bit of fucking perspective, to be honest.

Back in Sweet Valley, Elizabeth can't find her gold lavaliere and Suzanne tells her she'll help her find it. They're going to the beach for the day and Liz tries to get Steven to come with them, as he's been moping around the house over the problems he and his girlfriend Tricia are having. He declines and they tease each other for a bit, she calls him puny and he says "Who's calling who 'puny'? If you turned sideways and stuck your tongue out, you could probably pass for a zipper." Which is...what? She'd be all silver and shiny? Even more confusingly, she answers with "Don't I wish!" So...she WANTS to look like a zip? What is with all this zip nonsense, guys?

Anyway, as they're leaving to head to the beach, we get a little Suzanne POV, where she "reached into her shorts pocket with her other hand, fingering the gold necklace that lay coiled inside. A pretty little trinket, she thought with satisfaction."

OH. NO. YOU. DI'INT.

You do NOT fuck with the Wakefield lavalieres. This bitch is going down.

Elizabeth wants to stop off at Mr. Collins' house on the way to drop off some stuff for the school paper, but Suzanne insists on delivering the envelope so she can thank him for saving her drowning ass at the lake. Mr. Collins is out the back of the house watering the plants with his great big garden hose "wearing only a pair of white jogging shorts and a red bandana to keep his longish strawberry-blond hair out of his eyes." Not to mention "his bare, muscular chest, which was deeply tanned and slick with perspiration." Goodness. Suzanne turns on the charm, but is getting nothing but gruff politeness from him, so she goes on about how hot it is and asks to drink from the hose, as if she's some kind of labrador. What follows is so hilariously over the top, it sounds like something from a Whitesnake video.

"Suzanne laughed merrily as the cool water bubbled over her lips and nose. She let it dribble down her chin until the front of her thin t-shirt was soaked, making it cling to her very brief bikini top."

If only there was a car bonnet nearby for her to writhe around on! Mr. Collins blushes at the sight of the underage girl in the wet t-shirt, so Suzanne chalks it up as a small victory in her quest to, I dunno, bone the teacher, I guess.

Meanwhile, Jessica is starting to feel homesick and isn't having as much fun as she'd hoped for. She feels uncomfortable around Mrs. Devlin, who has an icy bitch demeanour, thinks the maid will steal from the drinks cabinet unless she locks it and calls taxi drivers "dreadful little men", so it sounds like she's also kinda racist. Mr. Devlin is hardly ever home, what with all the embassy functions he has to attend, so really I don't understand why they offered to look after one of Ned's daughters in the first place when all they do is leave her alone in the apartment.

Jessica goes to a dinner party thrown by Suzanne's BFF Evelyn, but the place is full of arsey, unpleasant heirs and heiresses taking about diamonds and Maseratis. Jessica ends up drinking too much wine during dinner, trips on her way to the bathroom and passes out to the sound of the rich kids being assholes. I actually feel kinda bad for her here. The people at this party are dicks and drinking so much that you're knocking shit over and passing out isn't exactly a superfun place to be.

Over on the West Coast, Elizabeth is supposed to be babysitting Mr. Collins' son Teddy, but Todd got last minute tickets to a Lakers game and she really wants to go. Suzanne steps in and offers to babysit Teddy, says that she'll call Mr. Collins to let him know that she's filling in for Liz, but DOESN'T because she's ulterior motive-ing all up in here. Mr. Collins is a bit put out when she turns up, seeing as he's leaving his child with a relative stranger that he's already suspicious of, but she purrs at him and charms Teddy so he goes off to a social occasion that for once doesn't involve his students. As soon as he leaves though, Suzanne ignores Teddy and proceeds to root around Mr. Collins' underpants drawer for the hell of it and is disappointed not to find even so much as a Playboy in his bedroom. Which I don't buy for a single second. That dude has a porn stash somewhere, she obviously didn't look hard enough.

When he gets home, he finds Suzanne pretending to be asleep on the sofa, with her blouse strategically unbuttoned. She asks for wine and starts to press herself against him in an attempt to lob the gob, but Roger is having none of it. She storms out, furious, and stomps back to the Wakefields' house, formulating a plan. Which is to rip her blouse and tell everyone that Mr. Collins attacked her. Jesus fucking Christ. These kids.

Back in New York, Jessica is out on another date with Pete, flirting outrageously with him, but it doesn't appear to have any effect. But then he comes back to the apartment with her, pours them both some brandy, turns off the lights and suddenly, to Jessica's surprise, starts wearing the face off her.

She's delighted for all of ten seconds before she realises that "Pete had much more in mind than kissing" and is getting a bit too insistent. She tries to stop him but he pins her against the couch, gets all simultaeneously rapey and victim-blamey and tells her she's asking for it, as dudes in these books are wont to do. Jessica is freaking out and decides that it's all Elizabeth's fault for letting her take her place in New York and essentially giving her what she wanted. Because she's crazy. Again, same as All Night Long. She's nothing if not consistent. Anyway, some brandy glasses get smashed and it's all a bit horrible, but suddenly the lights are switched back on and ta-dah! The Devlins are actually home for once.

