Sunday 29 April 2012

Can opposites work?



 We are all aware of the saying opposites attract, but, just how true is this? In order to find out, this week we sent Beefy, a thirty four year old, self confessed, party animal, and Wolfy, a wolf, on a date to see "The Avengers Ensemble." Lets see if we can make the next love's young dream. Here's their stats:
Wolfy


Wolfy is 24 and works as an Orthodontist. He enjoys running through fields in the twilight, hunting and winding up his alpha. His turn ons include: Lack of mange, a strong fixed jaw and the ability to do tricks with sticks and balls. Turn offs include: The Conservative party and raw vegetables
Beefy


 Beefy is 34 and works in Tesco. He likes to spend his evenings cross stitching and remaking old horror movies using Argos catalogs. Turn ons include: Knowledge of Chinese politics, Alexa Chung and limpets. Turn offs include: Adaptations of Hans Christian Anderson fairytales and overuse of the word 'basically.'
And so the date begins with a ride in a sumptuous carriage, provided by us!
"I was really nervous," remarked Beefy, "having never been on a blind date before, this was a worry, but Wolfy seems nice and his tail is very evocative."
Wolfy commented that the conversation was a little stunted "I've never really liked offal and Beefy was terribly keen, he kept calling my tail a 'snake of desire.' It was very off putting."

 We provided the pair with 3D glasses (no expense spared!) Wolfy seemed a little quiet, when asked, he stated that Beefy had asked him if he was an endangered species, he thought his beard was unsightly, he questioned if Beefy was a little drunk and he suspected Beefy was a closet royalist. Beefy remarked: "I've been concerned recently about my fungal nail infection, but I reckon Wolfy is the accepting type and gadzooks that tail hubba hubba hubba, I'd invite him round for Argos Massacre Night"


The rest of the trip passed in relative quiet. At one point Wolfy asked if Beefy liked Jazz, unfortunately, Beefy misheard him, believing he said "need a wazz." An awkward situation followed which we have promised not to discuss in this article.


Beefy doing the gentlemanly thing.


After purchasing tickets Beefy spent 30 minutes in the bathroom, almost causing us to miss the film. It remains unclear what he was doing in there. Wolfy declined to comment, simply stating: "this is going in my book."
 Beefy then insisted on having an icecream, which he ate whilst silently crying and attempting to stroke the hair of the cashier in front of him. I asked him how he thought the date was going: "Well," he said, "I reckon tails over there is hooked, I got it all baby, the hat, the ravens. In Tesco they call me "The womanater" cause I'm good with women."
I pointed out that Wolfy was not a woman but a male wolf.
He replied: "beggars can't be chooser."
We later discovered that the pseudonym 'The Womanater' was wanted by Merseyside police.


The two lovers entered into the film (Who knows who this woman is, someone entranced by watching a couple so obviously in love I'd imagine) Wolfy could be heard lovingly whispering in to Beefy's ear: "If you touch my tail again I'll break your bloody fingers." Sweet.

After the film was over Wolfy seemed uncharacteristically quiet stating that Beefy has spoken about his love of raw vegetables and the Conservative Party for much of the film and had , at one point, made him salute a tiny statue of David Cameron that he had squirreled away in his pocket. Our reporters pointed out that in all relationships one must make compromises. Beefy spent another 45 minutes in the toilets, we did not ask why.

 Wolfy was found hiding against a picture of Robert Downey Jnr, visibly shaken. "I won't go into those toilets," he told me, "that gingernut is a psycho."
Luckily the romantic mood was not spoilt as Beefy believed they were playing a game and quickly snuggled up to a picture of Scarlet Johanssen. "I've always thought Scarlet was a nice girl," Sad Beefy, "Now, back to the toilets!"





So far so good! The two of them seem to be getting on well!



Unfortunately, though Beefy wanted to take the date onto dinner Wolfy claimed he was leaving the country the next morning. So our lucky couple depart, will they make it? I don't like to use hyperbole but: They are the greatest love man has ever known.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Where I do a feminist reading of a terrible film.

