Down and Out in (just) London

(Apologies to George Orwell)

I’ve just downloaded an app in an attempt to keep an eye on my spending, this app lets me keep a track of all my income and expenses. A budget if you will. (I did opt for a free one, anyone who pays for an app that helps them with their finances is off to a bad start, especially when there are ones which will do the same thing for nothing.)

And when I say all my income – it makes it seem like I various streams of revenue coming in. I do not. Just one lump sum from my employer every month (and its not even at the end of the month, which is endlessly frustrating).

Now, one of the things this app does is show me a pie chart (which I’d probably be capable of reproducing if I had the time or inclination). Now this pie chart has pretty much showed me what I already knew. I spend most of my income on rent and food.

Now, I’m not asking to dine at three starred Michelin restaurants every night, I’m not even asking for a Nando’s once a week. I just wish things were a little bit more comfortable.

What I am thankful for is that I am employed, single and with no dependents. Because if I weren’t, well. I’d be the girl trying to feed herself and child for £10 a week.

And on that note, I want to share a blog I read about in the Guardian.

A Girl Called Jack

This is a wonderful blog. I just hope it and Jack aren’t co-opted by those who think food poverty is a myth in Britain.

Maybe what I’m doing with my app can be laughed away with the quick utterance of hashtag-first-world-problems. But what Jack and countless others are experiencing throughout Britain cannot. It’s a grim reality that needs to be addressed.

Batman

Everything that is great about Batman and then some….

thegirlwiththeeyes

Okay, can we talk about how Batman is an excellent superhero? I know I just immediately gave away my opinion about him, but I’d like to spend this entry expounding on why he’s my favorite.

First of all, Batman doesn’t actually have any super powers, which means that he does everything that he does because he feels that he should. I know that there’s a part of him that’s motivated by revenge, but he is a human being who watched his parents get murdered as a child, so I’ll give him some leeway on that one. The point is that most superheroes have these crazy powers that compel them to act the way that they do. To be quite honest, if you had the skills of Superman or Spiderman and didn’t use them in some manner to help others, I would assume something was wrong with you. It just makes…

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Batman vs Superman

Batman/Superman #1

So when the casting news about Man of Steel was being released I dutifully blogged about the choice of Henry Cavill. I also mentioned, rather flippantly, that if they were to produce a World’s Finest film I would watch it in a shot.

Now, I realise I’m a little behind the news here, but Holy Guacamole Batman! They’ve gone and done it – they are making a Batman vs Superman film.

Zack Snyder and basically everyone that was in MOS will be coming back plus one addition – Batman. Now, we know it’s not going to Bale. Will it be JGL? I don’t think so. His character is firmly entrenched in the Nolan-verse and as much as it makes sense for him to pick up the mantle of Batman in the TDK trilogy it just wouldn’t fly if the first ‘crossover’ movie DC produced featured a Batman that wasn’t Bruce Wayne.

They are billing this film as a sequel to MOS, but as this is essentially going to be a team-up movie I’m struggling to see it in such a way. I certainly didn’t see the Avengers as the sequel to Iron Man. I saw it as a natural culmination in story telling after a lot of hard work put in by Marvel. Yes, I know it was very Tony-centric but it was still an ensemble movie totally capable of spawning its own franchise yet maintaining the solo movies.

With Batman vs Superman I feel we’re not going to get another solo Superman movie again (until the next reboot that is). I’m perfectly ok with that – I like the spectacle that comes with more than one superhero and the inevitable clash of personalities.

Now here comes the hard part – who are they going to cast? Do they go with an unknown – and lets face it Cavill wasn’t exactly A list. Or are we going to get one of the Hollywood heartthrobs?

