.... why is virtually every music video I watch (purely for cultural balance to my penchant for Monarch of the Glen) full of gyrating women pushing boob tape adhesive to it's limit? Why do these 3-minute movies constantly depict life as hot and steamy? The Victoria Line is hot and steamy, but no-one is gyrating in their underwear all 'crazy in love' or 'doin it like a dude'. If they were, I wouldn't begrudge my annual Oyster Card.
If we all enjoy watching these videos, why isn't it mirrored in daily life? Granted, any British city centre on a Saturday is populated by people turned away from an overbooked Easyjet flight to Ibiza. But, during the day it's all a bit more sedate. Apart from spitting and dropping sweet wrappers on the floor, it's all fairly tame. How much more interesting would a visit to Sainsbury's be if at the self-checkout the announcement 'unidentified item in the bagging area' greeted a scantily-clad customer singing "Stop talking, stop talking, I don't want to scan anymore, I've left my butter and my peas on the shop floor"? How much more motivating would a day in the office be if we presented our photocopying dressed in a rubber cat suit flagged on either side by a bevvy of hip wiggling dancers fanning us with foolscap ring-binders?
My shock peaked this evening when I turned over from ITV to one of the music channels. Having foregone the chance to hear about the individual who had decided to live in sheds at the bottom of his garden, I fell upon "I like the way that you talk dirty, don't wash your mouth out I like it dirty. You like to please yeah I like that yeah yeah yeah yeah me like it, I like the way that you keep me coming. That yeah you so good you had me running. Me like the way that he goin' down down down down down".
At first I thought it was an advert for Listerine mouthwash (they've missed a trick there). But it was, in fact, Nicole Scherzinger's new single 'Right There'. The video reminded me of a gyrating snake trying trying to wriggle through the eye of a needle without the aid of Vaseline. What would the great Alan Titchmarsh say? His experiment in metaphors resulted in "he became more entangled in the lissom limbs of this human boa constrictor". I think that won an award of some sort.
Anyway, we have the Oxford English Dictionary at our disposal, so surely we can come up with something better than 'Yeah'? We have cities full of clothes shop, so surely we can find something that fits us. Someone invented underwear, so let's leave the adhesive on the wallpaper where it belongs. Give our boobs a rest! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Sunday 3 July 2011
I wouldn't mind, but ....
.... whenever someone says to me that 'so and so' celebrity is gorgeous and I google their image to basque in their handsomeness, I'm always disappointed. Most recent cases are Michael Fassbender (actor) and Feliciano Lopez (tennis player). To counter this, I urge you all to google Yotam Ottolenghi (chef). He's awesomly attractive and his cook books are lip-lickingly enticing.
I often walk along Upper Street in Islington and look across the road to the Ottolenghi restaurant, adorned with queues of attractive Islingtonians (there are no ugly people in that part of London, unless the 73 bus breaks down en route from Finsbury Park). As I gaze across, I wish I could overcome my lethargy for queueing or my past-its-sell-by date looks (all downhill after my first birthday) and infiltrate the North London glitterati as it gorges on its Caramelised Endive with Serrano Ham or Camargue Red Quinoa with Orange and Pistachios, all rounded off with a Brioche Galette (sounds so much nicer than 'flan').
No-one entering or exiting is overweight, dressed in BHS, wearing Clarks shoes or dangling an ASDA carrier bag. This is somewhere I would have to change my entire lifestyle in order to breath in its world of dried limes, mograbiah (big couscous) and abundance of fresh herbs. Every time I open my store cupboard and see the chaotic arrangement of Scwartz herb jars - many fatally past their best before dates - I know that to the great Yotam I would be a Jif lemon to his unwaxed, fresh, juicy lemon begging to be squeezed from the wicker basket display in Waitrose. He also has a degree in Philosophy. Imagine the luscious conversations we could have on the merits of introducing quinoa to the masses and whether they will subsequently rise up and demand more rocket and horseradish sauce to dip their chips in.
Today, I'm cooking a recipe from his first book - marinated rack of lamb with coriander and honey. I had to make the marinade last night and let the lamb soak in all the yumminess overnight. Chillies, ginger, garlic, coriander, mint, honey, soy sauce and more - it's got it all. And if that's not enough, the cookbook is littered with pictures of the great man himself. Awesome.
This is also one of those situations where I wish I was a man. He's gay.
I often walk along Upper Street in Islington and look across the road to the Ottolenghi restaurant, adorned with queues of attractive Islingtonians (there are no ugly people in that part of London, unless the 73 bus breaks down en route from Finsbury Park). As I gaze across, I wish I could overcome my lethargy for queueing or my past-its-sell-by date looks (all downhill after my first birthday) and infiltrate the North London glitterati as it gorges on its Caramelised Endive with Serrano Ham or Camargue Red Quinoa with Orange and Pistachios, all rounded off with a Brioche Galette (sounds so much nicer than 'flan').
No-one entering or exiting is overweight, dressed in BHS, wearing Clarks shoes or dangling an ASDA carrier bag. This is somewhere I would have to change my entire lifestyle in order to breath in its world of dried limes, mograbiah (big couscous) and abundance of fresh herbs. Every time I open my store cupboard and see the chaotic arrangement of Scwartz herb jars - many fatally past their best before dates - I know that to the great Yotam I would be a Jif lemon to his unwaxed, fresh, juicy lemon begging to be squeezed from the wicker basket display in Waitrose. He also has a degree in Philosophy. Imagine the luscious conversations we could have on the merits of introducing quinoa to the masses and whether they will subsequently rise up and demand more rocket and horseradish sauce to dip their chips in.
Today, I'm cooking a recipe from his first book - marinated rack of lamb with coriander and honey. I had to make the marinade last night and let the lamb soak in all the yumminess overnight. Chillies, ginger, garlic, coriander, mint, honey, soy sauce and more - it's got it all. And if that's not enough, the cookbook is littered with pictures of the great man himself. Awesome.
This is also one of those situations where I wish I was a man. He's gay.
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