Ok, we have all seen terrible films, I for one, occasionally really enjoy and am pleasurably astounded by how terrible some movies are able to be. Many a welcome night has been spent glued to the 'Zone Horror' channel watching some crazed dwarf chase a 1980s lady, complete with tight perm and neon leggings, through an MDF graveyard. However, there's kind of a limit with modern films as you can't blame it on them being:
a. dated or
b. Outside your pop culture knowledge.

This brings me to the sad story I have to tell you: last week I saw Wrath of the Titans. Bar having the obvious things wrong with it, for example Festus the "Fallen God" had a Yorkshire accent and, though I am pro-multicultural films, its a bit unconvincing that the Greek Gods included an Italian, an Australian, three Brits and a man who appeared to be half donkey or at least facially 90% teeth, it was a patriarchal nightmare.

Here is what happens with a feminist slant to it:

Perseus, an acceptable form of masculinity, is working as a fisherman after defeating the Kraken. He is however failing his societally per scribed masculine roles as his wife has died and he now takes full account of the child rearing of his son. He lives peacefully with his son as a fisherman (a non manly job, like being a lollipop man) THIS MUST BE STOPPED shrieks Greece. At the same time the 'imaginary' (imaginary/symbolic is associated with the female in the stage of a child's development) world of the Gods is crumbling as people don't believe in them anymore (like women's liberation's values). This is making way for the 'realist,' masculine world of modern human beings. In order to bring up his son Heleus, terrible name (I hope his dad chose it), in a fitting world Perseus (who is physically strong) must stop the negative portrayals of masculinity: the God of war (Ares) who is dumb and Hades (Rafe Fiennes who now is only able to play mythical bad guys with small noses) who is weak and feminised from resurrecting Kronos who is a man but is feminised as he gave birth to the world, see where this is going?.

Hades and Ares have Zeus locked up in the underworld and are draining his power to feed Kronos, which gives the idea of the feminine, maternal 'other' draining the masculine provider.To stop this Perseus, a donkey faced half God called Agenor and Andromeda, who is supposed to be a warring Queen but spends much of the film trapped, being freed and failing to land a single punch, hop off to an island to find Festus, a mad fallen God, not dissimilar in appearance to a rolling stone, who listens to an owl for advice. They take the phallic symbol Poseidon's trident with them which leads the way to the destination (we're all lost without a willy).

After a brief unconvincing battle, the party find Festus who agrees to show them how to get to the underworld. Ahem, however, one of the silly women has prayed to Ares, even though she was told not to by the men in charge and so Ares rightfully comes an kills her for being so silly. She has chosen the wrong kind of masculinity to value and shall be punished.

In the labyrinth whilst Andromeda and Donkey Face are lost and trembling for the 90th time, Perseus flexes about and kills a minotaur, a bulls head offering a figure of domesticated/controlled male sexuality, cause he's one masculine guy. Then they save Zeus, but Kronos gets out anyway, cause he's a bit feminine and they always comes back to cause more trouble (just like in the 70s). Later on, Perseus has to fight Ares up a mountain (queue a lot of grunts) in front of his son, he wins (obviously). Hades, sorry for his crimes comes to restore Zeus' power with the new reinstated sense of male solidarity (homosocial and competitive regarding a feminised character, but allowed cause it's not homosexual), they are able to assert their status over their female matriarch, and kick some ass.Then everyone does some fighting (only the boys land punches) and they beat Kronos, by putting all the phallic symbols of Zeus' lightning bolt, Hades' spear and Poseidon's trident together and *poking him with it* (they figuratively shag Kronos to death = Oedipus complex). By doing this the boys defeat their adolescence in which they were able to be dominated by women who 'gave birth' to them.

At the end Perseus decides to be a soldier instead of a fisherman (which is a respectable job, like a fireman) and hands over the sword (a phallic symbol of patriarchy) to his son to show this is how men must continue. Everyone has a girl, even Donkey face, though it seems not to matter that his may not speak the same language as him. Perseus gets with Andromeda (now he wont have to child rear!) 'claiming' her as a won possession and restoring the heterosexual matrix of society.

Everybody is terribly happy and they all have cake.

Poor old Zeus, he could have sorted all that out after a couple of hours with Freud.

