Happy Birthday You Alcoholic, Spendthrift, Chocoholic, Cat-Lover...

Guys, I am cowering my head in shame as I have not posted since this time last WEEK. So much for my #100DaysofWriting. Even with weekends off, which I decided was necessary quite early on, this is still four days of nothing. I am getting back on the horse today with a post that I have been meaning to write for a while on greeting cards.... don't worry, it'll have lots of pics.

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Happy Birthday You Alcoholic, Spendthrift, Chocoholic, Cat-Lover...

The other day I went shopping for a birthday card for one of my best friends and left feeling irritated. This is something I have experienced before when hunting for cards. You see in well-stocked card shops and boutiques there is usually a wide variety of cards, many of which blow the stereotype out of the window, but most still reinforce it and in shops with a smaller choice, they all do.

What is this stereotype you may ask?

Here are some "ladies" having lunch... obvs with oodles of shopping bags and wearing ballgowns

According to Greeting Cards, women are shopaholics who only care about looking good and the sensual pleasures in life eg: chocolate, cake and wine. Or cats. Or they think about cock all the time. And they spend lots of money on said chocolate and shopping, but it is always their boyfriend's cash. And they "never have enough to wear", which is like the world's biggest disaster OMFG.

Does this really need a caption? There are some breasts...

Men - according to greeting cards -  men are equivalently obsessed with tits and alcohol (maybe fair in some cases). And football is their shopping and they also enjoy complaining about how their wives and girlfriends spend all their money on shopping and wine etc. But men also have cars, all forms of transport, actually, they tend to favour trains in youth and then cars and boats (not sure how greeting -card woman gets anywhere- perhaps she has to wait for her boyfriend to pick her up in a sports car). Greeting card man also has all the sports that he can play, woman sometimes makes reference to the gym, but usually only in the context of how she'd prefer to have a Sauvignon Blanc. (She is definitely an alcoholic) .

See all women spend ridiculous amounts of money on face cream if it ensures a youthful appearance

Greeting card woman is also very concerned with her age and her lines and how people might think she looks compared to some 18 year old woman. Men are concerned about age too, but mostly because they aren't as good at football and maybe no women will let them stick it in them. They then progress straight to grumpy old man who likes gardening and moaning. Apparently.

Here they are... busy bitching about some wrinkles on some other, older women...

Ahhh a lovely Princess.. with animals dancing about her. That squirrel must be GM... haven't seen a red one in years.

Greeting card woman is also often described as being bossy and high maintenance and always right. Whether these are the only women who receive cards/star in them is unclear. Yes, she is either a bossy cow or a Princess or a Mum.. The Princesses piss me off the most to be honest, they are always wearing bloody pink and they really do nothing except wear crowns...

I spoke to my mother a while back about my frustration with greeting cards and she calmly said... yes but do you know how much these new stereotypes are a step forward from the old ones... She was talking about cards that featured good wives who cooked and often featured a vacuum cleaner as the central excitement. I understood her point.

And by the way, I think the stereotypes in cards are bad for men as well. I like to think that although men may enjoy looking at a large breast/having a beer/watching football, they may wish to be defined by some other facets of their personality on their day of birth. 

Men are extremely simple don't you know...

Anyway, rant over, here are some more of the LOL cards I have discovered.... And if anyone else buys me a card about being a shopaholic who's constantly keeling over from excessive consumption of Rose Pinot and cake, I may scream... Unless... maybe... that's what people think of me. ;)

Another Wino Wendy. So LOL and original.

 

So I forgot how Greeting Card Woman is also really shit at packing and has to take LOADS of suitcases. Probs for all her clothes and shopping and face creams...

HA HA HA. Your daughter is an obese alcoholic who can't read ROFL ROFL

Young Greeting Card Woman (and Man) is often obsessed with WiFi and Gadgets. Apaz also still LOL to sort of hint and domestic abuse...

Aaaah a classic... (read no man in her life, probs wears weird clothes, smells)

Still wrong to be called high-maintenance and demanding. So deny it girls. Get your blow drys in secret. Wear jeans with rips.

Daphne is a lucky bitch who apparently lives in a lovely rural community with fields etc

    

Ah classic dog/bitch joke. Throw in a sausage there... why not...

What a bossy, hysterical woman. Also where is Mr Bossy..

Why would they when women love shopping SO MUCH and spending all their cash. LOL that men love Hawaiian shirts as well.

This is what women think, all the time

#The100DayProject #100DaysofWriting, Day 13 (late)

Ok, I'm Ready...