Meanwhile, Suzanne runs crying to Elizabeth, with her torn clothes and damn filthy lies and after two days, it's the biggest scandal to hit Sweet Valley since, I dunno, the last scandal that hit Sweet Valley. It's a ridiculous town, who can keep count? Elizabeth and Todd secretly doubt Suzanne's story, because Mr. Collins is so super and brilliant and looks like Robert Redford, in case you didn't know.

Anyway, it's Suzanne's last night in Sweet Valley and everyone is going to a big party at Lila's mansion for her birthday. While she's getting ready to go, Elizabeth puts a present into Suzanne's packed suitcase as a surprise for her, but DUN DUN DUUUN...she finds the holy grail lavaliere in amongst Suzanne's clothes.

While in the car with Todd on the way to the party, Elizabeth tells him where she found her necklace and they begin to wonder if maybe Suzanne made up the whole assault story. Elizabeth wonders why anyone would do such a "hideous thing" and when Todd reminds her of some of the shitty things Jessica has done in the past for sheer divilment, Elizabeth, in a spectacular feat of doublethink, replies:

"But that was just Jessica. She's never done anything really bad."

(I don't normally use gifs in these posts, but I feel like this warrants one.)


She has previously done EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE SO HORRIFIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW. TO YOUR BOYFRIEND.

Anyway, she and Todd decide to make a detour to Mr. Collins' house, and find him "a pale shadow of the Roger Collins she knew." He looks like he hasn't slept in days and he's got STUBBLE on his jaw. And as we all know, in the world of Sweet Valley, beards = despair. She realises that Mr. Collins is innocent and decides that Suzanne isn't going to get away with what she's done. When they arrive at Lila's place, she gets Suzanne alone in the coatroom (what, your house doesn't have a coatroom? Fowler style, bitches!) and confronts her. Suzanne confesses to everything, but before Elizabeth can reveal the truth to anyone, Suzanne spreads a rumour via gossip queen Cara Walker that Elizabeth has been acting all strange, like the time she came out of her coma after the big motorbike accident. It's actually pretty impressively devious, how quickly and efficently she discredits Liz. That's some top-notch villainy, Suzanne.

Before long, everyone thinks that Elizabeth is going nuts, so when it gets back to her, she confronts Suzanne again, in public this time. While she's calling her a liar, Winston Egbert (who overheard the coatroom conversation) comes along to hand Suzanne a drink and accidentally on purpose trips over, spilling punch all over her white satin, off-the-shoulder dress. Ruh roh! Suzanne freaks the fuck out, showing everyone The Real Her, i.e. a rampaging bitch and everyone dramatically walks away from her, leaving her alone, crying. Wah.

Jessica returns home after the Devlins told Pete that they never wanted to see him again, Mr. Collins gets his job back and everything is fine and dandy. Hooray.

Notable outfit:
"She [Elizabeth] was wearing her favourite velvet skirt and a high-necked, lace Victorian blouse. Suzanne had helped her fix her hair into a fancy French braid, into which she'd tucked a fragrant sprig of honeysuckle."

Boom. Ingalls Wilder swag.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 150
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 1 (Poor show.)
Appearances of the word "muscular": 5

Orlando Boom

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

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

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


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


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

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

Florida laughs in the face of subtlety.


LAUGHS. HYSTERICALLY.

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


We got the boat back when we were leaving.

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

Their wall sockets look like worried little faces.

"Oh nooo!" They all said.

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

CELEBRITY GOSSIP. BOOM. You're welcome.

Jewellery Jackpot

So it was my birthday last month, but I've been so busy and disorganised and headless chicken-like lately that it's taken me until now to get around to posting about the AMAZING presents that the super deadly Bear gave me. He surprised me with a Father Ted themed weekend away, where we had tea in Father Ted's house, followed by a scamper around the Ailwee Caves and generally had loads of fun.

However, this post is about the lovely shiny things that I was lucky enough to be given. First of all, there's this SUPER COOL silver walnut locket, made by our ridiculously talented metalsmith friend Mirjam (who created my incredible bear ring).


It's so amazingly lovely! Mirjam is just incredibly good at what she does and has actually opened a shop in Sligo. It's called Wildheart and I highly suggest you check it out or at least snoop around her website and Facebook page for a look at the glorious pieces just bursting with character that she has worked her unique brand of pirate magic on. The shop in Sligo also has a vintage section, which is where that crafty Bear of mine picked up the next amazing present.


This totally beautiful bird necklace! Just look at that bad boy. 


And finally, he got me a kickass watch from an Irish company called Push. It's got a mirror-type surface (super handy) and when you press one of the buttons on the side, the time flashes up in a lovely LED shade of blue. It's so goddamn cool! I also love it because it sort of reminds me of a square Rice Krispies digital watch I had as a young wan, where you'd press a button on the side and the time would pop up out of the top. It was one of those ones you collected tokens and sent away for and I bloody loved it. And now I have this awesome grown-up version of it! Yay!

Hate The Freys, Not The Game

Since the emotional goddamn ROLLERCOASTER that was the latter half of series three of Game of Thrones, also known as the time George R.R. Martin trampled all over our feelings and punched us in the kidneys on his way out, I've been frantically horsing my way through A Storm of Swords, A Feast For Crows and now A Dance With Dragons in order to find out what the HELL happens next and it's all just so GODDAMN EXCITING.


