If I should become a stranger, you know that it would make me more than sad.

You might think that having nothing to do all day long would result in more regular updates, but I seem incapable of writing in the day. I am a night owl and I think my productivity levels peak around midnight. I'm still technically a teenager so I blame this for my erratic sleep patterns and lack of general routine.

I rant a lot. I am a definite ranter. Some people like this, particularly those who see it as an opportunity to get into a heated debate with me about politics or religion or the never-ending appeal of the grandad cardigan (which some people still refuse to embrace). Others, however must find this particular stubborn trait a pain in the metaphorical bottom, particularly when I take it upon myself to emphasise and fight against the plight of my favourite minority; women. Now just because I am not a bra-burning lesbian, doesn't mean I have to miss out on all the feminist fun. Lately, however, my arguments have been becoming a bit predictable and I feel a bit unconvincing. Luckily, I have the ability to arm myself with plenty of feminist literature so I can rob the ideas of someone else. The first on the chopping block is 'The Feminine Mystique' which I'm enjoying immensely. It's surprisingly readable which I don't usually find with anything non-fiction, and I feel myself becoming more and more bitter with every word which I'm pretty sure is the desired effect...

This song is ridiculously lovely. If you remain unconvinced, at least watch it for his odd-yet-strangely-attractive elfin features.

A very merry un-birthday to mindbop

Ladies and gents, I just realised that my little blog is six months old as of today. Yes, yes that's right, six whole months. And I realise that this neither sounds like a long period of time or a great accomplishment, but you don't understand! The longest I've ever kept a diary is about a week, I skip songs half way through, I never finish books, I resolve to keep fit and it lasts a couple of days, I leave in the interval, I skip to the best bit of the film. When it comes to commitments I am, in short a bit of a flake. So this is in fact quite a monumental achievement. I would just like to take this opportunity to say how much I've enjoyed writing it and the positive feedback makes it all worthwhile! Not that it's a chore really, I only do it when I'm in the mood which is surprisingly often...

I just got back from the final Warwick University Big Band concert which was really really good. I want to get good grades more than ever. My heart's sort of set on it which is a bit of a bugger because I'm fairly sure I've failed myself. I'll have to find a backup...

exams and tennis and hot men reading books...

It is as I feared. I chopped off half my hair and after completely failing the French exam today I feel Samson's pain. My unruly mop of hair was the source of all my linguistic powers. Without it I am weak. But it does look a lot better. Maybe a good haircut makes a life of academic mediocrity seem less tragic...

This is my new favourite blog, though I can't take the credit for its discovery (thank you Anna Muggeridge). It is simple yet effective and I can't help but wish that I had come up with the idea. Needless to say I will be checking in regularly and might even bring you my personal highlights. If you're lucky... I'm not sure there is anything better than men with beards reading books in an intellectual, sometimes pretentious manner. Correct me if I'm wrong. (Was posting three pictures a little too much?)

This is my new favourite song which you might recognise from the brilliant film Little Miss Sunshine. Unfortunately, I heard it on an X-Box advert today which made me like it a little bit less, but it's still pretty good.

Tonight is prom night and despite my lack of hair and lack of alcohol consumption, I think there's a chance that it could be awesome. It's nice that it's so much more relaxed than the much more formal affair two years ago - not a floor-length dress or orange face in sight. It's very refreshing.

Having finished all my exams now and finally ridding myself of the 'I should be revising' feeling, Wimbledon has become my preferred way to spend the day. I love everything about it from the sun burnt crowds to Federer's cardigans. I dropped into conversation with my mum the fact that I thought Jelena Jankovic was really cool and her reaction was "She's ugly!" in such an appalled tone one might think I had just declared myself a Tory. "Yes Mum, but that's not what I said, is it? I said she was cool." "Well that's all very well but men don't like 'cool' do they?" I feel this needs no further comment.

ode to the man with the red shining hair...

There are many things I hope to achieve in my lifetime. Some of these things such as my desire to suddenly morph into Marion Cotillard may never happen. Others, such as some day leaving Kidderminster are (slightly) less ridiculous. Somewhere on the spectrum falls the desperate hope of some day marrying Rupert Grint.