I think I'm ready now, finally. I have never really been before, but I think I am now because I know what I want and what I don't want. I've made those distinctions.

I've spend time having loveless flirtation and sensual (and not so sensual encounters). I've dated and dismissed many a man (and boy). I've had a few short "relationships". Mostly I've been afraid of it, to be honest, afraid of what somebody else would do to me. 

Maybe it's because I wasn't really sure about myself, whether I like myself all that much, whether I was who I was meant to be. The thought of blind and internet (sorry app- what is this the 00s) dating just sent me into a spin of fear and insecurity that they might reflect back at me the flaws I had already outlined in myself.

I was never one of those people who dated to fill a hole or to feel more secure and steady in a situation, because for me, putting yourself into that vulnerable position of being half of two rather than half of one was not something that settled me. In fact it sent me careering off into outer space, heart thumping head-spinning, ecstatic then anxious, crying with laughter, then just crying. I didn't want this. I wanted a steady ground.

I am ready now, because I've realised what I want and that steadiness often comes from within. I'm ready now because I am happier with who I am.

So if you know anyone...

Kind but not weak. Compassionate, likes animals and nature. Reads, please. Interested in all ideas even if they don't agree with them. Doesn't talk over people who are quieter than them. Respect's people of all ages, sexes, colours, nationalities, backgrounds, creeds, educated or not. Realises we are all the same, WE ARE ALL THE SAME. Can take (and make) a joke. Does not practice bitterness. Loves to laugh, to make others laugh, the moment of laughter. Wants fun in life. Responsible, but not anal. Understands me, lets me be me, even if that is odd. Intelligent, not necessarily academically or bookish, but bright, sparky, interested. Likes talking and listening. Likes long conversations about the world and what it means... but can tug me in and make me feel safe too if I drift off into the stratosphere. Healthy attitude towards mind, body and soul. Appreciates and indulges in the sensual pleasures of life, but does not gorge on them. Smiles at people even if it makes them look stupid. Tactile. Reassuring. Shares their problems. Lets me look after them sometimes. Not scared of their feelings. Quiet, but also loud. Trustworthy and trusting. Has passions and interests. Would be a good father. I want to find him beautiful, but that doesn't mean anyone else needs to. Makes my friends smile and feel warm inside. Interested in my family. Open-minded. Likes the sea and the mountains and travelling. As flawed as humans are. Never thinks he knows it all.

Do you know anyone like that? I don't yet and this list may seem unrealisitc. But I have no stipulations for money or looks or background or anything else. None of that, just these things.

I'm just putting that out there.

#The100DayProject, #100DaysofWriting, #Day12.

On a Voyage to See George Ezra Live

 

So I'm not going to pretend I'm achingly hip and knew who +George Ezra  was a year ago when no one else did. I heard Budapest on the radio with everyone else. I bought it, then I bought the album, Wanted on Voyage, then I watched him on the TV at Glasto and knew I needed to see him live. 

I googled tickets and lo and behold...

Last Thursday, I got on the train to Kingston (WTF  haven't been there at night since I frequented Oceania) with my younger, musically more forward friend RB having purchased tickets to see George-ous at a student, live music nightclub called McClusky's. 

We obviously drunk too much rose before, slightly intimidated by the brash sun-worshipping, cider-swilling students that sat around us - not a care in the world - on the Kingston riverbank. 

The gig started at what time, 1040! That's late for a school night and how would we get home to SW11 when the trains stopped running at half-eleven... Night bus it seemed. 

Once George came on stage though, everything stopped. I had known that the album was great... song after song after song that had an addictive riff, a poetic lyric and Mr Ezra's deep, haunting yet joyful vocals powering throughout. But live was a different story... 

The room shivered as he played through his set, with just enough wry, mischievous chatter between. And what a treat to be so close, a mere four people back, we saw him in all his pretty, blonde, cheekboney glory adjusting his guitar strings, his voice enfolding us. 

Favourite songs of mine including, Blame It On Me, Leaving It Up To You and Cassy'O - about a watch by the way - were all played as well as obviously Budapest. The one everyone knew. 

It wasn't a long set, but it was perfectly executed. Consummate professional he is. "I'm leaving straight after this," he said, "straight on the road". Touring the UK, Festivals and then continental Europe towards the end of 2014. I did get the sense he was a little weary...not of the playing but the travel. 

Ne'er mind because the music makes up for it. Ezra reminds us of Dylan crossed with a 60s soul singer. He's folk with a dirty, dark edge in the lyrics. I fucking love him.

Buy the album (or stream it) and see him before he books the big venues. This boy needs a field or a small gropey club with a sticky bar.

