Cry cry, run run.

Urgh. Remember that scene from Full Metal Jacket, you know, where the poor fat bloke gets set upon by his fellow cadets and they pummel him with bars of soup wrapped in towels. Remember? Remember he cried? He said something like 'uuhhuuhhhhhoooowwwwwhhhuuuhh.'
Fortunately Vincent went on to be all smart and jerky moving in Law and Order Criminal intent. No pounding there, he gets to be the table slapper.
Indeed.
THe BUPA run in on April 15th, and I am in it. It is my very first ever offical race and I don't want to shame myself by coming in over the finishing line the following morning. It is only 10K- the more runnery among you may wander off now, make coffee and laugh at me- but 10k it is and I want to do it in under an hour.
So, despite my snot filled head, I am back in training.
Yesterday I did 10k in one hour 12 minutes. I wasn't over impressed but it's not terribly shabby considering my current state and with Finn's superb help and staggering patience for answering stupid questions I am now about to start doing something called 'interval' training, so that I can hopefully shave off that pesky extra 12 minutes.
Right.
However I got up this morning and it would appear someone pulled the soap in a towel trick on my slumbering corpse like self.
I have questioned the Paramour most carefully and he swears blind he had no part in it. So I deduce it is the result of yesterday's effort. It's a right rum one, the pain is not in my legs at all, although the shins are a tuch twingy, my knee is holding up nicely, thanks to my new and fabulous trainers. No, the pain is in my arms and shoulders.
BIzzare.
Anyhoo, it's Sonia O'Sullivan's last road race too, so there's a bit of history in the making. All the money raised is going to charity and I'm really looking forward to it.
Which makes me wonder about getting older.
Happy Friday y'all, it's the portal to the weekend.

Talking to yourself.

Well? Do you do it?
Orla Barry had some girl called Tina Delahunty on, and she says she's holding a poll to see if folk talk to themselves. She reckons folk get all twitchy about this, as though other folk mght think them nutty if they do.
I don't know about nutty, but I do know I'm a regular waffler to myself, usually aloud. Normally I waffle to the cats- which is like talking to yourself, only with a sort of escape clause.
'Are you talking to yourself?' A person might ask.
'No, to the cats.'
'Right, so you're not mad.'
'No, no, devil a bit of it. Isn't that right Puddy?'
'Meow.'
'That was you doing that.'
'Eek, oh hahah, I was just joking.'
Truth be told, there might not be a cat anywhere near me at the time.
Yesterday, as I was strolling up from the village with the milk and some Curly Wurlies, I was talking to myself, I was alone so I was in full flight, right up until the point that a man came around the corner and looked puzzled. Then I switched to my back up cover up, singing. At any given moment of self chatter I can break into the strain of some song or other, thus confusing the casual listener.
'Is this girl talking to herself?' They might wonder, noticing that I am alone and being full sure they heard conversation not moments before.
Then we will get closer and I will sing 'meet you all the way, Rosaaaaaaannnaa yeah' as I go past.
Then they will smile and relax their shoulders, for I am not a self waffler, but merely a happy go lucky clown, singing to myself as I go about my business.
Hah! Pah! Bah!
Foolish passer-bys, how easily you are conned. I WAS yapping, I was giving out to an imaginary friend!
Do I feel silly? No, not really, Gamma did it all the time. One would join her out on the lawn where she would be busily hanging clothes while her fat dog sat beside her.
'That one, always has to have the last word and sure it doesn't matter what you say, oh sure they don't listen, there's none so blind as those that don't want to see, oh sacred heart, sure it would put years on you, years-'
'Gamma who are you talking to?"
'Eeek, Oh, alana, don't be sneaking up like that, you'll put the heart cross ways in me.'
'Yes but-'
'Go on now, go on now with yourself.'
'But who were-'
'An don't be hanging around that quarry, you'll get drowned.'
This immediately made me think of going straight to the quarry, so I would leave her be, and I wouldn't have gone twenty feet when I'd hear the steady drone of her voice again. 'That one, always sneaking up on people...
Also, when I was a child, I used to interview myself regularly.
'So Miss Fatcat, where were you when you discovered you'd won the Oscar?'
'Ohh Parky, It was just so unexpected! I was riding my bay stallion across the moors back to the hall when Agatha, the housekeeper, came out all a flutter! 'Ma'am!' She yelled, frightening the bejaysus out of my stead. 'Ma'am, you've won, you won the oscar for sheer all round fabulocity!' Well Parky, I was taken aback, let me tell you.'
'You must have had some idea you were going to win?'
'Nooooo, anyway, Oscars, it's all a bit silly really, let me tell you about the five wolves I single handedly rescued from the circus and trained to attack school teachers on command, that's a real hoot.'
Whatever esle, the self talker is never bored. I for one can't wait until I am old and have grandchildren so that they may laugh and ask, 'Who are you talking to Gamma?'
'Ghosts.' I will say and titter as they run off in terror to find their parents.

Non-alcoholic beer...

it is not exactly delicious now, is it?

My new language and the giddy girl.

As some of you know I"ve had a rotten cold pretty much most of the weekend and at last it is showing some sign of abating. However, much as I feel slightly better, there is still one area in which I am suffering. My speech. Or radder, by speedgh.
It seems every time I get a cold my head gets bunged up to hell and it takes DAYS for it to clear, rendering me ridiculous sounding. Country Gay refuses to speak to me on the phone as I sound,'weird' The paramour laughs when I ask him for things like "Bass de budder.' Even Etheline could not resist a denied snarf when I told her I couldn't go for lunch "becob I hab a colb" 'No shit' she said 'I would neber hab guessed.'
Quite frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of it all.
However, these laughy types are friends and family, so a certain amount of tolerance is required, plus a certain storing of ammunition should any of them ever be less than perfect in the future. Call me Rudolf all you want paramour, but some day vengence will be mine.
I do however take great exception to being mocked and laughed at by so called professionals!
I let my gym membership run down some months ago as I had taken to running in the park as so on, then Memnoch left for Hamburg and I- naturally-have used this time to eat cheese drink wine and generally take a break from most thing fitness.
But woe is me. For a quick skippity hop on the scales on the weekend suggests that my body is 'aving a laugh and storing fat like a rampant squirrel facing the ice age.
'Eeeeek!' I said to The bigger of the cats, 'By Mudder warned me did would habben! Ugh, what's dis? A sudden crabbing for jelly Babies! NOOOO!'
So, after tears and tantrums and sniffles and a completely blocked head due to the tears, I took myself off yesterday morning to join a new gym. It's near the house and I shall go every day to restore my body to it's previous state.
I parked in the huge carpark and entered the swing doors and approached the reception where a perky girl gave my red nose the once over.
'Hello' Perky girl said.
'Hellob!' I lied, 'I'm thinking of joibing your gyb.'
She began to laugh, 'Oh no, I'm sorry, but every second person today, hahhahha, seems to be heehhe smothering.'
'Yes, hilarious.'
'Did you want to look around?"
'Yes.'
She took me on a tour, and it was quite impressive, she was yip yapping as we poodled along. 'We doing a special once off rate at the moment and if you sign up now this covers you for full membership including our classes. Except the yoga and Pilates, they're extra.'
'Can I comb at abby stage during de day with did.... whooosh!'
'Hahhaha, yes.'
I blow my nose and frown at her, she is clearly delighted, or on speed. Also I notice she is Australian. perhaps that is it, for if my great knowledge gleaned from Home and Away had thought me anything it is that Australians are a strange bunch.
'The ladies dressing rooms are to the right and the pool has no shallow or deep end.'
I nod.
She looks at me, disapppointed. 'Do you have any questions?"
I shake my head.
'Okay then.'
We head back to the front desk and she hands me a sheet of rules and a sheet for my medical history. (where I resist writing 'born of a jackal' ) She's blathering on and I'm trying to think of words that don't have 'v', 'g' or 'th' in them.
'What about extra passes?' I say and beam for I said it in clear and concise English.
'You get three with this bag, oh and your locker key and a free hand towel is inside, after that it's twenty Euros a guest.'
'Ribe' I say.
''Heh, also we have a coffee dock and hairdressers.'
I scribble out my forms, fill in my John Hancock in total silence and pay. Before I can pass the paper back to her I am wracked with another of those VELLY annoying dry hacking coughs that seem to last for ages and leave me red faced and gasping.
I grab my bag and nod at her, making my way as fast as I can to the door, for I can feel a tickle in my throat, which means more coughing.
'Wait!' She cries, 'you need to have your photo taken for your swipe card.'
I skid to a terrible halt. Why, I berate myself silently, had I not thought of this,(sick) Why had I not worn make-up, (sick) Why God why? (agnostic)
She points to a chair and I fallump into it miserably. A small desk mounted camera points my way.
I try to push my hair back from my face, but the effort of walking, breathing and trying not to cough has made it sticky and uncooperative. It's almost cobwebby.
'Smile!' My perky gal from down under says.
I grimace at the camera.
'All done' she says, but now she's not smiling.'This will be ready in the morning.'
I flee, chocking , coughing, wooshing until tears run down my slightly swollen cheeks.
This very morning I went down to pick up my card.
I'm looking at it right this second.
At least I think it's me, I could also be looking at an eggplant, an aubergine, a radish of some sort. My effort to keep my cough in, combined with my radioactive nose and slitty swollen eyes has translated to the very worst photo I have ever seen of my in my entire life. I am a red faced beast, one of Dante's creations, a vermillion puffer-fish.
Fubbing hell.

