Sunday, July 29, 2007

When I fell in love with Ripley

Ripley is stuck in the sick bay with a little girl and a vicious indestructible predatory alien bent on vicious indefensible predatory parasitism. No one can hear them shout for help because the glass window is too thick. She can't break it with a chair, it just bounces off. The evil corporate guy closes the blind so no one can see them waving and screaming.

What does Ripley do? She reaches up with one arm (economically, almost insouciantly) and flicks her lighter open close to the ceiling, setting off the smoke alarm and alerting everyone to the danger.

Definitely in my top 10 of cool movie moments. (I would love to be Ripley, alas, I feel I identify more with Hudson, the cowardly marine who cracks up under the pressure.)

Who's your movie hero then, and why?

Get away from her, you bitch!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Berlin...



















This post dedicated to all the lovely bloggers I met at the Stammtisch;
Ben Perry;
BerlinBites;
John Borland;
Peasant Glasses;
Radio Free Mike;
Zis German Life;
and especially Bowleserised; and to Em, for coming to play, for braving all the bloggers & for giving me this lovely book, and last but by no means least the gorgeous BiB and the Raaahsian, darling, always a pleasure, never a chore...

Monday, July 23, 2007

London is filled with nutters

Case number 1:

(Man standing next to me in line for coffee at Ray's Jazz:)
I'll have a cappuccino. Oh, and a glass of water. Mmmmmmm, water, mmm mmm mmm [he starts making sex noises] I love water. I love it. [Glances at me with eyebrow raised suggestively] It's so good for you... and it's transparent.

Case number 2:
Man in a suit who at first glance appears quite normal, then turns round and displays a proud inch or two of builder's bum, throwing his bike over the railings on Charing Cross Road in a temper:

Nobody loves you! Nobody! You can just fuck right off! (he is talking to the bike.)

Anyway, I'm off to Berlin. Laters...

Friday, July 20, 2007

Immature

It's my birthday tomorrow. Cake, champagne & kisses all round. And here is my birthday present to you, because I love you all so much.

(You have to listen to it, or I'll sulk. It's called Handbag, features mainly old embarrassing handbag type dance tunes, as I'm showing my age & can no longer pretend to be down with the kids.)

What is your optimum age then?

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

What do you do...

when you're stuck?

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Had enough...

Rah! Flight booked. Apartment booked. (like you care.) Flying via Biarritz - I intend to walk a leopard on a diamond chain down the main drag whilst sporting sunglasses, capri pants & skyscraper heels (or am I thinking of Cannes?)

But first, I must get past the horror of this final week which involves yet another trip - last week on a trip, in the grand tradition of my 30-small- kids-on-public-transport traumas, I nearly lost one when she left her bag behind and decided to jump back on the tube a split second before the doors closed.

This one is a farm trip, lord help me. Cue nightmares about them being eaten by pigs, mown down by combine harvesters, etc etc... Why do I do it? Forget 'enriching their education', they can stay within the 4 school walls til they're 18 for all I care, I have my blood pressure to consider.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Rise

See here. Free music! Yes, it is in Finsbury Park,* which is just a big stretch of grass for dogs to wee on and alcoholics to pass out on, and is not on a par with any other London park IMHO, but still, free music, in the cause of anti-racism, which we all need to show our support with in these troubled times.

Plus it stars KELIS, KELIS, yes for free! (She is my same sex crush of choice, if I was, you know, a bloke, or that way inclined. )




* and Dagenham, but I'm not that committed to the cause.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

San Sebastian

Under duress, I'm posting this here, for a friend who does not understand that it is not a NOTICEBOARD, it is a work of highly-crafted literary genius:

Anybody ever stayed in San Sebastian? Can you recommend somewhere? (Preferably apartments, but hotels or even hostels will do.) Or better yet, do you own a holiday home there which you are willing to let to us?*

I thank you.

* As it is during high season, and every one in Spain goes there on their holidays, I suspect we're fucked, but worth a try...

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Grownups (2)

ways he made me laugh in a way I haven't in a long time:

confessing whilst back in the Big Smoke for a Criminologist's convention, he'd been dragged along to not one, not two, but three reality tv-related shows by a fame crazed, camp fellow criminologist, who made him sit in the front row each time, where he found himself on camera waving his hands in the air whilst wearing those big sponge hands, singing along 'Hey baby, I wanna know, will you be my girl?' Catching himself on the monitor and freezing in horror.

"You've no idea, there is this whole sub-culture of professional TV audiences - you should have heard them - oh, you should try the Friday Night Project, you should try Big Brother's Big Mouth... They make the people in 'Extras' look sane and balanced. '

Telling us about his wedding - 'We chose our favourite song, it's Bootsy Collins. But we hadn't really thought it through - it's got all this tricky jazz stuff in it, and is not that easy to dance to... we were having to free-style it... plus it goes on for about an hour, you could see about 200 people glancing at their watches...'

He seems to have grown up in a way our other friends haven't; 'When I go out with Mons and Damien, and they're checking out some 19 year old, I say 'You're old enough to be her dad.' 'Eh? Nooo... Well... Fuck off, grandad! Who asked you out anyway?'

Mons was seeing this lovely woman. Down to earth, really nice, but he stuffed it up. She was a proper woman, you know, not a little girl - very womanly, but in no way, like, fat. I said, what did you say to her? 'I just suggested she lose a little bit of weight.' 'Oh, Mons... ' 'What, what's wrong with that?' 'You'd only been seeing her a week. And, pot, have you met kettle?'

He says, 'You know what I remember most about you? We were around your house at a party, and I said, where's Annie? I opened your bedroom door and you were sitting cross-legged on the bed, bouncing up and down and listening to Cypress Hill, head-banging with all your mad hair...'

Ah, misty water-coloured memories...

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Arty nonsense

I like it, what can I say?

Vauxhall Art Carboot Fair (in Brick Lane, confusingly enough.)


Update: photos here

I am not here

I'm over here. I don't know anyone, and they don't know me. It's just like being the new girl at school again (- may yet end up eating lunch in the ladies', just like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, because no social clique will talk to me.)

Monday, July 02, 2007

Beyond belief

Wanted in connection with the attempted Glasgow bombings - a doctor.

A doctor.

Like one of the July 7th bombers, who was a classroom assistant.

What next? A paediatrician? A nun?