As such, I've been wanting to write a post about it all, but there's no real point I want to make, so these are really just a bunch of my thoughts on the books, TV show and characters. Mostly because I just wanted the opportunity to call Joffrey a malevolent little fucker.

(Just so you know, I'm not going to give anything away past the point where the TV show finished up, so there'll be no book spoilers from me. Book spoiler people are the worst and I REFUSE TO BE THOSE PEOPLE.)

The Books

I have to say, I am absolutely loving the books so far. At first I thought I might end up being slightly bored or impatient with them when I knew what would happen next up to a point, having been so familiar with the TV series at that stage, but I found myself eating up all the extra details and back stories and characters that there just wasn't room for in the telly version.

I also learned that tourneys are sort of like the Westerosi version of a festival, as they mostly consist of lots of brightly coloured tents and people getting hammered in a field. Like Electric Picnic, but more murdery. The Oxegen of Westeros.


Before I started reading the series, I had heard a few people mention how overly descriptive the books are, how there's endless paragraphs about food and what everyone's wearing (boiled leather, mostly), and yeah, there is quite a bit of that but I'm actually really into it, especially the food stuff.

It's weird, because cookery shows bore the living fuck out of me, but for some reason I love knowing exactly what everyone's eating, whether there's grease dripping down their fingers or not and what EXACTLY the wild boar or lark or trout was roasted with. It's like one big medieval Marks & Spencer food porn ad.


And anyway, it's not nearly as bad as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which could spend anything up to two solid pages at a time listing furniture that Lisbeth Salander bought in Ikea. Now THAT shit was boring.

The TV Show

Here's the thing about the TV show. If you've only watched it once and haven't read the books, go back and watch it again RIGHT NOW. It gets even better the second (and third!) time you watch it, as this time around you're not wondering who the hell this person is and why these people don't seem to get along and just what the flip a maester is when he's at home. This time you can actually just enjoy it and end up noticing a heap of things that passed you by the first time.

It took a second viewing for me to realise that I didn't have a fucking clue what was going on the first time I watched it. I was so busy getting my head around the eleventy million houses of Westeros that I didn't even register Theon Greyjoy and what his deal was until the second series, when he dropped the hand on his sister. I was genuinely surprised to see that he'd been knocking around Winterfell all through the first series while re-watching.

Also, you're a dick.

The fact that there's so many Irish actors in it and so much of it is filmed in Belfast means that spotting certain characters out and about in Dublin can happen surprisingly often. You just don't get that with Mad Men or Breaking Bad or True Blood. So far I've seen Joffrey, Ser Jorah and Bronn out and about in the city.

It's a weird feeling seeing Joffrey in real life. I know that Jack Gleeson is meant to be a totally lovely guy in real life and I'm sure he is (I mean, look at him messing with this pug puppy for God's sake! A pug puppy!) but Joffrey is just such an unrelentingly malevolent little fucker (yay!) in the show, that when he's walking past you minding his own non-sociopathic business the urge to kick him in the shins or at least glower at him is disconcertingly strong. The poor guy. I'm suddenly beginning to understand those old ladies you hear about who accost soap opera villains in the street, shouting at them for being such terrible people.

I actually saw Jorah and Bronn within minutes of each other while a few of us were standing outside The Stag's Head last year, which led to excited speculation about the potential of a secret cast party happening somewhere in the city centre and a brief temptation to follow them. Gotta catch 'em all. (We didn't follow them. That would be creepy.)

The Excellent Female Characters

As well as making for addictive viewing and reading, Game of Thrones features some brilliant female characters and unlike certain other shows *cough*THEWALKINGDEAD*cough*, there's loads of room for more than one strong woman at a time. (I'm still raging with that show for making Andrea into a headwrecking gowlbag as soon as Michonne came on the scene. Dicks.)

Dammit George, get over here so I can give you a big feminist hug.

Anyway, in the Seven Kingdoms and across the Narrow Sea we've got:

Daenerys Targaryen - Stormborn, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons and GODDAMN KHALEESI OF THE GREAT GRASS SEA.

Asha Greyjoy (or Yara Greyjoy on telly) - fearsome pirate queen and badass maritime motherfucker.

Cersei Lannister - okay she's riding her brother and an AWFUL wagon but you have to admit that she's one bad bitch who gets shit done. Nobody can wield a backhanded compliment like the Lioness of Casterly Rock.

Brienne of Tarth - kickass knight, excellent with a sword and won the fuck out of a tourney melee against a bunch of dudes. (Who, by the way, is an utter knockout in real life.)

Arya Stark - ferocious she-wolf hellbent on revenge, destined for utter greatness and takes absolutely no shit.


That's before we even get near Catelyn Stark's steely resolve, Shae's wily resourcefulness or Margaery eye-fucking and power-dressing her way to queendom. Not to mention the awesomely acid-tongued Lady Olenna aka the Dowager Countess of Highgarden and Sansa Stark, who (to drag out the Downton Abbey comparison) is sort of the Lady Edith of the show - the ginger girl you don't really like all that much to begin with, but before you know it you're 100% rooting for her and digging her quiet strength. Oh AND wildling Ygritte not giving a single fuck, being handy with with a spear and the absolutely magical way she says Jon Snow.