We loved it all and happily got the night bus home when he finished, leaving the students to their shots and sex-searching...

georgeezra.com 

In Praise of Americana

Friday was the 4th of July, Independence Day, a celebration for Americans across the world. Generally as a fastidious cynical Brit there's plenty of things I like to criticise about our friends over the pond notably language, faux-positivity an geographical ignorance. However really the United States of America is a complex and astounding country that has given the world a lot of impressive objects, laws, celebrations and notable figures. In honour of the 4th July, here is my personal and current top 10 brilliant Yank things or people:

1) Attitude

Yes, yes, yes. Well done. You can. Congrats. The yanks are streets ahead of us in celebrating success. The clichéd and much maligned American dream is still woven into the fabric of the country. Every small town gal and guy can make their dreams come true and America praises them when they do. They're proud of their countrymen's success. 

Whilst there may be a lot to criticise about the American attitude towards various things, they rarely tear down and scorn the successful as we often do in Britain. Surely success should be encouraged (ungrit your teeth).

2) Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Country Music and Hoedowns

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, the man in black, drug addict, lover, prison reformer and epic songwriter and singer. I pine for his dark tones and languid lyrics. I do not recognise his world and yet I lap up the emotion he conveys. I want him.

Dolly Parton and her hoedown contemporaries are part of a genre that we will never have in GB, despite our recent bout of nu-folk bands. Oh how I yearn to journey to Nashville and dance in cowboy boots all night...

3) Denim

Levi's were the first, hard wearing clothing for the workers which have since become an international unform for hipster teens, weekend dads, chic oligarch wives and everything in between.

God bless America for making our lives easier...

4) Teen Drama TV

Not sure if I would have got through the relative vanilla-mess of my Home Counties adolescence without Dawson, Jen, Joey, Pacey, Ryan, Marisa, Brooke, Lucas, Chuck and Blair. Well in to my early twenties these kids had my heart and the wardrobes I wanted. Why did public school boys from Guildford not have the rippling abs of Ryan or the deft wit of Seth, the sexiness of Chuck. Why didn't we have jocks and keg parties and incredible vocabularys...

In "teen-drama" land if you drunk a few drinks every Saturday, you were probably an alcoholic, the boys next door were cute (they NEVER are) and it was quite normal for close friends to die or have sex with your boyfriends...I bloody miss them and their prematurely 30-year-old acerbic wit...

(*side note: also weird how the actors playing their parents were probably about five years older than some of them)

5) ScarJo

Yes, I know her parents are Danish and Russian or something similar, but she is seen as the modern classic American sex symbol, and she is. At the top of my #girlcrush list... there are little who rival that blonde bombshell look. She makes some good films too... but to be honest I just stare at her face.

6) Hollywood and Films

This could be seen to be a tad wide perhaps.. but the USA is the centre of the film industry, the championer of the Talkie, the location of the famous Hollywood Hills. Some of the best movies in the world ever have been made there.. and some more of the best have been funded by money that comes from there.

I can't really write too much about films without being terribly sweeping and I love too many. So I'm not going to, but you get my point.

7) Martin Luther King

 “You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”

8) New York City

  There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless. Simone Beauvoir

I lived in New York when I was 19 in 2005 for three months with one of my best friends. 

We had a tiny apartment in East Village that was infested with mice, we had no TV and lived on Chips Ahoy and Reeses Pieces. By day we interned at an advertising company and a photography studio. At night and at the weekend, we walked and shopped and explored. We only walked though, we had no idea how to use public transport.. occasionally at night we'd shell for a taxi. We blagged our way with terrible fake ids and the most British accents we could manage into clubs: Duvet, Marquee, Bungalow 8 and then stood silently staring at everyone, impossibly glamourous American everyones. And there we were in our peasant skirts and coin belts weighed down by beads, as was the way.

We snuck into gallery openings and drunk all the free wine. One time we stayed up all night dancing in the W Hotel basement and then later in The Coffee Shop with some boys from New Jersey who bought us club sandwiches and champagne. 

Us in NYC, 2005

We stalked the Olsen Twins, devouring US Weekly and the like to try and guess where we could run in to them. We bought so many clothes that we couldn't afford. We stared at ground zero sadly. We watched live music in little dive bars in Greenwich Village and skipped down the street at midnight singing Downtown by Petula Clark..

The thing is... we just weren't aware. We knew we were lucky, but we weren't aware how lucky.

New York is beautiful city, an impossible city, a city that deafens you and hurls you around. It is in your face you see, but it's also layered and witty and clever. And small enought to really know. And big enough to hide. And you can just walk everywhere, which I love.