Seriously.

When good plastic goes bad.

Rape, a whole new quagmire coming your way.

This ruling yesterday is going to open a whole can of worms, both here and across the water.
Let me tell you a true story.
The night of St Patrick's night, I and a number of friends went out and had a rare old time. We were in a large group and we are, despite out fondness for the drink, able to pace ourselves, we all had food too, which makes a difference.
At one stage in the night we were in a packed bar near Drury Street, where the music was hopping and the crowd loud and boisterous.
Needing to pee, I went downstairs to the loo and got into the ten deep line for the three cubicles. After a slow move of the line I and the girl I went downstairs with noticed the toilet at the end never opened and that a girl near the front had knocked on it more than once.
As we are ladies, we sneaked a glance underneath. A pair of feet pointed out, but slumped to one side.
'You all right in there?" We took turns in calling. Nowt.
Eventually we looked over the cubicle from the one next door and lo and behold there was a young wan, passed clean out, her underwear around her ankles and her face resting on the wall beside her.
We knocked and called some more, absolute nada.
WE took a toss up, and because I was wearing trousers-albeit satin and very tight-It was deemed reasonable that I should go over the wall.
Allright, so after much effort, I managed to get onto the cistern and over the wall onto the other toilet, I slid down and edged along side the girl.
'Hey, hey there, you okay? Come on now, wake up?'
I pushed her hair back off her face and managed to get her eyes open, she had no idea who I was or where she was. Neither could she speak.
'Are your friends here?' I asked her.
'Huh?'
'Are you friends here?'
'I don't know where they are.' She said eventually.
'Is she all right?' My friend said from outside the door.
'yeah.'
I opened the door and between us we managed to A) get her underwear up and B) get her outside to the taps. That's where she vomited.
The long and the short of it was she reeled off upstairs looking for her friends, shoeless, and leaving her hand bag-in my friend's hand.
Wasted. Beyond wasted, totally without an ounce of sense and utterly vulnerable,
We looked for her and couldn't find her, so we left her bag in behind the bar in case one of her friends noticed she was missing it, or she came to look for it the next day, her shoes-we supposed-were a right off.
Why am I telling you this and what has it got to do with rape?
Well nothing really, except this girl, could very easily have agreed that she was a pilot that night, or a sailor, or clown, she could also probably agree to have sex, even if-by my reckoning- she couldn't possibly know what she was agreeng too.
Which bring me to my case today.
People say a rape is a rape. But I beg to differ. Is it still rape if BOTH parties are drinking heavily and neither party is too clear on who said what and to whom? I've said this before, rape is not always as cear cut as we would like to imagine it to be. It should be, but it is not.

But then people like to use that against women too. The Mary Shannon case that Swearing Lady highighted yesterday has spawned a few questioners. It was interesting to note that an annoymous comment on Sweary's site cast doubt on the veracity of her story, saying that she was " completely drunk (and probably drugged) as was Adam Keane. Minutes before she invited Adam Keane back to her house, she had approached the bouncer at the pub with the same offer. That never went to court because the bouncer didn't even know there was a rape case occurring until it was in the papers."
Now as far as I'm concerned a jury tried Adam Keane and he was found guilty, therefore he should have served a sentence. It doesn't matter one whit if Mary Shannon was three feet high and rising or sitting at home knitting. The fact remains that she was in her own home, this man entered her home and raped her and-although found guilty- he walked free.

I have said before on this site that I am not comfortable with a man being accused of rape when both parties are drunk. The considered idea at the moment is if a girl is too drunk to consent then it is automatically rape. But that is very blurry thinking, what if the girl and the guy are both blind drunk? Why is she absolved of any responsibility but not he.
I don't have any answers, and my usual bleat of personal responsibility seems very muted this morning. But I can see a change, whether we like it or not. If the current drinking culture continues, where men and women alike, drink themselves into such a sorry state that they cannot remember where they are, who they are, or if they agreed to sex or not, then how the hell are we supposed to work out if they did or didn't comit a crime/agree to sex?
I'm not excusing rapists either, but neither am I going to jump on my gender's right to always be the victim.
Like I said, the ruling given in an English court, our nighbours, is going to have a ripple effect, we can only wait and see who drowns in the backwash.

Mel Gibson, not nuts at all.

Just a tad highly strung.
From TMZ
"Gibson was speaking to a film class about his movies, and several members of the Mayan community came to hear the famous director.

After Gibson's presentation, the crowd was allowed to ask questions. Alicia Estrada, an Assistant Professor of Central American Studies at CSUN, challenged Gibson, asking him if he had read about the Mayan culture before shooting the controversial film. Gibson said he had. Estrada persisted, stating that representations in the movie that the Mayans engaged in sacrificial ceremonies and had bloodthirsty tendencies were both wrong and racist. Gibson then exploded in anger, responding, "Lady, F**k off." Gibson also became extremely angry when members of the Mayan community protested on how they were portrayed in the film. The emotional Mayan members were escorted out of the room, and we're told Gibson screamed a parting shot -- "Make your own movie!"

You know, Mel 'Suger Tits' Gibson amuses the hell out of me, but outbursts notwithstanding, he's probably right this time. It's a film, and films are not always known for being steeped in exact historical fact. I doubt the Spartans were really running around in little leather shorties, but damn it was good to see on screen. People need to stop apologising over shit all the time.
Make your own fucking movie indeed.

300

Violence, loud music, gore, flaming god villain, hot semi-nude VELLY fit men wearing little leather shorties or nothing at all, capes, beards, sweaty glistening pecs, bloodshed, sex, violence, stabbings, limbs gushing, heads lopping, beards, rippling six-packs, rippling backs, beards, rippling shoulders, rippling eight packs, beards, pert bottoms, rippling chests, beards.
What's not to like?

