Earn Your Stripes

It was the clothes swap again this weekend! I only came away with one item this time (far too distracted by gossip about an exciting Aerockbics-related development), but it will be no surprise to anyone that it was something stripey.

I love stripes. I'm drawn to them like other people are drawn to sparkles or designer labels. I've tried to get into spots, but they're much too quirky for me. I've dabbled with leopard print, but I can tell it's just a passing fancy. I've tried flowers, paisley, bird motifs....all too sweet and cutesy. I'm just not a girlie girl. I'm a stripes girl, and that's that.

 

Stripes don't try hard. They're are a little bit new-wave, a little bit punk, a little bit nostalgic for what you got dressed in as a toddler in the early 80s. Stripes can be anything you want them to be. Monochrome and on a Breton top, they are chic and simple. Multicoloured on a pair of long socks they are a little bit nuts. It's a fine line (literally) between a executive's pinstripe and a Harajuku girl's candystripe. Stripes are railway lines, but they are also rainbows.

In the current print-happy fashion climate, I am merrily dabbling in an explosion of pattern and colour. But my stripes are for life.

Do you also have a slightly compulsive desire to buy clothes that all look a bit the same?

First Dance Friday: Looks Just Like Buddy Holly

Weezer are like salt and vinegar crisps. If you hate them, then frankly you're weird.

Who doesn't like Weezer? No, come on, show yourselves.

I don't mean fanatics... nobody is fanatical about Weezer anymore. That ship sailed the day the (underrated but still very MOR) Green Album came out. But you like them, don't you? If you don't like them, that's probably because you've never really listened to them. And maybe you should.

I'm convinced that everybody of my generation who gives a monkey's about guitar music will own a copy of either the Blue Album or Pinkerton. Far more likely that than an Oasis album, or a Beatles album, or a Captain Beefheart album. Go on, name me an album more likely to appear in a CD rack when you go round to somebody's house and sneakily look at their music collection. First you see their dubious CDs. "Toploader!" you cry, "can I get on with somebody who owns a Toploader album?". But then you see the familiar spine of a Weezer album peeking out at you, and magically you forgive this person all their musical sins. They are redeemed.

When reading my daily 29304 wedding blogs pre our wedding last year, I noticed there was a whole lot of Weezer at hipster weddings, which is weird because I'm not entirely sure they're that much of a cool band. I think it boils down to the fact that they're classic. Everybody likes them. They're accesible and a little bit fun. They have silly songs about surfing and D&D, yet Rivers Cuomo is still viewed as a VERY serious musician (although this is possibly because he takes himself so seriously). They are an introverted band that plays extroverted music.

They are salt & vinegar crisps.

What's your favourite Weezer album?

Hidden Talents

I'm sure half of Leeds is relieved to see that the celebrity death rumour concerning Richard Bacon (started by a drunk man from Wakefield in the early hours of April 1st)  was proven unfounded by the new C4 series Hidden Talent which started on Tuesday night. Bacon's alive!

This programme is appealing to me on many levels. I like feelgood TV, and I like the idea that there are superhero-level powers lying dormant in nurses and bridal boutique owners (etc) across the nation. I also like the fact that you can take the all the talent tests yourself on the Channel 4 website, although having watched the TV programme and failed to spot the thief in the FBI-monitored line-up, and being fairly confident I would faint if you even said the words "cliff edge" to me, I didn't bother taking this week's lie detecting/rock climbing aptitude tests.

 image source

I like the idea that I might be good at something else later on in the series though. Let's hope Incessant And Pointless Blogging is coming up soon.

I am now racking my brains to think of something amazing that I'm secretly good at, but there really isn't anything much that I don't already test everybody's patience with. I suppose my handwriting is quite nice, but only when I can be bothered. I bet you've got a hidden talent though, go on, what is it? Origami, unicycling, that funny cup stacking game I keep seeing everywhere?

Come on, STOP HIDING YOUR LAMP UNDER A BOWL!

Side note: Celebrity Death Rumour is a great name for a band. Anybody want in?

In Which East 17 Make A Soft Rock Comeback

I don't know what else to say really, but I thought you all needed this bringing to your attention.

Brian Harvey fans take note - the original East 17 singer will categorically NOT be joining the band in their latest reprisal. As if having Tony Mortimer punch him in the face wasn't enough - those horrible U2 chord progressions must have been the final nail in the coffin.

Picture yourself in 1994... Stay Another Day is playing in the school hall, the lights are dimmed and the boy you fancy hasn't asked you to dance at the Christmas disco even though you spent all last night threading hippy beads onto the laces of your bottle green docs and plaiting two bizarre rat-tails into the front of your hair. You weep into a cloud of Soft & Gentle (the purple one) and wonder if your life will always be this rubbish.

I'm here to tell you, Memory Girl, that it DOES get better. It gets better for all of us. But for East 17, I'm afraid the only way is down.

Made In Chelsea: Traces Of Tolstoy

Anna Karenina update: 

Ladies and gents, I am officially 250 pages in!

Do you know what, it's not even slightly hard work. It's actually fun, and I'm now deliberately taking my time and properly enjoying the characters and Tolstoy's very clever prose. I think this definitely makes up for all those Susan Lewis books.