9) F Scott Fitzgerald and His Contemporaries

20th Century American literature has always been one of my favourite eras. I just loved what they were searrching for, Fitzgerald, Williams, Salinger, Miller, Walker, Kerouac, Lee and then later, Palahnuik and Morrison etc etc etc. It was so different to everything I ever read before when I started reading it at 16. It was so about the now and the future and little to do with the past... It was so about the pressures of success and who belonged. What made one acceptable or a decent person. Racism, Sexism, Capitalism it was all so exciting it burned me up inside and kept me searching for more from over-the-pond.

This may be another too-wide reaching paragraph. But it's true.

10) Computers and Social Media

Bill Gates; Steve Jobs; Marc Zuckerberg; Jack Dorsey... I salute them all...

I Love You: Secret Theatre Show 5

Basically, I am not really sure what I am going to do when the Secret Theatre series is over and I don't even know when that will be because it's all secret and that. I have developed a full blown fangirl obsession with the shows and the company. It's a proper crush... After I saw Show 5 last Thursday, I proceeded to:

1).Tweet the Lyric immediately and asked them for the soundtrack so I could play it on my iPod on my commute

2). Google, Google, Google for signs of Show 6? And for news of the tour...

3). Stalk all the actors and actresses I could find on Twitter and try and find out which ones were single/might want to make new friends/would potentially slip me a tongue when pissed/stalkable in local bars as I only work in Chiswick. ;) #lol Because I love them all.

4). Also stalk the writers..as a writer and a wannabe playwright.. I need some of what they're drinking.

5). Work out when I could possibly see it again...

6). Dance to Proud Mary until I fell over

You see everything changed for me after Show 5... After I had been to see Show 3 and Show 4 (read the reviews, they are pretty sensible compared to this one) I knew I was a Secret Theatre convert and that now I had to see every one. I was even annoyed about the fact I missed one and two... (Though just mildly irked, now I am enraged).

 

A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts - what Show 5 is otherwise known as - has left me all teenage and trembly and happy and light. It's not as emotionally powerful as Show 3 or as clever as Show 4 but it taps in to humanity and fear and failure and friendship and love. 

Show 5 is set in the Lyric rehearsal room and every night there is a different protagonist... a typical Secret Theatre twist which I believe (here is a tiny bit of sensible critique stuff here) must keep it alive and kicking every night, full of the energy of the unknown... The audience pick it out, so they can't even cheat... not that they would need to as they're all so talented (I told you, massive fangirl)

My protagonist was the fabulous Katherine Pearce (Kat) who I knew was talented and able to transform herself, from the previous two productions. In this, she was I imagine a played up version of herself. Everyone else was supporting in more or less roles. Everything centered round Kat and her trials, tribulations and difficult times in life and love and friendship. 

Some of the sketches were more narrative: sex, first kiss/ first date, falling in and out of love and being destroyed by it, cheating. Others were more metaphoric or symbolic: an obstacle course that was undertaken several times throughout the play at first alone and then helped by the whole cast; an odd sort of shrink session; a wrestling game involving fears and stripping. A shiveringly warming version of Sincerely by The Moonglows sung by Hammed Annimashaun, a dance to Proud Mary which I really had to force myself not to join in with... Each little excerpt bringing tears, laughter and recognition from the audience.

90 minutes shot by and I wanted more and I wanted to see all of the cast members take the protagonist role, because I felt like they were giving us a slice of themselves and a themselves that everyone in the company knew too. The Secret Theatre group have created something together.. and all these individuals have joined to create and perform it and they've got to know each other.

When I was a child and teenager, I used to be in all the school plays... used to love the rehersals, the comraderie, the thrill and then after the final performance for at least a week after I would cry and cry and feel miserable that I could never get that feeling back or work and act with those people again - not in that exact same circumstance... It was like a small piece of magic and then gone. Then after a week I'd forget about it.

I hope these lot never do.

Secret Theatre Show 5, The Lyric, Hammersmith

Now until May 29th


Here is the Soundtrack for Show 5


Here are The Secret Theatre Crew:

Nadia Albina @NadiaAlbina -

Hammed Animashaun @HamzDaActor

Cara Horgan

Leo Bill @SerpicLeo

Matti Houghton

Adelle Leonce @AdelleLeonce

Katherine Pearce @KattiAnn

Billy Seymour @SeymourBilly

Sergo Vares

Steven Webb @MrStevieWebb

Love them all <3

Images are (c) The Secret Theatre Group