The teenage conversation, like.

'I was like, Oh my God!, are you sure? He's a total mint!
'I'm telling you, he was totally looking at you.'
'Wow- he's a lash.'
'Yeah but, like, Connie used to go with this friend of his and she says he's like kinda like going with Ellie Foster.'
'Who?'
'That girl, you know her, she's got that like hair.' (waves arms madly)
'No way! Her? She's a total dirty skank!'
'Totally.'
(Glum silence for a moment)
'Do you think he like, likes her?'
'Probably not, he's probably just like, you know hanging with that whole crowd? You know?'
'Totally.'
'Connie was saying that Ellie's brother Gav is in a band, so like, that's probably it, like.'
'Oh totally, he's really into his music.'
'I mean that's probably why they were hanging out, practice, you know?'
'Yeah, because I don't think Ellie' (Does a dramatic head shake complete with disgusted face.)
'Me neither.'
'Like, ever since she got that part in the ad she's totally been up her own arse, like.'
'Oh totally.
'Pretending like she's so like, stagey, like she's always pretending she's a total algerian.'
Pause.
'A what?'
'Algerian?
'Like Greek?"
'No, what do you call them? You know those kind of actors that, like, think, they're all like, the shit and stuff?'
'Em-'
(Long pause)
'Well whatever, one of those, God, as if, I mean she's a total skank.'
'Oh totally.'
'She works in SuperQuinns on the weekend tooo. Packing bags? I saw her there, like last week. She was morto when she saw me.
'Oh bogus!'
'Totally,(looks very pleased all of a sudden, then frowns again) My mom's all in my face about getting a weekend job too and I'm like, relax, I'll get a job for the summer?'
'I've got one.'
'NO way! Oh my God! Where?'
'BT2.'
(Stunned) 'No the fuck way!'
'We get a discount on all the clothes too.'
'Wow, their clothes! I LOVE THEIR STUFF! Like- wow, I'm seriously- like that's amazing! How did you get that?'
'Oh, my Mom knows one of the managers and she like, asked?'
'Do you think they need anyone else like, part time?'
'Dunno. I'll ask.'
'Cool, that'd be like the total shit!'

ACTUAL CONVERSATION THIS FAT CAT HAD TO LISTEN TO RECENTLY. HOW THIS FAT CAT DIDN'T PULL A MR BARLOW FROM SALAM'S LOT AND CRACK THEIR TWO HEADS TOGETHER WITH A SATISFYING 'THWUNK' IS STILL A MYSTERY.

I was asleep!

It's the greatest excuse ever told. Oh this one is a doozy! I'm going to use it constantly from now on in, and because I love you all I"m going to post it here so that y'all might use it freely too. Think of the posibilities. Did I ring up my mother and berate her for something or other, maybe, but I was asleep when I did it. Did you spend a mortgage papyment on shoes? I was asleep when I did it! I woke up and they were in a box beside the bed, yer honor, er, I mean paramour. Oh I could go on, I would go on, but I could be asleep.
From today's Mail.

"An airline pilot who turned up for duty on a transatlantic flight nearly six-and-a-half times the alcohol limit was cleared - after claiming he had been drinking in his sleep.

James Yates, 47, had been on a six-hour drinking session the evening before and was stopped at an airport security point looking dishevelled and unsteady on his feet, it was claimed.

But a jury acquitted the first officer of attempting to board the cockpit of the American Airlines Boeing 767 which had been due to take 181 passengers from Manchester to Chicago.

During the case, Yates, an American, had suggested he may have drunk a third of a bottle of whisky in his sleep after going to bed.

He denied he had been trying to get on the plane, insisting his intention was to find the captain and explain that he was not in a fit state to fly. Yates, from Ohio, had begun drinking at about 4.30pm the day before the flight to Chicago on February 11 last year, returning to his hotel room at 11.20pm.

The next thing he remembered, he told the court, was the plane's captain, Harvey Bell, hammering on his door at 9am - an hour-and-a-half before the plane was due to take off.

A jury in Manchester accepted his claims, although he is expected to lose his job following the incident which is an embarrassment to one of the world's biggest airlines.'

Sack him? Are they crazy? He's a genuis. Don't worry Yates, you can get a job in marketing anywhere, or advertising, or you culd be a lawyer, or A leader of a small island in Europe. just climb into your jammies and soon you will be master of all.

Oh, and by the by, Twenty Major, old miserable bollocks that he is, has been offered a two book deal with Hodder. He claims he was asleep when this happened. I believe him.

In the name of God.

I'm a fairly decent human being. Not for any particular reason, it's just the way I was raised. I try not to fuck people over, I don't steal, I'm haven't murdered anyone yet, I try to treat others in much the same way as I like to be treated, I'm kind to animals, children, old folk and so on.
I'm not patting myself on the back over it either, most of us are decent folk.
Naturally this means we have a moral centre. Now some people say this moral centre-if you will- comes from God. Others-Dawkins say- suggest it might come from a herd mentality developed over many centuaries.
Well I'm not so sure about that, I have a feeling my morality comes from my experiences and life thus far. Who is to say if I had been brought up in extreme poverty I wouldn't steal, or if I had been beaten and abused as a child I might now be a beater and abuser? Either way I'm glad I don't have to spend much of my time pondering these things as it seems my natural way is to not be an evil fucking bitch, and if God is behind that then so be it.
What I would wonder is why so many people use God's name to be evil monsters? Monsters who feel that by invoking his name they can get away with being the most miserable disgusting, cruel, vicious behaviour.
Beat your wife into submission. =I did it because the bible says wives should submit and she was too uppity.
Disfigure the private parts of young men and woman when they are too young and frightened to defend themselves. Why God wants it thusly. (you would have to ask the question, if he made us in his image why he'd want his children being butchered)
Celibate- God ordained it.
Treat women as second class. God. (natch I can't find any mention for this anywhere in the bible, but there you go)
Treat gays as scum-old God, although everyone lets the shellfish eaters away with murder, same too the polyester/cotton blend mix wearers.
Anyhoo, there are a whole lot of rules and variations on what God might or might not want and a lot of these depend on what particular religion you follow.
Is divorce really that bad? Well to a Catholic, sure.
What about eating pork? Not if you are Muslim.
Leaving on a boy's foreskin? Not if you are jewish.
Getting a blood transfussion? A Jehovah's Witness would rather die.

What am I on about this fine morning?
I'm on about the story that follows. I'm on about something all faith's should agree on, regardless of denomination or creed.
We should protect the vulnerable, we should give the succor. 'Suffer little children come to me,' Jesus is reported to have said.
Quite.
If we witness suffering it is our moral obligation to speak out, to defend the weak. And that should be something we do regardless if we believe in God, The flying spagetti Monster, Allah, or Manolos.
It is the right thing to do.
That way people like the following scumbag can't get an opportunity to wreak hell on earth on God's name.
From today's Sun.


"AN evil foster mother was yesterday convicted of horrifically abusing three children — to raise them “in accordance with her faith”.
Fanatical Jehovah’s Witness Eunice Spry, 62, believed the two girls and a boy were possessed by the Devil and wanted to “purify” them.

She beat them with sticks and metal bars, forced them to drink bleach and eat their own vomit and faeces, and starved them naked in a locked room for a month.

She also kicked them, pushed sticks down their throats, strangled them, forced their hands on a hot cooker and rubbed their faces with sandpaper, a court was told.

The kids were banned from listening to pop or wearing trendy clothes — and were punished if found with sweets or music mags.