The Ridebags

So, yes, the characters in the series, both male and female, are great and complex and flawed and in some cases just trying to get along as best they can in the fucked up realm of Westeros. But allow me to lower the tone somewhat by saying DAMN there are some total foxes in this series. And in fairness, the show is pretty much an equal opportunites deal in terms of whose ass you get to see, which makes a nice change from the usual naked lady/fully dressed dude trope, like the skeezy Blurred Lines video or the People of the Year series of GQ covers from last year.


As well as typically gorgeous people, (i.e. Jaime Lannister and the big Disney prince head on him and Daenerys being ridiculously beautiful) it also provides an array of weird and slightly guilty crushes, like Sandor Clegane and Roose Bolton, and those are always fun. I'd also just like to point out what a difference a few years and change of hair colour makes in the case of Iain Glen. Villain in Tomb Raider? Move along, unappealing oily-haired man. Ser Jorah? BACK THAT FINE ASS UP, MORMONT. No friendzone for you. A touch of face cragginess did him the world of good.

So what I'm really wondering now is what the hell I'm going to do when I run out of books to read. Oh, who am I kiddding, it'll probably be a fourth go at series one and onwards.

World War Z, Or Something Not Quite Like It

I finally got around to seeing World War Z. After loving the utter bejaysus out of the book and being quite concerned about the trailer and the fast hooring zombies (© Dawn) back in December, I pretty much expected to hate it.


However, it was actually grand. Well, when I say that, I mean that it's a reasonably good zombie film with some enjoyable jumpy bits, but it's not World War Z. Not even a little bit. Although I did enjoy the collective "oh!" of recognition in the cinema when Ruth Negga popped up.

Anyway, I'm not sure why Brad Pitt bothered buying the rights to it really, because they essentially took all the things that made World War Z such a compelling and scary and fascinating read in the first place and just fucked it all in the bin, so Brad could run around saying "my family!", all of whom I hated within seconds.

Those discarded things included elderly Japanese blind monk Tomonaga, who takes on zombies with nothing more than a shovel and the patience to listen to everything very fucking carefully, and Tatsumi, his nerdy apprentice who becomes an awesome zombie killing warrior in his own right. I would have happily watched Gerry's family being eaten in the opening credits, even if it only meant a few minutes of those guys, or mercenary anti-hero T. Sean Collins or Colonel Christina Eliopolis, who crash lands in the middle of zombie-infested territory and manages to single-handedly fight her way to safety, while being guided by a mysterious sky watcher like a badass motherfucker.

Oh, just get eaten already.

It was always going to be difficult, if not downright impossible to make World War Z, a book that's made up of survivor interviews from all over the world, into a film. Which is why it never should have been squished and mangled into a two hour summer blockbuster in the first place.

If you're going to do any justice to a book as deadly and special as World War Z, it needs to be a documentary-style affair, or a dramatic mini series with interviews scattered along the way, like Band of Brothers, but with less making the viewer bawl crying and more zombie decapitation.

What really annoys me though, is this quote from Brad:

“I was never a huge horror fan to be honest,” insists Brad, 49, who says the £250million flick is more about the plot anyway.

“As for why zombies are so popular, I really have no idea."

HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE ZOMBIES. SO WHY THE JAYSUS FUCK DID YOU GET INTO A BIDDING WAR WITH LEO DICAPRIO OVER THE RIGHTS?


Oh I see. Thanks for nothing, Brad.

Ill Communication

A few weeks ago, my awesome friend Trace Dogg got married to his lovely girlfriend. In the run-up to the wedding, I had an idea for a card that I could make for him, and got VERY excited about it. You see, Trace Dogg is a huge Beastie Boys fan (his Root Down rendition is a thing of beauty) and I had the perfect line from a Beasties song that would totally work for a Happy Wedding Day card.

"I’m a newlywed, not a divorcé / And everything I do is funky like Lee Dorsey".

I hadn't ever really noticed the line before (it's from Sure Shot), until I saw someone point it out in the comments in an excellent 7 Reasons To Love the Beastie Boys article that Anna Carey wrote for The Anti Room about two years ago. I thought it was a cool line and filed it away in my brain with random bits of songs that I know, along with the Animaniacs Nations of the World song. I can get as far as Guam.

Anyway, Trace Dogg + wedding + Beastie Boys = Sure Shot.

Obviously.

So I made this:


I was pretty pleased with myself. Especially when I could see him knowing exactly what the reference was before he'd finished reading it. It was also a fun way of finding out who else at the wedding was a Beasties fan, as for the most part the card was met with polite puzzlement, but Trace Dogg liked it and that's all that mattered.

And because it's fucking tune and a half, here it is. Mimed by Muppets!


Turn that motherfucker up.

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Wrong Kind of Girl

Well hello there. I know it's been terribly quiet around here of late, but work and real life and trying to read as much of A Storm of Swords as I possibly can has all been getting in the way, you see. As well as being traumatised by the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones. Actually, wouldn't Jessica Wakefield make an amazing Lannister?

Anyway, onwards to the next book!

Sweet Valley High #10: Wrong Kind of Girl
 

Ok, the first thing you need to know is that this book gets off to an amazing start. It's a first line that deserves to be up there with "Call me Ishmael", or "It is a truth universally acknowledged.." STRAP YO'SELVES IN, FOLKS.

As she looked over the list of girls who had signed up to try out for the cheerleading squad, Jessica Wakefield purred like a satisfied cat.