Now I don't think this is that ridiculous. I stand more chance with the Grint than I do with say... Barack Obama and following this logic, I conclude that our wedding is imminent. You see, I've always liked lovely, lovely Rupert and can probably trace him as the cause of my fondness for ginger boys through my teenage years. So in a tribute to my thirteen year old self and the red-heads who filled my daydreams, here it is - the ultimate list of ginger celebrity men! Are you excited? You should be...

1. The original and the best, Mr Rupert Grint - Look at him, just look! Without him, the Harry Potter films would be atrocious, with him they are just bad. He rocks various types of knitwear and is considerably hotter than all of his lanky brothers put together. He seems refreshingly normal, too. Perhaps this is just in comparison with Daniel Radcliffe who seems more and more bizarre every time he is interviewed...
   
   
2. Glen Hansard - 'Once' is a bit lame but I really like his band, The Frames and he seems positively lovely. Irish accents are possibly the one thing that can turn an average ginger man into an absolute Adonis. Anyone fancy a trip to Dublin?
   
   
3. Damian Lewis - There is something so oddly attractive about this slightly arrogant, freckly man, especially when he is playing a rogue, morally ambiguous Russian spy in Stormbreaker. Blimey.
   
   
4. Ewan McGregor - definitely a little bit ginge, definitely a little bit dreamy. Again, the accent is a bonus, along with his ability to serenade with the best of them and ride a motorbike with Charlie Boorman (who I also quite fancy but who, unfortunately did not make the ginger cut). Though I love 'Trainspotting', the horrific toilet scene definitely saw Ewan slip a few places, but then I remembered 'Brassed Off' and he soared back up again. Anyone who can play a brass instrument...
   
   
5. Mac from Green Wing - I believe I mentioned him last time, so I shall not drone on. Suffice to say that he is definitely an awesome ginge who can save lives and woo women while being generally lovely, funny and unattainable. Swoon...
   
   
6. Damien Rice - The man who got me out of my little greebo rut and taught me how to feel falls into a special sub-category of ginger men - the sort of man who doesn't seem to be ginger at all until he grows a beard and BAM! There it is, like a shining red beacon of hope on an otherwise cloudy day. And no, he's not that good looking but he has such a wonderfully lovely voice and a wonderfully lovely accent and a ginger beard. I don't think I need another reason...
   
   
7. The guy from Eastenders - which I have never watched, but I like his voice on the Orange adverts and he reminds me of this man I served once in Morrisons with whom I fell a bit in love when he defended me when his father was being a knob. Alas, he never came in again and I suspect he is living it up in Hawaii or Cuba. Not quite a modern Romeo and Juliet but you have no idea the things that keep you going when you spend three days a week performing menial, degrading tasks in an orange and green checked shirt.
   
   
8. Mr Bingley - actually, both of the recent portrayals of Darcy's less stroppy friend have been more than a little bit ginger. I love this character, and I am glad other people envisaged him to have red hair and it wasn't just me. Phwoar.
   
   
9. Martin Freeman - Not that ginger but this is my blog so I make up the rules. I was always a bit dubious of The Office and not all that fond of Mr Gervais, but I just didn't get it. I bought it all for about a tenner and watched it in a matter of days last summer and became an instant convert. Tim, played by Freeman is the epitome of the boy your mum would like if you brought him home and master of the longing stare. I am fairly sure I was not alone in my jubilation when he and Dawn finally got together in the final episode. I probably was the only person to be jealous...
   
   
10. Stephen Merchant - Another pioneer of the ginger beard clan who I just love. With my new-found appreciation for all things Gervais came regular viewing of 'The Ricky Gervais Show' and with that came a fondness for this very tall man. He has an accent which on others would be annoying but which renders him even more amiable. And he went to Warwick. That's me sold...
    
    
11. Robert Webb - I didn't like him at all. I assumed he was barely acting when he played the insufferable Jeremy in Peepshow. Then I watched his 'My Life In Verse' and I came around to the idea. Again, he's not that ginger, but it's there if you look hard enough...
    