One punishment saw the trio, identified only as Victims A, B and C, forced to stay totally still for long periods. If they moved they would be beaten as a further deterrent.

The abuse went undetected for almost 20 years as Spry pulled the youngsters out of school and taught them at her two rat-infested homes in Tewkesbury, Gloucs.

Council inspectors also failed to spot the horror despite regularly visiting to check on the kids’ education.

But it finally came to light in December 2004, when Victim A — one of the two girls — ran away from home.

Victim B and Victim C, the boy, made statements to police and Spry, estranged from her second husband, was arrested in February 2005.

Doctors called the kids’ injuries “extraordinary”. They also had depression. Both girls had attempted suicide.

Spry, described as chilling and cold, denied abusing the three and said she was only trying to bring them up according to her faith.

She told a jury at Bristol Crown Court: “I sweated blood for those children. I went to great lengths to protect them from immorality.

“From a Christian point of view we expect our children to be obedient. As it says in the Bible, ‘Children, be obedient to your parents and make the Lord proud’.”

But after a five-week trial, jurors convicted her of 24 counts of abuse between 1986 and 2005 — plus two of intimidating witnesses.

Judge Simon Darwall-Smith remanded Spry in custody pending reports before she is sentenced next month.

Her three victims — now young adults — went to live with Spry as youngsters with social services approval.

But Victim A said they were treated as “slaves”, rarely allowed out and told to lie about their bruises . She said: “We were beaten, starved, drowned in the bath and kicked down the stairs.

“Mum had an array of sticks, and would beat us with them and kick us till we were collapsing with pain.

“If we screamed she’d push the sticks down our throats.”

Victim A said the family’s homes were infested with rats and the children would often sleep on the floor.

At one point she said Spry made her wear a sign on her back at her local Jehovah’s Witnesses church, reading: “This child is evil. Do not look at her or talk to her.”

The girl said her earliest memory was of Spry making her eat dog food and, when she was sick, eat the vomit.

Victim B said Spry had a system of punishments for lying — heavily prohibited by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

She said: “She’d pour washing-up liquid down our throats and say, ‘Don’t throw up or you’ll have more’. We were told not to speak to anyone. She believed other people were worldly as they didn’t believe in her religion.” Victim C said: “I can only describe mother’s punishment methods as torture.”
*************************************************************************************

Those poor little children. If there is a God, I hope he reserves a seat on the shuttle bus straight to hell for that miserable bitch.

For Finn! De memories.

Because happiness is just a steaming hot shower and a bowl of chowder away. Also, look where we aren't.

One of those cold days.

It's cold.
Ryanair and Airlingus have sneakily upped their charges on the QT. The cold hearted bastards.
Some woman is giving out about clampers on the radio. She is boring me cold.
Brenda Power is on next. She leaves me cold.
Puddy is asleep on one of my best jumpers. I haven't the heart to move her, the pink bellied slut.
Angelina Jolie has adopted another child.
Robbie Williams is a bit of a twat.
My email is chocka block full of spam. Do I want 'red hot insider info on stocks'? Or 'little blue pills for her pleasure'?
Eddie Hobbs gives me toothache, why must he have an opinion on everything, the witless little hobo.
I have a mysterious pain in my back. I wonder is it due to cold?
I have work to do that I can't be bothered even starting. My fingers are too cold to type.
Phil Spector looks like Clay Aitkin.
The bigger of the cats has a cold. Every time he sneezes he looks startled.
I have to go out in the cold soon-to run around Marley park-in the cold. Did I mention it was cold?
My friend just emailed me from Barcelona, it was 27 degrees there yesterday. I used to live there, it was not cold.
There is no bread for toast.
Urgh, just kill me now, at least then I then I'll be roasting.

UPDATE: It is now snowing in my back garden and the sun is splitting the rocks out the front.

Somewhat poorly.

This is how I feel today. I'm not even going to mention how I was yesterday. Suffice to say there was a party, then a taxi ride,then dancing, some rum was drunk, there was a bit of a pub crawl, there was a startling mooning, a full circle, more dancing, a lock in and some more rum may have been drunk. I got home at 8 am, that's right. 8 am. A good time was had by all and the Italians have probably shivered their way onto a plane by now. I'm betting they're blessing themselves and saying some our fathers and clutching their photos of their mamas to their chests. More than one of them will have black Guinness poo for a few days-but we won't speak of that.
Cracking weekend.

St. Patrick's day!

Which is tomorrow, I know I know, but eeep, I"m going to post about it today as tomorrow I plan to be flibberty gibbert.
We have friends coming from 'abroad' and we are having a shindig.
Huzzah!
I do like an excuse to have a party. I love parties, I even love getting prepared for parties. Today I'm going to hit the supermarket for booze and nibbly things. Then fresh flowers, then I'm going to clean the house top to bottom.
Tomorrow I said I'd go to the parade with the LIttle Goth Kid, so that's what I'll do. I know this means we'll probably be up on a bin in Christchurch, freezing our arses off and we'll see nowt, but sure so what? I love the atmosphere.
I like that at the moment Dublin is filled with accents. Lots of 'merican Irish, and French Irish, and Australian Irish and English Irish, and Spanish Irish, and my personal favourite, Italian Irish. Whoo hoo! There's a real buzz about the place, all the ould wans on Camden street are selling tufts of shamrock and flags. Sales of Irish t-shirts in vibrant green are roaring.
Oh I know there are some that whinge on about it being too commercial and the drink sensibly crowd are already furrowing up their brows, but I don't care.
It's a day of fun and national Identity, a day when we can cast our eyes across the many ponds and witness our kin, our family, the wanderers who settled elsewhere, enjoy a day of connection, of belonging. 'Weeeeee" we will say, 'Happy Paddy's day! Slainté!'
When I was younger I was more scornful of this kind of celebration-too cool for school you see. Irish dancing? Jigs? Parades? How gauche! But then I lived abroad for a few years and I got it, I got what makes you miss home, what makes you yearn for familiarity, for that sense of being amongst your own. I got what it was we were celebrating. Gauche? No Sir, I promptly pulled my head back out of my own arse and headed to the first flatpacked Irish bar I could find and drank a Guinness in thoughtful comtemplation. Then I switched to rum and I couldn't tell you what I was thinking after that.
So this year I'm going to have a blast, an unashamedly Irish blast. We will party, drink, eat and be most merry, for we are Irish. Even Marcus, who isn't and Alfredo, who also isn't, but insists that he is.
I hope everyone has a great day, whatever you're doing.
Mucho Besos agus grå
FMC

Nightmare Kid.

Every so often the tranquil world of the fatcat will be shot to shit by a fit of laughter so genuine and so unexpected that it leaves one breathless and glad one ain't in public.
Behold, other bloggers dudes and dudettes alike, for I bring you a story of such weeny tweeny creeping weeping responsibility shedding wonder, that I a gal normally not known for gales of laughter, almost lost my CHAMPION breakfast of bacon and eggs.

Behold I say...

"RELAXING after a long day Lewis Green helps himself to a beer from the fridge, lights up a fag and settles down with his family in front of the telly.

Nothing unusual – except Lewis is only TEN. The tiny tearaway is the youngest ever to receive an Asbo and has made life a misery for neighbours. For them it is like living through an episode of TV’s Shameless.

Here mum Stephanie talks about her boy and how he was brought up.

STEPHANIE is outraged at a court’s decision to give her son an Asbo and to name and shame him.

The part-time cleaner says: “I don’t think it’s fair Lewis has been given the Asbo because he has been behaving himself for a few months now. Stephanie, 40, has lost count of the times she has been to court with baby-faced Lewis, though she now believes his behaviour is under control.

