The slow falling tears of a clown – a boo hoo hoo

Good job Team Alpha won the Apprentice challenge last night. Looks like some of the team needed the winning prize, a day in the spa, to scrub off all that makeup. I know Sir Alan is scary but you don’t need so much warpaint that you end up looking like a Bobo doll. And, please someone, shut that awful man up who keeps swearing. It’s like he’s got competition-strategy-profit-turnover-blueskythinking induced synapse malfunction and doesn’t know how to articulate himself without swear words. Sir Alan isn’t really going to be wanting to seal a mega bucks deal with Acme Corporations only for that guy to appear and start whooping away with his potty mouth. 

 

Finally, get that Ramsay advert OFF MY SCREEN!!! Could one person get any more self-aggrandizing??

Roadkill

I’m feeling a bit weltbetrübt today, what with all the natural disasters happening. It doesn’t really put me in the mood to witter on here.

 

Still, in the vain hope that some people like reading this, and hoping still that my words create a voice in their heads and don’t just read pancake-flat on the page, I came across the unusual roadkill today of …..a keyboard! Cars were swerving all over to avoid the 1980s style Nimbus-type white keyboard that someone must have absent mindedly chucked from their car. Pissed off no doubt with the rise in road tax, they had to offload some unrequired hardware to lighten their burden and reduce the amount of pot holes down the country lanes. Oh, and thanks for giving that £120 tax rebate, nice of you (government) to notice that some people in this country are poor but still willing enough to work even though they sit in the lower tax band.  It should just about cover the road tax next year. Cheers!

 

Luckily my evening was brightened by seeing Gok Wan on TV tonight, and didn’t the lovely actress look particularly good tonight? The proverbial butterfly indeed. Gok even said ‘Gokstroke’ which gave me a fuzzy warm feeling inside. Ohhh weeee –  but I doubt I’m his type. I do though, now know why models on the catwalk appear so vacuous looking. It’s not because they’ve been sniffing mascara all day, they’re concentrating hard on the mantra inside their heads of  ‘got somewhere to go, got somewhere to go, got somewhere to go’. Carry on girls!

This reality show is sponsored by Cadbury

I’m not sure if it’s the hot weather that has compelled me to watch bad reality shows or something else, but having just seen the last few minutes of ‘I’d do anything’ (anything? wow!) I’d like to ask who’s idea it was to dress the girls up like Quality Street chocolates and make them act ‘sexy’ into the camera?? It was embarrassing to watch, but judging only those few minutes I want the purple, hazelnut filling chocolate to win. She had the sexiest voice.

A-ha! Predictions!

I see my prediction for someone squawking their way through Ave Maria came true last night! I see also the audience LOVED it, only because they vaguely remember hearing it at a wedding somewhere. Why do the children always appeal to Amanda, with their shiny big eyes, hoping she’ll pass them through to the next round? All I can really say though is that the child singing Ave Maria is NOT 12. She can’t possibly be! No 12 year old looks or sings like that, it’s NOT possible! I saw pound signs flashing in Cowell’s eyes though when she did start to sing. I’m all for the GOOD children (yeah, she was great, but 12 years old?? SHOCK!) coming on and showing their talent, but do they have to win, just by virtue of them being a child? They’ve got years for Simon to spin his magic on them and launch endless record deals, let some old hand get through and give them a break. Like Animal Magique! Owls, and voice overs, women in boxes and snakes! Bring some wolves to match your hair next time, please!

 

But they probably won’t win because the English audiences like nothing better than to order pizza (subliminally chosen due to the mass of adverts displayed, like 10 times in one hour, what is this? America?) and then vote for a lispy child and watch them dribble their way through “Jerusalem”. 

Celebrating Mediocrity

So much to write, all those little thoughts spinning round my brain. This, I think, is the reason why people always, always bump into me in supermarkets: they are attracted by the sound of the cogs whirring inside – and simple sounds, like flashes of movement, is all that it takes to grasp the attention of most people these days. 

 

Take the word wan-ker, a simple, two syllable word that was blasted out continuously last night by Johnny Vegas. The great public love it, a simple, easy to repeat word like wan-ker or mon-key reels them in every time. A snappy catchphrase that they can repeat up and down the coast of Magaluf. I’m sure most of the BBC’s production budget was spent on acquiring Sir Alan (clever, ambitious, hard-working, resourceful, INTERESTING) last night so they had to fill the other two slots with some non-entities that could hold the audience’s attention by either short, snappy two syllable words or the bright flashes of Jade Jagger’s jewellery. Seriously, why was she even there? Did you catch anything of what she was saying? It was amusing enough just to watch Ross digging as deep as he could to eke out a response from her.