    
12. Jake from One Tree Hill - More auburn than proper ginger but have you seen him?
    
    
13. And finally, because no 'best of' list of mine is complete without this adorable man, James McAvoy. He is it as far as I'm concerned, the most fanciable man on the planet. The obsession began with Mr Tumnus then escalated when I saw Starter for 1o and reached a peak when I began to watch Shameless from the beginning. He is Scottish and intelligent, and I know he has brown hair, but has occasionally been spotted sporting a beard which is decidedly ginger. This is good enough for me...

So there you have it. It was supposed to be a 'top ten' but my enthusiasm took over and it grew a little bit. Besides, thirteen is a lovely rounded number...

you're beginning to sound a bit like a tit...

There are several things capable of getting a lazy arse like me through study leave: cup after cup of tea, pub outings with friends, and (most importantly) 4od. The day the lovely people at Channel 4 decided to put all their best shows in organised, easily accessed archives was a very happy day indeed.

If you have never watched Green Wing, I urge you to do so now! I can't express in words just how brilliant it is and there is no way anybody could try to attempt to capture its essence in intelligent prose...
Suffice to say. There is love...

Humour...

And cringing galore. It's just brilliant, I hope you watch it, and if you are not immediately seduced by Dr McCartney, you are probably dead inside.

I love the IT Crowd too and I'm really excited about the new series. When I went on holiday there was a guy who looked just like Moss who served us wine every night. Phwoarr. Oh Channel 4, home of Peepshow and Teachers and Glee, (oh my!) what would I do without you?

I'm sorry I haven't written anything in a while, it's been a horrible week. On the plus side, I now only have one exam to go and I have now given up on the delusion of getting into university after the horrific English exam on Tuesday in which I crumbled and forgot how to write. Brilliant. History was surprisingly good though so I guess you never know.

can you take the sex out of the city?

So I finally bit the bullet and went to see the second Sex and the City film. I'm not ashamed to admit that I completely loved the series. It was funny, original and entertaining. The principle characters were compelling and intelligent and the four girls were "each other's soulmates", never letting a man interfere with their friendship.

It seems that with the arrival of the first film, all the wit and subtlety of the series was thrown away and replaced with dull, insincere women who relied on ruddy men far too much. Charlotte gave up her impressive job to have babies, Carrie let her significant other buy her an apartment, Samantha devoted her life to her superstar boyfriend; even jetting off to LA for him, and Miranda got cheated on. What happened to make these strong New York women completely charmless? When did the "style" overtake substance so completely?
So it's safe to say that I went into the cinema with low expectations of the follow-up. The good thing about pessimism, however, it that it's harder to be disappointed. The least that could be hoped for was a mediocre but entertaining couple of hours, and this is exactly what I got. During the first half hour, I thought I was watching the series again. The pace was quick, the laughs were rolling, and I didn't detest any of the characters too much. Of course the film's desire to give every single person a "happy ending" (and by this, I of course mean marriage) meant that the opening sequence focused on the shockingly stereotypical wedding of the completely incompatible gay best friends of two of the girls (two loose ends in desperate need of being tied), yet it was a promising start, and my expectations, however low, were being met.
From here, however, the film took a turn for the worst as the girls jetted off to Abu Dhabi, immediately ridding the stylists of the opportunity to introduce layering as a fashion device, and providing the chance for a bit of casual racism. While I have no doubt that the producers were aiming for female empowerment, I'm pretty sure that any female inhabitant of the United Arab Emirates would have been a little bit offended by the sweeping stereotyping of their way of life. Also, instead of any sort of rebellion against patriarchy, the women's way of protesting was to wear Manolos under their hijab. Ridiculous? Not at all. Not at all...

The film's redeeming feature was no doubt the return of the lovely Aidan, played by the lovelier John Corbett, with whom I fell in love in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (a classic of our time if you ask me...). However, not even this tall, tall man could save the film which ended more charmlessly and unmemorably than ever. The truth of the matter is that this blog contains no spoilers, simply because I can't remember anything original happening. At all.