He has been a regular smoker since he was eight and moved on to cannabis a year later. Shockingly, Stephanie admits she gives Lewis her own cigarettes — he even lights up a Mayfair just seconds after The Sun photographer finishes taking pictures.

Stephanie says: “He’s not doing drugs any more. He has the occasional cig — about five or six a day. But I’d rather see him have a cigarette than know he’s going to do it behind my back, which will lead to other stuff.

“I’ve told him it will damage his lungs but I smoke and my husband smokes so he doesn’t listen. I’ve said I wish I could stop for the benefit of Lewis.

“I still let him spark up my cigarettes in the house but he’s stopped on the cannabis.”

I can't go on, there's more to the story of course, more whinging, more finger pointing, more wah-wah, but that last sentense cracks me up.

Oh no wait, I've got to add this bit it.

"“We have suffered more than anyone else with Lewis’s behaviour but instead of anyone having sympathy for us, people just automatically blame the parents.”

The strict terms of the Asbo mean Lewis is under a night-time curfew, is barred from possessing a knife or a screwdriver in public, throwing stones or eggs, having drugs or alcohol or being drunk.

The judge said, as an arrogant Lewis slept in court, that the order was not necessarily to punish Lewis, but to protect people living in his community."

Sweet Chultha, this kid is ten, can you imagine him in another few years? But hey, at least he's given up the hash, right? RIGHT?

You're F***ing Welcome!

What a shower of bad mannered oiks they are round these parts. I took the car, drove off to the supermarket, called into the flower shop to pick up some tulips, and as I was coming out an old lady was coming in, so naturally I held the door open for her. She sailed past me without as much as a 'thanks'.
Shaking my head slightly as the rudeness I criss crossed the carpark, got into my car. The man who was parked beside me and who drove off as I was approaching had emptied his entire ashtray out the driver's door, the ground was littered in crushed butts and ash and bits of plastic. There was a bin not twenty-feet away.
I got into my car pulled out, I drove to the top of my lane and was about to turn left when I spied another car coming, so I waited for them to pull in, and what did they do, jam up the yellow box in the middle of the road preventing me making my turn (the driver-a woman steadfastly refused to even look my way)
Muttering furiously I drove home, parked up and went to close the gates only to discover someone else had let their dog shit all over the path directly in front of my house.
People are annoying, lazy, filthy, rude bastards, they really are. I'm going for a run.

Forehead Slapping.

'What are we getting our mother on Mother's day?' My sister Etheline said, in a frankly demanding tone not one half hour ago.
'Salmonella?' I offered, while trying desperately to walk across the floors on my heels (wet nail polish)
'We have to get her something.'
'We? What's this 'we' business freckle face?'
'What about perfume?'
'Fine, get her perfume.'
'All right then, you come up with something.' She yelled.
Did she think 'Fine, get her perfume' was the same as 'Bitch I'm gonna fuck you up! I mean it, come closer and I"m a gonna cut you!'
'Get her a 'Curves' membership.' I say, helpfully I thought.
'There's just no point even talking to you is there.' My sister said, before hanging up on me.
I wonder what my sister hears? Loud whistles and pops I'm sure, maybe some barking.

Irrational fear and the angry girl.

Well now, bugger it. Between a rather jazzy dawn chorus of very loud tootling birds-whom I feed and this is how they repay me- to the gentle snoring of the Paramour- a sound so deep and sonorous whales are probably trying to answer it right this second, it's a wonder this fatcat got a wink of sleep. And then there was the dreaming, but that's another ditty. Of course I was dreaming, when I'm not sleeping deeply I dream like a fox.
Mumble mumble.
Beset by noise and frustrated by wakefulness, I called the paramour a few names in my head and dragged my sorry arse out of bed early. I slipped into my running clobber and left the house. It's was a muddily wet sort of morning here, neither one not t'other. Misty, a bit windy, mindy. Celtic, Sam could probably write a pome about it, that's right I said pome. What's it to you?
Grumble grumble.
Anyway, I ran along, partially cranked, half hoping some eegit would say a wrong word to me so that I could stop, take a deep breath and sponge him down with snark. But nobody opened their yaps and my brow stayed steadily furrowed as I huffle-puffed my way through Rathfarnham.
Snaggle srarrrarrr.
I got to the Dodder cross roads, skippity hopped across it and down onto the green bank, I bippity bopped my way along the path up to where a gal could cross into the park, where large stepping stones, concrete sleepers really, are set into the river. The river was flowing pretty fast this morning too, but the water was not running over the steps, as can sometimes happen.
I stepped onto the first step, then onto the other...
Then I got a bit dizzy and I had to step back onto the bank.
Stunned!
I glared at the river. What the fuck is this now? I've walked across this thing hundreds of times. True I've never really liked it, and also true Country gay's stupid dog nearly drowned falling off it once, at least until her remembered he could swim, but what the hell?
I stepped on it once more and got the same sort of shaky sensation in the back of my knees. I took two steps this time. The water swirled and I felt disorientated.
I WAS SCARED!!!
Befuddled, I had no option but to jog along the opposite bank and take the non-park way home. No longer in a rage, but really really confused.
I'm not a big fan of heights, but I will still go up a mountain, I'm a little claustraphobic, but I can still take lifts. While I don't like spiders because of their scuttling motion, I still catch them in glasses and put them outside. I'm not in the least bit afraid of dogs/mice/horses/bats. I couldn't care less abut wallking under ladders, I don't salute magpies, or bless myself when I see them. I don't believe in horoscopes, fortune tellers, tarot cards. I know that banshees are actually foxes and walking on pitch black country roads doesn't phase me. (except for that one time when a cow mooed from behind a hedge a scant few inches away and I nearly fainted) I can drive abroad. I'll try any and all types of food, I don't care if it has tentacles or a bunch of eyes. Stick me anywhere and in any situation and I'll do my damndest to keep my head.
In short I don't consider myself a scaredy cat.
So what happened this morning? Why the knee trembles? Why the, 'Hmm, I think I"m going to fall down if I don't get off this thing?' Even if I did fall in it's not deep. I could wade across. but I wouldn't fall, the steps are only a foot apart. So why couldn't I cross it? What's this about? It's irrational!
Arggh!
Naturally, I'm going to go back there tomorrow morning and fling myself across it if I must.
Has anyone else ever got a blast of totally irrational fear? Is it common? Will it go away?

Training in earnest.

What ho chums!
Observe the hour. I haven't been up this early since Homer was a pup, or that time I went to Glasgow.
And my reasons for such an unearthly awakening? Why running of course. I have decided to step up the old training-but on soft ground. So I'm off to Marley park. To Run. It's not even eight.
I'm sure I know what I'm doing, I'm just sure of it.
Apropos the picture, 300 has been released stateside and made 70 million dollars on it's first weekend! 70 million! I mean I think it cost 6cent to make. OOOOh I cannot wait for it to come over here so that I can add to its coffers.

Finn, Fatmammycat and the mountain (s).