 

“So, ya, ya, I was, like a painter…”

“Oh really, and what did you paint?” (come on, this at least must yield some response)

“Umm, like, umm…..decorative stuff…???” Decorative? Decorative? A child launching free-expression as they scrawl on the walls with a crayon is decorative. 

Then she shook her arms and her bangles about and said “Can you hear them rattle?”. See, in that respect she’s clever (sic), she knows that sound, especially rattles, will rouse the viewers from their stupor. 

 

I’m looking forward to Britain’s Got Talent later, and hypothesising on the petit mal that might be induced this time. Will anyone jump off the stage again, instantly grabbing the attention of the audience as they are lured in by movement? Does the Queen really want to see a small child lisping into their recorder, or even better, playing it with their nose? Bring back the transvestite with the small-woman-puppet on strings in the box! It was the stuff of Grimms’ fairytale nightmares but a ton better than Ave Maria squawked out by a woman resembling a parakeet (yes, that’s you Nadia Sawalah, whenever you present !SPAIN!, you resemble a parakeet in all your colourful glory).

 

Just one final observation. I’ve got to the end of Series 6 of 24, and I was quite emotional by it. I’m glad that Chloe’s got a MoChlo on the go, and Nadia knows that Milo really loved her – told to her by his mysteriously disappearing brother. Maybe he was the ghost of Milo himself?  The producers must have thought this was the last one, right? They’ve never wrapped up a series like they did this time, there were always cliff hangers or just sudden endings with little explanation. This time there were congratualtory hand shakes, Jack looking contemplative, reunions, pregnancy and Audrey still looking skeletal. And the silent clock. ahhhh. Who gets the silent clock, anyone know? Edgar got it but Curtis didn’t, nor did Milo, so what do you need to deserve one? I’m looking forward to Series 7 and the film but it might be a while till it hits our screen.

I know there’s a trailer out there, I nearly watched it on the blog Bamboo Nation but I resisted! a-ha! You should check out Bamboo Nation though, I was lamenting for some time that there’s nothing fun on the internet anymore but this site is good, and you get to watch Pork Chop being weighed!

 

A bit of heisseswetterpanik is hitting the backwater towns this week. All the hams are out, heaving their pink, hammy arms up and down the highstreet. They love the hots and they just love walking ignorantly in the path of the Aerobee, with their brood of children, as Jackson and I try to flick a few spins out. I told you, they’re just drawn to simple flashes of movement. Even the wheel is still a novelty for most people round here. 

 

p.s. Donald S – you were dressed like Humpty Dumpty in Dirty, Sexy, Money last night, in your bright orange britches, pulled right up tight, but we forgive and still love you! 

Struwwelpeter

I mentioned in an earlier post how I was tempted by the novelty of getting my hair cut in Berlin at 10pm; I didn’t because I wanted to go back to my hairdresser here and her tales of her glass-eating Staffy. I went this morning and although I didn’t get any Staffy gossip she did have some quite incredulous tales of her wedding politics. There is also a wedding going on in her road at the same time as hers, so I suspect it will be garters at dawn and a troop of drooling Staffies guarding the rings. 

 

I don’t really like having my hair cut because no one seems to understand that I need copious amounts of mousse/serum/gunk put on at the end to stop the huge frizz descending. I guess big hair was in during the 80s and still is in some parts of Austria, where I was once given  ein kur by an over-enthusiastic English ex-pat hairdresser and made to sit under a bright red lamp for almost an hour.

“Just a little longer, dear, just a liiiiiitle longer”

I came out of there, ran round the corner and promptly hid my Blossom-circa-1990s hair under a large hat.

Still, I’ve gotta love my ‘fro of sorts. I was driving last week and I heard a very strange insult being barked between cars. I don’t think it was at me, because a) I wasn’t really near the driver spewing out the insult and b) I was driving perfectly – still, it doesn’t really stop them articulating whatever they wish round here. The Wildean wit is distinctly lacking in these parts. Anyway, I was trying to work out what they were actually shouting and all I could make of it was ‘STUPID ‘FRO’. Now I hope that was aimed at me because I have never had a STUPID ‘FRO insult slung my way; many others but not that. I sometimes wish I had a proper afro but my celtic locks will have to do, I shall name it ‘Celfro’ for originality. It’s almost rabid – unruly, untamed and scared of water. 

 

I realise I haven’t explained why this blog is named Torschlusspanik; I’ll do that soon but relating it to ‘wanting to get out before it’s too late’ I’ll give the examples of: persistent bad drivers on the roads (see above) leading to arschlochpanik, 10p tax rate being abolished and thereby not encouraging anyone to want to work, political parties not knowing their arse from the elbow and being as far removed from real life as we are from the sun, quality of life dimishing rapidly, rising road tax for roads full of tyre puncturing potholes, traffic jams and the ASBO culture which is unique to England alone. You know the rest. 