Bye now xxxxxxxxx

Friday 13 April 2012

Things that happened in das Capital. (only not to Marx, but to a skinny English Gal)

Bonjour,

So I went to see the David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller exhibition at the Southbank Centre. After greeting many pairs of oversized artificial wellingtons and headless Ostriches offered by Shrigley, peeking into wall holes to discover enormous snakes and marveling at the brash nature of "stick figures having sex on a car" (who are, as the name suggests, bronze stick figures, at it, on a bonnet), we headed downstairs to Deller. I hadn't heard of Deller before but unlike Shrigley who had nimble, elongated guards, with magically extending legs, who rushed towards you in giant steps if you even looked like you had ever thought that taking a photo was something modern humans enjoy, Deller let you take photos.A lot of his work focused on crazy country traditions and, let me tell you, if like me, you come from a place full of thirteen figured banjo players, you can't help but see the relevance that these small towns have to the world of installation.


Deller left out stamps and embossing machines in order to decorate any paper you had handy. This was rather a challenge, as, after watching one of his exhibits, a 3D film about bats in a darkened room, I was attempting to use the embossing machine, in a vibrant white gallery, whilst almost blind.









Deller recreated a show he put on in the 1990s in his parents house while the were away. This was very unlike previous house parties I have been to, which were more involved with 15 year old girls crying on doorsteps 'cause "Mark doesn't understand our great love." whilst said Mark was being sick in a Bush, but, cest la vie. Other than that, he had some smashing references to The Smiths and an enlightening comparison between Brass Bands and Acid House which I shall imagine next time I'm being forced to sip warm ale whilst a spotty girlfriend-hungry teenager
parps away on a cornet during "enforced family fun time."









 Now for more important things: I MADE BROWNIES here is a picture of my boyfriend eating them:

Ahem, poor Lamb, he does suffer for his art.

We have made videos of Tom eating things to some nice some um........not so nice. It has to be seen to be believed (I mean a lemon with the skin on is an achievement in itself) check out youtube/user/thetomnivore to get some curly mid-twenties-guy stuffing action. It a fair deal, he likes attention, we like feeding him cake and (coming soon) whole un-skinned fruits.

If you want to make some brownies (and they were D-elicious) you can do it like this:


90g plain chocolate
150g soft butter
125g plain flour
15g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
300g soft brown sugar
1 pinch salt
2 eggs

preheat over to gas mark 4 (or if you have a devil electric oven 350F and note: you should get a gas oven).

melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove this from the heat once melted and mixed and allow to cool a little.

Sieve flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a separate bowl.

In another bowl (That's 3 bowls now) Mix beaten eggs, sugar and vanilla extract.

NOW, First fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and then second fold in the flour mixture. By the end you should have a lovely mush with no dry ingredients showing.

Put in a greased flat tin and bake for 25 mins until crispy on top but soft in the middle.

I'm not gonna make you film you/your boyfriend/your cat/ the pope stuffing his face, but, if you do, I won't blame you.



Have a lovely day,
Katie xx

Tuesday 3 April 2012

So, what I'm looking at here is catching up with the fashion for top knots. I know right? I'm about a year too late, but look at it this was: big noses, swept back hair and high buns don't mix. Or do they? I want something to rival my constant wishes for 1940s retro sets in the summer, that will allow me to keep the cool breeze on my overheated neck, without spending hours devoted to the tongs and using more setting lotion than my Gran would think reasonable.

I think I've got it.

The answer is: No brushing and PINS. All these years of school girl buns had made me forget what the 90s had taught me:
1. Wash your hair with a thoroughly cleansing shampoo. Something that leaves your hair a little soft and flyaway.
2. blow dry using you fingers tilting your head upside down to get maximum roots lift (I like to use a little mouse, or salt spray, but if your hair's thick you won't need to.) 
3. Now, here's the bit I wasn't used to; when your hair's dry don't brush it smooth. Keeping your head tilted forward gather your hair into a high ponytail and gently twist and tuck the hair under with pins pulling a few strands out to soften your face (This also balances out the harshness of my rather meaty conk).
4. If you need to, lightly pull a few strands out of the style at the hairline. You can also smooth over with a brush to catch any flyaways. Don't forget hairspray.

All that time brushing my hair smooth I forgot how nice it is to be a little messy!