OK, so now I've got you thinking I'm all high-brow, I'm going to go and ruin it by telling you that this book is the perfect complement to the new series of Made In Chelsea. REALLY.

I can't tell you how much I love this programme, it's actually embarrassing. I've never really got into any of the other drama/reality shows like The Hills, and I've lost interest in TOWIE, but MIC has me totally suckered. Sam won't let me watch it when it's on (because it makes him throw things at the telly) so I have to wait for it to come on catch-up TV, and then watch it the second he leaves the house on Tuesday morning. Last week it didn't pop up for ages and I was BESIDE MYSELF. This must be how other people are with gambling/drugs/Emmerdale. I am completely obsessed.

And I love Anna Karenina for all the same reasons I love MIC.  Posh people wafting about without a care in the world other than their own ego, their fabulous lives, and bitching and gossiping about everybody else. Causing scandal for the sake of scandal. It's flimsy and superficial on the surface, but it all boils down to characters and people, which is something I find endlessly fascinating (probably because I'm quite nosey).

Even though I'm still quite early on in the book, I can't help drawing parallels between the characters. Kitty and Cheska have both been let down by men who lead them on. Spencer and Vronsky are similarly foppish socialites who only ever think about their own needs. Loveable, ditzy people-pleaser? Oblonsky/Jamie. And Anna Karenina HAS to be Caggy. I almost wish I'd done my dissertation on this.

And by the way, I don't care if it's real. Any of it. Because it gives me JOY.

Image clearly pinched from Holy Moly/C4

Incidentally, my favourite MIC character is Fredrik, who is sadly lacking this series. Do you think if we got a pet eagle it would eat the cats? Just wondering...

Minging Mingling?

There are many things I miss about working in the media, but networking isn't one of them. I hated going to industry events where I would inevitably end up standing on my own and smiling blandly, eking out my one free drink and watching all these horrible excuses for people oozing all over each other. These vile sycophants would use nobodies like me as a warm-up lap, prattling on about absolutely nothing while they frantically scanned the room over my shoulder for somebody more important. Eventually (thankfully) they would spot somebody who they thought could get them somewhere, whereupon they would make their excuses and rush off to hover like wasps around a particularly fondant-heavy birthday cake. Ick. The sad thing is that these people are all still working in the industry, while judgemental crones like me are left curdling in our own bitterness.


Thinking about it, it maybe wasn't the networking I hated so much as the networkers.

Anyway, what you may or may not know about me, is that I do still script edit short films, very occasionally. And a couple of times I've been invited to the premieres of theses films. But I haven't gone, because I would only really be there to network, wouldn't I? And because I'm a people-hating curmudgeon, and also because I'm a little bit shy. This was OK for the five minutes that I was a WRITER of these sorts of films, because writers are expected to be introverted and quirky. But not script editors. Script editors are supposed to try to be everybody's best friend at all times. This is not a skill I have in spades.

However, I have been invited to a premiere in Manchester in a couple of weeks. For a film I worked on, ages ago. This time, I sort of feel like I should go. Mainly because I'm starting to think that's it's a shame not to, but also because I'm not really sure I have anything to prove with the media anymore. And because I'm old, and because I don't care.

Do you think I should go?How will I cope in a room full of people I don't know? Should I see the film, neck my free drink and run?

How do you cope in social situations where you don't know anybody?

First Dance Friday: Samantha Crain

I fully reserve the right to hijack First Dance Friday from time to time to tell you what I've been listening to. At the moment it's Samantha Crain, a singer/songwriter from Shawnee, Oklahoma (how cool does that sound! Really!) who I caught the last few songs of when she supported First Aid Kit in February.

I never normally buy CDs at gigs, so it's testament to her heart-stopping vocals and gorgeously intricate songs that I actually did. I'll be honest though, I gave the album about 10 spins in the next few weeks and then I put it away. Why?

Many reasons really. Most of all because I seem to be getting more impatient with music as I get older. If it doesn't have an instant chorus or make me dance about like an idiot then I tune out pretty quickly. Also because on record it's THAT kind of music that people who are five years younger than me listen to. People with beards who like the National. I'm not one of THOSE PEOPLE. People who like records with banjos on, but only found out who Earl Scruggs was after he died. IS THAT YOU? Then don't speak to me, ever.



I don't mean it, I'm only trying to be funny.

This song is so amazing, but on the record the dude singing on it reminds me of the guy out of Bright Eyes, and that just made me cross and I have no idea why. I have nothing against Bright Eyes per se. It's just that Bright Eyes is the tip of an Americana-loving bedwetting iceberg. Can you imagine how much of the bed an iceberg would wet? A LOT. Especially in a warm room.

Anyway, I put it away for about six weeks, only mildly annoyed that I'd broken my no-buying-CDs-at-gigs rule for something that hadn't changed my life.

Then I put it on again.

The hooks had subconsciously lodged in my stupid, thick head in that intervening period. And it's a bloody great album. It really is. I actually love it now.

Lesson learned. I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to collecting mandolins as penance for being so bloody judgmental.

What are you listening to at the moment?