Miaow! We're immediately off to a great start. Excellent work, ghost writer. Anyway, Jessica is all aroused because seventy three girls have signed up, so we can only assume that there must be like a bajillion students in that school. There are two spots open, because Cara Walker and awesome bitch Lila Fowler were booted off the team for turning on the sprinklers during a rival squad's performance. Because soaking wet cheerleaders means a ruined routine. Yeah. Sounds legit.

So Jessica has essentially promised Cara that her old place on the squad is guaranteed, but suddenly the sight of Annie Whitman's name on the list serves as a massive bonerkiller for Jess. And why is that?

You know what they call her. Easy Annie! She's been with every guy at school.

Well now. There's the pot calling the kettle a whore. Jessica is furious that Annie has the nerve to sign up and reckons that her trampy reputation will give the whole squad a bad name. Which is hilarious, because LOOK IN THE MIRROR YOU CRAZY BITCH.

Apparently, being a cheerleader means keeping your grades up and Elizabeth has been tutoring Annie after school. While consoling her after a test that didn't go well, Annie confesses to Elizabeth that she sometimes feels worthless.

"What?" Elizabeth said, truly surprised. "You? Why, Annie, you're just about the most beautiful girl in Sweet Valley High."

You're RIGHT, Elizabeth! Beauty DOES equal worth! EXCELLENT MESSAGE.

Elizabeth calls over to Annie's house after school to help her with maths and learns about what a hard life Annie has had. Her mother had her when she was sixteen, her father left when she was two and threw her down a flight of stairs when she was ten. While Elizabeth is being told all of this, she thinks about how amazing and perfect and good-looking (really) her own parents are and it's impossible not to imagine her with a smug grin on her face while she does so.

Meanwhile, Jessica is coaching Cara through all the new moves and cheers that she'll need to know for the try-outs and there's a really odd bit where Steven Wakefield appears in front of them, doesn't really hear them when they both say hello and then hurries back into the house. So he just wandered out into the garden, stood in front of his sister and her friend and then fucked off back inside. It turns out that he's just heard the news that his girlfriend's dad is in jail for drink driving, but it's still quite a weird little scene.

The day of the try-outs arrives and Annie is brilliant, but Jessica tries to stop her from making it to the last twenty five because she's a cheertator (if you know what I'm talking about, then we should totally be friends) and freaks out at Elizabeth for saying in her gossip column that Annie is one of the favourites for the squad.

There's a Beach Disco a few nights later and pretty much everyone from school is there. A band called The Surfers' Waves are playing (not the Droids? The fuck, guys?) and Annie enrages Jessica by turning up with Bruce Patman. Suddenly there's a dance contest, because the denizens of Sweet Valley appear to living in the musical Grease. It ends up being a draw between Jessica and her date and Annie and Bruce, which Jessica takes a personal affront and is furious that Annie seems to think that she's "as good" as her. Silly Annie! Doesn't she know that The Glorious Wakefields are the pinnacle of hot sixteen year old girls the world over and should NEVER be challenged? Clearly not.

Jessica and Elizabeth have a row over Jessica being a cunt to Annie for no good reason, and things get worse when Jessica discovers that Elizabeth is the one helping Annie to pass all her maths tests and keep her grades up. It's the day of the cheerleading semi-finals, and Annie is amazing again, with the whole gym applauding her. Jessica has been telling the rest of the squad how unsuitable Annie would be every day since the first round of try-outs and is aghast to find that they've dared to defy her and all voted for her to be in the final eight.

It's no surprise that everyone did vote for her though, the way her routine is described. "Out she dashed, creating an immediate electric excitement in everybody watching." "Zest and perfection", "she was quite simply a sensation." Oh and she "blushed prettily" at the end when the crowd burst into applause. That's the other thing about Annie, literally every time she appears in the book, we're informed of how gorgeous she is. We've already had "Annie tossed her lovely head", "the gloom returned to her pretty face", and "a becoming blush rose in Annie Whitman's cheeks" and we're only halfway through the book. We get more hotness reminders for her than we do for the Wakefield twins combined. Actually, no wonder Jessica hates her. She's stealing all her sexy thunder!

Annie's progress through the cheerleading rounds is boosting her self confidence, and she tells Elizabeth that the reson she hooks up with so many dudes is because she needed the attention and felt empty inside. Poor Annie has no idea that half the school calls her Easy Annie and thinks she's a tramp. Seriously, is that school working under some kind of mass delusion about Jessica, as if she HASN'T dry humped half the dudes in Sweet Valley? Or is a girl only a tramp if she lives with her single mother in an apartment, rather than a split level ranch house with hot parents? HMMM.

Jessica and her lavaliere being all smug and blonde while plotting Annie's downfall. Rumour has it that Courteney Cox was the model used for Annie Whitman. She's the absolute head off tampon ad-era Courteney. See?

Anyway, Jessica goes full on Regina George and rigs the voting process by mind fucking one of the other cheerleaders, Helen Bradley, into keeping Annie off the squad. Meanwhile, Annie has noticed that the cheer squad's manager Ricky Capaldo fancies her, and she's starting to feel the same way. I should say that Ricky is a student too, which seems a bit odd, but I guess it's better that way as otherwise it'd be an adult wanting to bone a fifteen year old girl, which would be hella creepy.