According to an article written by the Guardian, the bookies have these odds going:

3/1 Joseph Gordon-Levitt
10/1 Ryan Gosling
10/1 Chris Pine
10/1 Jake Gyllenhaal
11/1 Channing Tatum
12/1 Christian Bale
14/1 Bradley Cooper
14/1 Armie Hammer
16/1 Josh Brolin
18/1 Jon Hamm
20/1 Gerard Butler
25/1 Michael Fassbender
40/1 Brad Pitt
40/1 Tom Cruise
100/1 Hugh Jackman

They then had their own pole of the names and Mr Ryan Gosling came out top with 23%. Now I love The Gos, but Batman? For one thing, I just cannot see him pull off an effective Bat-growl. Height and size can all be worked on, actors have been known to put on weight and gain a couple of inches in height (just look at Tom Hardy). But I just don’t see it, even if I do squint.

And Hugh Jackman? Well the least that’s said about him the better.

Fanatical – Redux

I posted – I think last year – about fanaticism and that lovely section of society called the fangirl. I think I concluded I wasn’t one. In fact I said that I stayed away from one of my celebrity crushes (for want of a better phrase) when I found myself in the same room as him.

In fact, I have now met (I use this in the loosest sense of the word) a further two of my what-I-like-to-call-obsessions.

Now, I think that I might as well name names. I have blogged about his excellent cheekbones at one time or another, so my appreciation for Benedict Cumberbatch is hardly a secret. So when he was the first of my encounters with celebrity I didn’t run up to him screaming. I sort of wrung my hands in excitement, exclaimed to a friend, probable quite loudly, that it was Sherlock and that was it.

My second rendez-vous with celebrity was when I crossed paths with Tom Hiddleston on Hampstead Heath (by this I mean, he walked past me). His dulcet tones and piercing gaze were enough to get me to squeeze ridiculously hard on my boyfriend’s hand and squeal something about Loki.

So far, I think I’m doing ok. I haven’t humiliated myself yet.

But I soon enough did.

I went to see a play earlier this year, in this play there was an actor. This actor had a staring role in the TV show Being Human. I, along with a friend, waited outside the stage door. I knew from the start this was probably a bad idea. When there were girls in the queue wearing tee shirts bearing the immortal words: “I had a shield, a red one…” I should have turned back. I was amongst them – the fangirls. Now I’m sure they are all lovely lovely people. I however, wasn’t quite ready to join their brethren.

My friend, however, convinced me to stay. And so the actor got to us.

I had what I could only describe as a meltdown. I became a nervous wreck. He’s not a particularly well known actor, nor is he in possession of Cumberbatch’s  cheekbones.

What he did have was an Irish accent and on his resume a role in a programme I really enjoyed.

I forgot for a second that he was an ordinary bloke just doing his job.

To my shame I acted like a fangirl. Now there’s nothing wrong with liking a film or an actor. There is something wrong however when you grant them god like status. I wouldn’t act this way if I met a particularly skilled surgeon or gifted lawyer. It inevitably comes down to celebrity and to a certain extent my obsessive personality.

I just have to stop.

Blumenfeld

I went to see the Blumenfeld Studio: New York, 1941 – 1960 exhibition at Somerset House over the weekend. Each and every photograph was a treat to look at.Blumenfeld was renowned for his work in fashion and much of it has featured in Vogue (I have posted one of his covers before).

Photography by Irwin Blumenfeld

There was something particularly intriguing about this piece however. Perhaps it’s how the model just seems to bleed into the background, her gloved hands the only things caught in relief. Whatever the reason, I think this is an incredibly striking picture.

“Deathmasks on sticks”

Miss Anne Hathaway won for Best Supporting Actress last night.

Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage

Utterly arresting when she accepted. Effortlessly chic in Burberry.

“…the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment.”

— Marquis de Sade

So, I’m not actually going to talk about the quote… I’m actually going to talk about this :

Sort of…

I cant help it, I have to say it. The quote just seems a bit meaningless in the context of video and song. There isn’t a real S&M vibe, nor do the lyrics seem to hint at this supposed path of torment. Rather the director of the video, or maybe Cheryl herself, thought it would be cool to quote the Marquis.

Aside from the pretentions, the video is pretty solid. In that we have a beautiful Ms Cole pouting to camera, wearing clothes I would love to have, but probably would never have the courage to wear (nor the budget to buy them).

She’s undoubtedly beautiful, but the overly manufactured track doesn’t do enough to hide her weak voice.