'I'll bring you to Glendalough my 'merican chum!' I said, 'Providing the weather's not so horrid we'll go Monday!'
'Alrightly!' Miss Finn said.
And so it was set.
The morning began with a not very auspicious start. Before I opened my very eyes the bigger of the cats creamed me with an almightly crack to the cheek bone. With nery a swear word or seven I arose and checked the weather. Blue skies.
Huzzah!
I pulled on an artex cotton t-shirt, cotton underwear, cotton socks, jeans, my waterproof jacket (*important) and my new-not quite broken in -Timberlands.
But the omens were beginning to build.
First I took the canal which made me some minutes late picking my chum up and secondly I shot through some red lights scaring the byjayous out of my self-and everyone else.
But finally we were off.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Well weeee, er lost, but no matter, I'll ask some crazy lady directions.
She gaveth them to me and I seteth off once more, climbing ever higher and narrower roads. We were taking the 'scenic' route. We were soon deep in Deliverence land.
'Erm? Do you see any signposts 'Merican chum?'
'Just trees.' Finn said leaning so far forwards the tip of her nose almost bounced off the dash. A black cat ran across the front of the car.
'That looks like one of mine.' Finn said glumly, perhaps feeling she might never make it home again.
But at least it was sunny!
Finally we shot into some winchy villlage, had a pee in a hotel, checked to see if they did a lunch-they did- and off we went to the Glendalough visitors' centre. Well after one wrong turn, a reverse and THEN we went.
'Two maps my good man!' We cried cheerfully as a light afternoon sun filtered through the beauty and serenity that is glendalough.
'Here you go, there's this route, and this route, and oh yes this route, this one is three hours, this one five. There's some steps on the three hour one, a climb, but sure it's half the work when you do.'
'Right ho!' We said, folding our maps and putting them into the pockets of our denims (*important)
We left the visitors centre, walked across a lawn and promptly went in the wrong direction, ten minutes later we were lost again.
Fortunately for us, a mildly bemused woman in a jeep set us on the right track and off we set again!
Huzzah!
Oh it was green and woodsy, we waffled as we went along, art, culture, liberal priests who compare Jesus to Hiroshima and say joy is fleeting, what larks. Then I spotted a man standing in the distance, partially hidden by the trees.
Suspicious.
'Look Finn, some dude standing in there trees. How suspicious.'
Finn looked, squinted, glanced at me and said, 'What man?'
I pointed.
'That's a water fall.' Finn said.
Egad, so it was.
'Blind Finn, I'm blind as a bat.'
Finn looked thoughtful as she digested this piece of news. I was, after all, the driver. 'Don't you think you should wear glasses?'
'I do.' I said, raising my glassless face. 'When I'm working.'
We went onwards.
Then we met the steps.
I say steps, but really they weren't. They were large railway sleepers covered in chicken wire and there were millions of them.
MILLIONS!
We began to climb, passing ever upwards through the dark trees. Finn told me a story about bears, I started to wish I wasn't bringing up the rear. Then she said, 'This is like hobbit land.'
Then I was glad I wasn't leading.
One million steps later we paused for a rest. My heart yammered in my ears and I was too warm in my 'waterproof' jacket.
Still, we proceeded.
We met a girl coming down.
'Are there many more?' I asked, pink faced.
'Millions, ' said she, 'good luck.'
Dagnabbit.
Finally, the green began to grow less dense and we heard the odd bird or two. I hoped they weren't vultures.
'Look FMC!' Finn cried cheerfully, 'light!, we must be near the top.'
And so it was. The light I mean. WE were no where near the top, that would come twenty more minutes of climbing.
We met two chaps. Coming down.
Anyhoo, we finally made it gasping (me) smiling (Finn) to the top of the Spinx, and there we could look over the majesty of the valley. Well Finn could, I'm not a big fan of heights. I looked at the bracken and the windswept moor. I mentioned Werewolf in London, then Finn cursed as the song would be now stuck in her head for the afternoon.
(it wasn't as it turned out, mashed potato mashed potato, mashed potato, mashed potoato, mashed potato, Oh oh oh, mashed pototato, was instead, to Falco)
Right, at this point I should point out that I DID notice it wasn't really all that sunny any more and that a gentle mist was rolling across the hills.
Anyway, onwards.
With a spring in our steps, partially due to there being no more steps for a while we shot off, clippity clipping across the mountain side. Right up to the point where we ran into another few millions steps.
I groaned.
'Fucking steps Finn, I'm soooo against them!'
But what was I to do.
Onwards.
We climbed again and finally reached the sumit of this mountain.
And this is where it got interesting.
While we crisscrossed the range, a gale had blown up and now the gentle mist had turned into a not so gentle slanting epidural erroding rain.
Eeek!
We took off going as fast as our legs could carry us down the other side of the mountain, we had to make it down over some rather peril filled rocks, across a stream, through a quarry, by the two lakes and back to the visitors centre.
It was ten minutes into this squall that I discovered that my waterproof jacket was very NOT waterproof, and that my timberlands were in fact waterproof, and once water got into them it stayed in.
To keep out spirits up we talked about how much mashed potato we were going to eat when we made it back to the hotel.

'I don't think I can get any wetter!' I said to Finn at one point as rain belted us, whipped us and called us names.
Finn laughed.
Seconds later I slipped on a rock and fell on my ass, in a stream.
We next discovered that denim, while delightfully comfy while dry, is less so when saturated and billowing about.
'I need to pee!' Finn cried over the howling wind.
I pointed to a set of ruins.
'Go behind there!'
She disappeared by them, but returned rather quickly.
'I can't, my hands are so cold I can't do my zips.'
I wanted to offer help, but as I looked down at my own swollen red claws I realised we were pretty much in the same boat. Oh what I wouldn't have given for a boat at that moment.
We pressed on.
Howl wail, snarl, scrape, howl bleeeeee.
We passed a group of cheery teachers, going up. WE worried about them briefly, then stopped.
Finally we made it to some car park or other. It had-we were ridiculously chuffed to see- indoor toilets. We entered and tried to use the hand-dryers to warm our fingers long enough so that we could operate our zips. I took off my left boot and upended it, a gallon of water drained out. There could have been fish in it for all I know.
'Okay, let's see if we can find our way back.' We dug our maps from our pockets, but as we attempted to open them it appeared Mother Nature had once again taught us a valuable lesson. Paper in saturated denim pockets does not hold up so well.
Eventually-three hours and ten minutes after our start- we made it back to the visitors centre. I managed to peel my car keys free, and shiveringly we climbed in.
We were too late for mashed potato. But Finn did see a restuarant-which I shot straight past. I did a U-turn down the road and finally we were inside, hogging two radiators, while a smiley dude, made us beef pie, chowder and warm chicken salad.
We ate.
I glared out the window.
'It better not stop raining now.'
Finn glanced out. 'It won't.'
We ate, dank many cups of warm tea and coffee and left two big wet arse impressions on the chairs. In their bathroom, I peeled off my wet t-shirt and put my coat-which I'd been drying on their radiator during the meal- back on.
Brrrrrrrr.
We set off for Dublin. And apart from a minor scare when two lorries approached us-which Finn wondered aloud if I could see or not-we made it back safe and sound. Well, I'm not sure about sound, Finn discovered as well as being blind as a bat I can't tell left from right and operate on a 'up there/down there' directional sense, and oh yes, and there was that little moment when I was worried that we were about to run out of petrol, but by that stage I was laughing a little hysterically.
The moral of this story?
Steps.
I'm against them!
Oh and joy, while it might be fleeting, is a long hot shower.

International Women's day is today.

I'm not sure what this means or signifies, but there you have it. Go be nice to a woman somewhere. I'll ring the lilac one and-in the spirit of the day- end our current spat. ( which she started) (by being stupid) (and really...I don't see why I should be the one to, oh never mind, International woman's day, right right, I'll apologise).

A later update.
It strikes me as something very vile that while today is supposed to be a day of international recognition of womenhood, that across the water in golly old london town Slavery is right there under our very modern noses. From to day's Independent.