So all in all, the film, despite the brilliant foundations laid by the series failed to woo me. Yes, putting pretty people on the big screen will always rake in the cash, yes the insane budget was apparent, but I can't help but thinking that some of this cash would have been better spent on writers who were actually funny or intelligent rather than on impressively ridiculous clothes and Arabian walls made of gold. If (God forbid) a third film is made, some reevaluating needs to be done and the women, rather than the men who dictate their lifestyle should be brought to the forefront; and this doesn't mean just putting them in bigger dresses and higher heels.


P.S. please note that I include pictures only of the series. Consider it an act of defiance...

Oh and I changed Warwick to my first choice... Hello Italian!

all that wrinkles is not old...

I'm a little bit obsessive about voice overs. I'm pretty good at recognising a voice and pinning it to its owner.

Robert Webb does a lot of voice overs, but having always seen him in funny roles, I find myself always waiting for the punchline and am therefore invariably disappointed when the joke about toilet roll is in fact not a joke about toilet roll. It's just an advert. About toilet roll. Mark Watson makes a terrific rabbit, confused about its daily intake of fruit and veg (Innocent provides an exceptional amount of fibre, in case you were wondering). Stephen Fry and Paul Merton have even loaned their voices to that of a phone and a mouse, and not even a proper mouse - the crappy plastic kind. But it's not just comedians; take any Radio 1 DJ, Sharpe, or TV presenter, and you can bet that they double their income through this wonderful medium.

Sometimes I drive myself mad trying to figure out who that oh-so familiar voice belongs to, although I of course recognised this one straight away as that of the lovely Jame Mcavoy.

Sometimes, you don't recognise the voice at all, but just note that it is a nice voice and so endeavor to find out whose nice voice it is. This happened when I heard the new Orange adverts. I then found out that the voice over was some guy from Eastenders and was horrified. Then found out that said guy from Eastenders looked like this and was somewhat placated. Blimey. I think it's time to get into soaps (though I hear that they killed him off...)

Of course, there's the music too. I'm constantly hearing songs on adverts and trailers which are completely and utterly brilliant. This lovely lovely song was on a trailer for Gossip Girl and has led to a small obsession with LCD Soundsystem (though I'm not a fan of the new album).

Basically, this blog was all just an excuse to post a picture of Robert Webb's face. I'm not sure you can call it a waste though...

And finally, I have the hands of an eighty year old woman / hag / goblin. They are all bent and wrinkly and generally witchy. They make me feel wise...

and thatcher thought she had problems...

Harriet Harman has said that she would like the new Labour shadow cabinet to be compiled of a 50-50 split of men and women. I'm really not sure how I feel about this. While I am all for female empowerment and I believe that our lack of female MPs is a problem that needs addressing, I am fairly sure that strict quotas and restrictions are not the way to address it. If people think a woman is in power simply because she is a woman, it seems to discredit all the hard work she did to get there, doesn't it? Equally, if a man is better suited, more experienced, should a woman really be chosen over him? Nevertheless, our current Government seem to be little more than a clique of obnoxious Etonians born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who are supposed to understand and improve the plight of the working man. Something's gone wrong, hasn't it?

When faced with difficult times, our nation's knee-jerk reaction can be summed up in one word; regression. So maybe something drastic does need to be done, not only to bring more women into the picture, but also to radicalise our country, held back by war and the parasitic recession. Britain, while once progressive seems to be lagging behind; trapped by ceremony and overly aggressive politicians whose priorities are unclear and whose actions are far too motivated by a fear of upsetting the media. While other European countries are storming ahead, electing a much higher proportion of female MPs, it seems that in order to succeed in British Politics, a woman must become formidable and rigid; ridding herself of that vulnerable femininity in order to compete with her male counterparts. Many Asian countries have seen a spate of female leaders but liberal, forward-thinking Britain is drowning in patriarchy and really something should be done...

what would plath do?