Even weird for Tucson

I know it’s more interesting and relevant for me to write about matters that everyone can get a grasp on – 24, the Sutherlands (swoon), the wet lippers on The Apprentice, the cultural petit mal of Britain’s Got Talent – but my mind has gone blank. 

 

Still there a couple of things.

I really shouldn’t watch 24 – oh, I am writing about 24 –  just before going to bed, it’s become a bit of a routine; especially now that Jackson has hopped onto the 24 ship with me. I like that we can shout at the TV together and I have someone to comfort me when a much beloved character dies, like……..like………like…..nah, I won’t ruin it for you, but I’m not so engrossed in it if there is someone else sitting next to me. Apparently I have a special 24 face when I watch the series, it’s one of total engrossation, fixation, attentionation, shock, horror and awe. But if every few minutes I have to turn to Jackson and say something like “NOOOOOOOOOO”, which is about all I can muster in the excitement, along with punching cushions, then the face is sometimes lost – the face comes from total 100% concentration. Still – last night the 24 FACE WAS ON. We were watching the fourth-to-last episode of series 6 and what the fnawwheuudoooafoo??? 

I think I’ve digressed from my original point which really is say, I have to stop watching 24, whilst drinking maximum impact sugary cream soda just before bed. It gives me bad dreams. This is aided by the fact of me being a relative expert on modern horror films, just by virtue of association with Jackson. What he knows, I now know, and that is a lot. Two nights ago I had this dream:

 

A dentist was fitting me with a new plasticy retainer thing. He asks me “So if you were to go the newsagents right now, what would you say?”

Me: “Can I have a newspaper please” (duh)

Dentist: “ahhh”.

He clearly wasn’t happy with this answer because he then turned away from me in his big flappy blue gown and reached into a tank of water and took out a…….. SALTING HAM. Which he then carried passed me, drying it in that paper towel stuff you get at the doctors/dentists and he dripped HAM JUICE on my knee. Which is gross, particularly if you don’t eat meat. But it does get worse, yeah I know that wasn’t really anything. Anyway, he turns away from me, momentarily hiding the salted ham, and then turns back to show he is actually holding a SKIN HEAD!!!! It was a big, pink, fleshy, huge head with no bone in it, just the flesh, all pink and puckered, just like a salted ham. It was a Leatherface dream!! And then, as the dentist turned to me, the top of the head flapped open like a hard boiled egg to reveal even more fleshy pink grossness. 

But, as I am now quite hardened to horror films and have seen all incarnations of the The Texas Chainsaw (gap and no gap version, beginnings and endings) Massacre, I felt midly sick at this, not much else, until the dentist told me that if I wanted he could give me a small chocolate skull to eat – and this made me cry. in the dream. Not the salting ham, fleshy pink dead head, perfect for Luda Mae’s Sunday roast, but the small chocolate skull. 

 

Weird. Very weird.It’s even weird for Tucson, and Tucson is the weird capital of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(everyone Jack touches dies)

Punch the cushion!!!

I thought it was only in American films that people really punched cushions when something bad happened to them. But last night, punch the cushion I did. I can’t believe that hulking man is back in the slot of acting Vice President in 24, I’m so cross (yeah, I know, I’m still on series 6). And…Wayne has collapsed! Again! On TV! The shame! 

 

The last couple of series it’s been a wet-lipped mercenary who’s been the stealth baddy, ready to throw a virtual spanner virus in the CTU works, and now we have a man who looks like he’s been carved from Mount Rushmore itself, and not for all the right reasons – he just looks like he’s made of stone. However…………..STINGO is coming through from behind, good and strong! Tom Lennox is not the latest wet lipper to sell himself out to the Coalition of Baddies which we all thought he would be, but instead has a layer of GOOD underneath the dirty mac which I suspect he wears after-hours. Maybe you don’t know who Stingo is but Peter MacNicol, long before Ally McBeal, provided a great performance in Sophie’s Choice. I only happened to watch Sophie’s Choice one Sunday morning (gloomy, I know) and then later that night some 24 and there was STINGO! The range of facial expressions he can pull out in the White House really is quite incredible. For every evil shadow that crosses the Vice President’s face, Stingo has one of hidden good to match. 

 

I think there’s more to add to this but ‘Too Fat to Toddle’ is on. (hmm, I’m feeling quite sad for the children but the parent surely must have had more of an idea than they let on??)