"Women are being sold into prostitution in modern day "slave auctions" at Britain's airports, it emerged yesterday.
The illegal immigrants are sold to the highest bidder for up to £8,000 a time. They are then forced to work in brothels where they can earn up to £800 a day for their "owner".
The chilling reality of human trafficking was spelled out yesterday by senior police officers at Scotland Yard.
Detective Superintendent Mark Ponting, of the Metropolitan Police, said young women from all over the world are trafficked into Britain after being promised well-paid work in bars or cafes.
But within hours of their arrival, they are sold to pimps. The youngest known girl victim was just 14.
In one notorious case, women were openly sold outside a coffee shop at Gatwick Airport.
Officers believe women are frequently raped, locked in flats and given no money to prevent them from running away from their captors.
Mr Ponting said: "There is some intelligence to suggest that individuals are sold at locations close to airports. One woman could fetch between £6,000 and £8,000. She could then earn her buyer £800 a day. It is appalling.
"These traffickers are making huge amounts of money from it and that is what we are trying to break. It has become a market."

Farkwad. In this day and age that is simply stunning, we're nothing more than cattle to some people.

Dolce and Gabanna update.

Dolce and Gabanna have pulled their rather oily 'art' advert due to the hostile reactions it garnered. Dolce says the ad was meant to "recall an erotic dream, a sexual game."
But last month when the Spanish government demanded that D&G's 'fantasy' rape ads be withdrawn, he wasn't quite so coy. The country was coping with a wave of crimes against women at the time and public outrage was high. The designers complied, but said that Spain was "behind the times." That claim got harder to maintain on Friday when 13 Italian senators also demanded that the photo be taken out of circulation. On Tuesday, Stefano Gabbana said that they did not mean to "cause controversy," and were pulling the ads.
They didn't mean to cause controversy? Bwaaahaahah, sure, good luck with that.
Huzzah. Sell your clothes but leave the oil/rape/ porn to the pornographers.

Wine tasting.

Erugh. I went to a wine tasting yesterday evening. I tasted and it was good. Then I tasted some more and then my host-the lovely girl- brought out yet more wine, this time with spicy chilli crisps and cheese, that was terrifically good.
However this morning I am feeling not so terrifically good and there is a fucking alarm going off close by, it's going weeewooo weeeeoooo, only very loud indeed. So loud in fact I can feel it in my teeth.
I am sitting here-at the end of the dining room table- wearing one of the paramour's enormous hoodies, my hair askew and eyes all squinty and puffy.
What could possibly make me feel worse than I do right now I might wonder idly.
Why I know, the sudden realisation that I, Fatmammycat the VELLY hungover, said I would go into town with a friend of mine to look for a dress for a wedding.
This friend is notoriously picky. She will try on every dress she sees, asking 'What about this one, hummm?
I will say, 'Yes, it's lovely buy that one!'
To which she will reply, 'I don't like the line/shoulders/ hem/way it moves/colour/style.'
I will swear in my head and wonder why the fuck she tried it on then.
'I think I preferred that one we saw in Wallis.' She will say, forcing me to throttle myself.
'Or was it Wallis?'
We will go back to Wallis where she will remember she didn't actually like that dress either.
She will do this repeatedly until I keel over with a sudden case of death.
I don't know why she wants me to go along. It won't matter what I think, it never has before and today will not be any different.
Why do people do that? Why ask if you've already made up your own mind? Why ask me? Why God why?
Why today? Why that alarm? Why me?
So, what fantastical excuse can I use to get out of this? She'll be on the road by one and here about half an hour after that, so we've a few hours. Come on! THINK! DAMN IT! Think!

Behind the times.

Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has branded Spain as being 'behind the times' for demanding it withdraw a controversial advertising campaign, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Dolce & Gabbana plan to pull the advertisement, which shows a man holding a woman to the ground by her wrists while a group of men look on, following complaints from consumers' groups. Spain's Labour and Social Affairs Ministry branded the campaign as illegal and humiliating to women, saying the woman's body position had no relation to the products Dolce & Gabbana were trying to sell.

"One could infer from the advertisement that it is acceptable to use force as a way of imposing oneself on a woman, reinforced by the passive and complicit manner of the men looking on," the ministry said in a statement.

Dolce & Gabbana defended the campaign as art in comments reported by La Vanguardia. "What has an artistic photo got to do with a real act?" the paper quoted the firm as saying. "You would have to burn museums like the Louvre or the paintings of Caravaggio."
"We will only withdraw this photo from the Spanish market. They're a bit behind the times," La Vanguardia newspaper quoted the Milan-based fashion house as saying."

Quite.

Next week- Karl von Muffling expresses shock that his photo of a nazi uniformed model holding a screaming black baby over a boiling lobster pot might cause offense. 'Urgh-' the German designer said, fanning himself with a priceless turtle bone fan while drinking tea from a dodo beak and stubbing out his cigar on a gorrilla paw ashtray,-'Zes people arf just zo pesdestrian und stuuuupid.'

Glendalough

What ho! No NTL, no comments, no seeing other bloggers and absolutely no reply from the many emails I have sent to NTL. I was going to complain, but I see Twenty has a sterling post up about it so I'll leave it to the master. I am instead off to Glendalough with my American chum Finn, from Director of Goo blog. We are going to trundle o'er peaks and slither down into vale and skip stones off the lakes.
Huzzah!

Why I don't do film reviews.