If you time it just right, there's a place near my house where you can go as the sun sets and just sort of think. There's a stream and a meadow and a little archway made of trees which in the evening is filled with golden light. I think we all live for our happy places a little bit, don't we? The only problem is, I'm not one of those people gifted with a vivid imagination so I can't just imagine that I'm there. Stress seems to take precedent and I can't relax no matter how hard I try, so I have to force myself to take the dog on a walk and just take twenty minutes out to be outdoors in a truly pretty place. It's not like I really mind the stress though. The reason I'm okay at exams (touch wood) is that I can pull it out of the metaphorical bag when it really matters. I'm very much a last minute lady and I am by no means doing a sufficient amount of revision. This is not helped by the fact that I am spending my days making cup upon cup of sweet tea for the Macedonian builders occupying our house (for eternity it seems). I wonder what Sylvia Plath or Rachel Maddow would have to say about this submissive, domestic role I seem to have adopted. I'm sure it would not be good...

My mother just had to ask me my date of birth. And people say the contempt is all in my head...

I would say I'm spending about seventy percent of my (measly) income on music at the moment. I would also say that it is very much money well spent. It does mean, however that my previous wardrobe fixation has become somewhat neglected so I am now a tramp with a very well-stocked iTunes library. What more could you want?

These are some of my recent discoveries:

Noah and the Whale are old news now, but I heard this as I was browsing the rails in Topshop and just thought it was lovely!

I'm yet to see this film, but this song achieves a subtle balance between over the top cute and a little bit depressing. Perfect. I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and this sort of works. Sort of.

Long, but by no means dull. Just listen...

I haven't got round to listening to any of her other stuff, but this is just lovely. And makes me wish I had red hair...

And finally, Zooey Deschanel (strong contender for #1 girl crush)'s little duo She & Him have produced a pretty much perfect album. This is my favourite track.

Phallic what now!?

"Feminist theorists have devoted some attention to the gun which Isabella desires, and the whip requested by Catherine at the beginning of the novel, reading both of these as phallic symbols. It is important to note that as phallic symbols they signify desire not for the penis as such, but for the power the penis represents." Good to know, York Notes. Good to know. You know that you have done too much revision in a day when stuff like this starts making sense. After all, what is English Literature without a bit of phallic symbolism? Innocent? Dull? Actually, it is exactly the same. Because you know what? We make it up! NO Septimus Smith's nervous habit of fiddling with his pen knife does not show us that he has erectile dysfunction. NO the dog's tongue in Wuthering Heights is not a bloody penis! AND the word 'prick' does not necessarily have rude connotations. It can just mean prick... Of course, if you are an A-level Lit student, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. The final straw for me was "Oh Remus Lupin? Well he's obviously a phallic symbol isn't he?!" (Mrs Lynn Byford) WOAH, woah. Hold it right there! I didn't let her finish. How could I? Lupin is the best fictional character of all time with his Atticus Finch-esque calm demeanour, wolfish tendencies and friendship with both Sirius Black AND James Potter (earning him instant cool points). I will not have him ruined as all other books have been ruined with all this trouser snake talk.

Right. Penis rant over, I have had a lovely week. The sun has been shining, I have dressed up as Hermione Granger (I am aware that with two Harry Potter references I am beginning to sound like a bit of a loon. This is a sacrifice I am willing to make) and I saw James Cracknell. THE James Cracknell I fell a bit in love with as he trekked through ice and put up with Ben Fogle's constant whinging. I was sat in a beer garden in Devon, and there he was! I was forced to cut my ogling short however, as one of his kids decided to vomit everywhere. Turns out this love is conditional...

I wish I looked a little bit more like Idina Menzel. Look at her! Just look! She's so awesomely talented and cool and... witchy. And so I am back on the Glee bandwagon after a bit of a rain check. I just watched last week's episode, and it was completely amazing. It combined my three main loves: Les Mis, cheekbones and dodgy sixties laments (in the form of The Mamas and the Papas). If you haven't seen it, it's well worth it. It even forged a place in my heart for Billy Joel. Not bad, eh?


On a side note... Ruthie might just rival Idina in the cool stakes. If only they didn't all have stupid names...