Friday, March 28, 2008

Posh Leather Prince Charming

Media frenzy is at a pitch as the Beckhams return to Britain from LA for gorgeous hunky Mr Beck’s 100th England cap. Mrs Beck was photographed in London shopping in her tiny sized, very tight, leather pants.




Now, on first viewing of these photos I had 2 thoughts

1. Is that hand in front of her foof hiding camel toe??

and

2. When will she stop copying my hair style?

And then I realised - it’s not just my hairstyle shes stealing, and she’s way, way behind me in the leather trouser fashion stakes...

It was 1981, I was 11.

Ant mania had swept the land and I was not immune to their charm. I was Ant crazy. Adam Ant was my first celebrity crush. I had the albums or as Bethan calls them those big black CDs, I had the wall covered in posters. I had the patch sewn onto my jeans (remember them...) and I had THE OUTFIT.

Yes, the outfit.

Black leather(ette) trousers and white blouse with frills to die for. Gaudy long gold(ish) chains. Black boots.

Black eyeliner and a thick white stripe across my nose.

I thought I was the shit.

So, when told I had to go shopping with my mother and my sister I took off my huge can headphones, stopped listening to my Prince Charming and dawdled downstairs. In the outfit.

Older sister stared and opened her mouth. Mother shussed her, sighed heavily and exclaimed they really didn’t have time....

I didn’t really notice they walked 50 yards behind me all day. I just saw the wide beams of fellow shoppers and smiled smugly to myself thinking I must have looked so cool......


and for those who need a nostalgic look back at the 80s gods that were Adam and the Ants, here’s a little taste




Ant mania didn’t last much longer for me and soon I turned my loyalties to Duran Duran. But I still look back at those highly embarrassing times.

Oh and speaking of embarrassing moments - check out The Lounge over the weekend and try to guess which friends you can recognise....

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Friday, March 21, 2008

Buns

Hot Cross buns

Hot Cross buns

one a penny

two a penny

Hot Cross buns

if you have no daughters

give them to your sons

one a penny

2 a penny

Hot Cross buns



Having explained to numerous Americans what they are, I thought I’d blog them.

Cut in half and buttered. Toasted they are yummy. We eat them on Good Friday.

The cross on top is supposed to be for that guy nailed to the cross thing yeah?

As for the song - not a clue - as Brian said - You Brits have funny songs.....

And just for fun - when I searched for hot cross buns on photobucket I got this....



Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Penguins, Ladybugs and Departed Old Friends

As I’ve blogged before, I’m no Mother Earth. I love my kiddiewinkies but am not the kind of mother that can make a mouse costume out of sticky back plastic, string and 4 tin cans. So when they left primary school I sighed a huge sigh of relief. No more staying up all night to make costumes because I’d forgotten to do them and no Eisteddffods to have to make crafty stuff and Welsh cakes. Well, I mean help but if you’re a mum you know you do the brunt of the work and your kid just holds the tape...

So, I was bloody pissed off yesterday when Bethan came home from school. She had last week off with chicken pox and informed me she had to make a 3D animal by Wednesday as an arts’ project.

And she wanted to do a penguin...

So hastily paper mache a balloon we did. And put it in the airing cupboard to dry overnight. This afternoon after school, we started painting it - and it sank and collapsed - not enough paper mache.

Ideas flew, google was initiated and then Bethan had a bright idea. Well, she stole it from a girl who said she’d made a spider from a tennis ball.

We did a ladybird!

So - a tennis ball, some pva glue and red paint, cotton buds (Q Tips to you guys??), a couple of white drawing pins and a black felt marker later and we ended up with this - courtesy of Jessica’s camera phone as my batteries are gone in my camera





cute or what.....

Also, on the subject of animals, I want to say bye to an old friend who was put to sleep this morning as she had liver failure and was really suffering. My parents’ dog, Black Beauty, a rescue greyhound.



You’ll be missed, especially by your favourite cwtcher and stroker



Night princess

Monday, March 03, 2008

My Small Welsh Army

I spent most of the St Davids/Mother's day weekend in bed with the flu and a bad back. I ventured out of my bed periodically when I needed a back position change. I did put my red PJs on.

But some people made an effort and here they be



Helly



Jenna



Scot



Catch and M2


You all look great - thank you for making an effort. I will amend if more pics come in.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

More Politics from a Brit's Perspective

I bloggged the previous blog post on My Space and got a flurry of comments, mostly from my friends across the pond.It's odd that a blog on politics gets a flurry of comments - more than a previous post on men in kilts...

I've been struggling to blog for a while. Willow keeps telling me to blog something fantastically witty like I used to on Grab but I don't seem to have the ideas anymore. I also neglect my blogger blog which I prefer as the myspace blog seems to generate more comments. Although according to my tracker, I mostly generate views on Blogger from people googling big boy or penis. Oh and one googled anal foot sex and arrived at my blog. Suggestions are welcome if theres anything you want me to blog about.

So you prefer politics to kilts? Ok

Here's more British humour - yes with a U - about American politics - Ev e-mailed me this a while ago and while I usually avoid forwarded junk email I did appreciate this one..

Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A.
A Message from John Cleese

To: The citizens of the United States of America:
In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise.
Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.
Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.
Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.
South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body Armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.
God save the Queen.
Only He can.

John Cleese

Now I Think I get It...

The past few weeks Ive been trying to comprehend American politics. I don't get it. I kinda get British politics to a fashion but Democrats and Republicans and all the campaigning stuff confuses me.

But a fellow Brit has helped me enormously with his short guide and I thought I'd copy it here to help anyone else confused. It's from my favourite singing anaesthetist Suman amateur transplants blog

Oh what a job it is....

So there's this big lump of land over to the west of Ireland... and the rules say that you can't have the same idiot in charge of it for more than 8 years so now the people who live there have to pick someone new to start all the wars. The newspaper people are very happy because they won't have to try hard all year to get any news stories.

There are two main teams, and there are lots of games to play to see who will be the leader of each team.
One side are being very brave because they want to pick someone who's a bit different to all the other leaders before; they are going to choose between a man who's daddy is from Kenya and woman who's husband used to be leader. So really it's kind of a competition to see whether the country is more racist or sexist.

Both of the people who want to be in charge of the team travel around the country and talk a lot. Meanwhile the newspaper, telly & internet people try & make the whole thing more exciting by finding old pictures & stories and by pretending they said or did stuff that they didn't.

The other teams are boring. But the leader of the other big team will probably win overall because everyone will be fed up by the time they have to choose. Or too confused.

Anyway, that's the backstory.

There's a big news website over there that was trying to explain the whole thing a few weeks ago... and must've got bored because by the end of the article they were talking about Amateur Transplants!!

Here's what they wrote.