Somebody asked me and It's simple really, I don't do film reviews because Pajiba exists. If the following review isn't the best review you've ever read I'm going to eat chocolate
.Black Snake Moan / Dustin Rowles
From Pajiba.com
"I can tell you up front that this is not going to be a popular review with many of you. Why? Well, for one, unlike many of the people who gravitate to Pajiba, I don’t actually wet my pants at the prospect of seeing a sex-starved, mostly naked Christina Ricci writhe around on the ground jonesing for cock like an evangelist on sabbatical from his heterosexuality. I mean, come the fuck on. If I had known that all it took to get a movie financed and distributed was to hire an alabaster starlet with body dysmorphic disorder and a forehead that looks like an infant crowning and then throw her in a pair of Daisy Dukes and ask her to thrash about like a goddamn wolf in heat, then I’d be motherfucking Steven Spielberg, now wouldn’t I?
Because if you throw in some archaic racial stereotypes, a severely fucked-up view of the South, and the unholy miscasting of Justin Timberlake, that’s just about what Black Snake Moan amounts to. Add a director — Craig Brewer — with sudden, unearned legitimacy thanks to a film (Hustle and Flow) that Terrence Howard single-handedly saved in spite of Brewer’s worst efforts, and you’ve got yourself a film that, inexplicably, allows hipsters and so-called sophisticated film lovers to watch a skin-flick guilt free, assured in the knowledge that it was made by a respectable artist. Well, fuck that. If you manage to convince yourself that Black Snake Moan is anything other than the outgrowth of an adolescent boy’s desperate wish to have a ready-and-willing vagina chained to his radiator, then you’re deluding yourself. And if you can admit that the only reason you’d see this flick is to add to your arsenal of masturbation fantasies — well, maybe I can respect your honesty (even if you’re a sick bastard for getting off on a character with a history of violent sexual abuse). But anyone who suggests — as many older, white male critics are already doing — that Black Snake Moan is either “art” or “an original slice of the American experience” (where the fuck do you live, asshole?), is a sad, sad little man who mistakes his tiny erection for an epiphanic experience.
Lookit: I can appreciate a good exploitation flick, the best of which serve a higher purpose by sensationalizing sex, drugs, or violence to expose an underlying problem (Dawn of the Dead), irreverently satirize conservative values (Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!), mock ridiculous racial caricatures (Shaft) or, simply, to show off your superhuman hipness (Kill Bill, presumably Grindhouse). But if you’re not going to attempt to serve that higher purpose, you’re going to have to offer something a lot cooler than this Tarantino-hackery, which is exceptional only for its indolence. If Brewer actually meant for Black Snake Moan to be confrontational, or intended to use his offensiveness to challenge the audience’s sensibilities, he would’ve needed to add hell of a lot more substance behind his dumbass conceit: A poor Southern black man (named Lazarus, for Chrissake) who saves a woman from her own nymphomania by chaining her up, feeding her steak, and playing her the blues, as if to say, “That’ll save the bitch.”
The plot, such as it is, involves the po’ trailer trashin’ Rae (Ricci), whose meek and troubled fiancé, Ronnie (Justin Timberlake — and man is he awful) is about to abandon her for boot camp, leaving Rae and her “disease” alone. That disease being an insanely irrational need to have a dick, preferably black (for obvious, stereotypical reasons), in her immediate presence at all times, lest she succumb to rabid, foam-at-the-mouth Linda-Blair tremors that only an orgasm (preferably from abusive strangers) can remedy. So, within hours after her man has left her, Rae heads out seeking some of that sexual abuse she so craves, finding it — after a drug-fueled party — in the form of Ronnie’s best friend (Michael Raymond James), who takes her out in the middle of nowhere, beats the shit out of her, and leaves her on the side of the road for dead.
But, no! She doesn’t die — what kind of moral lesson would that teach us, the viewers? Instead, Lazarus (Sam Jackson) rises from the dead (or, you know, his shack of a home) and rides in on his white steed (here played by a tractor) and picks that poor troubled girl off the road and takes her in, where she’s safe from those mean, mean fellas who would seek to despoil her wilting flower. And how better to keep a woman safe from her own wicked ways than by chaining her up in your goddamn house?
Now, to be fair, had Lazarus not shackled Rae to his heater (forced air, I believe), she probably would’ve just gone right back out and got herself beaten and raped again. So he did what any well-meaning Southern man with a fear of God and a keen sense of hospitality would do, and — as if to excuse his generosity — he even went out and bought that poor little anti-heroine a nice summer dress, bless his little heart. After all, if you’re going to chain up a Southern white woman, you ought to buy her a nice outfit as a way of keeping yourself out of the doghouse. ‘Cause that’s all it takes, apparently.
And you know what? I hear that the chain is some sort of metaphor. But a metaphor for what, exactly? Or is Brewer using the premise to call attention to the role reversal here — the irony that, instead of being a black man chained up, it’s a black man shackling a white woman out of the kindness of his own heart? Hey! That’s hilarious. And to really drive home the point, let’s make sure that the white woman is wearing a thong and a breast-hugging midriff. Frederick Douglass would be proud.
Eventually, Lazarus does cure her of that horrible, ravenous need for sex, through the use of a few home-cooked meals, a couple of blues songs, some scripture, and a drawn-out, laughably contrived confrontation with Mr. Sexy Whatsit, which just made Black Snake Moan all the more ridiculous for forsaking the so-called exploitive nature of the film in the last few minutes in favor of a dumbass Hollywood feel-good ending. And the writing and the acting: Good God, it’s awful — overcooked, overheated, overdone, overwhatever; stick a goddamn fork in it and toss it in a trashcan with the charred remains of Ricci’s acting career.
Honestly, the whole Craig Brewer thing reminds me of Larry Clark, who brought us the “harrowing” emotional sucker-punch of Kids before revealing to the rest of the world just exactly what he is: a B-level hack with a lurid fascination with teen porn (see Teenage Caveman) that we all mistook for something deep and profound in the context of adolescents sport-fucking one another and spreading AIDS on grainy film stock. Likewise, I see Hustle and Flow in a completely different context now — a beautifully shot bad film that was lucky enough to have Terrence Howard along to actually humanize the plight of a down-on-his-luck pimp. Otherwise, it was just formulaic, misogynistic poverty-porn.
But aside from Brewer’s feeble attempts in Black Snake Moan to pass off soft-core Ricci-porn as film, it was his treatment of the South that irked me most. Can we give the fucking Southern Gothic myth a rest, already? Seriously, Black Snake Moan isn’t a period piece, one that depends on some historical context to make its point like, say, The Color Purple. This is a contemporary film, set in the present day. So why, pray tell, does Brewer insist on dragging out every Southern cliché in the book: barefoot women, shitty trailer homes, shacks, steamy backwoods atmosphere, hillbilly fuckers, and an outdated, bastardized view of the co-existence of sex and religion. Jump. Up. My. Ass. Basically, what Brewer is doing by reintroducing the Southern Gothic myth here is giving himself permission to wax poetic about a period in American history characterized by segregation and bigotry and then, as if to excuse it, offering up his own personal Southern credentials as a way of saying, “Hey! It’s OK. I can talk shit about the South because I’m a Southerner.” That’s fine, Craig. All of us Southerners do, but if you’re going to make a contemporary film, then at least criticize the modern South and not, as you’ve done here, continue to perpetuate an antiquated view of it.
After all, Southerners haven’t chained up women and saved them with Willie Dixon’s “Wang Dang Doodle” and collard greens in at least a decade now, you dumb shit."

WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MAM!

Perfection

Day three...so cold..so very cold.

Bah, seeing as I AM suffering I will not be mean or vicious or nasty. No, although I am left howling at the moon I shall bestow upon you all perfection, that physical beauty of which we mortals can only gasp at with wonder. Behold!
(until my blog is back I am going to post pictures of perfection every day- you have been warned)

My office.

I still cannot see my blog, I cannot see most of the blogs I visit on a daily basis and -natrually-it has just struck me now what it is about blogging that I like.
I work alone, I work from home. I'm delightfully happy with this arrangement. I have never liked working for someone else-althought technically I do work for other people in that I get paid by outside agents, but I digress. Anyway I"ve been working alone for a number of years now and only yesterday did it dawn on me that while yes it's solitary, I do in fact have colleagues.
You lot are my colleagues, my office crowd, my water fountain chatterers.
On any given day I can-metaphorically speaking- come to work and chat with my co-workers. I can say good morning to Kav or Swearing as I shrug off my metaphorical coat, pop in on Kim who-like me- is working away diligently in his cubicle, I can gallop on over to Twenty and have a guilty snort of laughter. I can check my watch and wonder what time Sam might come in, we will wonder is Maroon alive and if Foot eater will every stop posting poetry. After coffee I can put on my thinking cap and swing by David's cubicle and get into a daily head shaking at Vox's corner. I'll wonder how Fat Sparrow is feeling and call into Pam's for a mid-morning coffee, and then back to work.
Some time in the early afternoon, the Americans show up for their shft and I, having worked for some hours, will be eager to take a break and see what they've gotten up to. I'll have some more coffee and pop about to stretch my legs, stopping off here and there to see what folk are up to, sometimes we'll chat, other times we'll just nod politely and pass on, we know we're there.
I might wander back to my cubicle and pick up and answer any notes left for me and then get back to work.
Back in the non metaphorical world when people say 'It must be lonely working alone' I can wrinkle my forehead at them and genuinely wonder what they're waffling on about.
'Alone?' I might spout perhaps waving an arm as I am wont to do. 'Alone! Are you mad? I"m part of a community, a bigger sphere, a global office. Alone? What rot! Good day to you.'
And it's true.
Or at least it would be if NTL has not buggered it all up. Now fully 80% of my co-workers are gone, snatched away in a faulty blip. And like a pupil on detention I am left listening to the echos, and scrawling my name in the dust, hoping someone might see it and know that 'I WoZ 'Ere!'