'Mos against Moir

New from K-Tel, its the cd you've all been waiting for, its 'Mos Against Moir! 15 classic tracks for one poisonous bitch. Strike a blow for 'mos everywhere! All profits to LGBT charidees. Buy now and show your solidarity for sapphists, concordance with cocksuckers and your bond with betty-both-ways.

Featuring such hits as;

Electric Six - Gay Bar
Blondie - Rip Her to Shreds
Ugly Kid Joe - Everything About You
Muse - Uprising
Rihanna - Dem Haters
Elton John - Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word
Aretha Franklyn - RESPECT
Kelis - I Hate You So Much Right Now
Alice Cooper - Poison
Erasure - Love to Hate You
Culture Club - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
Timbaland - Apologize

And many more

(Available in all branches of M&S)

Gay sex in music vids? God forbid!

Reading through old Observer columns by Victoria Coren, I came across this article which reminded me of something I 'observed' a while ago.

Why is it that gay music artists have completely sexless videos to accompany their singles? Het bands and singers smooch with hot men & women all the time if they want to. Look at any rap star's vids and voluptuous women shaking their collective booties are ten a penny. Chris Isaak famously romped with a semi naked Helena Christiansen in his Wicked Game video etc etc. So where are the same sex hotties in our favourite gay/bi artists vids then? Nowhere to be seen, that's where.

Unless its lesbian shenanigans of course and then only if a) the artist isn't actually a lesbian themselves and/or b) its for the titillation of the male viewer. Hence Tatu and their faux dyke groping and Katy Perry.

Has George Michael ever done a video where he's got a bit raunchy with some gay beefcake? No. His video for 'Outside' did feature some same sex naughtiness but it wasn't actually him partaking.

Now, to be honest, I don't watch MTV 24/7. Not that they ever play music vids these days anyway. They should rename it RTV (with the R denoting 'reality'). So I haven't seen alot of videos lately. I am willing to bet I'm right though.

Playing doctor

I don't normally watch alot of daytime tv. Oh shit, who am I kidding? Since I've been unemployed I've been subsisting on a diet of Homes Under the Hammer and repeats of Come Dine with me. But I don't watch alot of late afternoon tv like Murder She Wrote or Doctors. I'm usually out or surfing the net. We had Doctors on in the background today. I wasn't really paying much attention until it came to the storyline with two sons in the family business who were fighting like cat & dog and their put upon father who was trying to keep the peace. It all sounds unremarkable until I tell you that the family business is clowning and the two sons spent the entire episode in full clown costume and make-up. I found it a bit too forced at first. A comedy storyline shoe-horned in to lighten up the tone. Until it emerged that one of the clowns was called Winky. Poor Winky was the focus of his brother's bitterness because he was sick of his circumstances. Its good to know you can still get comedy mileage from naming someone after a child's euphemism for penis. And by god it worked. Hilarious. Especially the following exchange;

Son - "I want a better life!"
Dad - "So what, you blame Winky...?"

Yes. There's many a problem been caused by Winky.

Curses and chilli and cows, oh my!

I haven't blogged here in so long I could barely remember my password. I thought I'd try starting it again, mainly because I've been inspired by the lovely Victoria Coren's blog. Not that I have an Observer column or a poker habit to talk about...

So what's been occupying my thoughts today?

This morning I thought I was cursed. I managed to knock the shower curtain rail off and struggled to get it back up again but I persevered through wet hands and general cluelessness and finally succeeded. Then I put some toast on to discover that the toaster was only toasting one side of the bread for some bizarre reason. I've no idea what I did to it. These things are supposed to come in threes but I'm still waiting for the final annoyance. So not much weight to the curse theory then. Maybe I'm just a clumsy bugger.

I caught about five minutes of Countryfile this evening and saw a piece about the amount of methane cows produce which damages the environment. We were being encouraged to have one meat free day a week to cut down on emissions. Now as I've already admitted, I only saw a little bit of it and haven't fully understood the subject, but surely we should be having a dairy free day as well then? Presumably as many cows are bred for their milk as for their meat? And to be honest I'm not totally clear on how having a meat free day is going to affect climate change. So that there's less demand for cow products and therefore less livestock will be bred?