Then, ooh THEN, we get an amazing scene so melodramatic it'd make Linda Gray's eyes water. Elizabeth is over at Todd's house, watching an old movie with him. Her mind keeps wandering to the Jessica-Annie dilemma so she unwittingly lets out a sigh, which causes Todd to jump up and demand to know if she's in love with someone else. Because she sighed. He's TOTALLY serious, it's hilarious.

He asks her this while looking away from her, so there's even an impassioned "Todd, please look at me!" thrown in, before he calms the fuck down and puts his big boy pants on. He asks her what's been on her mind and guesses that it's something to with Jessica being a duplicitous, cruel wench (in so many words) which causes Elizabeth to get all angry and defensive. Todd's ma then comes into the room, and Todd says "Mom, we're having a discussion", without looking at her. The fucking brat! Imagine your mammy letting you talk to her like that! Not a hope, lads. She actually leaves the room without so much as a HINT of a wooden spoon in Todd's direction and he and Liz make up, of course. YAWWWN. Someone should have ended up in a swimming pool. Go big or go home, Francine.

The day of the cheerleading finals arrives and Annie is spectacular as usual, which results in a stand off between Jessica and the rest of the squad, who want to vote Annie in. Jessica demands that they vote in Sandra, a girl who fell during her routine. When the rest of the cheerleaders won't back down, Jessica gives them an ultimatum and says she'll leave if they allow Annie in, the power mad harpy. Apparently she's the "heart and soul of the team", so as usual she gets her way. Ugh. STOP HUMOURING HER.

When Annie finds out that she didn't make the cut, she's distraught and cries on Ricky until he tells her that it was Jessica who screwed her over and did so because she thought Annie's reputation would
taint the whole squad. When Annie doesn't show up for the next three days of school, Ricky goes to Elizabeth, begging her to talk Jessica into letting Annie on the squad. Jessica doesn't budge and the next Monday, Elizabeth gets a call from Ricky, telling her that Annie tried to kill herself. Elizabeth rushes to the hospital, dragging Jessica with her, who at least had the decency to protest and say that Annie wouldn't want her there.

They find Ricky in the waiting room, and Jessica, suddenly realising that being a horrendous bitch can actually have consequences, bursts into tears, sobbing about how it's all her fault, and making it all about her. The doctor eventually comes to Annie's mother and tells her that her daughter appears to have "no will to live". Dun dun DUUUUN. Jessica blurts the whole story out to the doctor to let them know why Annie overdosed on pills and the doctor, FOR SERIOUS, prescribes....letting Annie be a cheerleader. Amazing. Jessica stays up all night at Annie's bedside, telling her that there was a mix-up and she's on the squad after all. Annie eventually comes to and her first words are "Where are you? Please...Jess." Oh get ta fuck.

Annie wakes up and later that day, the twins and Ricky bring in her cheerleading uniform and tell her to go to the window. The cheer squad are outside and shout "Get well Annie!" and then everyone is happy and a fifteen year old girl's depression and suicide attempt are all forgotten about. Because cheerleading. Yay.

Notable outfit:
Amid not-too-remarkable dresses with thigh-high slits (Annie), black and red striped tops (Jessica) and a total lack of Dana Larson, I'm giving this one to Elizabeth's bit of man candy.

Todd looked especially handsome that night in his gray cords and burgundy shirt.

Good for you Toddington.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 137
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 3
Amount of times Annie is called pretty/beautiful/lovely: 12

Quelque Chose #23

The Bear: A Eurovision song needs to give you goosebumps.

Me: When was the last time a Eurovision song gave you goosebumps?

The Bear: ...

Me: Lordi?

The Bear: Yeah, Lordi gave me goosebumps. And a raging horn.

Me: Well, obviously.

Thank You, Youth Defence!

No, really! You're reading that post title 100% correctly. I genuinely and for realz am saying a big fluffy THANK YOU to Youth Defence, the Life Institute, the Mother and Child Campaign, prolifeinfo.ie, the Pro-Life Alliance and all the other similar organisations that don't happen to reside in 60a Capel Street.

You see, for quite some time, I thought it was ridiculous that as a country we just exported the issue of abortion, thanks to Ryanair and our handy proximity to England. However, since Youth Defence's anti-choice poster campaign invaded Dublin city last summer, I've realised that it's completely, unacceptably and fucking infuriatingly ridiculous that we export the issue and pretend like it doesn't happen.

Because of Youth Defence, I'm more vocally and fucking furiously pro-choice than I have ever been in my entire life.

Because of Youth Defence, I attended vigils for Savita Halappanavar on Kildare Street in the bollock-freezing cold last year despite a fractured ankle and a leg encased in a plaster cast.

Because of Youth Defence, I am never, ever in my life going to give my vote to any politician or organisation that would claim to describe themselves as "pro-life". I'd rather unwittingly step barefoot on upturned plugs for a year, than have that happen.

Because of Youth Defence, I now take an interest in their activities, along with those of the Pro Life Campaign, the Iona Institute, EWTN and their assorted cohorts, and revel in taking the unrelenting piss out of them here and writing angry, pro-choice blog posts for Beaut.ie.

Because of Youth Defence, for a while there my walk to and from work included keeping an eye out for and ripping down bright yellow stickers that bore a vapidly smiling shamrock on them as well as the insidious slogan "Proud to be Irish, Proud to be Pro Life".