Presumably the California plates and dancing in what might be an LA flood drain is supposed to constitute a cool and fresh MV. Well, the Pussycat Dolls and Beyonce have already done it, that being said, they’ve made it in America. Something Cheryl will undoubtedly be striving for, after her rather embarrassing exit from X Factor USA.

Also, the video has been put up on her official channel. And its not Cheryl Cole, its simply Cheryl. She’s got big boots to fill if she wants to go for the single moniker. Something another X Factor alum should think about, I’m looking at you The Female Boss AKA Tulisa.

A girl’s girl or class A b**** ?

I was watching a ‘documentary’ on girl groups the other day. Apparently girl bands sing to girls, and we as girls want to be one of them. Now, the show made a crucial point, those in a girl group need to be sexy, yet, they cannot be boyfriend stealers. They have to be part of the girls club, not a glamazon that only seeks to plunder and steal from the wealth of eligible bachelors (please note that a 14 year olds opinion on what construes as elgible differs wildly from mine) on the school playground.

For the most part girl bands used to sing about unrequited love or going out on a Saturday night. Some of them even branched out, self empowerment and respect being the new buzzwords, so with the likes of the Spice Girls we finally did get girls we liked and we did want to join their gang (I believe they covered that Garry Glitter ‘classic’).

So what ever happened to songs like this?

Now what we get is this:

Really? “My resume says I’m a bad girl”, “I’m an outlaw/ I’m the big boss/ I’m a gangsta on the dancefloor/ I’m notorious”

Well, the liberal application of Barry M lipgloss (boy was that some painful product placement) must mean it’s true! Comparing themselves to Tony Soprano as a means to attract a man, well that’s new for me. Because that’s what it’s about. Now girls, being notorious might get you attention but you will start asking yourself the question, why do I attract the wrong men?

Ok that’s unfair.  But honestly, if you stick by the rule so long as the boy you like gets along with your friends; as extolled by the the Spice Girls’ pop classic (can you tell how old I am?) ‘Wannabe’, you’ll be alright.

And if you ask me, blondie (Mollie) hogging the spotlight smacks of boyfriend pilferer, but then, I did fail to mention girl groups are supposed to appeal to older brothers as well.

So give me En Vogue and the Spice Girls any day.

Timeless

Photography by Erwin Blumenfeld

More than 60 years on and this cover still looks current. So maybe the Marilyn Monroe style mole might date it a tiny bit. But it’s every bit as evocative and just as chic as when it first hit the newsstands.

 

Fanatical

If you click back through my posts you may notice that I err… appreciate a few celebretires. Not necessarily for their actual talent, sometimes I just think they’re pretty.

I then found myself thinking, as I have watched a tv show or a film just because they’re in it for five seconds. And I do wax lyrical about their general beauty and wonderful-ness (a real word for my purposes). A question arose. Am I a fangirl?

First off, I shall try and work a definition.

Fangirl is simply the female equivalent of fanboy, perhaps? As I have often disparaged Superman fanboys. Anyone who disses Batman isn’t much better than a flaming bag of shit in my estimation. I really don’t want to be considered the female counter.

So I now turn to the font of all wisdom, the Urban Dictionary. One entry reads:

Fan -girl | known to squeal, giggle, scream, and stay up to ungodly hours of the night obsessing over, but not limited to: a book, tv show, movie, or some excessively hot celebrity

So, I may have been known to squeal and giggle… But I draw the line at screaming.

Another reads:

A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor. Similar to the breed of fanboy. Fangirls congregate at anime conventions and livejournal. Have been known to glomp, grope, and tackle when encountering said obsessions

I resent the implication that I’m in fact rabid. I’ve never encountered my obsession, scratch that. I have encountered one. I squealed. Maybe even jumped. But I did stay a good 5 meters away at all times. No ‘glomping’, groping or tackling my end. None.

See, this is why I dont like labels. I wont be reduced to this

For a glimpse of Paul, John, Ringo and George.

But then, this pleases me…. and maybe that says it all.