And finally I'm thinking of what I can cook this week. I'm toying with the idea of chilli con carne but I haven't made it for 20 years or so. I don't remember it being particularly complicated though. Its not that different from bolognese (which I'm reasonably good at) really apart from chilli powder & kidney beans. I think. The alternative is Thai green chicken curry with lime & coriander rice which I've never ever made before. I did print off a couple of recipes some time ago but god knows what I've done with them.

So now you know. Well its not like I promised radical thinking, thrills & spills, sex and a cliffhanger ending is it?

Health food

Today I am mostly making celery, leek & potato soup. I've had a taste & its yummy, if I say so myself. I'm trying to be healthy and cut down on my saturated fat intake as this last week or so I've been having some health problems. I think I may have angina as I keep getting an uncomfortable feeling in my chest & breathlessness when I do minor stuff like going up the stairs. Not good. Its probably the kick in the arse I need though. My diet has been dreadful for a long time now. Too much junk food. So far I've been fairly good though I did slip on Saturday when I went out for a curry with mates. It was a birthday celebration though so I put it down to an occasional treat & got back to the healthy stuff the next day. I'm hoping I'll lose weight too of course. I've got a lot of it to shift. Wish me luck!

All's fair in jobs & pics

I've been to a jobs fair today at the Manchester City Stadium which should actually be good news and brilliant and everything but it wasn't. It was quite the little waste of time actually. I'm not sure what I expected but what I actually got were various employers handing out booklets of stuff they'd printed off their websites along with instructions to check the websites out. As I got there a woman was giving a little speech saying that none of the exhibitors would accept cvs. Fantastic. It would've been nice to have known that before I printed off half a dozen copies of mine. Maybe it would've been better if I'd been someone who didn't have internet access at home or if I was looking for general job seeking advice but I wasn't, so I felt like I'd had a bit of a wasted journey.

Well, it wasn't totally wasted. I'd had a nice late lunch at Katsouris Deli (Lamb Siciliana sandwich - yum) and I took the opportunity to photograph the controversial sculpture 'B of the Bang' before it gets pulled down as well as the town hall & ferris wheel. A couple of the results, after much faffing around with photo editing software, are below.

More piccies

B of the Bang

B of the Bang with the Man City stadium in the background

Piccies

Albert Memorial in sepia tones

Manchester Town Hall

Same again, this time in colour

Stupid but brilliant.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5rOO2v2dU

Experience the joy of Dominik the Donkey.

I should be so lucky...

I don't know how its happened but I seem to be having a lucky day today. I've been for lunch in town with bro and took the opportunity to search various sales for a dvd box set that I've been after. I'd seen the Dr Who series 2 & 3 sets in Asda just before Xmas for the bargain price of £25 but when I went back in the new year to get one they'd disappeared. I've searched a few places since including Zavvi which is in receivership or something and offering huge discounts on their stock. I hadn't had any luck so when I went in Zavvi again this afternoon I wasn't holding out much hope. But there it was, Series 2 £24.99. Hurrah! But this was the label price you see. There were further discounts to be had so when I eventually paid for it it was just under £19. *happy dance*. In another store I also found an Arctic Monkeys album that I wanted for £3.

Then I got home & checked my email to find a message telling me that I'd won £10 in last night's lottery draw. Ok, so its not going to bail me out of this recession but at least with all the other stuff its given me a happy day.

I should do something positive now to continue the trend. Searching for jobs is the obvious choice. There's one where they want someone to take photos of handbags for a living. Every girls dream you'd think but me & handbags have a love/hate relationship. I'm not a girly girl and until recently wouldn't be seen dead with a handbag but I've slowly come round to their charms and have a very small collection in my wardrobe. No media jobs around unfortunately but I've got some admin jobs to apply for instead.

Maybe there's something else I could be doing too? Like, oh I don't know, solving a series of murders involving a killer who makes miniatures of the crime scenes? With ELO's Mr Blue Sky playing in the background? No?