Because of Youth Defence and their underhanded, manipulative, fuckweasel tactics, I'm planning on making a big-ass go-fuck-yourself sign with which to march at the Action on X rally at 4 o'clock on Saturday the 18th and I hope as many people as possible do too.


So seriously, you guys! Thank you for making me absolutely certain that women should have the right to choose what happens to our bodies, our lives and our mental wellbeing.

Thank you. You unbelievable cunts.

Smiley face!

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Racing Hearts

Blammo! It's book nine o'clock!

Sweet Valley High #9: Racing Hearts
 

The book begins with Elizabeth Wakefield discovering her sister Jessica trying on their mother's "chocolate-brown suit" which sounds just LOVELY. Elizabeth has no idea what the hell is going on with her sister, as she seems to have abandoned her plans to become a famous actress, isn't going to the beach with Cara Walker like she was supposed to, and is all talk about responsibility and the future. It's all very boring and un-Jess. It turns out that she wants to work in their father's legal office after school, as she has decided she wants to be a hotshot lawyer. Grand so.

The next day at school, it's been raining in Sweet Valley but worry not! Both Jessica and Lila Fowler still have perfect hair, as we’re informed that Jessica’s hair is “frizz-proof” and the rain has given Lila “a fullness to her wavy hair that Jessica could seldom achieve with her curling iron”. PHEW. I’m so glad that the beautiful popular girls remain flawless regardless of weather conditions. Jessica fills Lila in on her grand plan to work in Ned's office, and Lila's all "ewww, work" because Daddy’s Girl don’t need no stinkin’ job.

They run into Roger Barrett who's in love with Lila, but the hallway is slippery and he falls and lands on his arse in front of his dream girl. Poor Roger! And actually poor Roger, because he secretly works as a janitor in the evenings and weekends in Ned Wakefield’s office building, to pay the rent at home. Apparently there’s no such thing as part time jobs in petrol stations, delis or shops of any kind in Sweet Valley. Anyway, Roger runs off all embarrassed and Lila calls him Bugs Bunny while being a cunt about him with Jessica. She then explains that she calls him Bugs because he bugs her. Wildean wit, that one.

Meanwhile, in the boy’s locker room Bruce Patman, Todd Wilkins and John Pfeifer have an awesomely homoerotic conversation about the upcoming trials for the Barton Ames race, more commonly known as the Bart. There's also a dance afterwards (OF COURSE) called the Bart dance. Seriously. Every time it's mentioned, this pops into my head. Anyway, Bruce is bragging about how he’s going to win the race hands down, even though the prize is a scholarship to SVU, which he doesn’t exactly need seeing as he’s super rich. But never mind all that, we get these wonderful sentences which are MUCH more interesting:

“Droplets of water dripped from his dark hair onto his red and white Sweet Valley running shorts”

“Todd eyed Bruce coldly as he took off his soaked t-shirt”

“I imagine I have as good a chance as anyone. These legs of mine do ok on the basketball court”

They’re just a damp towel-snap away from a sweaty orgy on the wooden bench. There’s also some talk about Coach Schultz leaving over an argument with the school board about money, but who cares, BRUCE’S SHORTS ARE ALL WET.

After school, Jessica arrives at her father’s office to start her shiny new part time job. She’s expecting work to be like an episode of Ally McBeal, so she’s none too pleased when she’s put to work photocopying legal documents. However, things look up for Jess when she meets a handsome dude in the lift. His name is Dennis, he goes to a rival high school and he works part time in his father’s ad agency across the hall from Ned’s office. They flirt about handbags and he asks Jessica if she’s training to be a secretary. Really, Dennis? Anyway, Jessica thinks he’s cute and of course he fancies her, seeing as he's got a pulse and the Wakefield twins induce boners wherever they roam.

The next day at school, everyone is out for the Bart race trials and Elizabeth is being an insufferable wench, pestering Roger to try out for the race, as he could really use the scholarship prize. He’s visibly annoyed with her, but Elizabeth won’t let up because she’s a self-righteous pain in the hole, and even though we’re told how she’s saying everything “gently” like she’s the good guy, she’s acting like a dick and you just desperately want someone to turn around and tell her to shut the fuck up. Anyway, Lila overhears the conversation and starts to egg him on too for her own amusement and because she thinks he’ll make a fool of himself. So because Roger loves Lila, he decides to run as it might give him a chance to win her over. He joins the other runners on the track at the last minute and kicks everyone’s ass, beating Bruce to the finish line and surprising everyone. He also does it all in “faded army fatigue pants and red t-shirt”, rather than fancy running gear like the other athletes, and although according to Jessica, “his taste in clothing leaves something to be desired”, what he’s wearing actually sounds pretty fucking hot if you ask me.

Everyone is all over Roger after he wins the race, telling him how brilliant he is. Everyone except his friend Olivia Davidson, the alafalfa sprout munching hippy. She’s sullenly writing about her feelings while sitting on the bleachers (the big emo head on her), and barely congratulates Roger on his win because she fancies him and now she's jealous that Lila is suddenly showing an interest in him. She goes off in a huff, presumably followed by a cloud of patchouli. 

GO HOME ROGER. Nice jumper, Lila.

The school principal gives Roger a fancy SVH tracksuit, which makes Lila suddenly think he’s SEXAY, so she butters his bread for him in the cafeteria. I really wish that was a euphemism, but the line genuinely reads:

“Oooh, let me do that,” Lila said, taking the pat of butter and his knife away from him.

I mean, I know Lila’s hot and rich and all, but that’s some fucking weird flirting, whatever way you look at it.

The coach and the school principal both tell Roger that he has to run in the Bart race, but he doesn’t have time to train because he’s the only one bringing money into the house with his part time job and doesn’t think his boss would give him the time off anyway, so he keeps failing to show up for practice. He also can’t meet Lila after school because of it, so she thinks he’s playing hard to get. While discussing this with Jessica at lunch, there's a great bit that just reminds us how genetically blessed and amazing the Wakefields are, in case the focus had been pulled away from them a bit too much.

Jessica took a big bite of her cheeseburger. Lila eyed her friend enviously. How could Jessica eat so much and never gain an ounce? Lila had to work like crazy to keep her slender figure. 

Boom. All the money in the world can't buy you the sexy Wakefield metabolism, Lila. Anyway, in a bizarre attempt to win Roger over, Lila writes this godawful poem for him:

Roger Barrett, a boy so fine

His speedy running is divine

In school too, he is very smart

He’ll walk away with the trophy at the Bart

In everything he operates at the highest stratum

We at Sweet Valley are so proud to have him.

I...just...what? Stratum? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Meanwhile, Jessica has been hooking up with hot Dennis after hours in her Dad’s office, when everyone else is gone home. Elizabeth has gotten suspicious about what her sister is up to, so she sneaks into the building to spy on Jessica, presumably because she has nothing better to do and is an unbearable busybody. Ugh. She sees Jessica and Dennis shifting each other, the big stalker, and then sees them run into Roger while he’s doing his janitor thing. Elizabeth then blackmails her sister into keeping Roger’s secret, otherwise she’ll tell their father that Jessica has been dry humping some dude in the office every evening.

When he gets home, Roger rings Olivia in a panic and tells her all about his cleaning job and how he can’t run the Bart race at the weekend because he won’t be able to get time off and how worried he is that Jessica will blab to everyone in the school. While all this is going on, Lila calls Jessica looking for help to bag Roger, so Jessica comes up with a plan and tells Lila to throw a leaving party for Coach Schultz before the Bart dance, so Roger will have to attend. However, she also evilly plots to reveal Roger’s secret job while at the party, which will both humiliate Lila and somehow make Jessica the “star of the party”. Is that even a thing? Do parties have stars? I must be going to the wrong ones.

Anyway, the next day at school, the pressure is getting to Roger so he admits to Lila that he works as a janitor, and begins to feel proud of himself, even though Lila now looks at him with barely concealed disgust.  

“Roger’s integrity was admirable, but Lila wanted nothing to do with it.” 

Amazing. Who needs a guy with integrity or honesty or any of that stupid stuff? Not Lila Fowler, that's for damn sure. Roger then goes to tell the coach that he won’t be able to race on Saturday but it just so happens that Liz had her father call Roger’s boss and make him give Roger some time off, and then rang the coach to say that was all fine and dandy. It also turns out that the coach isn’t leaving at all, but we don't really care about that. Roger thanks Liz, and then runs off to Olivia, suddenly realising that he loves her. How handy.

Back at Ned’s office, Jessica has been getting frustrated that Dennis hasn’t picked up on her hints to get him to ask her to the Bart dance. Finally, she does the asking herself but he says he can't go, which makes her angry because NO ONE REJECTS JESSICA WAKEFIELD. Anyway, it turns out he’s fifteen, so Jessica dumps him because he can’t drive, even though she actually really likes him.

The day of the big race arrives, and Roger wins, breaking the Bart record while he’s at it. Lila suddenly reappears and lobs the gob on him, going on about how she never lost faith in him and she’s throwing a party in his honour. He turns her down so she gets all indignant and demands to know what could be more important. He tells her to mind her own damn business and goes off with Olivia. Hooray. 

I have to say, it wasn't exatly the best Sweet Valley High book, but the next one is all about slutty Annie Whitman, so things are looking up, kids.

Notable outfit:
There weren't nearly enough hilarious clothes in this book, but I'll give this one to peasant skirt enthusiast Olivia Davidson.

Olivia proudly showed off the floral print skirt. It was so long it nearly covered her Chinese sandals. “The latest in chic from Martha’s Thrift Shop. Goes well with the scarf, don’t you think?” She fingered the long strip of faded silk tied loosely around her neck.

Good for you Olivia.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 158
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 2 (Must try harder.)
References to eyes/eyelashes/eyeballs: 52

Quelque Chose #22

Two weeks ago, my lovely, bold and brilliant grandmother died at the rather decent age of 93. She was Nanny Nonie to me, her thirty other grandchildren and her twenty-seven great-grandchildren. It's a frankly massive family tree that she's responsible for. Nanny was tiny, a demon for sweets and unfailingly honest. "Sit your big bum down here beside me, Kitty!" The picture above is from 1941 and she's with my grandad who died long before I was born. Her bobby socks are awesome.

As such, I hadn't really been in the form for blogging for the last while, but Sweet Valley snarking and general silliness will resume shortly.